The musician Josh Homme said was so good it’s “bizarre”
Josh Homme isn’t just a good musician; he’s a quintessential asset to a band, as he understands the big picture better than a lot of other artists.
You can be great at playing the instrument which has been assigned to you, and that’s important, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be a solid asset as a bandmate. This is because selfishness can’t exist within music. The moment it does, people stop thinking about the song and the project as a whole and instead begin focusing too heavily on their own individual output.
During an exclusive interview with NewDad’s lead singer, Jule Dawson, she explained the process of making their album Altar, which comes packed with atmosphere and is incredibly layered. She explained that when the band was making this record, all sense of ego had to be pushed aside, as there is no room for selfishness when putting together an LP.
“There’s no place for ego when you’re creating music,” she explained. “You can’t have something in there because you want to be the one playing it; it’s not about that. It’s about what makes the song the best possible version of the song, so there’s definitely no room for ego when it comes to creating music.”
Leaving your goddamn ego to the side means you are able to take a step back and view a song as an entire piece of work, appreciating every section that makes it up and considering whether all band members are working effectively to create a unique sound, which means having an understanding of how important every single band member is, allowing you to know whether or not things can be tweaked for the benefit of the song.
Often, one of the most overlooked members in any band is the bass player, and while there is a common misconception that a bassist should just play root notes in order to give a song depth, it’s all a lot more complex than that. A bassist needs to add some flair to a song, but then also keep everything else together. Rock bands have a tendency to let their minds run wild a little, and you need a band member keeping that sound together while also not taking away from the chaos too much.
Geddy Lee once said that Led Zeppelin wouldn’t have worked were it not for John Paul Jones, because of how he managed to hold the band’s sound together so effectively. “The thing that held the whole thing down was John Paul Jones’ bass playing,” said Lee. “So if you listen to ‘How Many More Times’, I mean, no matter how wild that song gets at times, there’s John Paul Jones just holding it all down in such a fluid way.”
Josh Homme agreed with the idea that the bass player is a quintessential component of any decent rock band, which is why he was keen to get someone solid in the lineup for his band Kyuss. Scott Reeder stepped up to the plate and provided that solidity, to the praise of Homme, who called him one of the best to ever do it.
“You ever seen Scott play bass? It’s fucking insane. He’s so god damn good it’s almost bizarre,” he concluded. “He’s got to be one of the rockingest bass players in the world, you know, for a rock bass player. When we lost Nick but got Scott, the band started to turn into this, you know, me, Scott and Fredo like a pacemaker. It’s just click click click click click.”
