PunkRockBassist wrote:
hey i wanted to know what can i do to play bass a little more like eric wilson from sublime i just love his sound and style any tips? thanks
This might seem really obvious, but...
Learn as many Sublime songs as you can... note for frikkin note. The more you learn someone else's music, the more you'll start to subconciously pick up that person's style.
They're some great basslines, so it should be really fun for you... whenever the cover band I'm in has done Sublime songs, they've always been some of the more interesting songs to play.
As far as tone goes... I've seen pics of him using a lot of different basses. But I'll bet a dollar that he recorded everything on a p-bass with really dead strings... or with flats.
His tone in a lot of tunes is close to a "dub reggae" kind of thing, so you'll want to crank up the bass and roll off some of the highs and mids and keep your picking hand a little more toward the neck than towards the bridge for a fat, round tone. In order to get your bass tone to "cut through" with a tone like that, you'll need a lot of power to move a lot of air... so keep that in mind too.
Finally... and most importantly... it's fun to figure out your heroes' basslines and emulate their tones, but always try to be yourself. Find your own style and find something about your tone that makes you unique... and you'll grow a lot more as a player.
