INSTRUMENT » BASS

Tom Robinson

Thomas Giles Robinson is a British singer-songwriter, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits 'Glad to Be Gay', '2-4-6-8 Motorway', and 'Don't Take No for an Answer', with his Tom Robinson Band. He later peaked at No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart with his solo single 'War Baby'.

Paul Simonon

Paul Gustave Simonon is an English musician and artist best known as the bassist for The Clash. More recent work includes his involvement in the supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen and playing on the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach in 2010, which saw Simonon reunite with The Clash guitarist Mick Jones and Blur frontman Damon Albarn – and which also led to Simonon becoming the live band's touring bassist for Gorillaz's Escape to Plastic Beach Tour.

Adam Yauch

Adam Nathaniel Yauch, better known under the stage name MCA, was an American rapper, bass player, filmmaker and a founding member of the hip hop group Beastie Boys.

Jandek

Jandek is an American lo-fi music project centered around Sterling Smith, though the pseudonym is often used to refer to Smith directly in the context of this work. Their output is distributed by Corwood Industries, a Houston, Texas record label which is also operated by Smith.

Melissa Auf der Maur

Melissa Gaboriau Auf der Maur is a Canadian musician, singer-songwriter, photographer and actress.

Eric Avery

Eric Adam Avery is an American musician. He is best known as the former songwriter and bass guitarist of the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction, with whom he recorded two studio albums. He is currently the touring and recording bassist for Garbage, whom he joined in 2005 as a sideman.

Jorge González

Jorge Humberto González Ríos is a Chilean singer-songwriter, best known for being the leader, vocalist, writer and bassist of the band Los Prisioneros, considered by many to be the most popular rock band in the country.

Stuart Braithwaite

Stuart Leslie Braithwaite is a Scottish multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. He is the guitarist of post rock band Mogwai, with whom he has recorded ten studio albums. He is also a member of the British alternative rock supergroup 'Minor Victories.'

Carlos Dengler

Jonathan Noyce

Nicolas Godin

Nicolas Godin is a French musician best known for being half of the music duo Air.

Arnaldo Antunes

Arnaldo Antunes is a Brazilian musician, writer, and composer. He was a member of the rock band Titãs, which he co-founded in 1982 and left ten years later. After 1992, he embarked on a solo career. He has published poetry and had his first book published in 1983. He has worked with Marisa Monte, Tribalistas, and Carlinhos Brown.

Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and mastery of recording techniques, he is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative and significant songwriters of the 20th century. Wilson is also known for his lifelong struggles with mental illness.

Timothy B. Schmit

Timothy Bruce Schmit is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He has performed as the bassist and vocalist for Poco and Eagles, having replaced bassist and vocalist Randy Meisner in both cases. Schmit has also worked for decades as a session musician and solo artist. In 1998, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Eagles.

Mo Foster

Kim Gordon

Kim Althea Gordon is an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the bassist, guitarist, and vocalist of alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Born in Rochester, New York, she was raised in Los Angeles, California, where her father was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduating from Los Angeles's Otis College of Art and Design, she moved to New York City to begin an art career. There, she formed Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore in 1981. She and Moore married in 1984, and the band released a total of six albums on independent labels before the end of the 1980s. They would subsequently release nine studio albums on the major label DGC Records, beginning with Goo in 1990. Gordon was also a founding member of the musical project Free Kitten, which she formed with Julia Cafritz in 1993.

Peter Hook

Peter Hook is an English singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is best known as the bassist and co-founder of English rock bands Joy Division and New Order. Hook often used the bass as a lead instrument, playing melodies on the high strings with a signature heavy chorus effect. In New Order, he would do this, leaving the actual basslines to keyboards or sequencers.

Axl Rose

W. Axl Rose is an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for being the lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has also been the band's sole constant member since their inception in 1985. He has also toured with Australian rock band AC/DC, deputising for Brian Johnson after Johnson's hearing loss in 2016. Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone and NME.

Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman is an English musician, record producer, songwriter and singer. He was the bassist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1993. Since 1997 he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. He has worked producing records and films, and has scored music for films and television.

Geezer Butler

Terence Michael Joseph 'Geezer' Butler is a British musician and songwriter. He is best known as the bassist and primary lyricist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He has also recorded and performed with Heaven & Hell, GZR, and Ozzy Osbourne. Butler is currently the bassist of Deadland Ritual.

Chucho Merchán

Jesús Alfredo Merchán ), known professionally as Chucho Merchán, is a session jazz and rock bassist and guitarist. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cambridge University in 1980. He has performed with Nucleus, Eurythmics, The Pretenders, Thomas Dolby, George Harrison, Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Robi Rosa, Bryan Adams, Kirsty MacColl, Jaguares, and Everything but the Girl.

Sting

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, known as Sting, is an English musician and actor. He was the principal songwriter, lead singer, and bassist for new wave rock band the Police from 1977 to 1984. He launched a solo career in 1985, and has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age, and worldbeat in his music.

John Paul Jones

John Richard Baldwin, better known by his stage name John Paul Jones, is an English musician and record producer who was the bassist and keyboardist for the rock band Led Zeppelin. Prior to forming the band with Jimmy Page in 1968, he was a session musician and arranger. After the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, Led Zeppelin disbanded, and Jones developed a solo career. He has collaborated with musicians across a variety of genres, including Josh Homme and Dave Grohl with the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures.

Lemmy

Ian Fraser Kilmister, better known as Lemmy, was a British singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the founder, lead singer, bassist, primary songwriter and only continuous member of the British rock band Motörhead.

Tommy Shannon

Colin Greenwood

Colin Charles Greenwood is an English musician and the bassist for the alternative rock band Radiohead. Along with his younger brother, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, Greenwood attended Abingdon School in Abingdon, England, where he met the future band members. Radiohead have since achieved critical acclaim and have sold over 30 million albums. Along with bass guitar, Greenwood plays upright bass and electronic instruments.

Jack Bruce

John Symon Asher Bruce was a Scottish bassist, singer-songwriter, musician and composer. He gained popularity as the co-lead vocalist and ‍bassist ‍of British rock band Cream. After the group disbanded in 1968, he pursued a solo career and also played with several bands.

Aston Barrett

John Flansburgh

John Conant Flansburgh is an American musician. He is half of the long-standing Brooklyn, New York-based alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants, for which he writes, sings, and plays rhythm guitar.

John Power

John Timothy Power is an English singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist, best known as the frontman of 1990s Indie rock band Cast. He was previously the bassist and backing vocalist for the La's from 1986 to 1991. Following the dissolution of Cast in 2001, Power embarked on a solo career. In 2005, he briefly reunited with the La's, who split up again without releasing new material. Cast reformed in 2010, releasing the album Troubled Times in March 2012, followed by Kicking Up the Dust in April 2017. Power was born in Allerton, Liverpool.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists.

Christopher Wolstenholme

Christopher Tony Wolstenholme is an English musician. He is the bassist and backing vocalist for the rock band Muse.

Mark Bedford

Mark William Bedford, nicknamed Bedders, is an English musician, songwriter and composer. Bedford came to prominence in the late 1970s as the bass guitarist for the English ska band Madness.

Meshell Ndegeocello

Michelle Lynn Johnson, better known as Meshell Ndegeocello, is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, and bassist. She has gone by the name Meshell Suhaila Bashir-Shakur which is used as a writing credit on some of her later work. Her music incorporates a wide variety of influences, including funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, reggae and rock. She has received significant critical acclaim throughout her career, being nominated for eleven Grammy Awards, and winning one. She also has been credited for helping to 'spark the neo-soul movement'.

Jon Davison

Jon Davison is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist musician, who has been the lead vocalist of progressive rock band Yes since 2012. He is also known as the former lead singer of progressive rock band Glass Hammer from 2009 to 2014, and the former bass guitarist of Sky Cries Mary from 1993 to 2016, in which he was credited under his nickname of 'Juano' Davison.

Steve Morse

Steve J. Morse is an American guitarist and composer, best known as the founder of the Dixie Dregs and as the lead guitarist of Deep Purple since 1994. Morse has also enjoyed a successful solo career and was briefly a member of the group Kansas in the mid-1980s. Most recently, Morse became a member of the supergroup Flying Colors.

Charlotte Caffey

Charlotte Irene Caffey is an American musician and songwriter, best known for her work in the Go-Go's in the 1980s, including writing 'We Got the Beat'.

Waylon Jennings

Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as one of the founding pioneers of the Outlaw Movement in country music.

Tony Bowers

Nick Lowe

Nicholas Drain Lowe is a British singer-songwriter, musician and producer. A noted figure in power pop and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with vocals, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica.