Inga Eichler's scholarship at Tech Music School Part 5

At What Age did you start playing Bass guitar and do you remember why?
I was actually quite old, 21. I´ve been playing music since I was seven, I played the violin originally and fooled around a bit on guitar. And the Bass I had was a Fretless, I always played Fretless and you might think it was probably Jaco who got me into playing Bass guitar but I didn’t really hear him until later. There were two Bass players that influenced me, first was Percy Jones who used to play with a Band called Brand X, kind of Jazz Fusion Band and he played Fretless. I think he was the first Fretless player I ever heard. Although him and Jaco would have been around at about the same time I didn’t catch up with Jaco until later. The other Bass player that really got me was Paul Jackson, He used to play with Herbie Hancock in the 70s and I remember hearing him on the Album Thrust and just loving the Bass lines and I thought yeah, I could get into that.

So you actually went straight from Violin to Bass without the usual guitar playing before.
I did play a bit of guitar but what happened was; in my young age I was really serious about playing music, I played in youth Orchestras, did all the grade exams and was supposed to go to the Royal College of Music to study violin and do the classical thing. But then when I was 16 I discovered two things; alcohol and girls. So I wasn’t as serious as I was supposed to be anymore and I started fooling around on guitar and gave up the violin which is a shame because I put so much effort in it at the time. Anyway I got into Hendrix, thought I was good on guitar but I wasn’t really. So I pretty much wasted 5 years of my life until I started playing Bass and got serious again.

And where did you learn bass guitar? Did you study?
I´m mostly self-thought, I had one really good teacher in the early days, a guy called David Miles, he´s still around. I had about half a dozen lessons from him but he was such a good teacher that from then on I could pretty much teach myself. And then I didn’t take lessons until I came to London and studied at Guildhall College of Music.

Tell me about some Projects you got involved with.
At the time I went to college I played in a few bands, one was doing a kind of funky thing in the other one we were mainly playing Jazz standards because that´s what I was really trying to immerse myself into at that time and subsequently to that I´ve been involved in loads of other interesting Projects. At the Moment one thing I´m quite excited about is a Singer I work with called Zoe Gallant, she´s a good songwriter and I do a lot of arrangements for her and I´m the musical director of the band. I also work with a band called Nucleus, a Jazz-Fusion band with which we are going to play a big tribute concert for the former leader of the band Ian Carr, who died last year. I also play with one of the best guitarists in the country, John Etschwist, with a Frank Zappa tribute Band.

Tell me the story of your Bass guitar.
Well, it´s my pride and joy, Fender Jazz 1965, one of the last ones they would have made before CBS, a japanese company took over Fender in the 60´s at which point the standard kind of went down somewhat. The story behind it is that years ago, just as I started playing Bass I tried someone’s old Fender Jazz and I thought yeah, that’s what I want. They are really nice, the neck is beautiful, very playable. I’ve tried other Basses but I always came back to this. I bought my Bass through someone selling it privately and they were selling it for a ridiculous price, far too cheap. Basically I paid £400 for it and even though not everything on it is original it´s probably worth about £3000. If it was all original it would be five or six.

Did you replace some things?
No, most of it had already been replaced before I bought it, the Frets were already taken out and the pick ups are EMG, they are not original Fenders and the machine heads had to be changed.

So what set up do you use with your Bass?
I use and Ashdown 300 watt 15 inch combo and it does me for everything frankly.

Do you use any pedals?
No, none of that. I sometimes think about getting a chorus pedal but I always end up leaving it, to be honest I just love the sound of my Bass on its own.

Any tips you can give us?
Well, keep studying, keep working. It´s consistency and effort which makes the difference. And remember that learning an instrument is not a destination, it’s a journey. You never arrive at a point where you can say, oh yeah, I can play Bass guitar now. It´s an ongoing thing, you never stop learning, I never stop learning and I hope I never will because I love learning to play and I hope you all do to.

Thanks Rob