“We go out in mid-May for a lot of festival shows, and then we go out again in late August, September, for a full-scale European tour. I’ve seen 18 shows by The Cure and I’ve never heard him make even one tiny mistake. Simon Gallup has always been a favorite of mine. And then, of course, there was the first Black Sabbath album with the bass solos by Geezer Butler.” The bass is such a big part of their sound. I play faster and better, I think, with my fingers.” For many years, I was just playing riffs with a pick, but then I joined Volbeat and I really got the feeling of being a bass player back, because suddenly there was room for interesting basslines. “I scaled down all my licks and all of the ideas I had. I was very young and I played with my fingers at the time, but after a couple of albums, I found out that the thing I wanted to do just didn’t fit in with a death metal band, so I started to play with a pick. “When I started playing bass, I was in a melodic death metal band called Withering Surface. I joined Volbeat and I really got the feeling of being a bass player back, because suddenly there was room for interesting basslines We go from pop-punk to rockabilly to Black Sabbath-inspired riff-based songs on this album, and the bass is a big part of the sound.” “And then, on a totally different song like The Sacred Stones, I wanted a different feeling – more of a Geezer Butler kind of vibe.
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It has this kind of rockabilly beat, so I mimicked an upright bass on the bass guitar. When we have chord progressions, instead of just playing the root note, I really like to play an almost walking bassline. “Well, maybe there was a lick that was a little bit too much, so I scaled it down.