Last night I went to a show, The Futurists, Ra Ra Riot, and Tokyo Police Club, and two out of the three bands were bassist singers. Ra Ra Riot didn’t really have a lead singer, but the celloer had back up vocal duties. I found it odd.
Aimee Mann played bass, sang lead with Til Tuesday.
Mike Watt
Larry Graham (with Graham Central Station, not Sly and the Family Stone).
In the early days, when they were playing all their own instruments (with Brian on bass), it was about half Mike, half Brian (and occasionally Dennis) on lead vocals. Over the years, the other Boys got their chance to sing lead on different tracks. In concert, it was Mike who played the role of lead singer or frontman: interacting with the audience, introducing songs, etc.
Bassist/lead singer here.
I think more often than not, bands are started by guitarists, and if that guitarist is already capable of singing and playing guitar simultaneously, he’s not likely to go looking for somebody else to handle the lead vocals. Also, singer-songwriters tend to be guitarists rather than bassists, simply because performing by yourself while accompanying yourself on the bass is just kind of silly.
However, the above argument applies mostly to bands where, even though they may be billed as a “band”, they are primarily vehicles for the frontman, who is most often a singer/songwriter/guitarist. Just look at major country music acts. Lead-singing bass players are practically nonexistent in country music, and it’s no coincidence that you don’t see very many country “bands” — the genre consists almost entirely of “solo artists” with backup bands. These solo artists worked their way up by playing small venues, often as solo acts, and as I’ve already mentioned, they accompanied themselves on guitar rather than bass.
Bass-playing lead singers are most common in honest-to-goodness “bands”. These bands take the approach that creating their music is a group effort, and the individual members are often extremely accomplished on their respective instruments, and were selected to join the band based on their skill on their instruments. The lead guitarist cannot give his often complex guitar parts the necessary attention if he has to divide his attention between the guitar and the lead vocals. Not to mention that an extremely accomplished guitarist has gotten that way by concentrating on the guitar, not on singing. Drummers simply don’t make good frontmen, primarily for logistical reasons: they’re hidden behind their drums, have no mobility, and playing the drums is a very physical activity that can leave a drummer too winded to sing convincingly. A keyboardist can be an effective lead singer, but like the drummer is rooted to one spot on the stage, making it difficult to “work the crowd”. That leaves two reasonable choices: the bass player handles lead vocals, or if he can’t sing well, the band brings in a dedicated lead vocalist. When a band is first starting out, the second option is often not considered, because adding a guy who “just sings”, means one more guy to split the money with at the end of the night. So a lot of the time, the bassist gets the job by default. Also, in bands where instrumental virtuosity is the focus, vocal quality is of secondary importance. The lead singer’s qualifications become: 1) can you carry a tune? and 2) can you keep it up for 3-4 hours?. If the bass player can answer “yes” to both questions, then he gets the job.
Also, bands like this tend to not have spotlight hogs. The bassist/lead vocalist gets to split the spotlight with the lead guitarist(s) and perhaps the keyboardist, if the band has one. If the band has an exceptional drummer as well, then he gets to share the spotlight too. But if this band includes a “just sings” singer, that guy will tend to want to stay in the spotlight when it’s somebody else’s turn. I mean, how many “just sings” singers do you see who go sit down during the guitar solo? They have nothing to do during the solo, so they tend to prance around and keep trying to work the crowd, drawing attention away from the soloist.
And as a bassist/singer, I don’t mind admitting that the bassist is the one guy in the band who can get away with playing as simply as he has to to be able to sing at the same time (though I’m capable of playing fairly complex lines and singing at the same time - it comes from being a Rush fan). Also, I think a lot of bassist/lead singers are guys like me who actually started out singing and playing the acoustic guitar. When I was a teenager, I loved singing while accompanying myself on the acoustic guitar. By concentrating on doing both together and not trying to be a hot lead guitarist, I learned a lot about chord and song structures. From there it was a very easy transition to singing while playing the bass.
Dusty Hill sang the lead on “Tush,” one of the coolest rock-and-roll songs ever. Does that count?
Mike in MxPx
John Entwistle was mentioned in the other thread, mentioning songs he sang in The Who. He sang lead on his solo albums, and shared vocals in his touring band with Godfrey Townsend and Steve Luongo.
Rick Danko of “The Band” was both a terrific bassist and sang lead on many tracks.
Yeah, live I meant.
Julie Doiron of Eric’s Trip
I play bass in my band and I do not have the ability or the desire to play and sing at once. I could do it if I played simple root notes for the bass line, but that isn’t how I like to play bass. I play rhythm guitar if I have a song that I sing on, and we just don’t have a bass line.
Bruce on “Silver Bullet” by the Golden Palominos ought to change your mind.
Several of King Crimson’s singers were bassists, including Greg Lake, Gordon Haskell, Boz Burrell and John Wetton (Lake was also in ELP, and Wetton was in Asia).
There was also Jack Blades of Damn Yankees/Night Ranger.
Both Randy Meisner and Tim Schmidt sang lead on a few Eagles and Poco songs.
Here’s some ideas. There are far fewer bassists than guitarists, both due to the difficulty of using bass as a solo instrument and the perception guitar is cooler than bass. That means a lot of bands just take any bassist they can find, no matter if they lack singing skills. Also most bands are started by the main songwriter, and in rock the singer is usually the main songwriter. It’s much easier to write on a guitar than a bass.
No one will know them or care, but Scott Lucas, lead singer of Local H, plays a modified guitar/bass. It’s a two person band and Brian is WAY too busy destroying his drum set.
Phil Lynott, Thin Lizzy. (Info.) At his high points, a really fine song writer and singer.
Gene Simmons, I think.