of what it was created for . It ’ s almost as if the playing styles evolve beyond it with people seeing how much they can push the envelope , and I really enjoy pushing the envelope with these instruments .
SYPEREK : We were starting with band when we were teenagers , and [ my bandmates ] told me to go home and learn the bass . We had a couple of months
JACK SYPEREK
before they were moving back to town . And so , I got on it and asked around if there were any people who knew bass and there happened to be a couple of bass players around who helped me out and one friend lent me his Hagstrom for a while . I learned some Paul McCartney lines and I felt pretty proud of that when I finally got them . I played guitar a little bit before , so I was able to pick out the notes . It was a necessary instrument .
BROWN : There ’ s a very simple answer to that question . I started as a guitar player , and everyone played guitar . But there were no bass players . So , I thought , ‘ What the heck , how hard can it be ?’ And it was hard . It was kind of rough because I started playing in high school and it was pretty simple . I was just playing simple tunes . I was really into The Police and that kind of thing . And then I got into Level 42 and started listening to jazz and started realizing that there were many levels to getting better and better at this instrument , and I just wanted to be the best that I possibly could be . I started to do some research into some of the more popular players and some of them are well-established players . And I got a hold of Jaco Pastorius ’ music and then that completely changed my life . But I also realized that everybody was into Jaco , and I didn ’ t want to be another clone , so I stopped completely ; I stopped listening to bass players altogether and started to get more of my influence from guitar players and saxophone players . I really started to develop more of a melodic sense on the instrument by checking out people like Pat Metheny , and John Scofield , and lifting Stevie Wonder ’ s vocal lines , and John Coltrane ’ s lines and just trying to get as many different and disparate influences as possible .
LETELLIER : I come from a very small town , and there were a lot of guitar players . Nobody played bass , except for an older gentleman . And there was this community centre or youth centre , that there was a band and there were like four guitar players or something , two drummers , and nobody played
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