STEEL PANTHER guitarist Satchel and bassist Lexxi Foxx talked about their musical relationship and the role a bass player has in a band. You can check out the chat below via Music Radar.
Satchel: “A bass player needs to take direction well. When they start going off on their own thing, that’s when we start having problems.
“They just need to hold down the damn root. Of course, if you’re asking Billy Sheehan to just hold down the root then he could be like, ‘F**k you man, I can do whatever I want.’ That guy is a virtuoso, he can just hold down the root but he can play whatever he wants.
“But in Steel Panther, Lexxi isn’t going to go all over the neck; he doesn’t know where to go. For Lexxi, it’s like living in an old house on the edge of the forest, and if he goes too far from home he will probably get eaten by a bear.
“If I tell him the song is in A, then he just needs to ride the A string. He doesn’t want to move around the neck, because he might get eaten. He doesn’t want to wander off, because that fretboard is a strange, confusing place.”
Lexxi: “I would lay down breadcrumbs so I could find my way back to the house.”
Satchel: “But that wouldn’t work on the guitar because the neck is perpendicular to the ground and they would fall off the frets; you’d never find your way back and you would die. You would never find your way back to A. And what if the key changes back while you’re walking around the forest – how would you find your way back?”
Lexxi: “I would ask you where to put my fingers.”
Satchel: “Our relationship is driven by fear. That’s what should drive the guitar-bass player relationship: it’s the fear of being fired, fear of being eaten by a bear and fear of hitting a really bad note because that will get you fired. How do you think Michael Anthony got fired? He hit a bad note and then Eddie had his son right there ready to go.”
