“I asked him to get me four bass strings because I only had a $29 guitar from Sears”: Bootsy Collins is one of the all-time bass greats, but he started out on guitar. Here’s the sole reason why he switched

The name Bootsy Collins elicits images of his impeccable, one-of-a-kind fashion style – which extends to his cosmic Space Bass – but also of the funk-driven basslines he graced artists as diverse as Parliament-Funkadelic, James Brown, Deee-Lite, and Snoop Dogg with. However, it might be surprising to learn that Collins actually got his start playing guitar – and bluffed his way into the bass player role.

“You would have to say that the bass chose me because I was actually playing guitar,” he admits in a new Bass Player interview. “I wanted to be like my brother Catfish Collins, who was like eight years older than I was, and I was like a nine-year-old.

“When I got the opportunity to be in his band, he needed a bass player as opposed to a guitar player. I told him I could do that, but I had never even attempted to play bass. [laughs]

“I asked him to get me four bass strings because I only had a $29 guitar from Sears and Roebuck, and that’s how I started playing bass. I played one night in the club with my brother; I got my wish. We had so much fun, man.”

Bootsy Collins Live at the Howard Theatre - YouTube

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Collins explains how, to him, playing bass became second nature, as he was already “hearing things in my head.”

“I didn’t get no training, there was nobody to teach me,” he says matter-of-factly. “Today, they’ve got everything to teach you; you just go online and it's all there. But I just played and practiced all the time, and things would come to me.”

The bass legend had previously talked about another pivot in his decades-spanning career: taking the bass chair in James Brown's band – and how that would change his career – and playing style – forever.

Bass Player's full interview with Bootsy Collins will be published in the coming weeks.