Being in a band is tough. Just ask bassist Dirk Lance (Alex Katunich), who left his previous band, Incubus, at the peak of its success. “It's like being married to four other people,” Lance told Bass Player. “When your band makes its living touring and you spend 10 months out of the year together, it gets trying.”
After 12 years of touring and recording, Lance says Incubus reached a point where the writing was on the wall. “We were going in different directions, personality-wise and musically. If there was ever a time to get off the rollercoaster, it was going to be at the top.
“That's not to say there wasn't more that could have been achieved, but I personally felt as if I didn't leave anything on the field. In a sport analogy sense, I had already won the Super Bowl. There weren't any ‘What if?' questions left to answer. We got there.”
Lance's in-your-face bass playing is evident on the singles Pardon Me, Stellar, and Drive, all from Incubus' landmark third album, Make Yourself.
Since departing Incubus in 2003, Lance has focused on session work and occasional releases with East of June and Willie’s Nerve Clinic whose 2013 album, Vampire Kiss, got the bass world buzzing again.
“When I left Incubus, I wanted to stay involved in music, but the idea of joining another band and going back out on tour didn't appeal to me. So, I went back to my old teacher Stray Deuce, the guitarist and singer in Willie's Nerve Clinic, and said, ‘I don't really need lessons on playing bass – I've got that part covered – but I want to become a better musician.’
“I took guitar and theory lessons from him until he asked, ‘Why don't we just start a band, so we can put all of this into something that's fun for both of us?’”
The following interview from the Bass Player archives took place in February 2013, following the launch of Vampire Kiss.
Did you take bass lessons when you were a kid?
“My parents agreed to get me lessons, and they rented me a bass guitar for a month before committing to the idea of buying something, because they weren't sure I was going to stick with it. And after a month of taking lessons I was hooked. The only way they could punish me through junior high and high school was to take away the bass; there was nothing else in my life that mattered.”
Who were some of your early influences?
“At that particular time I was listening to a lot of heavy music – rock, for the most part. Guns N' Roses was definitely a big influence, and Duff McKagan was one of the few rock bass players you could actually hear. Coming into high school, I discovered the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, and Mr. Bungle.
“I liked bands that had a really active bass player; I had the personality of a guitar player, and my playing took on that in-your-face style. I didn't necessarily have the talent to pull it off, but it was all about the attitude and being able to sell it.”
Was leaving Incubus a difficult decision?
“It might have been difficult if success had come overnight and we were right in the middle of just hitting. But we started as such young kids and grew up playing together and watched the incremental growth – it was a natural point to part ways at that time.”
What did you do after Incubus?
“I started a company to do music for video games. That evolved into a company that was doing streaming radio into video games.”
There's online chatter about what pickups and preamps you use in your basses. Care to share any trade secrets?
“I never changed anything from what was standard. Whatever I recorded on 15 years ago was what was in the bass. My tone is more a function of where I placed my thumb and how I balanced my pickups and attack more than anything else. I just play really hard.
“I wish I could say I was more of a finesse player, but attack is just something that's been beaten into me by 20 years of trying to make sure I'm heard.”
“The interesting thing about my Warwick is that it allows me to adjust the nut height, so I could change the string height depending on the gauge of the string. I could dial it in exactly the way I wanted so I could play as hard as I wanted without having to worry about string-buzz slap back against the pickups.”
How do you arrive at moments like the bass solo in Sing Like You're Dangerous?
“It tends to be organic; I'm under no illusion that people really need to hear a bass solo. The verse riff had a nice rhythm for something percussive. I was just messing around with it one day, and Stray was encouraging me to go crazy for a few bars. So I did. As with most of the stuff that I do, there are quite a few notes on the record – maybe a few too many!”
What was your approach to tracking bass on Vampire Kiss?
“I almost always do a combination; I want a clean DI tone that emphasizes what the bass itself sounds like, so usually a tube DI and then into a nice warm preamp like a Neve, if possible. Each bass has frequencies it recreates well, and there are certain frequencies that the DI won't grab, so we almost always mic a cabinet so we can mix and match those sonic qualities, as well.”
What advice do you have for bass players?
“Listen to bass players in different genres. One of my biggest handicaps is that I played with the same people for so long. Expanding your palette musically, by listening to the inflections and phrases other bass players use, is one of the best ways to expand your playing.”
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