“What you think is guitar is actually me strumming chords on the bass”: When Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger brought a blockbuster new song idea to rehearsal, bassist Ben Kenney came up with the perfect bassline
Ben Kenney's bassline underwent several changes, but he says there’s one section of the band’s 2006 hit that no guitarist can replicate
(Image credit: Getty Images)
We’ve all been there – someone in your band brings a new song idea to rehearsal, and suddenly it's your job to come up with the perfect bassline. It's a fine line to walk: If you're overly adventurous, you risk hijacking the tune, but if you play it safe you may end up with a line – and song – that's downright boring.
Bassist Ben Kenney of Incubus fame knows this story all too well. When guitarist Mike Einziger brought the idea for the band's 2006 hit Anna Molly, Kenney was presented with a blank canvas. To find the right bassline, he simply listened.
“The interaction between guitar and vocals leaves negative space,” he told Bass Player. “That made it pretty clear where I could fit in with the bass. How much of that space I wanted to fill was up to me.”
After sitting out at the very beginning, Kenney starts by planting long root tones under the intro, setting up a contrast for the driving riff that enters at bar 9.
Kenney’s bassline for the verse is where things start to get interesting. Leaving a ‘one-drop’ rest on the first downbeat, he summons the ghost of the Police's Spirits in the Material World. The slippery vibe of his bass part is also a nod to bass players like Kim Deal of the Pixies.
“In the slide from D down to Bb, I stop off at C for a hot second,” said Kenney, highlighting beat one of the second bar. Note that in each verse, Kenney makes a subtle change by picking – rather than slurring – that C.
In the song's powerful chorus, the guitars drive harder than in the verses, but Kenney takes an alternative approach, playing the line legato. In rehearsals, he took drastic measures to make sure he was ready to pull off this line live.
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“Jumping around onstage, it's hard to play that part right. It takes confidence to slide around like that. My secret is to rehearse those parts playing my fretless Lakland. It's given me a non-medical breakthrough when it comes to focus!”
When the bridge hits at 2:13, it sounds like the bass guitar drops out. “What you may think is guitar is actually me strumming chords on the bass. Live, if I'm feeling frisky, I may kick on a chorus pedal for that part. Plus, I run my live rig pretty hot, so it grinds a little more there.” The band then launch into one last unison riff before pounding out a final round of choruses.
Kenney tracked most of Anna Molly using a Lakland Joe Osborn bass strung with flatwounds. For the double-stopped chord line in the bridge, he used a Lakland Bob Glaub strung with roundwounds. He split his signal, sending it through a D.W. Fearn DI and a Mesa Walkabout Scout miked with a Sennheiser 421.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Kenney offered this bit of advice to bass players wanting to improve their own writing skills: “If a song is almost done by the time it gets to you, listen to figure out where you can fit among the other parts. If you overlook any of them – drums, guitars, vocals – you're not going to create that synergy. It's about staying out of everyone else's way while still showing off.”
Kenney, who joined Incubus in 2003 and spent 20 years in the alt-rock outfit, stepped down as the band’s bassist in February 2024, and was officially replaced by Nicole Row.
