NAMM 2017: Reverend Announces Mike Watt Signature Bass

It all started for Mike Watt in San Pedro, California. That’s where he met D. Boon and George Hurley—who would later form the Minutemen, a band that would inspire legions.

Watt went on to form Firehose and to play bass for punk royalty, the Stooges, as well as hundreds of solo projects with musicians around the world.

He has collaborated with everyone from Henry Rollins and Eddie Vedder to Blue Oyster Cult’s Richard Meltzer to Kelly Clarkson. He wrote a rock opera based on the works of painter Hieronymus Bosch, and he hosts an internet radio show called The Watt from Pedro Show. It’s no wonder that he’s Bass Player magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award Winner and that CMJ Music called him a “seminal post-punk bass player.”

The Reverend Mike Watt Signature Wattplower is the result of a four-year exploratory between Watt and Reverend to produce a bass with the perfect balance of sonic explosiveness, supreme playability and ultimately looks uniquely Watt.

The Reverend Mike Watt Signature Model Wattplower is a 30” scale bass with a smaller body that echo the short scale vintage basses that Watt gravitated toward. He was always modifying the vintage basses, so Joe Naylor built the Wattplower with all of his favorite mods on board, some of which are: an adjustable Hipshot A Style bridge, a brass bridge spacer for sustain and balance, and a front mounted output jack with an oversized, heavy-duty jackplate.

On the fretboard, there are extra dots at the fifth and twelfth frets for increased positional visibility, with an anchor inlay at the first fret and “wattplower” at the 17th. Luminlay dots are on the side of the neck that glow in the dark to help with excellent visibility on poorly lit stages. All of that comes in Satin Powder Yellow or Satin Emerald Green—all very Watt.

For more information, visit reverendguitars.com.

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