Learn to play like the great Chris Squire in Bass Player's killer new issue
The late Yes man is joined by amazing bass players from Chic, Korn, the McCartney/Starr bands and more
When Yes bassist Chris Squire died aged 67 in 2015, it took the bass community aback. Sure, Squire had made his name with recordings from close to half a century before his passing, but there was a sense with everything that he did that he was nowhere near finished – and that he had ideas for bass lined up for years to come.
That’s the essence of the word ‘progressive’, right there, if you ask us. Progressive rock in the sense of the genre of music that Yes made doesn’t get that name just because the music is fiendishly complex: we call it by that tag because it doesn’t stop evolving. It’s restless, hungry for evolution, and unsatisfied with mediocrity. You can hear this in every bass part that Squire recorded. This is why he’s our cover star this month: because he gave us the gift of his creativity, delivering the parts with a tone that has baffled his fans for decades. We reveal those tones this month: see if you can achieve them yourself, and use them as Chris might have done.
Like Squire, our other interviewees have tons of wisdom and motivation to offer us, whether they’ve played with Paul McCartney, Korn or a host of other bands. We also take you behind the scenes at Abbey Road Studios, review essential new bass gear from Spector, Fender and newcomers Becos, and present you with state-of-the -art education.
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Joel McIver was the Editor of Bass Player magazine from 2018 to 2022, having spent six years before that editing Bass Guitar magazine. A journalist with 25 years' experience in the music field, he's also the author of 35 books, a couple of bestsellers among them. He regularly appears on podcasts, radio and TV.