Mike Watt

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This article is about the bassist. For the ice hockey player, see Mike Watt (ice hockey).

For Mike Watt the journalist and writer, please see Mike Watt writer

Template:Infobox musical artist 2 Michael David Watt (born December 20, 1957 in Portsmouth, Virginia) is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter.

He is best-known for co-founding the punk rock bands The Minutemen and fIREHOSE; as of 2003, he is also the bassist for the reunited Iggy Pop & The Stooges and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan as well as many other post-Minutemen projects.

Though Watt has not had much mainstream success or visibility, he is often cited as a key figure in the development of American alternative rock: the Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their hugely successful Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) to Watt. Throughout his career he has been known for his inventive, melodic playing; his basslines are often quite distinctive.

Biography

Early career

When he was young, Watt's family moved to San Pedro, California, where he became good friends with D. Boon. Watt and Boon picked up bass and guitar, respectively. Watt was a fan of T. Rex and Blue Öyster Cult, while Boon's exposure to rock music was limited to Creedence Clearwater Revival, another Watt favorite.

Watt and Boon were initially rather ignorant of music; they didn't know bass guitars were different from guitars, and Watt simply removed two strings from a guitar to emulate a bass. When he acquired a bass guitar, he lamented that the instrument was rarely prominent in rock music, but has cited John Entwistle, Jack Bruce, James Jamerson, Geezer Butler, Richard Hell, Larry Graham, Bootsy Collins, Joe Bouchard, Dennis Dunaway, and Gene Simmons as influences. Entwistle's prominent basslines--at once bouncy, muscular, propulsive, and melodic--seem to have been a strong influence on Watt. When he first saw a real bass at fifteen, he was awestruck and commented that it looked liked a guitar with bridge cables.[1]

Years later, Watt would view the dearth of prominent rock bassists differently, saying that the lack of role models left him free to develop his own approach to playing bass guitar.

The Minutemen

Main article: Minutemen (band)

By the mid-1970s, Watt and Boon formed a band called The Reactionaries with drummer George Hurley and vocalist Martin Tamburovich. The band later became The Minutemen with another drummer named Frank Tonche, who only lasted two shows with the group; Hurley, who had been in a short-lived new wave group at the time the Minutemen first formed, rejoined Watt and Boon. After signing with SST Records in 1980, The Minutemen began touring constantly, releasing a number of albums along the way. Their music was based on the speed, brevity and intensity of punk, but included elements of jazz, folk, and funk.

In 1984, Watt met Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler during a Black Flag/Minutemen tour. They soon became romantically involved, and subsequently began collaborating on songs. They formed a two-bass duo, Dos, and have since recorded and released three records so far. Roessler collaborated with Watt on the Minutemen's final album 3-Way Tie (For Last).

The Minutemen ended tragically on December 22, 1985, when Boon was killed in an automobile accident. Their fifth full-length album, 3-Way Tie (For Last) had already been scheduled for release at the time of the accident. In We Jam Econo, Watt mentioned that the last time he saw D. Boon he had received lyrics for ten songs from Richard Meltzer for an album he planned to do with him. However, that day Boon was sick with fever, but nonetheless he was heading for Arizona to see his girlfriend's relative. The Minutemen were also planning to record a triple album with the working title 3 Dudes, 6 Sides, 3 Studio, 3 Live as way to counteract bootleggers. [2]

fIREHOSE

Main article: fIREHOSE

After Boon's death, Watt was profoundly depressed; he and Hurley initially intended to quit music altogether. Sonic Youth invited Watt to hang out with them in New York in 1986; they recorded a cover of Madonna's "Burnin' Up" (with additional guitars by Greg Ginn) on the first Ciccone Youth EP, and Watt played bass for two songs on the Sonic Youth album EVOL.

Subsequently, one Ed Crawford, a Minutemen fan who drove to San Pedro from Ohio, persuaded the Watt/Hurley rhythm section to continue playing music. fIREHOSE was formed soon after. After three releases on SST, fIREHOSE signed with major label Columbia Records. Shortly after the release of 1993's Mr. Machinery Operator, the band decided to call it quits.

Watt and Kira married in 1987, but their marriage fell apart not long after fIREHOSE's break-up. However, both their friendship and Dos have remained intact; they even recorded their third album "Justamente Tres" not long after their divorce.

Solo career

Main article: Ball-Hog or Tugboat?
Main article: Contemplating The Engine Room

After working with fIREHOSE, Watt began a solo career. His first album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, featured appearances from dozens of well known musicians (many were Watt's peers from the 1980s SST era), including Henry Rollins, Eddie Vedder, J Mascis, members of Sonic Youth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Frank Black, Nirvana, Soul Asylum, Jane's Addiction, the Beastie Boys, Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, and the Screaming Trees. Though he was already revered by many musicians and fans as a founding father of alternative rock (a term Watt dislikes, equating it with the music industry's push of the "New Wave" term in the late 70's and early 80's), the album and its supporting tour were Watt's first taste of mainstream attention and fame, when Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Dave Grohl of Nirvana were part of his touring group. After Vedder returned to his Pearl Jam commitments and Grohl began working with his new band Foo Fighters, Watt formed his only four-piece touring group to date, The Crew Of The Flying Saucer, featuring guitarist Nels Cline and two drummers.

In 1996, Watt contributed bass lines to two songs on Porno for Pyros' second album Good God's Urge. He subsequently ended up being the bassist for the tour that followed the release of the album, sparking a friendship with lead singer Perry Farrell in the process. (Porno's drummer, Stephen Perkins, had already worked with and befriended Watt during the Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? sessions.) In November of that year, he created and established his own official homepage, Mike Watt's Hoot Page, initially using his personal Internet Service Provider's free web space until bandwidth demands spurred him to move the site to its own domain name and server.

In 1997, Watt released Contemplating the Engine Room, a sort of punk rock song cycle using naval life as an extended metaphor for both Watt's family history (the album has a picture of his father in his Navy uniform on the cover) and the Minutemen. The album, which was critically well received, features a trio of musicians including Nels Cline on guitar, and Watt as the only singer.

Watt went on to play in such groups as Banyan (with Stephen Perkins and Nels Cline) and Hellride, a sometime live outfit that plays cover versions of Stooges songs. He also played in The Wylde Rattz with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and The Stooges' Ron Asheton, recording a song for the film Velvet Goldmine.

Illness, recovery and The Stooges

In January of 2000, Watt fell ill with an infection of his perineum, forcing the punk legend into emergency surgery and nine weeks of bedrest in his San Pedro apartment. Initially unable to play his bass right away, he rebuilt his strength with intense woodshedding and practice as well as live club gigs where he performed sets of Stooges covers with Hellride in California and with J Mascis and Dinosaur Jr. drummer Murph in New York under the name Hellride East.

In 2000, Watt was asked by J Mascis to participate in a world tour behind Mascis' first post-Dinosaur Jr. release, J Mascis and the Fog's More Light. At several of the shows, Mascis and Watt were joined onstage by Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, wherein the group would play entire sets of Stooges classics. Watt and Mascis later joined Asheton and his brother, Stooges drummer Scott Asheton, for a one-time-only performance of Stooges classics at a Belgian festival under the name Asheton, Asheton, Mascis & Watt. In 2001, Watt was one of several bassists invited to participate in the sessions for Gov't Mule's The Deep End album, partly on the recommendation of Primus' Les Claypool. Watt and Gov't Mule recorded a cover version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Effigy" for the album. The sessions were immortalized in the documentary feature film Rising Low.

In 2002 Watt, along with Pete Yorn and members of The Hives, backed Iggy Pop for a short set of Stooges classics at that year's Shortlist Music Prize ceremony. The performance, along with Watt's past performance history with the Asheton brothers and a successful recording session Iggy and the Ashetons had partaken in for Iggy's Skull Ring album, led to Watt's being enlisted to fill the bass slot in the reunited Stooges lineup in 2003. The reunited Stooges played their first show in almost 20 years at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in May of 2003. Also in 2002, Watt was invited by pop-punk band Good Charlotte to make a cameo appearance in their music video for "Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous". He portrays a jury foreman in the video and even has a short speaking part.

In 2003 Watt's first book, Spiels Of A Minuteman, was released by the Quebec, Canada book publisher L'Oie De Cravan. The book, printed in both English and French, contains all of Watt's song lyrics from the Minutemen era as well as the tour journal he wrote during the Minutemen's only European tour with Black Flag, essays by former SST co-owner Joe Carducci, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, and Blue Öyster Cult lyricist and longtime Watt hero Richard Meltzer, and illustrations by Raymond Pettibon that had been used in all of the Minutemen's album artwork.

Also in 2003, Watt made his second music video appearance in as many years, appearing in the video for Cobra Verde's song "Riot Industry" (along with Rudy Ray Moore and George Wendt). Watt himself would describe his part in the video as such:

I play an "Idle American" and end up doing a "Fred Sanford" when I can't get what I want on the television - I collapse to the deck with a heart attack!

Watt became smitten enough with the song that he included it in the encore set for his 2004 tour.

The Secondman's Middle Stand

Main article: The Secondman's Middle Stand

Watt's third solo album The Secondman's Middle Stand, inspired by both his 2000 illness and one of his favorite books, Dante's The Divine Comedy, was released in 2004; one reviewer writes that the album is a "harrowing, funny, and genuinely moving stuff from a true American original." [3]. For the first time since the Minutemen, Watt recorded the album with an "all-Pedro band", Mike Watt & The Secondmen, consisting of organist Pete Mazich and drummer Jerry Trebotic, along with former That Dog vocalist Petra Haden.

While promoting and touring behind The Secondman's Middle Stand, Watt announced plans for his next two solo albums, stating that he intended to record as frequently as he did in the Minutemen days for as long as he could. The first album, which will be recorded with his new project band The Missingmen — guitarist Tom Watson and drummer Raul Morales — will contain 39 short songs, said by Watt to be inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch[4]. The second album will be similar in execution to Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, only with Watt recording with unknown and lesser-known musicians in various locales.

Watt would part amicably with Columbia/Sony-BMG in 2005, after fourteen years as both a solo artist and as one-third of fIREHOSE.

The Unknown Instructors

Main article: Unknown Instructors

In 2005, another side project featuring Watt came to light with the announced September 20 release of The Way Things Work, an album of improvised music under the group name, the Unknown Instructors with George Hurley, Saccharine Trust's Joe Baiza and Jack Brewer, and poet/saxophonist Dan McGuire. A month after the album's release, the Unknown Instructors recorded a second album, The Master's Voice, with Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas and artist Raymond Pettibon joining the core quartet of Watt, Hurley, McGuire and Baiza.

Watt would further his interest in improvised music by forming a trio, Los Pumpkinheads, with former Beastie Boys keyboardist Money Mark.

On December 14, 2005, the McNally-Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota announced the formation of the Mike Watt Bass Guitar Scholarship, which is to be awarded annually to a bass major starting in the Fall of 2006.[5]

In March of 2006, Watt took part in the performance at Disney Hall, Los Angeles, of Glenn Branca's "Hallucination City" Symphony #13.

The Weirdness

Main article: The Weirdness

In October of 2006, Watt joined the rest of The Stooges at producer Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago, Illinois to record The Weirdness, the first Stooges studio album since 1973's Raw Power. The album was released on March 6, 2007, and much of Watt's 2007 was be devoted to Stooges duties, including the band's first full-length U.S. tour since the band's reformation.[6]

Also in October 2006, Watt contributed a 'spiel' for Irish band ESTEL's latest album The bones of something....

In November of 2006, Watt revealed to Pitchfork Media that he contributed his bass skills to six tracks on My December, the third album by American Idol singer Kelly Clarkson, a studio assignment that he took at the invitation of his "old friend", producer/engineer David Kahne.[7]

Watt also worked on two other projects during this time period: Funanori, a musical collaboration with Kaori Tsuchida, guitarist of The Go! Team, on shamisen [8], and Pelicanman (named after the closing track on The Secondman's Middle Stand) with Petra Haden.[9] He also contributed a cover of Blue Oyster Cult's "Burning For You", recorded with Haden, Nels Cline, Money Mark Nishita, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, to the all-star compilation album Guilt by association, released in August by the independent label Engine Room Recordings.

On June 9, 2007, Watt was the live narrator for the silent movie Brand on the Brain at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, CA.

The Watt From Pedro Show

Main article: The Watt From Pedro Show

When he is not on tour, Watt hosts a regular internet radio show, The Watt From Pedro Show, a continuation of a program Watt had first done on a low-power FM station in the late 1990s. The program became so popular with Watt's fans that the website's host temporarily forced the show offline on weekdays until a sponsor or other solution could be found. On January 10, 2006, The Watt From Pedro Show became available as a podcast.

Watt's Post-fIREHOSE Bands

In all of these groups, Watt is the band leader and handles vocals and bass.

Watt's Most Frequent Collaborators

These individuals have collaborated with Watt the most, both live and in the studio.

Equipment

Basses

Watt has vaulted primarily between Gibson and Fender basses for most of his career. He does not do compensated endorsements for any particular guitar brand as of November 2005, usually preferring to buy used basses that he discovers in instrument stores, pawn shops or via classified ads. Watt frequently modifies his basses by adding active electronics, and for luck and inspiration he likes to put pictures of favorite people and/or things on his basses.

He initially started with a mid-60's Gibson EB-3 bass; he switched to a Fender Precision Bass in 1982, feeling that the Gibson was causing him to play too many notes at the time; his first Fender P-Bass was purchased from former Fear bassist Derf Scratch; the bass, which Scratch used on Fear's classic debut album The Record, would also end up being heard on the second Minutemen album, What Makes a Man Start Fires?.

Around 1984 he found a Fender Telecaster bass, which became his main bass for the last two years of the Minutemen's existence as well as much of fIREHOSE's; the bass had pictures of Kira and of Watt's favorite singer, Madonna, on the instrument. Close to the end of fIREHOSE's collective life he started using a late 60's Gibson Thunderbird bass; this ended up being his main bass after the white Telecaster was stolen from his apartment sometime in 1995.

After his recovery from the emergency surgery on his perineum, Watt semi-retired the Thunderbird (he did use it again for his first ever gig with the Stooges at the 2003 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and in his sessions with Kelly Clarkson), and switched back to his 1965 Gibson EB-3 bass, citing the short scale as being easier on his hands after not touching a bass for the entire time he recovered from surgery; he decorated the bass with photographs of his deceased best friend and Minutemen bandmate D. Boon, jazz legend and longtime hero John Coltrane, a picture of a friend's compass tattoo, and a sticker from one of Watt's favorite current bands, Sistas in the Pit. This has been his primary bass for live performances but he has also used the bass to record his contributions with Gov't Mule and on J Mascis' December 2000 John Peel radio session, as well as all of his recordings as a member of the Stooges to date. Watt feared that he would have to temporarily shelve the bass in July 2005 when a crack was discovered in its headstock during a 2005 Stooges European tour; fortunately, he was able to have the instrument repaired in time for the next leg of the tour.

In late 2004 he acquired a second EB-3 bass as an alternate instrument for live gigs. He initiated the bass during Dos' annual Christmas benefit show, and first used it extensively during a brief six-date spin on the 2005 Vans Warped Tour.

Over the past few years, he has also started to acquire some custom-made instruments, including basses made by guitar craftsmen Tim Thelen, Mark Garza and Darrin Huff. On "The Secondman's Middle Stand" Watt initially recorded the basic tracks with a Telecaster-style bass built by Tim Thelen, but later recut the basslines with a Moon Larry Graham model bass, which he also used on a 1998 European tour. A yellow Telecaster-style shortscale bass built by Garza and nicknamed "The Bananaplower" can be seen in the "Tied A Reed 'Round My Waist" video and heard on Banyan's Live At Perkins' Palace CD.

Two of his many basses feature autographs: a budget-line Alembic bass he acquired during the early fIREHOSE days and later had spraypainted green features the autograph of Los Angeles Lakers star basketball player James Worthy, and a mid-70's hollow body Gibson Les Paul Signature Bass features, appropriately, Les Paul's signature with the salutation, "Keep on pickin'".

Amplification

Not much is known about what amplification Watt preferred in the Minutemen days. Pictures (including those in Double Nickels On The Dime's gatefold sleeve) have him using Ampeg SVT amps. In 1985 Watt switched to a Gallien-Krueger amplifier driving Cerwin-Vega speaker cabinets; a photo of this rig can be seen on the back cover of fIREHOSE's Ragin' Full-On.

During his time with J Mascis and The Fog, Watt played through Marshall amps at the direction of Mascis.

For his solo works, with Banyan, and on the current Stooges tour, Watt uses Eden amplification, for which he is an endorsing artist. When he performed with the Stooges in the past, he usually played through gear rented by the promoter according to the band's contract rider - usually two Ampeg SVT amplifiers and cabinets, although for one round of dates in 2006 Watt used Marshalls borrowed from Primal Scream bassist Gary 'Mani' Mounfield.

Accessories

Watt uses and endorses D'Addario strings. He previously endorsed DR strings during his early solo career, and mentioned being a Rotosound user in a fIREHOSE newsletter around the time of Flyin' The Flannel. During his stint with J Mascis and The Fog he used Dean Markley strings on occasion since Mascis was an endorser of that brand and thus could obtain bass strings for Watt free of charge.

Watt rarely uses effect pedals in the studio (two notable instances pre-2004 were a Digitech Whammy pedal on Dos' "'Till The Blood Ran" (Justamente Tres) and an envelope filter on "Tell 'Em Boy" (Ball-Hog or Tugboat?), and until 2004 never used them in live performance. On The Secondman's Middle Stand he used the Whammy Pedal and a variety of distortion units and other stompbox effects to help illustrate the album's storyline. For the tours in 2004 and 2005 behind The Secondman's Middle Stand Watt used a Boss pedal board with four different effects and a Korg stompbox tuner.

Computers

Watt has been a longtime Apple Computer user, subtle Apple evangelist, and outspoken critic of Microsoft products. Newsletters he used to publish during the fIREHOSE days were done on an early Macintosh; he currently uses a self-upgraded Power Mac G4 at home and a PowerBook G4 when on tour[10], both to maintain contacts with friends and fans and maintain the Hoot Page. With the digital recording software Pro Tools installed, the Power Mac G4 also doubles as Watt's home studio for recording song demos as well as Dos' fourth, as yet untitled album. He has also used both computers on occasion to record segments or whole installments of The Watt from Pedro Show.

Discography

Solo albums

All solo albums were released on Columbia:

Non-solo recorded appearances

  • Removal
    • 2007 vocals on "all saints day in someone else's town" with Canadian Prog Punk band Removal

Promotional Videos

  • As a solo artist
    • 1995 "Big Train" - directed by Spike Jonze
    • 1995 "Piss-Bottle Man" - directed by Roman Coppola
    • 1997 "Liberty Calls" - directed by Spike Jonze
    • 2004 "Tied A Reed 'Round My Waist" - directed by Lance Bangs
    • 2004 "Drove up from Pedro" - directed by [Mike Muscarella]
    • 2004 "Beltsandedman" - directed by Mike Muscarella
    • 2004 "Burstedman" - directed by Mike Muscarella
    • 2004 "Pelicanman" - directed by Mike Muscarella
  • with Sonic Youth
    • 1990 "My Friend Goo" - cameo appearance
    • 1991 "100%" - brief cameo appearance
  • with Sublime
    • 1996 "Wrong Way" - Watt portrays a convenience store clerk
  • with Good Charlotte
  • with Cobra Verde
    • 2003 "Riot Industry" - Watt as "The Man In The Flannel Bathrobe".

References

  • Tour journals and interview links from Mike Watt's Hoot Page
  • by Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life
  • by Mike Watt, Spiels Of A Minuteman' , L'Oie de Cravan, ISBN 2-922399-20-6
  • by Various, All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul, ISBN 0-87930-653-X
  • by Rough Guides, The Rough Guide to Rock (pg. 374), ISBN 1-84353-105-4

See also

External links

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