Jeroen Paul Thesseling

Jeroen Paul Thesseling
Thesseling performing live with his 7-string Thumb NT bass
Background information
Born	April 13, 1971
Genres	Death metal, jazz fusion, flamenco
Instruments	Bass guitar
Years active	1993-
Associated acts	Nufutic, Pestilence, Obscura, MaYaN, Ensemble Salazhar, El Periquin
Website	www.jeroenthesseling.com
Notable instruments
Warwick basses Warwick Hellborg Amplification

Jeroen Paul Thesseling is a Dutch fretless bass player, most famous for his work in German death metal band Obscura and Dutch death metal band Pestilence. He is currently active in his fusion-metal project Nufutic.

Biography

Jeroen Paul Thesseling is a musician who is globally respected and one of the very few bassists in the metal scene that plays fretless basses. He began studying bass in 1988 at the Conservatory in Enschede, the Netherlands. During the period of 1992-1994 he collaborated with the Dutch death metal band Pestilence by recording the jazz/fusion-influenced album Spheres and touring Europe.

In 1995 Thesseling started to study microtonality and developed a 72-tone equal temperament bass. A few years later he decided to concentrate primarily on playing fretless bass guitar. During the period 2003-2005 he has been touring with the flamenco ensemble of guitarist El Periquin. He is also founding member of the contemporary fusion/world music project Ensemble Salazhar, but despite their very much appreciated demo tracks the project didn't release any albums.

In 2007 Thesseling joined the German progressive death metal band Obscura. He toured North America, Europe and recorded their highly-acclaimed full-length albums Cosmogenesis in 2009 and Omnivium in 2011. His playing in Obscura saw much freedom, and was partly influenced by flamenco music. While still working with Obscura he rejoined Pestilence after a 15-year break in October 2009, touring North America, South America, Europe and recorded their sixth studio album Doctrine.

Thesseling left Obscura in 2011. Handling Pestilence's ultra low Doctrine material, he started playing a 7-string fretless bass. German bass manufacturer Warwick released a brand new Thumb NT 7 model for Thesseling, which is equipped with a low F-sharp string. Recently Thesseling and guitar/keyboard player Tommy Talamanca of Sadist founded the fusion-metal studio project Nufutic. On February 22, 2012, Pestilence has announced that Thesseling and drummer van Eekelen left Pestilence, to commit more to their main projects, Thesseling's Nufutic, and van Eekelen's Exivious. Thesseling was replaced by Stephan Fimmers from Necrophagist, respectively.

Equipment

Jeroen performing in South America with Pestilence

Thesseling is endorsed by Warwick basses. He exclusively plays Thumb NT basses and Hellborg Amplification. He owns a number of relatively vintage Warwick Thumb Neck-Through basses, one of them being built in late '89 and four more in the early 90's. Thesseling declared on the Official Warwick Forum that he used the 1993 model with fretless coromandel fingerboard for the Cosmogenesis recordings and the 1991 model with fretless ebony fingerboard for the Omnivium recordings. However, further on into his career, he started using a new Thumb NT 7 string fretless bass exclusively built by Warwick.

• Fretless Warwick Thumb NT 7-string bass (2011) with tigerstripe ebony fingerboard
• Fretless Warwick Thumb NT 6-string bass (1993) with coromandel fingerboard
• Fretted Warwick Thumb NT 6-string bass (1991) with wenge fingerboard
• Fretless Warwick Thumb NT 6-string bass (1991) with ebony fingerboard
• Fretless Warwick Thumb NT 6-string bass (1990) with palisander fingerboard
• Fretted Warwick Thumb NT 6-string bass (1989) with wenge fingerboard

Discography

• Pestilence - Spheres (1993)
• Obscura - Cosmogenesis (2009)
• Pestilence - Doctrine (2011)
• Obscura - Omnivium (2011)
• MaYaN - Quarterpast (2011, session)

External links

• Blabbermouth: Nufutic Project, interview Jeroen Thesseling
• NoTreble.com: Ultra-Low - An interview with Jeroen Paul Thesseling
• Video Interview DeBassist.nl
• Video Interview Blabbermouth.net
• Interview Lordsofmetal.nl
• Interview Fretlessbass.com