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Mike Watt

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Mike Watt

Michael David Watt (born December 20, 1957 in Portsmouth, Virginia) is a bass guitarist, singer and songwriter, 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. He is also a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan.

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 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, Geezer Butler, Gene Simmons, and Richard Hell as influences. Years later, Watt would view the dearth of prominent bassists differently, saying that the lack of role-models left him free to develop his own approach to playing bass guitar.

The Minutemen

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 (named after the 1960s radical group) 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.

The Minutemen ended tragically in December 1985, when Boon was killed in a traffic accident. Their fifth full length album, 3-Way Tie (For Last) had already been scheduled for release at the time of the accident.

fIREHOSE

After Boon's death, Watt and Hurley initially intended to quit music altogether. Sonic Youth invited Watt to hang out with them in New York in 1986; recording an outstanding cover of Madonna's "Burnin' Up" (with additional guitars by Greg Ginn) on the first Ciccone Youth EP as well as 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. Their music often sounded much like that of The Minutemen, though the songs became longer and more traditionally structured (generally, verse-chorus-verse). Shortly after the release of 1993's Mr. Machinery Operator, the band decided to call it quits.

Watt and Kira married in 1989, 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

After working with fIREHOSE, Watt began a solo career. His first album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, featured appearances from Henry Rollins, J Mascis, members of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Soul Asylum, Jane's Addiction, the Beastie Boys, and Screaming Trees. Though he was already revered by many musicians and fans as the founding father of alternative rock, 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, recording a song for the film Velvet Goldmine.

Illness, recovery, The Stooges, and The Secondman's Middle Stand

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 Awards 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 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 Minutemen, was released by the Quebec, Canada book publisher L'ole 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 appearahce 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.

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." [1]. 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 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, set to begin recording in the fall of 2005, will contain about 36 short songs. 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.

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 are set to record a second album, this time with Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas joining in. He is also set to participate in the first full-length studio album by the Stooges since Raw Power in 1973, Rick Rubin is the producer for the album.

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 June 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 Festival), and switched back to his 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 and jazz legend John Coltrane. This has been his primary bass for live performances but he has also used the bass to record his contributions with Gov't Mule, The Stooges (in their Live In Detroit DVD and a live album recorded in Tokyo), and on J Mascis' December 2000 John Peel radio session. Watt feared that he would have to temporairily 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 2005 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 and with Banyan, Watt uses Eden amplification, for which he is an endorsing artist. When he performs with the Stooges, he usually plays through gear rented by the promoter according to the band's contract rider - usually two Ampeg SVT amplifiers and cabinets.

Accessories

Watt uses and endorses D'Addario strings. He previously endorsed DW 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 Markey 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.

Discography

Solo albums

All solo albums were released on Columbia:

Non-solo recorded appearances

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