Global Bass Online September 2000
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Global Bass Online September 2000
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Bass Summit A Global Bass Special Feature Article
Victor
Wooten ~The Man Behind the Reputation~ as interviewed by one of Canada’s most prominent
bass players Orin Isaacs Editors Note: Now this is a long one, but a great one, so bookmark this
page. You are gonna
want to come back to it till you’re done. Victor Lamonte
Wooten, Grammy nominated for his third solo album ‘YIN YANG’, brilliant
melodic bassist for Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and accomplished solo
artist, sits down for a chat with Orin Isaacs, fellow bassist and band leader
for Canada award winning comedy and talk show OPEN MIKE with Mike Bullard. Two
powerhouse musicians talking about Victors new album and his life as a
groundbreaking bass player.
Global Bass
Magazine (as represented by Orin):
So you travel with your family? Victor (as
represented by Victor): Sometimes, when I can. Orin: Being
on the road so much, how does your family deal with it? Victor: It
starts with having a partner that understands you and can deal with it and
function alone. That’s a necessary ingredient, and luckily I have one of
those. Ever since we’ve known each other, we’ve traveled. She travels
sometimes with the theatre, a children’s theatre, and they go around from
school to school. She loves her ‘alone time’, but also the members of the
band like it when she’s around and my little girls around. It just adds that
female presence to the bus and it adds a lot of fun. Not every trip, but a lot
of the time they come with me and I love it! Orin: Let’s
go back to a ‘Show of Hands’, right, did you ever expect that one would end
up being such a groundbreaking album? Victor:
Well, I guess I could say that I
knew that it could be because I knew that I had never heard an album done
in the way that I had heard it in my head. I had been thinking about this record
for many many years. Orin: You
spend your whole life coming up with your first one, and nine months coming up
with your second. Victor: Exactly,
so I had been thinking, I knew I wanted my first record to be a totally solo
bass record. Over the years I didn’t know how to do it because I knew I had to
make it listenable. How do you make a person listen to one instrument for 30 or
40 minutes? I just had to figure out how to do it. So I think it was back
in 1983 I just sat down with a friend of mine and an ADAT, just to start
recording things. I hadn’t planned on that becoming the record at the time. I
was just trying to get to get some ideas down, to see how it would work. But as
I started, the ideas just started flowing. I had ‘Classical Thump’ as a demo
that I had started recording back in `87… How do you make a
person listen to one instrument for 30 or 40 minutes? Orin: I
was going to ask you how ‘Classical Thump’ came about? Victor: It
just kind of happened with exercises really, that I was using to practice these
techniques. It started from there back in `87. At that time I was listening to a
lot of Yngwie (Malmsteen), Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan. A lot of these rock
guitarists and bassists who were mixing the classical stuff with it. The only
way I could play that stuff, besides the tapping that they would do a lot of, or
Sweep Picking, was to use this new thumb technique. So I started using this
technique through major arpeggios and things like that. Orin:
So
if the record came out in `96, you were
doing this a decade before it even came out? When I first heard it, I
wasn’t even playing at that time. I had put it down to produce and it’s not
till I actually got this show (Orin is bandleader for the Canada's award winning
talk show Open Mike with Mike Bullard) that I picked up the bass again. But in
the middle of that is when I heard ‘Show
of Hands’. When I heard that record, I
thought ‘Okay this guy is redefining what bass guitar can be in this day and
age’. That’s when I got hip to Victor Wooten. So I’m thinking ‘So that
leaves this record as a documentation of everything up to that point’. Victor: Right
exactly, that’s the best way I’ve ever heard it put. Yeah, it’s a
documentation of a lot of things up to that point, produced as a solo
performance. Orin: So that creates the next question…With your second album, What Did He Say?, did you feel that you were under a lot of pressure?
Victor:
No, I haven’t felt any pressure yet, because I have lots of ideas that
I still have gotta get out. Now I have the opportunity to do it! The opportunity
and even the finances to do it. Basically what I am saying is, that I haven’t
run out of ideas yet. Orin: That's a scary thought! You hurt everybody’s feelings with A Show of Hands, you came out with a minimalist approach with that one, and you took it up one level, one notch with What Did He Say. You put some drums in there, but you didn’t really go full out. And then when you came in with Yin Yang, it’s seems that at that point you were saying “Okay, let me give you the full out production record and a full out vocal record, all in the same package. So I’m wondering ‘When does this guy stop?’ Victor:
Not yet (laughs) Orin:
Could
you touch upon the Yin Yang philosophy for the people who don’t know much
about it, and how you ultimately incorporated that philosophy into the records. Victor:
The Yin Yang of course, meaning opposites, in my head, it’s a way of
recognizing or saying ‘You are what you are, only in relation to what you are
not’. You can’t be tall unless a short person shows up. You can’t be thin
unless a fat person shows up. So in other words all the parts are needed, you
know, we spend a lot of time talking bad about this or that, and not realizing
that it is ‘that’ that is allowing you to be ‘this’. Everything is
needed, so there’s room for all of it. Yin Yang just kind of says that
perfectly. Orin: I love the
track where you actually sing the verses and how all the opposites fall in.
Let’s go back now to ‘Brother John’, where were you writing that from? Victor:
The
way that song came about was that it was written from stories that my Mom and
Dad used to tell us growing up about John Wooten. John Wooten was an actual man
who could really eat the way it says in the song! The story about him was
somebody asks him if he could eat a huge watermelon, and he said ‘Hold on and
I’ll be back’, and he went home, `cos he said he had a watermelon that size
at home and he wanted to see if he could eat that one first before he came back
and ate this one. So he actually ate two of them that size! These were actually
legends of this guy who could eat so much. My Dad is a great singer, and the
style of singing I like to hear him most is that old Southern Gospel style. I
don’t even know what they call it, but he sings it so it sounds kinda jumpy.
So I wrote that song just so I could have a way for him to sing his style and
tell those stories about John Wooten. I thought it would be funny and he would
get a kick out of it. Orin: You’re
pretty free as to what you put on your records Victor:
Yeah,
because I do the records firstly for me, meaning I’m doing exactly what I want
to hear, exactly what I want to say. So I am being very very honest with my
music. Orin: That
takes a lot of courage to do that because ultimately you’re not making the
records just for yourself. The creative process is one thing, but you’re not
just keeping it and holding it in your basement. You putting it out for the
whole world to hear and that takes a lot. Victor: Well
thank you. My idea is that if I am truthful with the audience and more people
can understand and stick by me, I think it will touch more people. I think I can
touch more people with honesty than with a character. When I’m performing on
stage or I am performing on a record, it’s me. But, let me say another thing…I have the luxury of having another band to also put music out with. See The Flecktones put music out and that’s another part of me, and because thaband has kind of a major record deal, we travel If I didn’t have The Flecktones
going on maybe I would have to focus a little more on how I can make more money
with these records and maybe I wouldn’t have the luxury of being real honest.
Some people really can’t do that. If you make that record like I’m doing,
maybe it’s not gonna sell so much. Maybe you would have to figure out how to
get the money flow going so that you can go back and do your real artsy thing. Orin: Right, I
hear you. I’m gonna get into that in a sec. Now I want to touch on the Yin
Yang album itself. So I would like to fire off a bunch of questions and I would
like you to fire back the first thing that comes to your mind. You have an instrumental and a vocal record in one release, why? Why wouldn’t you break `em up and extend them over time? Victor: Well I thought it was the best way to
demonstrate the Yin Yang concept. It can almost make it a novelty. But my
original idea was to release the two CD’s separately. At separate times, a
couple months apart. The record label talked me outta that. They said
‘You’ll just be competing with yourself’. You know when you put a record
out, you’re fighting for press. You’re fighting for a magazine to do an
article and they didn’t want to have to do that fight twice. Just months
apart, that made sense to me. So I said ‘let’s just put `em out together’.
On the Yin Yang album~”My original idea was to release the two
CD’s separately”. Orin: Well it’s a great record. What would you say is your favorite cut off that record? Victor:
If I had to had to pick a favorite it would have to be ‘Kaila
Speaks’, the one where she’s talking by herself and then we added music to
it. Orin:
How
long did it take you from the conception of that actual song to it’s finish.
Also, was it hard to make it work? Victor:
You know, I don’t really know as to whether it was hard to make it
work. I don’t really know because I didn’t even know it was gonna work until
it was done. We were just doing it in the hopes that it was gonna work. The
first thing I did was piece together what she said. Just her talking. I would
find long phrases that would work and then I would have to add in other phrases
till I got it to the actual length that I wanted. The next thing I did was that
I went in and learned it basically. Phrase by phrase I took my bass and played
along with her. That took a few hours and I just put myself into it so much that
I don’t even know how long it took. Orin: So when you start working on a concept like that, do you just keep on going until you’re done, or do take a break from it, coming back the next day? Victor: Usually for me I can’t just stop in the
middle, once I’ve started. There were times, and that song was one of them,
that I just stayed at the studio and let everybody else go home until I was
finished. I actually kept my brother there
too, Joe, who played the keyboards. He had to fly out the next morning but he
was gracious enough to stay with me ALL night until his plane had to leave.
I’m not really a piano player and his harmony knowledge is better than mine is
anyway. So together after I got my bass part doubling her vocal track, we were
able to match this chord with that phrase. Orin: How old is
Kaila now? Victor:
She’s 2 and a ½ now. Orin:
Does
she come to you now and say ‘Daddy, play my song’. Orin: The
one where she kicks it off. Victor: Yeah,
she loves that. She knows the whole beginning of it and sings along with it and
then she dances. My daughter, she can hear a groove man. When the tune starts
going she starts bopping, she really loves that song. So she will come up to me
and say “Play ‘Kaila’s song’ Orin: So she’s really into it. Now another one you did that was wild that everybody’s been talking about was 'Pretty Little Lady'. I didn’t get it until I read into it. I was just listening to it and wondering ‘What is using on his voice?’. I didn’t realize that you had sung it in reverse, then reversed it again to make it sound like it was recorded forward. That is totally gone. Now I was thinking that this guy is either totally gone or his mind is somewhere else. How does a person come up with something like that? Victor: You know, I don’t know, I really don’t
know, but I remember sitting in the chair, I was at home actually, and that idea
hit. I do a lot of overdub stuff at home, so I was just sitting around and I
thought ‘Oh, I wonder what that would sound like?’ and I went out, got my
little Lexicon Jam Maker, I knew that would play in reverse, I just plugged a
Shure `58 mic into it and started learning it backwards a phrase at a time. I
thought ‘that’s kinda cool’. Orin: At the end
of the day, how long does something like that take? Victor: Ummm, to do the whole song, which was really just two verses, my guess
would be about three hours. Orin: I figured
it would be more like three days, or even three weeks! Victor:
Oh no, one sitting. Orin:
So
your creative process is pretty quick. Would you say that your ability to go
from a concept to a finished product is fairly fast. Victor: Yeah,
I do know that compared to most people, it’s very fast, most people I work
with. It’s because I put full confidence into my ideas, where a lot of people
come up with an idea and either they talk to someone about it and that person
tells them how stupid it is. So they talk themselves out of it, before they even
fully think about it the idea, they say ‘Well, it may not work’ and then
they start thinking about how they’ll feel if it doesn’t work, what’s this
person gonna say?… Orin: They start
putting their limitations there… Victor:
Exactly, if it doesn’t work, I don’t care. If you hear it and you
don’t like it, I still don’t care. Well,
I do care, but it doesn’t affect who I am. Because my idea doesn’t
work doesn’t make me any less of a person. So I go into this idea fully, which
is usually why I can’t stop until it’s completed. So these ideas, these
vocal ideas, I do `em in one sitting. I just can’t get myself to get up `cos it’s not done yet. Orin: I
was expecting to hear it would take way more time. Maybe that goes to show why
you’re at the level your at and most people aren’t. Victor: You know I think it’s because
of the way I think. I have total confidence in myself and it’s very different
from ego. I can have as much confidence in someone else. I don’t think that I
can do what no else can do, I know that I am doing what other people won’t
do for whatever reason. But I don’t see myself any better than any one
else, but I just do what’s in my head. Orin:
While
we are on that train of thought, I’m gonna jump a little bit. Do you ever have
people who think they can think like that? Meaning, they think they can have an
open ended idea but they can’t really follow it through. Do you have people
that actually hate you because of
it? I have total
confidence in myself and it’s very different from ego. Victor: You know the way I grew up, I’m good at things. Especially physical things. I’m good at sports, umm, if I see you do something, whether or not I’ve done it, I can almost repeat it right back, once I’ve seen it done. It’s just the kind of person I am. You can imagine being a kid and being like that, being good at sports, you know, better than a lot of people your age, and people can start to get mad at you about that. Orin: I was just gonna say that, I was gonna ask you if you get ‘player hated’ at all. You must have guys, they’re working it out in their basements or wherever they’re playing, then they try and test you on it. Or do they know better? Victor:
You know, as a kid I can remember instances when that happened, people
would bring things and say ‘here’s something you can’t do’ or
whatever. At that age, I had to prove them wrong. I had to show them ‘Yes I
can’, and nowadays I don’t think like that.
If you think I can do something, or you think I can’t, you know,
that’s your thinking, not mine. I don’t have anything to prove to people
anymore. Another thing, I know there are
people out there doing loads of things I can’t do. There are musicians who can
hear the way I wish I could hear, that can play the way I wish I could play.
There’s tons of that out there. If you think I can do
something, or you think I cant, that’s your thinking, not mine. Orin: Are
we talking about the bass? That brings me to another question…Who inspires Vic
Wooten? Victor:
I would give you lots of names, but I’ll tell you what I am gonna do, I
am gonna keep it to bass players. Just to keep it simple. Orin:
If you were the starting guard and you had to retire, who would you feel
confident that could fill in that space. Victor:
Oteil Burbridge is one of the first names that comes to mind and the
reason being is because he has that relentless kinda way of thinking about music
that I do. Now he has a very high level of confidence about himself. But he may
be even more understated about it than I am. I don’t know if most people even
know the way that Oteil can play. This guy is amazing. I know this because I
have known him for about 20 years, but he’s great. Now I love different bass players
for different things. There’s a bass player in New York city called Mike Pope,
who can play like I have never heard anyone play through BeBop changes the way
this guy can play on the bass. Now I wish I could do that, I mean I really wish
I could. Orin: So you
aren’t sitting there thinking ‘ I’ve done all I can’, Vic can learn.
You’re always striving for that next level. Victor: I
think if I were to have thought about it, I would have to say ‘yes’. But I
really can’t honestly remember thinking about it that much. I can remember as
a kid always seeing Stanley Clarke and Steve Swallow and those guys in the polls
in things like that. Looking at it and thinking that’s cool and these are my
favorite players and things like that. I don’t know if I ever thought like
that, that one day ‘I’m gonna be #1’ I can tell ya I didn’t think
like that. Orin: Even
though you were doing things at an early age that no one else was doing. Victor: Well
I was, I think I can say, without it sounding like an ego thing, that I think I
was. See my 4 brothers are older than me and they just pulled me along. When I
was 5 we were out gigging. We did this tour with Curtis Mayfield when I was 5 or
6 years old. We opened some shows for War. You know, so age 5 and 6 I thought I
was a grownup musician. I don’t remember though, thinking so much that ‘One
day I was gonna be at the top’, or that people were gonna know who I was. My
Mom would always tell it that ‘It doesn’t matter if people know who you are,
it doesn’t matter what people say about what you do, it’s about where you
are with yourself. Orin:
With
that thought in mind, at this stage of the game, are you happy? Or would you
love a little bit less or like a lot more? Victor:
All of the above. I do want more, there are things that I want to get rid
of, but I am happy at the same time. Orin: What would it be that you want more of? Victor:
I would want to learn how to blow through Beebop changes like Mike Pope
can, also I would like to bring our music to more black people. Now I hope that
doesn’t come out wrong, but our audiences are mostly white people. I love it,
I mean, I love that they love what we’re doing, but I also wold love to bring
it to more black people, people of color, I guess you could say. That’s one
thing I would love. But with all the talents that I
have, how does that benefit you? What does Joe Blow on the street have to
benefit because I am talented? If Joe Blow can’t benefit, what use is it? So I
am always searching, which is one of the things that I am doing with the camp
this year. Orin: Let’s talk about that. How did that come about.
Victor: Eight
years now I’ve been taking classes in Wilderness Survival Skills, basically
how to get back to the earth. How to stop destroying Nature and how to relearn
the things that our ancestors knew. The things that the animals still know. The
animals they thrive out there on their own. They don’t have a grocery store,
they don’t have computers, they don’t have an educational system. But they
thrive, they get their own food, they make their own houses, they sing their own
songs. They really flow with Nature,
because they see themselves as part of Nature. They just are, where we see
ourselves as separate. So I’ve been taking classes from some people and I’ve
learned some amazing things, even some of the simple things like how to make
fire with sticks. How to track animals, how to look at an animals footprint and
say ‘This animal is left handed, weighs this much, his head is turned this
way, he stepped here because of this or that. That’s amazing to me. It’s
things that our ancestors knew because they had to. We’ve gotten so far away
from that. Orin: You could have done this for years on your own, how did you come to incorporate that into your other passion? Did you just decide you wanted to share this with other people? Victor: Yes, that’s part of it. These are two of
my passions, Music and Nature. But
also I realized that the way some of these teachers would teach and the things
they taught, I realized that I do that musically. That’s the same thing that
happens on the band stand. I started realizing, these are the same lessons I
would teach if I were teaching a group of musicians. I thought after a few years
that this is a way I could teach both of these things. I do wish people could
get back to Nature, and if they had just a little knowledge and the opportunity
of seeing some of the things I have been able to see, they would lead themselves
back to Nature. If you just know things like for
example, this leaf you see everyday on a tree, tastes like spearmint gum, how
many kids would like to know that? That’s great stuff to know. There just a
lot of it and we’re just gonna relate that to music through Nature. I’m
gonna show some of these tools that I learned about Nature and how they relate
to music. This is also so we can study music from a different angle. I’m
gonna show some of these tools that I learned about Nature and how they relate
to music. Orin: Do you
relate that non–linear thinking to how you got to where you are today? Victor: Oh,
most definitely. Absolutely, it’s because my thinking process is different
than most musicians that I have met. That’s what I really want to get into at
the camp, is how I think about music. Not that my thinking method is superior or
any of that, that’s not my point, but it is different than most people, most
conventional thinking. Orin: I’ve
gotta give you your dues, that’s why you do things the way you do. Second last
question…Do you ever have just a bad show, a bad day where you just hafta say
‘Damn, I was not on!’ Victor:
Yup,
quite a bit. I say quite a bit for me, which is probably less than most people.
It doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of shows where I play horribly, I’m
sure I do, but I kinda gauge my success differently than some people might. Orin: In what way? Victor: Okay,
when I’m on the stage I am up there for myself, to put myself in front of the
audience. That’s a big part of it, it has to be, but also I have to realize
that the audience is a big part of why I am there. Now it’s sorta like a
company, where you have to please your customer first. And as a company, if
you’re customers are not happy, you either find new customers that you can
service, or you have to change your product. Okay, so when I am on stage, I
realize that a big part of why I am there is also to please the public. So that means that sometimes I may
have let go of my own self and become more of what I am not really. To please
the audience, or I could just try to force myself on the audience, but usually
that doesn’t work. So there may be some nights where I have to sling the bass
around my neck more than I really want too. (Laughs). Even doing it once maybe,
because sometimes I don’t feel doing that every night for 10 years. But if the public is really asking for that, then maybe you just hafta do it. So what I am getting at is that part of what gauges my successful nights is how do I connect with my audiences?
Also, how well did I play? But the
thing is that the audience doesn’t know whether I played well or not, most of
the time. Because I could play the exact solo that’s on the Sinister Menace
record, that came out in 1990, I could play that same solo 10 years later and
please the audience, but that may not really be playing well for me. Maybe now,
10 years on, I can play 10 times better than that. If I can only play that well,
then maybe I didn’t play that well for now. But maybe the audience will still
be pleased. So there’s a balance between
pleasing the audience and pleasing myself. When I can get those two to line up,
then that’s a great night! Orin: Now
in The Flecktones, your brother Futureman (Roy) plays with you, other than that,
do you guys collaborate? Victor:
Yes, but not a lot. Not a lot because, The Flecktones are 90% of our
musical output right now, so when we are apart, we are not doing much musically
together. I may end up doing more with my other brothers. Orin: To
wrap it all up, do you ever plan to get into other ventures, like producing
other artists, composing for TV, film, etcetera? Victor: Man,
I hope to do all of the above, I really do. I’ve had some pretty bad
experiences with producers, my brothers and I when we were recording a record up
in New York, went through a pretty horrible deal with a well known producer at
the time. That kinda made me say that ‘one day if I ever get to produce, I
wanna make the artist happy. I wanna work hard at getting the artist's sound, not
just putting my sound on top of their music. We kinda live in a day and age
where it’s about the producers. “Who produced it? Oh, Babyface, then it’s
gotta be good!”. Or you hear a song on the radio and you say “Oh, that’s
Prince” or “Oh, that’s Babyface” and not that that’s bad, but
sometimes the producers sound is more than the artist’s sound. Orin:
Yeah,
Stanley was one of my first influences so I am all up on it. Marcus is running
things in New York, so you’ve got one in L.A. and one in New York, and
Nashville is a hotbed right now. I wanna know ‘Is Vic gonna control that end
of the spectrum?’. Victor (Laughs)
Yeah, Marcus and Stanley stay out of Nashville!
No,
but I really do hope to get into all that. But another reason is also so I
don’t have to tour as much as I am right now. Holly and I are gonna have
another baby in January, and it’s just not fair to travel as much as I do. So
if I can find out ways to generate income so that she doesn’t have to work
unless she wants to. So I am looking for ways to do that. Orin:
Well
I think that about wraps it up Vic, it was a very cool time. I’m glad I got a
chance to pick your brain a little bit. Victor:
Well I appreciate it man, I also wanna say it’s great to see you being
a bass player and a band leader on TV and all that, that’s really amazing,
that’s a big thing because, I don’t know if our country (the U.S of
A.)
is ready for that kind of thing yet, I really don’t. Orin: It is an
amazing thing, the coolest part of the gig is that I
get to a level where I get to meet so many great people, like yourself.
October 27th, 1998***, I will never forget it! And to have it on a
national level. It’s great, I never thought I would be writing articles or
doing any of that. I never thought I would be doing that 5 years ago. Victor: I
don’t know if you know it or not, but I think you are gonna create a lot of
opportunities for a lot of people. I use you as an example a lot of the time,
when I am giving a lesson or just talking to people, about what can be done.
What avenues are available for bass players? `Cos a lot of people who are just
starting out are saying “What can I do as a bass player?” They only look at
the avenues that we have right now. They don’t look ahead. Let’s see if I can explain it…meaning, at one time a bass player as a bandleader for a talk show wouldn’t even come into the picture because that doesn’t happen! You gotta set your sites ahead of the page. You can’t keep set on where things are right now. Soon as you get there, you’ll be able to see much further ahead and that’s where you’re gonna wanna be.
Some Notes on Victor Wooten…you can visit Victors rather incredible website at…
Tons of great photo’s and info, samples, lessons, anecdotes, positive thoughts, news on his many projects including the new Vital TechTones album VTT2 as well as the new Bela Fleck and the Flecktones release ‘OUTBOUND’ on SONY/Columbia Records. There’s also info there on the BASS CAMP…stories about each of the 20 tracks on YIN YANG and so on. Some Notes on Orin Isaacs…
****On October 28th,
1998 Victor Wooten was a guest on the Canadian television show on which Orin
Issacs presides as bandleader. It was a chance for two monster bass players to
not only meet toe to toe, but also capture that moment from the show in a great
instrumental song on Orin Isaacs first solo CD, ‘Where I’m From”. You can contact Orin
at… or visit his website at... Editor’s Note:
I really enjoyed handing over the
interview reins to Orin on this one. There is a part of me that wanted to be the
one talking to Victor, but to tell the truth, one thing I learned a while ago is
to ‘hire up’. What I mean by that is this…if you want a job done really
well, of course, do it yourself. But if you want & need a phenomenal job
done, sometimes it is best to just get your ego out of the way and ‘hire
up’. ‘Hiring up’ is when
you find someone who is better at the job than you are and delegating them the
task. In the case of Orin Isaacs, I knew I was leaving this task in very capable
hands. He told me that he
wanted to go at this interview from a different angle. It would have been easy
to talk about string gauges, amps, the Yin-Yang basses, but Orin wanted instead
to take a different approach. He want to find the man behind the music, he
wanted to help us see not only what Victor does, but why he does it and how he
thinks. I think that Orin did a
better job than I would have ever done. One of the things that
I find most amazing about Orin is the complete lack of arrogance about his
playing that he has integral to his personality. Like Victor, he is confident
but not arrogant. What Orin doesn’t seem to truly realize is that he is in most if not all ways already in the league of player that Victor is. Victor knows this, as do I, but Orin has the typical Canadian modesty that I am gonna beat out of him! Just kidding! However long the gig
with the Mike Bullard Show is there, Orin will be found 5 days a week ripping
his band through some great fusion tunes and songs of all sorts, for that
matter. He will, as Victor says, be a shining example of what us skungy bass
players can achieve, just as Victor is. Orin also plans a second solo album soon, that if I have my way, will tear up the charts, forcing him to face the fact that he is not only gonna turn some heads, he’s gonna have to deal with the fact that he is just going to have to tour. So don’t be too surprised to see him coming through your town one day in the not too distant future. He is a powerful bass player and a force to contend with. You’re really gonna want to be there.
Editor August 12, 2000 P.S.
One last note…in setting this interview up on the page and looking for
a title for the article, I fought long and hard for a headline. Not because it
was particularly difficult, Victor is an outgoing articulate guy with lots of
great opinions. It’s just that the nudge in me REALLY wanted to call this
article “WOOTEN TOOTIN’ “. What stopped me?
It just really came down to the fact that I had no deep wish to get
thumped out twice, once by Vic and once by Orin. Probably a third time too, by
you. W.M. |
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