BASS GOD : Mike Watt

Name : Mike David Watt
DOB : December 20th, 1957
DOD : n/a

Background:
Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Mike Watt and his Family moved to San Pedro in California where he met his best friend and soul mate D.Boon.
Completely ingnorant of music at the time, Watt and Boon picked up Bass and Guitar respectively and started to do music themselves.
Mike Watt suggests that having no role models whilst trying to navigate the instrument left him free to develop his own style and approach to playing bass guitar.
The mid 70′s saw the young Watt fall in love with punk music and form a band that later became The Minutemen with D.Boon and George Hurley. They signed with SST records in 1980 and toured constantly, releasing a number of Albums and EP’s alond teh way until the untimely death of  D.Boon in a van accident 2 days after Watts Birthday on the 22nd December 1985.

Watt had decided to quit music altogether after the death of Boon and going through a profound depression, members of Sonic Youth picked up Watt and wouldn’t let him quit.

Mike Watt

A fan of the Minutemen, Ed Crawford, drove from Ohio to San Pedro to persuade the rhythm section of Watt and Hurley to continue playing with himself as singer/guitarist and thus fIREHOSE was born.
They released 3 records on SST and were then signed by Columbia.
In 1993 they called it a day shortly after the release of Mr. Machinery Operator.

Watt met Kira Roessler, Bassist for Black Flag, in 1984 and they were married in 1987. This lasted until shortly after fIREHOSE dispanded.

In January 2000 Watt fell ill with an infection in his Perineum forcing emergency surgery and 9 weeks bed rest.

The next few years were spent writing his solo and collaberation albums of which there are many and in 2003 Watt was asked to officially play bass or the Reunited Stooges after joining members of The Hives backing Iggy Pop for a small set of Stooges numbers.
He still fills that position today(july 2009), and still plays and collaberated with many different musicians.

Known For:
He would mostly be known for the post punk offerings of The Minutemen and fIREHOSE and more recently The Stooges but has colaberated with a veritable who’s who of contemporary recording artists, a long but not complete list of these artists follows:

Henry Rollins, Eddie Vedder, J Mascis, members of Sonic Youth & the Red Hot Chili Peppers , Janes Addiction, Frank Black, Dave Grohl, Evan Dando, Mark Lanegan, Porno For Pyro’s and notably he also played six track s on ‘My December’ the 3rd album release by American Idol contestant Kelly Clarkson.

Mike Watt is usually to be found with either a Fender or a Gibson Bass.