Bass player jokes have existed for probably about as long as the invention of the instrument, as have bass solo jokes. And despite Mastodon bassist Troy Sanders joking about doing a bass solo on "Teardrinker," it actually ended up happening and being really good!
Sanders said in an interview with Guitar World that he originally joked he could do a bass solo on the song before one of the guitarists took their own solo. Everyone laughed, Sanders decided to run with the joke and actually record one, and now here we are – bass solo on a Mastodon record.
"When we were writing the song, the guitar players wrote two bridge parts that would be perfect for guitar solos, one on each of them. We were listening to them, and trying to figure out which part would be better for each guy, and I jokingly said, 'I'll just put a bass solo on the first one, and one of you guys can do a guitar solo on the second.' Everybody giggled, and that was it.
"Well, the next morning, I went to the studio early before everybody got there, and I tracked a loose bass solo on that first bridge part. When the guys showed up, I said, 'Hey, I recorded that bass solo that I was talking about,' and played it back to them. They all liked it, so now we had something that turned from a silly joke to an interesting moment that I'd never done in Mastodon before."
Mastodon is currently wrapping up their tour with Opeth and Khemmis. Check out those dates below, as well as an acoustic version of "Teardrinker" released earlier this year.
5/7 Vancouver, BC – Thunderbird Sports Centre [Tickets]
5/8 Seattle, WA – Paramount Theater [Tickets]
5/9 Portland, OR – Keller Auditorium [Tickets]
5/11 Riverside, CA – Municipal Auditorium [Tickets]
