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Tips for Up-and-Coming Bassists with Carl Dawkins: Thoughts & Building Confidence
Meet Carl Dawkins –
While deciding which topic to focus on next, I hit a bit of a fork in the road. There were several options I considered as far as where to take these columns. Many of them overlapped to a point, but all drew from different criteria I always find circumstantial to the individual. Faced with this dilemma, I decided to call Jake Kot (BMM editor) to discuss my role in the magazine and what I might offer as far as my articles are concerned. After a lengthy discussion, it was left up to me…that’s right, total control.
This however made things a bit more difficult as far as what topics to address and whether they would be beneficial for you, the reader. To cut a long story short, I’m not one for wasting time or using unnecessary minutes solely on deciding what to write about. So in great British form, I’m winging it, which ironically is the whole point of this article.
There will be situations in your career where you are caught off guard, or thrown into unusual situations where all of a sudden you’re called to do some playing, but the fact is you haven’t practiced in a while. These things happen to every musician, and these are the situations that define us as players.
So how do we get around these situations? We can always prepare for the unexpected, but that takes time away from preparing for the expected, not to mention there are so many different scenarios that can arise it would be almost impossible to prepare for all of them. With all of this in mind, you may now be thinking twice before stepping out of your door to take your dog for a walk contemplating what might show up seconds later.
With so many working musicians in the industry, and taking into account that I said every musician encounters situations such as these, you might be coming to the conclusion that there might be some “trick” to handling them. The truth is, it comes down to one thing…confidence. Some of you might know the illusionist Darren Brown. A lot of his work and his stunts are based around the confidence he has, and the tone in his voice that may make for example a bookie to pay out on a losing betting slip. The same principle applies to us as musicians. When faced with precarious situations, just try to be confident in your decisions, which might involve your attitude, your note choice, or section changes (in a song).
A motto I’ve always tried to follow is, “be loud–be confident–be wrong—in that order”. When you’re on stage, you’re all relying on each other to be confident. If you’re loud, and confident, and wrong the first time, the next time you’ll cut that scenario back because then you’ll be more confident about handling the correction.
Imagine this scenario: You haven’t played for a week due to the strains of life, and you go to watch a gig with a friend. Your friend pushes you to go up and sit in. Instantly you’re nervous, anxious, and thinking to yourself, why did I come up here? This will unequivocally show up in your body language, which instantly gives off bad vibes to the audience. When you’ve gained everyone’s attention, what you want to try to do is project feelings of relaxation and confidence. Don’t slouch, look around the venue, make eye contact, and clear your head. Just be a solid player, trust your instincts, and be confident.
I never suggest turning down gigs, but if you’re seriously under-qualified, it might be wise to tell them your busy and recommend someone you know that might be able to handle the gig—then get “right to work” so you don’t have to do a replay of that the next time the phone rings. Or you can just go for it, show them you’re not a bedroom warrior[1] and learn from the experience.
Confidence, being able and willing to wing it, as well as playing a simple solid line if asked to are the keys to handling any situation. Your look /image and your body language on and off stage are very important as well, as you are trying to create a good impression. They say the first 10 seconds after you’ve walked into a room are the most important, and leave the biggest impression.
We gain power through experience, and although you may have some hiccups, and may regret certain actions, that experience is still invaluable. The more people know about you in a positive light, the quicker word gets out, meaning your phone will start ringing and the emails will flood in!
Like David Gilmour once said “bass players are ten a penny, but one with a good wit is hard to find”. The point is, it’s not just your playing that counts, it’s everything about you, especially if you’re auditioning for a full time member slot, or auditioning for a touring band. Be yourself, be confident, and be professional.
[1] If you’re not familiar with this term, it’s basically a musician that spends a lot of time in his room practicing and learning all the unnecessary bitts you wouldn’t use in a song – so they post videos on the internet.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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