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Start Your (Creative) Engines! by Steve Gregory
Start Your (Creative) Engines! by Steve Gregory… The worship bassist is an interesting animal. Insert a nature documentary voice-over here:
“Here we see worship bassists in their natural habitat – the church. Highly skilled in interpreting others’ works, the worship bassist’s primary role is to support the worship function. Our team has noted that, over the span of several months, there were several songs that the worship bassist would be required to play week after week. Full of determination, the worship bassists would carefully navigate a course that included both inspiration and excitement, while not straying too far from the original music. Yes, interpretation is a major function of the mighty worship bassist – a magnificent beast to witness in person.”
Does some of this ring true for you? We are often asked to interpret songs and, in many cases, to reproduce songs in a careful manner. Since our role is to provide a setting for worship, radical derivation from the original song is not often needed. More often than not, staying true to the original is necessary to allow our congregations to quickly recognize, sing along with, and worship to the music we present.
This is a difficult task for many reasons, but a big issue that needs to be addressed is one of creative atrophy. It is very easy to see a weekly set list that contains songs that you know like the back of your hand. When many of the songs are also based on steady, root-based pedal lines, the creative part of our brains can be neglected.
This is not to say that interpretation is not important – quite the contrary. What I am pointing out is that there is a trap of rote reproduction that worship bassists must be aware of and avoid. When worship bassists become ensnarled in this problem, three symptoms can be seen. First, interpreted songs sound lackluster and emotionless. Second, when called upon to be creative (when a newly written song is presented to be “fleshed out” by the band, for example) the artistic resources are slow to respond and difficult to tap. Third, there can be a bothersome sense of lack that overcomes the player and exhibits itself in lowered energy and attitude.
The last symptom recently bit me. My worship team had several weeks during which the worship material was very familiar. I felt a restless hunger to stretch, but I was not finding a way to feed that hunger. I was complaining about the “creative muscle cramps” I was experiencing to my friend Dane, who was able to empathize with my position. Dane’s suggestion was simple and spot-on: find a way to be creative every single day. In other words, make sure you are constantly exercising your creative muscles so that, when they are needed, they respond appropriately. Also, keeping your creative juices flowing will ensure that your interpretations are fresh and energetic.
So, the first exercise in creativity is coming up with exercises for creativity! Here’s a short starter list:
- Use a looper to set up a basic chord progression. Play different bass lines to the loop or find lines to layer on top of the track.
- Take a song you know well and learn another part. Be able to play the vocal line or the lead line, for example.
- Play over a song with a completely different bass line – if the song is a slow ballad, try playing a sixteenth note pedal. For a fast song, play only in quarter note triplets.
- Find tracks without a bass line, whether a songwriter’s demo or a song that wasn’t recorded with bass, and create a part.
- Turn the sound off on your television and play along, interpreting the scenes on the screen. What does the basketball game sound like on bass? How about something from Animal Planet? Antiques Roadshow?
- Write a song that is inspired by a piece of visual art.
- Take inspiration from your reading or quiet time and interpret passages and verses on your bass.
Come up with your own exercises – the possibilities are endless! Flexing your creative muscles will keep them ready for action and will infuse your interpretative playing with new energy. You may even find that there are parts of the “same old song” with which you could do something different and, dare I say, be creative?
I would love to hear your stories of creativity and worship bass! Let me know if you’ve beaten creative apathy and what you did to do it. You can always reach me on Twitter (@sgregorybass) or in the Bass Musician Magazine Community!
Until next time, I hope that your bass playing is blessed and that you can bless others through your bass playing!
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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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