Features
The Chicago Low Down – Interview with Bassist Patrick Mulcahy by Tim Seisser
For this month’s installment of The Chicago Low Down, we visit with bassist Patrick Mulcahy. Originally hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Patrick Mulcahy has been professionally based in Chicago for 10 years. During this time he has had the opportunity to play at many of the top venues in the city including The Green Mill, Auditorium Theater and Vic Theater. He has performed with Patricia Barber, Fareed Haque, and John Wetton to name a few. He is a founding member of District 97, a Chicago based progressive rock band that is rapidly becoming one of the hottest bands on the national prog rock scene. His playing has taken him all over the world with performances in Turkey, Poland, Macedonia and Switzerland.
Tim: So tell me a little bit about your introduction to music and the bass?
Patrick: It’s funny because many of the people I play with now were people I played with back in the day when I started playing music. The reason I started playing bass was because that was the instrument they didn’t play.
Tim: Were you an electric or upright player first?
Patrick: Electric first.
Tim: And when did you start playing the upright?
Patrick: I started halfway thru my junior year of high school. I played electric bass going into my freshman year of high school. I don’t really know why I started double bass, I know my parents wanted me to play it. Both my parents are classical musicians.
Tim: So when did you start to really take music seriously?
Patrick: Not until after high school. I wasn’t really college material right out of high school. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so I took a year off. About halfway thru that year I started taking lessons with Chicago bassist Scott Mason. Those lessons really inspired me to take music and my bass playing seriously, and I continued on at Roosevelt University.
Tim: So how and when did District 97 come to be?
Patrick: Well, I was always close with those dudes, we were always best friends and lived together. We went to high school together and I even went to grade school with the drummer Jonathan Schang. Our first band was Jonathan on snare drum, me yelling and a dude playing trombone, called The Firebird Rockets. (laughter). Then we started a prog rock band in high school. We always wanted to get back into playing more complicated rock music so we just ended up writing some music for my senior recital at Roosevelt, and that was the beginning.
Tim: Now I can remember, I was actually on the bill with another band at Lilly’s in Lincoln Park for what was the first District 97 gig.
Patrick: Yeah, I remember that show…
Tim: But the band lineup has changed since then right?
Patrick: It has. That actually turned out to be an auspicious night for us. That was the night, I believe, that we asked vocalist Leslie Hunt to join the band. She was actually also playing that same night in a duo, but Schang knew about her from some other groups she used to play with in Chicago. Also at that time, we were just an instrumental quartet with Sam Krahn playing guitar. Sam eventually developed tendonitis problems and we decided it was best for us to part ways. Shortly after that we got our current guitarist Jim Tashijian.
Tim: So how did things evolve from just a band playing around Chicago, to a nationally, and soon to be internationally, touring group.
Patrick: It actually happened in kind of a hilarious way. We at one point had marketed the band as “Chicago’s Number One Progressive Rock Band”. We had gotten Chicago Symphony Orchestra member Katinka Kleijn into the band playing cello, and we were getting heavier into our sound. So we put this claim of being the number one prog rock band onto a bill somewhere, which lead to this dude checking us out named Charles Snider. Charles is a progressive rock historian and enthusiast, his website is www.progressiverock.com. He saw our promo, and said “who are these guys, I’ve never heard of them”. So we sort of became friends with him, and eventually he pointed us in the direction of a label called Laser’s Edge, who we are still signed with today. So we sent our stuff to them, and from there we ended up discovering the progressive rock and progressive metal community and marketed ourselves to them.
Tim: Tell me a little bit about the new album, “Trouble With Machines”? Especially the writing process and where you guys recorded it.
Patrick: We found out that we are all too opinionated to do the collective writing thing. There are five people in the band who all have very strong and different opinions about what should happen in a song. So things work way better if someone comes in with a complete vision of the song. Otherwise it takes an embarrassingly long time to complete a song. Writing is a big challenge for me personally. I write really slowly and the music with District 97 is extremely layered and very specific. There is not really room for just saying “you do your thing here”. Also writing lyrics is a difficult thing. I write all the lyrics for my tunes that I bring to the band. That takes a lot of time and is something I am really self-conscious about.
Tim: Can you talk a little bit about your process of writing lyrics and how you bring those and melodies to a singer?
Patrick: For me personally, I try to have things worked out as much as I can before I bring a song to the table. But that usually ends up being pretty different than the final product. Then I meet with just Leslie and figure out what works for her and what doesn’t work, and then we change it accordingly. We have a great working relationship.
Tim: And where did you guys record the new album?
Patrick: We recorded the album at I.V. Labs in Chicago with Chris Harden. We did our first album there as well. This one differs from the first one in that the writing is more group oriented. Everybody, except keyboardist Rob Clearfield, wrote a song for this album. The first album was all Jonathan’s writing. It’s a ridiculously layered album, so the recording process was very time consuming. We really developed a connection with Chris and we really think he understands our music. We are really happy with the way it came out and the way it sounds.
Tim: When did you guys release “Trouble With Machines”?
Patrick: May of 2012. One thing that stands out about that album is that John Wetton, the former bass player and lead singer from King Crimson, is on the record. He sings on one of the tracks, “The Perfect Young Man”. So actually, when we go to Europe in May, we are playing with him. Part of the plan for the tour is that we are going to do a set of District 97 songs and then a set of King Crimson stuff, with him, but he is just singing. So I will be playing all his bass parts on those songs.
Tim: Damn, that’s very cool.
Patrick: It’s kind of bizarre really. Of course, normally he would be playing but he doesn’t feel like playing bass anymore, he just wants to sing. So that’s been a cool challenge to learn his parts.
Tim: Are you at all intimidated to step into his shoes on stage with him?
Patrick: We have performed with him once already, and he was super cool. He is a really nice guy and I think everything is gonna be cool. And I am sure he will politely suggest things, if anything needs to change. I am definitely going to be approaching things from a humble place. I literally grew up and went thru high school listening to those King Crimson records religiously. The King Crimson albums “Red” and “Starless and Bible Black” are some of my favorite shit and to be playing that stuff with him, playing his bass lines, it’s pretty crazy.
Tim: Are you planning on trying to play his bass lines verbatim, or are you going to be putting your own spin on things?
Patrick: That’s been interesting, because listening to them, it’s clear that he’s not sticking just to one bass line. He is really kind of improvising. So I am really listening for things that stick out as integral parts of the songs, especially some of the fills that he does. Generally I am just trying to play something in the spirit of what he did.
Tim: So what’s coming up next for District 97? I know you mentioned the European tour.
Patrick: The tour is definitely a big deal. We are writing a lot of music, and I am writing a lot of music for the next record. In fact we are writing so much that for the first time we are going to have to go thru an editing period to whittle things down to what will actually be on the record. Jonathan, our drummer, is about to start playing in this band with Phil Collins’ son. He is getting the chance to meet Phil and spend a couple of weeks with him in Miami, which we were hoping will lead to some new connections and opportunities. All in all, everything is pretty tour focused right now.
Tim: Now shifting gears away from District 97, what other notable projects have you been a part as of late.
Patrick: Well, I just finished an album with the great vocalist Sarah Marie Young. It’s called “Too Many Februaries” and we are looking forward to that being released very soon. Sarah’s thing has been really awesome cause I get a chance to play both electric and upright with her. It is definitely a totally different set of challenges with her group and couldn’t be any more different than District 97. It is much more groove focused. I have also been doing some stuff the last few years with vocalist Patricia Barber, which have been some of the cooler gigs I have gotten to do. We were just in Portland, and we have some stuff coming up in Canada and New York. I play all acoustic bass with Patricia.
Tim: What are the challenges that use face-balancing time between playing upright and electric bass?
Patrick: It’s a huge pain in the ass. I don’t know why, but gigs always seem to happen like a week and a half of upright gigs and then a week and a half of electric gigs. There is almost never any blending going on, which seems to be just random chance. The two instruments are completely different in my opinion, like say playing trumpet and piano. Basically, whenever I know I have some important upright gigs coming up I will make a determined effort to shed upright to get back into some kind of shape, because it falls away so quickly. With electric gigs I feel like I can kind of hang on for a little longer but with upright it’s different. Gear wise it is pretty annoying because it is hard to find a rig that works really well for both. I used to love using my little micro GK MB150 but mine died after many years of service. There doesn’t seem to be an easy way around it.
Tim: So tell me a little bit about your gear and what you use?
Patrick: I play a 5 string Sadowsky on all the District 97 stuff. I also have a 5 string fretless Elrick New Jazz Standard, which I really love but being a fretless, it doesn’t work in nearly as many situations. I also have a 1975 Rickenbacker 4001, which I bought because I used to be obsessed with Geddy Lee. I typically play out of an Ampeg 4×10 or a Markbass New York 1×15. I use a Realist pickup with my upright and usually plug straight into my Markbass rig. The upright is a German rip off of a Juzek, it is about 80 years old. My ideal rig is a big ass tube SVT with a 8×10. I don’t use any pedals with District 97 but I am in a band called Face Time with saxophonist Tony Barba and drummer Makaya McCraven and that’s almost all effects. The effects I use for that are a standard Big Muff, the POG II octave, a reverb/delay unit that I can’t remember right now and sometimes an MXR DI for a little grit.
Tim: Thanks for your time Patrick, and good luck on the European tour.
For more information about District 97 music, tour dates and more, check out the website www.district97.net
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It is very rare when I talk to a band where all the members play bass. The K3 Sisters Band is a perfect example of a group where Kaylen, Kelsey and Kristen Kassab are all multi-instrumentalists and take turns playing bass.
Hailing from Texas, these three sisters have been playing music since they were very young and have amassed an amazing amount of original music, music videos, streaming concerts, podcasts, and content that has taken numerous social media platforms by storm. On TikTok alone, they have over 2.5 million followers and more than a billion views.
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Here is the K3 Sisters Band!
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Danielle Nicole writes and sings the Blues. She does an amazing job at delivering both exquisite smoky vocals but plays just the right bass line to drive the tune home. Danielle recently released “The Love You Bleed” last January and will be touring the album this upcoming year.
Join me as we learn about Danielle’s musical journey, how she gets her sound, her plans for the future and more.
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Features
Bergantino Welcomes Karina Rykman to Their Family of Artists
Interview with Karina Rykman…
Karina Rykman…The high-energy bassist discusses her path on bass, her upcoming tour, how she came to find Bergantino through another Bergantino artist, and more!
A lifelong Manhattanite diehard New Yorker, Bergantino welcomes new Artist Karina Rykman. Jim and Holly had the privilege of meeting Karina and her band in Boston to see her perform. She lights up a stage with her charismatic passion as a bass player and singer – a true powerhouse of joy and energy. On stage, she smiles from ear to ear, hopping, jumping, and dancing; the entire room overflowing with positivity! If you don’t know this titan of bass yet, you will soon enough. Karina’s JOYRIDE 2024 tour picks up this month with the debut of her new album. We had the opportunity to ask Karina some questions about her career so far.
You have quite the career that began at a very young age. You have so much going on!! Can you share some of your musical path highlights you are most proud of?
Oh man, thank you! What a long, strange trip it’s been. I’m proud of still being so absolutely enthralled by music after playing in a million bands and finally ending up at this current juncture: being able to make my own music and tour under my own name. It just seems completely surreal – every gig, every recording…I’m on cloud 9 being able to continue to do this, and we’re just getting started. I’m extremely proud of being so young and being able to learn so much from Marco Benevento, without whom I’d be absolutely nowhere. Being put up to a large task with enormous shoes to fill, and stepping in even though I barely knew what I was doing at the time. Every gig with Marco is extremely special to me.
Tell us about your new album release Joyride and your 2024 tour.
Joyride is my debut record! It came out in August 2023, and we’ve been touring behind it nonstop ever since. You only make your first record once, and I’m so proud of this one – it’s fun, searing, lush, with chantable choruses and, of course, incredibly thick bass and infectious grooves. It was produced by Phish’s Trey Anastasio, who also contributes guitar parts to 5 of the 9 tunes.
What makes the bass so special to you particularly, and how did you gravitate towards it?
There’s nothing quite like feeling the subs rumbling under your feet in a venue and being responsible for those sounds is thrilling. I played guitar first, at age 12, but essentially completely switched over to bass when I was 22 and got the gig playing bass with Marco Benevento. I haven’t looked back since, except for a few gigs on guitar here and there (notably in the house band on Late Night with Seth Meyers and on The Today Show backing up Julia Michaels).
People hate this question, but: If you were constructing your personal Bass Mt. Rushmore, who are the four players that would make the cut and why?
Geddy Lee, Cliff Burton, Bootsy Collins, Les Claypool. The list goes on and on, of course, but those four have imprinted their unique styles upon my brain since I was so young, and I’m perpetually learning from them – even in the case of the deceased Cliff (RIP), going back and watching Cliff ‘Em All videos is something I do all the time. Endlessly compelled by these four players and their original takes on the instrument.
How did you learn to play?
I never took lessons, but in middle school and high school, I just surrounded myself with equally music-obsessed people. All we did was play music and go and see live music, which is wildly accessible when you grow up in New York City. I had a really tight-knit crew of amazing players as my friends, and everyone would teach each other riffs and licks. I was fearless – playing with people much better than me and saying “yes” to every cool opportunity that came my way. I essentially learned from playing in a million bands and playing along to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin records.
Are there any other instruments you play?
I started on guitar, and still love to write on guitar. I can get around on keyboards a bit, but you’d never hire me as a keyboardist. The same goes for drums – I LOVE playing drums but you’d never hire me as a drummer.
Describe your playing style(s), tone, strengths and/or areas that can be improved on the bass.
I play both with a pick and my fingers, depending on the specific needs of / vibe of the tune. I love playing fuzz bass and writing bombastic “lead bass” moments, which are a staple of my live show. I’d say I’m about the least “traditional” bassist in just about every way – which is both a strength and a weakness depending on how you frame it. I play what I hear, what I like, and I adhere to very few rules. I’ve always hated rules, and I didn’t start playing rock n roll to follow them.
How did you find Bergantino Audio Systems?
I’m pals with Mike Gordon, bassist of Phish, and his tech is named Ed Grasmeyer. Ed suggested he bring Mike’s Bergantino for me to try out at a show I was playing in Vermont, and I fell instantly in love.
You have been using the Bergantino Forté HP2 head. How have you been setting the controls on this and what changes to those settings might you make as you plug into your other individual instruments?
I love my Forté HP2! The versatility and headroom are incredible, and I’ve been having a lot of fun dialing it in at home. The real fun will begin this weekend when I take it out for 2.5 weeks of tour – dialing something in an apartment just isn’t the same as on a big stage with a PA and subs and all that good stuff. I like to roll my highs a bit and I keep “punch” on all the time. So far, it’s been a dream.
You are the inspiration behind Bergantino cab the new NXT410-C. Can you tell us more about this cab and your experience so far?
Firstly, I’m beyond touched to be the inspiration behind, well…anything! But this is truly insane, and such an honor. I love this cab. Not only is it light and extremely good-looking, it can handle all my loudest, most abrasive and obnoxious effects. My old amp didn’t come close, and could just fart out or I’d have to turn down to appease it. I’m a big fan of playing at earth-shattering volumes, so this is going to be a match made in heaven.
We all love your custom-made Goldie Hawn bass guitar! Can you share more with us about this bass design and why it is so special to you?
Thanks! That’s made by “Zeke Guitars” – it’s the second custom bass he’s made for me! He reached out in the summer of 2019 and asked what my dream bass would be, and I said it was basically my 1978 Fender P-Bass, but lighter, whiter, with Lindy Fralins, gold hardware, and shorter scale. And, well..he did exactly that! I love that bass so much. And the gold, which is referred to as Goldie Hawn, was born in December of 2022, and has the same specs. I just love it, it sounds amazing and looks, arguably, even better.
Jim and I were lucky to get to meet you in person when you came to Boston with the band. The members of the band are such a great group of people! Can you share more with all about the band and crew.
I’m so lucky to keep such incredible company. My bandmates, Adam November and Chris Corsico, are not only unbelievable musicians but also incredible humans. We just laugh and laugh, and we’re there for each other when the road gets tough or we’re exhausted or whatever life throws at us. It’s the joy of my life to get to tour the world with these guys. And the crew! That night was Connor Milton on sound and Nick Koski on lights – we have a rotating cast of people who play those roles based on availability, and everyone who works for us are absolute consummate professionals and the sweetest humans. They are my team of experts and I just adore them so much. Shout out to Zach Rosenberg, Jeff Volckhausen, Dylan Hinds, Dom Chang, for being the best rotating crew a gal could ask for!
What else do you do besides music?
Not much! I love going to the beach! I love eating dinner!
Because I am a foodie, I always ask people what their favorite food is!
Oysters, caviar, sushi. I’m a raw bar fanatic.
At a very young age, Karina is a diligent hard worker. She juggles many balls managing her business and is savvy beyond her years. We are very happy to be working with Karina and are excited for her continued success!
Follow Karina Rykman:
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Facebook @karinarykman/
Bass Videos
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Blind since birth, she is a powerhouse of talent; she is not only a professional bassist, but also composes music, and is a producer and educator. I am just blown away by her talent and perseverance.
Join me as we hear about Ciara’s musical journey, the details of her album, how she gets her sound, and her plans for the future.
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Bluegrass music has had a very solid following over many years and I am always happy to hear from one of the pioneers in that genre.
Travis Book plays bass for the Grammy award-winning band “The Infamous Stringdusters” and has recently released his first solo album “Love and Other Strange Emotions”. As if he wasn’t busy enough, Travis also hosts a podcast, Plays a Jerry Garcia music show with Guitarist Andy Falco, and is constantly gigging locally in his neck of the woods.
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