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Bass Musician Magazine’s Year of the Luthier – Axel Roks
Bass Musician Magazine’s Year of the Luthier – Axel Roks
How did you get your start in music?
I think I was about 12 years old. My father took me to a Mother’s Finest concert. It was the very first concert I ever attended and it was an amazing experience. I somehow felt connected with the bass playing of Wyzard; I was mesmerized by the movement of his hands and feeling the low frequencies in my body. When the show was over it was clear to me that I wanted to play bass guitar.
Are you still an active player?
I am, however it is getting harder to find the time to play due to my job as a Luthier.
How did you get started as a Luthier?
I have a background in restoring classic cars and mechanical engineering. Because of that I already had experience with industrial design before I started building basses. I quickly realized the designing process doesn’t confine itself to a certain material or object so it could easily be applied to Lutherie. With this thought in mind I went to the lumberyard and bought some wood. I wasn’t happy with the basses I was playing at the time. I also did not have the financial means to buy the basses I desired. So why not build one, it couldn’t be that difficult.
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How did you learn the art of woodworking/Luthier? Who would you consider a Mentor?
I’m self-taught. But I think people of my generation are brought up autodidact. The Internet is a goldmine of information, you can teach yourself practically anything. I really enjoyed the videos of Carl Thompson, they gave me a lot of inspiration when I was starting out.
How do you select the woods you choose to build with?
Wood, to me, has to have certain characteristics to be used in guitar building. Which are: looks, density and feel. All of these factors contribute to the final outcome of a bass. Wood is a wonderful material in all its diversity. I love to use woods I’ve never worked with before.
How about pickups? What pickups did you use in the past? What electronics do you use right now?
I use pickups from EMG, Haussel or some of my own. They all have their own features that can complement a properly built bass. My goal is to build versatile basses and I feel a good preamp adds to this, especially on a gig. I’ve had situations where my drummer would go bananas and wash away my sound, tweak the preamp a little and your sound is back. It’s like adding seasoning to a dish.
How do you develop a signature or custom bass for an artist?
Essentially every bass I make is a signature. Every bass is created in close collaboration with its future owner, from selecting the woods to the finishing.
Can you give us a word of advice to young Luthiers who are just starting out?
There might be someone reading this right now who has these ambitions. If anyone thinks about starting a career in guitar building, it is the job of you, me and everybody else to stand around and join together in a chorus, Do It! Do It! Do It!
Are you preparing something new, some new model or new design?
I am working on a new bass that takes its inspiration from a chair. I am a sucker for Scandinavian design and I was so inspired by the works of Arne Jacobsen that I wanted to make a bass with one of his chairs in mind. The project has a very “form follows function” approach; every feature is there with a reason. The bass will hopefully make its grand entrance later this year.
Visit Online:
- www.facebook.com/roks.instruments
- www.roks-instruments.com
- www.youtube.com/channel/UCMpsbxVWQXi2PULeU7Z4elg
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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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