Stonefield Musical Instrument Company is pleased to announce the signing of Joe Branton, bassist for the Brighton, UK-based band Poly-Math as their newest endorsing artist.

Stonefield founder Tomm Stanley told us, “As a relatively new company, we’ve been very careful not to jump too quickly into the practice of signing up endorsing artists so as to make the company look bigger or more popular than it actually is.  I’m working for a  ‘quality instead of quantity’ approach and ideally we’ll only have one artist in any musical genre’ and they will be people that are genuine ambassadors for the brand.  We currently work with Freekbass in the world of funk music and he’s been amazing for us.  LA session artist Dan Antunovich has been our player in that space and beyond that I’ve just biding my time to see where we might find other similarly high quality players that discover something important to them in a Stonefield bass that they can’t find in other makes.”

Tomm and Joe first met earlier this year while Tomm was in the UK preparing for the London Bass Guitar show.  Zed Music Distribution’s Chris Mariani and Zoe Ashfield had been taking Tomm around to some of the shops that they supply instruments to, introducing him and the Stonefield brand to buyers.  Joe, who is also the Marketing Manager at the music store GAK, was quick to note that the Stonefield was quite a departure from what he was used to seeing in the world of bass guitars.  Relaying his memories of that meeting Joe said,  “It’s like Tomm had never played a normal bass before.  A Stonefield bass is designed from the ground up rather than being a variant on what’s come before.  Everything from the tuning system, the stringing method, the tone circuit, bridge construction, neck profile … it’s all completely unique and utterly brilliant.  When I first played a Stonefield I was amazed that it was so comfortable and that in spite of it’s reasonably normal weight it is a massive, chunky, wooden behemoth of a bass.  There’s no way something so different should feel so familiar.

Bringing the story forward to some time in mid April and Tomm continued, “A month or so after I had returned to New Zealand I received a contact from Joe that he was coming out of an arrangement with Fender and expressed an interest in working with us.  As a relatively young brand I was really taken by surprise … I mean, leave Fender?  But I didn’t hesitate.  I had seen that he loved our basses and we had gotten on really well together.  He’s a great player and I love Poly-Math’s musical style … you just can’t ignore those kind of things all coming together.  We shot some emails back and forth and it didn’t take long for us to work through the details.  I’m really excited to now have Joe on-board as a Stonefield artist.”

And Joe seems equally excited too, saying:  “For me, having the tonal capabilities without the sacrifice of having to use active circuitry is priceless.  Playing in Poly-Math requires such a broad pallet of tones; one minute I’ll need a woody, traditional old school thump, and the next I’ll need something with enough high mid focus to complement a thick distortion, I’ve never played a bass that can do all of that this so well and so effortlessly.  I couldn’t be happier with the instrument I now have.”

For a first look at Joe Branton tearing it up on his Stonefield just check out the promotional video for the new Boss MS-3 Multi Effects Switcher:

Poly-Math do the new pedal proud and the Stonefield sits so niclye in the mix that in the first day of the video’s release there were already comments about the sound of the bass.

To learn more about Stonefield’s industry-changing instruments make sure to take a look at www.stonefieldmusic.com.