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Victor Wooten Presents ‘Fun & Funk Xplosion’ Tour With Special Guest Sinbad
Victor Wooten, currently on tour in support of his widely praised new album, TRYPNOTYX, will kick off the eclectic “Fun & Funk Xplosion” Tour featuring special guest SINBAD April 24.
The tour will also feature Victor’s brothers Regi Wooten, Roy “Futureman” Wooten, and Joseph Wooten (on selected dates), as well as saxophone innovator Bob Franceschini. This exclusive limited10-date tour will conclude May 5, at the Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta, GA. A full list of dates is below.
“I get to tour with the most amazing people. Dennis and Bob have always been heroes of mine. I learn from them every night,” says Wooten. “Rejoining with my brothers is always like a family reunion. They’re my original teachers. The tour with Sinbad will be Crazy Fun. We all know he’s funny, but most don’t realize how musical he is. He’s also a historian. This show is gonna be funky and funny, enjoyable and educational. I wouldn’t miss is if I were you.”
“I can’t even begin to express how excited I am to be on this tour with Victor Wooten and friends,” says Sinbad. “Although people may know about my love for music, most don’t know that I also play (shedding hard for this tour ). I can’t believe I get to be in the band playing percussion with Victor his brothers and the rest of this talented band. Victor is not only one of the baddest bass players that ever lived, but his approach to music is the most unique of any musician I have ever met. I am looking forward to picking everyone’s brain on the tour bus about every instrument. The Funk is gonna be heavy on this tour, and I am all about the funk. All I can say is If you get a chance to check us out …you will be moved and blessed with some funk and fun!”
Wooten, a five-time GRAMMY award-winning musician, producer, composer, author, and educator, produced his tenth album TRYPNOTYX which features legendary drummer Dennis Chambers (Bootsy Collins, Santana), veteran saxophonist Bob Franceschini (Mike Stern, Paul Simon), and also features singer Varijashree Venugopal and comedian/voicetrumentalist Michael Winslow (Police Academy)
Named “one of the Top 10 Bassists of All Time” by Rolling Stone and one of “50 Iconic Black Trailblazers” in Huffington Post February 2017 (pictured just after President Barack Obama,) Wooten continues to lead and inspire. The youngest of five boys, he began playing music at two years old, and was playing gigs by the tender age of five with the family band, the Wooten Brothers. Wooten first “wowed music heads” nationwide (Kansas City Star) in 1987, as a founding member of Béla Fleck & The Flecktones.
Catch Victor Wooten live on tour at a city near you.
FUN & FUNK XPLOSION TOUR
April 24 – Hamilton County Memorial Hall – Cincinnati, OH*
April 25 – The Redstone Room – Davenport, IA^
April 26-27 – SPACE – Evanston, IL*
April 28 – Bell’s Eccentric Café – Kalamazoo, MI*
April 29 – The Caverns – Pelham, TN*~
May 1 – Ponte Vedra Concert Hall – Ponte Vedra, FL*~
May 2 – Capitol Theatre FL – Clearwater, FL*~
May 3 – Amaturo Theater – Fort Lauderdale, FL*~
May 4 – The Plaza Live – Orlando, FL*~
May 5 – Buckhead Theatre – Atlanta, GA*
June 19-23 – Blue Note – New York, NY^
*w/ Sinbad, Regi Wooten, Roy “Futureman” Wooten, and Bob Franceschini
*~w/ Sinbad, Regi Wooten, Roy “Futureman” Wooten, Joseph Wooten, and Bob Franceschini
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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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