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Extended Bass With Al Caldwell
Nothing is more time consuming than second guessing one’s self when it come to composing. I have just finished composing my latest project. My biggest problem was trying to say something to myself. I wanted to play some music that made sense to me. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was be the best and the fastest bassist in the world. Now all I want to do at 48 is to understand my intent. Every musician is judged by another. Some of us have great technique but no substance. Some of us have great vision but 90% of our note selection belongs to another artist. We’ve learned to do impressions to the point where we don’t know how to stop. All we have for the rest of our lives is our intervallic decisions. That tells the world the pattern that our musical mind follows.
I’ve been afraid for most of my musical life to speak. I have been such a fan that I question my voice. It “Finally” occurred to me that a child doesn’t learn to speak without copying every little thing that their parents say. Eventually they form their own words and sentences and they find themselves. I have arthritis now, so my technique isn’t what it use to be but the music I hear in my mind has matured. Flash sounds like screaming to my ears now. I know why Joe Pass and Jim Hall and Wes are Legends now. They played in a manor that stayed with you. It was like a great bowl of chili!! Extra beans please!!
I will put videos on you tube showing some of the methods of my recording process. I still use midi but I find myself playing clean bass 80% of the time. I will do an all MIDI CD someday. The two new CD’s are “Wisdom from the World” and “My 11 String”. The “Wisdom” CD is mostly fretless and it’s based on songs that were inspired from my travels abroad. “My 11 String” CD is based on songs that remind me of why I play music. I love the bass. I love music. I want to see that neck move when I play. That’s what a great bassist does. He’s into the pocket. What a great musician does is listen and then play. I’m still learning how to be both. Everything is just making sense to me. I hope that you enjoy the new music. I will put samples on my MYSPACE page. The banjo has been a bright light in my life as well. The banjo doesn’t sustain long so you have to approach it differently. I love the way other people play the banjo but I just don’t want to play the same way that’s been played for years. Thank God that we have so many ways to play Bass and Guitar. I love funky banjo. I’ll give some examples of that as well.
I hope that my explanation of my journey can help someone find the road to themself.
Music is Everything. It’s not as obvious as I thought it was as a child. It’s hard work learning to share yourself harmonically. I’ll have New Music in January folks.
Happy Holidays and Stay Blessed!!
Your Pal Al Caldwell
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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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