May 15, 2002 Guitar Center (www.guitarcenter.com) Interview with John Entwistle.
GC: Tell us about your current bass rig.
John: I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up. Rather than use a cross over type system, I use three separate amplifier systems: one for bottom, one for the mid and one for top.
At the bottom end I use an Ashdown signature model, ABM RPM1 (my signature), which is a Klystron Bass Pre-Magnifier powered by an Ashdown PM1000 power amplifier. This is running two Ashdown 8 x 10 cabinets. At the mid range, I use a Trace Elliot V-Type V8 valve amplifier going through two 2 x 12" Ashdown JE cabinets. On the top end it gets even more complicated: to obtain treble and sustain at low volume, I use a Line 6 POD Pro programmable pre-amp or a Digitech 2120 Artist Valve Guitar System. These are powered by another Ashdown PM1000 power amplifier going in stereo into another two 2 x 12" JE speaker cabinets with Ashdown Blue 12" drivers.
My guitar plugs into a converted Alembic input module with an A/B guitar switch to enable smooth guitar changes. The input module has 4 outputs, one to each amp system and the forth to a Korg DTR Digital Tuner. This is the current system I use with The Who. With my own band, JEB (the John Entwistle Band), the system is pretty much the same, only the bottom end speakers are four Ashdown JE ASS 15" cabinets powered in mono by two Ashdown PM1000 power amplifiers. I carry two spare speaker cabinets for each system and two spare racks for both the pre-amps and the amps. A spare for the spare--just to be safe. Guitar wise, I carry four Status Buzzard four-string basses totally made of graphite to my own design and two Status Buzzard eight-string basses.
GC: You’ve gone through quite a few makes and models of amps over the years. Can you take us through the high points of your amp history.
John: I started out with an 18" speaker, which lived in an open-back cabinet. The rest of the band (we had no roadie at the time) objected to the heaviness of the cabinet with the 18" inside it. So we had the idea to hang the speaker on a six-inch nail and carry it in a separate cardboard box. Consequently every time I played a low E note the speaker would vibrate off the nail and fall on the floor behind the cabinet. I guess I learned how to play with just my left hand in this way – as I needed the right to hang the damn speaker back on the nail!
After that, I went through a whole collection of different 50-watt amps and different speakers until, contrary to popular belief, Marshall made the first 4 x 12" speaker cabinets. I bought the second, fifth, eighth and ninth. We insisted to Marshall that we needed a 100-watt amplifier for more power. They insisted it was impossible, but made one anyway. Pete and myself bought the first four.
From there, we changed to HiWatt 100-watt amps and 4 x 12" cabinets. I eventually changed to using Sunn 300-watt Coliseum Amps powering four 18" PA bins plus additional 12" cabinets (up to sixteen 12" cabinets at one point). After hundreds of different speakers and pre-amp changes, I discovered a guy who made me my present ASS speaker cabinets. These were later taken over by Mark Gooday at Ashdown who is currently making the same cabinets.
We were gradually playing larger venues and in the early days PA systems were kind of non-existent. So to play loud, we had to use louder equipment. The PA systems back then didn’t mic the instruments – only the vocals.
Later I had to use different amplification (e.g. pre-amp and processor to sustain at lower volumes as my big amps were tending to drown out the PA).
With bass, especially bottom end, the vibration has to happen on stage otherwise the feel is wrong. This is why you can’t scale the equipment down too far.
GC: I’ve heard your right-hand playing style described as a "typewriter-style" kind of tapping. Is that accurate? Can you describe that style?
John: When I was six years old I was forced by my mother to learn piano, which I hated. However, it loosened up both my left and right hands. I then convinced my mother to let me play trumpet, which is a right-handed instrument. The school orchestra had me playing French horn instead, which is a left-handed instrument. So by the time I taught myself the bass guitar at the age of 14, my hands were already pretty nimble. I was bored with the way everyone was playing bass back then in the late 50’s-60’s, with either the thumb or first finger or with a pick. In fact, I was bored with the whole situation of the instrument, four to a bar, root note booming background. Unless you were the singer, it was a dead-end job.
Fortunately, in a band with only two guitars and drums there was plenty of room to expand my ideas. Now I play bass, rhythm and lead all at once. I call myself a bass guitarist rather than a bass player (although I can play straight bass if I want to).
The typewriter position is only one of the many hand positions that I use. I may use several different positions during one song. The type writing method is obtained by turning the hand sideways and tapping the strings with four fingers. This way you can play all four strings at the same time. It involves building up the strength in the four fingers of the right hand in a whipping (spring-like) motion, otherwise, all you get is a right hand hammer-on.
At the bottom end I use an Ashdown signature model, ABM RPM1 (my signature), which is a Klystron Bass Pre-Magnifier powered by an Ashdown PM1000 power amplifier. William Hansen and brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian invented the klystron tube, a high-frequency amplifier for generating microwaves. It revolutionized high-energy physics and microwave research and led to the airborne radar used in aircraft today. The klystron also has been used in satellite communications, airplane and missile guidance systems, and telephone and television transmission.
Stanford researchers in 1939 examine their invention, a klystron. Standing from left to right are Sigurd Varian, physicists David Webster and William Hansen, and in the front are Russell Varian, left, also a physicist, and John Woodyard, an engineering graduate student. Photo: Stanford News Service archives