How did you get into music? When did you start reading music? When did you start playing bass? When did you become a professional musician? How did you start playing with Jools Holland? How did you switch from upright to bass guitar in Jools Holland’s band? What’s your approach to playing so many high-profile sessions with world famous musicians? Have you worked with any of your musical heroes? How do you choose the right bass for each gig or studio session? What amps do you use and why? What do you practice and how does your technique change between upright and electric bass? Did you even play with Squeeze?
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You use EBS amps – it seems to suit that gig because it’s versatile and powerful.

DS That’s very true. Actually, the reason I initially went for EBS, was because several years ago, I got a call to be the bassist in the house band for The Johnny Vaughan show. We weren’t actually backing anyone (it was a chat show) but we had to play a short warm up set for the audience, we’d play about two or three tunes, then we’d play the theme tune and the ‘walk-on-and-walk-off’ music for the guests. The problem was, at the time, I was using my old Mesa Boogie 2 x 15” cab, and my Walter Woods amp, which was, and still is great gear. However, the sax player was into David Sanborn and Bob Berg so he wanted do songs like ‘Run For Cover’, ‘Chicago Song’ and ‘Friday Night at the Cadillac Club’. I thought those bass lines aren't gonna sound great unless I use something similar to what Marcus actually used on those recordings. One of my favourite Fender basses is my wonderful 1975 Jazz with a maple neck and block inlays, the same bass in fact that Marcus plays himself. So it was the perfect choice.

Then I thought, what gear is he using? EBS! OK, lets check this stuff out. I called up Bernie Goodfellow at GB guitars, who very kindly offered to lend me some EBS gear and in fact what I received was actually Marcus’ cab that he uses when he’s over here in the UK; this was backed up by the very large initials MM painted on the side. It sounded fantastic, and I thought, if it’s good enough for Marcus, it’s good enough for me! That was the easy part, the hard part was actually learning to play ‘Run For Cover’!

And making it sound good…!

DS Indeed! When I went back out on tour with Jools I thought to myself, that EBS gear is really great, why not continue using it? It would also be ideal to use on Jools’ show ‘Later…’ as it’s so versatile.