This page is dedicated to some of my Favorite Bassists. This was a challenging choice to
pick just three. My taste in music is quite varied. I enjoy metal, rock, jazz and classical
music, just to name a few. I also really like Funk and Soul music from the 1970's.
Leslie Edward Claypool (born September 29, 1963) is an American musician, best known
as the founder, lead singer, bassist, and primary songwriter of Primus. Ranked as one of the
greatest bassists of all time by Rolling Stone,[1] his unique playing style mixes tapping,
flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends, and slapping and popping.
Claypool has been involved in a number of non-Primus projects,
including supergroups such as Oysterhead (with Trey Anastasio and Stewart Copeland)
and Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains (with Buckethead, Bryan Mantia,
and Bernie Worrell) and duos such as Duo de Twang (with Bryan Kehoe) and The Claypool Lennon Delirium
(with Sean Lennon). He also fronts the experimental rock projects Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade
and Les Claypool's Fancy Band. He has produced and engineered several of his own releases from Rancho Relaxo,
which is his studio in California.
Early Career
After the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton in 1986, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett
reconnected with his high school friend Claypool and asked him to audition as Burton's replacement.
In Metallica's episode of the documentary series Behind the Music, Claypool said that he
jokingly asked the members of Metallica if they wanted to "jam on some Isley Brothers tunes"
during the audition, a reference to his lack of experience with Metallica's thrash metal style.
He later recalled Hammett giving him a copy of Metallica's 1984 album Ride the Lightning,
which he enjoyed, but also stressed he "wasn't a big metal guy" and did not realize how
popular Metallica had become until he arrived at the audition.[3][5] He also did not realize at the
time that the intro riff of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was performed on bass, and thus did not play it during the audition.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield said that Claypool was offered the job because not "he was too good" and "should do his own thing".
Claypool responded by admitting that he "wasn't the right guy" for the band due to being a self-proclaimed "weirdo" and said that
Hetfield was just "being nice" with his comments.
Steve Di Giorgio (born November 7, 1967) is an American bassist. He is known for his work
with numerous heavy metal bands such as Sadus (of which he was a co-founder), Death, Testament,
Megadeth, Sebastian Bach, Iced Earth Autopsy, Obituary, Control Denied, Dragonlord and Charred Walls of the Damned,
and he has performed on over 50 albums as a guest, session or full-time band musician.
Career
Di Giorgio has played bass guitar in heavy metal and death metal bands such as Death, Autopsy, Control Denied,
Ephel Duath, Obscura, Artension, Faust, Memorain, Painmuseum, Suicide Shift, Soen, Vintersorg,
Dragonlord, Iced Earth, Sebastian Bach, Obituary, Megadeth, and is a founding member of Sadus.
He is a founding member of the jazz band Dark Hall and has played bass in other bands such as Testament,
Futures End, Synesis Absorption, Mythodea, Charred Walls of the Damned, Anatomy of I, Gone in April, and Spirits of Fire.
Along with his bass duties in Sadus, he also plays keyboards. In October 2019, he founded the fusion-world-metal group
Quadvium with fellow fretless bass player Jeroen Paul Thesseling. A year later, he formed the death metal supergroup Act of Denial.
In December 2025, he joined Obliveon as a session musician, taking over bass recording duties on their upcoming album.
John Ro Myung, born January 24, 1967 is an American bassist and a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater.
Background and Personal Life
Born in Chicago to South Korean parents, Myung grew up with John Petrucci on Long Island. He took violin lessons from the age of five
and started playing bass guitar at fifteen. After graduating from high school, he and Petrucci enrolled at the Berklee College of Music,
where they met Mike Portnoy. The trio became the nucleus of Dream Theater, which became Myung's primary professional focus.
Style
Myung mainly uses a two or three finger picking style in his playing. He sometimes uses slapping and popping on some songs, such as "The Dark Eternal Night",
and also uses tapping and harmonics in his bass playing. Myung's use of harmonics is frequently accompanied by a chorus effect, as in the opening of "Lifting Shadows off a Dream".
The songs "These Walls" and "The Dark Eternal Night" feature Myung using a pick. Myung uses both tapping and fingerstyle to play the Chapman Stick.
Myung's favorite bands include the Beatles, Black Sabbath, the Who, Iron Maiden, Rush, Yes, Jethro Tull and Genesis.
He cites bassists Geezer Butler, John Entwistle, Chris Squire, Steve Harris, Geddy Lee and Jaco Pastorius as main influences on his playing style.
Myung is known for his rigorous practicing schedule; producer Kevin Shirley and keyboardist Derek Sherinian have said that Myung is the only musician they know who "warms down" after a show.
Petrucci has said that when he and Myung were in high school, they had an agreement to practice at least six hours every day.