Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

It seems like the more upbeat RIC players get all the attention. What do you guys think about the darker side of the spectrum, such as Geezer Butler. I think he is one of the great fathers of bass playing. He had an excellent tone in the early days; used a very wide variety of basses, including RICs. Here's a video of him with one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbxfe7DMxVo

That's cool stuff. I was just thinking earlier as I was listening to Black Sabbath and Deep Purple as well, how tight their respective rhythm sections were.

Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple sold this bass to Geezer.

Yeah, the story is that Geezer forgot his usual bass and his use of the Ric here was a one time event. It just happened to be the show they filmed. It's amazing that this bass did time in 2 quintessential '70s hard rock bands.

Why can't I get it to play? All it does is spin it's wheels trying to load the video!

Same happens for me Jeffrey, but I'm pretty sure I've seen this video several times already.

Does he ever play RICs on recordings? I know he used P-basses a lot, but sometimes he got a mean sound that resembles a 4001.

The only studio recording I'm aware of is a Ric fretless on Never Say Die. Not the title track, but one of the other tracks which I forget now. This from a Bass Player Magazine interview from a few years ago.

Geezer is one of my main influences. Plenty of great lines throughout his career.

Yeah same here...Geezer is a big influence on me too. He pretty much invented heavy metal bass playing and he was a great player to boot.

I finally got to see it! Great, I was a huge fan of them in my formative years on bass.

I never figured you for a Black Sabbath type a fella Jeff.....

That was back in the day when I had hair!

IIRC the fretless Rick was used on "Johnny Blade".

Geezer favoured John Birch basses during 1973-1978 and played an 8-string John Birch a lot on "Sabotage" and "Technical Ecstasy" tours.