Mike Watt: Difference between revisions

Michael Watt (b. December 20, 1957 in Portsmouth, Virginia) is a bass guitarist, singer and songwriter, probably best-known for co-founding punk rock bands The Minutemen and fIREHOSE. He's been praised throughout his career for his inventive, melodic playing; his basslines are often quite distinctive.

When he was young, Watt's family moved to San Pedro, California, where he became good friends with D. Boon. Watt and Boon picked up bass and guitar, respectively. Watt and Boon were initially rather ignorant of music; they didn't know bass guitars were different from guitars, and Watt simply removed two strings from a guitar to emulate a bass. When he accquired a bass guitar, he lamented that the instrument was rarely prominent in rock music, but has cited Geezer Butler and John Entwistle as influences. Years later, Watt would view the dearth of prominent bassists differently, saying that the lack of role-models left him free to develop his own approach to playing bass guitar.

By the mid-1970s, Watt and Boon formed a band called The Reactionaries. The band later became The Minutemen (named after the 1960s radical group), and drummer George Hurley was added to the lineup. After signing with SST Records in 1980, The Minutemen began touring constantly, releasing a number of albums along the way. Their music was based on the speed, brevity and intensity of punk, but included elements of jazz, folk, and funk. The Minutemen ended tragically in December 1985, when Boon was killed in a traffic accident.

Watt and Hurley, despite originally intending to quit music altogether, formed fIREHOSE with Ed Crawford, a Minutemen fan who drove from Ohio and persuaded the rhythm section to continue playing music. After three releases on SST, fIREHOSE signed with major label Columbia Records. Their music often sounded much like that of The Minutemen, though the songs became longer and more traditionally structured (generally, verse-chorus-verse). Shortly after the release of 1994's Mr. Machinery Operator, the band decided to call it quits.

Though always a prolific songwriter, Watt was long uncomfortable singing onstage; he credits J Mascis—who produced Mr Machinery Operator—with encouraging him to sing more often.

Watt also formed Dos with his then-wife Kira Roessler.

After fIREHOSE, Watt began a solo career. His first album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, featured appearances from members of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Soul Asylum, and Screaming Trees. Though he was already revered by many musicians and fans as a founding father of alternative rock, the album and its supporting tour were Watt's first taste of mainstream attention, when Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Dave Grohl of Nirvana were part of his touring group.

In 1997, Watt released Contemplating the Engine Room, a sort of punk rock song cycle using naval life as an extended metaphor for both Watt's family history (the album has a picture of his father in his Navy uniform on the cover) and the Minutemen. The album, which was critically well received, features a trio of musicians including Nels Cline on guitar, and Watt as the only singer.

Watt went on to play in such groups as Banyan and Hellride. He also played in The Wylde Rattz, recording a song for the film Velvet Goldmine.

In 2003, Watt joined the reformed Iggy Pop and The Stooges.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their hugely successful Blood Sugar Sex Magic to Watt.

Watt's third solo album The Secondman's Middle Stand was released in 2004; one reviewer writes that the album is a "harrowing, funny, and genuinely moving stuff from a true American original." [1]

Discography

• 1995 Ball-Hog or Tugboat?
• 1997 Contemplating the Engine Room
• 2004 The Secondman's Middle Stand

External Links

• Mike Watt Live Music Archive
• mike watt's hoot page