How important is bass in a rock band?

Question

Personnally, I'm begginning to like and listen a lot to rock bands who don't use a bass player at all (The White Stripes, Sleater-Kinney, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and sometimes I feel that some bands just don't need bass, it just sounds like it has nothing to do there.
Now tell me,

Do you think bass is important in a rock band?
Why?

oh, the white stripes don't use bass.
i own all of their albums and listen to them everyday. i'm a huge fan. and the concert is "Under Blackpool Lights" not Lights Over Liverpool. do u think i'm a fúckin ignorant or what?

Answer 1

It really depends on the style of music. Heavy metal, punk, and most rock needs a good bass player, while bands who branch off on their own sort of style of music (like White Stripes, for instance) can zoom in on a different characteristic to their song. For instance, when you listen to the White Stripes you focus more on his melody off hitting on key and off with his guitar, while other bands will tend to add bass as an extra dimension to the song (ie Primus...they've got their singing, guitars, etc, and then they've got these awesome bass lines all on their own!). Okay, I've probably got you all confused, now, but this was the only way I could explain it.

Answer 2

In a rock band, yes. Bass matters A LOT. I was the lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist in a rock band and we couldn't find a bassist for a while and even though our music sounded pretty good, it just seemed empty. Like we needed the bass to add that extra unf. When we finally found a bassist, the sound improved 100%. So yes, bass is very important.

Answer 3

A bass guitarist is important in a band. It gives out a "thicker" amplified sound (if you know what i mean...) and provides the tempo and beat for a particular musical piece.

The reason why you think the bassist is not important is because you can hardly hear any sound coming from the bass guitar (especially when electric guitars are heavily distorted the sound from the bass is overpowered) - Am I right?

Have you heard the music of New Order? The New Wave band back from the 80's? Although I'm not a major fan of that band, but I was surprised when I learned that their bassist performs the major riffs in all of their songs. What you thought that is coming from an electric guitar or a synthesizer is actually coming from the bass guitar.

I'm not a bass guitarist, but as a member of band (I'm the lead guitarist), it's as important as everything else.

Answer 4

First off. The White Stripes do use a bass on a lot of the live recordings, they just can't do it live. Jack White already plays guitar and piano live (Check out "Lights over Liverpool"). Bass is very important. It is used in a lot of bands to fill in space, but some bands are very bass driven (like Pink Floyd), and some are looked up to solely for the bass player (any Les Claypool project). There are no rules to music. Anything goes, but people love bass! It adds the entire tone to a song. If it weren't important, nobody would play bass and no bands would ever use one.

Answer 5

The bass player is like the drummer... he (or she to be PC about it LOL) generally gets nothing to play that you would recognize without the rest of the band, but is essential to fill in the rest of the sound to a song. Other than the bass player, the only low frequency sounds are the kick on the drum.

Although I personally don't care for the bands you listed, so my opinion may be based on a different genre of rock music,,, eh.. to each his own I guess

Answer 6

Bass guitar work adds a textured resonance to ANY genre of music. For a common four stringed instrument, entwining it's sound into a song piece can be a complex piece of work to do.

Many of rock's most powerful anthem songs feature bass guitars purely driven to their max. Example: "Barracuda" by Heart. That cool power riff that starts the song is the bass with it's guitar settings at total full tilt. And done that way, it comes off sounding like an six string electric guitar.

The bassist's job in any band, however, is to lead the guitar(s) into tight chord changes and stringed rhythms. In short: bass guitars give that audio "third dimension" to the song.

Answer 7

I think bass is very important in rock, and really all music. It sort of fills up the sound, adding more low frequencies to counter the (usually) higher frequencies of guitar, vocals, etc. But it all depends on the music. Not to be contradictory, but I read somewhere that the previously mentioned bands are pop, but that's open to interpretation. I don't actually listen to them, so I wouldn't know.

Answer 8

a bass is part of the percussion, it drive the music. if you look at bands like korn and obviously primus they're very bass driven. and without them their sound would be totally empty.
so like a lot of people are saying it depends on the type of music, but i feel a bass along with drums really drives the songs.

Answer 9

White Stripes sound kind of sterile to me but I do lisen to them. I have seen a number of groups drop the bass but all of them have a keyboard player who fills it in. I'm playing classic rock and its definitely necessary for that genre.

Answer 10

There is bass in every song but it isn't always in the form of a four stringed bass guitar...

In your classic rock band, personally I would say it would be unusual to not have a bass player. Bass is very important in a rock band, but how you create that bass isn't...