bassmagazine.com ; ISSUE 4 ; BASS MAGAZINE 21
Harmoni Kelley
love getting to sing with him throughout the
set, and we even have a song that’s a duet for
the two of us. He appreciates his bandmates
so much and always lets us know it.
What is the principal role of bass in country
music?
To me, it’s like we’re laying a really comfy
but solid bed for the rest of the music. Kenny
has done away with a lot of traditional ele-
ments of country music like a lap-steel guitar.
And we only have fiddle on a couple of the
songs, but otherwise he gets away from that
twang and more into a rock feel. In tradition-
al country music you have the fiddle, lap or
pedal steel, a banjo, and a million harmonies
and backup vocals. With so much high range
going on, the bass has to be solid and sit un-
der all of that. You’re mainly pulling a varia-
tion of a walking line, the 1–5, or a swing type
of line. Bass isn’t busy in country, so I’m not
going to noodle all over this music. I want to
lock in with the drummer and make sure that
it’s solid. A lot of times people are dancing,
and I’ve played my share of two-step gigs,
and if you’re not tight, the dancers get pissed.
What other style of music would you be
playing if not country?
If I had my druthers and I could play in
any style — and don’t go telling Kenny this
— it would be with a R&B/soul/funk band.
There’s something about that type of music
and the bass role in it that’s very appealing
to me. It’s super slinky and super solid in all
the right ways. I’ve been listening to a lot of
D’Angelo’s Voodoo [2000], with Pino Palla-
dino on bass, and it makes me want to cry be-
cause it’s so good. It’s hard to even explain in
words. That shit is just so good to me.
How and when did you first start playing
bass?
I’m a huge Guns N’ Roses and Duff
McKagan fan. Stylistically, I’ve never real-
ly emulated him by using a pick or a chorus
pedal, but he was the reason why I start-
ed playing bass. It was in that time of being
a teenager when you have posters on your
wall and you watched MTV videos all day and
when you’re into a band. It just takes over
your entire world. My best friend Robin and
I were such big GnR fans, and she came to
me one day and had that classic conversation
where she said we should start our own band.
We had never played instruments before,
but we decided that I’d play bass because I
was so into Duff, so we did. I got a bass for
Christmas when I was 17. My dad and I went
to a music store in Austin, and we picked out
a Mexican-made Precision with a burgun-
dy finish and white pickguard. I got a small
Peavey TNT combo amp, and I would sit on
the floor in my parents’ living room and listen
to records and learn all of the bass lines. I had
always been good at hearing bass; that’s just
what my ear always went to in songs. I never
went to school, or took lessons. I always just
taught myself by ear, which is the same thing
I’m doing still. If it ain’t broke, I suppose. l