For Vulfpeck's Joe Dart, Flea was (and still is), undisputedly, his bass hero. “When I think of bass vocabulary, for me, when I was in my teens, I was listening to a lot of Flea,” Dart divulges on Scott's Bass Lessons.
“It's him taking from Parliament-Funkadelic, so it'd be a lot of Bootsy [Collins] in there, and then a lot of horn players [like] Mayceo [Parker], Fred Wesley... My hero, Flea, was actually copying a lot of stuff from bass players that I wasn't hip to because they weren't as visible as he was. Flea was such a visible bass player, and he was the guy.”
Turns out, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player didn't just inspire him from afar, but rather, a keen young Dart decided to take matters into his own hands, and find a way to get in touch with Flea.
“I wrote Flea a fan mail letter when I was, like, 12 or 13 years old, and I was just like, ‘I want to do what you're doing. And do you have any advice?’” And while many fan letters go unanswered, Flea took the time to craft a reply for the young bassist, who would eventually become central to Vulfpeck’s sound.
“He wrote me back – it's unbelievable. He's the sweetest guy ever,” he continues. “He wrote me back a handwritten letter, and his advice to me was like, ‘Remember that the bass is a supportive instrument. You're there to play a supportive role. You're part of a rhythm section.’
“And he said, ‘If there's one thing I can tell you, it's listen to James Jamerson on Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, and learn it. And that'll sort of set you up.’ And, because you don't listen to Flea and immediately think, like, ‘Oh, there's a James Jamerson guy.’ You don't just immediately hear that.
“He's not copying James Jamerson. But that's just essential, because it's supportive bass playing, but it's also so melodic – and then I started listening to what James was playing on some of that Stevie Wonder stuff: it's almost like a bass solo, but it's hitting all the right marks.”
Earlier this year, Dart continued to cement his own bass legacy through his ongoing collaboration with Sterling by Music Man, completing the trilogy of Joe Dart signature models priced under $500.
