Veteran bassist Steve Di Giorgio has played with several legendary metal bands including Testament, Death, Megadeth and Obituary, among others. In an interview with D’Addario and Co., Di Giorgio talked about heavy metal in the ‘90s and how it was a difficult time for the genre. He also talked about how the bass guitar was suddenly less prominent in a lot of album mixes.
Di Giorgio said that grunge was a main culprit of this, but also attributed some of the blame to Metallica’s “…And Justice for All” record which famously has very little, if any, bass guitar on the final mix.
“The ’90s hit, and this new standard had come out of bass players being pushed down, pushed to the back, mixed out of there,” said Di Giorgio. “It was happening before ‘…And Justice for All’, but that’s the famous example of the bass being turned off during the recording. A combination of that album and then the time period and this style, the bass was getting to the point where it was like, embarrassing. That fueled me to play even more obnoxious and give it a reason to be back in the mix.”
Di Giorgio also offered advice to aspiring bassists. “And I always encourage younger bass players — get your stuff down very well,” he said. “You get in the studio, and your stuff is really exposed. And if it’s not super clean, if it’s super tight, you’re gonna get pushed down. Bass just makes music heavier. And we play heavy metal, so it’s the key ingredient to make the music heavy. You know, get your sh*t down good, make sure you come super prepared, then you can fight for those decibels.”
Di Giorgio’s full interview can be viewed below.
