Mike Hall: Solo Bass Arrangements, Music Industry Predictions, and More
From leaving law school and pursuing his band to creating a solo act through the pandemic, Mike Hall is an inspiration to bass players desiring to create their own unique career path. He’s a professional bassist of over 10 years and has toured throughout the East Coast with the band Running Late, sharing the stage with the likes of Blondie, Lifehouse, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Third Eye Blind, Three Doors Down, Sugar Ray, and numerous other major label artists.
Mike has already had a busy year. He’s recently been featured in Bass Musician Magazine, Bass Magazine, New Jersey Stage Magazine, Music Mecca, For Bass Players Only, and received a front-page feature from NJ Hills Media Group. Additionally, he landed an endorsement with Skjold Design Guitars, released his first 3 song EP titled “The Next Step,” and began composing unique bass arrangements on social media that have accrued hundreds of thousands of total views.
Needless to say, the pandemic hasn’t slowed Mike down. I caught up with him recently to learn more about his story, experience, creative approach, unique playing style, and perspective on the current state of the music industry. That said, here’s my conversation with Mike!
Ryan Templeton (RT): Thanks for joining me today, Mike! First off, tell me about how you started playing music. Was the bass guitar your first instrument?
Mike Hall (MH): Hey Ryan, my pleasure! Well, I was fortunate enough to be born into an extremely musical family, so I’ve been surrounded by music my entire life. That being said; my first serious instrument was the cello, which I began to play early on in elementary school. I really enjoyed how it sounded compared to the other instruments, in addition to appreciating its look and feel. However; I grew up with pretty bad scoliosis, which resulted in me struggling to consistently keep my back straight and sustain good posture. This drove my orchestra teacher crazy, and upon entering middle school, I was switched onto the upright bass as a “more comfortable instrument to play.” Although my orchestra teacher wasn’t wrong, I always refer to it as the greatest excuse ever for her not having to continue to endure my poor posture. Regardless, I stuck with the upright bass all the way through high school, and have been playing the bass guitar ever since.
RT: You mentioned you started out on the cello and transitioned to the upright bass. Do you think your experience with the cello helped and shaped the way you play bass today?
MH: Looking back, I actually think it did. I’ve always believed that the cello is way more versatile and dynamic than many people acknowledge it to be. By utilizing it’s deep, yet rich tone, the instrument can satisfy the low and high end needs of an arrangement with relative ease. Additionally, it’s natural tuning in fifths allows for the cello to fulfill the purposes of a lead and rhythm instrument incredibly well, which makes its inclusion in so many different genres of music quite practical. That being said; when I ultimately switched over to playing the bass, I quickly discovered that it had just as much adaptability as the cello. I genuinely believe that this realization has not only been the crux of developing my playing style, but has also served me tremendously in continuing to find success as a solo bassist.
RT: What inspired you to make the transition from upright bass to electric bass?
MH: Upon entering college and leaving behind high school orchestra, I wasn’t really motivated to continue to play classical, or any other genre of music where an upright bass would be appropriate (jazz, bluegrass, folk, etc). However, my friends and I wanted to create an eclectic pop/rock band by the name of “Running Late,” which called for me to begin playing an electric bass. Fortunately for me, the upright and electric are fundamentally identical in terms of tuning and conventional play, so it wasn’t too difficult for me to make the transition.
RT: You were a pre-law student in college for a while and now have your MBA in marketing. What made you decide it was time to pursue a career in music?
MH: Yeah, it’s quite an interesting story: back in 2013, I graduated from Centenary University with a double major in political science and criminal justice. During that time, I had aspirations to practice law as either a criminal or entertainment attorney, and to pursue law school shortly after graduation. However, like many others who are fresh out of college, I came to realize that I never really had a “calling” to practice law, and elected to focus on touring across the east coast with Running Late as a full time musician instead.
Now; I think it’s important to note that I didn’t randomly abandon a much more conventional career route to just, for lack of a better term, try my hand at “getting famous.” Ever since I co-founded and managed Running Late in my sophomore year, the project quickly achieved an extremely high amount of success: we not only accrued a huge fan base within the north jersey college scene, but we also performed at many of the best venues and festivals in the tristate area, earned the attention of numerous A&Rs from Sony Music, and played alongside some of the biggest artists in the world – all within 3 years of the project’s inception. This all culminated into viewing the band as a legitimate, post-college career opportunity, and I knew deep down that I couldn’t pass up seeing how far the project could go.
Over the next few years of touring, I started to gain a lot of real world knowledge of how business is conducted within the music industry: I became cognizant of the bottom line needs of venue owners, booking agents, and record labels. I started to view different clusters of clubs and fans as market segments, and consumer demographics. I began to put together crude versions of customer journey maps, and conducted numerous SWOT analyses of other artists, all in efforts to create a better overall live experience for our fans.
I could go on for hours about all of the things I learned while performing on the road, but for the sake of wrapping up an already long winded answer – I decided to pursue a masters in 2017 to hone my business acumen of the music industry. Ultimately; this led to earning my MBA in marketing in 2019 from Fairleigh Dickinson University, with a focus on consumer behavior.
RT: As a professional bassist who has experienced the business side of music, what are some “non-musical” skills a bassist wanting to play professionally should have?
MH: I think patience has got to be one of, if not the most valuable, non-musical skill a bassist could possess in a professional environment. Despite reading numerous articles which suggest that artists are “blowing up overnight” on platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud, the reality is that it takes a significant amount of time before you see any visible progress in your music career.
Additionally, speaking as someone who’s been performing with others for over a decade, it can be difficult to keep a level head about where you are in your career when your job is to typically be that of a role player – not only are you dependent on others being able to follow through with their responsibilities, but you also may have to tolerate a variety of egos that can become quite taxing to endure for long periods of time. However; if you learn how to take those variables in stride, while also being able to maintain a positive disposition, then the sky’s the limit as to how far you can go as a professional bassist.
Trust me; in an industry that is riddled with people who think they’re the greatest gifts on earth, building a professional reputation on patience is an accolade that most other successful musicians will not ignore.
RT: What are your thoughts on the current state of the music industry? Where do you see it in the near future?
MH: All things considered, despite suffering tremendously throughout quarantine, I believe the music industry has rebounded quite well. With more people becoming vaccinated by the day, in addition to most surviving venues opening back up to maximum capacity, the need for live music is quickly being recognized amongst patrons who are looking to return to pre-covid levels of normalcy.
Unfortunately, it’s still going to take some time for independent live music to return to form. For the past 18 months, a countless number of venues have been decimated from the imposed covid restrictions, with no guarantee that they’ll ever make a return. In fact; to put into context how severe the economic impact has been for live music venues, the “Save Our Stages Act” had to be included in the most recent Covid Relief Package, which provided $15 billion dollars in additional aid to venues who were only just able to stay alive.
In terms of what the future holds, I believe that independent music venues are going to have to do a much better job at accounting for both changing social climates, and scaling consumer expectations. For example: the internet wasn’t a thing in the 70’s for people to indulge in whenever they had free time; they either stayed home, or went out to bars or venues to check out what was going on. Throughout that period, live music venues flourished from the lack of options people had at their disposal. Fast forward 50 years, and things couldn’t be more different; people now have every reason to not want to leave their homes for entertainment, and smaller venues are going to have to cater to people who have become way more savvy with their money and time.
Whether it’s improving food and drink options, doing better quality control for artists that take their stage, or actually learning how to market a show themselves without the need for artists to do it for them – independent music venues have to be making drastic improvements towards running their business… or they’re going to be left behind.
RT: You’ve been cranking out a plethora of amazing bass covers on your social media accounts. What inspired you to start creating solo bass arrangements?
MH: For the last 8 years or so; I’ve been following the works of virtuoso solo bassists such as Victor Wooten, Michael Manring, and Zander Zon – many of whom have helped inspire me to figure out a way to contribute towards pushing the boundaries of what this instrument can do. Additionally; I’ve always wanted to have an outlet in which I could both continue to grow as a bassist, and showcase my aptitude in composing solo arrangements. However, I had a lot of difficulty in conceptualizing how I was going to go about making this a reality, especially when I was busy managing and performing in my project. That being said; once quarantine began last March, I took that time as an opportunity to really incorporate the essence of their creativity into my playing technique, and made the decision to seriously pursue solo bass playing under the artist name of “Mike Hall Bass”.
RT: Are you using any effects pedals for your solo stuff?
MH: I certainly am, and the Strymon BigSky Reverb Pedal has been a staple for every one of my live performances! It provides me with so many onboard tonal options for reverb and delay, which also pairs really well with piccolo bass strings to produce that signature, ethereal sound.
RT: I noticed you’re using your Schecter for most of your solo bass arrangements. Do you have specific uses for each of your basses, depending on what style of music or technique is called for?
MH: Absolutely, the basses I’ve been using for the last 9-10 months have all served specific purposes for each of my arrangements. For instance: my Schecter Stargazer provides me with decent action, along with a distinct timbre, which allows me to perform faster passages without losing tonal clarity from my harmonics. For arrangements that require lower end versatility, my Ernie Ball Music Man Stingray has been my go to for its ability to be extremely dynamic. Finally; my Ibanez acoustic bass has been ideal for compositions that are either very melodic, or call for a variety of flamenco-style techniques.
RT: Can you tell me about your approach for creating solo bass arrangements?
MH: My approach is highly dependent on what exactly is inspiring me at the time, but I usually follow a pretty consistent order of operations for creating my arrangements: I always try to pair a lower octave drone note with notes in higher octaves, which help to establish rhythm and melody simultaneously. I accomplish this by letting an open string or harmonic ring out, all while I play melody on another string. I also try to mix my melody passages with a combination of higher octave notes and harmonics, which help prevent the arrangement from sounding monotonous. Finally, I’ll begin incorporating a variety of different techniques to various sections in an effort to provide a little more depth and nuance to the piece as a whole. Some of these techniques include two handed tapping, ghost note triplets, slap, pop, hammer on progressions, and sometimes even mid-song tuning adjustments for additional harmonic / chord accessibility.
RT: I noticed you put out an EP earlier this year! Did you record/produce it yourself?
MH: I sure did! I performed and recorded The Next Step on my MacBook through a Focusrite Scarlett MIDI, which was utilizing Logic Pro X. I also applied some basic chorus reverb, delay, and some EQ adjustments through Logic’s interface.
RT: You’ve recently landed an endorsement with Skjold Design Guitars (congrats, by the way!). How did that come about?
MH: Thank you very much! Well, it all started shortly after I joined Instagram in August of last year: Pete came across my profile, and was very impressed with the solo material I released at the time (one of which being my solo bass cover of “my future” by Billie Eilish, which was received quite well on the platform). He then reached out to me through DMs, complimented my playing ability, and asked a few questions regarding whether or not I was already working for another bass company. After informing him that I wasn’t, we continued to have a variety of really great conversations, which eventually led to him extending me the opportunity to represent his company as an official artist of Skjold Design Guitars.
Being able to demo his beautiful, one of a kind custom basses, all while joining a roster of talent that includes some of the best bassists in the world, is nothing short of a dream come true.
RT: What techniques and music theory elements are crucial to understand for a bassist looking to experiment with solo bass composition and arrangement?
MH: Although technique and music theory can certainly augment one’s ability to excel at making solo arrangements; the only thing that I believe is truly crucial in succeeding in solo bass playing is being aware of, and respecting, dynamics. At the end of the day; you can be as flashy, or as technical as you like… but if you’re lacking the wherewithal to understand how the ebb and flow of a song keeps a listener engaged from start to finish, then you’re going to have a difficult time captivating anyone with your work.
This is something that I believe my background in pop rock has helped me tremendously in learning how to understand. I’ve been able to find success in contributing towards arrangements that are engaging, yet simplistic. This balance is something that I like to refer to as combating “ear fatigue,” which, in my opinion, my peers with a background in jazz have a lot of difficulty respecting when it comes to making their music palatable to a broader audience.
RT: Learning the bass (or any instrument) can be a daunting task. What advice would you give to a beginner bassist who’s wondering what they should learn first? Technique? Ear training? Music theory? Something else?
MH: As cliche as it sounds, I believe that just listening to artists who really inspire you is all that’s needed to get started. Take notice of what they’re doing, how they’re playing, and most important of all, how it’s making you feel.
There’s a really great interview that River Phoenix had with Flea where he states that the way he goes about creating his bass lines is strictly predicated on expression; regardless of standard bass techniques, rules, theory, or how others will view him for it. Victor Wooten has expanded on this very mindset with his lectures about “music as a language”, which is a philosophy that I’ve been following ever since I’ve grown into my own as a musician.
For me; music education explains the “why”, or more specifically, illustrates the reasons for a piece sounding the way it does – which provides a tremendous amount of value that shouldn’t be overlooked whatsoever. That being said; learning the “how” comes from internalizing the intangible elements and emotions that are elicited in music that moves you, which to me, is critical in developing a baseline of creative aptitude that allows you to grow as a bassist indefinitely.
RT: Where can people find you online?
MH: People can find me on my Instagram, Facebook / YouTube under “Mike Hall Bass”, and follow me on my official website: www.mikehallbass.com for all the latest updates, music, news, and more!
Big shoutout to Mike for sharing his experience and insights! If you’d like to be part of the Bass Community Feature series, leave a comment below or contact me directly. As always, thanks for reading!
4 Replies to “Mike Hall: Solo Bass Arrangements, Music Industry Predictions, and More”
Absolutely fascinating interview!
Thanks for reading, Julie!
Mike Hall truly has one-of-a-kind bass skills. Interesting to read more about his background
Glad you enjoyed it, Jordan! Thanks for checking out the interview.