“Herbie Flowers was supposed to do the date, but he couldn’t make it. So Bowie said to me, ‘You’ll have to play bass’”: Trevor Bolder speaks out on his storied history with David Bowie

With its unique balance of blues roots, pedal to-the-metal hard rock, and vocal pop sensibilities, Trevor Bolder’s bass playing was a fascinating contrast of approaches. On Uriah Heep’s acclaimed 2008 release, Wake the Sleeper, Bolder can be found pumping piston-like eighth-notes in a verse, before shifting gears to a soaring counter-melody line in the chorus, via his trademark sliding octaves.

Then again, when your career begins with a visionary like David Bowie, imagination is not a problem. “A lot of the basslines for Bowie had to come off the top of my head,” Bolder told Bass Player back in 2008. “It was an on-the-spot situation. We had some rehearsal time for Ziggy Stardust, but for much of Aladdin Sane we’d get two runthroughs and then do the take.”

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