The Funky Bass Continuum: Bootsy Collins and MonoNeon in Conversation

The word “parallel” is easy to use to describe bass luminaries Bootsy Collins and MonoNeon. Both are remarkably distinctive, not only in their playing style but in their fashion, and they both exist on the leading edge of musical and technological trends. And both innovators have what seems to be everything: signature model instruments and effects, adoring fans across the globe, and the biggest and most important attribute of all, humility. The career paths of these two have been eerily similar, albeit decades apart. Collins, who is 73, electrified the club scene in Cincinnati, eventually being handpicked by James Brown to join his band. Prince caught wind of MonoNeon, who is 34, via his clips online, and soon the young bassist was standing next to Mr. Nelson at Paisley Park, bringing new energy to the Purple One.Both have just released new records. MonoNeon’s You Had Your Chance … Bad Attitude blends funk and soul with dashes of heartbreak and humor, adding to his extensive list of releases. Bootsy has dropped his Album of the Year #1 Funkateer with a fury, collaborating with Snoop Dogg, Fantaazma, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, and Ice Cube to blend classic funk with modern grooves. In our hour-long bass conversation, we talked about church, family, and finding your voice in the world, and I was genuinely surprised to hear the tech-savvy approach of the “old guard” Bootsy and the “old soul” approach of the social media influencer MonoNeon. Bootsy Collins: What year did we meet, and you did the bass thing on my record?MonoNeon: Two-thousand-sixteen. That was with [drummer] John Blackwell.Collins: That’s right. That’s when we really got together in person and started hooking up. I checked out Mono on Twitter at the time, and he had such a style and he used the instrument not just as a bass; he took it and communicated with it, showing people that whatever you are saying you can speak through music. It was pretty incredible, because in my day, coming up, that was like a breath of fresh air.Bringing musicality to everyday life was that extra step.Collins: Then the other step was that, you know, he has his grandma on. Kids don’t do that. They want to get away from their parents, and here’s this young cat coming up, sitting with grandma, going to church. So I had to meet this cat. You bring up church—did you guys play in church?MonoNeon: Oh yeah. I grew up in church. Grandma used to take me to a Baptist church in Memphis. I started playing there at age 9. It was intimidating. There were a lot of great musicians there. Collins: There’s nothing like it. Maybe if we hadn’t started there, we wouldn’t be where we are now. That’s the “one.” You start right there, then grow. You can be away for a minute, but that feeling never leaves you. If you don’t have church, though, you don’t know how far is too far. That’s one side; then there’s another side, the Holy Spirit, where you aren’t acting, you’re just being yourself and playing and letting this spirit take over. I know Mono went through that sort of vibe with Prince, too. Walk me through when Prince brought in a new track or idea.MonoNeon: I always just waited on Prince to tell me what to do. I would do my thing on it until he told me “don’t do that.” He always let me be myself. You mentioned John Blackwell earlier. What a force. Let’s talk about drummers for a minute. What do we like in drummers?MonoNeon: Well, for me, the drummer has to have a lot of personality. He has to have great sensibility and just be fearless. I really don’t care about a lot of chops.Collins: With me, my heroes were Clyde Stubblefield and Jabo Starks. And I never could dream of getting the opportunity to play with them. When they came to record at King Records here in Cincinnati, my dream was to at least meet them. I wasn’t even thinking about getting a chance to play with them. It just happened to turn into a relationship once James Brown hired us [Bootsy and his brother, guitarist Catfish Collins], which was unreal at the time. Standing in between those two … Clyde was fire. He was just fire. And Jabo was just the watery, jazzy, swinging-type drummer. A lot of people don't know the difference in their styles. You know, they just say “James Brown drummers,” but James would use either Jabo or Clyde to record, depending on the style of the song. James knew.Tell me more about James. Collins: The way he treated me and my brother was, “Y’all go ahead and do your thing,” much like Prince with Mono. It was more about our energy coming into the studio rather than his. James would tell us parts in advance, and he was looking for that young energy. James would let us go into the studio before he got there, and we would be in the room grooving and James would come in, like, “Keep it going, keep it going, start the tape.” He’d start the tape up, he’d run out there to the mic and just start yapping—ha! Where did you track with James? Collins: We recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and Criteria down in Miami. King Records here in Cincinnati is the main one. We’re actually in the process of revitalizing the room and getting it up and cracking again. We think there is a lot we can do for the music and the historical side of the scene here.Speaking of the scene, Mono, you are in Memphis. You grew up with the Stax Records location right down the road and Beale Street not too far away. Your dad, Duane Thomas, is a bass player with some big credits as well. What records were on the family turntable when you were little?MonoNeon: Probably some stuff my dad played on. My dad used to play with Denise LaSalle and Mavis and Pop Staples, so I was listening to all that. My dad also played with the Bar-Kays in the late ’80s. I had music from church and the records my grandma was playing as well—blues like Jay Blackfoot and Johnnie Taylor. That’s why I’ve got an old soul now, because I was hearing all that shit. What was the scene in Cincinnati like in the late ’60s and early ’70s?Collins: Well, at one time it was a great, great scene because you had clubs everywhere and all the bands were working. We’d go and sit in with each other. Roger Troutman, Ohio players, Slade, all these mugs were just working in clubs. And it was an every-night situation. The scene was beaming with clubs and places to go and places to do things so you can show your talent. We didn’t have the computer thing, online and all that, so you actually had to be somewhere to show what you got. We used to walk in clubs and have our instruments out. When you walk in like that, you kind of demanding, like, “We coming to take your gig,” you know? We [Bootsy and Catfish] always brought it. So, we had the reputation going. Then everybody kind of knew, oh, them Collins, them Muppets. That’s why James was looking for us.You both have new records. Tell me about the process of making them.MonoNeon: It’s really just trial and error for me. I sit down at the keyboard and try to figure out harmonies that feel like me. It’s seeing what works or not. I try leaving that space open for whatever comes.How do you map it out? Is it bass parts first then everything else? Do you chart it out as you go? MonoNeon: I don’t chart anything out. I just open up my DAW—Logic—and get on the keyboard and figure out some shit. I make a beat first, usually, especially when I’m working by myself. The guy I work with in L.A., David Nathan, we write songs together, and he’s a great songwriter and producer. So when it comes to songwriting, it’s easier to narrow ideas when I work with him. He’s like a brother to me. So, I trust him with my vision and what we want to do. But since I’m so quirky, he knows my quirks, so he’s able to flesh it out. I am definitely learning more about songwriting being around Davey as well.Bootsy, you have moved into more of a producer role for your new record and have some heavy guests. How do you adjust for each one? Collins: I guess for each song the process really is different, and they come to you differently as well. Back in the day when I was coming through with George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic, we got a chance to just vibe a track out, because we always had the band with us. Today is totally different. I might say, “Mono, I’m gonna send you a track and check it out and see if you hear anything on it.” Then he’ll get back and say, “No, I ain’t feeling it.”MonoNeon: C’mon!
Collins: I mean, he ain’t done that yet. Mono always comes up with it, sends it back, so I am always learning. I think with this new record, it gave me an opportunity to learn even more. For example, a few of the songs I did with Dave Stewart, he’s playing acoustic guitar, because I wanted to do some real songs—ones with less groove jams and more structure. That’s something I’ve never done. I’ve always played experimental stuff that comes off of my head. I’ll jam with this groove, or I tell a band what to play, and here’s the tempo. But on this record, each song is different. If I’m going to use a rapper on a song, I’ll write something in that rapper’s style. I probably will never be exact to the genre, and I ain’t trying to be. That’s the good part about it. For me, you know, it’s always wanting to do something different and new. I wanna keep learning different things from different cats, and I feel like we are transmitters and receivers. And if you don’t shut up, you’ll never receive.
MonoNeon: I guess we got good ears and we just hear everything. I don’t consider myself a producer; I just do stuff.
Collins: That’s the attitude that I liked about Mono even before I knew him. You can just tell certain cats got a certain vibe that you already know that you’re gonna gel with them, and that’s why we are closer than we even know. Bass players become producers. We can become anything, you know? But the main thing is we use instruments to communicate. And instruments ain’t just what I play, it’s what I wear—my fashion is an instrument, my glasses are an instrument, you know? My tone, I mean, everything that a bass player uses, is a part of him. We can’t track that stuff; it’s just us. Since you mentioned tone and this is a guitar magazine, what are your two desert island effects pedals?MonoNeon: Ooooh, I guess my Whammy pedal and my Fart pedal. Collins: For me it’s my Mu-Tron and the Big Muff. That’s what I started with. If I can sneak in a third, it would be a Morley wah with the fuzz. Mono, when did you jump into effects? MonoNeon: Kinda early on, but I didn’t really apply it to anything. My use of the Whammy pedal came from being around Prince. I was just watching how he was stepping on it. He had so much swag. I wasn’t really listening to it, I was really watching how he was using it. I just started applying it to what I was doing and cultivating it.Collins: That became his Mu-Tron. That became a great move.