What it's All About

So, Wisconsin Beef Commission is a band that started out as a side project of the band American Radio Police. This is a band I play bass for, and last summer had to take some time off due to our lead singer having family issues. Mike Rowan, our drummer came up with the idea of doing a 2-piece band of just me and him, and I originally thought "Wow, this might be interesting, playing GUITAR for a band", which I had never done before, being a bass player. As we discussed it, Mike had informed me he meant that I was gonna be playing bass. Again I was interested in what the hell we could possibly do.

So we started as a 2-piece, and started compiling some originals and some covers. The idea started to come around to doing a country theme with the punk we were coming up with. As time went on, we decided to add Mike's partner in crime Dana Ellis as a back-up vocalist and occasional lead vocalist. Even after doing a handful of shows, Mike is still the lead singer.

So for this project came the issue of how the hell I was going to fill the space of our music with just bass. Now over the years I've been no stranger to using distortion on Bass. For this though, I knew that wouldn't be enough. From the start, I decided that to make this work I'd need to incorporate a guitar amp as well as the bass amp I had already been using.

Now for all the gear heads out there, here's how I go about accomplishing the sound. First off, I use P-Basses (a '95 American Standard Precission with Basslines SPB-3 Quarter Pound P pickup and Fender No-Load tone, and a Hoppus Bass, as it has the same pickup and no tone knob, but does have a Jazz Bass body), as they've been my predominant go-to basses for about 10 years or so now, and though I've tried others, I kept coming back to my P-Basses. Then I use Line 6 X2 XDS95 wireless systems (the reciever has been modded for better range and fewer dropouts). From there, the signal goes to my pedalboard where I have an Ibanez TS-9DX (modded to TS-808 specs), and my vintage RatII. Occassionally I'll have my old TS-9 (also modded to TS-808 specs)) as well. From there I run it to a Morley A-B box. This I use a lot to give dynamics, and try to mimic a guitar sound, and a seperate bass sound. The "A" side of this then goes to my Ampeg SVTII (ca 1989, NOT the SVTII Pro), and this usually goes into an Ampeg SVT410HLF (SVT810E at larger venues), this is the bass end of my sound. Then on the "B" side, I send the signal to an E-H Bass Balls (which I use sparingly, as this pedal can be a bit much), and finally to top off the guitar sound, I use an old Sovtek Mig 60, and a cab that I built for a different amp, a 6x10 with Jensen c10q's. I find the Sovtek with it's EL34's, is a great amp for this application, as it gives a nice highend crunch that is kind of Marshall-esque. For a short time I ran through a Marshall JCM800 100 watt, but the sovtek reacts better to what I'm trying to do. I use the overdrive channel on this amp and leave it on fulltime (this amp is not switchable). I had used a Fender Blues DeVille (4x10 combo) for a show, and that worked as well.

So far, this band has taken off more than I've expected, and things are looking up. Ironically, what started out as a supplementary side project has had more success than the other 2 bands I've been involved with in the last 3 years.