"Now is definitely a strange time for us," nods 25-year-old Patrick Dahlheimer. "Nothing feels completely solid under our feet these days. The last record was … pretty damn successful. And now it's like the tide's coming in and it's time to sink or swim. I guess we'll see."

Thrown together by a prescient middle-school music teacher in 1985, Patrick, guitarist Chad Taylor, and drummer Chad Gracey joined forces for a school talent show-and for something to do. "At first we did get together out of boredom," Dahlheimer grins, "but when we played that talent show, the girls screamed, and we were into that. We eventually figured out we could do the music thing without a singer only for so long-and we'd known Ed [Kowalczyk] for a while-so he started singing with us. Nobody else was in bands in our hometown, so we were kind of novel, and we'd get to play all the dumb high school parties."

Young men destined for greatness are rarely sated by bashing out covers at keg parties, though. "We were having fun, but we were bored," Patrick admits. "Once we stumbled into writing songs, though, we started to take ourselves more seriously. We weren't very good players, but we thought we could write half-decent songs-and the longer we did it, the better it felt. I don't know if we knew we had something special that early on, but after we finished high school no one was ready to walk away from it. So we decided to keep pursuing it, and we set our sights on a record deal."

From the earliest days of Live (originally dubbed Public Affection), Dahlheimer parlayed limited bass knowledge into a funked up, melodic, thoroughly unconventional approach to hard rock. "Because none of us could really play-and we were all struggling-we each just made up our own things," he shrugs. "Nobody had found his niche as a player, so we each kind of invented what we should sound like as musicians. The only bass player I could check out at the time was our music teacher, Don Karn, and he had a big ol' thumb. That's all he did-thump it out. So I thought that's the way everybody plays, you know? Then in eighth grade I bought a Chili Peppers record, and I was like, Damn-everybody does play like that!"

Though they struggled individually with their instruments, the Live crew never stopped playing together, gradually forging an organic, richly dynamic symbiosis that's become the core of the band's overall aesthetic. "It's going on 11 or 12 years now," Patrick sighs, "so making music with these guys is almost second nature. I think that's why it's so hard to analyze. I mean, when we're writing together, I don't think 'parts' anymore-I think 'song.' That's elemental to what we do."

All three of your albums open with serious riff songs. You guys sure can write an anthem.

That's what they tell us. They say we're the '80s rock-anthem band of the '90s, which I consider a compliment. Ed has a real knack; lots of the songs he comes up with are just plain big. Anthem is the word-I don't know how else to describe 'em. For "Pain Lies on the Riverside" [from Mental Jewelry], he came in with only the verse-two chords and a melody-so Gracey and I just jumped in and went for it. We came up with parts on the spot, but that song was big from the minute Ed showed up with those two chords.

The funk bass line is a bit unexpected.

I guess we figured we were funky [laughs]; then, a little later on, we realized we weren't! I was listening to a lot of Sade records at the time, and I thought [bassist] Paul Denman was really great. He played all these wacky, staccato parts I was trying to cop. So that song was really my bad impression of him. [See music, page 44.]

What about those early songs-"Take My Anthem," "Mirror Song"-where your line is kind of on its own, and not derived from the guitar or drum part?

Hmmm … those parts really came out of simply not knowing very much. I didn't consider myself naïve, but I wasn't sure what was expected of a bass player in a band, so I just innocently did my own thing. Often that approach can work great. Even now, I'd sometimes like to feel that way, and to have that back. But it's hard; after you've done it for so long, you can definitely lose that innocence.

When it came time to hire a producer for Mental Jewelry in 1991, was it difficult to bring a fifth creative voice into the fold-especially a seasoned rock & roll vet like Jerry Harrison?

Actually, it was really refreshing. When we went to do that first record, it became so important to have somebody else in the room to help us, especially with arrangements. I mean, we were still learning how to write songs. We took two weeks with Jerry and just ran through every song-tearing 'em inside out and working up arrangements. They almost became new songs to us after rearranging all the parts. It was a huge learning experience for us; Jerry just seemed to know everything. [Laughs.] We were all like, "Man-this guy's a wizard!"

Your ballad playing had reached a new level by the time you recorded Throwing Copper. "Selling the Drama" has Mike Mills's fingerprints all over it.

Definitely. I hear that song as us wearing our R.E.M. influence on our sleeves. It's not something we'd ever do intentionally-I don't want to call it a big bite-but we grew up listening to those guys a lot, so the influence is obviously there. And to me, Mike Mills is the epitome of what a rock & roll bass player should be. He's such a great player; he's so simple, but he sets things up, and he moves.

Who are some other key influences?

I always used to try to play along with that first Specials record [The Specials, Chrysalis]. Those lines were really cool, and it was one of those albums you could learn from and try to impress your friends with. You know, "What song is that?" "Forget it, man-you wouldn't know it." [Laughs.] I'm not proud of it, but I can also remember being 14 years old and learning to play along with Duran Duran records. I always thought John Taylor just had his own thing, completely. Then, not too long ago, I was backstage at a Chili Peppers show, and Duff McKagan from Guns N' Roses was there. I knew he's also in that band with John Taylor, the Neurotic Outsiders, so I told him, "When you see John Taylor, tell him I used to learn all his lines!" And Duff was like, "Are you serious?" I know he didn't believe me. [Ed. Note: Horace Panter of the Specials was featured in February '97; John Taylor was featured in November '94.]

The ominous dynamics of heavier songs like "I Alone" and "Iris" cemented a signature sound for Live.

I'd actually never thought about it until after Throwing Copper came out and people started to go on and on about the whole soft verse/loud bridge thing. Everybody was saying, "It's your sound, man," and it threw me for a loop 'cause I'd really never given it much thought. There are a lot of things within this band that go unspoken. We just do them, and I don't know where they come from.

Are those clashing dynamics ever hard to control onstage?

They can be, but when we're crankin' into something and suddenly put on the brakes, I get a real energy rush. That stop-and-go really winds me up inside, and once we get back to the chorus, it's a huge release. If you can do it well, it's a damn good thing. [Laughs.]

"T.B.D." is quite dub-like, with that dark tone and those repetitive 16ths. Do you listen to much reggae?

I do. I don't dive deep, but I have all the obvious stuff: Tosh, Marley … the records every cool guy has to have in his collection [laughs]. I listen to all of those players, and every once in a while I sit down and try to cop their stuff-but I admit I can't keep up with it. That special sense of reggae timing is just far beyond me; I'll probably never pick up on it.

Your line in "White, Discussion" is … unconventional. Do you enjoy leading the song?

Sure. I'd like to say, "Yeah, I love to lead the song," but I think it's more often a matter of Taylor allowing me to lead-especially with that song. It's not a very solid guitar part. He kind of comes and goes with these odd chords, and that gives me the freedom to plow on through and move the song along. I'm sure if he played a bigger guitar part, that bass line wouldn't work. But when I first heard Gracey's drum pattern, just kind of floppin' along like it does, the whole song felt really roly-poly to me. So I just kept thinking, "silly" and "floppy." [Laughs.]

Chad came up with that riff late one night by himself. When he played it for us the next day, it seemed pretty cool, but it just kept repeating and repeating. I was thinking, Um, what's going to happen? But he kept saying, "Wait 'til we get to the end-it's gonna go ballistic!" And the first time we played it, when he yelled, "Now!" we just lit up. The energy was amazing. The whole song came together in about five minutes; we played through it twice, and then we decided we should never play it again until we could put it to tape. It was so fresh we decided just to leave it alone. [See music, page 45.]

The chord progression is certainly unusual.

It sure doesn't seem right, does it? [Laughs.] It's strange, but that's Taylor for you. He's never been big on chords, or on knowin' which ones are "right" or "wrong." That song is just something he came up with in his weird, weird mind.

You began experimenting with a pick around the time you were recording Throwing Copper. Now your pick playing on Secret Samadhi is really strong. When did you start working heavily on your pick chops?

It was always all fingers with me when I was comin' up. I didn't even consider a pick until Taylor finally bought a decent amp and I couldn't hear myself anymore [laughs]; that was after the first record. I knew my tone had to cut more to be heard, but my amp wouldn't go any louder-so I began practicing hard with the pick until it became completely natural. Now I can just feel which songs need a pick and which ones call for the fingers.

"Heropsychodreamer" really needs that hard-edged attack.

Definitely. That's a big ol' pick groove. [See music, page 45.] I can't move my fingers that fast, anyway. Still, I don't sit around and predetermine if I'll use a pick or not; I just know by now if the song merits it, or if it needs something else. "Ghost," for example, would never work if I broke out the pick. It just doesn't call for that.

"Lakini's Juice" is both as spare and as lush as anything you've done.

I know exactly what you mean. I heard it on the radio the other day, and I was thinking, Everything's so repetitive-that same guitar riff, that same bass line, that same drum pattern … it's as if there's nothing there. Yet it seems so big. I don't know how the hell we did it, but it sounds cool.

We were going out for dinner one night, and Taylor put this tape in. It was just that opening riff over and over again, and I started laughin' at him-you know, "What are you gonna do with this?" But then when we were recording the new record in Jamaica, he started to play the riff again. I had a little MXR overdrive in line, so I stomped on it and started in with that sliding drop part. We just looked at each other and thought, Man, that could be a song! Gracey came running into the room, and Ed-we couldn't even see him-started yelling into his microphone from the porch outside, "Holy shit, keep playing!" It was wild. I had no idea that one silly riff could turn into what it did.

Maybe it's the freedom you allow one another.

True. No one in this band limits or pressures anyone else-that's part of the deal. For example, I wrote the song "Merica" on guitar, and then I worked up the whole thing at home on a 4-track with drums and everything. I gave the tape to Ed, and he checked it out and said, "Let's try it." So we gave it a go, but it wasn't happening. I guess it's kind of a silly guitar part, and Taylor couldn't really get it. Finally he said, "Why don't you just play it?" So I did; that's me on the album. Then Gracey couldn't come up with a drum part he liked, and he asked to hear my demo again. Now, I can barely play the drums [laughs]-but he dug what I had done and said, "Hell, I'll just play that!" And that's what he did. So, yeah, if any one of us ever has an idea or wants to try something, this band will give it a shot. Whatever I feel like doing, these guys will let me just go for it.

Overall, you play much less these days.

Everybody can tell you less is more-but until you stumble upon it yourself, you're never going to get it. This new record is pretty sparse, especially from the bass perspective. A lot of the time, with these new songs, I just felt that not playing over a beat said more than playing. The music felt different to me, so I felt I needed to play differently. I started to think about space, and the usage of space, and not playing in places where I would normally play. Leaving out notes can bring a certain freshness to a song.

Varying your tone from song to song has become an important part of your approach. Still, that clanging, industrial noise you make on "Unsheathed" isn't like anything else you've done.

[Laughs.] Actually, that was bizarre. It was a Vigier bass. I'd played a Vigier on the first record-they make these fancy, crazy-lookin' active basses-and then I used the same bass plus an Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay on Throwing Copper. But I'd recently gone a different way and begun collecting vintage instruments. So when we went to do Secret Samadhi, I had all of this great old stuff. [See equipment, page 38.] When we got to "Unsheathed," though, I was going through every bass I had in the studio, and nothing was right; it was getting really frustrating. Finally, we tried this odd-lookin' Vigier the company had sent us. It had tons of knobs-I mean, this thing was way active [laughs]. It didn't sound like anything else on the album, but as soon as we plugged it in, Jay [Healy, producer] just knew it fit the song.

What was it like to switch producers after two strong records with Jerry Harrison?

It was weird. We always sort of figured we'd work with Jerry again, so when we decided to go with Jay, we felt bad telling Jerry. But he understood, of course, and he was very professional about the whole thing. He pointed out that when he was in Talking Heads, they went through producers like you wouldn't believe. So he's still a great friend … and he always has a lot of good stories [laughs].

I bet. Talking Heads was an interesting band, to say the least.

Oh, yeah-and Tina Weymouth is one bizarre bass player. She's definitely worth checking out. Her parts on those older records are just so off-hand and cool. Ed recorded a song with the Heads on their record, No Talking Just Head [Radioactive/MCA], and afterwards he told me Tina's the glue, man-no doubt about it. He said Chris Frantz is always just sittin' back there, playing that simple four-beat on drums, and Jerry kind of goofs off and does his thing on keyboards, but Tina holds the whole band together. [Ed. Note: Tina Weymouth was featured in March '97.]

How different was working with Jay?

Very. Jerry's not really a hands-on producer; he's just not that technical when it comes to recording. He's more of an organizer and a mood elevator-he really controls the vibe in the studio. I didn't actually figure that out until we began working on Secret Samadhi, because Jay comes from a whole different side of producing. This was the first record he's ever produced, but he's been an engineer for years and years, so he was on the board from day one listening to takes, working the controls, and all that. But the vibe and the personal side-and the writing and arranging-didn't play a big part with him.

When in the writing process do you come up with your lines?

I just let my basic parts come together when we're all in the room together, either learning the changes to a new song or actually writing out some chords for the first time. The simple part that starts right there may develop later, but I don't think I've ever gone home after a rehearsal and completely rewritten a part. I believe it has to happen in the element, because when I sit at home and play, I'm a totally different kind of player. When I come to the band, though, I know how I have to play to make things work.

Equipment: Live Stock

By Scott Malandrone

Patrick Dahlheimer has been bitten by a bug. It seems the Live bassist has become a vintage-instrument fanatic since recording the band's 1994 record, Throwing Copper. "Buying gear is one of the best parts of having a successful record," says Patrick. After selling a few million copies of Copper, Dahlheimer's collection rapidly grew. Here, Patrick gives us a rundown of his favorite instruments, as well as a look at the gear he's used in the studio and when Live plays … live.

Your switch from modern-sounding instruments to vintage collectibles has really changed your sound. At what point did you start buying them?

During the last tour, when I stumbled into a pawn shop in Jacksonville. They had a '62 P-Bass that was really interesting: the pink finish had worn away in spots, and I could see a sunburst underneath. It appeared to be a factory refinish, though--so I looked into it and found out that in 1962, Fender was spraying over the sunburst models and shipping them to the U.K.; the Shadows were huge at the time, and they all played pink Strats and Precisions. So I bought the bass and started playing it onstage. The sound was amazing; it was musical. The tone didn't depend on a battery or active electronics. It was a hunk of wood, and you had to make it work.

From there, I started going to pawn shops--and that's when the bug bit. I bought a '62 Lake Placid Blue P-Bass. Then I became friends with John Slog, who has quite the collection. He doesn't help my habit any! [Laughs.] He called me one day and said, "I've got this '62 mahogany-body P-Bass." I didn't believe him, so I had him send it to me. Once I played it, though, I had to have it. [Patrick's mahogany
Precision is pictured on the cover.] Then I bought a couple of '70s Gibson Les Paul Signature basses. I'd seen people playin' 'em, but I'd always thought, What the hell can you do with a hollowbody bass? Then we did some shows with the Black Crowes, and Johnny Colt had one; it had the fattest low end I had ever heard. So I had to get one of those, too! [Laughs.] I bought a sunburst one, and I found out later they didn't make many of those. Most of them had a gold top. I did get a gold-top later on, but I've never seen another sunburst. My '63 Gibson T-Bird is cool, too.

Fender recently sent me one of its Relic '60s Jazz Basses, which looks like an old, worn, vintage model. It's nice, man. But why do they have to beat 'em up? [Laughs.] When they sent it to me, I kind of thought, Um, well, whatever … let's see how it sounds--but it sounds and plays great.

I have a Fender Custom Shop Shoreline Gold J with a curly-maple neck and rosewood fingerboard, too. And there's one other: a black '61 Jazz with a matching headstock. That was a good find. I use it onstage for the song "Iris."

How many basses have you collected?

Around 30. I just bought a Burgundy Mist '62 P-Bass that looks great and plays even better. And I have a mid-'60s Sonic Blue Jazz with a matching headstock that looks cool sitting in my den. There's also the sunburst '58 P-Bass I play on "Lakini's Juice," "I Alone," and "White, Discussion." It's beat like a dog, but it's got great tone. Actually, I'm trying to find another one. So, there, the word is out.

Could this habit be called an addiction?

I didn't think it was, until I started going to guitar stores again and buying more basses. It's one of the few hobbies I have. It used to be playing bass, but when you play for 18 months on the road, you don't feel like playing for a while when you get home.

Your tone has changed a lot since Mental Jewelry.

It has. For the first album, I started to record with my old Ibanez Soundgear 4-string, but then Brian Ritchie from Violent Femmes turned me on to Vigiers. So I went to this store in Milwaukee that sold them, and they had this bass that listed for, like, $4,000. But I played it and said, "My God!" At the time, our entire record advance was 10,000 bucks, and the bass was four. [Laughs.] But I got the store to lend it to me.

It was funny--I had recorded all the parts with the Ibanez, and then I came back and said, "Guys, they lent me this bass!" I re-recorded the whole record in three hours!

Your tone on Throwing Copper is huge.

That sound had a lot to do with the guy who mixed the record, Tom Lord-Alge. We got a decent sound to tape, and he kind of ran with it. He compressed it to hell and back. I recorded that one with my old Trace 4x10 combo, a Vigier, and an Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay; the amp was miked and had a line to the board from its DI. But most of that sound happened during mixing.

How does your tone differ on Secret Samadhi?

They finally turned me up! [Laughs.] We spent more time on the bass; I went through a ton of basses and amps to find the right combinations. I used a lot of my vintage instruments, so my tone is a bit "truer" this time--although I did play a Vigier on "Unsheathed."

The sound I was after depended on the song and what everybody else in the band was doing. On "Graze," I played my Gibson Les Paul
Signature bass, and it's mostly feedback--I sat in front of the amp and let the notes ring, which isn't something I would normally do. But it worked for the song.

To me, the tone on "Gas Hed Goes West" is how a Jazz Bass should sound: nasal and staccato. "Lakini's Juice" is also interesting: it didn't quite happen in the mix the way I wanted it to; the growl came out good, but it could have taken up a different space.

Have you been a Trace Elliot user since you started?

A Trace was the first amp I ever bought. I remember seeing the Jesus And Mary Chain when I was 15, and I walked into the club and the bass player had all these green, glowin' amps! So when I went shopping, I found a used Trace Elliot 4x10 combo and was impressed, but I had to borrow $800 from somebody and make monthly payments. It suited me really well for years, though. So when it came time to do the first tour, I went to the local music store with an open mind and tried a lot of amps, but the Trace sound worked for me the best.

Are you still using the solid-state SMX heads?

Right now I'm using the 220-watt V-Type tube heads; Trace sent me one when we went into the studio. I found the amp a bit more suited to what we were doing this time--it breathes more and doesn't seem as mechanical-sounding as the SMX. There are also fewer buttons and knobs: VOLUME, BASS, and TREBLE … got it.

I used the SMX350 heads for the first two tours, and they were really loud and clean. I tried one again when we were rehearsing for this tour, but after using the V-Type, it didn't feel right.

Are you happy with your live tone?

I can't tell, because I'm going deaf! [Laughs.] My tech, Michael Bess, says it sounds good. But yeah, I'm happy. I'm also happy our onstage volume is coming down. Last summer I was running like four stacks of the 600-watt SMXs, and it was too God-awful loud. But now that the levels have come down, it sounds more natural.

Do you have most of your vintage instruments on tour?

Yep. To me, they're just basses, you know? I mean, there's the nice stuff I leave at home because I don't want to be the one who messes it up. But if they sound good, I might as well play 'em. If you've got 'em, why not play 'em?

Thanks to Michael Bess for providing Dahlheimer's signal chain.

A Selected Discography

With Live: (all on Radioactive) Secret Samadhi; Throwing Copper; Mental Jewelry.