One Step Closer (1980)

Bass

One Step Closer was the first album for John McPhee, Cornelius Bumpus, and Chet McCracken. This was another version of the band, and it started a new creative process. We carried over much of the sound we created on Minute by Minute, but we had three new band members and had lost two. There's so much going on with this album. One thing is that I was using a bass that I hadn't used in the studio before, the Music Man. I was having issues with it and my bass ended up sounding really tiny. You can hear what I'm doing, you just have to listen really closely. Our music was more refined on One Step Closer; we forged our sound at the rehearsal house in Half Moon Bay rather than in the studio. We had this new environment to work in that was ours. It was perfect. I would drive from my house to the rehearsal house, be there at 10 in the morning, stay there until 6 or 7 at night and drive home and be able to sleep in my own bed, which I couldn't do if we were recording in LA. I was so happy. We had all this beautiful music worked out before we went into the studio. Later during the recording process Bruce Cohn comes in and says, “We're on the road again!” I decided right there that I was not going to be on the road again. I like my bed and my house in the mountains! This is the last album for me with that version of the band.