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Baker's Dozen

Creating A Songwriter: The 13 Albums That Made Thundercat
Rob Hakimian , April 14th, 2020 08:53

The virtuoso bassist takes Rob Hakimian through his musical life story with a baker's dozen that traces his trajectory from kid messing with his parents' records to the in-demand player that he is today. Photographs by The1Point8.

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Korn – Issues
Emo steez. I was a little emo kid. It's one of those things where, again, notably realising when somebody does something different – and Fieldy definitely played his instrument different than any bass player I'd heard before. I could tie this to Marvel and everything again, like Todd McFarlane did the cover of the album Follow The Leader and the video for 'Freak On A Leash', and he was also a Marvel artist at the time.

It was a bit iconic for me, from Follow the Leader to Issues. That's all I was at school; at one point I went through a hard-ass Korn phase where I was just like, 'I only listen to Korn.' I didn't want to play bass like Fieldy because I didn't I totally understand why it wasn't always very melodic or harmonic, but a lot of the choices that they made when it came to progressions and stuff like that were insane, also, and it was something that drew me in.

Every now and again I run into them, and we're not friends, but we're associates to the degree of where we recognise each other. I literally just got a chance to see them at a show and we sat and talked, but I haven't ever told them that like they were a big part of my growing years as an artist and as a bass player. Yeah, Issues is still one of my favourite Korn albums.