Click here to watch the bass solo 'Atomic Boogie' on youtube.
Djordje Stijepovic I met Djordje when I was playing in San Francisco a couple of years ago. He gave me 2 CDs, and we talked bass after the show.
The next day I listened to the CDs that he gave me and was really suprised at just how good and diverse he was.
Djordje is going to be touring with Deke Dickerson and the Ecco-Phonics in May, so be sure you check him out!
Shawn: I was surprised to hear that you played rockabilly music in Serbia. How did you get started?
April 2006
by Shawn Burrell
Djordje: I started playing music when I was 11, just because of rockabilly actually. I played guitar for a while, but soon I realized that I'd prefer to play the upright bass. When I was 13, I enrolled in elementary music school for bass. At that time, I wasn't so interested in classical music, but that was the only way to convince my parents to buy me one. I had a rockabilly band, "Lonesome Train," and I needed an instrument. I was just into rockabilly and psychobilly back in those days. Serbia is a very interesting country. Because it was always somewhere in the middle. In terms of politics, that's definitely not good; this is obvious, since we've never had 50 years of peace. In terms of culture it's great! From a young age I was surrounded by all types of different music, first "rebel" stuff like rockabilly and punk, and then I discovered jazz, classical music and especially different sounds from Balkan and Middle East that I love.
Shawn: You have a degree in music. Where did you go to school?
Djordje: All the schools I attended were in Belgrade. Usually when I mention all the schools I finished, people always think how expensive that was, but the whole educational system works much differently back there. There are auditions, and if you pass, you're in.
Shawn: What was it like? Can you elaborate on your music education?
Djordje: My classical education was 2 years elementary music school, 4 years of music high school and 4 years of Conservatory. I only had musical subjects like theory, harmony, counterpoint, and orchestra because I had finished regular high school already. In five years of jazz school my majors were double bass and arranging. The knowledge I got there really helped me understand music theory and music in general. I also had luck learning from some of the greatest bassists in the world at various workshops. The one I strongly suggest is in Michaelstein in Germany.
Shawn: What are your main projects right now?
Djordje: My main rockabilly project is Atomic Sunset. That band kinda developed from my neo-swing band Havana Whisper. Even though we had some success in Serbia, major record deal, festivals and national TV appearances, it started to get really hard to organize all 7 guys for rehearsals and gigs. Besides that, Drazen and I always wanted to play together in a trio. Sinisa was sitting in for a couple shows with Havana Whisper, and we all knew each other pretty well before we organized the band. We wanted to push this style of music a little bit further, and never wanted to sound like an authentic '50s band. I always had the idea of having a rockabilly band with a modern edge, and where all the instruments would be equally important. With Atomic Sunset, you could expect drum and bass solos, instrumental dialogues etc. The approach with a singer and a couple guys behind is kinda outdated by my opinion. The tricky part is that you have to know the style really well, because there's always a danger that you can go too far. Now, that band is a bit in frozen status, as well as some others like Balkans sounding "Marsya" and Middle Eastern "Shira Utfila", because I am spending most of my time in California. Here, I don't have a "main project", but I play a lot, mostly rockabilly, bluegrass, jazz and chamber orchestra gigs.
Shawn: Are you working on any new albums?
Djordje: This year I expect Atomic Sunset debut album to be released, so we're all very exited about that one. Besides that, I'm in the studio with the Bluenotecats, and the Haywoods are gonna record a new album sometime soon. I'm constantly composing songs for my solo album I plan to record in the near future. I don't know when, but it will definitely be some kind of synthesis of all the styles I play. Occasionally I perform solo, so I have a chance to check them out in front of the audience.
Shawn: Any tours planned?
Djordje: I'm really excited about this year. In May I'll go on my first US tour with Deke Dickerson as part of his band, Ecco-fonics. We have 28 shows scheduled in 27 days so far! We'll also play Ponderosa Stomp festival in Memphis where we'll back up a lot of original '50s artists. I also just signed a contract with California Shakespeare Theater in Berkeley, and we'll do about 30 shows in September and October. It's not exactly a tour, but I'll get to work with great composer from England, Gina Leishman. She's part of the alt-NY jazz scene with Mark Ribot, Greg Cohen etc.
Shawn: I know that you use steel strings, what kind do you use?
Djordje: I play Thomastik Spirocore Orchestra (medium) gauge for more then 15 years now. I found that with them I have the best balance between slap, pizzicato and arco playing in terms of quality of the tone. I know that steel strings are nowadays almost "bad word" in rockabilly, but I like that you have much better control of the intonation then with others.
Shawn: Can you explain why you like them more than gut strings?
Djordje: I much prefer the tension of steel strings than guts. The intonation is more precise by my opinion. If you play long shows, they'll stay in tune much longer. Probably the other main reason is that I play a lot with a bow, and where I definitely prefer the sound of steels. I don't mind playing guts sometimes. In the history of slap bass there's so many examples of great playing on steels or guts, so that's really matter of taste. One of my all time favorites, Milt Hinton, also played steels, usually Thomastik Spirocore Weich (soft) or Supreme Super-Sensitive.
Shawn: How many basses do you own and what are they?
Djordje: I have three basses. One recorded on almost all records I played is a Russian bass, solid wood top, back and sides plywood. I really like that combination because you don't need to care so much about humidity and temperature change. I put top class ebony fingerboard on it and it really plays nice. That one I use for gigs in Europe.
The other one is more then 100 years old, most likely a Hungarian bass, carved wood in gamba form. That's the most expensive bass I have and use it just for classical music. It's very hard to keep it in good condition, so I don't use it for gigs.
The one I play in US is the cheapest bass I could find here with a decent sound. Mark Rubin helped me find it and it works. The blue bass you see on the Atomic Sunset pictures is owned by my first bass influence, Veljko from Vera Kvark. I use it sometimes for photos and TV shows.
Shawn: What kind of amp or amps do you prefer?
Djordje: I have to admit that I'm much more into playing then gear. I believe that the sound is in the fingers, rather then strings, pickups and amps. Anyway, here I have Ampeg Rocket B-100R and I dig it a lot. It has good sound and is not too heavy and big. In Belgrade I keep custom made combo with Green Audio Bass Ball 200 head and 15' speaker. Both setups I use with Boss EQ pedal and Shadow SH950 pickup.
Shawn: How do you like to record your bass?
Djordje: In studio I like to experiment a bit. Every room has its own different sound, so I don't like to have the same set up all the time. Usually I use couple mics, one condenser close to the higher side of the left F hole and dynamic one pointed to the fingerboard to catch the slap sound. From time to time, there are also some overheads or a mic pointed to the bridge. Also sometimes it is enough to use just one mic. It really depends. I've tried to record with a pickup but prefer mics.
Shawn: Who are your main musical influences?
Djordje: Stray Cats had really big impact on me when I first heard them. That's probably the main reason why I started to play upright bass. Also the Clash, Tom Waits, John Coltrane and some classical composers, especially Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and Wagner were big influence on me at different times.
As far as slap bass goes, I really like old jazz and blues guys like Steve Brown, Milt Hinton and Willie Dixon. One of my favorite slap recordings is the song Dinah by Jean Goldkette Orchestra from 1926. That's supposed to be the first bass solo ever recorded. Brown was one of the main influences on Hinton. Shug Fisher from Farr Brothers was also great.
For classical bass players, Ovidiu Badila is one of my all time favorites. His technique, tone and musicality are just amazing! I strongly suggest his Bottesini recordings. I was lucky to see him perform and meet him a couple times, in Germany.
If I have to choose one guy as my favorite bass player that would be Charles Mingus. There are also some great players nowadays like Brian Bromberg, Dave Holland and Christian McBride. I try to keep my ears open for new sounds all the time.
Shawn: Your writing a book or paper about slap bass. Can you elaborate on that? I'm sure everyone on the site would like to read it when it's done.
Djordje: That started a couple of years ago when I had to do a paper for my Conservatory. All of us had to pick a topic connected with technique on our particular instrument and write about it. I always thought about slap like a regular technique on the bass that is not exclusively connected with some music genre, so I chose slap technique. I noticed that it's hard to find information about it because there's no book that's published. I found just some articles here and there, and most of them contradicted each other. That was about 5 years ago. I'm always in search for info about everything related to slap style. Some people were very kind to help me, like Greg Olwell from Bass Player Magazine. I'm finally almost done, and hope to publish it around the end of this year.
Shawn: You give lessons. Can you suggest a method or methods for learning?
Djordje: There are a lot of different methods out there. Everybody is an individual, so it's not possible to say there's one method, or which one is the best. Everybody should try to learn from different sources and find their own way. In general, I suggest the classical method. It's been around for so long, and by my opinion, is much more developed then others.
The biggest problem for all bassists is intonation, and definitely the best way to develop it is with the bow. With my students I like to use method by Hungarian bassist Lajos Montag because he did it step-by-step. Czerny's book is great for thumb position. I'd also suggest the Ludwig Streicher bass method.
Shawn: What about daily practice routines etc.?
Djordje: It's great if you can find enough time to start with open strings (especially if you're playing with the bow, but it's good for slap too), then finger exercises and then to play some scales. Be sure not to practice just major scales. All scales are equally important. Also, try different fingering for every scale. Then you can play other stuff like etudes, songs, concertos etc. If you have a problem, be focused on it. Don't practice the whole piece over and over. That's just wasting time. It's good to practice with metronome, but not all the time. And since most of us play gigs, it's good to practice from time to time with the amp too.
Shawn: Can you describe some of your different techniques on the song "Atomic Boogie"?
Djordje: I always wanted to make a rock'n'roll song with bass as a main instrument. In that promo video, (Click here) filmed some time ago, I played main melody with regular pizzicato technique using a lot of hammer-ons, pull offs, double stops, etc. For a solo I started with pizzicato but didn't want to sound jazzy; I wanted to make a totally rock'n'roll solo! I put in some licks that reminded me of rockabilly guitar players. The slap part consists pretty much of everything that came to my mind: singles, doubles, triples, gallops, quadruples, drags, double stops, slap chords with 3 and 4 notes, 2 hand slappin etc.
There's also a part where I added stuff I saw from some Cuban bassists like Cachao and Cachaito, where you slap different parts of your bass. That song is also on the Atomic Sunset debut album but in different arrangement. In fact, I named that song because of Big Three Trio and their song "Big Three Boogie".
Shawn: There are not a lot of bass players that play slap in odd rhythms, Can you talk a little bit about slapping in odd rhythms as heard on 'razmetaniska r'cenica' at http://www.myspace.com/djordjestijepovic
Djordje: Odd rhythms are very common for Balkans where I grew up. There's a huge variety of time signatures you can hear over there like 7/8, 9/8, 11/8 etc. Some Bulgarian songs are even in 24/8! I found that slap sounds great in that kind of rhythm. With my band Marsya I recorded "Razmetaniska r'cenica" and that's one of the examples. That song is a Bulgarian dance tune in 7/8, but in bass solo I combined different odd rhythms.
On the upcoming album of accordionist Vladimir Nikic, he composed a song "Ornament" and we recorded it as a duo. The rhythm is a bit complicated because it changes in every bar. That could be tricky when there are 13/8, 10/8, 7/8 etc.
It's interesting that slap tradition is very long in Balkans. Gypsies were always playing that stuff. Bartok used slap technique on different string instruments in his String Quartet no.4 from 1928. Everybody knows about Romanian bassist Vlad Viorel from the band Taraf De Haidouks. In Romania almost all bass players use this technique. Dobrica Florin from Fulgerica is also a good example. Those bands play some odd rhythms.
There's a CD, recently released in Germany, I recorded with the Serbian gypsy band Kal. I Just heard that's on the first position on 'World Music Charts Europe'! I think that Taraf De Haidouks fans will like tunes Dvojka and Lili.
Shawn: I know Proud Hawk has some bowing. Do you have any advice for people trying to learn to play with a bow?
Djordje: The best way is to find a good classical professor to show you the technique. It's very hard to learn it by yourself. Then definitely practicing open strings for a long time. That helps to have consistent tone and better control of the sound. Great way of improvement of bowing technique is to play in Symphony orchestra. For a couple of years I was playing in some Symphony orchestras, and that helped me a lot.
Probably the best bowed solo I ever recorded is in the song "Reina De La Gracia" of the band Shira Utfila. It's based on Arabic scales called maqamat. With a bow you can play some nice melodies, but you can use it for some more rockin' stuff too! For a long time I played with the bow just because that was the only way to get a bass. After all those years I wanted to use it in the music I dig so much. The main reason why I started playing different music genres was to develop my musical senses and a rock'n'roll style of playing. I noticed that in surf, like "Proud Hawk", you could use bowing bass as the main instrument and to sound completely natural. I really like that sound.
Shawn: You sing and write all the stuff for Atomic Sunset. Are you planning to tour with that band, or do you have a release date for your album?
Djordje: We definitely plan to do some touring after releasing the album. We just finished producing, mastering, artwork etc, so we hope that will be sometime soon. I have to go on the road with Atomic Sunset! Those guys are definitely something else. I like the fact that our choice is to play rockabilly. Drummer Sinisa Jovic has a masters degree in classical percussion, often performs solo, and he can really play almost everything. Guitarist Drazen Skaric is one of the best guitar players I ever played with.
Shawn: Who would you like to see interviewed here?
Djordje: There are some great slap guys out there. Maybe you could contact Vlad Viorel or Roland Guerin. Vlad is really great guy, and Roland is one of rare jazz slappers in the Hinton style nowadays. For rockabilly maybe Beau Sample, Jake Erwin or psychobilly Steve Whitehouse.
Shawn: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. You're a true inspiration.
Djordje: Thank you so much for doing rockabillybass.com. It's the best way for slappers all around the world to connect with each other, share ideas and music experience. That really helps popularization and development of the slap bass. I hope it will exist for a long time. Talk to you soon, Shawn.
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