At this year’s edition of the gigantic Pol’and’Rock Festival (formerly known as Przystanek Woodstock, an average of over half a million fans attending every year), we met up with the bass players of some of the bands which appeared at the event. One of those musicians is Grzegorz Książkiewicz – the bass player with the increasingly popular Polish indie rock outfit, Snowman.
Grzegorz Książkiewicz
bassguitar.beatit.tv: Why are we meeting here? What are you doing at the festival?
Grzegorz Książkiewicz: I happen to be holding an instrument which I’m going to play tonight. I’ll use it on one of the songs. It’s an oldie but goodie – a Hohner bass guitar. It’s a very well crafted instrument. Apart from that, I’ve also got two Fender Jazz Bass American Deluxe guitars. One of them is passive, the other one active.
Next, we have effect pedals. I use two tuners and that works perfectly. This one is for backup, there’s batteries inside ’cause you don’t always get access to electric sockets. An EBS MultiComp, a very good compressor and limiter here. There’s also a BOSS Bass Synthesizer – an old thing but very good. They’ve released the SYB-5 with modulation and an expression pedal although people generally prefer this one. I like it, too. It’s OK. This is the Swollen Pickle – just an overdrive pedal, but it’s fat, cheeky and crass. Actually, it’s used by guitarists more that bass players, but after many attempts to find something for the bass, I’ve found this one simply perfect. I like its slightly freaky character. There’s no crunch you find in metal music and I like that.
An Ampeg head. Usually, an SVT 3 Pro, but today it’s a Classic. I use it together with this kind of a strange set. Here, you see a 4×10 cabinet with a tweeter, although my usual setup is a 10 EBS with a neodymium magnet. The other cabinet is 12″ Handbox with a ferrite magnet. That’s my setup. The first cabinet weighs 10.5 kg, the other one 11.5 kg, so I simply pick them up and walk on stage.
bassguitar.beatit.tv: That’s why we like you (laughter).
