Bass virtuoso Gary Willis has enjoyed a long and influential career at the cutting edge of jazz fusion music. In 1984, he co-founded the progressive fusion group Tribal Tech with guitarist Scott Henderson, a 16-year collaboration that spawned 10 albums, and he’s had the opportunity to work with greats such as Wayne Shorter, Allan Holdsworth, Hubert Laws, Robben Ford, and many others. Currently, Gary performs with Triphasic, an eclectic trio that incorporates synchronized video into their performances, and he’s gearing up for a reunion with Tribal Tech after a 10-year hiatus.

Gary loves to blaze new trails and explore new musical directions, and he’s always embraced the latest music technologies to help him accomplish that. The VB-99 V-Bass System has been central to his rig since it was released, and he not only exploits its diverse sounds, but its extensive MIDI capabilities as well, using it to help control the multimedia elements of Triphasic’s shows. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Gary about his career, his latest projects, and his use of music technology and the VB-99.

Tell us a little bit about your beginnings and how you picked up the bass.

I come from a musical family. My parents needed a bass player, so at 13 they bought me a bass and I played their music, which was kind of gospel, a little country (I’m from East Texas). I played that for a year, and then I got a guitar, and I learned guitar and bass for a while, about seven or eight years. In my third year in college, I had to pay back a loan to stay in school. I had a Les Paul® and a Precision [Bass]®; I had a feeling that my instincts were with bass, considering all the bands I played in, so I sold the Les Paul and became a bass player at that point. I have always heard music from the bottom up. I kind of learned how music worked from watching my father’s left hand, which was driving the music.

What were some of your influences growing up?

I was always drawn to instrumental versions or instrumental parts of music that I could find. The Allman Brothers, Doobie Brothers, WAR…these bands had instrumental parts of their albums, and to me that was more abstract. I was drawn to that abstract nature, and eventually that led me to the jazz section of record bins. I kept searching for this abstract quality of music.

There is a static nature of pop music, or music that is not improvisational, that doesn’t appeal to me as much. The abstract nature of jazz, of fusion…the mixing of all of these styles and elements always appealed to me. You know how it is when you hear a song and you don’t understand the words? What happens a lot is that once you understand the words, you can only interpret it that way. To me, the power of instrumental music is that you are not confined to interpretation. You can identify with it, if you use your imagination, in whatever way that you want to.

And one’s interpretation can change over time a lot.

Right. As you grow, you come back to music that you listened to before, and as you change as a person, your interpretation of it can change.

Is that how you got involved with Tribal Tech? Tell us a little bit about how that started.

Maybe the first or second year I was in L.A., I met Scott through a common friend of ours. We started out just playing his music, and it was an opportunity for me to start writing. We ended up hearing music the same way, wanting to make the same adjustments, agreeing on the direction. We both independently wrote the music for the band, but it always worked together. We had a 16-year run there for a while. Eventually, after those 16 years, my moving to Europe and the record company business made us have a break of about 10 years. I’m here now in L.A., and we’re going to start tracking a new CD with Tribal Tech this week.

How has that reunification experience been for you guys so far?

I don’t know—we’re going to start tomorrow. [Laughs.] Really, it’s going to be great. We’ve kept in contact and various members of the group have played with other various members. We’ve continued to grow musically, just maybe more separately. So now we’re going to put our forces together and see what kind of havoc we can create.

How do you think your bass playing has evolved from when you first started to where you are now? You’ve been with other groups as well: Wayne Shorter, Dennis Chambers, and Allan Holdsworth. How has your experience with Tribal Tech influenced your work with them?

Scott and I developed this ability to be pretty cold-blooded about what didn’t work; we didn’t really have to protect each other’s feelings. We were very dedicated to the music, so we were able to be pretty efficient with the process of developing songs and developing ways to play them. Whereas other experiences that I’ve been in, you have to develop a few more social skills when you comment on the direction of the music. It was kind of an eye-opening thing when I would go to other musical situations and I couldn’t really say what I felt about what should happen musically. That was one feature that we had as Tribal Tech; we were pretty cutthroat about saying, “This sucks,” or, “This doesn’t work. Let’s do this, let’s remedy it this way.”

Are there any artists you’d like to work with?

I’ve always had favorite players, and I’ve been really lucky to play with the people that I’ve played with, but I don’t hold out a person or an experience and say, “This is my goal.” If it comes, that’s great. I’ve been lucky to play with a lot of people that I really admire, but I don’t hold that as a measure of what I should be doing.

Besides Tribal Tech, what other things are you working on currently? Have you been doing a lot of side projects also?

Well, I wouldn’t call it a side project, but my main thing is this band called Triphasic. It’s a trio I have with a couple of musicians from Barcelona. We have been incorporating video with the improvisation that we do on stage. It’s been a big learning experience for me incorporating the sequences and synchronization of the video with this weird, funky, electric improvisation that we do. But I’ve always felt that the music and the playing on stage is important, but it’s three guys standing there. I’m tied down to my pedals and I can’t run around and jump and do dance moves, but when you’re playing on stages you need to take over the stage. Adding this big projection video element to the show has been a big challenge, but the results are a lot of fun.

That’s amazing. Have you just started that?

It’s been the last two, two-and-a-half years.

What are some techniques that you use to incorporate your bass playing and video into the stage performance?

Well, a lot of times, the bass playing is the last thing I’m worried about, because I’m coordinating the [video] scenes and the music, and if there’s a solo and improvising, we have to jump to the next section. I’m in charge of when we do that, how it’s mixed on the stage, and taking cues from everybody. There’s a lot going on, as I’m at this command center on stage that I’m using to make sure that all of that stuff happens. Once I get comfortable with the switching and mixing and the stuff that I’m doing, then the bass is finally fun, but it’s kind of secondary in my mind to how the performance goes.

You say you have this giant command center of gear that you’re using to integrate audio with video. What kind of gear is in that setup, and how do you use it?

In order to be free to improvise and not have a set structure, I’ve integrated some of the controls from the VB-99 to my bass. The [GK] increment and decrement switches and potentiometer are now assigned to control the scenes that we play along with in Ableton Live. We can improvise as long as we want, and when it’s time to move on, I can just go to the next scene and hit “launch” and we’re in the next part of the music.

While we’re doing that, I’ve programmed video in a Mac Mini that’s being controlled from a MIDI track in Ableton Live. The MIDI notes are synchronized with the melodies, grooves, and events that we’re playing musically, and it’s all happening on a huge screen while we’re playing. That goes to an Edirol V8 Video Mixer, which I use when I change songs and I need access to another video source [to put our logo up on] the screen. That’s on the floor, as well as these switches that control the scenes, a pedal for my bass volume, and a pedal controlling the sequence volume and the brightness of the screen, so if we fade the music out, then the video fades out as well.

I have two other expression pedals that control the looping that I do, and then individual tracks of the loops I create for improvisation are also on the floor. It’s a lot to control. Plus, I have a little MIDI mixer to bring in loops depending on what it feels like. So that’s there, as well as the VB-99 on the table, computer interface, little mixer, Mac Mini, and video pedals. I’m really busy! [Laughs.]

Do you have a custom bass guitar?

The custom part is the VB-99 [GK] controls. This is my [Ibanez] signature bass, so it’s not really custom; it’s a factory bass that we’ve modified to integrate the VB-99.

Obviously, you use the VB-99 on stage. Do you use it in the studio as well?

Oh, definitely. I track with it and use the sounds. I also use the FC-300 and the expression controls that are accessible [on the VB-99’s rear panel], allowing me to manage this stuff that I’m busy with [on stage].

What are some of your favorite sounds in the VB-99?

The “meat and potatoes” sounds that I use are octave, wah-wah, and some really long reverbs. Because [I play my Ibanez] signature instrument, [it gives me the basic] sound that I want. Mostly, I use the VB-99 as a really, really cool effects unit. I use ring modulation a lot (too much), and there are some reverse delays that get some freaky stuff going. In the process of looping, I can establish a bass grove and I’m free to do whatever I want at that point. [For example], I’ll dial up the Chili Peppers rock distortion guitar when things are really happening. It allows me to do a lot more than bass.

How have you incorporated technology into your playing over the years?

There was a development [period] where I was just focused on getting my sound: I was developing my [skills] and technique, and that was the focus for a long time. But once I started writing and composing, I started to look for different ways the bass could function. At that point, I really embraced whatever new pedal or new modification [came along]. I always “hacked” everything, you know? This is hacked. [Laughs and points to his bass setup.] I started hacking pedals and interfaces a long time ago, so that was just natural for me.

The VB-99 is like the ultimate 20-30 pedals you could have on the floor in one little package. That’s one of the reasons I use it: that versatility in such a small package. One of the great things about the VB-99 is that it’s processing each string individually and there’s no latency. The audio for each string is immediate. There’s individual processing of each string, plus A and B versions of those, plus all the modeling…I feel like I haven’t scratched the surface of what it can do.

One thing about the VB-99 is that it rewards clean playing. It’s really hypersensitive, which is what I look for. It will react to the differences in volume between notes. I’m not looking for something to cover up technique flaws. If you have good technique, you are rewarded.

Do you have anything to say to up-and-coming bass players who are making their way into the industry?

I’ve always looked at this instrument, the bass, as a user interface. I’ve always tried to modify and design the instrument and modify the interface to accommodate how I want to play and the sounds I want to get. If students and young players can look at the instrument and the technology as a moldable interface for their imagination, then I think that’s how they should look at it. Products like these, your instrument, how you set it up, you start taking control of those things, it goes a long way to giving yourself an identity on the instrument. The sounds, how the instrument is built, how you play it…all those things go into the making of how you want to create music.

To learn more about Gary, visit his website: www.garywillis.com.