RANA ROSS

Bassics Magazine Interview

"SMALL BUT MIGHTY"

Voted Best Female Basist by Los Angeles' Rock City News Music Awards '99, Rana Ross holds down the bottom with the best of 'em.

Her Band Sinboy, fronted by another female, Elysa Grey, has been on the Billboard TalentNet Top Ten chart of emerging artists for over 14 weeks, with a bullet for the fastest climber for their song "Buttercup", peaking at No. 1 (www.broadbandtalentnet.com/sinboy). They've also been signed by MTV's Road Rules for five songs and made Music Connection's top 100 hottest unsigned bands.

Rana has also played with Phantom Blue (1994 release on Geffen Records), started her own label in 1995, toured with Vixen in '97, and keeps busy doing sessions as well. She was even seriously considered for a Janet Jackson tour in the early '90s. Rana lives bass, and is proud to have had a journalist call her "The Female Flea." Tired of being a sideperson, she now concentrates exclusively on her band.

Starting on acoustic classical guitar at the ripe age of 4, Rana, 31, slowly graduated to lower and lower instruments, from viola in grade school to cello in junior high, to 4-string bass, 5-string bass and ultimately 6-sting. Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, she has studied at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, as well as the Musicians Institute and the defunct Dick Grove School of Music, both in Los Angeles. As Rana states, "I learned so much, you know, when you're young, you meet a lot of people, I got to hang with Jeff Berlin, he taught me a whole bunch of stuff, and Alexis Sklarevski, he's a great player, I learned a lot of my slap style through Alexis. And (Gary) Willis was one of my teachers too, he's a dear friend, and I took private lessons from him as well. I copped some of his 3-finger technique and he made one of his 'ramps' for me."

Growing up in a single parent home, she credits her Mom with having exposed her to artists like Earth, Wind and Fire, Stanley Clarke, The Brothers Johnson, Sly and the Family Stone and others. Being intrigued with the L.A. vibe and ready to move away from home, she took a giant step and headed for the left coast in 1988. "I came out here with one bass and one suitcase and knew only one person," Rana recalls. "I moved out here knowing that I would have no excuse to not make it because I'd be in Los Angeles and I'd have to make it."

While Sinboy is a rock band, Rana is much more than a rock bassist. "I think it's normal human nature that people will look at whatever you're doing and compartmentalize you, but the last thing I ever want to be is a 'chick bass player',"says Rana. "In the future, when people look back on me, I want to be known as like, 'Yeah, she was a Bass player' and that I could play any style and that I could do it well."

"One of the cool things about Sinboy is that Elysa and I are partners. she's like a female Trent Reznor. People can't believe... when they hear her programming, they're like, 'Oh no, no, you guys didn't do this record by yourselves' but yes, we did."

"And I can do whatever I want. I've got my Jack Read Custom electric upright bass and I already have plans on pulling out my bow from my cello days and do some stuff... we have songs that we don't play on stage that are really in desperate need of an electric upright. I'll throw my Budda distortion on it and freak people out" she enthuses.

Rana had the Jack Read upright custom-made for her because,"I have incredibly small hands. Where some guy with really big hands can just stretch their hand and get there, I gotta move my hand, or stay within certain areas of the neck" she explains. "This upright has an arched radius that you can bow on, but it's the size of an electric bass, a 32" scale. I explained the situation to Jack and he made it specifically for me."

Ross has a had a long-standing relationship with Hohner for her electric basses. Not all that well known for their basses, I asked her 'Why Hohner'?

"When is the last time you played one? It's not a high-end bass, but it's a really great, low-to-moderate priced 5-string. It's a bass I can play on stage, especially in a rock genre, play the shit out of it, and not really worry about it. It's solid, a real workingman's bass. They're making me a custom one, that I gave them the specs for, including EMG pickups, which cut through great with my SWR rig. It's a one-off, but it might lead to a prototype for a new line. Not only that, the company, Bob Cotton especially, is great, he believes in me."

I suggested she probably felt that way about Bob Archigian at La Bella strings too?

"Absolutely, I call him 'Uncle Bob', everybody does, but he's really Uncle Bob to me. They've made me custom sets for my Fodera medium scale 5-string, which has a wierd scale length, and Uncle Bob stopped the presses and made a brand new string for me. He even has given me life advice when I've been down in the dumps."

"I've had nothing but really good relationships with my manufacturers. I guess that what you put out comes back. In all aspects of life, if you're good to people, they'll be good to you."

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