Ivan "FunkBoy" Bodley
"Bass for Hire" Ivan "FunkBoy" Bodley Interview
www.FunkBoy.net
Interview by Roger Zee (11/18/19)
Roger Zee: Who inspired you to play bass and sing?
Ivan Bodley So many great players continue to inspire me over the years. Some early heroes like James Jamerson and Duck Dunn served as the unsung architects of Soul music, though at the time I didn't know their names. The first bass players I could identify included Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, John Entwistle, and Larry Graham. I don't think I sound like any of them but they definitely inspired certain aspects of my playing. As I've grown more experienced, I realize that I owe much respect to players like George Porter, Jr., David Hood, Tommy Cogbill, Jerry Jemmott, Chuck Rainey, Rocco Prestia, and even Bobby Vega. People don't know those names as well as Stanley and Jaco. If you haven't heard of them, look them up. You'll be glad you did!
As far as vocals go, I don't fancy myself much of a lead singer though I do it occasionally. Most of my "added value" as a bass player/sideman comes from singing a baritone part in the backing vocals. Growing up, I always liked harmony singing and always naturally picked out a part to sing along with the radio. I really enjoy singing in a section with other vocalists way better than me. There's nothing like the feeling of holding onto a part and blending into a chorus of voices. I grew up listening to vocal group harmony and remain a big fan.
Roger Zee: You've performed with forty-nine different members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Name some highlights.
Ivan Bodley: So many to mention! I played with Sam Moore at the Tokyo Jazz Festival about ten years ago in front of 5,000 screaming fans. They broadcast it live on national television. The room felt electric that night! Sam turned the place upside down. Right after us, Sly & the Family Stone took the stage. We didn't think the building could lift any farther off the ground. But Sly took them higher...
Another highlight came backing the great Solomon Burke in Central Park in front of 10,000 of our closest friends! On a 100 degree summer day, 425-pound King Solomon wore a gold lame suit, glowing like the sun and sat on an actual throne center stage. Spectacular! He booked a ten-piece horn section that day -- the four Uptown Horns plus six more brass and reed players that Solomon brought with him. Never before or since have I witnessed an artist so completely control a crowd of that size with nothing more than the sound of his voice.
I feel honored to serve as Musical Director for Rock and Roll Hall of Famers such as Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, The Shirelles, and others. What a thrill at every performance! Working with Sam Moore over the years gave me especially amazing opportunities to play with his special guests -- Hall of Fame pals like Sting, Elvis Costello, Mary Wilson, and even Nile Rodgers & Chic.
Roger Zee: Talk about your days as Musical Director of Tulane College radio station WTUL in New Orleans.
Ivan Bodley: Though I studied Biomedical Engineering at Tulane and ultimately graduated with a degree in Psychology, I tell people that I really majored in college radio. WTUL's a major college station in a big city. I walked in there my first week on campus in September and read the news, DJ'ed overnight shifts, and quickly rose through the ranks to become Music Director by the next February. I maintained that position for the remainder of my college days. In that capacity, I gained invaluable experience in the music business. I acted as the station's liaison to all the record labels and reported our playlists to the various college radio charts. I also coordinated artist interviews at the station and helped co-promote live shows in New Orleans. It was like the world's greatest unpaid internship.
Roger Zee: Tell me about about your stint as a publicist for Epic Records/Sony Music.
Ivan Bodley: My experience at my college station helped me land my first job out of school with Epic Records in New York City. I started out answering phones in the publicity department and in a year and a half, managed to get hired as Manager of Publicity, West Coast, in the Los Angeles office. I moved across the country for that job and worked with a great roster of clients like Stanley Clarke (see above about him being one of my all-time bass heroes), Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Living Colour, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Greg Allman, Luther Vandross, too many to mention. The label also signed this kid from Indiana named Michael Jackson who did a lot of business for them in those days!
I learned a lot on that gig. I met so many famous people and had lots of photos of me taken standing next to them, some of which I don't even remember! Recently, I found some of these pictures in my dad's attic. I had NO memory of ever meeting Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, or Sade. And yet there were photos of me standing next to all of them, taken decades before PhotoShop was a thing. So it must have happened, right? But I also learned that as much fun as the music business seems, it's more about business and less about music. I worked for a marketing company. They could've been selling soap. I figured that if I really wanted to make a go of it as an artist, working at the record label wouldn't ultimately do it for me.
So I handed in my corporate credit card and expense account at the age of twenty-five and set off to make my fortune as a bass player. That's when I realized that my musical education appeared woefully incomplete. I decided to go back to school and ended up graduating from Berklee College of Music Magna Cum Laude: a Board-Certified bass player, whatever that means! With that dubious title, I moved back to New York City and haven't looked back since. When I arrived, I temped for a couple of years to get on my feet until music finally took over as my main income. I haven't worked a "day job" since.
Roger Zee: What's on the horizon for you?
Ivan Bodley: I've got some upcoming tour dates with Humble Pie that I'm really looking forward to. They're a fantastic hard-rocking band that's always been a blast to perform with. I've also been subbing recently with Rick K. & the Allnighters featuring The Mad Drummer (yep, THAT guy from YouTube!) That's always super fun. I booked some solo clinics coming up with Music Makers Convention in NJ and FL that I'm really looking forward to. I continue to sub occasionally at The Temptations Broadway musical, "Ain't Too Proud." Getting to play James Jamerson's bass lines in the show's quite a thrill. And I play a wedding next weekend with an Elvis impersonator! As always, my career's a patchwork of seemingly a thousand different gigs with disparate bands, unrelated genres, and locations ranging from my hometown in Queens, NY to the other side of the globe. It's often exhausting but never dull!
Roger Zee: Tell me about your most unusual gig.
Ivan Bodley: How much time do you have? There've been so many that are weirder than the next one. The Elvis impersonator wedding might not've even been the oddest gig this week!
On one of the strangest, I got hired as part of an acoustic trio to play a wedding. Just acoustic guitar, upright bass, and a drummer. That in itself seemed a little unusual since people tend to like bigger bands playing loud dance music at weddings. The gig occurred at an old gothic synagogue in New York that had been decommissioned and turned into an event space. I've played weddings there many times. When we walked in, they had decorated and lighted it in the most ornate fashion I had ever seen there. They brought actual trees indoors as part of the floral arrangements. They also put up a sweetheart table for the couple on a raised platform in the middle of the floor made into an actual island complete with a moat constructed around it with actual water! This wedding probably cost well into six figures.
The kicker was that there were NO guests. Zero. Just the couple in this cavernous space with occasional wait staff serving them their five-course nuptial meal and this odd acoustic trio in the corner trying to entertain them, basically chasing away the deafening silence for four full hours. It. Was. Bizarre. We came to call that night "The Hannibal Lechter wedding" since that seemed the only possible explanation. One of them must have killed and eaten the other by the end of the night. Otherwise, why wouldn't they have wanted any witnesses?
Roger Zee: What basses do you currently play?
Ivan Bodley: I use a bunch of basses, depending on the specific musical situation. I primarily play Fender Precisions. I own an Adam Clayton signature model P-bass that comes standard with a Jazz Bass neck, a purple metal-flake finish with matching breadstick, 1960s lollipop tuners, and abalone block inlays. I run it with DR Hi Def Neon fluorescent pink strings. It's a beauty! With Humble Pie I play the first bass I ever bought, a 1978 Fender P-bass in natural Ash blond finish. It's almost identical to the bass that Greg Ridley used back in the day. I string it with flatwounds for that pure, vintage-rock tone.
Honorable mention in my arsenal goes to my newest acquisition, a Gretsch short-scale hollow body with flatwounds. I also own some amazing custom instruments I had made by Moxy Guitars and Warrior instruments. Both Moxys use metal flake Explorer bodies with a lot of custom detail work. The Warriors, all five-strings, come with various options: fretted, fretless, exotic hardwoods, and one in purple metal flake with LEDs at the fret dots. And finally, I've got an Alembic eight-string Explorer style called The Exploiter. It's a John Entwistle model that gets used only for special occasions when the gig calls for a wall of sound!
Roger Zee: How do you measure success as a freelance musician?
Ivan Bodley: Success means different things to different people. For some it's money. For others it's fame. For still others, it's job satisfaction and enjoying the gigs or journey. For me, it's some combination of all the above and just knowing that I've been able to pay the rent for so many years with just a bass guitar in my hands. Years ago, my aunt encouraged me to keep my resume up to date. That way, during the inevitable slow periods between gigs, you can see in black and white all that you've accomplished.
It's very easy to get discouraged and believe that you're only as good as your last gig. I've compiled a few metrics that I take comfort in as evidence that I've actually done something with my life in music. I played with the above-mentioned 49 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. I traveled to 29 countries around the world. I average 233 gigs per year. I've subbed on twelve Broadway shows. I've been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. And my resume's six pages long! But so what? That just means that I can't keep a job! Remember that the day after you play Carnegie Hall, you're unemployed again. The freelance game's not for everyone. I feel lucky and grateful to have made it work for me for so long.
Roger Zee: What advice do you give young musicians?
Ivan Bodley: That's a fair but tough question. It's important to work hard and develop the actual skills necessary for the kinds of gigs you ultimately want to play. Preparation's key. Opportunities appear rare and fleeting. And when they finally do come along, it really helps to rise to the occasion. Once you acquire the necessary skills, you can start working on the social media and self-promotion necessary to allow people to find the services you offer.
I also tell people to go as much as possible to jam sessions and other situations where you can sit in. Almost every gig I ever got came via word of mouth. The only way for people to know what you do happens when they see and hear you play. No gig's too small or too insignificant to take because you never know who's listening or what leads to what. I got offered my first opportunity to sub on Broadway from playing in the house band at a Blues jam for $50. I also met the sax player from the Uptown Horns, Crispin Cioe, on a similar gig. That fortuitous meeting lead to dozens of eventual credits on my resume. You just never know. So play all the time with whoever you can.
Roger Zee: How do you see the future of the music business?
Ivan Bodley: The music business has gone through some seismic changes in recent decades. The advent of digital media has made the above-mentioned old-time record business all but obsolete. The invention of YouTube and global distribution has changed the game completely. That's both good and bad. The good news says that you no longer have to get by some very fussy gatekeepers at a few major record labels just to get your music heard around the planet. The bad news means that this same opportunity gets afforded to almost everyone else now too. It's easier to get in the door, but harder to get your content seen or heard above all of the noises. It will prove really interesting to see what kinds of creativity succeed in the ever-changing landscape of technology and media distribution.
©2019 Roger Zee