Nate Mendel | |
|---|---|
 Mendel with theFoo Fighters in 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Nathan Gregor Mendel |
| Born | (1968-12-02)December 2, 1968 (age 56) Richland, Washington, U.S. |
| Genres | Alternative rock,midwest emopost-grunge,grunge,hardcore punk,punk rock,indie rock,post-hardcore,emo |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Instruments | Bass, guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Member of | Foo Fighters |
| Formerly of | Sunny Day Real Estate,Juno,The Fire Theft,Sound City Players |
Nathan Gregor Mendel (born December 2, 1968) is an American musician who is the bass guitarist for the rock bandFoo Fighters, as well as a former member ofSunny Day Real Estate. He has also worked with musical actsThe Jealous Sound andThe Fire Theft. He has released one solo album,If I Kill This Thing We're All Going to Eat for a Week, under the nameLieutenant. Though not a founding member, he is the longest-serving member of the band after lead vocalist and guitaristDave Grohl, and has appeared on every album by the group sinceThe Colour and the Shape.
Mendel was born inRichland, a mid-sized city in southeastWashington. His first instrument was theviolin. At the age of 13, Mendel started to get interested in rock music and joined a band,[1] a friend who played guitar suggesting he play the bass.[2] Mendel stated that "as I picked up that bass I went on a 20-year detour intopunk", helped by his town usually having concerts ofDIY punk bands such asScream.[3] This led to a "pretty limited musical education", as despite taking some lessons with a bassist from a local band, Mendel mostly taught himself to play, and "it was all hardcore punk rock, likeMinor Threat,Black Flag andBad Brains. Instead of studying the bass playing of someone likeJohn Entwistle, which would have given me a foundation of how to play. I just wanted to play a lot of notes fast."[2] His family isJewish.[4][5]
Mendel began his musical career in thehardcore band Diddly Squat, which only recorded a7" single but did a national tour during the 1988 summer vacation. After Diddly Squat ended, Mendel moved toSeattle, where he spent four months on thestraight edge band Brotherhood. Afterward, he joined the band Christ on a Crutch, which included bandmate Glen Essary and lasted until 1993. In 1992, Mendel and hisUniversity of Washington housemateDan Hoerner decided to form a band, and invited drummerWilliam Goldsmith to form the group that would end up being namedSunny Day Real Estate (SDRE).[1] Mendel added that SDRE was an attempt to "play more intricate, interesting music".[2] While Mendel toured Europe with Christ on a Crutch,Jeremy Enigk jammed with the remaining members and eventually became a full-time member of SDRE.[6]
Just before Sunny Day Real Estate disbanded in 1995, Mendel and Goldsmith were invited byDave Grohl to join his band, theFoo Fighters, during the week of Halloween in late October 1994. He has remained a bandmember ever since, being one of the only original members in the Foo Fighters' current lineup along with Grohl and formerNirvana live guitaristPat Smear.[7] Although Sunny Day Real Estate reunited for two more albums (How It Feels to Be Something On andThe Rising Tide), he stayed with the Foo Fighters, in Sunny Day Real Estate, he was replaced by Jeff Palmer, and Palmer was replaced by Joe Skyward, when Skyward left the band,Jeremy Enigk (lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and keyboardist) moved to the bass. After Sunny Day Real Estate disbanded once more, he joined with other Sunny Day Real Estate members Jeremy Enigk andWilliam Goldsmith to formThe Fire Theft, who released a self-titled album in 2003.[2] In 2001, he played withJuno.
He scored a role in the indie movieOur Burden Is Light, in which he also played a minor role as the main female character's best friend's boyfriend and bassist. In the movie, Mendel plays in a band named Bleeder, consisting of himself, Jessica Ballard, andTaylor Hawkins.
In June 2009, it was confirmed thatSunny Day Real Estate plans to reunite again, with Mendel back in the fold.[8][9] The band toured in 2009, confirming a new album in the works.[10] However, recording sessions proved to be unproductive and by 2013, the group had broken up once again.
Mendel at first considered the bass a melodic instrument, and thus liked to input more personality in his bass parts.Bass Player described Mendel's style inSunny Day Real Estate as "heavy-handed and fleet-footed, rooted in punk rock but prone to melodic flights that encircled the band's airy arrangements", and Mendel added that in his first years of the Foo Fighters he tried "to make these songs as complicated as I could and put as much bass on there as possible". He eventually changed his priorities to the more traditional bass style where the instrument acts as "the bridge between the melodic element and the percussion", saying that he "alter[ed] the way I play bass so it works in this band, so I can support Dave's songs as best as possible." The priorities he learned to take with his playing was to "play tight and lock better with the drums"[2][11] adding that when Grohl and drummerTaylor Hawkins decide to redo the drum tracks, at times Mendel would have to remake his whole basslines.[12]
Mendel is known to use apick almost exclusively. His preferred style wasalternate picking, but on the fifth Foo Fighters album,In Your Honor, he started to employdownpicking because "with this kind of music, you need the consistency and percussive sound you get from playing with downstrokes." For the acoustic shows, Mendel playedfingerstyle.[2]
Mendel's main set-up consists ofFender Precision Basses withGHS strings, played throughAshdown amplifiers.[2] Mendel described the Precision as "iconic" in both its looks and its sound. The bassist's preferred P-Bass is his first, a 1971 model sold to him by the lead singer of Christ on a Crutch which Mendel adapted to be easier to play.[11] Mendel also playsLakland basses, particularly theBob Glaub Signature, one of which was employed on the Foo Fighters' seventh album,Wasting Light. He uses aFulltone Bassdrive pedal, though Mendel downsized the usage ofeffects pedals as the Foo Fighters rose its number of musicians – "Now that we have three guitar players, there's a lot of distortion going on, so I try to keep it clean and stay in line with thekick drum. That way, I know that even if we're playing a big echoey venue, at least the bass will come across with some bite and precision."[2] In 2012, Mendel received his own signatureFender Nate Mendel Precision Bass, which has become popular globally due to it being a very well built, simply modified vintage style Precision Bass.
Mendel met Kate Jackson, co-founder of independentpublic relations firm Grandstand Media, in 2009 while she was director of marketing and publicity atSub Pop Records and Mendel was touring as part of a reunion of the original lineup of Sub Pop recording artistsSunny Day Real Estate. They were married on October 11, 2014, accompanied by close friends and family including Mendel'sFoo Fighters bandmates.[13] On July 19, 2018, Mendel took a one-show leave of absence from the Foo Fighters' Concrete & Gold tour, withJane's Addiction bassistChris Chaney filling in for him for one night at thePPG Paints Arena inPittsburgh, as he chose to be with Jackson as she gave birth to the couple's twin girls.[14]
Mendel has expressedfringe views onHIV & AIDS. In January 2000, he organized a sold-out concert in Los Angeles to benefitAlive & Well AIDS Alternatives, anHIV/AIDS denialism group.[15] In April 2000,MTV News reported that "The Foo Fighters have gone on record advocating Alive & Well, an alternative AIDS information group that questions the link between HIV and AIDS."[16] TheCenters for Disease Control describe AIDS as the "most severe stage of HIV."[17]Sandra Thurman, then director of theOffice of National AIDS Policy commented:
For the Foo Fighters to be promoting this is extraordinarily irresponsible behavior. There is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community and it's quite unfortunate that a band reads one book and then adopts this theory. To say [that HIV does not cause AIDS] is akin to saying the world is flat.[18]
Responding to coverage of the Alive & Well benefit inMother Jones magazine, Mendel wrote, "I am not a medical professional, and I am relatively new to these questions, but I am convinced that those who have tested HIV positive and those sick with AIDS are being done a disservice by not having all the information available to them."[19] Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.[20]
Media related toNate Mendel at Wikimedia Commons| Studio albums | |
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