Bassist - Singer - Songwriter - Music Professor
This is the official website of Los Angeles-based professional bassist, music producer, and music educator, Nate Light.
Making this announcement a little late, as per usual, but I'll be in Vegas every Saturday this month with Save Ferris for our residency at Harrah's Carnaval Court stage. We hit each week at 8PM. We've done two of these shows so far and they've both been rad; I reckon things will continue to get bigger and better as the month continues! Come through! More updates to come.
So some time last year as I was doing a major overhaul of this site, I promised to add new photos in the immediate future, as the ones on the site were hopelessly out of date. As per usual, it took me a bit longer than expected to make good on that vow, but I finally managed to schedule a photoshoot with my good friend, Kim Zsebe, and the photos are officially live today.
Promotional photos on a site like this are tricky thing. Since this is basically an information site (i.e. online business card/resume), staying current on something like photos of oneself really comes down to valuing web-integrity (pretty sure I just coined this term). Integrity in this context simply refers to portraying oneself online in as accurate a light as possible. Admittedly, my 6 year-old photos were hardly accurate. I always get super hung-up on having to take new photos though, as (a) I'm no fucking model and would prefer not to be in front of a lens at all, and (b) who in the hell really wants to upload shots of an older, fatter, wrinklier, drunker version of the themselves? (not that I'm hung up on age, weight, or the deleterious effects of alcohol or anything)
But I digress. Personal qualms aside, I got some new photos! Kim did a bang-up job, and they're hi-res, retouched, and super pro looking. So as I make my best attempt at taking myself, my ego, and my insecurities out the equation, I'm happy to present these shots to you in the name of web-integrity ;)
So a little while back I had the honor and good fortune to play electric bass on all of the tracks for Here We Go Love, the new album by the English Beat feat. Dave Wakeling. My older sister was a huge 2-tone and ska enthusiast when I was growing up, and there were a few years where the Beat records were a constant in our house.
I've done so many gigs and sessions, where I feel like I'm trying to learn and assimilate a new style into my playing. While I always give it my all, some stuff just ends up feeling kind of forced. This was one of those instances though, where given my background, I really felt like I was made to play the music. And while it was a challenge to come up with the right parts and play lines that were appropriate given the density of the arrangements, the style fit my playing and personality like a glove.
Anyways, enough about me. Here We Go Love was released in the UK last month and has been garnering critical praise ever since. It was officially released in the U.S. on June 15th and it's available for streaming and downloads in all the usual spots. Click the image below to stream Here We Go Love on Spotify!
Here comes Summer!!! I've got some key shows in the books with both Save Ferris and Matthew Morrison, as well some killer gigs around town. I'll be kicking things off at Slam Dunk Festival in the UK with Save Ferris. We're hitting on the Fireball stage from 5/26-5/28 in Leeds, Hatfield, and Birmingham. Shortly thereafter we'll be playing the Wichita Riverfest in Kansas. See deets below. More to come!
geez, I feel like I blinked and 8 months went by. Let's all remember to seize the day, as we're gradually running out of them.
All is calm on the western front. Still rocking the teaching gig at LACC and doing miscellaneous sideman dates all over town. The newest and most exciting development in my musical life is that I'll be subbing with long-time So-Cal ska favorites, Save Ferris, for a series of upcoming festival dates throughout the spring and summer. We've been friends for a minute now and have been waiting for the stars (and our schedules) to align, and it's finally happening. There are some domestic shows on the books as well as some dates in the UK; I'll be posting them as the shows approach. We're kicking things off with the festival below. I can't tell you how stoked I am to be sharing the the stage with all of these titans of ska and so-cal music.
More news to come... and I'll make it a point post more often ;)
-NL
So after rocking the super-plain black template for several years, I've finally gotten around to redesigning this site. I dug into the Squarespace design features more than ever and really tweaked out on the template, fonts, and layout (dig the blurred out stock photo - somehow this was better than anything I had on hand). I've updated the about and credits sections to ensure both currency and accuracy. Additionally, I've added a fairly lengthy "rant" about my gear, detailing my current philosophy and preferences on musical equipment. There's also a new form on the contact page, making it possible for you to send me a message directly through the site rather than opening a separate email app or whatever. I've added links to my social media pages at the bottom of the website which are present regardless of which page you're currently on. I should note though, that I haven't been the most active dude on social as of late, so a couple of those pages are e-wastelands at the present. I plan on upping my social media game moving forward. As of now, I'm most active on Instagram. I still don't know what the hell to do with Twitter.
One thing that I'm really trending toward with this website is writing in the first-person and being unabashed about using my own voice. There's a tendency for sidemen/working-stiff/regular musicians (i.e. non-rock stars like me) to have a very sterile and quasi-businessy tone to the copy on their websites. I think we're all just trying to be professional and make ourselves seem like desirable contractors to potential clients, but it always feels like there's something kind of inauthentic about third-person bios. Like even if we try to be humble or modest, there's this air of making ourselves out to be bigger deals than we really are. In L.A. and in the music business in general, that's kind of the name of the game, and I'm over it. Maybe it's to my detriment, but I'm all about the music and musicianship; I could give a crap about puffing my chest to impress wankers. For now, I've kept the third-person bio on the About page. I've mainly done this because think it serves as a decent quick-reference for passerbys. More importantly, I was kind of just too lazy to write a new bio from scratch. Aside from that, all other content moving forward will be written in my own voice.
While I've updated most of the written material, ALL of the media on this site is starting to get kind of dated. The photos in the gallery are from 2013 - don't worry, I've been on the All Beer and Burrito Diet (ABBD) ever since then - I look great. Also, the most recent videos and tracks on the Audio/Video page are from 2015. I can attribute this lapse in new content to being completely caught up in - and overwhelmed by - my new gig as a Professor at LACC. Now that I'm 2 years into that job and I've started to get a handle on things there, I'm ready to tend my music career again and not let this place get too stale.
So here's what I've got in the works:
1. I'll be doing a new photo-shoot in October, my target date for having the re-touched photos online is 11/01/17. I need about two months to sweat off the beer and burritos, and then one more to loath myself and gain the weight back, only to surrender and take the photos in whatever miserable state I end up in. It's gonna be great.
2. I've been writing a crap-ton of music and I'm actually singing. You heard me right. I've joined so many extant bands over the years, always hoping that I can settle in and make it my own, so to speak, but I always end up being dissatisfied with the material and with other peoples' expectations of what a bass player should be. So I've finally just decided to say "fuck it" and start my own project where I'm the bass player and the singer. This doesn't mean that I don't still want to collaborate with others, it's just high time I had my own outlet as a writer. I don't have a target release date for any material, but I'll go ahead and threaten to have some Nate Light songs up on this site, and everywhere else, by the end of this calendar year.
3. The last thing that I intend to roll out this year is a youtube channel featuring instructional videos. I've been toying with this idea for a long time, and I finally bit the bullet and bought a camera and some accessories this month. Admittedly, I don't know what the hell I'm doing on the videography and video editing front, but I'm not too obsessed with perfection right now; I just want get the ball rolling. I'm going to be unleashing a series of instructional upright bass videos starting in October. I also have future plans for a series of electric bass videos, and some entry level music technology and music business lectures. There will be new a page entitled "Lessons" starting next month which will essentially just be my youtube video feed.
So that's where I'm at in a nutshell. Natelight.com has a new design and some new words, and I'll be rolling out new media and content NON-STOP in the near future..
I'll be posting again real soon. Thanks for reading.
Best,
NL