Laura Ballance

Was there any particular reason you settled on the ’79 Precision Bass you’re most known for playing? I imagine a ‘70s Precision would have been heavy, rough on the shoulder, and hard to cram into a van.

1979 Fender Precision Bass My ’79 Precision Bass is actually remarkably light for one of those. It’s the lightest P Bass I have ever lifted. I have no idea if the body is original. It has a strange candy apple kind of finish, which I imagine is not standard. This could be a sign that someone switched the body out. I’m really not a huge gear head still, so I don’t know how to tell.

I feel like it belonged to someone in a reggae band before me—I think that’s what the guy at the store where I got it said. Due to its relative lightness, I’m super committed to that bass. I have even gone so far as to say that if anything ever happens to it, I would quit playing. Turns out, something happened to my ears first, so now I hardly play anyway.

The bass rig fans most associate with you is the Acoustic 370 head and the Ampeg 2x15 cabinet. Were there any specific reasons that you settled on that combination?

At some point fairly early on, I came across an Acoustic 370 head that someone told me might be good, so I bought it—it wasn’t expensive. That head paired with my cabinet sounded pretty good. Those heads are so loud. I have never played with mine turned above about 3.5.

The bass rig fans most associate with you is the Acoustic 370 head and the Ampeg 2x15 cabinet. Were there any specific reasons that you settled on that combination?

But I bought the Ampeg 2x15 cabinet from a guy who I worked at Kinkos with. I wish I knew more about the history of that thing, I have no idea how old it is. It’s built like a tank. I’ve had it for almost 30 years. It’s beat all to hell, but it’s not about to fall apart. It has no wheels, which was great in terms of fitting it into the van and not taking up a lot of extra space.

But because we would slide it in and out of the van on its side, all of the vinyl eventually peeled off that side and splinters started coming off of it. This enables you to see the excellent dovetail joints that have kept it solid. They don’t build them like that anymore. It also has about 50 clutch head screws in the back. Getting in there is a pain the butt. I have never thought to change them out.

The speakers that were in there originally were Altecs, but at some point I blew them out and after re-coning them a few times, I bought a pair of EVM 15B Series IIs that sounded really good and held up pretty well. I think one of them has kind of lost it a little bit, but I haven’t fixed it because of hardly playing.

I have a very old (from the 70's I bet) and beat up Ampeg 2x15" cabinet with EV speakers, an Acoustic 370 bass head from the 70's also I think, a Fender Precision bass from 1977 (candy apple red!), and a distortion pedal called "hot cake" made by Crowther audio in New Zealand. I found out about this awesome company because Denise from the 3d's had a hot cake and I loved her sound...we did some shows together and she let me in on the secret. Back in '93 it was really hard to find a distortion pedal that sounded good with bass.