Tony Franklin (musician)
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Tony Franklin is an English musician. His most famous work is on the fretless bass guitar with heavy rock bands The Firm (also featuring Free and Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, and Uriah Heep drummer Chris Slade) and Blue Murder (featuring former Whitesnake guitarist John Sykes (also on vocals) and drummer Carmine Appice).
He is credited with introducing the fretless bass to the heavy metal and hard rock audiences, as the fretless bass is not commonly heard in these genres. He also has an instructional video on playing the fretless bass. In this video Franklin also discusses his playing of other instruments (string or upright bass and clarinet) in symphony and classical ensemble environments. In January of 2006 a fretless bass Sample Loop Library named "Tony Franklin: Not Just Another Pretty Bass [1]" was released by Sony Media featuring Tony's fretless bass lines recorded for use by electronic musicians. [2] He was also the Musical Director for the GuitarPort product by Line 6, and was responsible for coordinating musicians (including Leland Sklar, Jason Bonham, Simon Phillips, Gregg Bissonette and others), organizing recording studio sessions, creating over 100 cover tunes, operated Pro Tools, and wrote and recorded more than 30 ‘jam-along’ original tracks for the product. [3]
Also in January of 2006 Fender introduced the "Tony Franklin Precision Bass Fretless Signature Bass [4], which is based on his main "player" for many years. It features an alder body available in Three-color Sunburst or Black and a modern C-shaped maple neck with an unfinished fingerboard made of ebony (an extremely hard wood that can stand up to the roundwound strings Tony uses without any type of protective coating) with side dot position markers. Tony's signature overdriven "growl" comes from an American Series Precision Bass neck pickup and a Tony Franklin signature Jazz Bass bridge pickup with hex screw lugs and bar ceramic magnets. Other features include vintage tuning machines with Hipshot® Bass Xtender Drop D tuning key on the “E” string, and a three-way switch (neck-both-bridge pickup) as opposed to the more common "pan pot" used on bass guitars.
Tony also works as the Artist Relations Manager for Fender and Fender-owned SWR Amplification, and performs bass clinics for Fender and SWR Amplification. [5]. Tony is also an endorsee for Fender and SWR as well for his equipment needs.
Tony Franklin has worked with: The Firm (Paul Rodgers, Jimmy Page, Chris Slade), David Gilmour, Kate Bush, Whitesnake, Blue Murder (John Sykes, Carmine Appice), Roy Harper, Donna Lewis, Banyan (Stephen Perkins), Glenn Hughes, Simon Phillips, Terry Bozzio, Gregg Bissonette, Robbie Krieger (The Doors), Pat Travers, Gary Hoey, Tony MacAlpine, Don Dokken, Kelly Keeling, Doug Aldrich, Warren DeMartini, Steve Fister, Scott Kail, Sir Lord Baltimore and others.
Franklin has also appeared on all five of keyboardist Derek Sherinian's solo albums - Planet X (1999), Inertia (2001), Black Utopia (2003), Mythology (2004), and Blood of the Snake (2006).
Franklin cites his influences as John Deacon (Queen), Paul McCartney (The Beatles) and Jaco Pastorius.[6]
