Think bass is just background? Think again. Darren Michaels is a singer-songwriter who sees the electric bass guitar as a chordal and melodic instrument along with its supportive role. Using a specially-designed bass guitar and lines of honest lyrics, Darren crafts positive, genre-hopping songs exploring gratitude, determination, longing, brevity of life, gentle action, and love of Nature.

 

Darren cut his teeth playing Rock, Blues, and Jazz while studying fine arts and graphic design in college in Arkansas. An apartment fire destroyed almost all of his paintings and drawings leaving Darren to follow his passion of playing bass guitar. He moved to Atlanta to attend Atlanta Institute of Music and upon graduating from AIM, Darren began working as a sideman in many groups as well as teaching bass lessons privately. Whenever he found a lapse in sideman gigs, he delved into the solo side of the electric bass guitar exploring its use as a lead instrument. These experiments lead to the release of green in 2002. An instrumental album, it was his first as a solo bassist. In the past twelve years, Darren has released three more albums emerging as a vocalist with the release of Cumulo in 2008.

 

Darren has toured more as a soloist since 2007, although he remains a working sideman. When he’s not trekking the country sharing his brand of solo bass, he can usually be found writing, pursuing visual arts, taking in the outdoors, or spending time with his wife and daughter.