NEXT DOR

A

fter getting a drum set 
for Chanukah when he 
was 8 years old, Jake Bass 
was hooked on music. “From that 
moment on, I knew music was my 
thing,” he says.
Now 32, Bass is an established 
music producer, composer and 
self-proclaimed “one-man band” 
who as worked with the likes of 
Ludacris, LL Cool J and local 
artists like Sean Forbes. Still, his 
musical roots were established long 
before the drum set entered his life.
Jake’s father, Jeff Bass, is one half 
of the Bass Brothers record pro-
duction duo who discovered rapper 
Eminem in his early days. As a 
teenager, Jake Bass recalls tinkering 
in his family’s recording studio, 
learning how to write and piece 
together songs.
In addition to learning drums, 
Bass also picked up piano, key-
boards, guitar, bass and percussion. 
The only instruments he doesn’t 
play, he explains, are wind instru-
ments.
“I’ve been doing music my whole 
life,” he says. “I don’t know any 
different.”

BUILDING A FOUNDATION
With a recording studio in 
Ferndale, Bass now works with 
local and national musicians alike 
on producing songs. He also per-
forms live with many of the artists 
he works with.
While Bass is mostly self-taught, 
he attended Columbia College in 
Chicago, where he studied music 

composition. There, he picked up the 
skills he hadn’t learned on his own 
throughout his teenage years, like 
reading and writing sheet music.
After graduating in 2012, Bass, 
who now lives in Berkley, went on 
to build a successful music career 
around much of the same music he 
grew up with. Naturally gravitating 
toward hip-hop, rock and jazz, he 
continues to work closely with these 
genres today.
“Hip-hop was my foundation,
” 
he says, remembering being about 
10 years old when Eminem first hit 
stardom and making a personal con-
nection with his music. (Years later, 
Bass would have a chance to produce 
music for Eminem as an adult.) “My 
dad did a great job and exposed me 
to as much music as possible, no 
matter the genre.
“If it was good music,
” Bass con-
tinues, “we were always listening.
”
He calls his style one that’s unique 
to his process. “When I’m writ-
ing and recording, I play all of the 
instruments that you hear,
” Bass 
explains. “My style is whatever feels 
good. If things are slightly out of 
tune or distorted, that’s OK. As long 
as it feels good.
”
Yet when it comes to good music, 
Bass has very simple criteria: “It’s 
connecting people,
” he says. “If it 
makes them feel really happy or real-
ly sad, I’ve done my job.
”

FINDING INSPIRATION
For inspiration, Bass doesn’t look far.
Every day, he finds inspiration 
in his wife, Danielle (whom he met 

ABOVE: Jake Bass works at his 
 
recording studio in Ferndale.

Meet Jake Bass, the “one-man band” 
who’s worked with hip-hop royalty.

The Music Maker

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

34 | SEPTEMBER 15 • 2022 

VOICE OF A 
NEW GENERATION

MICHELE PALTER
MICHELE PALTER

