GEORGE: I remember saying, “Well, one of us has gotta be the bass player, and it’s not me. I’m not doing it.” And John said, “I’m not doing it, either.” Paul just went for it. (1995) JOHN: Paul’s bass playing is underrated. Paul was one of the most innovative bass players ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period. He’s an egomaniac about everything else about himself, but his bass playing he was always a bit coy about. He’s a great musician who plays the bass like few other people could play it. (1980) RINGO: Paul is still, to this day for me, one of the most incredible melodic bass players around. He’s just incredible. (2016) PAUL: As time went on, I realized that I didn’t have to just play the root notes. At first if it was C, F, G, then it was normally C, F, G that I played. But then I started to realize that you could be pulling on that G, or just staying on the C when it went into F. And then I took it beyond that. I thought, well, if you can do that, what else could you do? You might even be able to play notes that aren’t in the chord. I just started to experiment. What could you do? Well, maybe you can use different notes. Sevenths instead of the regular notes, or maybe even a little tune through the chords that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Maybe I can have an independent melody. (2018)
