Bassist, clinician, composer, freelance writer… there are some people who are good at so many things that they can never quite seem to focus on excelling at any particular one. Then there are truly multi-talented folks like Bryan Beller, who don't have that problem.
The unifying core of Beller’s triple-threat talent lies in his mastery of the bass guitar. Degreed in 1993 by Berklee College Of Music at 22, he immediately landed a gig with Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa’s tweaked rock project Z. Also in that band was one Mike Keneally, a true Frank Zappa band alumnus and freakishly talented guitarist/composer. In a lasting gesture of solidarity with his avant-garde pop/rock/fusion musical vision, Beller left Z when Keneally did in 1996. Over ten years, seven albums, and countless tours later, their musical partnership continues to this day, strong as ever. Highlights include the Mike Keneally Band’s performance at the North Sea Jazz Fesitval in 2002, their acoustic duo work as clinicians for Taylor Guitars, and a 2005 performance of Keneally’s composition The Universe Will Provide along with Holland’s prestigious Metropol Orchestra. Keneally’s 2006 release, Guitar Therapy Live, is the musical culmination of his and Beller’s shared live experience.
In 2003, Beller felt he had something to say compositionally, and said it with force and grace on his debut release, View. A completely self-financed and uncompromised product – and released on Beller’s own boutique label, Onion Boy Records – View didn’t merely aspire to bass heroism. Instead, it arrived as a carefully crafted, highly emotional tapestry of interweaving themes and styles. The resulting body of work ran from jazz/rock to vocal pop to thrash to acoustic solo to world beat while staying thematically intact, all the while displaying equal parts density and sensitivity, melody and dissonance, tranquility and furious release. The album earned critical acclaim across the board, with Bass Player
Magazine’s Editor Bill Leigh particularly praising View’s “sublime moments of melancholia, beauty, and joy.”
Beller’s well-rounded experience made him a natural session-ace choice for guitar legend Steve Vai, who tracked him on six albums (including the Grammy-nominated “Lotus Feet” from 2006’s Real Illusions: Reflections) before Vai tapped him for his own full-blown collaboration with the Metropol Orchestra. Beller joined Vai for the entirety of the resulting 2007 rock/orchestra CD/DVD Sound Theories, a tour-de-force of complex rock and modern classical genre-bending compositions. Beller soon joined Vai’s touring rock band on the worldwide String Theories tour, which played sold-out halls and theaters throughout Europe and continues in the U.S. for Fall 2007. Other recent touring work includes the "band" Dethklok, a tongue-in-cheek extreme metal band borne of the hit Cartoon Network "Adult Swim" show Metalocalypse.
But Beller didn’t – and still doesn’t - just play with rock guitarists. During his thirteen years in Los Angeles, Beller acquired a reputation as a uniquely talented yet supremely tasteful hired gun bassist for adventurous rock guitarists and singer/songwriters alike, touring and recording for Wayne Kramer (ex-MC5 guitarist) and indie singer-songwriter Janet Robin (Lindsay Buckingham) among many others. Now, after relocating to Nashville in early 2006, he’s played everything from country (with up-and-comer Kyle Wyley and others) to R&B (with artist and session singer Kira Small) and everything in between, and is actively soaking up the new surroundings and rich musical influences while remaining true to who he is.
Beller’s other main creative outlet is writing, and he serves currently as a Contributing Editor for Bass Player Magazine. His cover story on Tool’s Justin Chancellor ran in the July 2007 issue, and he’s interviewed a long list of bass luminaries – Neil Stubenhaus, Oteil Burbridge, Victor Wooten, Michael Rhodes, Edgar Meyer, Jonas Hellborg, John Patitucci, Lee Sklar, Dave LaRue, Adam Nitti, and more – for his advanced Masterclass column. Additional interviews include Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big, David Lee Roth), guitarist Jon Butcher, and film scorer W.G. “Snuffy” Walden (The West Wing, thirtysomething). Beller’s work has run in seven different publications to date.
Always seeking new challenges, he continues to work as a freelance bassist, a masterclass clinician for Mike Lull Custom Guitars, SWR Amplification and D’addario Strings, a freelance writer, and is working up material for an eventual second solo release. He remains open to whatever life has in store, both musically and otherwise.
