Favorite Things: Nicholas Richard and his Fender bass

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Nicholas Richard is a graduate of LCC’s music program and has put that knowledge to use in touring bands such as The Plurals and City Mouse. So it’s no surprise that his favorite thing is his trusty Fender jazz bass, which has seen all sorts of impressive battle scars.

I got my bass in 2007; I got it used at Elderly Instruments. It was a late graduation gift. I split the cost with my parents as I was going into an associate’s degree program from LCC. It’s an American Fender Jazz Bass, and it’s been to probably 46 states. My brain’s rotten, so there’s a couple I am forgetting that I had to borrow basses for.

It’s definitely broken open my nose, and my Plurals bandmate Tommy’s nose at least a few times. In REO Town, we were playing a show and the straplock busted. The neck of the bass flew up into my nose and low-key broke it. I immediately was pouring blood out of my face. Everyone in the audience was like, “Oh my god!” and laughing. I was standing there saying, “Uh, can somebody help me?” Eventually, somebody went to the bathroom and got me some paper towels.

It has hit Tommy over the years thanks to a solid decade of touring, playing in tiny attics, living rooms and basements, while performativity doing slam dancing in rooms meant for 2 to 4 people that actually had 30 people in it. I would often be known to take a hard turn and accidentally bash him in the face.


I was first interested in music when I was 13 or 14. My dad bought me an acoustic guitar using Marlboro Miles. He’s a lifelong smoker, and still smokes today. I was really into The Who and I really liked John Entwistle, and that was my dad and I’s favorite band. I was getting pretty good at acoustic guitar and I got a really shitty Danelectro bass passed down to me through a friend of a friend. I played that for a while, but once I graduated and went to LCC I decided to live mas and buy an American jazz bass.

The bass is beat up real bad, I couldn’t sell it at this point. But it still sounds absolutely fantastic, despite how poorly I treat it. If my house were on fire, it would be the one thing I would pull out, besides my cat.

Interview edited and condensed by Skyler Ashley. If you have a suggestion for favorite things, please email Skyler@lansingcitypulse.com

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