Mike Watt is the legendary singer-songwriter and bass guitarist, best-known for co-founding the seminal punk rock bands Minutemen and fIREHOSE; as of 2003, he is also the bassist for the reunited Iggy Pop & The Stooges, and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan, the bass guitar duo Dos and the magnificent Il Sogno del Mariano.
Watt is often cited as a key figure in the development of American alternative rock; The Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their hugely successful Blood Sugar Sex Magik to Watt. Throughout his career he has been known for his inventive, melodic playing; and thoroughly distinctive basslines.
Watt is a cultural omnivore. Especially over the last decade, his openness (and eagerness) to devour new musical experience has become increasingly audible (and visible) in the dozens of projects and live performances he's participated in with artists as divergent as Yoko Ono, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Petra Haden, Kelly Clarkson, Thurston Moore, Porno For Pyros, Nels Cline, Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits), J Mascis, Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu), Yuko Araki and Hirotaka 'Shimmy' Shimizu (Cornelius), Dougie Bowne (Lounge Lizards) and many more.
As always, Watt persists in exceeding, defying and confounding musical (and other) expectations: the truly romantic embodiment of an authentic punk rocker.
