46 Facts About Mike Watt

Michael David Watt was born on December 20,1957 and is an American bassist, vocalist and songwriter.

Mike Watt co-founded and played bass guitar for the rock bands Minutemen, Dos, and Firehose.

Mike Watt is the frontman for the supergroup Big Walnuts Yonder, a member of the art rock group Banyan and is involved with several other musical projects.

In November 2008, Mike Watt received the Bass Player Magazine lifetime achievement award, presented by Flea.

Mike Watt's father was in the Navy and when he was young, Watt's family moved to San Pedro, California, where he became good friends with D Boon.

Sonic Youth invited Mike Watt to hang out with them in New York City in 1986; they recorded a cover of Madonna's "Burnin' Up" on the first Ciccone Youth EP, and Mike Watt played bass for two songs on the Sonic Youth album Evol.

In 1996, Mike Watt contributed bass guitar on two songs for Porno for Pyros' second album, Good God's Urge, filling in for Martyn LeNoble who quit the band during recording sessions.

Mike Watt subsequently ended up being the bassist for the band's tour that followed the release of the album.

Mike Watt made an appearance in an episode of Cartoon Network's Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

In 1997, Mike Watt released Contemplating the Engine Room, a punk rock song cycle using naval life as an extended metaphor for both Mike Watt's family history and the Minutemen.

Mike Watt went on to play in such groups as Banyan and Hellride, a sometime live outfit that plays cover versions of Stooges songs.

Mike Watt recorded a bass line to send to the Pennsylvania space-folk band The Clubber Lang Gang for their record Now Here This, on the track "For the Broken People".

In January 2000, Mike Watt fell ill with an infection of his perineum, forcing him into emergency surgery and nine weeks of bedrest in his San Pedro apartment.

In 2000, Mascis asked Mike Watt to participate in a world tour behind Mascis' first post-Dinosaur Jr.

In 2001, Mike Watt was one of several bassists invited to participate in the sessions for Gov't Mule's The Deep End, partly on the recommendation of Primus' Les Claypool.

In October 2006, Mike Watt joined the rest of The Stooges at recording engineer Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago, Illinois to record The Weirdness, the first Stooges studio album since 1973's Raw Power.

The album was released on March 6,2007, and much of Mike Watt's 2007 was devoted to Stooges duties, including the band's first full-length US tour since the band's reformation.

Mike Watt reunited with the final Black Gang lineup of Nels Cline and Bob Lee to record a new album, tentatively titled My Shibun No Hi, in 2008.

Mike Watt is interviewed in the 2009 documentary film Live House, about the underground music scene in Japan.

Mike Watt is using his clenchedwrench label to put out some other long-awaited recording projects from the stockpile he has accumulated over the past few years, starting with the fourth Dos album, followed by the Spielgusher project with Richard Meltzer and mi-gu's Shimizu "Shimmy" Hirotaka and Yuko Araki and two Il Sogno del Marinaio albums.

In late November 2009, Mike Watt traveled to Italy to tour and record at the invitation of Italian guitarist Stefano Pilia.

Mike Watt recorded his first post-Columbia solo album, Hyphenated-man, in two sessions 13 months apart, with The Missingmen at Studio G, the New York studio of former Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone.

Mike Watt overdubbed his vocal and bass tracks with Maimone in June 2010.

The album was released in Japan by Parabolic Records on October 6,2010, and Mike Watt undertook his first tour of the country as a solo artist in support of it.

In 2010, Thollem McDonas, John Dieterich, Tim Barnes, and Mike Watt formed an experimental improvisational supergroup.

In 2014, Mike Watt joined with Mark Shippy, Jim Sykes, Matthew Wascovich, and Norman Westberg to form the art rock project band Hidden Rifles.

In 2018, Mike Watt joined with Bucky Pope, John Herndon, Vince Meghrouni, and Pete Mazich to form the project band Tone Scientists.

In 2019, Mike Watt joined Todd Congelliere to form Jumpstarted Plowhards.

Mike Watt was recruited by Flipper's Ted Falconi and Stephen DePace to play bass for a 2019 summer European tour with David Yow substituting for the retired Bruce Loose and the otherwise engaged then-current Flipper bassist, Rachel Theole.

In 2022, Flipper announced that they would tour again, with Mike Watt returning on both bass and lead vocals.

In 2007, Mike Watt's work appeared on Clarkson's My December album.

Hodges had previously worked with Mike Watt on Contemplating the Engine Room.

Mike Watt appeared on the track "Moon Burnt Mountain" on Anywhere II by Anywhere.

Mike Watt played bass on two tracks for the Black Flag tribute album Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie: Reinterpreting Black Flag alongside Dez Cadena and Keith Morris.

Mike Watt had earlier appeared on the song "Black Yogurt" on Black Moth Super Rainbow's Drippers EP in 2008.

Mike Watt appeared on a split 7-inch with MB Jones playing on the song "Jail for Trees" in April 2018.

In 2019, Mike Watt appeared with Macedonian jazz guitarist Toni Kitanovski on the track "Nisto nema da ne' razdeli" for Bernays Propaganda's 2019 release, Vtora mladost, treta svetska vojna The track was donated to Songs From Under the Floorboard, Vol.

Mike Watt has long been a fan of James Joyce having first discovered Ulysses while playing with Minutemen on a European tour with Black Flag.

Mike Watt credits reading Joyce with helping him process the loss of D Boon and he used it as inspiration when writing Contemplating the Engine Room.

Mike Watt attended the 2004 Bloomsday celebration in Dublin and claimed that it was the first time he went to a town without having to perform a gig.

Mike Watt attended Bloomsday again in 2008 while touring with The Stooges.

In 2008, Mike Watt was invited to contribute music to an adaptation of Joyce's Chamber Music released by Fire Records.

In 2017, Mike Watt participated in an international project setting Joyce's Finnegans Wake to music entitled Waywords and Meansigns It was released on May 4,2017, to coincide with the 76th anniversary of the book's first publication.

For most of his fIREHOSE tenure, Mike Watt played a 1956 Fender Precision Bass.

From 1995 until 1999, Mike Watt predominately played a non-reverse Gibson Thunderbird which he altered with a Bartolini pre-amp and Grover tuning machines.

Mike Watt played a 1963 Gibson EB-3 until it was stolen while on tour with The Stooges.