ARTIST BIO

Saidus Salehin Khaled Sumon, better known as ‘Bassbaba Sumon’ is a bassist and singer from the South Asian country Bangladesh. He is known for his nice grooves, excellent use of different bass playing techniques and mostly, for his frequent bass solos in his band Aurthohin’s songs. Bassbaba Sumon has single handedly changed the role of bass guitar in Bangladeshi Music. It is said that bass playing has become a hugely attractive thing to the young music lovers in Bangladesh because of the influence of Bassbaba Sumon. Music listeners of Bangladesh did not take bass guitar seriously till early 90s. That time Bassbaba Sumon started playing bass solos in live concerts. To draw attention to bass, he started to play bass in ‘non-traditional’ ways. Sometimes he took it on his shoulder, sometimes playing with his teeth like Jimi Hendrix. In Bassbaba Sumon’s own words, “Though most of those performances were full of ‘gimmicks’, it helped me to introduce to the people what a bass can do”. More and more young people started to learn bass guitar after experiencing those shows. Bass was not just a backup instrument anymore.

Bassbaba Sumon started playing lap acoustic guitar at the age of 7. He made his first appearance on national TV when he was 10. He went to a local music store to convert his lap acoustic guitar to a Spanish guitar and started learning it by himself when he was 12. When he was 13, he decided to play bass after watching Iron Maiden on TV. He removed the 1st and 2nd string from his acoustic guitar and started using that as a bass because he couldn’t afford to buy a bass. Two years later he joined a very famous band of Bangladesh called ‘Feelings’. He himself became very famous as a ‘solo bass player’ in live concerts and also started playing as a session bass player in studios on a regular basis by the age of 17. He recorded his first ever written, composed and produced Bengali song as a singer without any voice training at the age of 18. He composed, sang, produced his first solo album when he was 19. Till now Bassbaba Sumon has released 5 solo albums, which includes a bass instrumental album called ’Soul Food Part 1’. He is the founder of the band ‘Aurthohin’ which is one of the most famous and influential bands of Bangladesh. Aurthohin also released 7 albums till date. Bassbaba Sumon is currently an MTD, BOSS, Roland, Gruv Gear & Temple Audio Design Endorser.

Photo Credit: Fahim Hasan Ahad