Tom Hamilton's Bass Rig: Aerosmith's G&L Signature Sound, Sourced
Tom Hamilton has anchored Aerosmith on bass since 1970. Documented gear: a signature G&L ASAT Bass, Music Man StingRay history, and D'Addario .045-.100 strings.
Aerosmith · reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team ·
Tom Hamilton has played bass for Aerosmith since the band's 1970 formation, co-writing Sweet Emotion, Janie's Got a Gun, and other hits along the way. Since 2000 he has mainly played G&L ASAT Bass models, including his own signature line, after years on Fender Precision and Jazz Basses and an early run on Music Man StingRay Basses starting with 1977's Draw the Line. Per his own account to Bass Musician Magazine, he has long used D'Addario strings gauged .045-.100 on four-string basses and .045-.130 on five-string basses.
Who Tom Hamilton is
Thomas William Hamilton, born December 31, 1951, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has played bass for Aerosmith since the band's 1970 formation, the only bassist the group has ever had. He switched from guitar to bass at 14, per Wikipedia's account of his career, after a local band had an opening. He met guitarist Joe Perry in the late 1960s, and the two, along with Steven Tyler, formed the nucleus of what became Aerosmith after a chance meeting at a New Hampshire venue called The Barn in the summer of 1970.
Hamilton has regularly co-written Aerosmith songs, including two of the band's signature hits: "Sweet Emotion" (1975) and "Janie's Got a Gun" (1989). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Aerosmith in 2001. In 2006, cancer briefly interrupted the streak: read the full story of Hamilton's diagnosis and recovery.
The documented rig: G&L signature, StingRay history, D'Addario strings
Hamilton has used a long list of basses across Aerosmith's catalog, one of the deepest documented rigs among the classic-rock players in CYS's bassist coverage. He started on a borrowed, then purchased, Fender Precision Bass, used through the band's first two albums and again on 1985's Done with Mirrors. Starting with 1977's Draw the Line, he became one of the earliest widely-toured players of the Music Man StingRay Bass, an instrument he returned to for Rock in a Hard Place, Permanent Vacation, Pump, and Nine Lives. Since around 2000 his main instrument has been his own G&L ASAT Bass signature model, a reduced-weight Western Sugar Pine body with custom "Hamiltone" pickups, which he's described as an evolution of the Fender Jazz Bass sound and feel. He's strung it, per his own account, with D'Addario's .045-.100 gauge.
Nickel Wound Bass EXL170 (.045-.100)
Why this one: Matches the .045-.100 gauge Hamilton named in his own 2012 Bass Musician Magazine interview. D'Addario also sells this same gauge in its ProSteels alloy (EPS170); the interview specifies gauge, not alloy.