The Bassist, nicknamed Scruffy by fans, is an unplayable character in the entire Guitar Hero series and plays in the in-game cover band along with The Male Singer and The Drummer. He is Surinamese.
Appearance[]
Unlike his bandmates, the bassist is depicted as a tall, slim, long-bearded, hair-covered man dressed in a gray T-shirt with a radioactive symbol, green, yellow and red markings and white writing with red outlines, light blue jeans with holes in the knees, black and white sneakers and black wristbands in the first game. In the second game and encore: rocks the 80's, he is dressed in a black T-shirt, brown shoes, and the same wristbands and jeans with a brown belt and a yellow buckle which has gone virtually unchanged. He also sports a Zildjian logo on his shirt. His wristbands disappear in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.
The bass parts of songs became playable in Guitar Hero II; however, the Bassist was not made a playable character. The player had to choose from among the game's existing guitarists in order to play the bass parts. The Bassist does not appear during any multiplayer games or boss battles, instead being replaced by the second guitarist.
In the first two and Rock the 80's, the bass he uses is an Ernie Ball Music Man Stingray, and in Guitar Hero III, he uses a Les Paul bass, In Aerosmith, he switched to a sky-blue Thunderbird bass. In Guitar Hero On Tour, he did not make an appearance only to be replaced by the Male Singer, who played bass and sung at the same time, which was presumably inspired by Sting, Geddy Lee, or Gene Simmons.
He was mentioned by the developers during the behind-the-scenes video in Guitar Hero as the development team's favorite character.
The bassist no longer appears during actual songs in Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero and opening acts in Guitar Hero: Metallica and Guitar Hero: Van Halen. He is now replaced by random custom characters in games between Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero: Van Halen, and the main characters in Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero.
Trivia[]
- He is based off Nirvana's bassist Krist Novolselic.
- In a behind the scenes video featured in Guitar Hero's extras, the art designers said that the bassist started off as one of the worst characters in the backup band, but eventually became one of the best.
- In Guitar Hero World Tour, the bassist, the drummer, and the male singer appear in the intro cutscene for a brief moment.
- In Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, he has a Max's Kansas City logo on his shirt.
- In the third Co-op cutscene, some Japanese people have papers that show the singer, the drummer and the bassist, although the bassist doesn't appear in co-op career.
- Most fans call him Scruffy, due to his long hair and beard.
- In the fifth solo cutscene, when the male singer is reading a magazine article claiming that the band had "sold out," the bassist grins and points at him as if laughing at him.