Performance · Production

Mike Watt

bassist of Minutemen, fIREHOSE, etc.

San Pedro • b. 1957-12-20

Mike Watt is credited on 596 releases across 245 albums tracked on Gatefold, active 1980–2025 — the collector-built map of who actually made the music.

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596

Pressings credited

245

Albums

Decades active

471

In collections

Biography

Michael David Watt (born December 20, 1957) is an American bassist, vocalist and songwriter. He co-founded and played bass guitar for the rock bands Minutemen (1980–1985), Dos (1985–present), and Firehose (1986–1994). He began a solo career with the 1995 album Ball-Hog or Tugboat? and has since released three additional solo albums, most recently in 2010 with Hyphenated-man. He is also the frontman for the supergroup Big Walnuts Yonder (2008–present), a member of the art rock group Banyan (1997–present) and is involved with several other musical projects. From 2003 until 2013, he was the bass guitarist for The Stooges. Watt has been called "one of the greatest bassists on the planet". CMJ New Music called Watt a "seminal post-punk bass player". Readers of NME voted Mike Watt one of the "40 Greatest Bassists of All Time" and LA Weekly awarded him the number six spot in "The 20 Best Bassists of All Time". In November 2008, Watt received the Bass Player Magazine lifetime achievement award, presented by Flea. The Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their best-selling album, 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, to Watt.

Bio from Wikipedia