Charlie Jones

Charlie Jones is a Grammy-winning bassist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, and engineer who has spent decades moving between very different musical worlds¹. He is best known as a bassist, but his career runs well beyond that one instrument: he has worked as a co-producer and musical director as well as a player, across acts including Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Siouxsie Sioux, Goldfrapp, and, in his current gig, The Cult².

Straightforward bass with The Cult

Jones plays bass in The Cult, a role he describes as one that requires dexterity, focus, and a thorough understanding of the band's sonic identity¹. His effects approach with the band is deliberately restrained:

Where he does color the sound, it is with chorus. "I use a lot of different types of choruses with The Cult, which I love," he says, including BOSS and Roland chorus effects¹. Otherwise his approach with the band is deliberately plain: "I don't use strong effects with The Cult, it's very straightforward in terms of bass sounds"¹. He describes playing bass in The Cult as a role that requires dexterity, focus, and a thorough understanding of the band's sonic identity¹.

Playing with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Siouxsie Sioux and Goldfrapp

The Led Zeppelin sphere

The first major chapter of Jones's career was defined by 14 years in the Led Zeppelin sphere with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, a period that shaped significant chapters of his professional and personal life²¹. It was producer Tim Palmer who recommended him for the Robert Plant gig; Plant had a certain tone in mind and wanted someone to play both fretless bass and traditional rock bass². The audition was a day at John Henry's rehearsing, followed by a day at Swanyard Studios recording, where Jones played a fretless Westone Thunder I-A bass and a Jazz Bass, even though he does not normally play Jazz Basses².

Highlights from that era include:

• Landing endorsement deals while working with rock royalty, a rise Jones charts from a struggling musician on the dole²
• A rig built around two Marshall Jubilee 3560 600W Bass Heads, used with two 2x15 and two 4x10 speaker cabs²
• Earlier, a signed band called Violent Blue with guitarist Neil Taylor, whose 1985 album You've Got to Stay Young was produced by Tim²

During those years he met Ian Astbury, in 1988, because Astbury was a Robert Plant fan who used to come to gigs and study Plant's stagecraft¹. Jones also turned down work in the '80s while with Plant: he declined filling in for Bon Jovi's rhythm section, and then declined a month-long US tour with Cinderella. "Then Cinderella asked me to do a month-long tour of America, but I was too nervous to do it," he recalls¹.

Siouxsie Sioux and Goldfrapp

After the Plant years, collaborations with Siouxsie Sioux, Goldfrapp, and The Cult each demanded distinct approaches that served the unique vision of each artist². On Siouxsie Sioux's 2007 solo debut Mantaray, Jones acted as co-producer, musical director, and bassist-for-hire¹. Goldfrapp was the exception in his touring career: every tour he has worked on, apart from Goldfrapp, has meant playing other musicians' catalogs¹. His use of effects expanded greatly when he started working with Goldfrapp in 2002, while recording the Black Cherry album².

Gear and studio

Jones's gear history runs from a struggling start on the dole to landing endorsement deals while working with rock royalty². Early on he was in a signed band called Violent Blue with guitarist Neil Taylor, whose album You've Got to Stay Young was produced by Tim Palmer². Around the Robert Plant period he acquired his Warwick Streamer basses, one fretless and one fretted, and picked up a nice Precision Bass in the early '90s². For amplification he used two Marshall Jubilee 3560 600W bass heads with two 2x15 and two 4x10 speaker cabs, and he often used his Wallace and HH gear to record².

His studio sits just outside Bath, UK, a space BOSS described as feeling like walking into a living museum². Among the gear hooked up there:

• A BOSS CE-300 chorus ensemble
• A Roland SPH-323 Phase Shifter, sitting next to the CE-300¹

Looking ahead to 2026, Jones plans more writing under his own name or as The Captain Francisco, more work with The Cult, and improvisational work with his double bass².