Flirtin' With Disaster Bass Cover

RIP Banner Thomas

Today is the one year anniversary of the death of Banner Thomas, a founding member and bassist for the band, Molly Hatchet.

The song is the title track of Molly Hatchet’s album, “Flirtin’ With Disaster”, which came out in1979.

The first band I was in played quite a bit of Southern Rock, mostly Lynyrd Skynyrd. When this song came out, I remember thinking that Molly Hatchet seemed to be trying to ride on Skynyrd’s coat tails a bit with this new, heavier Southern Rock. What did I know? I guess we were going to try and play the song, as I remember attempting to learn it and having a pretty hard time of it. It had this shuffle-thing going on and lots of little “pick-up” notes that proved a little too tricky for me to grasp at the time. I still find it tricky. One thing that I thought was really cool was how (during the pre-chorus?) the bass stayed on the B/5th/octave and the guitar chords moved around it. I think that may have been the first time I had ever heard something like that, or took notice of it anyway. It seemed like voodoo to me, like, “How could that work?”. The bass plows ahead rhythmically as well. I found that if I concentrated on that part too much, or too little, I’d screw it up. This would explain the look on my face during these parts of the song.

On a personal note, Lynn and I happen to be well acquainted with Bill Frazetta who owns a “Horror Shop” in Milford, PA, Frazetta’s Fantasy Corner. We’ve been going there for well over 20 years and Bill is a great guy who loves horror. Anyway, Bill’s father is the late, Frank Frazetta who did the artwork for the first three Molly Hatchet albums and is widely known as the creator of the “fantasy art” genre.

I’m playing the Ol’ Guild B-301 that’s been fitted with a Zero-Mod Thumbrest.