Jeff Bass talks about Eminem alter ego Slim Shady.
Detroit native music producer, Jeff Bass sat down on Connection is Magic with Samson Shulman for an interview a few years ago which is finally up on Spotify, Soundcloud, and youtube now. You may not be familiar with the Bass Brothers. Jeff and Mark Bass of Michigan were spinning the recordings of Marshall Mathers, a young youngster from Detroit, before Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. In the beginning, Eminem treated the production duo’s studio on 8 Mile Road as a second home. And it was there that they recorded The Slim Shady EP, which, thanks to Dre and Iovine, helped Eminem land a record deal.
At around the 27:49 mark, the Grammy and Oscar-winning producer talks about how Eminem’s alter ego Slim Shady was created. “He actually came up with the slim shady character while he was sitting on the toilet,” says Jeff.
“Prior to Interscope and everything, you were around for that right, was there like a phone call to you guys like hey guys I got it,” asks the host.
“Yeah, he said okay I was taking the sh*t and I was thinking like how can I be a little bit different,” explains Jeff Bass. “Because we cannot, I mean no one’s accepting what I’m doing. He says well I was sitting in the toilet and came up with an alter ego, Slim Shady’s my name. There started the direction of what he started to write about. So he had that now his image, his look was a whole another thing and he just didn’t look like a star for some reason. So we were trying to figure out what are we going to do with his look.”
Jeff Bass continues, “So we were at our studio in California, one of the girls that worked for us said, you know I think you should dye your hair blonde. So he goes and he dyes his hair blonde. And she said why don’t you put a white tank top, with the jeans and everything. Boom there’ the look, I mean he looked like somebody now, he stood out well. I didn’t see anybody that looked like that at that time.”
Watch the interview.
