It appears that a fellow metalhead has ascended the ranks to what is arguably the top of the pop musician food chain- playing bass and keys for none other than the current queen of pop herself, Taylor Swift.
Amos Heller plays bass and keyboard every night for T. Swift on her current record-shattering stadium tour (and has been in her band since 2007 now).
But don’t let the day gig fool ya- dude absolutely loves himself some good ‘ol thrash metal, too.
In his own words: “I don’t think I would be a musician if it wasn’t for thrash metal,” he wrote, “and I don’t think I would love thrash if I hadn’t listened to it every day of my freshman year riding to school in my brother’s car with …And Justice For All blazing out of the speakers.”
Heller being a bassist, he clearly has empathy for how ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted was done dirty and had his bass made nearly inaudible on the band’s classic ‘… And Justice For All’ album.
So much so that Heller has made an absolute ripper of a cover of the album track “Blackened”, imagining what the bass could and should sound like if it was higher up in the mix. He explains:
“This album [Justice] is an oddity…a killer metal album with no bass on it. So I put some bass on it. The modern tone I went for might not be the most era-specific, but it felt like a good fit to me. This song was a real challenge, and I love playing it.”
It’s cool to see someone like Heller very publically and proudly waving the flag for heavy music. It’s not uncommon for him to post videos on his Instagram rocking Bloody Kisses or Beneath The Remains garb, as seen below. After that, check out Amos’s impressive chops on ‘Blackened’. Well done, sir.
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