Nate Mendel appears on Fender's Lowdown on the Low End web series with Geezer Butler

Lowdown on the Low End is a new web series created by Fender, one of the worlds most well-known guitar manufacturers. Each episode sees one or two famous bassists sit down and talk about their love of playing bass guitars made by the company, sharing anecdotes and stories. It's evidently primarily crafted as a promotional tool for the brand, but it doesn't preclude it from providing some interesting stories.

In this episode Foo Fighters' Nate Mendel sits down with Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler who are both long time users of the Fender P Bass model.

The pair sit together in a studio trading stories about their use of the guitar during their long and storied careers. In one story Nate tells Geezer about one of his models which has a large dent in the back of it thanks to none other than Krist Novoselic. In December of 1999 Foo Fighters were booked to appear at the KNDD Deck The Hall Ball in Seattle, a special show arranged by the local radio station KNDD The End. Nate fell ill and was unable to play the show, but the band didn't have the time to hire a full-on replacement so friend and local boy Krist Novoselic was given a call to help out. Justin Meldal-Johnsen of Beck also lent a hand, whilst Chris Shiflett also switched to bass for a chunk of the set.

Owing to time constraints there wasn't time to set up Novoselic's own bass rig, so he instead simply played with Nate's, including his P Bass. At the end of his guest slot Krist performed his traditional bass toss, throwing the instrument high into the air. Unfortunately he didn't quite catch it, the body of the guitar instead landing right on the corner of an amplifier and leaving a large dent.

Mendel jokes with Geezer that he has since forgiven Novoselic for the incident.

The pair walk through a number of songs by both of their bands, explaining how some of their most well-known bass tracks came to life.

You can watch the 20 minute video on YouTube: