Mike Inez

Mike Allen Inez (Bassist) is 5'9" and was born in Los Angeles, California on May 14, 1966. He became interested in music at a young age, his grandfathers uncle played the mandolin in a Filipino folk band and it was natural for Mike to get into that. But he started on the guitar and the reason he started playing bass was that the band he was in was in need of a bassplayer.

Mike still plays a little guitar, and he has an associate's degree in music, for saxophone and keyboard. Other than music, his main interest is scuba diving. When Ozzy Osbourne announced that he needed a new bassplayer, Mike was one of the many hopeful young men who found their way to Frank Zappa's place in LA, called "Joe's Garage", where Ozzy held his audition. "There must've been 50 bass players there, all in leathers and with the boots and stuff. I was in Levi's' and an old hockey jersey..." remembers Mike.

He wasn't nervous though, he didn't think he'd get the gig. Some three weeks later the results from the final elimination came: "Quit your job, you're going to Ireland and then playing London's Wembley Arena in a few weeks! Learn 20 songs and here's your flight information". That was the first time Mike had left the country.

Mike always records with his two old Warwick basses but also uses a Fender fretless and a Stuart Spector custom made bass. On the Unplugged show he used an Alvarez acoustic, along with a $10 chorus pedal. His backline is constantly changing but it's all Ampeg.

Some pictures of Mike Inez and Mike Starr

Quotes:

• "No bodyguards, no fuckin' Lear jets, no fuckin' tour bus, no 50 people following you around every day. We all had to go away from each other and the music industry for a while."
  
• "It's funny, you go to Jerry's house, and he's got like dogs and a stream and he just hangs out...he doesn't have bikini dancers on every surface at his house, you know? We're easy-going guys."
  
• "Might I add that you are just a fine specimen of womanhood?" (to Nona Weisbaum)
  
• "Backstage is greatly overrated"
  
• "Quit looking at my ass!"
  
• "Actually, that was the whole concept for the album cover, we were gonna have a scratch & sniff feces album cover to draw your own flies. It was gonna be called 'Draw Your Flies.'"
  
• "Jerry Cantrell told me this: 'You've gotta live life before you can write songs about it.' ...We've been on the road for a year and a half, two years straight. We gotta live normal life and experience normal life for a little while. So, that's what we've been doing for the last eight months."
  
• "Layne is the most creative, witty and sharp-minded guy I've ever met. People should get to know Layne before they comment about him. Layne loves having fun and playing jokes - it was his idea to do 'The Nona Tapes'. He's certainly not the miserable guy he's painted to be."
  
• "I read in a rock magazine that our band had broken up, so I stopped going to rehearsal"
  
• Jerry, Jerry...he's kind of got a feminine side to him...he's in touch with his feminine side.
  
• "But bassists are the most important..."