Martin Motnik - Media service

Martin Motnik - Gallien-Krueger promo picture

Biography

Born on November 10th,1972, Martin Motnik started making music by playing classical guitar at the age of 8. Thanks to his brother, famous sound engineer Frank Motnik, who brought home a bass guitar one day, Martin recognized by the age of 13 that the bass would be "his" instrument. Based on his experiences with acoustic and electric guitars and influenced by progressive rock bassists like John Entwistle and Billy Sheehan, Martin developed a special way to play the bass guitar - which is best described as "lead bass".

Martin gained vast experience in the studio and on stage, by playing with many bands of all different styles, that resulted in him becoming a live and studio bassist in demand. Besides his own bands like “What4”, which played on many big festivals all across the country, Martin was part of the band “The Winners”, an ear-catching pop music group. “The Winners” delivered the song "Go for Gold", the title song of the Olympic summer games in Seoul, which was a no.1 hit in many countries. With “The Winners”, Martin appeared in the video clips for their CD "Island of Sun", filmed in the Philippines, which were broadcast on several music stations like MTV. TV performances on many European stations followed. Showing his versatility, Martin is also a member of German goth metal heroes “Darkseed” who released their seventh CD “Ultimate Darkness” in 2005. Their world-wide fan base and journalists in many countries embraced this release. Martin delivers a very steady deep dark foundation to this powerful music, right on the spot and reduced to the max.

The total opposite is his solo CD “Bass Invader” that he finished recording this summer. The 14 tracks, in many different styles, show the flexibility of the bass guitar in an incredible way. Songs range from smooth fretless ballads over funky slapping songs to acoustic bass pieces or high-speed distorted picking attacks, making you believe that this must be a regular guitar – which it isn’t. His complex bass arrangements fill out every frequency range and deliver many details, without losing focus on intuitive songs and without overstraining the listener’s attention. The songs on “Bass Invader” are real melodies, not just solos in a row. Knowing that a bass is worth half without drums, Martin was joined by one of the hottest rock drummers to deliver the beat on “Bass Invader”: drummer legend Gregg Bissonette! Together, these two produce powerful grooves, building the foundation for the catchy tunes. Wanting to give the regular guitar fan something, too, Martin invited Swedish guitarist extraordinaire Mattias IA Eklundh for a guest appearance. Besides spicing up the opener “Bee on speed” with an Eklundh-typical zany chorus melody, the trio Eklundh/Motnik/Bissonette also creates a new version of Rush’s classic tune “YYZ”, giving all three of them the opportunity to show off their outstanding abilities.

But Martin is not only playing bass! He took part as an arranger and keyboard programmer on a large number of CD productions that entered different single and LP charts, for example Worlds Apart's "Everlasting love" and Clueless' "Don't speak", that both entered the top 10 of the U.S. Billboard charts. Besides this he is working in many co-productions with his brother, sound engineer and producer Frank Motnik, whose credit list carries names like Roxette, Curtis Stigers and Caught in the act.

Furthermore, Martin is working as a teacher for bass players, and he was author of different reviews for “SOLO”, a German-wide published journal for musical equipment.