Gary Day (musician)

Gary Day (born 27 June 1965) is a British musician. known for playing bass for Morrissey.

Day started to learn the bass in his late teens, after being influenced by the UK rock and roll scenes, especially by The Meteors bass player Nigel Lewis. Day also revisited classic 1950's rock and roll music, and as time passed he became interested in other forms of music as a natural progression, hence finding new influences to ferment his own style, e.g. Jazz and Blues musicians like Willie Dixon, Red Callender and Charlie Mingus to name a few.

Day originally played for Morrissey from 1991, until he was fired in 1994. He was then re-hired in 1999 for Morrissey's Oye Esteban tour. He remained the band's bassist until he parted ways at the end of the 2006 tour, to spend time with his family and to work on his own material. Day did not participate in any of Morrissey's recording sessions' in 2007. He also composed music for Morrissey, including early sessions material of Pashernate Love, Let The Right One Slip In and Mexico from later sessions.

Day's own group, The Gazmen (which featured fellow Morrissey guitarist Alain Whyte along with 2 members of The Sharks, Alan Wilson & Paul Hodges) released a four song EP entitled "Rigormortis Rock" Sept 2000, which was a re-release of the group's 1995 12 inch vinyl EP (on the Vinyl Japan label) also called "Rigamortis Rock". Aside from working on his own projects, Day is also a frequent DJ.

Throughout his career, Day has played either double or electric bass with a number of bands, including The Caravans, Frantic Flintstones, Colbert Hamilton, The Nitros and The Sharks. He has also played with Empress of Fur, and a personal triumph of his was playing with The New York Dolls on a one-off engagement, but could not do more shows at the time due to other work commitments.

In late 2012, Day joined a British band called the Ely Plains. However, he left the band in October the next year.

In early 2015, Day, emailed via Facebook, Clive Franklin vocalist and lyricist from London-based band The Ponces, with questions on pressing records after Day had seen and heard a 45 rpm single release on Franklin's record label Prince Records Inc. with Ponces guitarist Matt Jackson being the unforeseen connection, being a long term friend of Day, so Franklin replied forthwith making the connection known, leading the two to talk about music and Franklin suggesting Day to play on some his recording sessions.

Then with a delivery of Franklin's demo's and album work in progress and Day's approval the two had there inevitable first time meet up at London's Gizzard recording studio within a couple weeks. Franklin had Day in mind for the sessions anyway, but didn't have the courage to ask. Franklin required a bass guitarist to overdub on a handful of tracks on The Ponces first album release on Sub-Ver-Siv records thinking Day would be the ideal bassist for his songs, and he was right.

This led to Day becoming involved with The Ponces recently recorded album, which was work in progress. After all over dubs were completed, Day lent his studio experience skills and assisted in the mixing and mastering of the album, entitled Songs For Hope About Despair released February 15, 2016, and was asked by Franklin to join the band as a full-time member, and also to work with him on demos for future single releases planned by the two mentioned labels.

Day has also played double bass on Franklin's Latin Jazz recordings, including a cover of the classic Misirlou and Caravan, also Blues Rhumba material and classic Rock 'N' Roll too with the Gene Vincent classic 'Cat Man' the flip to the new Denvir Jet single, being the young guitar prodigies second 45 rpm release from one of Franklin's recording sessions.

Day continues to play bass in many genres of music and has recently played on The Sons' recent release The Tension Of Dream Clouds which was released May 2015. He also plays double bass alongside drummer Spike T Smith, also an ex-Morrissey band member in Reza Uhdin's band Black Volition.