“My favorite bands – Pixies, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, Bikini Kill – all had bass players who were women. I thought they were the coolest members”: Emily Retsas on her journey from Australia to A-list gigs with Phoebe Bridgers and Kim Gordon

From her humble beginnings in Smoky Bay, South Australia, to becoming a more sought-after session and touring bassist, you'd be hard-pressed to find a musician as busy as Emily Retsas.

Currently holding down the low-end with the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Kim Gordon, Retsas is in-demand – and as she tells it, the bass was always her calling.

"I have always played music," she tells Bass Player. "My favorite bands growing up – like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, and Bikini Kill – all had bass players who were women, and I thought they were the coolest members of the band."

While she started out on piano, it wasn't long before Retsas took up the bass mantle, although opportunities were hard to come by in her hometown.

"I think my first gig with a full band may have been at the local football club," she says. "I grew up in a really small town, so there weren't many options in terms of places to play."

A move to LA generated the opportunities Retsas sought. Through her melodic, versatile playing, calm demeanor, and grounded stage presence, she quickly found gigs with Garbage's Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple.

Recalling how she came to work with Manson, Retsas says, "I was on tour in California with Doe Paoro, and the keys player Shruti Kumar was talking about a show she was putting together with Anna Bulbrook [Airbourne Toxic Event] as musical director, to have an all-female choir and orchestral ensemble."

She continues, "When I asked Anna who was playing bass, she said, 'No-one.' I was like, 'Okay, you've got to let me play that gig.' And for that gig, we were playing Garbage songs and Lesley Gore's You Don't Own Me. Those songs had established basslines, so I had to learn quickly in a day or two. But making sure they worked with the orchestra and that the tones were correct for the songs."

Retsas' hard work soon paid off, leading to another soon-to-be-high-profile gig with Phoebe Bridgers, who has won considerable acclaim for her albums Stranger in the Alps (2017) and Punisher (2020).

"Multiple people recommended me for the gig with Phoebe," Retsas reveals. "It was the early stages of the Stranger in the Alps tour. It's been very rewarding to be a part of both the first and second albums. It's grown so much over the five years I've been a part of it."

"In some ways, it feels like we're still touring in her Prius," she continues. "I'm grateful to get to share the stage with those five musicians. I have so much respect for them as artists and as people. When you tour as much as we did, I think it helps that you develop a good understanding of one another."

Of course, Retsas didn't get to where she is by laying back. When she's not on tour with Bridgers or milling away in the studio, she can also be found holding down bass duties for Sonic Youth icon Kim Gordon.

"Kim's musical director reached out to me," Retsas says. "Being asked to play with her really helped my confidence as a player. I grew up listening to Sonic Youth and playing in loud, noisy bands, so playing those parts came naturally to me."

But with Gordon being a bassist, too, Retsas was careful not to mess with the established blueprint.

"Kim's record is very bass-forward, and Kim is a bassist, so really, it was about honoring that and finding tones that elevated those songs to a live setting," she explains.

While she has to tackle a variety of different sounds, Retsas keeps the core of her tone consistent from gig to gig.

"I try to get the best tone through my bass and amp first to establish a good foundation and then build up from there," she says. "I'm a huge Ampeg fan, and I use an SVT-CL live. And I love Fender Jazz Bass guitars; I have two that I play live and a custom Seuf Precision Bass with a Jazz Bass neck. They let me design my own bass, so that was really fun."

Once her essential tone is established, the pedal fun begins.

"I love working with EarthQuaker Devices," Retsas says. "They make such a great range of pedals for both guitar and bass. I'm a big fan of their Sea Machine [V3 Chorus pedal].

"If I'm writing or in the studio, I like having a lot of options pedal-wise. I'm always adding new pedals to my collection and love fuzz pedals. I feel like I'm constantly on the quest for the perfect bass fuzz combination."

With a thunderous backline behind her and an array of pedals at her feet, Emily Retsas has come a long way. She's made a name for herself within the industry, cutting through the indie rock scene relatively quickly.

But that's not all that defines her as a player. "I've been writing and recording with a lot of different people in different genres," she says. "Experimental, hip-hop, pop. I'm always looking to collaborate with other people – the weirder, the better."

For now, Retsas remains in search of exciting avenues to do what she does best, but session life isn't always easy. "The uncertainty of hours is hard," she admits. "It's a very unstructured world, and I'm a pretty structured person."

Today's view-it-and-forget-it music scene could also prove a concern, but it doesn't phase the hard-working bassist.

"It doesn't concern me at all," she says. "People still go to concerts. I don't envision people going to see a Chuck E. Cheese-style robot band perform at festivals. If hearing a 30-second clip of music on TikTok gets someone's music known, then that's great. It's just another avenue."

• To keep up with Emily Retsas, head to Instagram.