Bassist · ASCAP Artist
Solo Bass · Composer · Endorsing Artist
Damian Coccio has been playing bass guitar since he fell in love with it decades ago. Over the past fifteen years he has focused entirely on solo bass — meditative, unhurried music that lives in the low frequencies.
Damian started playing in cover bands around age 14 and was initially taught by his father Ernie Coccio. He comes from a musical family and is primarily self-taught, but had personal lessons with some great musicians. He plays in a variety of genres, enjoys session work and playing in bands, and his deepest passion is improvising and writing music.
Damian is an endorsing artist for Fodera Guitars, has built some of his own basses and audio electronics for over 30 years, and holds patents in various fields including Co-Inventor of the BBQ Guru controllers (US7516692B2).
Over the past fifteen years he has focused entirely on solo bass — meditative, unhurried music that lives in the low frequencies. The music never comes from a conscious thought process. It comes through improvisation, discipline, and patience. Every so often something arrives whole.
He does not always know what the music means when he writes it. Sometimes it takes months or years to understand a piece. The understanding almost always comes after, rarely during. When inspiration happens, it feels less like creating and more like tuning a radio to the right frequency.
A few years ago, living near the ocean changed something. The rhythms became easier to notice — sunrise and sunset, tides, weather, birds, stillness, movement. It became easier to live inside the cycles rather than constantly pushing against them. That awareness lives inside the music.
Damian enjoys writing music, fishing, hiking, literature, and meditation. He is convinced that social media is not good for us and has written extensively about the subject in his journal.
There is something in the low frequencies that the body understands before the mind does. In a world that fights for your attention, that is a relief.
Press & Features
NoTreble Magazine
Bass The World Magazine — Video Features