How to play a bassist (when you’ve not one) in 7 steps with Stereophonic's Christopher Mowod!

Christopher Mowod is a professional actor. But for fun, he’s also been the lead singer in a band.

That experience (among others) helped him land the role of Reg in David Adjmi’s Stereophonic. The play transports the audience to a 1976 Sausalito recording studio where an up-and-coming rock band is recording an album that may just be their breakthrough. That is, if they don’t break up first.  

Tempers flare. Egos clash. Creative differences arise. It’s a make-or-break scenario that struck a chord with audiences and critics: Stereophonic is the most Tony Award-nominated play in history. It won five of the 13 Tony Awards it was nominated for, including Best Play and Best Director for Daniel Aukin.

Featuring original music by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Stereophonic follows five members of an unnamed band as they pursue commercial success, even at the expense of their personal lives.

Mowod plays Reg, the band’s bassist, who’s battling addiction while dealing with the unraveling of his marriage to the band’s keyboardist, Holly. It’s a role for which Will Brill won a Best Actor Tony Award.

((From L) Denver Milord as 'Peter', Christopher Mowod as 'Reg', Claire DeJean as 'Diana', and Emilie Kouatchou as 'Holly' in the First National Tour of Stereophonic. Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Mowod called on real-life experience to prepare. “To play someone with such a deep internal life,” he said, “you have to bring your own internal life to it.” Here’s how he did it:

1. Grow up loving music.

As an adolescent and teen, Mowod admired Bootsy Collins (who played with James Brown) and the jazz upright bassist Charles Mingus. But the bassist he learned the most from is Sir Paul McCartney.

And his bass-playing style was honed by something you might initially discount: video games. Mowod said, “I honestly think I can thank Guitar Hero and Rock Band for helping me prepare.”

2. Watch documentaries about bands and music-making.

The touring cast has watched a lot of recent music documentaries (Becoming Led Zeppelin; The Beatles: Get Back; It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley) to help them understand the process of making an album.

3. Put in the work.

Mowod worked hard at mastering the bass. While he said he’s not  ready to audition for a spot in a real band, he quipped, “I think I look like I can play the bass.”

(The First National Tour Cast of Stereophonic. Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

 

4. Learn from the best.

Mowod praised his “really patient music director, Justin Craig, and an absolutely wonderful dialect coach, Gigi Buffington.” Craig helped the actor convincingly play a world-class bassist, and Buffington helped the Pittsburgh native sound authentically British.

Mowod noted that his character, Reg, had a working-class upbringing, so his accent “sounds a little different from the rest of the band who came from wealthier backgrounds,” he said. “His accent changes over time. As he gets more Americanized and attempts to find peace, he affects a slightly more proper accent.”

5. Play in a band.

Mowod used to sing with an L.A. band that played at an Irish pub on Friday nights and said he “based a lot of the moves [he makes] as a bassist on the bassist from that band.”

Being in a band also helped him recognize how accurate the depiction of the creative process is in Stereophonic: “When I first read the script, so much of it resonated: the push and pull, the fighting and the fraternity of it.”

6. Immerse yourself in the world of your character.

The cast got to visit a recording studio to understand how confining it can be. The audience will get a sense of that, too, Mowod said: “One of the beautiful and exciting things about the play is that it really makes you feel like you’re going through what the characters are going through. You’re stuck in this room with them.” 

The cast got to perform as a band. “Will Butler, who wrote the music, got us actual gigs in front of an audience,” Mowod said.

When the fictional band played The Bitter End, New York City’s oldest rock club, Will Brill, who originated the role of Reg, was in the audience. That was the only time since he got the part that Mowod’s been nervous. “Every other time — at my first performance, in every new city, even with my parents in the audience — I don’t think I ever felt nervous, but seeing Will made me a little starstruck.”

(The First National Tour Cast of Stereophonic. Photo: Julieta Cervantes)

 

7. Lean on your life experience

In L.A., most of Mowod’s musician friends were “struggling with addiction in one way or another,” he said. It’s a struggle he knows personally. “There’s some part of every artist, I think, that’s always chasing joy or peace or silencing of the demons,” he said. “So, I was able to base Reg on my own experiences, my highs and lows.”  

Reg is an addict in Act I of the four-act play, but he eventually gets clean. However, “something else replaces the drugs,” Mowod said. “It could be religion, philosophy, vegetarianism. There is still some deep need Reg needs to fill. He’s fun to play and also painful to play.”

You might say that Reg is the role Mowod has spent his entire life preparing for. Being in a band himself, seeing how claustrophobic a recording studio can be and playing live all inform his performance. He even came to understand why this fictional band took a year and a half to record their album rather than the few weeks it might typically take.

“They reworked and revised until it was exactly what they wanted,” he said of the Stereophonic band’s fictional album. “It’s a question of art. Do you want ‘good enough’ or do you want the Mona Lisa?”

The fictional band insisted on a masterpiece. Stereophonic belongs in the same category.