Bailey Thomas never thought he’d be a booked and busy bassist in the bands of fellow students. Nevertheless, the sophomore majoring in popular music performance has been featured in several Thornton School of Music students’ solo shows.

“He’s the first person that almost everybody asks to be their bass player,” said Sophia Condon, a sophomore majoring in pop music performance. 

According to Condon, Thomas’ sterling reputation in his pop music classes earned him the attention of other performers.

“I remember seeing him in pop class and he was always on top of everything,” Condon said. “I remember specifically thinking that he was the only person who never got any notes from our professors — in fact, they were just pretty much complimenting him.”

His discovery of bass itself falls along the same incidental narrative, only picking it up in middle school after a failed connection with the ukulele. 

Regardless of the incidental ways in which he’s discovered his passions, Thomas was drawn to USC specifically thanks to the pop music major’s canonical approach to its curriculum. However, as he’s learned more about popular music, he’s taken on a fresh appreciation for bass’s contributions to musical pieces.

“I always feel like I hear, ‘Well, isn’t it just a guitar?’ I guess a lot of people don’t realize that bass is a kind of the intersection, the key — it’s rhythm, it’s harmony and it’s melodic. Bass is really the intersection of those three,” Thomas said.

Thanks to all the support he gives to other students’ shows, Thomas has gotten to know bass on an even deeper level as he adapts to different genres. Thomas recently supported student performers WALLIS — an artist with an upbeat sound that features synths and dance beats — and Alejandro Aramburu — a Latin pop artist with more rhythmic and playful melodies. 

“Playing with WALLIS is drastically different than playing with someone like Alejandro,” Thomas said. “Playing the Latin-pop stuff was definitely a little bit of a learning curve for me because those rhythms and those bass players come from a completely different tradition than I am even accustomed to.”

His co-performers are grateful for his adaptability on the bass. WALLIS said Thomas’ greatest strength is his ability to maintain his unique voice as an instrumentalist while also seamlessly blending with the rest of the band.

“When you have a great instrumentalist like Bailey who plays with precision but also great feeling, it helps create that connectivity among the band and audience,” WALLIS said. “His ability to lock with the band is amazing.”

The shifts in genre haven’t discouraged his love of the instrument — in fact, Thomas believes these diverse experiences are shaping him into a better, more flexible musician. 

“It’s kind of enriching my experience here by exposing me to different stuff,” Thomas said. “Sometimes, I’ll be honest, it feels like I’m getting pulled in a bunch of different directions, but overall, I come away with a greater understanding of a larger musical context.”

Whether it’s covering Luis Miguel or performing fellow Thornton students’ original songs, Thomas’ consistent bass support for others shocks even him, considering he came into the program interested in production and songwriting as opposed to bass performance. Nevertheless, he sees himself possibly taking on a future career as a supporting bassist along with his goals of fine-tuning his production and songwriting skills during his time at USC. 

“Over the last year and a half, I’ve really discovered a love for the instrument and the art in just playing,” Thomas said. “So out of school, I’d love to just play and tour if possible, and get to do whatever work comes with being in a band, being on someone’s touring schedule. I write a little bit and I do produce some stuff, so I would love to transition into some of that eventually.”

Thomas’ love for the bass is evident, considering he will perform twice this week alone as a supporting bassist. Taking the stage Oct. 18 for the popular music second-year showcase, Thomas will reunite with WALLIS and Sophia Condon along with several other second-year students to put on an electric show at Carson Soundstage.

As for Oct. 19, the USC Beatles cover band will put on a house show for their cult following that the group of Thornton students cultivated with their excellent chemistry that Thomas described as “lightning in a bottle.” 

Comprised of Thomas along with Condon as a vocalist, guitarist Asher Belsky, vocalist and percussive supporter Nolan Heilman, keys-player and vocalist Sawyer Rabin, drummer Theo Pleasure-Park and guitarist Nick Lynch, the group was born out of an assigned band during the first quarter of Fall 2023. 

“We got done in a rehearsal learning our songs one week and [Belsky] just started playing a Beatles tune,” Thomas said. “It was either ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ or ‘Come Together,’ but everyone joined in and it was all of a sudden like, ‘Oh, this is really good.’”

Though his path has taken a different shape than he predicted, Thomas is right where he’s supposed to be — playing bass all over Los Angeles. 

“I really, really love playing,” Thomas said. “Before I came here, I didn’t really think that I would become a player. I would be so interested in just working as a bass player and working on other people’s stuff.”