My nearly 30 year journey to the Sterling 5

I have been a Stingray fan since I was a tweener and saw them being played by 80’s groups on MTV…then I saw the Louis Johnson video and it was all over. Ironically my first “Stingray” that I ever owned was an 89 Stingray5 that someone did a less than stellar job of replacing the pickup with a Bart HB. Even in its Frankensteinish configuration my love with the SR5 was cemented and it has not wavered in nearly 30 years. I became a Sterling fan when I got my first one in 2001. In the Army I carried a gigbag loaded with a Stingray 5 and Sterling for several years and those were my weapons of choice as an Army Bandsman. I used to call the Sterling my “Stingray 5 (4 string)” because the SR5 was more similar to the Sterling than the Stingray to my ears. But even back then I wondered what a Sterling 5 would be like.

Fast forward to 2008 or so and I hear through the grapevine that EBMM is gonna go ahead and make “MY BASS”…. A Sterling 5. No sooner did I hear the news and my world got turned on its end with a divorce, career change and the introduction to single parenting. I was out of the music business for a while and when I finally did get back into the scene I was all hot and bothered about classic, passive four strings with flatwounds and that is where I stayed for some time. Until that it I got the EBMM bug again. And now it is a full on house on fire kinda thing for me.

So I have a good friend who is a EBMM dealer and he has ordered a few basses that I have always wanted and they have come in one by one over the past year or so. I am not sure why it was not the first one I ordered but I finally got my Sterling 5 last week. I have gigged it and spent lots of time with it. I truly love this bass. I can see where this will be my main go to bass….even with all of the great basses I have… this one just feels like home right off the bat. The ceramic pup is my sound… it is what drew me to EBMM years ago and it still sounds great to me. So very thankful to have been able to purchase this bass new and finally have exactly what I want…. Thank you to EBMM and all that you do!