Guy returned to the Edinburgh festival in 2010 with his new show ‘Guy Pratt’s Wake Up Call!’ which he also performed at the Manchester Comedy Festival and Notting Hill’s 20th Century Theatre in October 2010. He embarked on a tour of Australia and New Zealand with the show in the Spring of 2011. Guy was also the musical director of the last series of The Rob Brydon Show.
Guy Pratt was born in London the son of songwriter/actor Mike Pratt, who was probably best known for writing Tommy Steele’s children’s classic,’The Little White Bull’ and playing Jeff Randall in ‘Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)’.
After a brief stint as a graphic designer, Guy decided to pursue a career in music which took off when he was asked to join (the then massive in Australia) Icehouse for a world tour at the tender age of 19. In 1983 he supported David Bowie on his legendary ‘Serious Moonlight’ tour.
This led to him being spotted and used by the likes of Robert Palmer, Bryan Ferry, Womack & Womack, and even The Smiths amongst others. He was thrust into the global premier league of bassists when David Gilmour asked him to play for Pink Floyd.
After 13 months on the road he decamped to LA where he found himself in demand by the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson before heading off to play groundbreaking shows with Floyd in Venice and Moscow.
Pratt rose to prominence when he was chosen as the bass player for Pink Floyd’s post-Roger Waters Delicate Sound of Thunder and P*U*L*S*E world tours in 1987 and 1994. He co-performed the vocals in “Run Like Hell”, “Another Brick in The Wall (Part 2)”, “Us and Them” and “Comfortably Numb” with David Gilmour during the live shows. He also performed on several tracks on The Division Bell album, though most of the bass parts were performed by Gilmour. Tony Levin performed most of the bass parts on Momentary Lapse of Reason, with Pratt replacing him on the accompanying tour due to Levin ‘s unavailability.
He also toured as part of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s On an Island band, alongside another Pink Floyd member (and his father-in-law), Richard Wright.
Guy has played on countless hit records for the likes of Tom Jones, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Iggy Pop, The Pretenders, Ronan Keating, Electronic, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Orb, Natalie Imbruglia, All Saints, Bond, and Elton John. As well as touring with Coverdale Page, The Power Station and Gary Moore.
He has also tried his hand at writing and producing, notching up hits with artists including RobertPalmer, The Orb, Fat Les, Jimmy Nail, Marianne Faithful and Debbie Harry.
He has won a Grammy and been nominated for 2 Ivor Novello Awards.
Aside from his bass playing, Guy has spent time in the comparatively quiet world of Film & TV music composing. He has contributed score and songs for ‘Hackers’ and ‘Still Crazy’ as well as writing and producing the scores for Channel 4′s ‘Spaced’ (Series 1&2), ‘Now You See Her’ (film for Sky TV), ‘The Young Person’s Guide to becoming a Rock Star’, ‘Randall & Hopkirk(deceased)’, and the BBC series ‘Linda Green’. Also contributing to Dawn French’s ‘Wild West’ and ‘Jimmy Nail’s Crocodile Shoes 2′. Not to mention the theme music for ‘the Pepsi Chart show ‘and various commercials.
Documentaries include ‘Riddle of the skies’, ‘The Roswell Incident’, ‘Terror in Texas’, ‘Gloria’s Toxic Death’, ‘The Underboss’, ‘Tracing Che’ ‘Greatest Heroes’ and ‘The Oldest Mummies on earth’.
For theatre he co-wrote the score for ‘The Bedbug’ by Mayakovsky with Gary Kemp, ‘The Remarkable Piety of the Infamous’ which was performed at The Baron’s Court Theatre and ‘Lena’ by Carla Lane performed at the Valley Theatre, Liverpool and The Pleasance, Edinburgh. He was also Musical Director of ‘I just called by to see the man’ directed by Richard Wilson at the Royal Court.
In 2005 he took his one man comedy show, ‘My Bass and other Animals’ to Edinburgh, where it was a sell out hit. He then toured it successfully over the next few years, whilst finding time to squeeze in tours and recording with David Gilmour, Roxy Music (with whom he appeared at Live 8) and Bryan Ferry. He also played on the Jimmy Page/ Leona Lewis version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ for the Beijing Olympics.
His book ‘My Bass and other Animals’ was published in 2007, garnering both critical and commercial success, and currently on it’s fifth reprint.
In July 2008 he undertook a twenty one date tour of Australia with his updated show ‘Breakfast of Idiots’. He had previously taken his show down under twice before, including 2 appearances on the smash hit TV show ‘Spicks & Specks’.
Equipment
His current bass guitar arsenal includes a selection of various vintage Fender Precision and Jazz Basses, three MusicMan StingRay 4‑strings (black with rosewood fretboard and black pickguard, black with maple fretboard and white pickguard, natural with maple fretboard and black pickguard), a pair of headless Status 4 and 5‑strings (fretless and fretted) and an amber Stuart Spector NS2.
During David Gilmour’s On An Island tour he mainly used a 3‑colour sunburst 1961 Fender Precision, a burgundy mist 1963 Fender Jazz named ‘Betsy’, a Status Vintage GP Signature and a Framus Triumph electric upright bass. On Gilmour’s Live in Gdańsk DVD he is seen playing his Fender Jazz and Precision Basses as well as a Candy Apple Red Lakland Joe Osborn signature fretless Jazz Bass and a Rickenbacker 4001. On the studio jamming sessions included in the DVD, he played several Fender Jazz Basses, a Hofner Icon bass and a Ned Steinberger Design CR electric upright.
Pratt played his fretted 5‑string and fretless 4‑string Status headless basses, the amber Spector NS2, the burgundy mist “Betsy” 1963 Jazz Bass and two Precision Basses (a 2‑colour sunburst 1958 and a “single-coil pickup” butterscotch blonde 1951) during the P•U•L•S•E concerts in 1994.
His amps are usually Ashdown ABM heads and Ashdown ABM 810 Cabinets although when playing with David Gilmour they are WEM badged to match David’s cabinets.