Nate Mendel - Technique

Technique

Mendel at first considered the bass a melodic instrument, and thus liked to input more personality in his bass parts. Bass Player described Mendel's style in Sunny Day Real Estate as "heavy-handed and fleet-footed, rooted in punk rock but prone to melodic flights that encircled the band’s airy arrangements", and Mendel added that in his first years of the Foo Fighters he tried "to make these songs as complicated as I could and put as much bass on there as possible". He eventually changed his priorities to the more traditional bass style where the instrument acts as "the bridge between the melodic element and the percussion", saying that he "alter the way I play bass so it works in this band, so I can support Dave's songs as best as possible." The priorities he learned to take with his playing was to "play tight and lock better with the drums" adding that when Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins decide to redo the drum tracks, at times Mendel would have to remake his whole basslines.

Mendel is known to use a pick almost exclusively. His preferred style was alternate picking, but on the fifth Foo Fighters album, In Your Honor, he started to employ downpicking because "with this kind of music, you need the consistency and percussive sound you get from playing with downstrokes." For the acoustic shows, Mendel played fingerstyle.

Nate is rarely seen singing. However he sang backup with Chris Shiflett on Monkey Wrench at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia in 2000 while supporting There Is Nothing Left To Lose. He and Shiflett sang the outro backing vocals ("fall in, fall out"). He is also seen doing backing vocals on "I'll Stick Around" at Bizarre Festival in 2000.