Mike McCready’s Fender Bassman AB165 Amp

According to Mike, he used this amp during the recording of Pearl Jam’s first album Ten, specifically just for clean tones. This of course includes perhaps the biggest hit song from that album, “Black”.

I had a Marshall JCM800 with a 4×12 cabinet with, I think, 25-watt speakers in it. And I had a Fender Bassman for the clean tones. You can hear that on Black.

Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready looks back on 30 years of Ten

Mike saying it’s a Fender Bassman doesn’t exactly specify all that much, since it could’ve been a Fender Bassman Tweed, which is a combo amp, or it could’ve been a Bassman head. However, since he uses a 1963 blonde Fender Bassman (AB165) regularly in his live gig for clean tones, it’s likely that that was the same model he used on the record.