# Sean Hurley

Sean Hurley (born September 23, 1973) is an American bass guitarist. Primarily a rock and pop player, he is a successful touring and session musician based in Los Angeles. He has been described as "a staple of the LA session scene" and a "session great".
Born in Massachusetts, Hurley began his professional career as Arlo Guthrie's bassist for two years. He then gained prominence as a member of the Boston-based rock band Vertical Horizon, playing on their number-one hit "Everything You Want" (1999). He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 to work with Robin Thicke and in 2002 began working as a general session bassist in the city. Hurley co-wrote Thicke's breakout single "Lost Without U" in 2006. That same year he began working with John Mayer, whose tours and records he continues to play on as of 2024. Other artists Hurley has worked with include Alanis Morissette, Colbie Caillat, Michael Bublé, Ringo Starr, Gwen Stefani, Lady A, Jason Mraz, Lana Del Rey, and Lizzy McAlpine.

## Biography

Hurley was born on September 23, 1973, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He took up saxophone in the fourth grade before playing bass guitar at age 11. Originally inspired by classic rock like AC/DC and Rush, he later studied the likes of Jaco Pastorius, Paul McCartney, James Jamerson, and Billy Sheehan. As a teenager Hurley played in local bands and worked in a music store, giving bass lessons.
Hurley's first serious gig was at age 16 when he was invited on tour with folk singer Arlo Guthrie. He had met Guthrie's son gigging at a local club. Guthrie wanted Hurley to keep working with him after the summer tour ended, but Hurley decided to stay in high school. After graduating, Hurley enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he replaced Matt Garrison in the school's Yellowjackets ensemble, but he left after one semester to go back on tour with Guthrie. Hurley spoke on how the experienced shaped his musicianship: "Arlo's body of work is big, and he'd start playing songs on stage that none of us had played before. I was serious about ear training, so I'd lay out for one chorus and listen, think I'm gonna get this, then dive in."
After two years with Guthrie, Hurley returned to Boston and spent a year playing on the local club scene. He eventually got the opportunity to audition for the rock band Vertical Horizon and was successful in joining. Shortly afterwards the band began work on their major label debut album. Released in 1999, the album included the surprise and slow-climbing number-one hit "Everything You Want", which launched the band into the mainstream. With further success from the hits "You're a God" and "Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)", the album was certified double platinum. Lead singer Matt Scannell said of Hurley in 2014: "Sean is so stunningly talented ... His opportunities are better served for him to not be going out and playing tours with us. But we joke that his goal is to never have anyone else play bass on a Vertical Horizon record."
At the same time as his success with Vertical Horizon, Hurley and friend Bobby Keyes began traveling to Los Angeles to work with then up-and-coming artist Robin Thicke. Hurley moved there in 2000 and in 2002, as Vertical Horizon's popularity waned, he began working extensively as a session musician in the area. In 2006, Hurley received a co-songwriting credit for Thicke's breakout single, "Lost Without U", on which he also played acoustic guitar.
Also in 2006, Hurley began his professional relationship with John Mayer. He had met and been friendly with Mayer, as well as played with Mayer's guitarist David Ryan Harris, but the two first worked together on Alicia Keys's song "Lesson Learned". Mayer invited Hurley to play on his 2008 Summer Tour and his album Born and Raised in 2011. As of 2024, their collaboration is still ongoing.
In a 2020 interview, Hurley said he mostly plays on sessions for "rock, singer-songwriter, young artists pop," and occasionally film soundtracks. He has been described as a "renowned session bassist", a "session great", and "a staple of the LA session scene."

## Equipment and playing style

Hurley's first bass was "an SG-shaped Hagstrom" before buying a Fender Precision Bass in his teens. He said in 2020, "while I mostly played my Jazz Bass when I broke in, now it's predominately a P-Bass world." In 2013, Fender Custom Shop introduced the Sean Hurley Signature Precision Bass, based on his 1961 model. It features a muting device similar to that of a Fender Jaguar guitar, meant to replicate Hurley's technique of using a piece of foam to mute the strings; it is the first Fender bass to include such a device. Hurley plays both roundwound and flatwound strings and has expressed his fondness for well-worn flats, even using Vaseline to deaden them more. He has used an Ampeg B-15 amplifier on tour with Mayer and reported in 2020 that he uses it "on almost every recording these days".
Hurley has been noted for his ability to play simple, effective basslines as well as more complex fills in the same song. Bassist and writer Ryan Madora cites Hurley's work on "Wildfire" by John Mayer and "Smithereens" by Annie Lennox as examples of this. In 2000, Alan Goldsher wrote in Bass Player on Hurley's playing with Vertical Horizon: "Hurley tends to shy away from look-at-me melodic runs, letting his on-point lines hover in the lowest range. That makes his periodic midrange flights—like his winsome countermelody on "Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)"—that much more effective." Hurley himself has said, "I like playing the roots," but that when he has to come up with a bass part more integral to the song, "I usually draw from tunes like [the Beatles’] “Come Together” or [Marvin Gaye’s] “Inner City Blues". He explained that for John Mayer's song "Queen of California" he was inspired by Paul McCartney's basslines in "Come Together" and "Taxman" to play "a root, a flat seven, a fifth, and kind of twist around those notes".

## Selected discography

Alanis Morissette
* Havoc and Bright Lights (2012)
Arlo Guthrie
* Alice's Restaurant: The Massacree Revisited (1996)
Colbie Caillat
* Breakthrough (2009)
* All of You (2011)
* Christmas in the Sand (2012)
Gwen Stefani
* You Make It Feel Like Christmas (2017)
Jason Mraz
* "More than Friends" (featuring Meghan Trainor)
John Mayer
* Born and Raised (2012)
* Paradise Valley (2013)
* Sob Rock (2021)
Lady A
* Heart Break (2017)
Lana Del Rey
* "Beautiful People Beautiful Problems" (featuring Stevie Nicks)
Lizzy McAlpine
* "All Falls Down" (2024)
Lukas Graham
* "Share That Love" (featuring G-Eazy)
Michael Bublé
* Nobody but Me (2016)
* Higher (2022)
Ringo Starr
* Liverpool 8 (2008)
Robin Thicke
* A Beautiful World (2002)
* The Evolution of Robin Thicke (2006)
* Something Else (2008)
Vertical Horizon
* Everything You Want (1999)