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Fresh from playing Glastonbury in 2009, the courgette-crotch-stuffing bass player and botanist is back! With the sequel to the classic rockumentary in the works and a Barbie-hating single. Ask him anything in the commentsThink of an iconic bass player – Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, Hooky from New Order, Lemmy from Motörhead – and you’d be foolish to ignore the low-frequency rumblings of Spın̈al Tap bassist Derek Smalls. Born in the lesser-known town of Nilford on the River Null in the West Midlands, Smalls was raised by his father, Donald “Duff” Smalls (who ran a telephone sanitisation business) after his mother, Dorothy, left home to join travelling all-girls’ jazz band The Hotten Totties.At 17, Smalls enrolled at the London School of Design (“Mainly because of the letters”), where he first became interested in playing music, joining the all-white Jamaican band Skaface. (“I never even tried to play the guitar, because it had too many strings,” Smalls said.) In 1967, he spotted a notice on a lamppost in Soho: “Bass player wanted” after original Tap bassist Ronnie Pudding left for a solo career after debut single Gimme Some Money failed to chart. Continue reading...