“I was bartending, and I was like, ‘Hey, Mom, can you just watch the bar for half an hour? I have an audition across the street’”: Mars Volta bassist Eva Gardner recalls her audition with one of the world's biggest pop stars

Bass guitar titan Eva Gardner kickstarted her career with experimentalists The Mars Volta, with her work appearing on the EP that started it all – Tremulant. After her stint with the cult band in the early aughts, Gardner landed a series of high-profile – and genre-bending – gigs, including touring and performing with Veruca Salt, Tegan and Sara, Moby, Cher, and Pink.

When asked how she ended up handling the low-end in Pink's band, Gardner shares that it all started with an audition for the house band of a TV show called Rock Star: INXS back in 2005.

And while that would-be TV gig didn’t quite work out, the musical director from that same audition called her two years later and asked if she wanted to try out for Pink. Naturally, she said yes.

“It was an audition at S.I.R. on Sunset, which was right across the street from my family restaurant, The Cat and Fiddle,” she says in a new interview with Guitar World. “I was bartending in the daytime, and I was like, ‘Hey, Mom, can you just watch the bar for like half an hour? I have an audition across the street…’

“So, my mom watched the bar for me, I threw my bass over my shoulder, ran across the street, and did the audition. After it was done, I ran back across the street, finished up my shift, and got a call a couple of days later that I’d gotten it. That was 18 years ago.”

As for how playing with a pop star compares to her previous experience with more alternative outfits like The Mars Volta and Veruca Salt, Gardner says Pink’s band was already “a well-oiled machine by the time I came along”.

“I came in the middle of a tour, and basically, I had a set to learn. I learned the set and had to come in and be in the role of a hired gun to support the artist.

“I had three days to learn the entire set, get on a plane, and fly to Ireland,” she adds with a laugh. “I had one rehearsal with the band, I met Pink at soundcheck right before the first show, and then I’m playing in front of thousands and thousands of people!”

Bass Player’s full interview with Eva Gardner will be published in the coming weeks.