Juan Alderete
Juan Alderete (born September 5, 1963) is an American musician, best known as the longtime bassist of Racer X and The Mars Volta.
Biography
Alderete was born in Los Angeles, CA the fourth of five children to Angel and Alicia Alderete. After moving from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s, he began to build interest in playing music when he was a teenager.
He was exposed to jazz music on a weekly basis by his father who was a big fan of jazz music, and often played it around the Alderete household. Alderete's other early influences included his brother Carl's progressive rock albums, which included bands such as Yes, Rush, King Crimson, etc. He started learning the basics of the bass guitar when he was 16, and was influenced by such players as Jaco Pastorius, Geddy Lee, and Stanley Clarke. His fascination with the bass guitar revolved around it being a somewhat "underappreciated" instrument at the time.