"I don't consider myself a bassist or a guitarist or a keyboardist. They are instruments I play. If you're a bassist, that's all you should play. I consider myself a singer/songwriter."

Although Kasim Sulton views himself a singer/songwriter, for the majority of his long career he has played the bass in bands but this was rather by default than by design!

Kasim started playing the guitar at the early age of nine or ten. "My story is really no different from the majority of people in my line of work. I started playing guitar because my friend had one. I seemed easy and performing for people felt good. After a few months of practice and lessons, I realized that I never wanted to do anything else but play."

"I only started playing bass to get in a group. A band (that never had a name!) in Staten Island had two really good guitarists (brothers John and Robert Rao that had just moved into the neighborhood from Brooklyn) and they needed a bassist. Instead of passing up the band, I switched over from guitar and taught myself how to play bass. At first, I thought it was a cinch, but in order to be a really good bassist, you have to work at it. I practiced for three to four months solid." Kasim's first "real" gig was at a local Intermediate School with the band Apple Pie - he was the lead singer!

While Kasim was performing in bands in the Staten Island area, he decided to learn the keyboards so that he could block out a song. He saved his money, bought an upright piano and taught himself how to play.

Kasim's first professional gigs were playing keyboards in Cherry Vanilla's band. Cherry Vanilla was a cohort of Andy Warhol's who discovered and nurtured the young David Bowie. She was known as one of the first female punk rockers who gave live poetry performances - in Kasim's words "a rock poetess"!

Kasim had been playing in Cherry Vanilla's band for about a year, in early 1976 when, "I met Michael Kamen who was a good friend of Roger Powell (Utopia's keyboardist). Michael, who knew both Cherry and Earl Slick, knew me as a bass player, not as a keyboard player. When I heard that Utopia was looking for a bassist, I called Michael Kamin. He said, "I didn't know that you played bass but I'll recommend you hands down anyway."

The next day Roger Powell called me at home. I almost missed his call because I was asleep and nobody else was home. When I finally answered the phone, he said, "You know, I almost didn't call you back again. Would you like to come up and play with the band for a day?" I said, "Yeah, great." I had to borrow $20 from my uncle to take a bus up to Woodstock to meet Roger and Willie Wilcox (Utopia's drummer). We listened to some of their material. Todd Rundgren was coming back from India the next day."

"My sister had turned me onto Todd from the Ballad album and I thought he was great but all I knew of Utopia was Born to Synthesize. So, there I am at Woodstock and Roger's explaining to me about the band. I was the eighth guy they auditioned. As a matter of face, Todd had wanted Tony Sales back. He didn't want to go through auditioning another guy. The next day Todd comes in and Roger said, "We found this guy and we want you to hear him and we'll do a little playing this afternoon."

"I think we played Initiation at my audition and I also played a song that I did with Cherry Vanilla. From what I understand, Todd didn't particularly want me in the band. After hearing me, Todd said that he would have preferred Tony Sales to join Utopia. Todd had always said, "This is a band." So they said, "If this is a band, then we want this guy" and so Kasim Sulton was in Utopia!