2021.03.10 - Have Guitar Will Travel Podcast - Interview with Richard

Transcript:

James Patrick Regan: People welcome to Have Guitar Will Travel presented by Vintage Guitar Magazine. With your host, me, James Patrick Regan, otherwise known as Jimmy from the Dead. And today I'm speaking with Richard Fortus, long time guitarist with Guns N' Roses and an avid composer. In our conversation, we cover what he's been up to during COVID. Having a father who worked for the St. Louis Music Company and Richard's first guitar. An electric model made by the St. Louis Music Company. Seeing performances of his guitar heroes at an early age. Going to the St. Louis Conservatory of Music studying violin and classical guitar. How his high school band got signed and ended up touring with the Psychedelic Furs to Richard joining the Psychedelic Furs, his early vintage guitars, and the beauty of the Les Paul signature, his tenure in Guns N' Roses, and the personalities in the band, what it's like being a session guitarist in New York City, doing a tour with Enrique Iglesias before joining Guns N' Roses, lots of gear talk, including selling some of his guitars and amps to find getting a 59 verse, his signature Gretsch models, finding the perfect tone to enhance Slash's iconic tone. And you can also find out more about what Richard's up to at RichardFortus.com. That's R-I- Please like, comment, and most of all, share this podcast. I'd really appreciate it. And please support Vintage Guitar Magazine and all the wonderful things they do for us guitar players because they do so many wonderful things for us guitar players. Here's Richard.

Richard: Hello James.

JPR: Richard, how are you?

R: I'm good thank you, how are you?

JPR: Good thank you. Thanks for talking to me, I really appreciate it.

R: Yeah, no problem, my pleasure.

JPR: So I'm speaking with Richard Fortus of Guns N' Roses. You also work with Psychedelic Furs?

R: Well, I have played with them in the past and I produced their new album.

JPR: Oh, wow. Very cool. What are you doing right now during COVID? What's going on with are you able to work at all?

R: I've been very fortunate. I have been working quite a bit. Been just doing sessions out of my home studio. I have a full setup at home and have done for years.

JPR: So... Where's home for you?

R: I live in St. Louis.

JPR: Okay, great.

R: And yeah, so people just ask to play on the movie scores, TV or albums and commercials. I can send them back. Which has been great for me, because I've been amassing all this gear over the last 20 years of touring. So being home all the time and just switching gears and totally just doing sessions, I've been able to really focus on experimenting with all this stuff that I've, play with all the toys that I've been collecting.

JPR: Yeah, exactly. That's great.

R: Yeah, it has been great.

JPR: Has Guns N' Roses done any shows since the lockdown?

R: Probably were the last stadium show to happen, though, in March. We played in Mexico City. The rest of the tour had been canceled and we were already in Mexico and they wanted to go ahead with this show. So we we did that show and then flew home and now we haven't done anything since. Nothing.

JPR: And any talk of when it might start up for you guys, of course you're on the big scale, so it's going to involve insurance companies.

R: We'll be the last to go back. We have shows booked in Europe at the beginning of this coming summer.

JPR: Okay, well, that's helpful.

R: Who knows? It's going to be interesting to see what happens.

JPR: Did you grow up in St. Louis?

R: I grew up in St. Louis and I left here and moved to New York and lived there for 20 years and then LA and actually just sold my apartment in New York

JPR: Oh really?

R: Yeah. Yeah, right before all this happened.

JPR: What part of New York?

R: By the Lower East Side.

JPR: Oh, wow.

R: Manhattan.

JPR: Very nice. When did you start playing guitar in St. Louis?

R: I started probably about when I was 12 years old. I started on violin and drums when I was about four or five. And played violin all through school. Then which I got interested around 12 or 13, guitar.

JPR: Okay, wow. And what was your first guitar, I should ask. You know what's interesting? I just bought it back. Really? The other day, a couple days ago. So my father worked for a company here in St. Louis called St. Louis Music. Oh wow. And they made Electra guitars. Of course, with the plug-in, like the little plug-in cartridges and stuff.

04:49
The MPC modules, yeah. So, you know, I grew up in that company. They made Crate amplifiers and Ampeg and Alvarez. So I grew up in that company. So there were always guitars around the house. Like, you know, there were always Alvarez guitars around the house. My father wasn't a player. He was an accountant. But so I bought an Electra. I remember I paid $300 for it. It was a one of a kind. It was like a...

05:17
prototype that they had and I worked in the warehouse all summer to buy that and I just bought it back. It's got like a laminated 70s neck that goes through the body. Very 70s. Yeah, was it Les Paul shape or is it? No, it's actually draught shaped but without the comfort contours. Okay, so it's just sort of blocky and But

05:43
But it's pretty cool. And it's got two humbuckers and a brass nut and a badass bridge on it, a Leo Kwan bridge. Yeah, of course. That's great. Very 70s. Very 70s, of course. I remember the St. Louis, the Electra ad for, they had a Les Paul style guitar with the MPC things and it was Peter Frampton playing it. And I had to have one of those. I never got it though.

06:08
But yeah, you know that one of the perks about that was that I my father being in the business I would get to go with the artists guys to go see the concerts and stuff So I remember going to see Frampton when I was really young And it was on the Frampton Comes Alive tour Wow, and he was huge at the time and he wouldn't speak to us because his drummer had quit that day Wow and

06:33
yeah it was I remember watching him do soundcheck and he was just there I think they had a tech fill in and play drums for the show while he just sat behind the drums and and was crying it was oh man like this yeah it was pretty heavy yeah no kidding but yeah yeah that was my memory of him but actually I was a big fan of his oh yeah couldn't be even though you know it was sort of unpopular

07:02
be a fan of his at that time because he had like this teen idol type of reputation. I didn't know the Humble Pie stuff so it was sort of, I don't know, I just loved his guitar playing on Frampton Comes Alive. Oh yeah. And you know I was just a little kid but anyways later I went back and discovered Humble Pie and who are one of my all time favorites. Likewise, likewise. But yeah his playing was a huge influence on me.

07:29
Anybody else? So usually it's either Kiss or Led Zeppelin. And either one of those do anything for you? Kiss was a big one. Led Zeppelin, I wasn't really that into them because I think mainly because of the audience that I associated with them when I was a kid. I don't know. Actually, my awareness of them didn't happen until a little bit later. But Kiss was definitely like when I was eight, nine years old. Sure, yeah.

07:58
huge deal for me. It's cartoons with great music. Yeah exactly. I remember going to see them you know when I was a little kid was able to get Paul's autograph and he was an Alvarez endorser. Okay very good. Yeah. You went to St. Louis Conservatory of Music? Yes, CASA yeah and studied classical guitar and violin. Wow and how accomplished are you on

08:23
classical guitar. You know, I studied for a few years. I'm not that accomplished. It definitely got my right hand together and was a very big influence on that technique. And I sort of implemented that into my picking style as I got older. And I don't really do the hybrid picking thing. I just tend to tuck the pick away with my first finger and play with my second and third and thumb. Yeah. Were you playing in bands in high school at all? Yeah.

08:52
Yeah, I started when I was 15, playing professionally. Wow. And that band that I started as a kid ended up getting signed to Atlantic Records. And we toured opening for the Psychedelic Furs. Oh, OK. And then I ended up joining the Furs. And then I moved to New York because the singer of the Psychedelic Furs had asked me to come up and write some material that was going to be his solo album. And yeah.

09:22
that ended up becoming a band called Love Spit Love. Okay, how long were you a member of the Furs and Love Spit? Well, I did that tour with the Furs and then I did Love Spit Love, we did two albums. And then started the Furs back up again and did, I think there's a live DVD and a live album with a couple of studio tracks on there. And then they hadn't done a full album until this one that I just.

09:51
produced since 92, I think. Wow. Back then, what kind of guitars were you playing? In Love, Spit, Love, I played a Gretsch. I played a 66 Tennessean that was, I think, one of the first vintage guitars I bought. And then I bought that from a guitar player named Bobby Caldwell here in St. Louis, who was a well-known player. And then bought another guitar that I still have, that Gretsch. And then I also bought...

10:20
a guitar from my manager was a 51 no caster that had a 60 slab board clay dot neck on it. Wow. At that age, were you up to speed on vintage guitars and stuff? No, no, not at all. This just happens dance? Yeah. Yeah. And I still have that guitar too. And it's a fantastic guitar. Like it's the pickups and the bridge and body are all, you know, Blackguard, all original no caster.

10:47
It's got the recessed grommets in the back. Wow. And then the neck is a 60. Wow. It's a chuddy guitar. I mean, the finish has been stripped off of it, but I just love it. Yeah, of course. Were you collecting guitars back then? Were you actively? No. I just sort of, you know, I think I bought also a, another guitar that I played with Love Spit Love quite a bit was 59 Junior. Wow.

11:16
and also a 73 Les Paul signature. Okay, wow. Yeah, I still have all of those. The signature, that's with low impedance pickups, or the? It's got high or low impedance, and that guitar is like one of my desert island picks for sure. Really? I have two of them, but I have two of them now, but the one is just a phenomenal sounding guitar. I don't know why the one sounds so much better than the other, but.

11:46
Yeah, it's a fantastic guitar really underrated guitar. I think Under appreciated under appreciated. Yes for sure because it has that mid sweep to those pickups and those pickups They're not very the outputs fairly low on them, but they're they're incredibly detailed and

12:02
work really well with like a really distorted amp, you know, like a blaring Marshall. There's all these, all this detail that's retained and it's nice and thumpy and punchy and it's just a great recording guitar. What were you using for amps back then? My rig back then I think was like an, I had an AC-30, a small box 50. Yeah, those two amps and like with the junior you back down.

12:27
the volume on the Junior and the AC-30 would disappear. Oh, okay. And you know how AC-30s, when you drop your guitar volume down, they tend to just like really fall off? Yeah. Whereas a Marshall, the small box 50 would just clean up and get all sparkly and bright. And then you bring up your volume and the AC-30 comes roaring back in. So it was a pretty cool rig. Sounds great. It's very hip.

12:52
for the 90s. You know what man, I totally just lucked into it. It was like stuff that was available to me, you know, that I bought locally and it just sort of worked for me. That's great. That's fantastic. Did you get into Guns N' Roses because of Frank? How did that happen? Because of Frank the drummer? Yeah. No, no, no, no. I brought Frank. Oh, you brought Frank to there. Yeah, I brought Frank. Okay, so Frank and I, he was in a band called The Beautiful. Mm-hmm.

13:20
they had opened for my verse band, which was called Pale Divine. And we were we had a big regional following throughout the Midwest and all the college towns that we do on the circuit. And his band opened for us a couple of times. And, you know, we hung out a little bit. And then I was in New York working with Richard on the first last writing the first love album. OK, and I ran into Frank.

13:48
And at that time we were auditioning drummers. And so it worked out. And I said, you know, because it's beautiful, it just broken up. So he came and auditioned and we ended up working together in Love's Fit Love and then the Furs. And then I brought them into another band I was doing called Honky Toast that signed the Epic Records. And then when I had moved to, I started with Guns N' Roses in 02. When our drummer left, I think in 06, Brain was playing drums. And when he left, I had recommended Frank.

Okay, wow. That's great. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you, have you ever met Buckethead?

I was in the band with him. Oh, you were? Okay, great. Yeah. And how was he as a person? Did he live up to the name of Zeke?

Richard: Yeah, I mean, he's a strange guy for sure. But I got along well with him. He's very musical. Absolutely phenomenal player.

JPR: I've seen his solo shows. He's amazing, but he's definitely off the charts as far as mystique. Did he keep the mystique up while you guys were like, you know backstage and stuff-

Richard: Yes. Yeah. I mean he definitely, you know, he would wear the mask at rehearsals. I don't think I saw his face until we actually were at an airport going to China. So so yeah Bucket was an interesting guy. He definitely understood how to make the three guitar band situation work. You know, because that's a very tricky no kidding thing to pull off and he really he really got it. And you know, he would like lay out on verses and just sort of be weird Bucket, you know, break dancing or doing the robot or whatever, and then he would come in on the choruses and would get huge and then he would come in and do a blazing solo and then go back to break dancing.

JPR: Were you in the band with Josh Freese as well?

R: When I first came in, Josh was... I had gotten a call to audition for GN'R initially and Josh was doing it and I had made plans to come out to LA, to fly out from New York to LA because I was going to be doing a session in LA doing a record there. So I was at that same time I was going to do the audition for Guns. And I ended up working all out with them and it all just sort of we planned it out. And then a couple of days before I was trying to get the final details and nobody was calling me back. So I figured, well, I guess it's not happening. So I just went ahead out and did this album. I got to the studio to do the session, it was Tommy Stinson and Josh Freese were on this session that I was doing. And I was like, this is crazy, I was supposed to come audition for you guys this week. And they're like, oh yeah, you're the guy from New York. Like, oh yeah, Axl found this guy Buckethead and called off the audition. And yeah, so then when I got the call again, two years later, or no, not even two years later, Josh had just left and it was Brain.

16:56
in Love, Spit, Love and Psychedelic Furs, were you one of two guitarists in those bands? Not in Love, Spit, Love, it was just one guitar. Okay. It was just me and the love. How hard was it to adjust to playing with three guitars for you? Not that hard, I mean I was used to doing sessions in New York and you're always sort of finding your place. So it really wasn't that big of a switch for me. But it is something that has to be orchestrated.

17:26
for it to be effective. Sure, for it not to be a big mess. Yeah. And how did you get into the session world? Like just word of mouth? I just sort of fell into it. When I moved to New York, you know, I think because I was associated with the Furs, I was sort of accepted into a world immediately because of that, because I have that. Because you're not playing like strictly hard rock or you're not playing.

17:55
the furs are a little more. I wasn't playing, I'd never played hard rock. Okay. I mean my first band was more, you know, was much more like the furs. But I grew up on hard rock obviously, I grew up playing that type of stuff. So you know, I just started getting calls and working with different producers and your name spreads and it just, it happened very quickly for me in New York. And then the transition to LA was just because.

18:22
same producers moved to LA and they brought you down there? No, you know, when I moved to Los Angeles, well, I mean, I would work in Los Angeles often. You know, I'd get calls to do albums and fly out to LA to do an album or whatever, but the majority of my work was in New York and I started doing a lot of TV commercials as far as composing and I won some big accounts. So then I had a company.

18:51
in New York we had a studio and you know four or five different rooms and different people working for us and we were all writing for film and TV and you know commercials and did a lot of stuff for Viacom and so it was hard for me to go on the road during that time because I was working so much doing my own thing, still doing sessions in New York and it didn't make sense financially for me to do a tour.

19:20
Okay. And then I ended up, you know, like there was a couple of things they did. Like I'd done an Enrique Iglesias tour. Wow. When, when he was huge, he was like, you know, that was like 2000 or something like that. And you know, so I did that tour which lasted a year and then went straight from that to guns and roses. And, and I was still trying to maintain my company, but you know, it was really difficult because I wasn't there.

19:49
My partner was, it was just, it was difficult. And that's when things started to really shift for me as far as I wasn't doing as much session work. I was still writing jingles and things like that. It was shifting for sure. And then, you know, sort of the bottom fell out of the recording industry. Yeah. You know, way in about 2010, something like that. Exactly. And now there's like no studios in New York anymore. Yeah, that's, I've heard that.

20:19
And nobody's making a living doing sessions. Tim Pierce, maybe, might be the only guy. Maybe. And Tom Bukowac, those two. Yeah, those guys are fantastic players. I mean, I guess, I don't know, are they making a living just doing sessions? I don't know. I think those two for sure are making a living, but they might be the only two. Because it's, you know, even guys like Lee Sklar and like all these fantastic

20:49
players that were... music just doesn't have the value that it did. No. No. Record companies aren't spending... they don't have budgets for session players anymore. No. It's very different.

JPR: Making the transition from Enrique Iglesias, and that's who you were touring with, and to Guns N' Roses, was that a pretty easy transition as far as... So when you were in Guns, I should start it this way, when you were in Guns N' Roses, did you guys start touring right away, or was it in the period where you guys weren't touring at all, and you were just kind of rehearsing?

R: We were actually rehearsing for a tour that started a few weeks after I started rehearsals.

JPR: Oh wow, so right, you were there, you were there.

R: Yeah, I think we did maybe a month of rehearsals and then production rehearsals and then went on tour in Europe.

JPR: And how over the top was the first tour with Guns N' Roses? Did it like exceed all your wildest rock star dreams?

R: Yeah, it was pretty crazy. I mean, that was with Bucket and Robin Finck and Tommy Stinson, Brain. It was, yeah, it was pretty crazy. But it was, you know, those were... Tommy and Dizzy and Robin, we were all very good friends. And then there was like Brain and Bucket that would hang out. They're sort of separate. Yeah, very interesting times.

22:15
Back then, what kind of gear were you using when you were first in Guns N' Roses? What was the gear like? I'm trying to remember. Has it changed a lot over the years? Yeah, it's always changing. Okay, cool. I like that. Because I'm always trying to make it better. Always chasing that perfect guitar tone. Yeah, at that time I think I was using a Marshall. I remember early on I bought Mick Mars's...

22:45
Jose modded 73 100 watt it was the album I went over to his house and Played through like a dozen different Jose modded marshals Oh wow and plugged into all these different ones and this one I plugged into it just was from the first chord It was just like oh my god. That's it and he was like, yeah. Well, that's that's the album I did all that's the one the amp I used on all the albums and I say, oh man Well, I can't take that. I mean you got to keep your amp

23:14
And he's like, no, you know, I don't, I don't need it. And he's like, look, if you think you're taking advantage of me, you're not, you know, you're doing, you're helping me out. You know, that nothing was happening with Motley Crue at that time. And he just gone through a divorce, I think, and, you know, was dealing with health issues and so I bought that and I bought a Plexi, um, but that amp was the greatest sounding Marshall for

23:41
you know that I'd ever heard. It wasn't, I still have it. It's and it's still a benchmark for me. It never was, it's not too gainy. It's not like all the other hosés that I've played that have that real compressed gainy thing going on. Sort of the squashy sound. This is yeah, this is you know like a Friedman. This is much more open and just very dynamic.

24:07
Is it the EL-84s or the 6550s? The 34s. Okay, because a lot of times the 6550s, those ones seem to be like super bright and have a lot more clarity and no squashyness to them. Yeah, they also, the thing I don't think about the 6550s is that the 34s just have that really brutal mid-range. Yeah. It just is so aggressive, you know, and that's.

24:33
what I want to hear from Marshall personally. You know, I do love KT88s as well in bigger, like in a major or like a Park 150. Which that's like one of my all time favorite amps, the Park 150. Which is sort of like a, I don't know if you've ever played through one. It's like a cross between a dupe or lead and a.

24:53
major. Yep, I have played, I actually played through one, a top mount one, just they had one, some guy brought it to a guitar show in near San Francisco and I had an opportunity to play through it. It was fantastic. Yeah, I use that a lot. But this 73 that Jose did is, yeah, it's just, it's super aggressive, but it's not, it doesn't have that squish thing. It's not too...

25:21
It's not too gainy. It's still big and bold and tons of low end and thumpy. You know, it's got that tight metal front type of low end, you know? Yeah, it's it's a it's definitely a benchmark for me. And it's something that I've I've worked with Voodoo amps in New York. I've worked with those guys quite a bit over the years. And they built me sort of like a signature amp that was based on that. OK, very cool. And he also he.

25:51
He cloned it to another 73 that I have. Okay. And he's very meticulous. Mm-hmm. Traced it Voodoo and did a fantastic job. And the amps that he built for me from the ground up are even better than the Jose. Okay. Wow. Cool. And those are what I'm still using live. Okay. And just single channel, you know. Yeah.

26:13
And you guys are on a level that your gear is always with you, so you don't have to worry about Kempers or anything, any kind of amp modeling or anything like that. Yeah. Good for you. Slash and I tried the, you know, Kemper sent a couple of them over. We were going to use them in rehearsals while after our gear shipped, you know, we figured, hey, we'll just make models of our, but it didn't work out. Yeah. You know, we both really rely on our guitar volumes. Oh yeah. And...

26:42
when you drop the volume and everything cleans up and gets all sparkly and pretty and that doesn't happen with a Kemper. If I was doing a gig where it was going from a super heavy sound to a super clean sound and you know like switching amps type of thing, then a Kemper would be great if I didn't touch my guitar volume. But we play a lot with our fingers. It's always about the...

27:10
nuances you know so it it doesn't really work for us. And the guitars that you're using when you first started with guns? What were those? The same guitars as with the furs and stuff? No I was using more I mean I did have the Les Paul signature and when I first started with them but I was playing 335s mainly and Tellys. I was using trussards a lot. Some juniors.

27:39
It's like one of my, I think I've got like six old juniors. How many, and right now how many guitars, do you know how many guitars you have total? No, but I do know what I have because I just finished inventory. Oh, okay. I know what I have, I just didn't count. Yeah, are they in multiple places? Like, do you still? Well, you know, I've got probably 25 or 30 in LA and then I've got everything else here.

28:06
Nothing stored in Nashville. No And as your did your gear make it back from Mexico? Yes. Yeah, sure cool. That's good highlights of your the guitars you have besides the signature and You know, honestly, this is I'm getting ready to Sell off a big part of my collection Wow because I want to buy a burst

28:31
Oh, okay. Do you have, do you know what verse you want to buy? No, I'm going to get my hands on 20 to 30 of them and find one that vibes that I vibe with. I really want, I want something that I can play. Yeah. I don't, I don't want to be able to tour with it, but I need something that like, I don't care if it's refreaded, you know, I just want the pickups and the finish and the wood to be solid. Yeah. But yeah, so that's, that's my goal. Now, right now in my collection, I mean, the ones that

29:00
are in my control room all the time are, I've got a 53 Esquire with a PAF in the neck. It's a 59 PAF. I've got a 60 dot net cherry that is my favorite 335. Yeah, and that's with the wide net? Yes. Yeah, very cool. And then I've got a 53 gold top that stays in my control room all the time. 56.

29:30
TV jr. a 62 jazz master 58 61 20 Wow a 66 strat okay that actually has block inlays and binding and binding and gold hardware Wow and it's black yeah it's it's in graduated tuners which I've never seen on a 66 yeah that's but there it's original

29:57
But it's just a really great sounding strat and I've really been enjoying that one So it's that's in my control room and then the Les Paul signature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Did I say the 62 Jag or a Jazzmaster? You did? Yeah. Okay. That's one that I use quite a bit Oh cool. I just love how Jazzmasters record. Yeah Never use them live anyways

30:21
And then amplifiers that are in my control room right now. I have a Laney Super Group 50 watt Plexi PA head. Okay. That was modded by Obed Khan and also a hundred watt Plexi PA head. And he does a really cool mod for those so that the first channel is stock. Second channel is like jumping the bass and treble, but he tightens up the bass so it's more usable. And that's the one I use most of the time.

30:50
And then the third channel dumps into the fourth channel because you pick up that extra preamp tube. Sure. And yeah, so I love that mod I mean it's just PA heads rule. I just I'm all about And then I've got a 66 Park JTM 45 basically, you know with the coffin knobs Yeah, the greatest sounding plexi I've ever owned. Wow, and then there's a Kelly. Are you hip to Kelly's? No Okay, Kelly, do you are do you like Selmers? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm a big Selmer fan. So I

31:19
I love the 30s Zodiacs. But the chief designer for that period in the mid-60s for Selmer left and started his own company to make the, you know, he designed the Zodiacs and the Treble and Basin. So he left and started his own company called Kelly Amps in the UK. And he was going to make the Selmer the way they were meant to be made. So he took a bunch of the...

31:49
guys from Selmer and started this company. You know, great amp designer, they're amazing amps. Probably a very poor businessman is my guess. Which is why you've not heard of them. But if you ever see one, they're fantastic. And I've probably got, I think I've got four of them. I've got a hundred watt.

32:08
I've got a 50, I've got this PA head that's sitting in my studio that Trace from Voodoo modded for me and it's absolutely amazing. And then I've got that 7300 watt McMars amp, a Park 150, a Park Rockhead is in here right now, a blonde bandmaster head and an old OR120, but that's orange. That's just because of this project that I'm working on now. And then oh, and there's a couple of Philmo sounds.

32:37
Wow. Which, this is a small room too. It's not a huge studio. And then I've also got a little Voodoo amps. It's a class A, sort of like an AC-15. It was made out of an old radio. Okay. Sort of film-a-sound like, you know, the trace that Voodoo did for me. And it's just got, I like it. I end up using this more than I use my AC-15. Damn. Yeah, I've got, my amp collection's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

33:05
That's just what, but those are the amps that are just, that stay in my control room. And then I've got, I've got just racks and racks of amps in the other room. No fenders? Oh yeah. So in my live room, that's where all the combos are, sorry. So, so okay. Yeah. Okay. Let me go out here. So yeah. Then I've got a tweed, a 59 basement, which is the be all, lend all coolest amp I've ever owned and a band master, which is something that I use.

33:34
quite a bit and actually I've got a high powered Tweed Twin and a low powered Tweed Twin. The 55 Tweed Twin is I put Alnico creams in it and it's become like my favorite amp. It does something amazing. That's always in here as well as a Tweed Vibrolux and a Tweed Deluxe, a 59 Tweed Deluxe. And then a stereo magnetone and those are the amps that live in here all the time.

34:04
And it's sitting in LA, what do you have for touring with Guns? Gretches, you know I have a signature Gretch coming out at the beginning of next year, which I'm super excited about. Man, Gretch has been so incredibly patient with me and put up with all my nitpicky nonsense. They've been awesome. And the new Gretches are f-

34:27
fantastic. I've been using the Falcons live since we started, since Slash came back in the band. Okay. It just, you know, I was trying to find, because I couldn't use my juniors because it just, it fought too much with... With Slash's guitars. With his tone, you know, he's got that real focused, throaty, singy tone to his, that's, you know, iconic. So I basically was trying to find something to sit more around his tone and the Gretches really worked well.

34:55
Yeah, cool. What kind of pickup are they? The TV Jones pickups or the originals? No, the ones that are so I was using the arcane filter Tron, their version of the filter Tron in my that's what's in my big Falcons now. And then we tried those in my signature Falcon, which is but you know, the the signature model is a double cut Falcon and it's got a center block, which and those pickups didn't work because I lost all that chime. Yeah.

35:25
So we did a lot of experimenting. And I mean, at one point, man, we had four different guitars, each with different pickups. And then one of the techs from Gretsch was there actually with his winder at our rehearsal space, winding pickups. While we were swapping these, it was crazy. But this went on for a while. We tried quite a few different.

35:50
And we ended up, what we ended up with is it still has that wretched sparkle to it, but it's super punchy as well. It's the type of thing where I could play it all night, which is something that was sort of, you know, I couldn't do that with the regular Falcons. They worked incredibly well for some things, but for other things it didn't work that well to where I'd be able to play.

36:14
solo on them, you know. But yeah, so we spent a lot of time on these guitars and I'm really, really excited about how they came out. Yeah, so are they basically a white falcon or is it something completely different? Okay, so there's two different models. It's a white falcon, it's like a double cut falcon, right? Aesthetically, there's one that's gonna be like an antique white, no sparkly gold binding. It's all tortoise binding. Oh wow.

36:41
So and then also there's a black one that also has tortoise binding, tortoise pickguard, and the logo and everything. But really it's about the black one is what 24.6 scale. Yeah. Whereas the white one is the standard 25 and a half Gresh scale. Yeah. And the white one will have the regular B, what is it the B7? It's like the normal. Yeah, the Bixby.

37:06
The normal Bigsby, it's the full, we tried the other one, the shorter Bigsby, but it didn't work for me. It's just not as responsive. So we ended up changing the neck angle and using the full Bigsby. And then the pickups, it's been, the pickups are basically like a con, it's sort of like a cross between a vintage PAF and a Filtertron in construction. But yeah, they're really great. They're really, I'm.

37:31
super excited about these pickups. And then my treble bleed circuit that I've been, I've had on my Gretches forever, which is very different to what Gretch normally puts on their guitars. So the black one is going to be, like I said, it's the more Gibson scale, but in it's a stop tail. Yeah. Wow. That's great. I'm really excited about them. I'm excited to see them. Yeah. They are beautiful, but they're at

37:56
I really dig what Gretch is doing. They're really... Are they gonna make them here at the Custom Shop or are they making them in... No, no, no, no. They're gonna be made in Japan. Oh, oh cool. So, and the ones that I play live are the... I mean, I have some Custom Shop ones, but the ones that I play live are just the players edition. Yeah, wow. And I swap out the pickups and change the electronics. Other than that, they're stock. And then I also use Scala guitars. Oh yeah.

38:23
Scala is Italian company? No, Scala is based in LA. Okay, and he makes these Yeah, he's one guy making guitars and I've got probably about six or seven of them and I use I use those live And then I also use an Italian company called Pelletti Which is sort of like it's a less it's sort of like a Les Paul junior body style But it's made out of chestnut wood which I'd never heard a chestnut guitar before but they're

38:53
They're made out of these 150 year old wine barrels. Oh wow. Because the Paoletti family are traditionally wine makers. So they have all these old kegs that they started making guitars out of. That's fantastic. It sounds really gimmicky, but the wood actually sounds phenomenal. I was really impressed with it. That's great.

39:17
And so it's sort of like a telly, it's a telly bridge, like a left-handed telly bridge. So it reverses the angle. It's something I do with a lot of my tellys, with new ones, not old ones, new ones I'll have them put left-handed bridges on it. And then a left-handed headstock. So you get more tension on the lower strings, and with the pickup angled that way, it's brighter and more attacky on the low end. When you go to sell off the guitars you want to get rid of,

39:45
Are you going to go through Reverb? Are you going through a music store? I don't know. You know, I've been talking to CME, to Andrew Yonkey that owns CME and he was also involved with Reverb. Sorry, Chicago Music. Yes, exactly. Okay. So we were talking about it and I'm still trying to figure out what the best way is going to be to do that. Yeah.

40:14
if I'm gonna do it through CME or if I'm gonna do it through Reverb and do an artist store. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I've got a lot of stuff I'm trying to move. I'm gonna sell off a lot of my amps and a lot of my guitars. Yeah. Yeah.

JPR: That's great. I don't wanna take too much more of your time. What kind of things do you do like in your spare time, like when you're not doing guitars and producing and composing and all this?

R: I run every morning. I've got two teenage girls and I ride motorcycles.

JPR: Oh really? What kind of bike do you have?

R: I've got a BMW R9T Racer, I've got a 66 BSA Lightning, and I've got a Moto Guzzi V7 Racer.

JPR: Wow. Those are some pretty hot bikes right there.

R: Do you ride?

JPR: I do not anymore. No.

R: What did you ride?

JPR: Harley, like everybody else. Where are you based? I live north of San Francisco. I live in Napa, California. Oh, right. There are a lot of roads here.

41:21
lot of countries. Yes, there are. Yeah, you've got good roads. How is St. Louis? How is like, as far as like going back to the COVID thing, like how is St. Louis as far as like our restaurants open? Are you able to go out? Movie theaters? Well, it's a red state. So yeah, everything's open and people are getting sicker and sicker and it's bad. It's really bad. The hospitals are full. Yeah. My wife took her father had to take her 87 year old father to the hospital yesterday and it was just a comp-

41:51
sleep mask. Oh, that's terrible. And her sister just tested positive this morning. Oh, no. Yeah, it's really bad. It's really bad here. I have a feeling they're going to be shutting, at least St. Louis because it's a democratic city, it will shut back down. There's a mask mandate, but the thing is, is we get all the outlying counties around the state, they send everybody here to our hospitals. So it's, yeah, it's been pretty gnarly.

42:21
Everything out here opened up, and I mean like indoor dining to 25% capacity and all that.

42:28
But the problem with Napa is it's a huge tourist destination and an international tourist destination. There's still people coming here from Asia, a lot of people from Asia and a lot of people from Europe coming here and bringing whatever they have. Wow. Well, yeah, but I mean, at this point, they're not the problem. No, that's true. It's very true.

42:53
Very true. But they're not wearing masks. The tourists aren't wearing masks wherever they're from. Right. Outside of Napa, it's only the residents that are paranoid and wearing the masks. Right. Wow. So. Well, I sure hope that we're able to get back out on the road in the summer. Likewise. Like more than anything else in the world. It'd be great to go back out. Well, I'm going to let you go.

43:20
And I really thank you for your time. It means... Yeah, no problem. Man, I talk guitars all day. It's a welcome break. Good. Well, this has been great for me. Great. I love the magazine, so I'm happy to speak anytime. Very good. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time, James. No, thank you, Richard. I really appreciate it.

43:45
Okay. Look forward to meeting you someday. Yeah, same here. Okay, great. Talk to you later. Take care. Bye. Bye.

43:53
Thanks for listening to Have Guitar Will Travel. You can catch up on all the things I'm doing at TheDeadlies.com. And I'm on all the social media platforms as well. And please support Vintage Guitar and all the wonderful things they do because they do many, many wonderful things for us guitar players. Thanks! Please subscribe, please tell a friend, and I'll see you guys next week. Bye guys!