2011.02.07 - TC Electronic - Interview with Richard

Transcript:

Richard: I joined Guns N Roses, I was asked to come and audition originally before Bucket had joined and so I was gonna audition for that...

Interviewer: Yeah.

Richard: ...role.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Richard: And I came... I was coming out to Los Angeles, I was based in New York at the time, I was coming out to Los Angeles so I told him, "Yeah, so I'm gonna be out." I got a call asking for an audition. Week goes by, I hear back from them and they say, "Okay, we're gonna do it at this place and this time we're gonna get back to you with the details." They ended up not calling back, I got to this session and Tommy and Josh were on the session and I said, "Hey, I was supposed to come an audition but I never heard back," "Yeah, well, Axl found this guy Buckethead and he decided he's gonna use him so we stopped auditions." And fair enough, Tommy and I became good friends after that and then next time they were looking for a guitar player they called me. [...] I was on another tour in Europe, got the call, I flew back to LA, because I had two days off, flew to LA, auditioned, got back on the plane, stayed up all night auditioning with them, got back on the plane, flew back to to Europe and finished the tour I was on and then went straight into rehearsals for my first tour.

Interviewer: So how long you've been with Guns N' Roses now?

Richard: That was in '01.

Interviewer: Oh, so it's been a while now.

Richard: Yeah, yeah.

[cut]

Richard: My guitar collection is way bigger than it should be. I definitely have what we call "GAS", or gear acquisition syndrome. I'm a big fan of some of the wackiest stuff, like the TC Fireworks and...

Interviewer: Yeah.

Richard: My history with TC goes back to, I think, my first piece of TC was a 2290, but I think the delays in the new stuff is good. I mean, really, that's when I said, you know, I got the G major and I got that when I was when I was with the Psychedelic Furs and that was sort of my main piece of gear with the first outboard modulation, delays. I usually... I used the G majors for a long time, up until now, it's still the heart of my rig with Guns as far as my post effects, you know.

Technician: Soon to be swapped out with the new TCG major twos are the original TCG majors which we use heavily during the show. So we're excited to get the new TCG major twos swapped out and get those in the rack, and we'll be doing that sometime in the next day or two.

Richard: Most of the nights with Guns I'm playing predominantly on my old Marshall, it's pretty straight ahead, and then for some of the new stuff I have the [?] preamp which has the modular system, four different modules, and that way I'm able to get like AC 30-type of sound on it...cleaner Marshall-type sound and then a very modern high gain sound. [...] And you know that modular system works well like with, like last year I was out with Rihanna and for that type of gig where there's a lot of flying, going into TV shows, like the G system is perfect for that because... MIDI that with the quad priam you can use whatever power amp is there, speakers, you know, for a fly date it's perfect.

Transcribed this little interview.