Rich Good
Twentynine Palms, CA
The Psychedelic Furs: https://thepsychedelicfurs.com/
Older projects:
Kings & Queens: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1V0NT9YLzxd2oXAgwJUS9P?si=rbbgggGWSwKbWOsWFsJGug
Mirrors: https://mirrors1974.bandcamp.com/
The Pleased: https://thepleased.com
Photo © Ian Ladlow (All Points East Festival – London)
How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?
It feels like most of my life that I’ve been messing around with guitars and anything else that’s laying about… I think I was 11 when i got my first guitar, so let’s go with that… My parents didn’t have a ton of rock music in the collection, so I had an odd combination of Elvis and Roxy Music as my main reasons to start playing – I bought the Roxy cassette while on holiday with my family somewhere in Wales. Mainly because there was a poster in the window of the record shop and it felt grown up to buy this cassette of greatest hits. The weird early stuff really grabbed me even then… I went through a lot of dubious musical discoveries (metal years) before I really settled in my taste, but the Roxy endures to this day. As far as playing guitar – I had a few lessons from a guy in Crawley, but have been mostly self taught. Something I’ve been endeavouring to fix actually – I like learning now, so I’ve been back to school so to speak. When I started I just wanted to play loud, so I never really got a good formal grounding in exactly how music works. But I knew how to get a few sounds that I wanted…
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
Stereolab, Roxy Music, Spacemen 3, Flaming Lips, Nick Drake etc… Now..? hmm I love Baxter Dury. And Billy Nomates is doing it for me today… I’d say I’m often not listening to guitars – I like seventies synth music and that kind of thing.
What drew you to using pedals initially? Have you been using them throughout your playing career? How have pedals helped to shape your sound, or influence the style that you’ve created?
Up until the new millennium, I’d not really used pedals much – I had a tube overdrive called the Overlord by Dean Markley, and a Roktek Delay. That was it really… When we started The Pleased in 2000, I upgraded and got a Deluxe Memory Man and a Fuzz Face. That was pretty much it for the entire life of that band. I used a Sano amplifer that used to shock me through the microphone, and those two pedals. My choices were simple: clean with delay or Fuzz with delay… Actually worked really well. After that band, I really became interested in pedals and threw myself into it more – with Kings & Queens, I started using effected sound more as a musical mood enhancer… You can really set a scene with the right sound…
When I joined the Furs, I figured the best way to do it was to try recreate the sounds on the records – it gave me license to try some tones that were unfashionable at the time (lots of Chorus?). There was a lot of ground to cover, so the board expanded massively. These days, my ‘style’ with pedals is more based on finding interesting musical stuff in chaos. I like it when there’s something new to be had – let’s face it; guitar has been a very comprehensively explored instrument, so anything that’s sonically unusual or interesting is better than more of the same… I think that ethic is true on ‘Made of Rain’ – there’s a lot of unique tone on that record – a lot of experimentation occurred in the studio. Credit to Richard Fortus for opening my eyes even further – he has an amazing collection of effects, and is always pursuing very musical sounds. I think we struck a nice balance of transformed oddity tones and musical parts…
Photo © Katrina Vlasich (Chicago, IL 2021)
What’s your current setup look like? Do you use different setups with different bands/projects? Take us through your rig (pedals, amps, guitars, etc. – be as in-depth as you’d like!):
For my own projects, I generally run a small board that I might decide on the day of the gig. I like changing things and flying by the seat of my pants for my own projects.
For the Furs, on the other hand, I have to be prepared and professional 😉 So a few weeks in advance of touring, I get a set list – I rehearse that and make decisions as to what I need on the board. It’s similar each time, but often one song can add a pedal that’s very specific – I recently got an Elta PLL to play a solo part at the end of Stars (Made of Rain) – it was originally played by Richard (Fortus) using a Schumann PLL, but those are extremely costly and rare, so for the 1 minute part in the set I just got the Elta, which is very close-sounding. In rehearsal it sounded incredible, but then the song was dropped from the final set list. So now I just use it on Dumb Waiters, where the lead outro part was played using guitar through an Arp synth… So anyway, that’s how the board is constantly morphing – it’s more based on what we’re playing than a set sound. The H9 has helped me keep things under control, because it can wear many hats – if i want one part to have a wild bitcrusher, it can do it without necessarily getting the original pedal. Here’s my current board:
- Cry Baby or Fulltone Wah
- TC Electronic Micro Tuner
- Earthquaker Devices Swiss Things
Drive Circuit
- Kingtone Duellist duo drive
- Butterfly Effect Pedals P450 Fuzz (Experience clone)
- Kingtone Fuzz Si
- (soon to add Furs Face)
- JHS Orange Peel Compressor
Modulation Circuit
- Chase Bliss Gravitas Tremolo
- Analogman Mini Chorus
- JHS Unicorn Vibe
- EQD Nite Wire
- Strymon Orbiter Flanger
- JHS Pink Panther Delay
- Eventide H9 Max
- EQD Dispatch Master Delay/Reverb
JHS A/B/Y – A drive only / B Drive + Modulation circuit
Out to two amps: wet/dry mix
- Satellite Omega 50w Head+Cab
- Supro Black Magick 25W Head+Cab
Favorite type of pedal (drive, delay, fuzz, etc. – more than one answer is always acceptable!):
That’s not a fair question! Probably delay… I just got a beautiful sounding Analogman ARDX20 Dual Delay… But where would we be without fuzz? or tremolo?
You’re stranded on a desert island – name 3 (of each) instruments, amps and pedals you couldn’t live without:
Instruments: My custom shop Jazzmaster, Wurlitzer Electric Piano, Gibson Hummingbird
Amps: My Satellite touring amp, and the Gibson Ranger i played through on the Made of Rain album (looking for one of these).
Pedals: TC Ditto, Deluxe Memory Man, Furs Face
Photo © Pam Biasi (Philadelphia 2019)
Covid-19 has obviously affected us all – how have you as a musician been able to stay positive and upbeat? What’s up next for you/your band(s), as far as concerts/live streams/recording/etc,?
I’m lucky in that I have always operated as a musician and graphic designer. so when one is down the other is up. Covid was really busy with design work, so I didn’t really suffer financial worries. However, it completely eradicated what was set to be the best year I’d had with the Furs – we’d not released a record for 29 years and this was the moment. I’d contributed everything I had to writing and recording this record and the rollout was to be pretty epic, with some landmark full-album shows to coincide with the release date, television appearances etc… It all went away. We’re still going to play the scheduled London Royal Albert Hall and New York Apollo shows, but now they’re two years later the grandeur has been somewhat dimmed… I’m still looking forward to it. Mentally, the pandemic was difficult, as it was for everyone. There was so much that made that year very dark. I live in the desert, so I threw myself into nature more than anything. I have a great home life and despite the ups and downs that kept me positive. I did write some songs…
The Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?
Bored with the hype perhaps…? But I have an Archer that I like…
Any future recording/touring plans with the Psychedelic Furs? Any other new bands or projects coming up this year?
Starting in March, we’re out for most of this year… US and Europe mainly… Can’t wait! 🙂 I’m working on a record of my own… it’s been years since I released anything, so I’m crushing myself with pressure.
I recently did a collaboration that resulted in the Furs Face Fuzz pedal. For probably twenty years my wizard friend Ben Milner has been building very short runs of this pedal called ‘The Fuzz where there was no fuzz before’ (or something like that). I always wanted one but i could never get hold of one… Then he partnered with my bandmate from The Pleased, Jason Clark, who has an indie label that is very diverse and decided to bring the fuzz out of the woods so to speak. So we tweaked it just a little and made some new graphics for it. It’s a monster silicon fuzz that can go way further out than you may need, but that’s exactly what I am looking for. It also has a wild gated bitcrusher component to it… They are still very hand made and difficult to get, but keep an eye here: https://dowdrecords.com/fuzzcrusher
Thanks so much to Rich for taking the time to answer some questions! Make sure to go check out the Psychedelic Furs website, and check their tour page to see when they’re headed to a town (or virtual venue) near you! Cheers!
Other interviews you might enjoy:
Richard Fortus of Guns N’ Roses
Sef Lemelin of Your Favorite Enemies
Chris Vos of The Record Company
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