transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] Hey, everybody, it's Jason Verlinde, the publisher of The Fretboard Journal Magazine. Hopefully, you're all getting The Fretboard Journal Magazine. Our 59th issue is mailing this week, and I know you would love it, so subscribe at fretboardjournal.com. We do a podcast every week, sometimes two a week. They are always audio only. I'm sharing the video from this conversation with you all, because it's with a dear friend, Ryan Richter. Ryan was one of the first Fretboard Journal employees ever. He worked here in our Seattle office 15, 16 years ago. He then moved to LA, where he has been one of the most in-demand guitarists and lap steel players around. For the last few years, he's been playing with Dijon, Lizzie McAlpine. He's currently on the road with Mumford and Sons. And last weekend, he wrapped up two of the most talked about sets of Coachella with Dijon, and I wanted to talk to him all about it, and the work that went into those sets, how much was rehearsed, how they sound check, all that good stuff, as well as the gear that Ryan used. It's a super insightful talk with one of my favorite people. Ryan has remained a Fretboard Journal contributor and friend for the entire duration of our magazine, and it was such a joy to talk to him. So I hope you enjoy this chat. I want to thank our sponsors, Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar and Peghead Nation. Check the links below for some special offers and those two. And if you haven't heard about it yet, our Fretboard Summit is our big guitar weekend. It takes place in Chicago, August 20th to 22nd, 2026. It is three days of concerts and workshops and master classes and hands on with something like 90 guitar makers and luthiers. It is a truly special weekend. Ryan played at it last year. I would love to see a bunch of you there. And if you want to register, go to fretboardsummit.org. It's probably North America's largest public-facing guitar show at this point. It's also one of the most fun. And we always have a bunch of surprise guests from this very podcast, as well as the pages of our magazine there. So I hope to see a bunch of you there. Like I said, our 59th issue of the magazine is mailing right now. So subscribe if you haven't yet. It's a quarterly magazine. It's filled with long-form interviews and essays and photo essays and all sorts of fun stuff. And I'd love for you to support it. fretboardjournal.com is how you can do it. Here without further delay is my conversation with Ryan Richter. If you're not following him on Instagram, you should. It's MrRichter, and please go check out Ryan's two solo albums. They are wild and fun and super inventive. Here's my chat with Ryan. Ryan Richter, welcome back.

Speaker 2:
[02:57] Thank you very much.

Speaker 1:
[02:58] It is a rare moment when one of the Fretboard Journal's early employees plays Coachella, one of the most talked about sets of the year. And so I figured I'd check in with you, because how often does one get to hear like what goes into a couple of sets at Coachella with an incredible band like Dijon assembled. So how are you doing? You're done.

Speaker 2:
[03:27] I'm done. I'm done. But dude, I'm flying to Australia and in a couple of hours, I'm going to go back on the road with Mumford and Sons. But I'm done with Coachella and I got out pretty. I don't know if you can hear that, but there's a plant. Okay, we're just give it a quick second. But anyway, I got off pretty easy. I wasn't tempted to stay and overdo it because after our set, there were other friends playing and there were some things that I would have wanted to see. But also, the main event, of course, was the fact that Mike McGee and Dijon were making appearances with Justin Bieber during his big set on Saturday night. And the thing about it was, is that like those, that slot was like an 1140 start time. And I just didn't have it in me. I just feel like the capture that they do nowadays of a video is so supreme that I didn't need to subject myself to specifically to get the getting out of their process, which is quite crazy. But, but, but as it actually, I guess kind of like on a related note, I want to say a lot of people complain about Coachella just because it's, it is nuts, it's a lot to take in. But I, I, I got to congratulate everyone that's involved in making it happen because it really is like a pretty wild undertaking. And I think I would sooner trust the organizers of Coachella than FEMA in a catastrophe situation.

Speaker 1:
[05:15] They've seen it all.

Speaker 2:
[05:16] They can really like do, it's really wild how, how good it is. That said, so we played a show on Saturday, which I'm sorry, we played a show on Friday, the 10th, which was our first set. And we'll obviously talk about that. But this is the, this is all I'll say for like the intensity of that place. But we were at Airbnb all hanging out, having fun. There was an opportunity for me and Mike Haldeman to go back to LA at leave, leaving the Airbnb at six because the shuttle was coming back for the rest of the guys at six. So we were going to LA, they were going to Palm Springs. We got, I was in my house at 7.58. Then I texted Dijon and I said, tell me you're there dude. He, they were still an hour out. So it took them three hours to go 12 miles where we got back, Lickety Split. So it's a big thing. It's in its own way. It's truly not for the faint of heart. I can't imagine going as a non-performer. And I know that might even sound soft, but it's just like, it's a pretty big situation to get in and out of there. But they do the best they can and it's a really amazing thing.

Speaker 1:
[06:39] And let's talk a little bit about, you've played with Dijon over the last couple of years. He brought back the kind of OG touring band with you and McGee. But how much prep work goes into a Coachella set? And obviously, and then I want to hear like, what at the actual venue do you get to, I mean, there can't be sound checks. Maybe there are, I don't know. Like, how does it all go down?

Speaker 2:
[07:04] Yeah, so we spent five days on a rehearsal stage in Van Nuys. And I think that's because we did a lot of the stuff that they had just done on tour, that the latest configuration of the band that toured was, I mean, a lot of it was intact, but Dijon truly doesn't, he's not the kind of guy that's going to play the same version of the same song for an entire whatever, even two sets as we experienced. But yes, we were just getting familiar with how to all play together. And also just like the technology of the set. I was using an interesting rig, no, there's no amps on stage. It's like, and I know that's kind of common these days, but this is taking it so many exponents further than most people could even imagine. And another thing to give credit to is, the people that help us put the show on, like all of our techs and crew, those people are so indulgent, and they're very talented. And I think from a technical perspective, they don't have any problem helping us get to the mountaintop. But I think sometimes requests are made of them where they definitely have to think about how to get it done, because it's so untraditional, and it takes some real brain power to actually figure out the best way to send all of this audio around to these different places. Because as much freedom as Dijon and Jack have to specifically to twist knobs and make things happen in real time, from a mixer or mixing perspective on stage. Taylor Meyer, who's our front of house guy, is totally, he might as well be the third Musketeer for their thought process. Like he's so adventurous and so cool. And, like, looking back, the show sounded great to me. Like, I play with headphones on, but it sounded great on my headphones. I would take one can off and listen, and it all sounded great in the moment. But it's all just proven through the streams. Because the, I mean, they're gone now from the Coachella account for now. But, you know, there's a song, maybe there's two songs up, but people have, on Reddit, have found what, find ways to put the whole thing up in various places. And it just sounds so good. So Taylor Meyer is a real star, and he's a really imaginative front of house person. But back to the rehearsal thing. Five days, just kind of figuring it out, getting songs calibrated as far as how people would play together, because obviously I had been out of the mix for some time. And then also, the other star, silent star of the show is our cinematographer, this guy named Alex Lill, who did such an amazing job of capturing these shows that, yeah, I mean, just like my clear internal biases aside, like I think they look better than most concert films I've ever seen. And Jack Karazewski, our, I don't know what he is, he's like our general or something, but like he and Alex are old friends, and they both have really cool ideas, and Jack is very knowledgeable with directing and cinematography. So they came up with their magic recipe of how many cameras would be needed, and what the stage setup would look like, and what kind of, specifically what kind of lenses would be used. And they had this, could you ever see it from the, did you ever see that guy that was walking around with the kind of like, it was like a, it was like a stabilized crane on his shoulder?

Speaker 1:
[11:24] Yeah, yeah. I didn't know though that like, how much, you know, conversation was going down between the artists and the filmers before their set. So it sounds like it was pretty early days.

Speaker 2:
[11:36] Yeah. Well, because that was our guy. Like that, that, like they don't, I mean, they have, Coachella has their own people, which are awesome, I'm sure. But Jack's vision, you know, no one from their squad would ever want to even talk to him about, they're so busy, I would get it, like, why would they? But yeah, this guy that we, I forget his name, such a shame, I'll remember it in a second, but he's a total pro at using this one piece of gear. And I should remember the name of the camera too, because you would love this thing, but it looks like a, it looks like a James Cameron, like submersible. It's this really like compact rounded edge square, basically, but inside of it is this huge round lens that has such cool abilities. And we used it for how we used it, but I don't know, I'm sure, I think it's a top of the line something or another, I know that. A lot of mountains were moved just to get our hands on that device. So, yeah, well, and so then rehearsal, so we get all the way there. We were on our fourth day, we're leaving, everything sounds perfect. And then on the fifth day, McGee shows up and we find ways to integrate him into this already like massive thing. And I mean, it just made it so fun and also like, a pretty cool way of taking us out of our, what's the word? I guess like, if there was any stringency or, you know, dedication to sticking to even these wacko versions that we were doing, like it all got changed again, like kind of last minute, which is par for the course. And I think it just turned out so great. And it was so, so, so excellent. I mean, yeah, there's everyone involved in the band, which, you know, aside from me being brought back in the mix of these two brothers, Marshall and Parker Mulherand, who are amazing vocalists and instrumentalists. One of them was playing keys and the other also kind of making sounds happen through various technological toys. But they really have an understanding of where Dijon is coming from as far as his influences are concerned. And they are really able to kind of lock into him and harmonize with him in a really fun way that's just basically like a pretty immediate, you know, they're very good. And the other person that I had not played music with yet was Danny Aged, who is an amazing bassist and a great guy. And I've seen him play for years and years, but never had the chance to play music with him. And that was fun. And I mean, he's just so great and every, every, truly everyone in there is just top, top dog.

Speaker 1:
[14:54] You just rattled off a bunch of names. I mean, clearly there's a lot of artistic thought that went into these sets. How much direction does Dijon or any of, do any of these guys give you before you show up at that set in Van Nuys in terms of like, bring this, hey, can you bring this effect? Or is there any of that or do you just show up with whatever you want to bring?

Speaker 2:
[15:17] Well, I knew that there was not, I knew that I wasn't going to use an amp, so I just defaulted to using this kind of little world that I've been chipping away at in my computer, which is how I recorded. I made a record earlier this year with some guys called, or last year, called Idle Chatter. That's all the sounds that I'm playing through my computer. And then I made an extension of that by getting, when I made that record, I was thinking to myself like, I've got something cool going on, but it's a little clunky how I'm controlling these things in real time. And there were a couple off-the-rack devices that are actually pretty amazing, but none of them were exactly big enough for me to be able to do all the moves that I wanted to do in one device. So I would have like a couple of them strung together, and I got the job done, and when I was, it occurred to me that I had never thought to search the words custom MIDI controller, and I did that, and I found a company in Argentina called Yaltex, which allows users to basically just pick the size. They have a couple of limitations on that, but you pick the size of the device that you can imagine, and then you can just populate it on this web-based, I guess, building template, and you can kind of go as crazy as you want. I went a little crazy, and it did auto-generate a message that said, you've reached the number of connections that are possible, and so, whatever. But anyway, this thing that I have is this really powerful device now, and I, with the help of Mike Haldeman, customized it to have my computer environment work in like as much, kind of splitting the atom between like an old school mixing surface, and with some modern things that wouldn't have been in one of those, to kind of tackle the things that I'm imagining doing. But yeah, I brought that out, and it's incredible. And I, you know, Mike is kind of like the thought leader trailblazer in that space of using technology to make your dreams come true as far as, you know, playing music or guitar or whatever it is in a new and interesting way that is completely limitless in terms of, if you can imagine it, and you have the patience to learn how to communicate MIDI to a device and a computer, you can basically make anything happen that you want. Pretty hard, it's pretty tough act to follow honestly. Like it's pretty, not that there needs to be one or the other, but like I love playing guitar into an amp. But I also, if I were to try to build a pedal board or a pedal based scenario to accomplish the thing that I did with Dijon on stage, it would be impossible. Or I mean, you would need a wall of devices and I just don't. That's what I don't want in 2026 and moving forward. The more consolidated, the better. I think we're there. I think I played the Benson VST plugin as the bass tone for my set. And I mean, it sounds amazing. The people that design that are great. They're called Mixwave and they did a great job. And yeah, no one, I mean, no one could tell the difference. You know what I mean? Or it's not even about that. It just sounds amazing. And all front of house people will be thrilled by getting a signal that clean because it's just, yeah, it's for obvious reasons. It's like a truly easy breezy way to have sound and be able to move it around and contain it and whatever. So I'm kind of an evangelist about this for the moment. We'll see how long I last.

Speaker 1:
[19:39] Yeah, before you start toting a Fender champ and a giant pedal board to everything again.

Speaker 2:
[19:44] Well, right. Well, and then, of course, I leave today and I don't get to take that because the gig doesn't call for it. But I wish it would because it's fun and I don't know. It's just when used, when used, what's the word, with caution, I guess like it's valuable stuff to be able to integrate all those different sounds and sources into just about any kind of music, I think.

Speaker 1:
[20:17] Your guitars for Coachella were the Georgetown Lap Steel that I remember you building back in the day, nearly 15, 20 years ago.

Speaker 2:
[20:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[20:28] And then what guitar did you take or guitars?

Speaker 2:
[20:30] I took, when I showed up to rehearsal, I had this guitar that I will travel to Australia with, which is a Gibson 355, but it didn't really, and I love that guitar. I played it like crazy, but it didn't really fit into the mix. And so I brought an Eric Johnson Strat, which, yeah, I mean, it's just also, yeah, fun little case study in proving the idea that like sometimes certain guitars just don't fit, you know? Like you need, like I needed the kind of high fidelity, wide open, like upper frequencies of a Strat pick up to have an identity in the mix of that performance. And I even, you know, I was even playing on the neck pickup for a lot of it, but it's just, it's so open that like it was, it had way more of a home than the humbuckers on the 355 did. Yeah, even through all that crazy stuff, like you can still hear the fundamental sound very well.

Speaker 1:
[21:39] And then day of day of that first set, first weekend of Coachella, like how much sound checking goes down or are you just like go to your little marks on the stage and do your thing?

Speaker 2:
[21:53] It's we did sound check it. We got there in the morning and I think our sound check was at nine. But so having said all these things and sung all the praises of technology, both my caldiment, it was hot and nine in the morning in that open polo field is like, there's no, even under the stage scaffolding and all that stuff like you're basically exposed to direct sunlight. So we were sound checking and then both of our rigs started to make the sound of static. And that was, and then I was like, what is that? And then I looked at my, on Ableton, I looked at the CPU meter and it was at like 160%. And then I just realized like, oh yeah, it's like too hot. Like, and so we had to get the thermal reflective blankets to finish sound check. But lesson learned and like the next week we got there and the, our guys like bought these little heat-resistant laptop kind of tents, little tents that we put up on music stands. And they basically did the trick. But this is all to say, if you're going to use a computer when you play music, it should probably be in the late afternoon, evening or nighttime, because you can reach the heat threshold fast. And when you get there, there's no real, you can't really do anything about it. You just kind of, you got to set it out. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:31] You're going to need those gamer computers that have the liquids flowing through them to cool them.

Speaker 2:
[23:36] Totally. Totally. And I mean, in one of Mike's earlier iterations of his rig, I think he had, he was using a separate screen, and he had an iPad tucked away kind of for a few reasons, but I think that would be one of them. To be able to keep it out of direct light, you know, that's a pretty valuable piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 1:
[23:59] Yeah. And then what's the Cotilla, I mean, what's it like to play there?

Speaker 2:
[24:06] I thought it was great. I mean, the amount of, the only thing that makes it really any different. I mean, I will say too that we, I think that we had the best time slot of the entire festival with like the, you know, basically like the whole thing was a long sunset. And it was finally nice outside. It wasn't, it wasn't brutal to be there. I wore a jacket the second week because it like, it was like, I don't know, like by the time we started playing, I was like, I think I might actually get a little chilly, you know. Anyway, it was, it was amazing. And the audience was great. Um, the level of the, the line that's blurred between artist and people that can afford to buy artist wristbands is really a funny aspect of it because back in, you know, what's called Artist Village, it's like, I would say there's more people that aren't playing than, like, you know, a lot of celebs back there. Um, the one and only Hunter Biden was outside of our trailer for a couple of days. He looked great, solid denim, looking, looking excellent. But I mean, he, you know, he's one of hundreds of people that just kind of have the ability through agency connections or whatever to just exist in that little zone. So it's a scene for sure. Um, but it's awesome. And I think too, I know, I just, you know, like I was saying earlier, that the things that I knew that I wasn't going to do, and that I knew that I could leave, like that made, that made all the difference for me, because I would probably have, I'd probably be singing a little bit of a different song if I, if I was there as a spectator and I had to stay there for 13 hours or whatever. It's brutal. And I mean, I salute the people that can make that happen. I have a bunch of, I have some like younger friends that are deep fans or musicians just kind of getting their footing, and they like slept in their cars and stuff like that. And I, I mean, truly all the power to them, but that's not for me. Um, and then the final, just like the only real advantage, that's a weird word. Like one of the perks is just being able to like use these alternate pathways that will get you from stage to stage a little faster. So, you know, to see something like the Sabrina Carpenter set, which we all kind of went and peeked at, it's like such a spectacle that you, you know, you can't really, for it to be 100 yards away and not see it is a little bit of, it's kind of lame. So like, she's, she is doing the pop thing profoundly well. And I, I mean, if you told me that they spent $3 million on her set, $2 million, like, I'd believe it because it's, it was remarkable how in depth and well thought out it was. And then also to like, for the second week, like just be able to pop over and like look at Madonna on stage with Sabrina Carpenter and not have to, you know, have heat stroke to be able to pull that off. Like it's, it was, I mean, I did it. I've always, you know, pretty cool thing to be able to do in the moment. But yeah, I mean, again, I salute the people that put that thing on because it's just so massive and I cannot believe how well, well it runs in spite of the just truly staggering amount of people that are there.

Speaker 1:
[27:49] Yeah. I mean, I think most people in my little world of The Fretboard Journal, like Coachella doesn't really resonate with them. It feels like something like Burning Man where it's like other people do that. But your sets were, and now it makes sense that there was a cinematographer and you guys just had it so dialed in and went artsy with it. It was very moving to watch you guys. Like it was really cool.

Speaker 2:
[28:15] Yeah. I mean, I got so many, I got, well, so the first week was, it felt great and kind of like as I imagined it would, like it was basically like a truly like a direct hit of what anyone would, from a music playing perspective, you know, designate and say like that was a good show because it was, I mean, to me, no surprises. Second week, interesting experience because like, I think that throughout different moments of it, things got, it was just a little, it was a little less tight and it got, you know, maybe a little weird in some moments and like, you know, Dijon's voice was fatiguing and he started a song, two songs over again, but he's like the most charming dude, so he can sell that and it's like, it's funny and it's real, it's authentic, but like, you know, that, that it just kind of felt, it felt a little, it felt a little different, and it didn't felt, it wasn't better or worse, but it just felt different. So when we, oh, and like, you know, people that know about him or care about what we did, like, you've probably seen this video of him finishing the set, playing Radio Clown, where he's at first up against like a wall of fans, his voice is shot, and then he drifts over to his wife and baby and sings, you know, closes it out to them. And it's this like crazy thing, where the, as for as big of a spectacle as that was, I couldn't see it because where I was standing, or from where I was sitting and doing my thing, like I mean, I was playing music and I was focused on what I was doing, but I kind of couldn't really see that part of the front of the stage where he was. So it took me going back to the hotel room and then, you know, rewinding the Coachella feed to see our set. And I was just so blown away because, you know, when it was over, we all, not all of us, but like I think a few of us walked off stage and were like, was that, like, how was that? Was that good for you? Or, you know, did we, was that great? But everyone that was side stage or everyone that I met for the rest of the night, for even like an hour afterwards, people were like truly sobbing. And like, oh, one woman that I had never met before, backstage, she was wearing like dark sunglasses and she was, she was crying to such a crazy degree. And I, and I, you know, she was, I mean, I couldn't avoid her. She was like in, she was in our crew. I didn't know, you know, whatever. But I was like, you know, jokingly, I was like, how, how was that? Like, did you, did we, did we stick the landing? And she couldn't, she couldn't articulate words. And I just, then I was like, oh, whoa, like maybe I, maybe I missed it, you know? And then I looked to my left and there were just like these people like doubled over, same reaction. And then I would, you know, I put this, put this clip up on the internet, on Instagram, and it has something insane. I mean, like hundreds of thousands of views. And I think that's, it's interesting how certain things hit. I'm not surprised because it's such a powerful piece of video, but by far the most successful post I've ever put up. And my comments and all the DMs I've gotten, people are just absolutely moved deeply. And it is an extremely moving moment for so many reasons. But yeah, I'm so happy that, I'm so happy that the forethought went into assembling a team that was capable and nimble enough to capture something like that and really have it be solidified as a big time moment. And now, from a logistical, I guess, like rights perspective, which is way beyond my pay grade, I don't know how these conversations go, but I think the idea is that Coachella historically doesn't want artists to be able to post their sets in their entirety. They kind of clip them, and there's maybe one or two that go up. And we have one that's up now, but I don't even know if any of the performances from week two have gone up. But if ever there was a reason to really try to grease the wheel for this to be out, or some sort of compilation of those two to be out, I think Dijon's manager is going to have to get into the weeds on that because this couldn't be a better, I mean, just in general, amazing concert film, but also incredible companion to the Absolutely film, assuming they let it out.

Speaker 1:
[33:39] I'm just in awe that you guys, I mean, this gets really in the weeds technically, but that you had your own filmer patched into the whole Coachella infrastructure. That in itself is like, I can't even wrap my brain around how all that works.

Speaker 2:
[33:53] Yeah. Well, and Jack Karazewski is such a perfectionist and such a visionary that he, like the big issue from the first week was that their camera people, I think is how it works, like they're basically they're transponders or whatever the word would be to get from a camera back into the screen behind us. I think for week one, it was either wireless or maybe they were wireless for both weeks, but something happened with the first week where it was like, there was such a big drag that Jack had them reconfigure it to be have less latency. Or maybe he even like found a way to get us hardwired in so that there was no delay. But I mean, that's just the kind of guy he is. And it's cool because like they, anyone on their team that is aware of like the concept of latency would have to be like, okay, got it. Like if there's like a symbol crash in real life and then it takes two seconds to happen on the screen, that's like not the best. I think we could do better. But I think it, not to say that it wouldn't have been corrected without Jack, but he definitely led the charge in a pretty major way where he got there. If I got there at nine, he got there at eight. If I left at seven, you know, he left at 10. Just talking to people about how it went and how to do it better or whatever.

Speaker 1:
[35:28] It's, yeah, it's still mind boggling. It's like the Seahawks showing up to the Super Bowl with their own cameras. Let us patch in too, you know?

Speaker 2:
[35:36] Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, man.

Speaker 1:
[35:41] Well, you did it, and now you're about to hit the road with Mumford and Sons, and you kind of hinted that the rig is a little bit different. You're not bringing the laptop at least. What do you take on the road for those shows?

Speaker 2:
[35:57] Well, so the only thing that I move with now as a person is I just bring a guitar, which will now live in their vault. But we had a big break, so I wanted to have it around. So it was there. I could have left it there. So I really could be traveling light today. But as far as beyond the guitar, I have two of the same pedal boards, which is not uncommon, but I have, it's all going through a Strymon Uridium, which at this point is, there are many options. A lot of them do things that are way more in-depth than the Uridium, but I don't really want to spend the time to figure out how deep I would like to go. It's as amazing as that technology is, it's not really that appealing to me to like do amp captures. I mean, I'll tell you what, if someone, if I bought one of those devices, it would probably be because I knew that there was someone who really went in deep capturing amps that I would actually want to play. Because I think a lot of those units for the time being, like do a lot of really, they do a very good job of capturing like extremely high gain amps. But if there was like a Skip Simmons endorsed capture pack, like I would buy one, I would buy a device just so those amps could exist on stage with me. So, Skip, if you're listening, you got to let someone who's really good at amp capture work with you, even though it's probably your worst nightmare. But yeah, I mean, like for now, I'm basically using the like, everything goes into the Fender Deluxe Reverb model that they have on there. It's like, it's fine. Matt Menafee, our banjo player who stands next to me, he's playing a, what do they call it? He's playing a Kemper, also totally fine. Like sounds great, does the job. But I think before I got on was the final amp era where Marcus and Mason had very elaborate amp rigs. And I think from a intercontinental, global, just moving that stuff around perspective, like forget even the potential for maintenance, like it's just too much. It's just too much weight. So, yeah, I mean, and as far as like my effects, like it's pretty, the most glamorous things that I have on there, or most left of center is I have a Mason Stoops signature JHS pedal, the Taco Bolt, which he gave to me and it sounds awesome. And then I have a Chaseless pedal for a very, very like specific eight measure section of one song that does like a reverse delay. It's called the Reverse Mode C. And then I have an Eventide Black Hole, which does a very cool reverse reverb. And to me, it like is like an 80s sound. It's like a Phil Collins, Michael Landau kind of thing. I don't even know if they like that I use it, but I think it's cool. So I just keep doing it.

Speaker 1:
[39:36] Don't want to ask.

Speaker 2:
[39:37] I haven't got any complaints, so I'm just gonna let it ride. But yeah, I mean, I play all this. I just play one guitar, which is primarily a function of laziness because I just don't want to bring more than one out at a time. There's totally an argument, like Mason I know had a couple that were in dedicated tunings, but there's also a lot of music happening in a very similar frequency. Marcus, Matt, the banjo player, the horn section, I think the traditional tune guitar is doing a pretty decent job. So I'm not worried about it, but maybe I'll buy, maybe I'll revisit my friend at Harvester Guitars and get up one of his wacky inventions, because you never know, you never know what's going to happen.

Speaker 1:
[40:37] Lapsteel? No Lapsteel for a month?

Speaker 2:
[40:39] No Lapsteel on this tour, or at least for now. But speaking of Lapsteels, do you know about this guy who, hang on, let me see if I can find it real fast. Okay, do you know about this guy who, do you know about Verso Instruments?

Speaker 1:
[41:01] Name is very familiar, but I don't.

Speaker 2:
[41:04] Just for fun, if you can do it without it being too disruptive, look up Verso Instruments, log Lapsteel.

Speaker 1:
[41:10] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[41:12] And I got, I ordered one of these, and it's this guy who's taking the concept of like, you know, obviously Lapsteel is like the simplest stringed instrument you could have. Oh, yeah. And it's made out of pressed, or what do you call it, like folded metal.

Speaker 1:
[41:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:34] And there is the ability to move the pickups wherever you want, and they output in stereo.

Speaker 1:
[41:40] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[41:41] And I ordered one, and I look forward to getting it. I think they're really cool. It's a pretty interesting tape on this.

Speaker 1:
[41:49] Have you seen one in the flesh?

Speaker 2:
[41:51] No, he just put up the like, you know, first go release, I guess you would say, and I pulled the trigger just because I'm curious about it.

Speaker 1:
[42:09] You played at the last Fretboard Summit in Chicago, you played your as good a place as any one track album in its entirety. And then you came out recently with another one track album. Talk to me about it.

Speaker 2:
[42:27] Yeah, that one is called Sure Hope You Like Guitar, Kind Regards. Obviously, the first one is a guitar record, too, if you want to focus on the obvious, but really just beating a dead horse. For the second one, I decided to call it that because it's really, like the first seven minutes of the record is very big time guitar stuff. So, I don't know, it just seemed like a fun title. But yeah, it's the same setup. It's one big piece of music, but the difference being this time around, there's a rhythm section, drums and bass. I mean, there's upright bass on the first one, but it's kind of a different animal. But again, me on guitar, Tyler Nuffer again on pedal steel, Remy Morritt on drums, and Keith Carmen on bass. And then when all the basic tracking was done, which was done all live, I cobbled it together and I had my friend Benny Bach play piano and synthesizer and vibraphone on it. And really, I think it leveled it up in a really cool way. And yeah, for the people who, I mean, very proud of this one. I think it's better than my first. I don't know why. I mean, I think they're both good and they have their own identity, but like I love just some, I think the, it's funny. I guess a big part of the reason I think that is because the first one, it exists in this like, like when I listen back to it, I think it sounds good, but they're, it exists in kind of like a certain band of frequency where we didn't really try to explore too much of the low end. And I don't really, I don't even really know why. I just think we started, we had a thing that sounded good for the first movement, and then we just kept that aesthetic basically. But this one, because it's a full rock and roll thing, like it's a, it's a really full sounding record. It's a, yeah, it's just, it's like very macho and kind of beefy sound wise. And yeah, I mean, it's just a fun reminder. I like, is it my 355 into a Tweed Deluxe? Tyler played directly in, played pedal steel into a Tweed Deluxe. Bass and drums, very, like, no, there's no reverb on the record, there's no delay. I don't know. It just really was really fun to make and kind of feels more. I mean, it is more exciting, you know, it's like by virtue of it, just the compositions and stuff like that. But what else do I have to say about it? No singing this time. I'll save that for number three.

Speaker 1:
[45:29] Is there a number three?

Speaker 2:
[45:31] There's going to be a number three, yeah. I mean, I am contractually obligated to produce a number three, so there's for sure going to be a number three. I don't know when. I'll be pretty busy until October. So hopefully, I can get some sketches going between now and then. Oh, I was going to say, the thing that I really like as far as being able to, I remember we talked about my first record and I can't remember, I must have brought this up, but in case I didn't, there's two, obviously long form through composed music is not original. It's been done forever. It's not my idea. But there are two people that produce two albums that are that, but in very different ways. One of them being Jim O'Rourke's The Visitor, which is like hyper composed, very intentional thing, great amazing record that I think everyone should listen to if they haven't. Also Jim O'Rourke should be a FJ profile at some point.

Speaker 1:
[46:34] If only I could get ahold of him, yes.

Speaker 2:
[46:36] Yeah. If I ever get to Japan, I'll try to make that happen. But the other one is an album by Wayne Krantz called Greenwich Mean, which is a true like kind of collage compilation of performances from the 55 Bar, where he played Forever Never. Some of it, for sure, there's like a structure and some of it is way more open and free. But he made this really cool album out of it, where it's like basically has the feeling of like scanning a dial on a radio or something like that. And if you were lucky enough, like the Dream Radio where like every single station that you found was playing great music, but great record too. That one I think you have to get directly from him. It's not on streamers, but everyone should be aware of that if they're already not because it's really, really great. So those are two real inspirations for me. And I think just because it's more rock focused, I think the comparison to Greenwich Mean is maybe a little bit more fitting. But it just came out how it came out. I wasn't really thinking about a Greenwich Mean at the time, but now I'm such a huge fan of it. It's not a surprise that I'd be attracted to making music in that format.

Speaker 1:
[48:10] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[48:14] What else are we going to say about it? I mean, the bummer about my, I'm having such a nice year and I'm lucky to be this busy, but I haven't had the ability to play any shows. So I came out with it and the best thing that I could do because of scheduling with me and the other guys is I had this, I had these listening parties in London and New York, and then I did one in LA where this great wild Hi-Fi store, Hi-Fi audio store called Audio Element in Pasadena, hosted me and allowed me to have a couple of different time slots throughout the night where 15, 20 people came in at a time and went into their showroom and listened to the record through these major, major, major sound systems that will, yeah, basically unattainable to most people on earth. But it's pretty fun to listen to music like that. And it's also pretty fun to listen to music like that and realize that if I, like, you know, it's like you walk in and you're like, man, really is this, do people need to do this? And then you listen to music on it. And then, for me, the thought very quickly becomes, the first thing I'm going to do if I hit the lotto is build like a listening room in a house because it's really kind of nothing like it really.

Speaker 1:
[49:47] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[49:47] And the people that, you know, keep those stories afloat, they understand that for sure. But man, oh man, it was fun. And so that for now, that those little things are as close to supporting albums, supporting shows as I can do. But I've got some breaks this year, and I hope to, I think now I can really dream of is like putting the guys in the van and maybe going as far as a far up as Seattle, you know, hit like three or four places along the way. But we'll see. I mean, the good news for me is that both of these albums that I've made so far are the same format. So I, if I really wanted to be super epic, I could rearrange it so that it could all just be one big thing. So it could be a 40-minute nonstop performance.

Speaker 1:
[50:41] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[50:44] So that I think is the goal because I don't have any, I don't have any chart toppers. So whoever comes to a Ryan Richter show will have to be ready for something like that.

Speaker 1:
[50:57] Going back to the listening parties, like you're recording these in studios with great studio monitors and listening to them probably in every conceivable way you can in the car, on your stereo, through laptop, headphones, everything. Hearing your music played through, I'm guessing it's probably a $200,000 or $300,000 stereo. Do you pick up on things that you were like, I couldn't even hear that until today?

Speaker 2:
[51:24] There was a couple of those moments, but I think also the big relief of listening to it in that format was that when I got it, so when the final mix came through, it sounded amazing and then I sent it to mastering. Then I got test pressings back from the final producer, manufacturer, and they were all, and this has been since resolved, but they were all like crackly. So when you get vinyl done, they send out four or five copies of the test pressing, just to reference it across maybe band members or something like that. I don't know, but it did that. And they were kind of staticky, and I thought, why is this? And it was suggested that maybe the mix was a little too bass heavy. And while it is true that the bass plays a pretty big role, I didn't want to change it. And I thought also that it seemed a little, it didn't seem exactly right that I would have to change it because there are other records that are made and put on vinyl that are way more bass heavy than that. Even the one that came to mind is like, if any Fretboard Journal fan can recall the sound of the Pat Metheny, Charlie Hayden record beyond the Missouri sky, it's like incredibly bass heavy. Like if you listen to it in a car with a big subwoofer, it would rattle the whole thing. Anyway, I just sort of thought like, maybe I'm not going to change it, but I did have, and again, they recalibrated their lathe and it worked out. But there was a moment where I was thinking about doing another master where we just pushed it through like a shelf that would get rid of some of the low end build up frequencies. And I just ultimately decided I didn't want to do that because I was so enjoying the way that it sounded. Anyway, you go into this listening environment it's like basically like as clinical and meticulous as it can be. And it sounded perfect. There's no, I was so happy I didn't make that change because I was about to, I was about to push it all back by a week or so, so I could get another version of the thing. But really happy I didn't because I think it sounds great. And it is, like I said, there is a lot of low end personality, but I don't think it's inappropriate. I think it sounds great. So happy I stuck with it.

Speaker 1:
[54:11] Cool. Well, I do hope you make that West Coast Tour. There is one of those Japanese listening bars in Ballard, about a mile away from Fretboard Journal headquarters now, so you could do a show and then have a listening party over there.

Speaker 2:
[54:25] Have you been?

Speaker 1:
[54:26] I have not been yet, but they have a menu and a calendar and you can pick every day as a different record.

Speaker 2:
[54:32] Cool.

Speaker 1:
[54:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[54:33] All right. Maybe that's the move. I just go do listening parties, save some gas money. But yeah, well, that's cool to know. I'll keep that in mind.

Speaker 1:
[54:48] Well, I know you got to head to LAX and fly to the Southern Hemisphere, so thanks so much for taking the time to give us the Coachella recap.

Speaker 2:
[54:58] Of course. I'm happy to do it. And yeah, if anyone is on the fence about Dijon, I hope you can track down some of this footage because it's really, again, outside of my own biases, I think it's pretty remarkable, not only in the performance, but also in just the capture of the whole thing. I think it's really a special batch of material. But thank you very much, dude.

Speaker 1:
[55:25] That was my conversation with Ryan. If you want us to do more video interviews, leave a comment below. Let me know what you think.