The Frights’ Richard Dotson - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 600

I sort of feel like an iPad kid or something, like, between songs I can't help myself. I'm staring at this ******* thing. That'd be really embarrassing if I'm the only one half set down and I had no idea. Could you imagine? Boom. Look at that. Hi, I'm Richard from The Frights. We are in Chicago, Illinois, touring our new record, Ready When You Are. Okay? Big deal. It's a big ******* deal. I play the bass in this band. This is my bass guitar. It's a Fender Precision bass. It's extraordinarily precise. I think I got this in 2018. It was brand new. I want to say it's an American Professional. It is an interesting color. I believe they called this olive or maybe sage. I don't, I have no idea, to be honest. I don't know. I don't know the first thing about this thing, to be honest. Although I do like the way it sounds, like the way it plays. Currently, I have no knobs on here because I had to take this pick guard off to repair something. And when I was tightening the ******* knob on here, I broke the screwdriver in, I broke the screwdriver in the, in the ******* knob. Is that making any sense to you? And so I just took them off and now, which is good because I, you know, I'm always fiddling with these things anyway, and I don't need to be. It's fine. Even without the knobs, I still find myself doing this. I think it's a nervous tick at this point, but whatever. They're always dimed out anyway. These are Ernie Ball super slinky bass strings. I believe that's what's in the pink package. I just changed them right now. They're brand new strings on tonight. I change my strings like every, I don't know, four-ish shows. It's kind of a feel thing. I like the strings to be really crispy and kind of bright and metallic and round. And I, you know, so I like them new. Sue me. Everyone in the band, as far as I'm aware, is half a step down. That'd be really embarrassing if I'm the only one half step down and I had no idea. Could you imagine? No, we're all half step down and myself included. Check this out. This is my rig. I'm about to rub my rig down for you. Tuning pedal. Honestly, if I'm just being real, this thing kind of pisses me off. And it does what it's supposed to do. It'll tune the guitar, but I sort of feel like an iPad kid or something. Like between songs, I can't help myself. I'm staring at this ******* thing. And I know I'm in tune. I know that I'm in tune. But between every song, even between sections of the same song, if there's more than two seconds of silence, I'm going to check my tuning. And I don't need to be doing that. So I wish that this were gone. I wish I didn't have to have this on here. But alas, here it is. Anyways, after this, this is a, what is this company called? Darkglass Microtubes B7K. This is like a preamp. It just kind of pushes the amp a little harder for me. It doesn't, well, there's a little bit of drive that comes through on this thing, too. It's mostly just like a tone-shaping, volume-giving little son of a bitch. And this is always on. I just have it on all the time. It's kind of part of the whole thing for me. From here, bass, or deluxe bass, Big Muff Pi. I've gone through five or six of these over the years. They are easily destroyed. No offense, electroharmonics. But maybe I just have a heavy foot or something. But it's just a fuzz pedal. I use it like three times in the set. Oh, but it's, these are highlight moments for me. It's always pissing sound guys off, because it's three to six times louder than my regular tone. And it's just the only setting that it has. I do this usually. Boom. It's all the way up, baby. And it doesn't need to be, you know, tinkered with beyond that mostly. This is a power supply that our tour manager Chris is letting me use, because I usually use a one spot in a daisy chain. But the daisy chain is built for pedal boards that have like nine or ten pedals on it. I only have three. And so there's all this extra cabling. And then when I put it in the pedal board box, I close it and it's like a guillotine. And it just snaps the ******* thing in half. And then I'm ---- out of luck unless Chris has one of these things, which he did. And now look at me. I'm all juiced up, baby. This is a Fender Bassman 800. This is my amp. This goes into this guy. This is a Fender. This is called a Fender Bassman 410 Neo enclosure. It has four 10-inch speakers. I'll even let you see under the hood. Boom. Look at that. Four of these things. Extra loud. We used to have stacks in this band. We used to have a saying, stack up or pack up. And we had to have stacks at least two amps high everywhere we went, no matter how small the room. And we said stack up or pack. I'm pretty sure we said stack up or pack up nearly every day. I have like a starting point, which is kind of what I have going on here. I stick on this vintage channel. I dial the bass back a little bit. I dial the mids back a little bit. I bring in a little bit of treble. And then volume is kind of middling. But honestly, it's kind of a from scratch thing every night. Every room is kind of a different thing. And so I use this to start with. But more often than not, I play a note. And immediately it's like, oh, this sounds like ----. And I have to tinker around on my hands and knees for 20 minutes and just pissing everybody off until it sounds the way I like it. But this might work because of the new strings tonight, I'm pretty hopeful. But yeah, otherwise, not much else. Actually, this head is not even mine. This belongs to a venue called Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles. It's true. This is a big unknown secret. I have the exact head, or I had the exact same head. And I was playing a show, or a friend of mine was borrowing it, playing a show at Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles. And at the end of the night, he hot-swapped the heads. And so they have my beloved amp head. And I have this piece of ---- that came from some venue. It was a house amp. Who knows how many jabronis played through this ******* thing. It sounds terrible. And the direct out, it hisses. Mine never hissed. This one hisses. That's a heads up for you tonight. It's not. But it's been like two years now. And it still turns on at work. So I guess it's a wash at the end of the day. I use Tortex Green. They're kind of thick. They're kind of hard to bend. I like a really thick pick. I don't know why. I guess I figure you can always pick lighter. But you can't pick heavier with a thin pick. I don't have much else to say about the picks. But here you go. Frights, new record, Ready When You Are. It's available now. Listen to it. Spotify, Deezer, Qobuz. Get on Qobuz. It's a good platform. I think it's on Tidal. But it might still be missing the first track. I sent them an email. But they haven't gotten back to me about it yet. ------- come to the show. Buy as many tickets as you can to the shows. And go to our Instagram. And ******* follow us on Instagram. And ******* like us. And comment. And go to our YouTube. And follow us on YouTube as well. And comment on the videos. And share the videos. And then buy tickets to the shows. Share links to the shows with your friends. So they'll buy tickets as well. The tour doesn't go on forever. So this is urgent. We need you to do this quickly. Is this going to be up probably tonight? No? OK. Then we might have to adjust some of this a little bit later. No? OK. Everything I said still stands? Record is still out? Share it? Is this enough? Should I keep moving? Keep going with it? OK. Let me show you drums. They're over here.