Citation:
A Guided Tour Of Russells Pedal Board - Taken From Total Guitar Magazine FEB 09
Is it fair to describe you as an effects addict?
"Definatly, I've been into pedals since I started playing - anything that me and my friends could afford. I think my first one was a crappy distortion. When bloc party started out, i'd carry my pedals to gigs in my backpack; as we did more, it got heavier, and by the time we turned professional, I had about 15 pedals and wiring everywhere. There was always something going wrong. So we spent a bit of money getting our pedalboards professionally built,"
Talk us through your Bloc Party pedalboard...
"It's pretty Boss-centric. I've got three delays - one DD-5 and two DD-6's - and i use one of them for looping. Having three makes it easier to change settings, otherwise I'd be frantic between songs. I've got the OS-2 Overdrive, and the RV-5 Digital Reverb, the TU-2 Tuner, and recently I got the RE-20 Space Echo, but I havn't fully explored that. Some people dismiss Boss, but I've always found it works well in the way you can manipulate it. And there's a nice range of colours!"
You've also got a Boss Super Shifter..
"I got that because it was getting a bit delay overkill. I'll often come up with something that only works in my head, then find a pedal that can do what I'm thinking. The Super Shifter is like a Whammy, essentially. I have a Whammy too but it didn't have much flexibility. You don't have manual control on the Super Shifter but the dial has a wide range of how fast and where you want it to shift. It crops up a lot on Ares, and theres a solo on The Prayer that has a big shifting note."
Do devolop riffs from effects - or vice-versa?
"Sometimes I play an unplugged electric and write the old-fashioned way, but with a song like Ares, it's not even a riff, It's the Super Shifter shifting in lots of directions."
What about your wah?
"I have a Boss V-Wah that has loads of simulations, and I use a [Dunlop] Crybaby 'cos i loved what Tim Wheeler did with one on early Ash. The one I had didn't have an "on" light, which was confusing at gigs; suddenly you sound really trebly!"
Are you much of a distortion fan?
"For distortion, i just have the Boss OS-2 Overdrive and the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, which is nice for the odd fat rock sound. But my favourite distortion is the Roland Bee Baa. It was discontinued years ago, but my friend had one and it basically turns your guitar into Siamese Dream album by The Smashing Pumpkins. It was the coolest distortion I'd heard, and i tracked one down on Ebay and bought it. But i only use it in the studio 'cos it's so rare!"
How do you use your Korg Kaoss Pad?
"It's got atleast 70 different effects, so it was good for elimintating pedals, and the coolest thing is that it's got an LCD screen so you can physically manipulate riffs with your hand. that opens up another realm of ideas, I used it as an after-effect of A Weekend In The City 'cos obviously the downside is if you're using your hands, you're not playing guitar. It was on the second little break on Song For Clay. But I ended up putting it on the pedalboard, so when you loop something, your hands are free to play around."
Do your tempo effects ever screw up?
Most of my loops aren't long enough to get thrown off. I used to have a tremelo pedal and that was frustrating 'cos you could never get it in time. You'd spend hours farting around with it. The Koass Pad is cool 'cos you can set the effect to an exact bpm - 155.2 or something - and change it mid-song or mid-strum. We play some songs to a click, so i set the Koass Pad in advance and it's perfectly in time. The wonders of modern technology..."
Where does you Electro-Hamonix PolyPhonic Octave Generator fit in?
"I use the POG on Sunday from A Weekend In The City. I was inspired to get one by the Mystery Jets 'cos we toured with them and I was messing around with their POG in soundcheck. The POG's got lots of octaves all going at once, which creates that old-school church organ kind of sound. You can make it discordant by putting in out of tune notes but that's always wuite hit-and-miss - sometimes it sounds horrible!"
Some people think pedals are cheating...
"It's actually hard work to use a lot of pedals 'cos you're playing guitat at the same time as playing with your feet. It gets pretty confusing when you've got nine different effects changes - you have to remember everything while you're still playing complicated parts. So I don't consider using effects cheating. How is it any different from using an amp? That's "cheating" 'cos its changing the sound. You might as well sit around with an acoustic singing Kumbaya"
Which Bloc Party tracks make the most of FX?
"Ares is cool, it doesn't even sound like a guitar. hnting For Witches is a nice sound.... but I'm not telling you that one. I can't give everything away!"
Do you ever play straight through the amp?
"Yeah, a song like Banquet is straight all the way, apart from the little solo right at the end of the track. There's definatly more stright stuff in the older songs 'cos i had fewer pedals back then."
For TG readers to recreate your sound on a budget,whats the key?
"for me, the most important pedal is a delay. Nine out of Ten Bloc Party songs have a delay part at some point. Boss delays are kind of expensive - mine was about £120 - but it has lots of different things. It's a delay but it's got a lopp, different speeds and a loop function. A distortion pedal is useful, but it does what it says on the box. If you're looking to create something individual, delay has more potential."
Cool, is there anything else you use?
"I have an Ernie Ball volume pedal and an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man that i use on the chorus of The Prayer. I'm not good at describing sounds, but its more of a synthesised sound, almost ghostly!"
Finally, do you ever run out of batteries?
"Well, the pedalboards we've got now run off AC power, but in the early days it was always batteries. I was always paranoid about that - So i'd always have spares!"
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