“I don’t have a regular pedalboard. It’s one pedal and, basically, a multifunction deal.
“I like things to be simple and efficient because I want to focus on performing and delivering my song instead of worrying about a tap dance. But I also sing, so maybe I’d have a different attitude if I were only playing guitar.
“Many years ago, I had all these pedals that I liked and a traditional ’board that I combined with a Fender combo, but I wanted them to be easier to use. I went to Home Depot, got a metal box, took the components I liked and put them in that box. I had pedals – reverb, delay and tremolo – and suddenly they all lived together in this metal box, which I rigged up to have plugged into that single Fender amp.
“I showed it to my friend Andrew Barta [inventor of the SansAmp] at Tech 21, and he came up with the very sleek Richie Kotzen RK5 Fly Rig, which I’ve been using since 2013. It’s one giant pedal with five buttons on it, and it contains two-state overdrive, fuzz/distortion, reverb, delay and boost, which also can be a compressor.
“There’s even a button I can press where it turns into a Leslie [rotary speaker effect], where the delay feature becomes the speed of the rotary.
“We’re discussing a new version, but the 2013 version has served me well. Aside from the Fly Rig, I have a wah, too. It’s a standard Dunlop Cry Baby, and it’s got an optic thing where, if you press it, the pedal activates in such a way that it’s immediately focused.”
If I had to choose one pedal for an entire show...
“It would be my two-step overdrive. Without it, I’d sound way too clean because of the [Victory Rk50] amps I use. I need something to saturate my sound, and my overdrive, which covers boost and distortion, really screams.”
- Nomad is out now via BMG.
