July 4, 2025

Richard Sleigh interview

Richard Sleigh joins me on episode 138.

Richard is from Pennsylvania and is a renowned harmonica customiser, player and teacher. He tells how his great uncle Bill inspired him to pick up the harp, before discovering Irish music during his travels in Europe.

We hear about his first album Steppin’ Out, his recording with Dennis Gruenling, and his love for the Clifftop Appalachian festival.

Richard also shares the story behind his involvement with the MB30 harmonica and his customisation collaboration with Joe Filisko. Plus, we talk rack harmonica, teaching, and how he’s been “hot rodding” harmonicas for over 30 years.

Links:

Richard’s website: https://hotrodharmonicas.com/

Hot Rod Your Harmonicas - The Movie: https://hotrodharmonicas.myshopify.com/products/hot-rod-your-harmonica-videos

Richard’s Ultimate Foundation Harmonica Course: https://www.ultimateharmonica.com/p/the-ultimate-beginner-harmonica-course

Other harmonica customiser interviews: https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com/categories/harmonica-customiser/

Videos:

Paddy Fahey’s Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lkMs4utYpE

Cousin Sally Brown: https://youtu.be/5VaYV1CGwo4

Cuttin’ Out with Dennis Gruenling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYm8_EGaUqU

Help Me played on a rack tuition video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-U4PRMY18Y

Blues Harp Bugle tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQMrNByJR4

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com

Support the show

01:31 - Richard is from Pennsylvania, where he has lived most of his life

01:47 - Richard is renowned harmonica customiser, as well as a player and write

01:59 - Richard’s great uncle Bill played harmonica and inspired him to take up the instrument

02:59 - First started playing harmonica around age 10, having picked up the guitar age 8, and played some Dylan-style rack harmonica to being with

03:23 - Lost John by Sonny Terry really lit the torch paper when Richard was age 17 and he started playing with others

04:33 - Did some travelling in Europe on a bicycle, carrying Marine Band diatonics, a chromatic and a penny whistle

05:28 - Travelled to Ireland on this trip, which had a deep effect on Richard and the music he wanted to play

06:50 - Richard took up playing Irish music on the harmonica in a bit of vacuum, as he wasn’t aware of others doing it

07:36 - Hadn’t heard any others playing Irish music on the harmonica and then heard James Conway, who blew him away

08:30 - Richard has various Irish tunes recorded on harmonica which he has put out

09:14 - Now plays a combination of Irish and Old Timey music on harmonica and recently went to the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Music Festival in West Virginia

09:47 - David Rice was at the Clifftop festival, and Richard rates him as one of the best playing traditional tunes on harmonica

11:23 - Steppin’ Out was the first album release from Richard in 1988, put out on cassette tape

12:01 - Has recorded an album with Dennis Gruenling, where Richard plays guitar, harmonica on a rack and sings

12:48 - How got together with Dennis for the album

13:22 - Richard has been playing rack harmonica since the 1970s, and has some YouTube videos demonstrating the technique

14:03 - Key to rack to playing is to get a solid rhythm from your right arm on guitar

15:13 - Played with Bo Diddley in 1987, who was insistent that Richard didn’t play over him when he was singing

17:10 - Has also played with a couple of symphony orchestras

18:58 - Richard’s harmonica shop

19:06 - First became interested in customisation work in 1984 when attended first SPAH convention and Cham-ber Huang explained bending to Richard

19:46 - This led Richard to start working on a patent for an idea close to what became the XB40 harmonica

20:20 - How formed customisation partnership with Joe Filisko

20:53 - Discovered that Rick Epping and a few others had come up with the same idea of ‘primary and secondary reeds’ (which Rick patented)

21:50 - On the XB40 you can bend all the blow notes a semi tone and whole tone

22:30 - The differences with the 30 reed version, called the MB30, and similar to Suzuki’s SB30 model

22:55 - The MB30 was similar to the Suzuki SB30 and Richard’s involvement in the development of the the MB30

23:22 - Tom Halchak was also involved in making reed plates for the SB30

23:56 - Worked with Brendan Power and Zombor Kovacs to further develop the MB30

24:19 - Became a Hohner Affiliated Customiser

24:30 - Made fifty of the MB30s with Brendan and Zombor but the process was difficult so didn’t make any more

25:47 - Richard really loves the MB30 though and built some for himself and still plays them

27:00 - Richard would be delighted to exchange any MB30s from the people who bought the original run of 50

27:43 - The MB30 is almost the same size as a standard diatonic, whereas the XB40 is larger and has a different tone than standard diatonics

28:33 - Had been working on customisation for a long time before starting work on the MB30

28:49 - Richard’s work with Joe Filisko on the ‘Filisko Method’ diatonic harmonicas

30:33 - Richard opened a custom harmonica shop from a property his parents owned and has since been working as a harmonica customiser for over thirty years

31:06 - Richard is still in touch with Joe Filisko but not working on Filisko Method harmonicas now

31:50 - Richard developed the idea of being able to sight the harmonica reed by the use of light boxes

32:43 - Doesn’t use microscopes in customisation work as too much detail

33:05 - Welcomes the increase in harmonica customisers

34:01 - Working in harmonica customisation is not an easy way to make a living

34:07 - Harmonica customisation work has been an important source of income, alongside playing and teaching harmonica

34:34 - The basic principles followed by Richard and Joe Filisko are probably well covered by other customisers now

35:11 - Does understanding how the reed works helps your harmonica playing?

35:50 - Difference between people setting-up their harmonicas themselves and using a customiser like Richard

37:42 - Richard has a series of customisation videos to purchase called ‘Hot Rod Your Harmonica - The Movie’

39:06 - The name Hot Rod comes from Richard’s interest in vintage cars

39:57 - Still building custom Hohner Marine Band Deluxe harmonicas

40:11 - These harmonicas are not set-up for overblows as Richard doesn’t play them much as he uses the MB30 for the missing notes

40:47 - Only customises Hohner harmonicas

40:58 - Focuses on diatonic customisation

41:12 - Isn’t shipping to the EU or the UK at the moment due to the red tape involved. There are good customisers in Europe (such as Joel Andersson)

42:00 - Not doing as much customisation work as used to

42:25 - Richard’s waiting list for custom harmonicas is 6-9 months but he often completes them before then

42:44 - Has four harmonica tuition courses available: on blues, Irish, bending and Sweet Georgia Brown

43:27 - Provides evaluations of student submissions for the online Tomlin Leckie harmonica school

43:52 - An example of one of Richard’s YouTube tuition videos is on how to play a blues bugle on diatonic using arpeggios

44:48 - Also likes to write and wrote a regular article for five years for the Harmonica World magazine and sends out a monthly newsletter to his email subscribers

45:35 - Brings in elements of philosophy to his writing and how music connects him to a higher power

46:44 - Has done session work, including music for theatre productions and corporate videos where they wanted royalty free music

48:05 - Ten minute question

49:03 - Works with guitar and harmonica together, ensuring they are beautifully in tune and then work out arrangements between them

49:55 - Plays exclusively Hohner harmonicas with the Marine Band Deluxe the model of choice

50:10 - Plays some chromatic, with the older Super 64X model a favourite

50:32 - Also plays some Hohner auto-valve and Hohner Educator harmonicas

50:39 - Uses different tunings, including Paddy Richter, Country Tuned and has invented some of own tunings

50:59 - Using one tuning for one specific song is a way to navigate different tunings

51:41 - Preferred tuning system is 19-limit Just Intonation

52:15 - Plays mostly in 1st, 2nd and 3rd position but uses several more for songs as required

52:52 - Alternates between tongue blocking and lip pursing embouchre

53:11 - Uses tongue switching

53:26 - Amps of choice include a 1942 Supro and a Wahoo amp and a Kalamazoo amp

54:17 - For a clean sound uses a Fishman amp for a mini-PA and also with a Lone Wolf pedal to add distortion

54:35 - Uses custom mics from Dennis Gruenling

54:42 - Harmonica rack used

54:57 - Learned to play on an amp with no tone control which he believes helped develop his chops

55:36 - Future plans include putting out a recording of a live concert on Bandcamp and put out some more fiddle tunes played on harmonica

WEBVTT

00:00:00.226 --> 00:00:02.309
Richard Sleigh joins me on episode 138.

00:00:02.309 --> 00:00:08.478
Richard is from Pennsylvania and is a renowned harmonica customiser, player and teacher.

00:00:08.478 --> 00:00:16.030
He tells how his great uncle Bill inspired him to pick up the harmonica, before discovering Irish music during his travels in Europe.

00:00:16.030 --> 00:00:23.801
We hear about his first album, Steppin' Out, his recording with Dennis Groenling and his love for the Clifftop Appalachian Festival.

00:00:23.801 --> 00:00:32.023
Richard also shares the story behind his involvement with the MB30 harmonica and his customisation collaboration with Joe Felisco.

00:00:32.023 --> 00:00:38.911
Plus we talk rack harmonica, teaching and how he's been hot-rodding harmonicas for over 30 years.

00:00:38.911 --> 00:00:41.996
This podcast is sponsored by Zidel Harmonicas.

00:00:41.996 --> 00:00:51.747
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.zidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zidel Harmonicas.

00:00:54.018 --> 00:01:19.486
oh oh oh

00:01:25.409 --> 00:01:27.453
Hello, Richard Sleigh, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:27.453 --> 00:01:28.954
Hi, thanks, Neil.

00:01:28.954 --> 00:01:30.316
I'm happy to be here.

00:01:30.316 --> 00:01:33.783
So you're talking to us from Pennsylvania, yeah?

00:01:33.783 --> 00:01:34.804
That's right.

00:01:34.804 --> 00:01:36.266
Central Pennsylvania.

00:01:36.266 --> 00:01:40.012
And it's somewhere you've lived around that region most of your life,

00:01:40.052 --> 00:01:40.311
I think.

00:01:40.311 --> 00:01:41.353
That's right.

00:01:41.353 --> 00:01:46.662
I've moved away two or three times and moved back, and yeah, I like it here.

00:01:47.138 --> 00:01:49.662
You're somebody who I've known about for a long time.

00:01:49.662 --> 00:01:55.391
Amongst being a player and a writer, you're also a famous customizer.

00:01:55.391 --> 00:01:57.593
So we'll definitely cover that topic.

00:01:57.593 --> 00:02:01.560
But first of all, let's talk about how you got into playing the harmonica.

00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:05.085
Your great uncle Bill was your first inspiration.

00:02:05.762 --> 00:02:06.201
Yes.

00:02:06.201 --> 00:02:11.167
When I was a kid, I had my Uncle Bill, great Uncle Bill.

00:02:11.167 --> 00:02:15.770
I'm not exactly sure of the connection, but anyhow, he was in the family.

00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:31.784
He used to work on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and he was retired, and he played one of those big red 364 Marine bands, and he played a bit of a steam train imitation and some other tunes in that tongue block style.

00:02:31.784 --> 00:02:58.750
One of my favorite memories on a third floor of this old hotel building in Philipsburg where I'm visiting him in the middle of the summer and we've got the window open and he was playing harmonica and we're hanging out and then we start hearing applause and look down and there was a little crowd had gathered in the street and they were listening and it was just a fun thing to be a part of.

00:02:59.450 --> 00:03:02.653
So what sort of age were you then when you first picked up the harmonica?

00:03:03.074 --> 00:03:09.243
I messed around with it a little bit when I was like 10 to 12.

00:03:09.243 --> 00:03:12.449
I had already been playing guitar for a couple of years.

00:03:12.449 --> 00:03:20.461
I started doing some Dylan Rack style harmonica with the guitar because I was listening to Bob Dylan.

00:03:20.461 --> 00:03:23.204
So that was like 13, 14.

00:03:23.204 --> 00:03:27.266
It really hit me hard when I was 17.

00:03:27.266 --> 00:03:40.878
I started going to Altoona campus of Penn State University and I was exposed to Sonny Terry and the Folkways records and Ramblin' at Jack Elliot and Woody Guthrie.

00:03:40.878 --> 00:03:44.382
And then that led one way or another to blues.

00:03:44.382 --> 00:03:56.835
And then I got an album that was called The Story of the Blues that had John Lee Williamson and Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter and just a whole bunch of great harp players.

00:03:56.835 --> 00:03:58.836
And it totally blew my mind.

00:03:58.836 --> 00:04:12.794
I spent weeks wandering around, basically ignoring the rest of my life, including my classes, trying to play Sonny Terry's Lost John and other stuff like that.

00:04:12.794 --> 00:04:15.300
I started playing with other people.

00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:32.737
It was hard to get in edgewise in a jam at a party with a guitar because there were so many good guitar players, but I started finding ways to fit in playing little unobtrusive lines or rhythm things with the harmonica, and one thing led to another, and I kept on going with it.

00:04:33.678 --> 00:04:38.343
I also read that you did some traveling in Europe as well, and that was quite a formative time.

00:04:38.343 --> 00:04:40.245
You set some harmonicas with you and a penny whistle.

00:04:40.641 --> 00:04:59.963
Yes, I had gone to school, an exchange student at the Slade School of Art in London, and then after that semester was over, I got a job on an army base in Heidelberg, and then over that winter, I bought a Peugeot racing bicycle.

00:04:59.963 --> 00:05:15.430
I was working on an army base, so I could buy stuff through the PX, and a friend of mine had ordered this bicycle, and then he decided he didn't want it, and I said, I'll take it and I bought it and I fitted it with racks and pannier bags and all that stuff.

00:05:15.430 --> 00:05:27.668
And then I spent a little over four months traveling on that bicycle and I had a full set of marine bands and a chromatic harmonica and a couple of penny whistles.

00:05:27.668 --> 00:05:34.653
I knew I was going to Ireland, so I learned some fiddle tunes before I got to Ireland.

00:05:34.653 --> 00:05:49.567
Then when I got there, they were more interested in listening to me play like Charlie McCoy stuff or like James Taylor stuff on the guitar than they were listening to this American playing their music.

00:05:49.567 --> 00:05:56.706
But Ireland deeply affected my, my sense of what life is all about.

00:05:56.706 --> 00:06:09.451
And when I came home, I, to begin with, I wish I hadn't come home, but, uh, I ordered Plank's D albums and one by the Chieftains.

00:06:09.451 --> 00:06:16.502
At that time, I'd been playing a solo act for a while because it was really hard to beat just a harmonica player.

00:06:16.502 --> 00:06:24.273
So I played guitar, rack harmonica, but I would also feature a couple of penny whistle numbers during the evening.

00:06:24.273 --> 00:06:25.915
They went over really well.

00:06:25.915 --> 00:06:33.504
I haven't really kept up the penny whistle, but I really dug into the Irish tunes and adapting them to the harmonica.

00:06:49.858 --> 00:06:56.579
So it sounded like you were a pioneer of that because that sort of became popular later on, didn't it?

00:06:56.579 --> 00:07:00.613
So you were doing that quite early on with the Irish tunes on the harmonica.

00:07:01.218 --> 00:07:03.620
Yeah, it was really unusual.

00:07:03.620 --> 00:07:06.704
I mean, nobody else in my area was doing that.

00:07:06.704 --> 00:07:17.821
I would have these solo pieces on the harmonica, and some of them were the Irish stuff, and some of them were pretty rockin' tunes.

00:07:17.821 --> 00:07:27.353
And using cross-harp and just the various chords and octaves and other stuff that you can use.

00:07:27.353 --> 00:07:30.970
It's always been a thread in my music since the 70s.

00:07:30.970 --> 00:07:31.110
Yeah,

00:07:31.791 --> 00:07:35.476
and something, of course, you continue to do, and that's what we'll get onto shortly.

00:07:35.476 --> 00:07:40.463
So were you listening to any Irish harmonica then in the 70s, and who was that?

00:07:41.223 --> 00:07:41.464
No,

00:07:41.704 --> 00:07:42.026
I

00:07:42.406 --> 00:07:43.887
was not aware of other...

00:07:43.887 --> 00:07:45.149
I mean, other than...

00:07:45.149 --> 00:07:49.315
There were a couple on records that I got from Ireland.

00:07:49.315 --> 00:07:56.264
They were not as speed fiddle type stuff that was more melodic things.

00:07:56.586 --> 00:07:56.925
Yeah.

00:07:57.089 --> 00:08:06.264
It wasn't until, I think James Conway was the first person I met who just like totally blew my mind.

00:08:06.264 --> 00:08:09.790
You know, I thought I was good.

00:08:09.790 --> 00:08:14.357
And then I heard him and I was like, oh my God.

00:08:29.922 --> 00:08:35.169
So yeah, so as I say, you're still playing traditional tunes, and that's a big part of what you play still now, yes?

00:08:35.169 --> 00:08:35.791
Oh, yes.

00:08:35.791 --> 00:08:40.037
You've got various recordings out, some on your YouTube channel.

00:08:40.037 --> 00:08:45.664
There's you playing Cousin Sally Brown, for example, with some musicians in Pennsylvania there.

00:08:51.693 --> 00:08:51.774
Yeah.

00:09:02.721 --> 00:09:07.910
And also, you had a couple of albums, one called The Joliet Sessions, which had lots of tunes on it, didn't it?

00:09:07.910 --> 00:09:12.018
You had Black Mountain Rag, for example, and Devil's Dream, Whiskey Before Breakfast.

00:09:12.018 --> 00:09:13.841
Plenty of tunes in your output.

00:09:14.722 --> 00:09:23.618
And the stuff that I'm playing now is a combination of Irish and old-timey Appalachian fiddle tunes.

00:09:23.618 --> 00:09:27.745
I really have been diving into those over the last couple of years.

00:09:27.745 --> 00:09:31.070
It's a really interesting subculture.

00:09:31.070 --> 00:09:37.097
Last summer I spent over a week at a festival called Clifftop in West Virginia.

00:09:37.097 --> 00:09:46.850
There were like 3,000 people gathered there and some of the best banjo and fiddle players and some really good harmonica players too.

00:09:46.850 --> 00:09:56.563
David Rice was there and he is one of the absolutely most advanced players on the planet in that style.

00:09:56.563 --> 00:10:24.409
Seth Schumatte was there, and there were some others, but yeah, I've been really digging into that music and finding people to play it with in this area, which is great.

00:10:24.409 --> 00:10:35.490
One of the things that blew my mind at the clifftop was I ended up sitting next to this fella and we got to talk and he says, yeah, I live in Ireland and I said, do you know Rick Epping?

00:10:35.490 --> 00:10:36.611
And he said, oh yeah.

00:10:36.611 --> 00:10:40.216
He says, yeah, once a week we have an old-timey session.

00:10:40.216 --> 00:10:48.342
He's living in Ireland and that's part of the music that he's playing and he knew Rick Epping, which is awesome.

00:10:48.722 --> 00:11:06.426
Well, I've had Rick and Seth Schumacher on the podcast, so you can check those two out if you haven't uh heard them already so yeah i mean i know rick moved to ireland just so he could go and play the irish music there that's that's devotion for you so yeah as i say you had this joliet sessions about in the early 2000s

00:11:22.070 --> 00:11:22.110
so

00:11:23.330 --> 00:11:25.710
You also released an album called Stepping Out.

00:11:25.710 --> 00:11:26.919
Was that the first one you put out?

00:11:27.361 --> 00:11:41.095
Yes, that was originally put out on cassette tapes, to give you some idea of the vintage, and it was recorded to two-inch tape in a studio, totally old-school analog recording.

00:11:41.115 --> 00:11:42.076
¶¶ ¶¶

00:12:01.634 --> 00:12:05.644
You also, you've recorded an album with Dennis Groenling.

00:12:05.644 --> 00:12:13.605
You're playing guitar, harmonica on a rack and singing, and Dennis is taking a lot of the solos, but you do play harmonica on there yourself as well.

00:12:13.826 --> 00:12:31.803
Yes, yeah, and acoustic rack and also one of my mutant tube amp green bullet element racks, a rig that I made for playing amplified green bullet element type tube amp stuff on that recording as well.

00:12:31.803 --> 00:12:34.206
Drive me out of my mind.

00:12:34.746 --> 00:12:41.133
Oh, oh, oh.

00:12:41.133 --> 00:12:41.793
Oh, oh, oh.

00:12:41.793 --> 00:12:42.333
Oh, oh, oh.

00:12:48.354 --> 00:12:49.855
So how did you get together with this

00:12:50.056 --> 00:12:50.716
album with Dennis?

00:12:50.716 --> 00:13:00.285
He visited me in my hometown of Phillipsburg where I had my original harmonica shop and we did that recording in my shop.

00:13:00.285 --> 00:13:06.331
We did it on his laptop and he just set it up and we just went for it.

00:13:06.572 --> 00:13:07.052
Well, that's great.

00:13:07.052 --> 00:13:14.038
Dennis is a fantastic player.

00:13:16.981 --> 00:13:30.649
So You know, you've got a number of recordings on Rack and you've got some stuff on your YouTube channel where you're demonstrating various things, haven't you?

00:13:30.649 --> 00:13:33.096
So yeah, Rack Harmonica is something you're still playing as well.

00:13:33.666 --> 00:13:40.672
oh yeah yeah i love combining the harmonica and the guitar and i've been doing it since the 70s

00:13:41.152 --> 00:14:04.072
i saw one of your videos uh about help me about how to play help me on guitar and on a rack and singing so really well put together i like the way you build it so you know kind of simple phrases that you can put in and then you start building it up as you you're practicing it so that was a really good and it's really effective because i think a lot of people want to do that but it's doing the two things at once isn't the easiest yeah the key is to

00:14:04.133 --> 00:14:58.364
get your right arm if you play right right-handed you know get your right arm locked in so you get a rhythm pattern that you can put on autopilot and and that makes everything else much easier so it took me quite a while to to really start doing that independently but you know funny thing is when i first started working on that i had just as much trouble singing and playing the guitar at the same time as i did playing rack harp and guitar at the same time it was like one or the other was working But it took a long time before both of them were working at the same time.

00:15:00.025 --> 00:15:01.067
Yeah, well, it's like everything.

00:15:01.067 --> 00:15:02.089
You need to practice, right?

00:15:02.089 --> 00:15:03.990
So you think you could just pick it up and do it?

00:15:03.990 --> 00:15:05.032
You've got to practice it, right?

00:15:05.032 --> 00:15:13.181
So just picking out some more stuff you've done on your playing before we get on to the other side of your harmonica world.

00:15:13.181 --> 00:15:16.063
So I understand you play with Bo Diddley.

00:15:16.063 --> 00:15:17.525
So what happened here?

00:15:18.306 --> 00:15:26.052
He was coming to play for the Arts Festival here in State College and they needed a band to back him up.

00:15:26.052 --> 00:15:29.034
So I got hired as part of the band.

00:15:29.034 --> 00:15:34.220
A friend of mine was one of the people that helped connect everybody.

00:15:34.220 --> 00:15:44.869
So he shows up shortly before the performance and just assumes that we know what we're doing, that we've listened to his recordings.

00:15:44.869 --> 00:15:47.671
My friend Jerry's introducing me to him.

00:15:47.671 --> 00:15:52.659
And I have my hand out and everything, and I was going, great to meet you and this.

00:15:52.659 --> 00:15:55.664
And he just, he didn't move.

00:15:55.664 --> 00:16:02.277
He just looked at me and he said, when I sing the blues, don't play over me.

00:16:02.277 --> 00:16:05.643
And I didn't.

00:16:08.489 --> 00:16:09.750
So how much did you get to play with him?

00:16:09.750 --> 00:16:11.354
Was this like a whole set or?

00:16:11.874 --> 00:16:14.576
Yeah, we played an entire show.

00:16:14.576 --> 00:16:18.880
There were thousands of people in the audience, and I was in the back.

00:16:18.880 --> 00:16:34.316
Near the end of the set, he pointed at me and motioned me up and brought me up front, and he was vamping away on this song, and he would turn to me and look at me, and he'd say, not yet.

00:16:34.316 --> 00:16:37.259
And he did that about seven times.

00:16:37.259 --> 00:16:47.020
And then finally, he looked at me and just went, Go! And I just went nuts until he looked at me again.

00:16:47.020 --> 00:16:52.826
And it was really, it was an amazing experience.

00:16:53.466 --> 00:16:53.707
Hit me.

00:16:53.707 --> 00:17:05.819
Girl, put your clothes on.

00:17:07.102 --> 00:17:07.582
Put your clothes on, girl.

00:17:09.890 --> 00:17:12.703
So another thing, you played with a symphony orchestra.

00:17:12.703 --> 00:17:16.281
What type of harmonica was that?

00:17:16.642 --> 00:17:18.443
It was a couple of times.

00:17:18.443 --> 00:17:28.612
I played with the Bridgeton Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey, and they did this show that included a harmonica excerpt.

00:17:28.612 --> 00:17:30.913
I was playing Turkey in the Straw.

00:17:30.913 --> 00:17:34.857
So I showed up for the practice.

00:17:34.857 --> 00:17:43.065
I'm in the middle right in front of the conductor, and they start playing, and it was so overwhelming to be in the middle of all that sound.

00:17:43.065 --> 00:17:53.438
I was terrified that I was going to miss my cue But he pointed at me, I started playing, I nailed it, and I was in.

00:17:53.438 --> 00:17:57.144
And it was just a lot of fun.

00:17:57.144 --> 00:18:01.631
So were you reading from a score or was it something that you'd memorized?

00:18:01.631 --> 00:18:03.113
I memorized it.

00:18:03.113 --> 00:18:08.500
There was this one part where I jumped in and I was featured and I played my thing.

00:18:08.500 --> 00:18:10.318
then I just hung out.

00:18:10.318 --> 00:18:23.315
I played with the Worcester Symphony Orchestra and Paquito de Rivera, the cross-country suite, and I played the harmonica part in that, including a solo.

00:18:23.315 --> 00:18:32.424
Playing with the symphony orchestra is really, really an amazing experience.

00:18:32.424 --> 00:18:35.259
I'm very Glad that I had those opportunities.

00:18:35.259 --> 00:18:36.000
And

00:18:36.041 --> 00:18:37.343
were you playing diatonic?

00:18:37.343 --> 00:18:37.864
Both

00:18:37.923 --> 00:18:38.684
times, yes.

00:18:54.753 --> 00:18:58.339
So let's get then onto your customization side.

00:18:58.339 --> 00:19:00.502
So you said you had a harmonica shop there.

00:19:00.502 --> 00:19:02.105
Was that what got you started?

00:19:02.105 --> 00:19:03.928
What were you doing in the shop?

00:19:03.928 --> 00:19:05.991
Were you just selling harmonicas or your custom things?

00:19:06.511 --> 00:19:14.525
Well, what happened was in 1984, I went to my first spa convention and I went there with this question in my mind.

00:19:14.525 --> 00:19:20.053
I need somebody to explain to me what's happening with bending because nobody could explain it to me.

00:19:20.053 --> 00:19:28.845
and I wanted to know why the notes bent the way they did and why you could only bend the draw notes on the low end of the harmonica, et cetera, et cetera.

00:19:28.845 --> 00:19:32.048
I ended up at a banquet table with Chomber Hwang.

00:19:32.048 --> 00:19:42.416
He explained the whole thing to me, the way the reeds interact and why it's different to bend reeds on a chromatic harmonica and how overblows.

00:19:42.416 --> 00:19:45.559
He just, it was a detailed explanation.

00:19:45.559 --> 00:19:57.172
I went home, figured out the idea of having, called them primary and secondary reeds, and I was writing a patent for that idea of building a harmonica.

00:19:57.172 --> 00:20:00.415
I built a prototype that worked.

00:20:00.415 --> 00:20:13.550
I made valves out of paper, one-way valves, and I had created this thing, and I was delirious with this discovery, and I thought I was on my way.

00:20:13.550 --> 00:20:19.397
So I started building prototypes, and that's where I learned all the skills to work on reed plates.

00:20:19.397 --> 00:20:31.348
I met Joe Felisco by tracking him down and convincing him to allow me to go visit him and look at my prototype and stuff.

00:20:31.348 --> 00:20:34.032
I visited him for a couple of days.

00:20:34.032 --> 00:20:40.882
At that time, I was living in Philly, took a train to Joliet, met Joe, showed him my stuff, and we hung out.

00:20:40.882 --> 00:20:43.224
I also played a lot of harmonica and guitar.

00:20:43.224 --> 00:20:48.854
So he started working with me on a prototype.

00:20:48.854 --> 00:20:52.921
He made a mouthpiece for me, and we just stayed in touch.

00:20:52.921 --> 00:21:00.094
And then I found out later on that Rick Epping got the patent that covered everything I was trying to patent.

00:21:00.094 --> 00:21:02.887
And this was the XB-40.

00:21:02.887 --> 00:21:14.738
Yeah, his patent included the XB-40 idea for the 40-reed valved harmonica, as well as a three-reed per hole version of it.

00:21:14.738 --> 00:21:20.202
You know, I learned later on that Will Scarlett had come up with that idea.

00:21:20.202 --> 00:21:25.768
Brendan Power had a version of it that he had been working on with Suzuki.

00:21:25.768 --> 00:21:27.388
It was like a race, was it?

00:21:27.388 --> 00:21:29.711
The first to get it out was Rick, yeah.

00:21:29.711 --> 00:21:30.511
Right, yeah.

00:21:30.511 --> 00:21:41.287
And I remember joking with Brendan Power at one point that, you know, he had discovered somebody else in Eastern Europe that had also come up with the idea independently about the same time.

00:21:41.287 --> 00:21:48.938
And we started joking about having a support group for people who had come up with this invention, but didn't get

00:21:48.978 --> 00:21:49.518
the patent.

00:21:49.518 --> 00:21:57.609
So just reminding people about the XP40, I think that one of the main characteristics is that you can bend all the blown outs as well.

00:21:57.609 --> 00:21:57.829
Yeah.

00:21:58.402 --> 00:22:05.009
Yes, it has 40 reeds and then internal valves that isolate pairs of reeds.

00:22:05.009 --> 00:22:16.960
So any of the reeds are capable of two half-step bends, and then the draw three will give you the three half-step bends.

00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:22.246
So you can play fully chromatically by using bends.

00:22:22.246 --> 00:22:32.372
It's impossible to play overblows on it because it's configured in such a way that you can do all of those double reed bends.

00:22:32.372 --> 00:22:44.806
And then the 30 reed versions of it have the same basic idea, but they don't have, in some areas, they don't have the same options for the additional bends.

00:22:44.806 --> 00:22:54.897
Like on a Draw 5, on the MB30, you can't get a full step bend, but you can get all of the chromatic pitches through bending.

00:22:54.897 --> 00:23:05.411
The MB-30 was the 30-read, 20-valve version of the idea that was similar to the Sub-30 that Suzuki put out.

00:23:05.411 --> 00:23:08.077
Brendan showed me a prototype in 1997.

00:23:08.077 --> 00:23:14.410
of his triple reed version that was made by Suzuki.

00:23:14.410 --> 00:23:22.076
Suzuki came out with the sub 30 and I got involved with them for a while working on this sub 30.

00:23:22.076 --> 00:23:30.324
Tom Holchak had started making plates to adapt the sub 30 to make it work better.

00:23:30.324 --> 00:23:37.750
Brendan Power was also working on the same ideas and he was working with Tom Holchak on some of this stuff.

00:23:37.750 --> 00:24:07.605
Anyhow, it's just a lot of different things were going on and at one point I had come up with an internal valve system that I thought was super cool for the sub 30 and I brought it to the spa and I was going to show it to Brendan and then Brendan and Zombor were there and they had their prototypes of the MB30 and I looked at what they were doing and checked it out and I was like, this is it.

00:24:07.605 --> 00:24:10.711
They really figured this out.

00:24:10.711 --> 00:24:16.121
I loved what they were doing, and eventually I got involved with them.

00:24:16.121 --> 00:24:28.605
And I also moved on and then got involved with Hohner and got into the Hohner-affiliated customizer program and was working with Hohner stuff.

00:24:28.605 --> 00:24:43.674
Brendan and Zombor decided to make a go of making a run of the MB30, which is this 30-read version of the idea using marine band reed plates.

00:24:43.674 --> 00:25:01.971
Zombor had figured out this brilliant and incredibly complicated way of milling out the marine band reed plates so you could make a double thick reed plate that had 20 reeds in it with extra slots for the reeds to swing through.

00:25:01.971 --> 00:25:06.878
And we made 50 of these harmonicas.

00:25:06.878 --> 00:25:21.559
And one of the real tricky problems was coming up with valve material that would allow the reeds to swing freely, but they would also close instantly when you changed air direction.

00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:28.170
And to make a long story short, we built 50 of these and it was so difficult.

00:25:28.170 --> 00:25:34.696
getting everything dialed in and customized and set up and tuned.

00:25:34.696 --> 00:25:46.558
Right, and so we built 50 of these MB-30s, and then we were all just so worn out from the whole process that we didn't make any plans to make any more.

00:25:46.558 --> 00:26:00.896
And I really fell in love with that instrument, and eventually I managed to get enough parts from Brendan and Zalmbor to build myself a short set of them.

00:26:00.896 --> 00:26:05.246
I have them in A, Bb, C, D, and G.

00:26:05.246 --> 00:26:11.817
And they are a big part of what I do when I'm playing out.

00:26:11.817 --> 00:26:16.246
They allow me to play a lot of things that I can't play on a normal harp.

00:26:24.417 --> 00:26:30.461
Thank you.

00:26:30.721 --> 00:26:59.146
these instruments I have to work on at them all the time I'm constantly reworking valves and adjusting them and it's kind of a high wire act because they'll go into a gig and I don't have backups I mean I eventually I will be able to build an extra A and C and G but the B flat and D if they go out in the middle of a gig I just have to go to a normal harmonica and carry on so

00:27:00.347 --> 00:27:04.733
you're the only person uh that you know of what you're playing the mb30 now are you

00:27:05.516 --> 00:27:30.615
other people have them i don't know uh how much they're being used by other people i know that the people that i sold mb30s to every once in a while and i talked to them and say hey you want to you want to sell that back to me and they won't they won't let go of them so i'm sort of on the market to find more because, you know, I just like to be able to have backups.

00:27:31.095 --> 00:27:31.516
Well, there we go.

00:27:31.516 --> 00:27:35.278
If anyone's got some who's listening, then Richard wants some.

00:27:35.278 --> 00:27:36.220
I'll barter.

00:27:36.220 --> 00:27:39.102
I make other things that you might like.

00:27:39.102 --> 00:27:41.163
Exactly, exactly.

00:27:41.163 --> 00:27:41.865
You can swap them.

00:27:41.865 --> 00:27:43.026
That sounds like a great deal.

00:27:43.026 --> 00:27:48.490
So, yeah, so what is the difference then in a nutshell between that and the XB40?

00:27:48.490 --> 00:27:51.232
It's the 30 read rather than 40 is the first one.

00:27:51.232 --> 00:27:51.633
The

00:27:51.952 --> 00:27:54.055
MB30 is the same size.

00:27:54.055 --> 00:27:59.741
It's slight than a normal marine band, so you can do all the hand effects.

00:28:00.242 --> 00:28:02.164
Yeah, because the XB-40 is quite big, isn't it?

00:28:02.164 --> 00:28:05.048
I own one at one point, and the size is quite significant.

00:28:05.088 --> 00:28:08.713
Yes, and the tone is also different on the XB-40.

00:28:08.713 --> 00:28:28.365
The XB-40 is kind of like in between a diatonic and a chromatic in its overall sound, which is great for Celtic music and certain things, but it just doesn't have the same raspy tone uh, sound that I get out of a Marine band.

00:28:28.665 --> 00:28:28.826
Yeah.

00:28:28.826 --> 00:28:30.346
So it's, it's closer to the Marine band.

00:28:30.346 --> 00:28:30.527
Yeah.

00:28:30.527 --> 00:28:32.588
So yeah, it sounds like a great, a great use.

00:28:32.588 --> 00:28:32.808
Yeah.

00:28:32.808 --> 00:28:35.892
So we got onto the story of the MB30 there.

00:28:35.892 --> 00:28:43.719
So, um, is that one of the things you started working on first or were you doing customization for a while before you started working on that?

00:28:44.098 --> 00:28:48.742
Oh, I'd been doing customizing for many years before the MB30 came along.

00:28:49.242 --> 00:28:55.788
So, so let's talk some more about your relationship with Joe Flisco because Joe Flisco's harps are, you know, pretty legendary, right?

00:28:55.788 --> 00:28:57.751
And his customization work.

00:28:57.751 --> 00:29:03.718
So you teamed up with him, didn't you, to work on what is the Flisco method harmonica.

00:29:03.718 --> 00:29:06.601
And it was you and another guy, wasn't it?

00:29:06.601 --> 00:29:12.728
You were sort of affiliated with Joe to make what was his design, was it?

00:29:12.728 --> 00:29:16.791
Well, his way of customizing diatonic marine bands, wasn't

00:29:17.311 --> 00:29:17.352
it?

00:29:17.352 --> 00:29:30.009
Really, what happened was I started working with Joe and he brought stuff to the table from his machine And I brought stuff to the table from my background as a printmaker.

00:29:30.009 --> 00:29:31.616
I studied printmaking...

00:29:31.616 --> 00:29:34.877
And I used to do zinc plate and copper plate etchings.

00:29:34.877 --> 00:29:43.990
And early on, when I heard about the rumors about closing up slots by burnishing, I said, well, I have a burnishing tool.

00:29:43.990 --> 00:29:48.997
And so I figured out what that meant on my own.

00:29:48.997 --> 00:29:54.944
And other people were using other methods for closing up the slots.

00:29:54.944 --> 00:30:01.173
And so what is known as the Felisco method is really a collaboration.

00:30:01.173 --> 00:30:12.289
Joe got the ball rolling and he got all the basic elements together, but we both collaborated over a period of years and did hundreds of experiments.

00:30:12.289 --> 00:30:22.826
So it's really a combination of, you know, we just ended up deciding to use Felisco method as a label for marketing.

00:30:23.105 --> 00:30:25.589
But it's really a collaboration.

00:30:25.589 --> 00:30:32.861
I have invented a lot of tools and techniques on my own for customizing harmonicas.

00:30:32.861 --> 00:30:37.167
Working on that idea got me connected with Joe.

00:30:37.167 --> 00:30:43.357
And when he got overwhelmed with orders, he talked to me about possibly jumping into doing the work.

00:30:43.357 --> 00:30:45.221
And I decided to go for it.

00:30:45.221 --> 00:30:48.465
And that's when we moved to Phillipsburg.

00:30:48.465 --> 00:30:57.201
My parents had this old hotel building that had a doctor's office that I took over and turned into a shop.

00:30:57.201 --> 00:31:04.367
The idea was to make a go of building custom harmonicas as a career, and I've been doing it since then.

00:31:04.367 --> 00:31:06.210
It's been over 30 years.

00:31:06.609 --> 00:31:11.673
You're still doing, of course, customized harmonicas now, so you're using...

00:31:11.673 --> 00:31:14.656
Are you still collaborating with Joe, or are you just doing your own thing?

00:31:14.656 --> 00:31:16.298
Are you still using these same techniques?

00:31:16.298 --> 00:31:19.161
I guess they've developed in different directions with you?

00:31:19.922 --> 00:31:21.883
Yeah, we stay in touch.

00:31:21.883 --> 00:31:24.786
We have a good relationship.

00:31:24.786 --> 00:31:26.666
I get with him...

00:31:26.666 --> 00:31:31.633
through text and swap notes and stuff like that.

00:31:31.633 --> 00:31:49.451
Probably by the early 2000s, a good basic system for creating customized harmonicas, we had hit on all of the things that you needed to pay attention to.

00:31:49.451 --> 00:32:04.685
And one of the things that I really went all in on developing was way of looking at citing the reads so you could see what you're doing as you're doing the customizing.

00:32:04.685 --> 00:32:15.615
And I've worked on a lot of different designs for light boxes and ways to, like for instance, you use one eye to look at a read.

00:32:15.615 --> 00:32:30.961
And if you can situate that eye in one place and you're not moving it left to right or up and down or whatever, if you can keep your eyeball in one place, you will see far more accurately the work you're doing.

00:32:30.961 --> 00:32:42.442
And that's one of the things that I went really deep into, and I came up with some lightbox designs to help you center your eye, for example.

00:32:42.882 --> 00:32:44.884
You haven't gone to using a microscope then?

00:32:45.503 --> 00:32:48.446
I tried that and it just drove me nuts.

00:32:48.446 --> 00:32:52.009
It, you know, it looked, it was too much.

00:32:52.250 --> 00:32:53.411
Too close, too much detail.

00:32:53.471 --> 00:32:57.114
Yeah, it looks like, you know, you're looking at the surface of the moon or something.

00:32:57.153 --> 00:32:57.815
Yeah.

00:32:57.815 --> 00:33:04.441
So, I mean, again, the Felisco method hops, which, as you say, you were integral to creating were, you know, legendary then.

00:33:04.441 --> 00:33:06.782
But there's a lot of customizers around now.

00:33:06.782 --> 00:33:11.507
I mean, at that time, were you guys kind of like one of the first to really get them out?

00:33:11.507 --> 00:33:15.089
And, you know, what do you think about the fact that there are a lot of customizers now?

00:33:15.089 --> 00:33:18.534
I mean, how do you think things have developed since then?

00:33:18.534 --> 00:33:19.595
I think it's great.

00:33:19.595 --> 00:33:19.955
I mean,

00:33:20.135 --> 00:33:29.826
I knew this knowledge would go out that people would be learning, either discovering on their own or learning from other people.

00:33:29.826 --> 00:33:44.402
I created a series of videos over a decade ago, maybe 15 years or so, where I show step-by-step all of the basic stuff that you need to understand to customize harmonicas.

00:33:44.402 --> 00:33:52.750
And I think it's important that that information is out there and people keep collaborating and talking to each other and pushing the envelope.

00:33:52.750 --> 00:33:54.412
You know, I think it's great.

00:33:54.412 --> 00:34:02.981
And there are some, you know, amazing customizers out there who have taken this path and, you know, and I got to hand it to them.

00:34:02.981 --> 00:34:05.044
It's not an easy way to make a living.

00:34:07.266 --> 00:34:10.849
But I mean, you've been doing it since 1994 as your sort of main income.

00:34:10.849 --> 00:34:11.471
Is that right?

00:34:11.690 --> 00:34:20.606
I've also done a number of other things you know I've also been performing all the long and I've been doing more and more teaching and

00:34:20.802 --> 00:34:24.766
But one of the, both of your stream, but yeah, but you've certainly been an income stream.

00:34:24.786 --> 00:34:25.106
Yes.

00:34:25.106 --> 00:34:25.626
Oh yeah.

00:34:25.626 --> 00:34:28.809
Major income stream for me for 30 years.

00:34:29.371 --> 00:34:34.375
So the ideas that you and Joe came up with, and again, you know, becoming the very legendary harmonicas.

00:34:34.375 --> 00:34:39.981
I mean, do you think the other customizers around now are using the same sort of ideas?

00:34:39.981 --> 00:34:44.786
You think you were doing things differently or, you know, generally is it all the same, but how well you do it?

00:34:45.126 --> 00:34:58.309
You know, there are basic principles you have, you have to follow and, And if you get into this work and study the available information, you're going to come up with something real close to what I'm doing.

00:34:58.309 --> 00:35:11.313
There are certain things about the way the reed sits and how it's centered and how you burnish the slots and how you tune them that all are involved with the laws of physics and the physical material that you're working with.

00:35:11.585 --> 00:35:18.856
Do you think understanding how the reed works, and the harmonica works in other ways, really helps your playing?

00:35:19.458 --> 00:35:37.326
Yes, I think that for understanding the way that you change the size of the resonance space inside of your mouth and throat affects the reeds, affects the tone, and also is the way that you bend the notes.

00:35:37.326 --> 00:35:49.403
And understanding that direct relationship between that space you're creating inside of your mouth and the sound that you're getting out of the instrument is super important.

00:35:50.184 --> 00:35:52.927
I mean, and I'm somebody, I do set up my harps.

00:35:52.927 --> 00:35:55.248
Every time I get a new harmonica, I set it up myself.

00:35:55.248 --> 00:36:01.934
So I have a reasonable knowledge, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a real expert on it, but I do a sort of, at least a basic setup myself.

00:36:01.934 --> 00:36:21.708
You know, I emboss the reeds and, you know, do some gapping and things, you know, and you know, when you've got a nice setup harmonica it just plays so much better so you know what what do you think the difference is between you know people like me doing it myself doing a reasonable job and then someone like yourself who obviously has been doing it you know as part of your income for a long time

00:36:22.170 --> 00:36:50.498
the big difference is you you know the basics and Now, you also know that if you, I think one of the things that I do is I'm using a lot of different methods for lighting the reeds, either backlighting or silhouetting or changing the lighting conditions so I can see very, very fine increments of of differences in the shape and the way the reed goes through the slot.

00:36:50.498 --> 00:36:55.802
And so it's just like getting 1% here, 1% there, and it adds up.

00:36:55.802 --> 00:37:16.262
What you're doing and what the average harmonica player can do by just simply taking the cover plates off or taking the reed plates off, looking at the reeds, making them sit a little bit closer, check the tuning, that will give you a lot of performance for a relatively small Yeah.

00:37:37.505 --> 00:37:37.985
Exactly.

00:37:37.985 --> 00:37:39.588
Like you say, you've got the right tools, right?

00:37:39.588 --> 00:37:40.789
You've got the experience as well.

00:37:40.789 --> 00:37:42.329
And yeah, it's really working on them.

00:37:42.329 --> 00:37:46.132
So all your knowledge is available to buy, right?

00:37:46.132 --> 00:37:50.056
So you've got Hot Roger Harmonica, the movie.

00:37:50.056 --> 00:38:02.307
So Richard, you've released a series of 19 videos where you talk through various techniques, including the light box that you've been talking about, and that's available, which is a real bargain price of $49.

00:38:02.307 --> 00:38:07.472
So this is available for people to buy from your website.

00:38:07.472 --> 00:38:07.853
Yes,

00:38:08.534 --> 00:38:14.253
you can buy it through my website in the Shopify store.

00:38:14.253 --> 00:38:21.114
You can also order the physical DVDs through Rock and Ron in San Diego.

00:38:21.378 --> 00:38:21.978
Yeah.

00:38:21.978 --> 00:38:34.829
So, I mean, that's a great, I mean, obviously now there's lots of YouTube videos with, with customization stuff, but, uh, I think a lot of people know that it's nice to go to a definitive source and also to get like a combination rather than jumping around lots of videos.

00:38:34.829 --> 00:38:35.110
Yeah.

00:38:35.110 --> 00:38:39.152
So I'm sure, uh, you know, it's, it's worth the money for that if nothing else.

00:38:39.152 --> 00:38:39.393
Yeah.

00:38:39.634 --> 00:38:54.056
And it's a good solid grounding in, in the basic principles, you know, instead of learning a exactly why you're doing what you're doing.

00:38:54.369 --> 00:38:58.373
And you give a money back guarantee of this $49 too, don't you?

00:38:58.373 --> 00:38:59.414
People aren't satisfied.

00:38:59.474 --> 00:38:59.994
That's right.

00:38:59.994 --> 00:39:05.719
And I've sold thousands of these and I've refunded about three people.

00:39:06.340 --> 00:39:07.541
So we'll just talk briefly on this.

00:39:07.541 --> 00:39:08.722
So the name is Hot Rod.

00:39:08.722 --> 00:39:10.903
So your website is Hot Rod Harmonica.

00:39:10.903 --> 00:39:13.626
Where did the name Hot Rod come from, not Hot Richard?

00:39:15.427 --> 00:39:18.050
I just started thinking of Hot Rod.

00:39:18.050 --> 00:39:23.996
I've always loved antique cars, vintage cars, Hot Rods, that whole...

00:39:23.996 --> 00:39:43.635
yeah and you know and i've come up with a logo that uses like hot rod flame type you know wings that uh so it's it's just the idea of you know you have a car that looks like a ford but but on the inside it's all been hot rotted and that's the idea of the harmonica hot rod harmonica

00:39:44.036 --> 00:39:46.219
do you do work on vintage cars as well

00:39:46.259 --> 00:39:53.536
i used to but it's a lot Harmonicas take a lot less space and take a lot less money.

00:39:54.561 --> 00:40:08.400
exactly exactly yeah stick to the harmonicas good to hear so you still are building custom harmonicas right and um you have your uh richard slay marine band deluxe um which is you you launched a while back yes you're still building

00:40:08.460 --> 00:40:39.307
yeah i i and at this point i build i'm i'm focusing on building the kind of harmonicas that i personally play which are not totally hot rotted for for overblows i don't use that many overblows in my playing and I mean, every once in a while, if I need to do something that requires an overblow or an overdraw, I know how to, you know, fix a particular harmonica for that, but most of the time I'm either playing the MB-30s or I'm playing using traditional bending.

00:40:39.668 --> 00:40:47.255
These are Marine Band Deluxes that you're doing, so it's mainly those that you, well, is the hone, are you customizing other brands as well, I take it?

00:40:47.635 --> 00:40:48.516
No, just honers.

00:40:48.516 --> 00:40:53.119
I'm a straight up honer all the way affiliated customizer.

00:40:53.119 --> 00:40:58.074
I buy the parts from Hohner and that's all I work with.

00:40:58.373 --> 00:41:02.085
And do you do chromatics or any others or is it only diatonics?

00:41:02.626 --> 00:41:06.849
My focus is the marine bandolox, the diatonics.

00:41:06.849 --> 00:41:12.054
I know how to work on other instruments, but it's not something I do.

00:41:12.054 --> 00:41:12.094
I

00:41:12.574 --> 00:41:20.320
did notice, looking at your website, that unfortunately at the moment you're no longer shipping to the European Union or the UK due to red tape problems.

00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:22.923
Is that still in place?

00:41:23.103 --> 00:41:34.974
Yeah, and the thing is, Joel Anderson makes awesome customs, and there are other people in Germany in the affiliated customizer program.

00:41:34.974 --> 00:41:38.739
So there are good customizers that can handle that market.

00:41:38.739 --> 00:41:46.686
And yeah, it's just a real pain to do shipping to Europe and the UK.

00:41:47.347 --> 00:41:48.329
Yeah, okay, yeah.

00:41:48.329 --> 00:41:51.431
But as you say, other customizers in Europe are available.

00:41:51.431 --> 00:41:53.253
So great, good stuff.

00:41:53.253 --> 00:41:56.697
Great that you're still continuing doing your customization work.

00:41:56.697 --> 00:42:00.382
And as I say, it's been a really key part of your harmonica life, yeah.

00:42:00.577 --> 00:42:04.684
Yeah, I'm not doing it as much as I used to, but I'm still doing it.

00:42:04.684 --> 00:42:11.853
I've ended up extending my wait time, my wait list, but I like staying in touch.

00:42:11.853 --> 00:42:24.512
And I also repair the instruments I have built, and I put them on a faster track so that people are not stuck without their custom harp.

00:42:25.072 --> 00:42:28.297
Yeah, because you've got a waiting list of six months or so, haven't you, for new ones?

00:42:28.297 --> 00:42:28.577
Yes.

00:42:28.577 --> 00:42:32.028
which isn't bad in some of the other customizers I've talked to.

00:42:32.028 --> 00:42:34.791
So six months isn't such a long wait compared to

00:42:34.811 --> 00:42:35.271
some.

00:42:35.271 --> 00:42:40.016
I advertise six to nine months and a lot of times I get under six months.

00:42:40.016 --> 00:42:43.778
So it's as good as I can do and still have a life.

00:42:44.860 --> 00:42:45.239
So great.

00:42:45.239 --> 00:42:47.362
So we'll move on from your customization work.

00:42:47.362 --> 00:42:53.166

Richard Sleigh interview

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