On their recent tour stop in Chicago, we had a chance to catch up with Christian Bland and Jake Garcia of psychedelic rock band The Black Angels, who were kind enough to take some time to walk us through their packed pedalboards.
In the video above, guitarist Christian Bland explains his love of fuzz pedals and talks through a few of his favorites on his board. Among them were a slew of AnalogMan fuzz pedals: the late '60s-style, germanium Sun Face NKT-275, the "much more consistent" silicon Sun Face BC-108, and the Peppermint Fuzz (Bland's main fuzz).
Bland also runs through a few other favorites on his board, like the Acid Fuzz Repeater, and then shows us the cornerstone of his sound: the Fulltone Tube Tape Echo.
After talking through Bland's library of fuzz, we had a chance to check out Jake Garcia's pedalboard and hear a bit about his personal pedal philosophy.
According to Jake, The Black Angels attempt to make their live shows as close to the experience of hearing their record as they can by using almost all of the same gear on the road as they did in the studio. On his board, Jake's go-tos are a Durham Sex Drive, a Boss Graphic Equalizer, and a Divided by 13 Dyna-Ranger with OC-44 transistors and five stages of gain.
Christian Bland also shared with us his five "desert island" records. Check out Bland's picks over at Reverb LP to learn some of the influences behind his own playing and The Black Angels' sound.