ACPG 167: Good Health Good Wealth

Anyone Can Play Guitar

Hello and welcome to episode 167 of the ACPG podcast.

This week Ben is zooming with too proper geezers, Bruce and Simon of the fantastic Good Health Good Wealth.

With a mix of Streetesqe spoken word vocals and dirty dirty beats. GHGW are a heading mix of Queens market and a eastern European club. And I love it (to quote them).

Ben, Bruce, and Simon discuss how they good started, their approach to making music, touring and playing live, and how London influences their sound.

Good Health Good Wealth are East London vocalist/songwriter/producer Bruce Breakey and Lithuania-born guitarist/producer Simon Kuzmickas; two friends who met in a central London Wetherspoons a decade ago.

Like some of the best partnerships in the history of music, there’s an odd couple quality to Good Health Good Wealth, but one that just seems to work. The pair have been winning fans with a sound that combines the poetic everyday storytelling of The Streets, Baxter Dury or Mac Miller with a taut, lightly funk influenced production style that takes its cues from everything from peak-era Neptunes productions to Justice, Daft Punk and Prince.

Despite their differences, Bruce and Simon bonded over a shared love of everything from Action Bronson to Tom Waits and played together in a punk band for years. But it was when the covid pandemic struck that they decided to take things in a different direction. With an almost spoken word delivery and knack for creating an inescapable melody, their songs have tackled everything from pining for the escape of the weekend while struggling without a job, to the thrill of finding new love in the city. Each new song showcasing Bruce’s lyrical ability to bring the minutiae of the everyday to life with an almost cinematic quality.

Thank you to Bruce, Simon, and Sarah for this interview

See you next week for JW Francis.