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“At some point I might come up with a new single-cut unique enough not to upset anybody”: Nik Huber on the perils of riffing on the classics and the evolution of his powerhouse boutique brand
There’s always the risk that someone might object to a maker’s designs. In the case of Nik Huber’s Krautster, it came 15 years after the guitar was introduced…
“If you’ve ever seen Slash give that look to whoever when they hit a bad note… You get that look once, man. You don’t want it twice”: Gilby Clarke survived a baptism by fire in Guns N’ Roses – but one day the pay checks stopped coming
The guitarist played with GN'R during their chaotic Use Your Illusion era. Now he discusses his heart-stopping audition, the early-’90s Guns album that never was and why he was never actually fired from the band
“I’m now running a dual rig – it’s like hearing Queens of the Stone Age and Guy Ritchie movies mixed together!” Meet Kid Kapichi – the UK beat-punks busting out Chuck Berry moves and opening for Liam Gallagher
Ben Beetham is a pedalboard thrill-seeker whose tones make Kid Kapichi one of the most vital bands on the UK rock scene
“If the mini-humbucker had remained exclusive to Epiphone, it may have been a mere footnote. It developed a following because they ended up in Gibson guitars”: The mini-humbucker’s surprising history – and why it deserves more love
Often passed over in conversations about the greatest electric guitar pickups, the mini-humbucker has a unique tone of its own, its story inextricably linked to Epiphone and Gibson
“Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Ry Cooder, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey and Buddy Guy... I naturally gravitated towards a Strat because my main influences were all playing them”: Philip Sayce on why the best studio magic is live
Returning with new solo LP The Wolves Are Coming, the blues ace discusses big studio energy during downtime for the world, his enduring guitar heroes, and his exacting standards for the Strat
“I was young, I had never been in the studio, and I had no idea what to expect… I took a lot of inspiration from Tom Scholz’s ’board”: Grand Funk Railroad’s new guitarist Mark Chatfield goes way back with the band
His recently resurrected school band The Godz was produced by Don Brewer, before Chatfield fell in and out with Bob Seger, rejected then embraced Mesa/Boogie, and finally became Brewer’s bandmate in Grand Funk, replacing Bruce Kulick
“I was scared to death. Miles didn’t say a word to me. Afterwards, I asked what he thought of my playing. He said, simply, ‘It was cool’”: T.M. Stevens on playing with Miles Davis and James Brown – and what went wrong on Vai’s Sex & Religion project
Vai hired the “flashy bassist with the long hair” after spotting him in a Joe Cocker video
“We lived on a train for 15 days and played 65 shows. The boxcar was a stage, and we would pull into towns that don’t get live music very often”: How Tenille Townes is taking her country sound to the people
The Canadian country star's latest EP is a journey in every sense, written on the road as she toured the country, playing boxcar gigs and raising money for a good cause
“Fretless guitars are freeing. I’m trying to convince more bands to experiment with them. You can escape from whatever box you’re in”: Fretless guitars can change your perspective on the instrument – just ask Dead Poet Society’s Jack Collins
After butchering his Schecter 7-string as a teenager, Collins turned to his Frankensteined fretless to break the spell of writer’s block. He explains how it has gone on to define his monster riffs in Dead Poet Society – even if some of his ideas make his bandmates laugh at first
“I was gonna have a year off after Knebworth, but when John rang up saying, ‘Look, I’ve got these tunes,’ I thought, ‘I’m in, mate’”: Liam Gallagher on why John Squire is like Hendrix and the best guitarist of his generation
The former Oasis frontman talks Gallagher/Squire and pays tribute to the Stone Roses guitar legend in an interview that is 100 percent gold
