“There’s gonna be some changes made around here.” The opening line to the song “Changes” on Taddy Porter’s new album couldn’t be more apropos. Co-produced by Dave Cobb (Chris Cornell, Shooter Jennings) and Mark Neill (The Black Keys), Stay Golden is an 11-song collection that marks a newly expanded sound for the band — one where British Invasion meets Motown soul, with a healthy dose of Southern blues thrown in for good measure.

“I wonder sometimes: Is it cool to hate Black Veil Brides?” asks Jake Pitts, lead guitarist for the band. It’s a fair question. After all, the band holds pride of place as heavy metal’s Public Enemy Number One. Tarted up with face paint and eyeliner, wrapped in skintight leathers and topped with razor-chopped piles of jet-black hair, Black Veil Brides epitomize the type of glammed-up, visually over-the-top rock act that has always been a lightning rod for criticism, from Kiss and Alice Cooper to Mötley Crüe to Avenged Sevenfold.

In the current March 2013 issue of Guitar World, guitar legend Peter Frampton gives GW readers the full Dear Guitar Hero treatment, answering 12 questions about everything from Pensa Suhr guitars to the status of his long-lost (and recovered) 1954 Gibson Les Paul.

In 1994, vocalist Doug Robb and guitarist Dan Estrin founded Hoobastank. When the band signed their first record contract, success came quickly and at full speed — platinum albums, chart-topping singles, world tours. Then the industry changed, and Hoobastank — Robb, Estrin, bassist Jesse Charland and drummer Chris Hesse — had to change with it. After a decade on Island Records, the band is with Open E Entertainment, for whom they have just released a new album, the appropriately titled Fight or Flight.