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December 2025

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136 articles

December 15
- “I’m very grateful to have it and be its current custodian”: The surprising Cinderella story of the vintage Nocaster that connects a glam metal star to Keith Urban
- “Gary was great on a 335 – he really, really pulled the expression out of that guitar”: Greeny and his Strats were his superstar electrics, but these ‘60s Gibson semi-hollows were Gary Moore’s workhorses – and they’ve still got the blues mojo
- “The beginning of new relationships between Fender and Korean artists”: Fender unveils its first-ever signature guitar with a South Korean artist – and it’s a streamlined Strat with a trick up its sleeve
- “It’s insane. He died aged 25, only guitar players remember him, and yet he was the sound of the Pretenders”: Chrissie Hynde pays tribute to the underrated guitar hero who defined the Pretenders
- “There’s still a ton happening behind the scenes”: Tommy Thayer says there is still more in store for Kiss
- “Thank you for giving us so much joy. Life and talent always turned up to 11”: Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner and wife Michelle found dead at their LA home
- Pat Metheny called him “the best guitar player I’ve heard in maybe my entire life” and he recorded his last two albums in the same day – meet Pasquale Grasso, the guitarist taking jazz into the future
- “Every time I go to plug in, it feels like Christmas. I knew it was going to be useful. I just didn’t realize how useful”: Steve Vai on the first mini amp he found that could truly punch above its weight
December 14
- “It's a Bad Monkey, turned up to 11”: DOD Badder Monkey review
- “To think that Jamerson could compose this entire bassline spontaneously and still be locked into the groove is astounding. That's his genius”: How Motown hit-maker James Jamerson funked up a Christmas classic on this 1968 holiday gem
- “Al Di Meola would call Yamaha and other companies, and say, ‘I think you need to pay attention to what’s going on here’”: Paul Reed Smith remembers his attempts to build guitars for other brands before starting his own company
- “I knew the Silver Sky would take years to take its place in the world. And I say this cautiously, but it feels like it’s become pretty widely accepted”: How John Mayer and Paul Reed Smith made the Silver Sky
- “It’s taken its time, but finally one of rock music’s most iconic instruments has been launched as a signature run”: All the guitar gear that has caught my eye this week – including a follow-up to the internet-breaking Bad Monkey story
December 13
- “Robert said, ‘Would you be prepared to play bass?’ And I thought, ‘Four strings, six strings... what could be the problem?’”: Greg Lake started out as a guitarist – before being convinced by Robert Fripp to switch to bass when joining King Crimson
- “Keith said, ‘Are you sure you want to be the meat in this sandwich?’ I walked out convinced I’d never see them again”: How John Mayer and Bob Dylan producer Don Was first ended up working with the Rolling Stones
- “I wanted it to be a workhorse I could bash around, beat up, hit with metal pipes and get thrown into kegs without breaking in half”: The making of Jim Root’s Telecaster, the guitar that brought Fender into the modern age
December 12
- “We were told they’d all gone down. You’ll never see a house full of people get so quiet, it was pin-drop silence – eventually we found out Buddy and Eric were okay”: Veteran bluesman Larry McCray recalls the night Stevie Ray Vaughan died
- “Dad let me organically follow whatever I wanted. That was his main mantra: ‘Just play.’ It’s that simple”: Wolfgang Van Halen on Allan Holdsworth, unintentional Van Halen-isms, and his go-to guitar-test riffs
- “The moment I discovered what it feels like to teach yourself a riff that you love, I was hooked. It feels like you're riding the universe”: Hole and Smashing Pumpkins' Melissa Auf der Maur reveals the bassists who compelled her to pick up the instrument
- “I remember thinking, ‘This is like Eddie Van Halen’s death.’ He influenced so many, and he was one of a kind. His legacy is monumental”: Bruce Kulick remembers Ace Frehley, and the Frehley-era Kiss song that caused him the most trouble
- Master the 12-string guitar: restringing, tuning and strumming made simple
- "Brings a different vibe for Gretsch to an accessible price point": Gretsch Streamliner Jet 1 Pickup review
- “Arguably the greatest year in rock music history”: Warren Haynes to play legendary Jerry Garcia, Dickey Betts and Mike Bloomfield guitars at Gov’t Mule NYE show – honoring the music of 1971
- “When people ask, ‘Why do you need so many?’ They don’t get what it is to be a collector. You have the ability to preserve things”: Joe Bonamassa on why he takes gear collecting so seriously
- “I had to reassess why I was even playing. I stopped playing electric guitar for a year”: Steve Stevens says going on tour with Van Halen made him rethink his relationship with the guitar – and it gave way to one of his most experimental albums
December 11
- “I think people pay for their biases – people will pay more to reinforce the incorrect opinions that they already have”: Jason Isbell on why Mexican-made guitars should not be underestimated
- “His towering generational talent created the kind of multicultural American music that reached far beyond America itself”: Raul Malo – genre-blending frontman for The Mavericks – dies aged 60
- “I don’t need tons of gain on my guitar because everyone else is distorted!” Joe Bonamassa reveals the secret to writing heavy riffs – and his methods might surprise you
- “I can’t say how he got the variety of sounds he did. They broke the mold when they made him”: This late rock guitar legend doesn’t get the credit he fully deserves, according to Paul Rodgers
- “Full shred combined with maximum chug”: Solar Guitars breaks new personal ground with its latest Assassin Series model – which offers a firm-first fret count of 27
- “My hand to God, I didn’t intend to hurt Ace or his legacy”: Gene Simmons apologizes for previous comments saying Ace Frehley dying due to a series of “bad decisions”
- “I turned into a Strat player. I never thought I would”: Danielle Haim on her guitarist-for-hire days with Julian Casablancas, I Quit energy and Haim’s historic Grammy nomination
- “We found it. We built it”: A forgotten design for the Big Muff 2 spent 50 years buried in dust – now JHS Pedals and Electro-Harmonix have unearthed it and turned it into a reality
- “Back in the heyday we had huge touring budgets and room for large travel rigs. Now you can store all your amps on a USB stick”: The greatest guitar gear of the 21st century (so far)
December 10
- “Noel has said, ‘No rest for the immensely talented,’ so take that how you want”: Gem Archer hints at Oasis' next move
- “A true gift, 2 years in the making”: Brian May gifts Tony Iommi a custom Red Special replica – but it’s taken some inspiration from his legendary 'Old Boy' SG
- “He would have wanted his fellow musicians to receive everything to which they are entitled”: The estates of Jimi Hendrix’s bandmates are suing Sony over streaming rights
- “There is a lot of fun to be had by putting random alternative bass notes under a chord”: Pete Townshend, Ray Davies and David Bowie all used third inversion chords – here’s why (and how) you should, too
- “One of the most significant artefacts in rock music history”: Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E – the world’s most expensive guitar – has been donated to the Royal College of Music London
- “It’s clear to see that modelers have won the battle”: Modelers outsold traditional amps and combos in 2025 – but the war between the two might not be over just yet
- “We are big fans of tube amplifiers. There’s no substitute for playing an amp in a room”: From amps to plugins, Tosin Abasi teases the next evolution of Abasi Concepts
- “It was the worst guitar I’d ever played. I’d spent all my money making it. I was stuck with it. So I started writing songs”: Arm the Homeless was a disaster, then it changed rock history. Tom Morello reveals how Fender replicated its misfit charms
- “It was the guitar he played on the band’s earliest demos and at their early club gigs”: The Harmony Stratotone that Brian Jones used to teach Keith Richards and played on the Rolling Stones debut single fetches $150,000 at auction
- “Do you see Taylor Swift shredding scales? I don’t think so”: Wolfgang Van Halen on how fans unfairly critique his guitar playing because of his father – and why shredding like Eddie isn’t important
December 9
- “One of the best-sounding headphone amps for guitar I’ve had my hands on”: Blackstar Beam Solo review
- “When people throw around the Lennon/McCartney comparison to Bob Mould and Grant Hart, I think that’s fair”: Greg Norton believes Hüsker Dü were always going to break up, but it happened too soon
- “Being in the same band with Joe felt like watching a childhood fantasy step out of my teenage brain”: Steve Vai and Joe Satriani announce the return of the SatchVai Band with their debut U.S. tour – and tease an upcoming album
- “The guitar I learned to play on isn’t worth much, but I’ve played it at thousands of concerts and hundreds of recording sessions”: He’s performed on over 500 albums. Now Marcus Deml is making breathtaking guitar instrumentals under his own name
- "If you banish the desire for any real bass thump, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had in the sounds you can coax out of this thing": Yamaha JR1 acoustic guitar review
- “On the real Arm the Homeless guitar, a dog chewed the headstock. Other than that, they’re absolutely identical”: Tom Morello has been playing a Fender Arm the Homeless replica live and none of us noticed – now it’s available to buy
- “The guy met me in a Tower Records parking lot and gave me that bass... I’ve recorded every record on it since I got it”: How Flea landed his cherished 1961 Fender Jazz Bass after finding a seller during the early days of Twitter
- “This isn’t a remake. It's an evolution”: The DigiTech Bad Monkey broke the internet with its Klon-aping antics – now it’s back and badder than ever before
- “It was a little hard bouncing between classes and playing gigs like Coachella. Now I’m out of school, I can devote all my time to being a musician”: Is Brandon ‘Taz’ Niederauer guitar’s next superstar?
December 8
- “Tuning it was really hard… especially because I was stoned a lot of the time”: Joe Walsh walks you through the guitars he’s selling at auction – including one with a Morse code fretboard
- Tetsu Yamauchi, former bassist of Free and the Faces, has died at 79
- “We are building a system to stimulate and retrieve energy to Earth”: Electro-Harmonix wants to harness the magnetosphere’s energy to solve the AI power crisis
- “It’s like getting a pre-washed pair of jeans: they’re broken in so they’re comfortable right out of the store”: The making of the American Professional Classic series – the brand-new “lived-in” (but not relic’d) US Fender line
- “I discovered African blackwood probably around 20 years ago. The first guitar was paired with a cedar top and the volume blew me away”: How a $10k acoustic build put the loud into Lowden – with exotic tonewoods and faultless construction
- “Moments like this don’t happen in real life”: Jared James Nichols spotted a pedal builder in the audience at one of his gigs – then handed him his guitar mid-solo
- “There is no greater story of triumph than that of B.B. King. I’m humbled to help bring it to life”: A B.B. King biopic is on the way – and it will chronicle the blues legend’s life, legacy and Lucille
- “I step back and I’m like, ‘Don’t think about it. Maybe you nailed it, maybe you didn’t’”: John Mayer names his favorite solo with Dead & Company – and plays it live on air
- “He broke my heart, but at the same time, I was like, ‘Okay, well, I would love to have a Fender Jazz Bass’”: Bootsy Collins' first Fender Jazz Bass has just been sold at auction – and shot past its estimate
- “I got bored with Miles Davis. He was like, ‘Robben, play that just like the record.’ And I didn’t join Miles Davis to do that”: Robben Ford explains his dalliance with Davis, Joni Mitchell’s fuzz tips – and how Jeff Beck got him back on the Strat
December 7
- “He said, ‘I canceled a gig to come watch you play, could I steal some licks from you?’ That’s when we got to know each other”: Buddy Guy recalls the first time he met Jimi Hendrix
- “Getting a Germanium Boy into Brian May’s hands pronto is a top priority”: Dirty Boy’s pedals are loved by the likes of John Frusciante and Neal Schon – is the Queen guitarist next?
December 6
- “Rickenbacker had a doubleneck guitar and bass, so I bought one. Then Fender came to me and said, ‘Why are you playing that?’” How Moody Blues bassist John Lodge found another gear with a Fender double-neck that was half P-Bass/half Telecaster
- “I’d met Elvis Presley’s guitar player, who told me James Burton used banjo strings...” How Ritchie Blackmore came across an obscure string mod that introduced him to a whole new sound – and why it didn’t work for him
- “A warning shot to the competition and a reminder that Fender is still very much a force in the amp modeler market”: All the guitar gear that has caught my eye this week – including a new digital era for EVH
- “A tighter, louder and gutsier tone from an already stellar-sounding amp”: Bad Cat Mod Shop Black Cat 30 review
- “He was completely ignored by the guitar press of that time period”: Vernon Reid on the guitarist he believes is massively underrated – even though he kept “the Hendrix voice” alive
December 5
- “They’ve raised the bar, stretched the boundaries and won the ears and hearts of the young generation”: Tommy Emmanuel names the emerging players who are flying the flag for a new era of Americana and bluegrass
- Flea has announced his debut solo album – but he’s not the only bassist playing on it
- “There was a certain amount of desperation in Frank returning my call and saying, ‘I don't believe you, but get over here and prove it'”: How Mike Keneally landed the Frank Zappa gig – after cold-calling his guitar hero
- “Every time I watch videos of her playing guitar I melt on the floor”: Danielle Haim reveals her biggest guitar influences – and who she believes is one “of the most genius guitar players” of all time
- “This amp has taken me about 10 years to nail down”: A long-lost Beach Boys Dumble that has spent the past 35 years in Hawaii has surfaced – and Jason Momoa is using it on his new album
- “He was going to record it, so they put it on hold so nobody else could. But he didn’t actually record it”: Sheryl Crow says Don Henley told her to stop giving her songs away after she wrote a song for Eric Clapton that never got released
- “The SEs were going to go away. We were having trouble with sales”: Paul Reed Smith on the near-fateful end of the PRS SE Series – and what saved it from extinction
- “When I heard his stuff I was like, ‘This guy’s got the pipes.’ I watched his live stuff and I thought, ‘He’s got it, man!’” Joe Perry on Aerosmith’s surprise Yungblud collab and paying tribute to late Bad Company legend Mick Ralphs
- “You can get some very mournful sounds out of it as well as in‑your-face. It’s a real old battle-axe”: Gary Moore’s 1963 Telecaster is modded and thrashed to death – and it’s got a tone pot that behaves like a wah
- “I never heard from John. He sold the guitar once he got out of rehab. And that was that – I never saw it again”: The incredible story of the Les Paul that Dave Navarro bought for his Guns N’ Roses audition – and ended up giving to John Frusciante
December 4
- Fender keeps up with Neural DSP in the amp modeler race by giving the Tone Master Pro its first polyphonic synths – included in major free firmware update
- Guns N’ Roses share 2 new singles ahead of 2026 world tour – could the long-awaited studio album be next?
- “My inspiration for this tune was Flight of the Bumblebee, but through a funky lens, as if Tower of Power had written and recorded the melody”: Cory Wong on how to arrange guitar and keyboards
- The ultimate strap for heavy guitars? D’Addario’s new Comfort strap could be the solution to your back problems – and could have you playing for longer
- “I took it into rehearsals and Frank Zappa said, ‘If you wanted to ruin your guitar, why didn’t you loan it to a friend?’” Adrian Belew shares unseen photos of “the first relic’d guitar” – which he created with Seymour Duncan
- The lost Ace Frehley interview, the year's best new gear and 2025's guitarists of the year – only in the new Guitar World
- “I didn’t want to go down the route of Fenders or Gibsons – I wanted something that sounds and looks different”: She’s Brian May and Johnny Marr’s new favorite guitarist, but The Last Dinner Party’s Emily Roberts still has imposter syndrome
- “Tosin Abasi told me once, the first time he heard us, he said, ‘This music is broken’”: Meshuggah's Mårten Hagström reflects on changing the face of metal guitar
- “Does it sound like a J-45? No. Instead, you get the impression that the instrument has been reimagined through the lens of a master craftsman”: Bourgeois Slope D Standard T/S review
- “Ironically, the quest for a natural sound increasingly meant filling a guitar with wires, batteries and circuit boards”: The challenge of amplifying our acoustics has been one of guitar’s great challenges over the decades – are we nearly there yet?
- “Words fail me in describing his impact on music”: Steve Cropper, 1941-2025 – the guitar world pays tribute
- “I don’t know if Jaco was a Van Halen fan. We were both more intent on getting drunk than anything else”: When Michael Anthony met the self-proclaimed “greatest bass player in the world”, Jaco Pastorius
- January 2026 Guitar World lesson videos and more
- “My playing has always sucked, but it sells because I keep it simple”: Steve Cropper was one of guitar’s most modest yet influential figures. In one of his final interviews, he looked back at making Booker T & the MG’s classics and working with Jeff Beck
December 3
- “He helped create some of the most enduring songs in music history”: Steve Cropper, Stax and soul guitar legend, Booker T. & the MG’s co-founder, dies at 84
- “They were trying to sell the guitars to distributors who had no idea who I was, like, ‘Who is this YouTube guy?’” Ola Englund on why he decided to set up his own guitar company
- “Virtually indistinguishable from the all-tube original”: EVH signals the start of a brave new era with its first digital combo – which promises authentic Eddie Van Halen tube amp tones
- “People don't know this. He loved it”: Jeff Beck secretly played a PRS at home – and the company is trying to get it back
- “I am a true enemy of the pick. It’s the most limiting thing in the world”: Marcin on why he will never use a guitar pick
- “Legends never die. They evolve”: Ross Electronics returns under new family stewardship – a year after JHS Pedals’ ill-fated revival
- “I texted Jake and told him, ‘There’s no way in hell I’m taking that solo. You’re going to play it!’” Why Nuno Bettencourt said no when Jake E. Lee asked him to play one of his iconic solos at Back to the Beginning
- “He proved to me long ago that Fender belongs in the world of heavy metal”: Fender honors Iron Maiden’s 50th Anniversary with a stable of limited signatures for Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Janick Gers and Steve Harris
- “I’m known for these real dumb rock ’n’ roll solos... We don’t think of ourselves as super-pickers”: Primitive solos, Luchador masks, SpongeBob SquarePants? Meet Los Straitjackets, guitar’s most out-there instrumentalists
- “Noel goes, ‘What guitars do you want to borrow?’ I was like, ‘Well, I’ve played that one and it’s incredible. I was going to buy one, but it was about seven grand!’” The story behind Oasis’ new signature guitars
- “Ace was the reason... His image made me go, ‘This is what I want to do with the rest of my life’”: John 5 on his final conversations with Ace Frehley, working on Peter Criss’ new record, and the signature guitar so good he’s written a song about it
December 2
- “It’s the size of a big foot pedal. I get all kinds of great sounds out of it, no matter what I plug into it”: Joe Perry used a $219 pedal amp to record most of the guitars on Aerosmith’s new EP with Yungblud
- “I think Jimmy's pointing at Ed, but he motions for me to come over. He said, ‘You have something that these other guys here don't’”: Steve Lukather was hanging out with Eddie Van Halen, when Jimmy Page paid him the highest compliment
- These 30 epic Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are still live - including electric guitars, acoustics, pedals, amps, and software
- “I’d like to get a Flying V. I saw James Hetfield of Metallica playing one live, and I thought, ‘He’s got such a great guitar sound’”: Kim Deal on finally making her solo debut, working with Steve Albini and why she hates bright guitar tones
- “Bob Dylan wrote some notes on a napkin and said, ‘Give this to McGuinn. He’ll know what to do with it.’ It was like the Holy Grail”: Roger McGuinn on the making of The Byrds’ countercultural classic
- “My mom said, ‘What are you doing? Your kind of music has gotten popular. Why are you changing it?’ I thought it was a good idea – just like Mrs. Robinson was a bad idea”: The Lemonheads’ Evan Dando on the art of cover versions
- Epiphone brought one of Gibson’s most desirable one-off finishes to the masses earlier this year – now that Guitar Center-exclusive Les Paul has been given a major Cyber Monday discount
December 1
- Want to channel Brian Setzer, Chet Atkins, Duane Eddy, and the legends of rockabilly and country for less than $1,000? You'd be rocka-SILLY to miss this Cyber Monday deal
- Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, but at $400 off, this is the ultimate acoustic deal for Taylor Swift fans this Cyber Monday
- I rigorously tested 14 patch cables in 2025, and five of my top six are heavily discounted this Cyber Monday – fix your pedalboard for as little as $2.49 a cable
- Need to restock your gig bag essentials? These are the last-minute uber-cheap accessory deals you need to quickly jump on
- “For the style, it’s a near-perfect”: We called this do-it-all Superstrat a world-class instrument – now Yamaha’s groundbreaking Pacifica Standard Plus is cheaper than ever before
- MXR’s FOD Drive gets you Billie Joe Armstrong’s Dookie Drive tones in a non-signature pedal, and Sweetwater has just sliced the price by nearly half for Cyber Monday
- $0.38 a pick? You heard that one right – Amazon is offering some killer deals on Dunlop's flagship guitar pick series
- “Gives you the keys to a studio full of classic tube amps, speaker cabs, stompboxes, and effects”: Universal Audio’s amp-emulating pedals have been a huge success – now they’ve arrived in plugin form via the all-inclusive Paradise Guitar Studio
- “He said, ‘You think I’m old. Don’t you ever hold back onstage again”: Tommy Emmanuel on the time Les Paul baited him into bringing his A-game to a jam
- “This is the guitar I wrote and recorded Chasing Cars with”: Snow Patrol auctions off life-changing and career-defining Fender Telecaster for children’s charity
- I will die on this hill: Fender acoustics are criminally underrated. Mine's held its own at a stadium and stages over Europe, so now it’s $80 off for Cyber Monday, I’m picking up a back-up
- This is the biggest guitar bargain we’ve spotted all year – get a $900 D’Angelico for just $399
- The Gretsch Synchromatic Falcon is my guitar of the year. It’s not on sale for Cyber Monday, but I’ve found a look-alike for half the price that still is - but the sale ends tonight!
- A major life change made me realize I need a mini amp – and this is your last chance to bag one for as little as $36
- Martin has been the go-to acoustic guitar brand for the likes of Elvis, Eric Clapton and John Mayer – now you can join the ranks for less than $600
- “Our lawyer called it the most psychopathic contract a session musician could ever be handed”: Six former Cradle of Filth members file lawsuit against Dani Filth and the band’s management
- “Even we don’t fully know what it is yet”: Gamechanger Audio has reimagined the loop pedal with the Recorder
- “Some might be thankful they only made one because Gibson didn’t waste any more wood”: Meet the obscure ’60s Gibsons that prove double-necks were a thing before Stairway to Heaven
- “I really like it. If you’re a young guitar player, that’s money well spent”: John Mayer says this Dumble-inspired pedal amp is a smart investment – and you can still save $50 before Guitar Center's Cyber Monday sale ends
- Dave Grohl's Epiphone signature model broke the Internet last year – now, it can be yours for a fraction of the original price, thanks to this massive Cyber Monday discount
- Going wireless transformed my live performances and with 20% off the Xvive A58 for Cyber Monday, it's time to cut the cord
- "With the Player II Jazzmaster, Fender delivers a contemporary twist on a classic design without losing the original’s soul": score $220 off a guitar I awarded 4.5 stars to for Cyber Monday
- “He said, ‘Have you heard Metallica’s version of Whiskey in the Jar?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘What planet are you living on?’” Thin Lizzy’s Eric Bell on reinventing an old Irish standard as a rock track and performing it with the “cartoon” Metallica
- Cyber Monday guitar deals 2025 LIVE: all of today's biggest savings at Sweetwater, Guitar Center, Fender, Amazon and more