
Amit Sharma
Amit has been writing for titles like Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences as a guitar player. He's worked for magazines like Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Prog, Record Collector, Planet Rock, Rhythm and Bass Player, as well as newspapers like Metro and The Independent, interviewing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he's played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handled lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).
Latest articles by Amit Sharma

Carlos Santana on his “visitation” from Stevie Ray Vaughan, who implored him to borrow his Dumble amp
By Janelle Borg published
Santana shares how he managed to borrow SRV's prized Dumble after both he and Stevie Ray's tech had the same dream...

Too rock for country and too country for rock, Morganway are an old-school guitar duo in the best way
By Amit Sharma published
Husband and wife Kieran Morgan and SJ Mortimer are inspired by Queen, Fleetwood Mac and boygenius in equal measure – and their guitar approach leans into the classic rock guitar pairings

Wrecking old tube amps, thrashing vintage Fenders, Chris Buck is taking no prisoners as Cardinal Black return
By Amit Sharma published
With their 2022 debut, Cardinal Black introduced the world to a budding guitar hero. Chris Buck explains how its followup has taken his playing and songwriting to the next level

Slaughter To Prevail’s electric guitars are as savage as their deathcore breakdowns
By Amit Sharma published
Guitarist Jack Simmons unpacks his wild ESP refinish, why pinch harmonic riffs are the best riffs, and how he grabbed Ronnie Radke and Babymetal to guest on the metal heavyweights’ third record

Teenage blues phenom Muireann Bradley is keeping O.G. acoustic blues alive – and taking Where the Levee Breaks back to the source
By Amit Sharma published
Hailed as one of Ireland’s brightest emerging stars, 18-year-old Muireann Bradley is proud to champion music that’s nearly a century old

How prog fusion ace Nick Johnston ended up replacing Brent Hinds in Mastodon on tour
By Phil Weller published
Johnston has replaced Hinds on the band’s current tour

Meet Ben Lechuga, the Steve Vai-championed Chilean virtuoso who has gone fretless – and why he’s never going back
By Amit Sharma published
Lechuga won a Steve Vai scholarship in 2011 and now plays with David Maxim Micic and teaches for Ernie Ball Music Man, and going fretless, he says, has made totally rethink his playing

Dean DeLeo on why his favorite STP songs are the ones he didn’t write, and barging into Allan Holdsworth’s dressing room
By Amit Sharma published
The Stone Temple Pilots guitar icon explains how he stumbles upon songs, why nothing’s quite like a Telecaster, and how his latest spellbinding collaboration, One More Satellite, came to be

How Este Haim ended up buying her dream ’70s Fender Precision Bass on Craigslist for a bargain – from one of her favorite guitarists
By Janelle Borg published
Haim had been scouring the internet for years for her dream bass, until she spotted one on Craiglist for less than $2,500

Ricky Warwick on welcoming Lita Ford, Charlie Starr and Billy Duffy to vintage guitar nirvana for his new solo album
By Amit Sharma published
The Thin Lizzy and former Almighty man's Blood Ties is packed with signature chord voicings and guest spots from his friends – and even though Ford only sings on it, she brought her Hamer to the party

How Chris Buck and his band, Cardinal Black, took their first U.S. show by storm
By Janelle Borg published
The blues rock ace remembers how a venue booker in Nashville was astounded when a lot more people than he initially expected turned up for their show

Blues-inspired but metal-trained, he had a top 5 album at 16 – with no spiky guitars in sight. Meet Alien Weaponry’s Lewis de Jong
By Amit Sharma published
The New Zealand metallers have supported Kerry King, have Lamb of God guesting on their record, and a sound that celebrates their Māori heritage that de Jong says is all about the riff

Tom Lieber apprenticed to Jerry Garcia's guitar builder Doug Irwin in the ’70s – now he’s raising the ’Dead once again
By Amit Sharma published
This is the story of Tom Lieber, the aspiring guitar builder who wouldn’t take no for an answer and ended up learning how to make some of the rock world’s most prized instruments

H.E.A.T’s Dave Dalone on taking rock back to the future, learning from Gary Moore, and why he's a Kramer man through and through
By Amit Sharma published
They may have titled their latest album Welcome To The Future, but make no mistake, Swedish rockers H.E.A.T are paying homage to the past, with Dalone's scorching riffs and solos leading the way

Best hollowbody electric guitars 2025: Our pick of the greatest hollowbody guitars you can buy today
By Amit Sharma last updated
Want increased resonance and a beefier sound, all the while looking spectacularly cool? You’ll want one of the best hollowbody electric guitars then

From his live show, to cutting classics, Yngwie Malmsteen has always lived off-the-cuff
By Amit Sharma published
He explains why his guitars are numbered, not named, his warts-and-all approach to studio work – and why his “I won’t conform or follow” attitude has nothing to do with arrogance

Dean DeLeo explains why the ‘worst’ guitars are also sometimes the best
By Phil Weller published
The Stone Temple Pilots guitarist took a deep dive into his vast gear collection for his latest project, One More Satellite

The best electric guitars under $500
By Amit Sharma last updated
Our top cheap electric guitars that deliver killer tones, slick playability, and serious bang for your buck from Squier, Epiphone, Yamaha and more

Why Yngwie Malmsteen isn’t too bothered about his legacy
By Janelle Borg published
The neoclassical guitar trailblazer celebrates the 40th anniversary of his influential Marching Out record this year

Yngwie Malmsteen filmed the music video for one of his most iconic tracks on the Conan The Barbarian set
By Phil Weller published
“The director told me to throw my guitar. I think I took the dragon’s ear off,” Malmsteen remembers of the none-more-metal music video shoot

Bonnie Trash’s Emmalia Bortolon-Vettor on the pursuit of new sounds with $1 ring slide and a looper
By Amit Sharma published
Meet the Canadian quartet twisting post-rock with gothic noise and avant-garde surrealism, whose freewheeling approach requires economical gear and a curious mind

Richard Z Kruspe explains why guitars are like kisses, reverse kill-switches – and how he launched Rammstein with a riff
By Amit Sharma published
Fresh from launching his new RZK-III signature model, the German fire-raiser discusses the Custom Shop guitar that changed his thinking on collecting – and how he manages to live and let live with colleague Paul Landers

Mattresses for isolation? How Jonathan Hultén recorded an entire album in his walk-in closet
By Amit Sharma published
The former Tribulation guitarist goes full on dream pop on his sophomore release, Eyes of the Living Night
![The Night Flight Orchestra all glammed-up in stage clothes and photographed against a green backdrop: guitarists Rasmus Ehrnborn [second from left] and Sebastian Forslund [fourth from right]](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Wy6UcSKUxjjiWvEWzYf3y3-320-80.jpg)
Sebastian Forslund on the triumphant return of the Night Flight Orchestra and his always-on chorus
By Amit Sharma published
Recovering from the death of guitarist David Andersson, the Swedish rockers rallied to make the feel-good album of 2025. Guitarist Sebastian Forslund reveals how it happened

With plentiful, far cheaper clones, why does the Klon Centaur remain a holy grail pedal?
By Amit Sharma published
Klons have been used by Jeff Beck, John Mayer, Joe Perry, Ed O'Brien, and countless other guitar heroes, and are often spoken about as a sort of overdrive sword of Excalibur. But what exactly sets them apart? And how did they become so darn valuable?
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