Latest articles by Joel McIver
Tony Levin: “D’Angelo’s Voodoo made me want to go back to school as a bassist”
The King Crimson bassist names four albums that shaped his sound
The 5 Nirvana basslines you need to hear
From Smells Like Teen Spirit to About a Girl, here are Krist Novoselic’s five greatest basslines
"The Breeders, Hole, Sonic Youth, The Smashing Pumpkins all had female bass players. That was definitely an inspiration": When Melissa Auf Der Maur went solo
From the Archive: Melissa Auf Der Maur on gear, grunge and the fine art of going solo
The Darkness’s Frankie Poullain: “If you go too posh with distortion, it gets too precise and nice. It’s got to be a bit nasty and a bit wrong”
The world’s last great hard-rock band with an advanced sense of humor are back with new album Motorheart. Bassist Poullain brings the pick and the thumb...
The 50 greatest guitar riffs of all time
From metal to rock, punk to grunge, these are the best guitar riffs ever recorded, as voted for by you
Slipknot’s V-Man: “At first the mask was a bit weird, but the LEDs make the sides of the bass neck easier to see!"
Slipknot’s Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella reveals how he got the (literally) hottest gig in metal
Les Claypool: “The Pachyderm bass has one knob on it, a volume knob: I don’t want any tone”
Primus’ bass wizard tells us all about his Pachyderm bass and exactly what naugahyde is
Metallica’s Robert Trujillo: “Cliff’s approach was, ‘I’m gonna play what I feel, and if you don’t like it, screw you!’”
Trujillo remembers bass guitar’s ultimate metal maverick, Cliff Burton
Krist Novoselic: “The bass got caught in the TV lights – and then boom!”
At the 1992 MTV Awards, Nirvana bassman Krist Novoselic threw his Gibson 25 feet in the air, forgetting it would come down again shortly afterwards
Charlie Jones: “I always wanted a plastic bass guitar, but people never took the idea seriously”
The Cult’s bassist Charlie Jones gives us the first look at his plastic P-Bass, a Custom Shop one-off made by Fender Master Builder Scott Buehl
Lady Gaga bassist Jonny Goood: “Being a young Black brother and playing dirty with a pick is unique to me...”
Bassist to one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Jonny Goood on coming from nothing and making it big: "I didn't have sh*t!"
From the vaults: former Machine Head bassist Adam Duce on the tone secrets of Cliff Burton
“He had a Stratocaster pickup hidden under the bridge of his Rickenbacker”
Frank Bello: 5 bass players who influenced me
Anthrax bassist Frank Bello on Geezer Butler, Steve Harris, Paul McCartney and more
The truth behind Lee Sklar's custom 'producer's switch'
A living legend of the bass guitar, Lee Sklar makes a strong case for his non-functioning toggle switch
Watch Yves Carbonne play Teen Town on a custom 2-string bass
Yup: TWO-string. French sensation Yves Carbonne demonstrates the mastery of multi-string basses that's wowed the likes of Marcus Miller and Michael Manring
Kings X leader Dug Pinnick: “My ADD meant that practising was useless...”
The golden-voiced 12-string bass master discusses unlikely brass influences, his eternal search for tone and how ADD impacted his bass playing
Metal bassist and YouTube hero Kello Gonzalez: “How I went from zero to 75k subscribers...”
Mexico’s Kello Gonzalez reveals his “Holy Trinity” of bass players and how to get his monstrous tone
MonoNeon: “I’m still not over Prince’s death – I was still getting to know him”
We talk to MonoNeon, touted by Flea as the ‘greatest f**king electric bass player’, about his funk roots, playing with Prince and his new Fender 5-string Jazz Bass
How Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan recorded a bass classic with Sweet Child O’ Mine
McKagan reveals how a trip to Guitar Center and the search for a sound to complement Izzy and Slash helped him find his Appetite for Destruction bass tone
Sleep’s Al Cisneros: “For my lifespan, I’ll be playing Rickenbackers. When I hear the sound of Rush’s Permanent Waves, there’s nothing else like that’”
The OM and Sleep bassist on gathering his solo singles into a collection, Sinai Dub Box, flow states and the universal groove, and which bass is so heavy he needs pain relief to play it...
Kramer Disciple D-1 Bass review
The unashamedly extrovert K-Bass continues its purple reign
Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas PJ V review
Loaded with DiMarzio pickups and tone-shaping power, the new five-string from Charvel is a hot-rodded bass ace with a strong '80s vibe
Nashville session ace Dave Roe: “The night I played bass with Jaco Pastorius on drums”
Dave Roe on how a lie got him the gig with Johnny Cash, plus the genius of Marshall Grant and John Paul Jones
