Latest articles by Jon Wiederhorn
“I did this full-on ritual where I set up a circle of pedals, stayed inside of it and wrote a bunch of demos”: How Chelsea Wolfe reinvented her guitar playing with tarot cards, meditation and effects… lots of effects
Wolfe and lead guitarist Bryan Tulao discuss the transformative tones, unorthodox approaches, pain and struggle behind She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
“It’s not like Exodus where it’s 95 percent crunching guitars. I had to really concentrate on not playing so many notes”: Rick Hunolt on his cinematic second act with DieHumane
DieHumane’s The Grotesque is a masterly work of genre-hungry melodic metal, and it finds Hunolt approaching guitar like he's never done before
![Teenage Fanclub's Ryan McGlinley [left] and Norman Blake onstage in Edinburgh](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/WxWW3xqrxjwCCUurxxd52d-840-80.jpg.webp)
“We never went into this band with any expectations, so we’ve never been disappointed… We just love making music together”: Teenage Fanclub on fame, perseverance and ice cream with Nirvana
Scotland's finest alt-rock exports on how DIY ethics, deep-cut influences, and reckoning with their own band's mortality have kept their unique brand of jangle pop alive for over three decades
“Forget grunge music. Get a pint of Guinness down your neck and pick that guitar up”: The rise and fall of Britpop, the Nineties’ other massive guitar movement
The UK got its guitar mojo back in the ’90s with a new generation of rock and indie bands. This is the story of how it all got consumed by the rivalry between Blur and Oasis, and the catch-all category of Britpop
“This is one more shot at glory for me. I know the things I’ve been denied. I shouldn’t have to build it up all over again”: K.K. Downing on reclaiming his legacy with KK’s Priest – and what his one-off reunion with Judas Priest was really like
The original “Sinner” takes you behind the scenes of his dramas in and out of Priest and their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction – and why his turbo-charged new album is “about the fight and the victory”
“As soon as we heard Chris’ name, I knew we were good. Nobody works harder or learns songs quicker. It was like I had my teacher with me every day”: How ex-Megadeth shredder Chris Broderick lit the fuse under In Flames’ fierce return
With Broderick's virtuoso seven-string dovetailing with Gelotte's downtuned six-string, Foregone is the sound of In Flames taking their sound faster, heavier, and wherever the ideas took them
Christian themes, riffs as pretty as they are violent and chords above the 12th fret: how Liturgy’s Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix is radically warping black metal conventions
Hunt-Hendrix thinks of Liturgy as “orchestral music created with the tools of a metal band“, and with violin-inspired guitar parts and avant-garde classical influences, she’s more than nailed the brief
Zakk Wylde: “The sound of Pantera comes from Dimebag’s love for Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads. The playing is rooted in precision”
Is it a reunion or a tribute? If you ask Zakk, it’s simply a celebration of the music, spirit and legacy of his fallen brother. In this exclusive interview, he shares his fondest memories of Dimebag Darrell and reveals the challenges of mastering his iconic guitar parts
Michael Amott: “I like Depeche Mode, but I don’t want Arch Enemy to sound anything like them. I love Jimmy Page, but I don’t want to play like him. I’m happy being me”
“They said I ruined the band”: Michael Amott looks back on his days with Carcass and recounts the creation of Arch Enemy’s explosive new album, Deceivers
Ruby the Hatchet’s Johnny Scarps: “If a solo doesn’t evoke some sort of emotion within me, I toss it in the trash and start again”
The NJ modern masters of psychedelia want to take you on a cosmic, riff-packed joy ride, with Johnny Scarps as your six-string guide
How to tell Jim Root and Mick Thomson’s Slipknot guitar parts apart
The Iowa bruise brothers of metal address the guitar with contrasting styles, but as they explain here, they know what the other is about to do before they do themselves
Lamb of God’s Mark Morton and Willie Adler on making “combative and confrontational” new album, Omens
Recorded live in the studio, Omens finds Morton and Adler tag-teaming on irresistible grooves, grist for the mosh-pit’s mill, and one of the standout metal guitar albums of 2022
Jim Root and Mick Thomson on the depression, wild gear experiments and chaos theory behind Slipknot’s devastating new album
The End, So Far was borne of depression and anxiety: it's the triumphant sound of the Iowa metal institution picking themselves off the canvas, turning the guitars up loud and digging in
Meshuggah’s Mårten Hagström: “Fredrik is the mad guitar genius. So for him to come back was natural and made me want to go on with it, too”
Hagström takes you inside the Swedish extreme metal masters’ punishing new album, Immutable, and the triumphant return of co-founding guitarist Fredrik Thordendal
Dave Mustaine breaks down every track on Megadeth's The Sick, The Dying… and the Dead!
From the fastest song Megadeth have ever recorded, to calling in Ice-T for tactical support, Megadave goes track by track and unpacks the story behind the band's 16th studio album
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine and Kiko Loureiro go deep on the tragedy and triumph that fueled The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!
In this exclusive interview, the state-of-the-art metal guitar duo unpack a story of sickness and recovery, and reveal how their opposing styles yielded some of the heaviest riffs and solos of the thrash titans' career
Judas Priest Legend Glenn Tipton Speaks Candidly About His Struggle with Parkinson's Disease
Warren DeMartini, Steve Stevens, Lita Ford and an all-star panel share their guitar highlights of the ‘80s
Some of the biggest names in guitar look back on the era of big solos and even bigger hair to share their favorite riffs, shredders and, yes, haircuts of the decade
Richie Faulkner: “Getting the guitar back in my hands was what I needed to do to get back on track – to give me the strength to keep going”
On September 26, 2021, while onstage with Judas Priest, Faulkner came incredibly close to dying. Miraculously, he’s here to tell the tale – and what a tale it is...
Gary Holt: “I had one job in Slayer and one job only. Go out, play killer, bang your head and play a little bit of a guitar hero role. I wear a lot more hats in Exodus”
Gary Holt on life after Slayer, making a triumphant return with Exodus on the ferocious Persona Non Grata, and why you'll reap the rewards if you record song ideas as you go
Phil Demmel: “I wanted to do five really good songs that were like rapid punches to the face and then get out ”
On their blazing new EP, Let the World Burn, Phil Demmel and co. capture the aggression of the thrash stalwarts’ early work
Halestorm: “Everybody was just on 11, pushing ourselves and playing these parts as if the world was never going to get back to any semblance of normalcy”
Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger on how dialing up the volume for the hard-rock therapeutical Back from the Dead roused them from pandemic inertia and restored their equilibrium
