Latest articles by Mark McStea
In the year 1980, the Dead Kennedys debut presented a new sound for punk. Here guitarist East Bay Ray tells us how they made Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
The Australian virtuoso is a guitar nut with an extensive collection, but if it came down to a choice of three, these would be the guitars she could not bear to let go
Sergeant might not be 100 percent happy with Ocean Rain but that doesn't stop it being a stone-cold classic with a killer lead single, whose influence we hear in generations of post-punk bands
The virtuoso behind Mr. Big and Racer X digs out three stalwarts from his arsenal of Ibanez guitars and explains what makes them cool – oh, and why he puts erasers under his pickups
In X guitarist Billy Zoom's mind, the band could have been Eddie Cochran meets the Ramones, but they ended up being much more. A renaissance man with a love of Gretsch, Zoom takes us back to revisit the band's seminal 1982 album
The Franz Ferdinand leader rarely gets to talk guitars. He shares his love of vintage Japanese instruments, explains the process of demoing, looping and mic’ing on new album The Human Fear – and reveals why the secret to studio success is that there’s no secret
Guitarist Flavi Couri details the retro gear and inspirations behind the Courettes’ garage-rock expansionism – a sound that references Motown, Phil Spector and ’60s power-pop
Having gone viral with Racist, Sexist Boy and toured with punk luminaries Rancid and Green Day, the Linda Lindas are not done growing up yet on sophomore LP No Obligation
Salazar and co-guitarist Lucia de la Garza's first guitars were instrumental in helping them write their own, and The Linda Lindas', early songs
The 20 Feet From Stardom singer worked with – and learned from – the biggest names in pop before she seized a six-string and formed her own group
What started out as a solo project is now a proper band with ties that go back to childhood, and Midas is the sound of an indie collaboration in full bloom
Straight out of West Georgia with stories to tell and songs to sing, Willis tells us why the time is now for acoustic blues and how the British Invasion brought good and bad for the art form
With The Moon and the Melodies remastered and reissued, the architect of the lushest sounds committed to tape reflects on the effects experimentation and accidental magic of the quintessential 4AD band
One half of the Fontaines D.C. six-string machine talks songwriting and influences, and admits that he, too, is a disciple of YouTube’s Kurt Cobain tone guru Aaron Rash
When Rzeznik and co set out with Goo Goo Dolls there was no Plan B. They were all in. But when it came time for album number two, that gamble was about to pay off in a big way…
The man with the twangy guitar changed the lives of millions and left an indelible mark on tone, and how we play the instrument. We look back on the life of a bona-fide legend
Lime Garden's pop sound is lush and heady but at the heart of it lies a secret shredder who got a taste for the instrument listening to Black Sabbath and the Doors. We'll let Deeley explain it...
Powers reveals how drugs, jazz and lessons from the Cramps’ Poison Ivy were all brought to bear on Gun Club’s seminal 1984 album, The Las Vegas Story
With Hendrix, MC5, and Stooges influences, these antsy San Diego rockers put on a show you’re not likely to forget
Toxic band member behavior drove the Robinson brothers apart – but it also brought them back together. Rich Robinson details the challenge of playing in 15 different tunings, how a flood made his Les Paul Goldtop sound better, and why Nico Bereciartua is just the guitarist the band needs
Robby Krieger breaks down his new album with the Soul Savages’ new album, and details his struggles to come up with his own sound during his time with the Doors
How do you follow Holy Diver? That was the question facing Ronnie James Dio and his young band. The answer: is you double down on the metal anthems and record a stone cold classic
Ness and co hit us all with a curve ball as the ’90s dawned, covering Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire and bringing blues into punk, but as Ness explains here, it's all related – it’s all punk
Flex-Able was the sound of a young Steve Vai following his musical obsessions. That it changed everything for guitar – and Vai's career – was just a happy accident
Kings of the Wild Frontier found new wave icon Adam Ant at a crossroads, and with Marco Pirroni's raw rock 'n' roll guitar and Burundi drumbeats, he found a sound that sold by the millions
