Features archive

November 2025

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48 articles

November 17
- “The six-string system never hooked my brain. With this guitar, none of the shapes work, so you have to think differently”: Jacob Collier taught me how to play his 5-string guitar – but I learned much more than just new shapes and tunings
- “I was just too frightened – it was too big a moment with everyone looking at the guitar player. I couldn’t do it”: Paul McCartney was meant to be the Beatles’ lead guitarist – then stage fright led him to George Harrison
- “I was almost throwing down a challenge with some of those basslines: play me if you can!” John Paul Jones’ best Led Zeppelin basslines – including an eight-string classic
- “There are people who bought my signature Jaguar because of its reputation – they don't have to be a fan of my music”: Johnny Marr on reinventing the Fender Jaguar (again), the “biggest reunion of all time” and why Nile Rodgers deserves more credit
November 16
- “I moved over to Fender for a couple of years, learning a lot of history there – but also how I didn’t want to make a guitar”: How John Suhr built one of guitar’s hottest boutique brands
- “I said, ‘We aren’t getting paid properly. I’m going back to New York.’ Duane Allman said, ‘I’m gonna go home and start a band with my brother’”: Jerry Jemmott played with B.B. King and George Benson – but two car accidents influenced him the most
November 15
- “At one stage it sounded like Guns N’ Roses’ November Rain. It was so pompous and bombastic – just the worst”: It was a “nightmare” to record and reduced Thom Yorke to tears – but this difficult Radiohead song went on to be a viral smash
November 14
- “We were afraid the record company was going to chuck us, so I started playing these chords. It all came about pretty quickly – like magic”: Dave Davies on the Kinks’ argumentative energy, mixed feelings on Van Halen, and Jeff Beck, the “loose cannon”
- “I’ll just grab ahold of the G string, pinch it and then bend it way up. You’re doing it to get a laugh out of the guys”: Big Wreck’s Ian Thornley on channeling Eric Johnson and Steve Morse – and why he’s called a guitar the “Jungle Gym”
- “Initially, Gary was very frosty. I said, ‘On this track, you used the “Greeny” Les Paul, didn’t you?’ And his eyes lit up”: Inside the final Gary Moore gear auction – from the amps behind his sound to the red Strat that unleashed his blues power
November 13
- “I used to be obsessed with being super-clean… Then I realized that was really boring”: Far Caspian made one of this year's best indie records, and he did it by paring down guitar layers (from “40” to three) and embracing dirt
- “I already played guitar with a pick, so that’s how I played bass. I didn’t know you were supposed to play it with your fingers!” Kim Deal’s DIY attitude with the Pixies inspired a generation of alt-rockers
November 12
- “I thought it was the worst film I’d seen in my life! I was super-embarrassed. But that solo became part of the franchise’”: Stevie Salas on Bill & Ted, playing arenas with Rod Stewart then opening for Joe Satriani, and turning down both Van Halen singers
- “I lost my mojo for a minute, but they propped me back up”: He was one of the great blues guitar talents of the ’90s, then the gigs dried up. Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith helped him get his game face back on
- “A guy offered me way more than I paid – it was too hard to pass up. I let it go and immediately regretted it”: Phil X on the guitars he’s loved and lost – and how Eddie Van Halen taught him to “enjoy and ruin” the instrument
November 11
- “I moved a refrigerator for them and they said, ‘Here, take this guitar for gas money or whatever’”: How Jack White came upon the castaway guitar he'd use to play Seven Nation Army at the Grammys
- “It’s the guitar pedal equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant”: 50 years ago, Electro-Harmonix set the template for the future of guitar stores – then it disappeared without a trace. This is the story of the Hall of Science
- “Jim Carrey stormed the stage mid-song to air guitar his right leg like a maniac”: From David Bowie going rogue to George Harrison x Paul Simon, EVH and SRV – the 50 greatest guitar moments in SNL history
- “When I first came into the band, it was split into factions. Now everything feels solidified”: Guns N’ Roses’ longest-serving guitarist Richard Fortus on his bond with Slash and why he’s as surprised as anyone he’s still in the band
November 10
- "The building blocks of ’60s-style rock and roll, R&B and funk/soul": Ernie Ball Pino Palladino Smoothies flatwound bass strings review
- “Jeff Beck would pick up my fretless and play the craziest licks. I was in awe”: Pino Palladino’s adventures with The Who, John Mayer, Eric Clapton and his Music Man fretless bass
- “When I was 15, I was hustling it out in the juke joint clubs – and then along came Mr. Buddy Guy…” From teenage prodigy to modern guitar royalty, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is ushering in a new era for blues guitar
November 9
- “Boldly established Ibanez as a new contender in the highly competitive Superstrat market”: How Ibanez’s era-defining RG550 transformed high-performance guitar
- “He used seashells as a pick, that's where he gets all that squank from”: Brilliant players of all persuasions have earned their stripes in Lynyrd Skynyrd's three-guitar army. Rickey Medlocke takes us through all of them, and what made them special
November 8
- “It's more than an effect. It's an instrument in itself”: Made famous by David Gilmour, and employed by Rory Gallagher and the Beatles, the Binson Echorec is a secret-recipe tool that helped define rock guitar tone
- “All I wanted was to be a punk rocker and play the bass guitar. I went completely in the other direction from jazz, and now I'm trying to catch up”: When Flea met Charlie Haden – and had much more in common than you might think
November 7
- “It’s so hard when you come in to bands like Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers where the fans actually care who the bass player is”: How Oteil Burbridge set about replacing Phil Lesh to become Dead & Company’s new singing bass hero
- “If I could ever even get close to the feel or touch of that performance, I could die a happy man”: He’s inspired by Buddy Guy, played EVH in a Van Halen tribute band and made his name in GA-20 – say hello to Pat Faherty's new power trio
- Get the most from your tube amp with the Orange Valve Tester MKII
- “Son House rolled his eyes back and tossed his head – he seemed to go into a trance, snapping and slamming the strings”: Rory Block left home as a teenager then met and impressed her blues heroes
November 6
- “That’s all I had for weeks… People started banging on the wall – ‘Don’t play that anymore!’” Tom Petty wanted to turn a catchy riff into a much-needed hit. He didn't stop playing it until he did
- “Let me see you lay down a groove like Poundcake. That’s harder than getting up there and soloing”: The lead single from Van Halen’s 1991 album with Sammy Hagar combines a thunderous bassline with a revved-up power drill
- “I wanted to learn a Nirvana song. The teacher was like, ‘Kurt Cobain is one of the worst guitarists in the world’”: Sub Pop-backed alt-rockers SPRINTS on guitar trolls, setting amps on fire – and the tonal benefits of olive oil
- “There’s a synergy between you and a great instrument. That could be a $300 Squier or a $5,000 Gibson. It doesn’t matter”: Chris Buck on vintage “dogs”, signature model intrigue, and how rock royalty helped his regal blues-rock tap into America
November 5
- “Bernie was playing right out of Randy’s pedalboard and amp. He said Randy’s pedalboard was doing changes on its own”: Bernie Tormé only played seven gigs with Ozzy Osbourne – but he saved the Black Sabbath frontman’s career
- “I would like people to know that I was the true inventor of ska and reggae”: Ernest Ranglin on working with Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, James Bond – and how he influenced “almost every aspect of Jamaican music”
- “I didn’t have the brainpower to focus – I was just like, ‘I need to make sure Frankenstein is safe’”: Anxiety, wildfires, slap guitar: How Wolfgang Van Halen made the monster guitar album of 2025
November 4
- “A lot of the issues were to do with management and stuff that pitted me and Axl against each other”: Slash on his return to Guns N’ Roses, changing up the Sweet Child O’ Mine solo, and what needs to happen for a new GNR album
- “Do you want to recycle or try something new? I never chased popular opinion as much as I chased my inner feelings”: How surviving cancer inspired Ana Popovic to take blues guitar to the dancefloor
- “I never thought I’d get hired by a pop band. Opening for Coldplay with Willow Smith was never a career goal”: Few bassists can match the technical ability of Mohini Dey, thanks to her work with Steve Vai, Willow Smith and just about everyone else
- “I’m not sure why the tour ended so abruptly. I never got a bunch of my gear returned. People don’t get sacked from Sabbath – they just don’t get spoken to again!” Ask Jo Burt about Freddie Mercury, Brian Setzer and The Troggs – just not Black Sabbath
November 3
- “Changing from active to passive was huge – I’d forget to change the batteries and have a meltdown pre-gig when my EMGs died”: Conjurer just dropped a modern sludge-metal classic – and they made it using custom guitars with satanic scale lengths
- “The quality of guitars didn’t plummet overnight – some might argue that it remained high for at least a decade”: Fender CBS guitars get a bad rep – but what actually changed?
- “He had Double Trouble on a couple of his records. He had a relationship with Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was a touring machine who did it the hard way”: Eric Gales on his all-star blues tribute to his brother, the man who started him on guitar
November 2
- “I would run across the stage and ‘break’ the bass over my head while our sound guy played samples of trees cracking”: Described as the 4-string equivalent of painting with a sledgehammer, Van Halen’s Ultra Bass was not your typical bass solo
- “I had a really bad detox. I fell down a flight of stairs. I screwed up my shoulder and neck and couldn’t play guitar for a while. I thought God had taken it all away”: How Ace Frehley came back from the brink with his first solo album in 20 years
November 1
- “I hate new basses. I think they are terrible. I don’t want to have one in my hands”: How Sting’s 1953 P-Bass set the tone for this Police classic
- “Me and Chino rowed a lot when we were working on it. It was a really abrasive process”: Deftones' White Pony was one of the first metal masterpieces of the new millennium. Its creation was anything but smooth sailing