Features archive

April 2021

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70 articles

April 30
- Classic gear: Gibson ES-350T
- The bass guitar summit: Dave Swift meets Juan ‘Snow Owl’ Garcia-Herreros
- How Fender built Mike McCready’s Custom Shop Strat, one of its most intricate replicas yet
April 29
- Spotlight: Marie Ulven Ringheim, a.k.a. Girl In Red
- Glass Animals: “You shouldn't limit yourself. To get new sounds out of the guitar you have to push it”
- Karate’s Geoff Farina: "I have an ongoing identity crisis – every six months I’m enamored with some other style of guitar playing"
- Cory Wong: “Joe Satriani told me, ‘You’re the funkiest guitar player around, and I’d love to do something with you.’ I decided to call his bluff!“
April 28
- The story of Frank Zappa and the Mu-Tron Bi-Phase
- Ilan Rubin: “Whatever I’m playing, whether it’s chords or a riff, I instinctively envision what the beat under it will be”
- Marcus Machado: “Learn the rhythms, learn the changes – that's what’s important to any gig. Nobody's going to hire you for how fast you play the solo“
April 27
- Tomahawk’s Duane Denison: “There’s a political statement to be made in the whole concept of a band”
- Foo Fighters' Nate Mendel: “After all these years, I've realized that notes are so much fatter with fingerstyle“
April 26
- Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull: “It was like we had only finished the edges of a 2,000-piece puzzle, and then we had to figure out the insides”
- Todd Rundgren: “I reached a point with my technique where I said, ‘I don’t want to play faster than I can listen’“
- How Taylor devised its new Grand Theater acoustic body shape
April 25
- Adrian Smith & Richie Kotzen: “The style of the record came from our instincts and how we play together”
April 23
- K.Flay on her prized gear, music as liberation and how Tom Morello ended up on new EP, Inside Voices
- Manchester Orchestra: “A song is never finished, it's abandoned. If it were up to us, we'd have worked on this record our entire lives!”
April 22
- Middle Kids’ Hannah Joy: “This album is a bit more reflective – there’s a bit more space and it’s a bit more dynamic”
- Cat Popper: “Writing is complicated for me, because voices in my head tell me I should sound more like someone else”
- Steve Cropper: “I say to my guitars, ‘If you don’t perform tonight, you’re going to be firewood in the morning.’ And it always works!”
April 21
- Live Review: Yours & Owls Festival 2021
- Zakk Wylde: “Scales are like the combination on a lock – you can have eight numbers and come up with endless alternatives”
- How TikTok is changing the face of guitar music
- Royal Blood's Mike Kerr: "I wanted to have full access to my playing on this record – and part of that was laying off the booze"
April 20
- The Rubens’ Izaac Margin: “I’ve kind of gotten over the guitar sounding just like a guitar”
- Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Francesco Paoli on pulling a double shift on guitar and drums for the symphonic death-metal masters
April 19
- Bryan Beller on the search for the perfect bass and thinking visually when songwriting
- Tyler Bryant: “I get bored with guitar solos that are just about speed and technique. I like there to be something musical and memorable“
April 18
- Carla Geneve: “It’s really honest and transparent songwriting about what I was going through”
April 16
- Corey Congilio on growing out of his hair-metal B.C. Rich Warlock phase and his greatest gear finds
- The secrets behind Kurt Cobain‘s guitar tone on Nirvana‘s Smells Like Teen Spirit
April 15
- Death From Above 1979 - Is 4 Lovers album review
- Two Minutes to Late Night: “Metal's not for everybody, but the show's an invitation for them to come and play in the metal sandbox”
- A brief history of the Foo Fighters' remarkable quarter-century career
- Meet Bassist of the Year 2020, Danny Sapko
April 14
- Jon Gomm: “It doesn’t matter how crazy your technique is, the hardest thing is always playing in time and in tune“
- The Offspring: “We wanted to go back to basics: heavy guitars, bass and drums – and a melodic song underneath all that”
- The Commander in Chief: ”Metal was polarizing. People loved it or hated it. Classical music is the same – I get the same reaction”
- Spotlight: Rhys Hope of Highline
April 13
- Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka: “We wanted to create something orgasmic and cinematic”
- While She Sleeps on why they've gone DIY: “People in the music industry have never picked up a guitar or written a song but they have the big opinions”
- Fusion legend Mark Egan talks creative chemistry, custom basses and the spirit of improvisation on new album Electric Blue
- Lari Basilio: “My plan with the Ibanez LB1 was to make an electric guitar that could do it all“
April 12
- 5 pedals that nail ‘80s guitar tones
- Emily Kinney: “My music is a place where I get to be the lead”
- Kirk Douglas: “I wanted to give other like-minded players the ability to use an SG in a way they haven’t been able to before“
- Téa Campbell on how layered melodies and lots of guitar made Meet Me @ The Altar‘s energetic brand of pop-punk take off
April 11
- The Antlers - Green To Gold album review
April 9
- '68's Josh Scogin: “The guitar is the closest thing I have to the other side of that pandemic tunnel”
- Meet 2020's Guitarists of the Year
- Trevor Dunn: “It’s in my personality to sit back and groove with the drummer – I took to bass immediately“
April 8
- Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen: “We’ve loved Australia since the first time we went there in 1978”
- Download and stream the audio from Total Guitar 344
- August Burns Red on expansive new Guardians Sessions EP: “There's only so many metal riffs you can write – so we decided to do something new”
April 7
- Flock of Dimes' Jenn Wasner: “I'm such a fan of altered tunings. That's one of my favorite things about guitar – the malleability of it”
- 5 ways My Bloody Valentine changed the sound of guitar playing forever
- Best rock guitars: 8 of the finest rock-ready axes from Gibson, Fender, Ibanez and others
- Thundercat: “Not every instrument carries the weight to be able to morph and change in the way that bass does“
April 6
- Erra - Self-Titled album review
- How Malina Moye teamed up with Bella Thorne for one of 2021's hottest hip-hop guitar crossovers
- Ariel Posen: “When it’s my record, I want to play and feel like I do when I’m playing live – that’s really important to me”
- Jaguar Jonze: "For me, guitars input imperfections, and that’s what adds to the storytelling"
April 5
- Hard-rock icon Doug Aldrich on his guitar chemistry with David Lowy, Glenn Hughes… and Lady Luck
April 4
- Producer Profile: Shane Edwards
April 2
- Nick Johnston: "I wanted to evolve – and for me that meant learning how to sing, changing the guitars I use and experimenting with my tone"
- Jakko Jakszyk on his greatest gear finds – including a Gibson ES-150D that piqued Robert Fripp's interest
April 1
- Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett: “In 25 years, we’ll all be on stools, playing ukuleles and doing ballads – but we might still be going!”
- Calexico’s Joey Burns: “Dynamic range is something I think about a lot as a guitar player. It can be really emotional“
- How Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh’s Alembic ‘Mission Control’ pioneered the concept of the boutique bass