Features archive
May 2025
Filter
76 articles
- May 31
- May 30
-
- “I don’t remember any conflict inside the band. We were determined to grab back the reins from anyone who was holding them and do the album the way we wanted it to be done”: Bob Mould on myth vs reality and the making of Hüsker Dü’s New Day Rising
- “I really like using small amps in the studio. It’s an old Led Zeppelin trick, right? But they just sound pretty incredible”: How Samantha Fish used raw amp energy and some “wild, funky, weird little guitars” to make her new album come alive
- May 29
-
- “Sonically, it’s astonishing. You plug in, turn it on and there it is – there’s the Andy Timmons sound”: That Pedal Show’s Daniel Steinhardt reveals his top 5 pedals (from the past 5 years)
- “It was about being a competitive guitarist in the '80s. That was a completely different playing style than Ace was known for”: In 1985, Kiss needed the best and got the best – his name was Bruce Kulick
- “What led to the end of my time with Steppenwolf? Egos and drugs”: Michael Monarch was just 18 when he tracked one of the most iconic riffs of the ’60s – next came Janis Joplin, Jimmy Page and Free’s Andy Fraser
- May 28
-
- It was the era of the Superstrat, but along came an all-new high-end guitar that found fans in Al Di Meola and Ted Nugent – celebrating 40 years of Paul Reed Smith’s first production model, the PRS Custom 24
- “Trying to impress works great on socials, but you catch people by the emotions. A flashy solo still needs to end with a beautiful note”: Dirty amps, unplayable tunings and a DIY plugin build – this is the story of Novelists’ remarkable rebirth
- “The way we played guitar, the way I voiced against Tom, we found it on American Girl. I thought, ‘This is us.’ Those two guitars helped make it happen”: Mike Campbell on how his lifelong musical connection with Tom Petty was forged in a matter of days
- May 27
-
- “Did the label put pressure on us? Big time. I wish they had won, looking back. We often ask ourselves ‘what were we thinking?’” Simple Minds guitarist Charlie Burchill on the regrets and rewards of making their ’80s classic, Once Upon a Time
- “I hadn’t been playing guitar for that long. I’d just make up chords with the least amount of fingers possible”: In 1985, J. Mascis was a beginner guitarist stumbling upon a sound – yet Dinosaur Jr.’s debut would shape a generation of players
- “It was the closest I’ll ever get to Indiana Jones. You find this artifact and you’re scraping away until it’s the dinosaur bone showing”: The story of Brad Paisley’s Lost Telecaster – the ‘hippie vomit’ reject that became one of Fender’s rarest finds
- "When all the computers fall apart, when the world burns to the ground, there's going to be a guitar left": Courtney Barnett talks the godfather of grunge, fingerstyle, AI and music, and her next move
- May 26
-
- “I always played B.B. King. His style was commercial, not like the gutbucket style”: You may not know his name, but Jimmy Johnson was a contemporary of Buddy Guy – and the ultimate example of a Chicago blues virtuoso who ventured well outside the box
- “I really like the end of And She Was with that distorted guitar. I thought it sounded like Neil Diamond’s Cherry, Cherry”: Jerry Harrison on the outtakes and off-brand inspirations behind Talking Heads’ Little Creatures
- “It’s the Kinks meets AC/DC. I had to play around with the riff because I didn’t want it to sound like You Really Got Me – you don’t wanna get sued”: Jim Babjak revisits 5 classic Smithereens riffs – and reveals the gear and stories behind them
- May 24
- May 23
-
- “I was playing a gig at CBGB’s Canteen, and Cyndi showed up. She heckled me throughout the show”: Knox Chandler has played with Cyndi Lauper, and been a part of Depeche Mode, Psychedelic Furs, and Siouxsie & the Banshees – now he's going solo
- “I liked Bad Company and Free. Those bands, like David Bowie and Roxy Music, were all pop. But their albums had deeper cuts. That’s what I hoped we could pull off”: Billy Duffy on the making of The Cult’s 1985 breakout album – and why Rain made him sweat
- May 22
-
- “It’s like playing a concert for millions of people all at once, without ever stepping on stage”: A guitarist’s guide to sync licensing
- “Being a great guitar player is always coming up with the right part for the right song, or the right solo”: The Fleshtones’ Keith Streng explains what he learned from a misspent youth at CBGB’s – and the merits of pointless practice
- “My hand got totally trashed. I looked down and could see the bone of my pointer finger. I lost the ability to bend it”: An accident defined Chris Poland’s playing, but it didn’t stop him handling the high demands of Megadeth’s debut
- “The Höfner is so light, it encouraged me to play with a light touch and be more adventurous with it. I’d play it more like a guitar”: Why Paul McCartney’s violin bass was essential in creating his most playful bassline on Sgt. Pepper’s
- May 21
-
- “Only Happy When It Rains has a solo and lot of that is backward guitar. We had to figure out how to play it – and flipped the two-inch tape reels over. I struggle playing that every night!” Garbage’s Duke Erikson and Steve Marker don't like to look back
- “You’ve gotta be able to learn the songs by ear – especially with Cradle of Filth. The tabs online are terrible”: Cradle Of Filth’s Donny Burbage and Marek ‘Ashok’ Šmerda on their theatrical metal roles – and what modern players miss about Marshalls
- “Did l know she was a future legend? Not at the time. I didn’t know how talented she was. Obviously, we all found out”: 40 years ago, session ace Paul Jackson Jr. turned up to record with a then unknown singer – her name was Whitney Houston
- May 20
-
- “The volume was painful. The loudness came from Stevie, who had a Frankenstein wall of amps”: Marked by substance abuse, new members, and studio snags – Stevie Ray Vaughan's Soul to Soul was a classic that signaled trouble to come
- “CBS ran an ad that said, ‘6 million people have heard the sound of his guitar. Let us introduce you to him…’ That made a huge rift”: Barry Goudreau was there from the beginning of Boston – but has regrets about how things ended with Tom Scholz
- May 19
-
- “People were saying, ‘You’re not gonna make it.’ We just kept going. It took us six years”: The Smithereens’ Jim Babjak on how they went from broke to touring with Tom Petty – and became Kurt Cobain’s tonal reference for Nevermind
- “Muddy Waters told my dad, ‘Jimmie, when I’m gone, teach everybody how to play like that.’ He liked the way he played slide”: He's the son of Jimmie Vaughan and the nephew of SRV, now he’s carrying the weight of his family playing legacy
- “Those were the cocaine ’80s. They devoted a whole day to auditioning snare drum samples – just to double-up the actual snare”: Nancy Wilson knew Heart had to adapt to survive the excesses of the 1980s – but she didn’t expect their greatest success
- May 18
- May 17
-
- “Keep your mind on the music. I never thought of myself as a ‘woman’ musician at all, but a guitarist and then a bass player”: Studio bass icon Carol Kaye on why it is not about who you are, but how and what you play that defines you as a musician
- Buddy Guy said he would take the blues “into the future,” and he was a guitar brother-in-arms of Mike Bloomfield. An unsung blues great talks influences, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and crossing over into jazz
- May 16
-
- “Johnny will sometimes come out with something and we’ll laugh at the bludgeoning nature of it”: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on happy accidents with broken pedals, collabs with hip-hop royalty, and the riff that’s so heavy they can’t play it live
- “I like doing weird things like playing my phone through my pickups, and then looping that while playing over the top”: How Bonnie Trash’s Emmalia Bortolon-Vettor is reinventing guitar sounds with a $1 ring slide, a looper and her imagination
- “The first thing you need to do is listen to what the other instrumentalist is playing and see if what you’re doing can enhance that”: Cory Wong on the secrets of collaboration and how to stack and blend guitar parts that complement the song
- May 15
-
- “He was opening for Bobby Darin and the audience were going, ‘We want Duane! We want Duane!’ Poor Bobby was backstage, almost in tears. From there on, Duane finished the show”: Albert Lee, Joe Bonamassa and Vince Gill on the life and legacy of Duane Eddy
- “I had very few reference points – no one saying, ‘Try this.’ I just played through a bass amp then added a second amp”: Meet the Meffs, the Britpunk duo outnumbered by their amps
- “People forget that in the ’80s, the Fender Strat was like having an old car and someone saying, ‘Why are you driving that piece of crap?’” Yngwie Malmsteen explains how he broke the mold for rock guitar – and brought the Strat in from the cold
- May 14
-
- “I was really fortunate that I got to work with Kurt. He had a real ear for a hook – playing bass with him was super-easy”: Krist Novoselic achieved harmony through Kurt Cobain’s chaos – and was the making of this Nirvana classic
- “We were getting comfortable being back together – that was part of the reason we went out on the road without a record deal. Another reason was that we couldn’t get a record deal...” Why Aerosmith’s ’80s misfire, Done With Mirrors, was the making of them
- “To be in this band, you’ve got to be able to play solos and straight-ahead blues, and be something of a bass player, too, to cover the low end guitar-wise. It’s hard to find someone who can do all that”: The resurrection of GA-20
- “We met Greg Sutton, who played for Bob Dylan. He said, ‘Let’s get Mick Taylor out.’ So we paid Mick, got some blow and wrote a few songs...” Anthony Krizan on what it took to perform Hendrix with Noel Redding – and best Alex Skolnick in an audition
- May 13
-
- “Distortion, distortion, gain and more gain were my digs before I joined the Smashing Pumpkins. But they’ve introduced me to a whole new world of pedals”: Kiki Wong on her life-changing audition, and what she's learned from Billy Corgan and James Iha
- Their job titles are ‘Wrangling Hellcat’ and ‘Waste Management’ – meet the multi-talented minds behind Jack White’s fast-rising pedal brand, Third Man Hardware
- “We’re an African band who make hard rock. Before Songhoy Blues, you’d never hear anyone do this. It’s like a little Rolling Stones from Mali”: Songhoy Blues’ Garba Touré created his own crossover guitar style – now he’s changing it up again
- “My friend found me a replica of John Frusciante’s Strat for €28,000. Spending that kind of money is ridiculous. It doesn't do anything for me”: Richard Z. Kruspe on why guitars are like kisses, reverse kill-switches – and the riff that launched Rammstein
- May 12
-
- “I gave the Nocaster to Stevie. I'd catch him playing it. Years later someone paid a million dollars or something for it”: Jimmie Vaughan on his three favorite guitars – and the story of the megabucks Fender he gave to his brother
- “How the gain sags and blooms is going to influence how you perform. When you track DI and change the tone, you lose the essence of the performance”: Connor Kaminski and Keyan on the secrets behind one of the year’s hottest guitar collaborations
- May 11
- May 10
-
- “I will use mattresses for isolation and try not to bother the neighbors too much… I was just following the songs to see what happens”: How Jonathan Hultén channeled Nick Drake’s Pink Moon and recorded an entire album in his walk-in closet
- “Paul Simon called Stax and said, ‘Who are those Jamaican musicians?’ They told him, ‘Those are some white boys from Alabama!’” David Hood on being starstruck by Aretha Franklin, what Otis Redding taught him, and tales from golden age of Muscle Shoals
- May 9
-
- “Even today, there’s little nuances that Eddie did, and I can get close, but it’s about trying to capture the feeling”: Why George Clinton’s P-Funk All Stars never shined so bright as when ‘Kidd Funkadelic’ and Eddie Hazel joined forces on Maggot Brain
- “A personal crowning moment for me was having Lemmy ask me to play on a Motörhead record!” Alice in Chains’ Mike Inez on why Cliff Burton ruled, Paul McCartney's influence – and what John Entwistle told him (that he already knew)
- “Listening to Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert… all kinds of crazy-fast players. And you tried to keep up with them”: Andy La Rocque on why he is no longer a 120mph soloist – and what we can expect from the long-awaited King Diamond album
- “This was specifically wanting it to have the sort of grandiosity of a Comfortably Numb-type guitar solo but without really referencing that vocabulary”: Randy McStine reveals all behind his cosmically epic solo on Steven Wilson's The Overview
- May 8
-
- “I play the double-neck and trade solos with Joe Walsh on Hotel California. It’s a bit terrifying, but it’s the greatest thing ever”: Chris Holt landed The Eagles without an audition – but his gigs with Mike Campbell and Don Henley might have helped
- “John Lennon hated doubling his vocals. The chief engineer at Abbey Road came up with a way to add a delay and put it onto another track. That’s what that pedal does”: The Cars’ Elliot Easton on the secrets of his pedalboard – and the wizard who made it
- May 7
-
- “I wasn't familiar with PRS. If anything, I was like, ‘The birds are too flashy!’ But the moment I played one I was like, ‘Whoa, I can play faster now!’”: Meet Mei Semones, the Berklee graduate reimagining New Orleans vibes with an intricate indie flair
- “A lot of modern guitarists want to get all the notes right but if you listen to Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page, it’s beautiful playing, with loads of mistakes”: Peter Brewis on Field Music’s ‘collage rock’ – and why he owes his career to Robert Zemeckis
- “Iggy left the Stooges and had a career – ditto Lou Reed with the Velvet Underground or Morrissey with the Smiths. Where’s Biafra’s solo career?”: East Bay Ray explains why the Dead Kennedys’ chemistry hit its peak on Fresh Fruit... and why it fell apart
- May 6
-
- Faced with the loss of their founding guitarist and creative leader, Night Flight Orchestra are persevering with the big melodies and sonic largesse of rock's golden era
- “There’s a sleek look to bands like Loathe, Spiritbox or Knocked Loose. Spiky shapes are engrained in our values – we want to wear our influences on our sleeves”: Employed To Serve are re-embracing metal guitars – but dropping amps
- “Tokai’s LS series are probably the best-built Les Paul-style guitars that have ever come through my shop”: How the Japanese guitar market came of age with ’80s Fender and Gibson clones – some that would rival the originals
- May 5
-
- Played by everyone from Magic Sam and Otis Rush to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robbie Robertson, Noel Gallagher, and Robben Ford, the Riviera remains Epiphone's semi-hollow superstar
- “Smashing Pumpkins taught me that music doesn’t have to fit neatly into a box… it’s not as easy as pie. It’s pie with a side of metal!” Billy Corgan asked Jenna Fournier to go back to bass, and she says the timing is perfect
- “I always used it with Whitesnake, which was perfect because it sounded like John Sykes' Les Paul”: Doug Aldrich on how Randy Rhoads’ inspiration helped him find a “killer” Les Paul – that was owned by the man who co-wrote Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven
- May 4
- May 3
- May 2
-
- “I remember there was a video of Gary Moore and he played Red House on this Fiesta Red Strat, and I thought it was just the most incredible thing”: Is Toby Lee Britain’s next blues-rock superstar?
- “I love the guitar, but essentially it’s an instrument that belongs to the 20th century in many ways. So it’s a question of, what can you do to try to reinvent that vocabulary to make it seem relevant?”: Steven Wilson on the making of a cosmic prog epic
- “I had big shoes to fill, but I knew I had a lot to offer on my own. I think Billy Corgan saw that in me”: From Veruca Salt to the Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage, Nicole Fiorentino has become alt-rock's go-to bassist
- May 1
-
- “We both wanted to shred. Joey wanted to be as crazy on guitar as he was on drums”: Wednesday 13 on getting his guitar confidence back – with help from some heroes – and the Murderdolls future that never happened
- “I still use the Strat and Big Muff sound here and there for overdubs, but when I watched Eddie Van Halen play 3 feet in front of me, I learned that it’s about the hands”: Billy Corgan on critics, tone secrets, and how he keeps Smashing Pumpkins fresh
- “I subsequently became the world’s most famous guitarist with The Police. I wanted to play with somebody else to see how I’d do, like an experiment on myself”: At the height of his ’80s success, Andy Summers needed a challenge – he found Robert Fripp
