Features archive
July 2025
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96 articles
- July 31
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- “There was the greatest guestlist in rock history – Jimmy Page, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Neil Young”: Jimmy Rip was a session man in demand by Mick Jagger and Tom Verlaine – then came a rock ’n’ roll icon
- “The music was very dependent on accurate timing… If it was a big stage and we were spread out, it was just murder for us”: They were a pivotal band in prog’s golden age and split in 1980, but Gentle Giant still have a rabid fanbase
- “From a selection of over 300 instruments I’ve measured over the past seven years, things are not quite what they seem”: Why string spacing can radically change the way an electric guitar plays
- “That's my specialty: playing fast clusters of notes with the guitars. I had to pluck with four fingers instead of three!” Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert trade blistering licks in this standout rocker from Mr. Big
- July 30
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- “Playing Dean Town forces me to keep my chops up. Vulfpeck fans can sing every note of that bassline”: Joe Dart breaks down his lightning-quick studio approach – and how he tackles his hardest bassline to play live
- “I wish I’d been treated more fairly by the record execs, but I was part of the creation of one of the biggest bands of all time. That’s a nice legacy”: How LA guitarist Chris Weber laid the foundations for Guns N’ Roses in a single studio session
- “It’s that Rolling Stones thing – using two guitars to make one part bigger. We’re aiming to sound more like one-and-a-half players than two!” Too rock for country and too country for rock, Morganway are an old-school guitar duo in the best way
- “Aja by Steely Dan is the blueprint… If there was a formula for every kind of success you could have in music, that record embodied it”: Young Gun Silver Fox are keeping yacht-rock afloat with lawsuit guitars and 10-year-old strings
- July 29
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- “The last text I got from Oz said, ‘Zakky, sorry, it was like a madhouse back there. I didn’t see you. Thanks for everything’”: Zakk Wylde looks back on his closer-than-close relationship with Ozzy Osbourne, and their final moments together onstage
- “I paid $2,800 for it at a vintage dealer. Now, I think the guitar would be worth six figures”: What was Elliot Easton’s greatest gear find? The Cars legend reveals all – and argues that today’s players have never had it better
- July 28
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- “We had our ups and downs over the years – I hadn’t spoken to Ozzy since 2017. But I always knew if I reached out, he’d be there for me”: Geezer Butler remembers the genius and humor of his friend and Black Sabbath bandmate Ozzy Osbourne
- “I became obsessed with the idea and decided to reach out. I framed it like: ‘Would you be open to this if I worked on a prototype?’” How two of the pedal world’s most groundbreaking firms joined forces to make the ultimate overdrive
- “One guitar that got used a lot was an ex-Keith Richards 1956 TV Yellow Junior… we were drowning in amazing gear”: Wrecking old tube amps, thrashing vintage Fenders, Chris Buck is taking no prisoners as Cardinal Black return
- “My guy redesigned it into a medieval weapon: he did the blood splatter, drilled spikes on the side, and added three stripes because we wear Adidas all the time”: Slaughter To Prevail’s electric guitars are as savage as their deathcore breakdowns
- July 27
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- "It was already broken, but now we’re seeing how broken and how evil it really is": Merpire on the rise of AI bands, and the recording of her new dream pop opus Milk Pool
- “If it felt like punk speed freaks, so much the better. Elvis never came up to us saying, ‘Suspicious Minds was too fast tonight’”: At the suggestion of guitar picker James Burton, Elvis set up an audition with an unlikely bass candidate – Jerry Scheff
- July 26
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- “With Mammoth, I play an EVH prototype built by Chip Ellis at the Fender Custom Shop. Only 2 exist!” Bassist Ronnie Ficarro on taking Wolfgang Van Halen’s studio sound to the stage
- “I didn’t know their tunes, but we played some Chuck Berry and reggae, then Paul McCartney said, ‘What are you doing for the next few years?’” How Laurence Juber went from winning a Grammy with Wings to landing a hit record with Harry Styles
- July 25
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- “Everything is set as loud as it can go without collapsing. All my heroes played loud – Clapton played loud, Jimi Hendrix played loud”: Joe Bonamassa breaks down his epic onstage guitar rig – and why your volume control is a tonal superpower
- “Refining the standard that players should expect from their digital rigs”: Laney’s LFR-110 is a portable powerhouse FRFR that looks to set a new benchmark for amp modeler users
- “I asked Olivia, ‘I’d love to play one of George’s guitars.’ She just said, ‘Of course – which one?’” How a Gypsy jazz guitarist came to play George Harrison’s iconic Beatles guitars on a new tribute album
- “Countless Zoso wannabes have tried to decipher Jimmy Page’s tone secrets”: Hands-on with the ultimate Led Zeppelin amps – Sundragon’s painstakingly accurate replicas of the guitar hero’s elusive backline
- July 24
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- “I look over at Zakk and he can’t work the fretboard. I’m screaming at him, ‘It’s from liftin’ them weights!’ I didn’t realize he’d taken all the antibiotics in the bottle”: How Ozzy Osbourne and Zakk Wylde became metal’s most beloved partnership
- “I actually prefer people who play bass with their fingers. A pick has to be used just right to not blunt the guitar attack”: Billy Corgan takes us inside the zeitgeist of his low-end studio work with the Smashing Pumpkins
- “I hate guitar jams because they usually get competitive. You have to breathe, be true to yourself and think, ‘This has to be music’”: Folk icon Richard Thompson on tuning revelations, keeping his chops up, and why you won't find him in a guitar jam
- “I could hardly believe it when James reached over to the guitar case sitting opposite and lifted out his Olson acoustic”: What I learned from interviewing folk-rock icon James Taylor
- July 23
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- “Whenever I feel like a guitar is indispensable, I want to pawn it. It’s held me back from being a good player”: Want to make as many records as King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard? Abuse $10 amps, don’t bring songs to sessions and never get comfortable
- “Leo Kottke used this guitar and described it as ‘the best‑sounding New Yorker I’ve personally played’”: This 1942 New Yorker proves why D’Angelico’s acoustic archtops are widely regarded as the peak of Jazz Age lutherie
- “We have to ask: can the electric guitar get any better?” With 40 years of groundbreaking luthierie behind it, the limited PRS Charcoal Phoenix is deserving of its mythical status
- July 22
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- “I want someone that’s hungry. I want someone who wants to go out and kick Eddie Van Halen’s ass”: Ozzy Osbourne rates his guitarists – and reflects on the highs and lows of Black Sabbath
- “I'm no superman, no person from another planet – I'm just a lucky guy”: Ozzy Osbourne was an extraordinary frontman and working class hero with great taste in guitar players
- “He loved that I was playing Peavey… when we ended up touring with them, I saw why”: BRONCHO’s Ryan Lindsey has built a career on unique melodic chug, and won fans in Josh Homme and Jack White. But he still owes Steve Stevens an apology
- “I say to people: ‘I’m sorry to tell you, but in 20 years, your finish will crack because it’s gonna get thinner. But it’ll sound better – so look forward to it!’” How Gibson brought relic’d finishes to its iconic acoustic guitars with the Murphy Lab
- “If you’re out of practice, a rosewood guitar can be guaranteed to throw every imperfection into sharp relief”: How your acoustic’s back and sides affect your guitar tone
- “Once the show became a hit, people started going down the rabbit hole – ‘Oh my God! He really was in the Grass Roots!’” The life and times of Creed Bratton, from AM rock stardom to taking an Office job
- July 21
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- “I’ve got 7 guitar solos throughout the set, which is kind of insane – and that’s totally from her wanting that”: With Olivia Rodrigo, Arianna Powell is staking her claim as a guitar hero for a whole new audience
- “To be honest, I think most people will only be aware of the Led Zeppelin version”: Teenage blues phenom Muireann Bradley is keeping O.G. acoustic blues alive – and taking Where the Levee Breaks back to the source
- “You can take the back of this guitar off and the thing stays in tune as well as if it had the back on”: How L.R. Baggs reinvented the acoustic electric guitar
- July 20
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- “Chuck Schuldiner called to see if I could fill in for some Death shows in Mexico. I was still in high school, but I learned the set in a few days and jumped on”: Paul Masvidal on taking progressive extreme metal to new heights with Cynic and Death
- “They asked me to play the E string of a Chapman Stick with a bow for six minutes. Somebody else got that gig”: Why Nick Beggs passed on his audition for Blue Man Group – and what he learned from Frank Zappa
- “The first pickup had a bad buzz, so I sent the guitar to a shop. When I went to get it, it was gone. And by that I mean the store was gone”: Neil Young's Old Black Les Paul is one of rock's most iconic guitars, and its backstory is appropriately colorful
- “I don't like auditions. Let those boys like Beck and Clapton fight it out with each other. Let me watch and laugh”: Spinal Tap discuss all-star guitar duels, (maybe) influencing the Beatles, and persevering through multiple sudden tragedies
- July 19
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- “David Bowie gave them the song, but Mick wrote the intro – the lick of all licks”: A tribute to Mick Ralphs, Mott the Hoople and Bad Company's rock-steady straight shooter
- “Not many people ask me about that bassline. Back then I only had one bass, and only one set of strings”: How Verdine White crafted “one of his best basslines” with Earth, Wind & Fire
- “All the coolest things Epiphone ever did packed into one guitar”: Unpacking the gnarly vintage magic of a very rare 1960 Epiphone Coronet
- July 18
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- “They stole our name, which means Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were listening to our records. But the main reason people know us is Gary Moore, and that doesn’t bother me at all”: The tale of the original Irish Skid Row
- “Tom Morello probably sold more units than every other early adopter combined”: How the DigiTech WH-1 Whammy pedal changed the game for guitar effects
- July 17
- July 16
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- “I walk in and see on the board: ‘Beck, Satriani, Lukather, Slash.’ I thought it was a send-up”: Spinal Tap once surprised Nigel Tufnel with an all-star guitar solo tribute – but he wasn't thrilled about it
- “I don’t think LSD had a real big impact on the songwriting or guitar playing… it was just that we saw brighter colors and got high!” Roger McGuinn on The Byrds’ influential guitar style, and why they didn’t follow The Kinks and The Who into distortion
- “I imagine myself painting a picture. Before I only had 24 colors to use – now I have an infinite amount on my palette”: Meet Ben Lechuga, the Steve Vai-championed Chilean virtuoso who has gone fretless – and why he’s never going back
- July 15
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- “Mike Peters and Eddie Macdonald had written three stone-cold classics by the time they were 25. They showed amazing maturity in their early songwriting”: Remembering Mike Peters, the late frontman of the Alarm
- “This is the way Leo would be building guitars if he were still alive. In our eyes, G&L is more ‘Fender’ than Fender actually is”: How G&L Guitars is carrying on the legacy of Leo Fender
- “I love using toy guitars that you have to wrestle with. It adds to the performance – you’re pulling from the instrument”: Dean DeLeo on why his favorite STP songs are the ones he didn’t write, and barging into Allan Holdsworth’s dressing room
- July 14
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- “We had people crying on our shoulders every night. We had no idea it would be so impactful that it literally saved people’s lives”: We Lost the Sea channeled grief into a landmark post-rock album – then they had to face the pressure of how to follow it
- “One of Eric Clapton’s guitars went for half a million dollars. I was, as I often am, in trouble with the IRS. I thought, ‘This is probably the time’”: Todd Rundgren’s love affair with Clapton’s Fool SG, and how he moved on after selling it
- “I had just done 9 months with Joni Mitchell… But that whole Dark Horse tour was a really weird thing. George was uncomfortable being a band leader”: Robben Ford on the highs and lows of touring with George Harrison
- July 13
- July 12
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- “Cliff played guitar as well as bass – I picked up a few things from him that ended up on Master of Puppets”: Before Robert Trujillo and Jason Newsted, Cliff Burton set the musical bar for Metallica and established an indelible legacy
- “As soon as I saw it my heart jumped into my throat – I’d bought it from a trusted guy and I couldn’t imagine that he would have done something improper”: This 1960 Gibson ES-335 proves that there’s always something to learn from vintage guitars
- July 11
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- “It was a true surprise. And to be shouted out alongside Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ to boot? That felt surreal”: Meet Jesse Williams, the Joe Bonamassa-backed singer-songwriter tackling the mountain blues
- “I try not to be Alex Lifeson from Rush… my days of shredding and playing like a crazy maniac are over. There are a million people on Instagram that do that now”: Alex Lifeson on throwing sonic curveballs with Envy of None – and why he’s all in on plugins
- “The Kennedy Center thing was a wild experience – being around that many famous people and shaking Robert DeNiro’s hand at the White House”: How Goose took flight to become the world’s hottest jam band
- July 10
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- “I just went nuts and added lots of parallel distortion!” Thunderstruck on bass? With slapping and tapping? Modern-day bass hero Toby Peterson-Stewart flexes his formidable chops in tribute to AC/DC
- “People shied away from its political edge – they didn’t get their love songs. But for us it was a lot of fun”: Junior Marvin on Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Survival – and the influence Hendrix’s guitar pedal guru had on its sound
- “That was also where Mitch Mitchell brought Jimi’s white Woodstock Strat for me to set up, prior to him selling it”: My afternoon interviewing Hank Marvin over beans on toast and chickening out of a Paul McCartney 'audition'
- July 9
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- “Korn was doing their 30th anniversary show with Gojira. I was like, ‘I have to go give Christian a guitar, and I have to give Head a guitar’”: Tetrarch on the joy of handing out signature models to their heroes and designing metal’s gnarliest tones
- “Rule number one: When you’re not using a pedal, your guitar must sound like your original guitar sound”: Steve Stevens on the pedalboard the guru Dave Friedman made him, his favorite Klon klone and why he can't use chorus anymore
- July 8
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- “We were doing War Pigs… Ozzy looks at me and mouths, ‘What are the words?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ So he started singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm”: Jake E. Lee on his wild Ozzy Osbourne days and why Tony Iommi is harder to emulate than Randy Rhoads
- “You gotta quit at the right moment, and Gary did the worst thing any band member can do. I was angry, man”: Scott Gorham on how his guitar partnership with Gary Moore came to a dramatic end – and building bridges with the late guitar hero decades later
- “The audience got on my side when I came out with this broken guitar… it started life as a Baby Taylor but got stepped on and snapped”: He's been called the UK's “best, most humane songwriter” but a broken acoustic is the secret to Richard Dawson's sound
- July 7
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- “The songs, the artwork, the image, Ozzy’s sinister, untrained monotone, Iommi’s monolithic riffs. This was the emerging sound of heavy metal”: The complete history of Black Sabbath – lineup by lineup, album by album
- “Journeyman guitars have the lightest relicing available, as if the guitar has been used but not abused during its fictitious lifetime”: Up close with Fender Custom Shop’s ’59 Journeyman Stratocaster – a stunning vintage repro fresh out of the box
- “People think it’s a banjo or a toy, and they’re stunned when they hear it. I put a Slash humbucker and some SG electronics in it, and let me tell you, it rips!” Meet The Frst’s Mikei Gray, the virtuoso whose guitar is made out of a ’50s Buick hubcap
- July 6
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- “He got really upset and ran off down the street. He turned the corner, and I never saw him again”: Jack Bruce’s final encounter with Jaco Pastorius
- “Hearing the crowd sing the War Pigs solo gave me chills”: Back to the Beginning was Ozzy Osbourne’s night – but it was also a tribute to Tony Iommi’s singular impact on guitar music
- July 5
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- “If we played a two-hour show, the blood would be dripping down the bass!” Nile Rodgers on what made Bernard Edwards a bass genius – and the making of some iconic 4-string moments
- “That one’s a ’62. It’s also been shot. There’s a mark on the bottom where the bullet went in”: From his legendary Franken-Les Paul, Old Black, to his Hank Williams-owned Martin, and a pedalboard “ugly button,” Neil Young's rig is like no other
- “I watched Tony a lot. We became friends. It was emotional – not in a ‘pinch me!’ sense, but realizing how on-point he was – and how much he was not phoning in that performance”: Rival Sons’ Scott Holiday on what it’s like to open a Black Sabbath show
- “My dad stepped in to greet the ensemble – and then in came The King”: Billy Gibbons shares the story of the “treasured moment” he sat in on a B.B. King session – as a child
- July 4
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- “Oz said, ‘Let’s just do Free Bird twice. That should take up an hour!’” Zakk Wylde on Tony Iommi’s genius, Black Sabbath’s immeasurable influence – and Ozzy’s unlikely Back to the Beginning demands
- “The original blue Strat that I bought in ’88 became the ‘Bob guitar’… that was when I started reinventing the way I looked at guitar”: From Hüsker Dü’s “fighter jets” to Sugar’s “sheets” of guitar, how Bob Mould built his wall of sound
- “I don’t even think he had a pick. He just heard the tracks once and was ready to go”: Ricky Warwick on welcoming Lita Ford, Charlie Starr and Billy Duffy to vintage guitar nirvana for his new solo album – and the magic of seventh chords
- July 3
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- “Am I supposed to feel jealous or something? Sid Vicious had his moments – but I can have my moments as well. I’m no shrinking violet!” Glen Matlock on how the Sex Pistols have changed, while his bass rig never has and never will
- “Instead of being like, ‘Hey, man, you’re my favorite guitar player,’ I was like, ‘Watch out for that cable running across the floor’”: Bill Kelliher on his awkward Tony Iommi encounter and Mastodon’s Back to the Beginning plans
- “Epiphone’s ’50s-style Flying V is a perfectly decent guitar that emulates the spirit of the real thing without being completely vintage-accurate”: Can we turn an Epiphone Flying V into a vintage Gibson unicorn? It’s easier than you might think
- July 2
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- “I knew the record was good, but when you hear the way he plays, there's no question that Stevie was an all-time great guitar player”: How Stevie Ray Vaughan's biggest hit benefitted from one of the baddest rhythm sections in blues history
- “I took Heaven and Hell to a sleepover – the other girls looked at me like I had aliens crawling out of my ears”: Lzzy Hale on how Halestorm ended up playing Ronnie James Dio’s final show – and doing the same for Ozzy Osbourne
- “He turned out to be George Harrison’s gardener. He gave the CD to George… Next thing I know George and Olivia call to ask if we’d play at their Christmas party”: Meet Robin Nolan, the Gypsy jazz guitarist who collaborated with a Beatle
- “Sabbath and AC/DC are similar to me because people make the mistake of thinking, ‘That’s so easy. It’s like a caveman. Anyone could play those parts’”: Tony Iommi was such a big influence on Scott Ian that he tried to play left-handed
- “Exceptional tuning stability, bright and articulate tone, and enhanced output”: Pro musicians’ go-to guitar strings, Cleartone Strings – founded by music legend Phil Everly – are now available in the UK and Ireland
- July 1
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- “What we've created is a platform where you can upload your collection, and put in whatever prices you want, which only you can see”: We speak to the people behind an all-new, safe way to buy and sell vintage guitars online
- “People hear surf guitar in our music, but I think that comes more from the fact Dick Dale was Greek – so Misirlou was a Greek tune”: Introducing LA LOM, the LA trio turning fiberglass guitars and psychedelia into a dance party of guitar instrumentals
- “Judas Priest were doing something different. Black Sabbath gave us a real confidence boost to carry on what we were doing”: K.K. Downing on coming up with fellow metal gods Black Sabbath in Birmingham, and why no-one can play like Tony Iommi
- “We wanted to play a 20-minute crazy solo. An extended, jammy outro used to be a pretty common thing, and now it feels completely dead”: Meet Dutch Interior, the SoCal indie-rock outfit channeling the Allman Brothers with six – yes, six – guitarists
- “Alice in Chains have had a long relationship with Ozzy, who gave us one of our first breaks – and gave us a bass player”: Jerry Cantrell on his lifelong love of Black Sabbath and touring with Ozzy Osbourne (before taking his bassist)
