Features archive
September 2025
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87 articles
- September 30
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- “I thought, ‘I wonder if I can get away with putting sleigh bells on a doom-metal song?’” How Paradise Lost’s Greg Mackintosh is rewriting the gothic metal rulebook
- “Remember the golden rule of mixing: if you can’t hear something, that doesn’t mean it’s too quiet – it’s more likely that something else is too loud”: How to deal with sound engineers and help them help you dial in a killer live tone
- September 29
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- "Unfortunately I can imagine that because nothing would surprise me": The Living End's Chris Cheney on AI punk bands, going back to basics, the Spotify exodus and rock 'n' roll as a life force
- “I saw one of their pedals and thought, ‘That’s the sound I’ve been thinking about for 10 years!’” Meet Coach Party, the UK indie-rockers dialing in Tokai Teles, Amazon tremolos and secrets from Queens of the Stone Age’s pedalboards
- “We were like Dime and Vinnie and the Van Halen brothers combined… Then when everything went down, I found out that we were not as close as we thought”: Max Cavalera on Sepultura’s bloody roots, the rise of Soulfly and how metal became the family business
- “Sometimes I go to a Guitar Center, see a kid jamming and I’ll start jamming with them. We look at each other and it’s, like, a moment”: Yvette Young-backed emo icons Algernon Cadwallader are back – and as giddy and technically dazzling as ever
- September 28
- September 27
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- “It’s quite lyrical and different from a lot of other Stones songs... I played in a different mode”: Mick Taylor lent stunning slide work to golden-era Rolling Stones classics, but he says this obscure album cut is his best performance with the band
- “The guy in the support band was playing a Jazz Bass. We agreed to swap instruments… That guy was Ian Hunter who went on to form Mott the Hoople”: Leo Lyons on the bass that appeared at Woodstock, has been played by Hendrix, and is on three UFO classics
- September 26
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- “Dickey came to one of the shows. He whispers, ‘Hey, is that the guitar I loaned you?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He goes, ‘Good. Use it for as long as you want’”: Frank Hannon on how guitar instrumentals helped him grieve father-in-law Dickey Betts
- “We were trying to do the perfect crossover between a Telecaster and a Les Paul. I love both”: Mikey Demus on making a Manson signature guitar that suits him down to a T
- “The pickups on that old Univox were amazing. It really makes you wonder about the Japanese guitars produced back then. They weren’t so bad at all”: How Vintage’s REVO range breathed new life into the oddball electric
- September 25
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- “By the time I realized I was in, I was a deserter from the Marine Corps. Johnny was was like, ‘Do your time. When you get out, you’ve got a job’”: CJ Ramone landed the gig of a lifetime with the Ramones, but his audition got him sent to naval prison
- “Reshaping the nut to look more like a Gibson from the ’50s is too tempting not to do”: How I made the Epiphone Jeff Beck Oxblood 1954 Les Paul a little more Jeff Beck
- “Like fine-tuned ‘sweet spot’ knobs, letting you drive your tubes hard while keeping the volume in check”: Why you need a power attenuator for your tube amp
- “This actual guitar has been on something like 10 number one records”: From Green Day to Eric Clapton, meet the Taylor acoustic guitar you didn't know was responsible for some of the biggest songs in the world
- “Pentangle sold out the Royal Albert Hall and the next night I was playing in a jazz quartet for 40 quid”: From gigging in strip clubs to recording with John Martyn and Kate Bush, Danny Thompson walked a singular path in bass playing
- September 24
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- “Before getting my Dunable, I never felt like a guitar was mine. I started on a Squier Strat, but I was like, ‘There are a million of these!’” Meet Faetooth, the LA “fairy doom” trio breaking out with unlikely punk influences and a box of dirt pedals
- “The first time I saw Todd Rundgren with The Fool SG, I fell in love with the idea of the guitar being an art canvas”: Vernon Reid breaks down his melting-pot writing approach and the poignant symbolism of his Reverend guitars
- “I asked if he had anything inspiring – he brought Gregg Allman’s ’66 Guild Starfire. It’s cool that Gregg played a small part on this record”: Marcus King on true love as recovery, being neighbors with Billy Strings and the Tele he bought while drunk
- September 23
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- “Our headstocks have their quirks. However, there have been 60 years of constant attention to this”: Gibson sets the record straight on headstock breaks – and what the brand has been doing for the past 60 years to fix it
- “Carries the legacy forward by putting professional-grade guitars back within reach of the musicians they were always meant to serve”: Dana Bourgeois celebrates 50 years of guitar making by reimagining the ever-popular Professional Series
- “There’s a whammy dive riff that’s diabolically tricky. I’m already panicking about the day I play it live”: BTBAM have always fused metal and the unexpected. Now the band’s sole guitarist, Paul Waggoner has to live up to fans’ lofty expectations
- “I was hitting sessions until my eyeballs were popping out. I’d go in early in the morning, start at 10 and get home midnight”: Session hero Brent Mason has played on over a thousand records. Here’s what he’s learned about getting the job done
- “If I’m a little late to first period in the morning because I had to do an interview, my teachers are pretty lenient with me”: Ethan Kahn on Chained Saint’s face-ripping debut and how the new school of thrash metal is rewriting the rulebook
- September 22
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- "My first guitar was nasty, old, and cheap. It didn’t have a name on it – they were too embarrassed to put it on, I think!” 7 electric guitar icons on the budget acoustics that shaped their early years
- “I was falling out of love with music. Playing with Elton John woke me from my slumber. I got blisters every night because it was fun again!” Matt Bissonette’s “dumb-guy” approach to bass has taken him round the world with pop and rock royalty
- “The crowd went crazy. Somebody threw a 9-volt battery, and it hit me right above my eye”: Ricky Byrd on charged encounters onstage with Joan Jett and how Jeff Beck turned him onto smaller amps
- “Ozzy had a problem with my short hair. Sharon had a problem with my green guitar – she said it looked like a booger”: The unlucky 13 guitarists who auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne – but didn’t make the grade
- September 21
- September 20
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- “I’m the first bass player to ever MD a stadium tour like this. We make history every night”: As Musical Director for Kendrick Lamar, Tony Russell could be the greatest bass player you've never heard of
- “He used to call himself the worst bass player in the business, but he knew that wasn’t true”: The life (and tragically early death) of Phil Lynott, Thin Lizzy’s legendary bass-playing frontman
- September 19
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- “The scrutiny we were under lent itself to the atmosphere of the record. We really had to come out swinging”: Jake Kiszka and Chris Turpin on conjuring old-school guitar magic for Mirador’s debut – and the difference between US and UK guitar players
- “The first time I heard the Smashing Pumpkins’ Cherub Rock, I fell in love. He’s playing rhythm, but it’s about so much more than the rhythm”: Meet Phoneboy, the New Jersey indie rockers dialing up melody, artistry and singable guitar solos
- September 18
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- “I wanted to continue along that journey of heavily effected psychedelic guitars, but I wanted to streamline my songwriting”: How Kylesa guitarist Laura Pleasants went from drop-tuned sludge to “skeletal” guitars for post-punk solo project The Discussion
- “Kurt felt things about bands that had a certain honesty. His stamp of approval stood us in good stead”: The Raincoats’ Gina Birch on star fans Kurt Cobain and Kim Gordon, and why John Cale led her band into pop when they didn’t want to go there
- “I started to think, ’Could I come up with something that would be a fit for a James Bond movie?’” Robin Trower on the secrets to his signature sound, his Strat headstock theory – and how 007 influenced his new album
- September 17
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- “This band interacts and reacts. No two nights are the same. There’s a risk in working like that but also a beauty to the freedom”: Jazz guitar phenom Pete Roth on the making of a trio that lives on the outer limits of improv
- “It’s a silly kid’s drawing, but I sent it to ESP, and we did a deal”: URNE’s Angus Neyra on the schoolboy scribble that got him an endorsement, getting Troy Sanders to guest on their 9-minute single, and why he needed a “brother” guitarist
- “I wanted to play like Stevie and see if I could break my guitar in half like he tried to do”: Ally Venable is spreading the Texas blues gospel via a deep-seated love of Stevie Ray Vaughan and her “Wounded Warrior” Les Paul
- “Chrissie Hynde was getting fed up with our performance. So she stood in front of us and bent over, so we were staring at her backside”: How bassist Tony Butler helped relaunch The Pretenders with this 1982 rock classic
- September 16
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- “They kept talking about this bizarre guitar player who practiced nonstop in his room and was very eccentric. I thought, ‘I want to work with him’”: Bill Laswell survived Buckethead, John Lydon, Ginger Baker and Eddie Hazel – and made it sound easy
- “Frank gets it. He’s not a po-faced, miserable git. He’s got a sense of humor. He’s got a twinkle in his eye”: Glen Matlock on the legacy of the Sex Pistols and getting back on the road with Frank Carter’s help
- September 15
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- “I’m a big Slash fan but ya gotta admit John stole the show”: Remembering the night tres hombres by the name of John Mayer, Slash and Billy Gibbons gave ZZ Top’s La Grange a triple-guitar glow-up
- “Whether or not my fingers bled, I don't remember”: Billy Corgan on the making of Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness – and how one of its biggest hits nearly didn’t make the record
- “My bass got caught in my pants and ripped them down to my ankles”: 11 real-life Spinal Tap moments from bass-playing royalty
- “It’s like playing a tree! It’s crazy how far your hands are away from your body”: How Vianova crafted one of the best modern metal debuts in years by making brutal 30" baritones disgustingly fun – and naming songs after cult Squier guitars
- “I had to learn to play electric guitar when I formed the Beach Boys with the guys. I had to go electric. It was like Dylan”: These two Beach Boys classics might have been misunderstood, but with Al Jardine’s guitar work, they stand the test of time
- September 14
- September 13
- September 12
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- “If you have a really fast run it’s just blazing past you. But with a lovely slow melodic line, you just kind of melt into it”: Meet Still Corners, the Anglo-American duo who write Shadows-inspired dream pop while they’re watching movies
- “My grandma asked me why I was spending so much time pretending when I could just get a real guitar”: Inhaler guitarist Josh Jenkinson on how Miley Cyrus and Harry Styles’ producer expanded their sound – and why he just bought his first electric last year
- "It was only £45 or something, and all the other guitars were getting into the hundreds": Jimmy Page's 5 most iconic guitars, in his own words
- September 11
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- “I saw the message and I was like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ He called me the next day and offered me a world tour”: How Yungblud bassist Silke Blansjaar got the gig of a lifetime – despite not playing bass
- “I measure success by the number of knock-off clones I have – that gives me an idea as to how I’m perceived in the pedal world”: Robert Keeley on becoming one of the most imitated pedal builders in the biz – and the “smoking” drive he can't sell online
- “The first gig, they handed me a mayonnaise jar full of cocaine and said, ‘Welcome to the band’”: Blues survivor Walter Trout on wild times with Canned Heat, how John Mayall helped him get sober – and his death metal tone secret
- September 10
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- “The guitar I play live is secretly a Squier. I replaced the neck plate – I was like, ‘I’m too big for this!’” How Frankensteined Fenders and vintage Gibsons supercharged the rise of Jack White-backed rockers Die Spitz
- “If Leo Fender had released a Jazz Bass like this back in the ‘60s, it would have changed the entire history of popular music”: The inside story of Adrian Younge’s half-fretless, fuzz-loaded Fender Custom Shop Jazz Bass
- “You get emails saying they’d like to try a guitar and you think, ‘It’s not going to be THAT Audley Freed, is it?… Then the penny drops”: How Ivison Guitars became Britain’s hottest high-end brand
- September 9
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- “We did this show in Amsterdam. It was quite loud, so it was shut down after 20 minutes. The people started throwing wooden shoes”: Nigel Tufnel on the return of Spinal Tap – with Marshall amps that go to infinity, new custom guitars, and a point to prove
- “We all talked to each other before we went on – Kirk, Zakk and Slash. Kirk said, ‘I’m nervous, man!’ I said, ‘I am too’”: Jerry Cantrell looks back at the “walk-off home run” of Ozzy Osbourne’s final show
- September 8
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- “There are no limits. It’s basically: how long will it take and how much is it going to cost?” Behind the scenes at the Fender Custom Shop – where anything goes, and heritage and innovation go hand in hand
- “Our riffs are unconventional because we don’t know what key anything is in. Most guitar players wouldn’t admit that”: From Billy Corgan to Big Thief, how Momma became one of alt-rock’s most addictive bands
- “I almost cried when I first saw John Frusciante live. But when I got involved in extreme music, people would say, ‘Don’t mention RHCP’”: How Arve Isdal carved his own extreme metal path with Enslaved – and became Norway’s answer to Slash
- September 7
- September 5
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- “I look at guitar playing as a dance between both hands. One hand brings discipline, the other brings chaos…” John Butler shares his secrets in this stunning masterclass
- “I did the least amount of overdubs on Alive! – I’ll let the fans decide why that is…” Ace Frehley looks beyond his next Origins album to his travel guitar, more touring and even reconciling with Kiss
- “It was a major step up for me. I still pull it out from time to time at home – it’s a bit of a lost classic in the Gibson range”: Zakk Wylde on the miracle of his ‘Grail’ Les Paul and the three most important guitars in his life
- September 4
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- “I’d just hit the bass really hard and overdrive it with my hand. There’s no need to have any finesse if you’re a bass player”: Nikki Sixx recalls his decadent early days with Mötley Crüe
- "Back then, I was pretty much a nobody, so Gibson sold it to me at cost!" Slash's 5 most iconic guitars, in his own words
- “He’s written some of the heaviest, greatest rock riffs of all time. That’s served me tremendously”: How Harrison Whitford balances inspiration from Aerosmith guitarist dad Brad, boss Phoebe Bridgers and his devotion to alternate tunings
- “I was starstruck when I first met Ozzy. He said he had ‘a good feeling’ about me. He just encouraged me to play with my heart”: Gus G on growing up on Black Sabbath, playing with Ozzy Osbourne – and why Tony Iommi’s style was the hardest to master
- September 3
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- “John Mayer ruined me with getting new guitars and vintage stuff. He’s always experimenting, so I had to expand my own rig”: Isaiah Sharkey is one of guitar’s most versatile talents. He lets us in on how he works with Mayer, D’Angelo and Miles Davis
- “Our definition of what makes a ‘good’ guitar tone has changed dramatically in the past 10 years”: Does ‘bad’ guitar tone even exist anymore?
- “A good guitar solo should sound like an orgasm. I can hear it in Eddie Van Halen’s playing, and Jimi Hendrix. I live for the juicy notes”: Carlos Santana on playing like a soul singer and his visitations from B.B. King, Miles Davis and Stevie Ray Vaughan
- September 2
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- “I used to have a really crap 335 copy – I think it was a Hohner. It would just never stay in tune. Fortunately it got stolen”: Pulp’s Mark Webber explains the happy accidents, thefts and uncontrollable pedals behind the Britpop icons’ guitar sound
- “Whether this is the first instrument you buy, or that dream guitar you’ve saved years for, the expectation from Ibanez has always been to over-deliver”: How Ibanez is continuing to cement its legacy as the alternative acoustic guitar brand
- “Ibanez has always been there at the forefront of the metal revolution and evolution”: How Ibanez became one of the biggest metal guitar makers on the planet, beloved by players and pros alike
- “I saw Kiki’s name, I stopped and thought, ‘Wait… I think I follow her on Instagram.’ …I was like, ‘Oh, that’s that person I really like’”: Billy Corgan and Kiki Wong on the guitar chemistry behind Smashing Pumpkins’ new era
- “I got a writeup in a guitar magazine, and a gentleman from the UK sent me a handwritten letter in the mail saying, ‘Hello, my name is Guthrie’”: Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal on the unifying magic of the guitar instrumental
- September 1
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- “Since Clapton was in London, I was tapped to fill in the spaces – I was given credit in the ‘special thanks’ section”: He played with blues legends and taught Trey Anastasio. Now Paul Asbell is reflecting on 50 years as a player’s player
- “I’ve got nothing but love for John. He was brilliant back in the day… We’ve just grown apart”: Steve Jones on the Sex Pistols’ legacy, their ill-fated second guitarist auditions and how a new singer has rejuvenated the band
- “Julian pushes the boundaries on the guitar. He’s got a specific sound and message he’s going for”: Meet the virtuoso axe-slingers from the Voidz – Strokes singer Julian Casablancas’ inventive other band
- “The closest alignment with Gibson’s legacy that Epiphone has ever achieved”: Epiphone draws on its 152-year-old history and Gibson’s aspirational craftsmanship to bring the Inspired by Gibson Custom Acoustic Collection to players at all levels
- “I didn’t set out to start a guitar company. I set out to solve a problem. That problem became a purpose”: Behind the rise of Strandberg, the firm that ushered in a headless guitar revolution – and changed the concept of guitar design in the process
- “We will continue to innovate and drive our company with passion that’s how we can win”: How Blackstar shook up the amp establishment – and cemented its place in the upper echelons of the industry
- “We really wanted to honor the past, honor the story, honor everything that makes Analog Man's King of Tone special – but with a twist”: Chase Bliss’ Joel Korte lifts the veil on the five-year process that led to Brothers AM – an overdrive for the ages
