Features archive
December 2025
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75 articles
- December 31
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- “After it was called the ‘solo of the century,’ I remember saying to Steve Lukather, ‘Come on, this is ridiculous’”: Nuno Bettencourt on turning down Ozzy, Sabbath’s final show and how Extreme finally got their dues
- “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
- December 30
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- “I’ve worked with Lee Sklar. I got to see Anthony Jackson play. I had Pino Palladino on my first album. I’ve been able to absorb that bass-playing mojo”: How the bass guitar became a crucial part of Sheryl Crow’s songwriting process
- “Jimmy Page used one of our guitars. It was some of the best tremolo work I’d ever heard”: Paul Reed Smith on how he built his brand, secret PRS players – and why the internet is wrong about tonewood
- “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
- December 29
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- “I kept seeing outdated business models that didn’t make sense in today’s social media-driven world”: The unstoppable rise of signature guitar companies, as explained by Ola Englund
- “I toured with Stevie Ray Vaughan when he was sober and he was a freak of nature. I couldn’t relate to his playing”: The Outlaws' Henry Paul on opening for The Rolling Stones, finding fame thanks to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and his one-of-one red Gretsch Falcon
- December 28
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- “When Stevie called us, we had to tell him the party was over. We said, ‘We’ve just blown out Stevie Wonder!’” Stuart Zender on sessioning for Stevie Wonder and supplying the funk to Jamiroquai’s first three albums
- “Ken pulled this instrument out of this blanket and I was astonished. My jaw hit the floor. I’d never seen anything like it”: Remembering Ken Parker, the genius luthier who brought us the Parker Fly
- “I wasn’t credited with any songwriting. That was a pity. But I didn’t make a fuss. I figured Peter was still pretty fragile”: Snowy White on his uncredited role on Peter Green’s comeback LP and how David Gilmour introduced him to the Whammy pedal
- December 27
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- “We hung out in his hotel room ’til 7 in the morning. He put on Donna Lee – I couldn’t believe it!” When Jimmy Haslip met Jaco Pastorius at Frank Zappa’s studio
- “The fact that I played rhythm guitar on Cold Gin on stage alongside Ace will always seem surreal”: My time with the Spaceman – why Ace Frehley was one hero you had to meet
- December 26
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- “At the Mark Knopfler sale, I remember seeing people in tears”: A-list guitar auctions are now a firm fixture, and the sums involved are eye-watering. But who is driving the boom – and is it sustainable?
- “Each of them impacted the instrument in their own way, as luthiers, hitmakers, session players, or air guitar-inspiring soloists”: Remembering the guitarists we lost in 2025
- “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
- December 25
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- “If we see something like the DigiTech Bad Monkey overdrive trending, it’s like, ‘Okay, who opened their mouth?’ And it’s usually JHS’s Josh Scott”: From the amp modeling revolution to the demand for dirt, these are the trends driving the used gear market
- “I met my biological father as an adult through a DNA test. I was surprised to find that he’d been infatuated with the guitar his entire life as well”: From childhood abandonment to country stardom, here is the incredible story of Rockie Lynne
- December 24
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- “If you just want to capture an idea, you should just be able to press one button and get great tone doing it”: How your phone became an essential part of your guitar rig
- “We know for a fact that not all ’Bursts were great-sounding, but the surviving examples we played lived up to the legend”: I spent an evening with 7 original Gibson Les Paul ’Bursts from 1958 to 1960 – here's what I learned
- “I guess like John Lennon and Brian Jones, we’re not up front, but we keep it all sticking together”: Chris Dreja turned down Led Zeppelin, but he will be remembered as the Yardbirds’ unsung bass hero in a band of guitar superstars
- December 23
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- The Guitar World reviews team's gear of the year 2025
- “Having Tommy Bolin play on my songs was a compliment, but artistically it ruined it for me. It led to a lot of conflict”: Moxy’s Earl Johnson lost control of his band as they tracked their debut album. After decades away, he might have got it back
- December 22
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- “People get tired of seeing the same guitars everywhere… I started asking custom shops to do things”: The battle to save brick-and-mortar guitar stores – and why high-end electrics are essential to their survival
- “We were kind of forced to come up with a solution for playing a show in Antarctica where we couldn’t have speakers”: Why did the world’s biggest metal band switch to amp modelers?
- Alien-shred, Brit-rock royalty, one blues icon and a hardcore superstar: here are Guitar World's Guitarists of the Year 2025
- December 21
- December 20
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- “I had letters threatening me with death for getting Bert Jansch to play through an amp”: The life and wild times of Danny Thompson, the legend of upright bass who “brought greatness to everything he played”
- “He will go down as one of the greatest rock drummers of all time. I can bring him a bass riff in seven-and-a-half and he’ll be right on it”: Justin Chancellor explains how bass fits into Tool’s challenging brand of prog
- December 19
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- “Gear is a nightmare. When you play every night, the failure rate goes through the roof”: Award-winning UK indie stars English Teacher on the dangers of self-relic'ing, and why they love Fender offsets “for the same reason any alternative band does”
- “Buddy Guy isn’t just our last living line to the real origins of the blues – he’s a hell of an actor, too”: 25 reasons why 2025 was a great year for guitar
- December 18
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- “Nuno’s shoutout was an emotional moment for me. I was gobsmacked. Without my brother showing me Extreme’s music, I would never have been there”: From Plini to Polyphia, how Rick Graham quietly became one of progressive guitar’s most influential names
- “Noel said, ‘Ever been in a band with three guitars? We’ll let Bonehead do Bonehead, and we’ll fit around it’”: Noel Gallagher’s longtime right-hand man Gem Archer takes us inside the Oasis reunion – and how they negotiated their new three-guitar lineup
- “I heard someone playing deep, fiery guitar in the room next door. I thought, ‘Boy, I wish that guy was in the band!’ I looked over the balcony… It was Ace”: The otherworldly life and times of Kiss guitar icon Ace Frehley
- December 17
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- “I was saying, ‘It’s going to get hot. It’s going to explode. We’re going to have a fire.’ He was like, ‘Don’t worry about it’”: From Eddie Van Halen’s “uncanny genius” to his brutal crash-testing, inside the making of the EVH 5150 III
- “There’s nothing worse than someone saying, ‘You were born with a gift.’ No, I got up every day and picked up that guitar when I was supposed to be doing other things”: Nuno Bettencourt on why he’s finally ready to become a guitar teacher
- “Bob Dylan had me, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Ronnie Wood, Levon Helm and Paul Butterfield. It wasn’t the greatest music I ever played”: Bob Margolin on The Last Waltz, the jam party afterwards and his years with Muddy Waters
- “Gibson wasn’t the only company to lose its mind in thrall to technology”: The 21st century gear trends that never caught on
- December 16
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- “I was recording with Jerry Garcia, but I still had to ride my bike to school and keep my grades up, or else my parents would throw my guitar in the trash”: Starship trooper Craig Chaquico on “corporate rock”, and life as a teenage guitar whiz
- “My friend told me I couldn’t even play a 6-string bass – so I had to learn it to prove him wrong!” Meet 7-string bass wizard Dylan Desmond, whose accidental two-handed tapping powers doom’s most adventurous low-end
- “It’s incredibly light, almost like a toy. But it’s not a toy – it’s an incredible instrument I’m about to use to play to 50,000 people”: Polyphia’s Tim Henson on making his game-changing Ibanez that started a nylon-string revolution
- December 15
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- “Gary was great on a 335 – he really, really pulled the expression out of that guitar”: Greeny and his Strats were his superstar electrics, but these ‘60s Gibson semi-hollows were Gary Moore’s workhorses – and they’ve still got the blues mojo
- Pat Metheny called him “the best guitar player I’ve heard in maybe my entire life” and he recorded his last two albums in the same day – meet Pasquale Grasso, the guitarist taking jazz into the future
- “Every time I go to plug in, it feels like Christmas. I knew it was going to be useful. I just didn’t realize how useful”: Steve Vai on the first mini amp he found that could truly punch above its weight
- December 14
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- “To think that Jamerson could compose this entire bassline spontaneously and still be locked into the groove is astounding. That's his genius”: How Motown hit-maker James Jamerson funked up a Christmas classic on this 1968 holiday gem
- “I knew the Silver Sky would take years to take its place in the world. And I say this cautiously, but it feels like it’s become pretty widely accepted”: How John Mayer and Paul Reed Smith made the Silver Sky
- December 13
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- “Robert said, ‘Would you be prepared to play bass?’ And I thought, ‘Four strings, six strings... what could be the problem?’”: Greg Lake started out as a guitarist – before being convinced by Robert Fripp to switch to bass when joining King Crimson
- “I wanted it to be a workhorse I could bash around, beat up, hit with metal pipes and get thrown into kegs without breaking in half”: The making of Jim Root’s Telecaster, the guitar that brought Fender into the modern age
- December 12
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- “Dad let me organically follow whatever I wanted. That was his main mantra: ‘Just play.’ It’s that simple”: Wolfgang Van Halen on Allan Holdsworth, unintentional Van Halen-isms, and his go-to guitar-test riffs
- “I remember thinking, ‘This is like Eddie Van Halen’s death.’ He influenced so many, and he was one of a kind. His legacy is monumental”: Bruce Kulick remembers Ace Frehley, and the Frehley-era Kiss song that caused him the most trouble
- December 11
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- “I turned into a Strat player. I never thought I would”: Danielle Haim on her guitarist-for-hire days with Julian Casablancas, I Quit energy and Haim’s historic Grammy nomination
- “Back in the heyday we had huge touring budgets and room for large travel rigs. Now you can store all your amps on a USB stick”: The greatest guitar gear of the 21st century (so far)
- December 10
- December 9
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- “When people throw around the Lennon/McCartney comparison to Bob Mould and Grant Hart, I think that’s fair”: Greg Norton believes Hüsker Dü were always going to break up, but it happened too soon
- “The guitar I learned to play on isn’t worth much, but I’ve played it at thousands of concerts and hundreds of recording sessions”: He’s performed on over 500 albums. Now Marcus Deml is making breathtaking guitar instrumentals under his own name
- “It was a little hard bouncing between classes and playing gigs like Coachella. Now I’m out of school, I can devote all my time to being a musician”: Is Brandon ‘Taz’ Niederauer guitar’s next superstar?
- December 8
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- “It’s like getting a pre-washed pair of jeans: they’re broken in so they’re comfortable right out of the store”: The making of the American Professional Classic series – the brand-new “lived-in” (but not relic’d) US Fender line
- “I discovered African blackwood probably around 20 years ago. The first guitar was paired with a cedar top and the volume blew me away”: How a $10k acoustic build put the loud into Lowden – with exotic tonewoods and faultless construction
- “I got bored with Miles Davis. He was like, ‘Robben, play that just like the record.’ And I didn’t join Miles Davis to do that”: Robben Ford explains his dalliance with Davis, Joni Mitchell’s fuzz tips – and how Jeff Beck got him back on the Strat
- December 7
- December 6
- December 5
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- “When I heard his stuff I was like, ‘This guy’s got the pipes.’ I watched his live stuff and I thought, ‘He’s got it, man!’” Joe Perry on Aerosmith’s surprise Yungblud collab and paying tribute to late Bad Company legend Mick Ralphs
- “You can get some very mournful sounds out of it as well as in‑your-face. It’s a real old battle-axe”: Gary Moore’s 1963 Telecaster is modded and thrashed to death – and it’s got a tone pot that behaves like a wah
- “I never heard from John. He sold the guitar once he got out of rehab. And that was that – I never saw it again”: The incredible story of the Les Paul that Dave Navarro bought for his Guns N’ Roses audition – and ended up giving to John Frusciante
- December 4
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- “I didn’t want to go down the route of Fenders or Gibsons – I wanted something that sounds and looks different”: She’s Brian May and Johnny Marr’s new favorite guitarist, but The Last Dinner Party’s Emily Roberts still has imposter syndrome
- “Ironically, the quest for a natural sound increasingly meant filling a guitar with wires, batteries and circuit boards”: The challenge of amplifying our acoustics has been one of guitar’s great challenges over the decades – are we nearly there yet?
- “I don’t know if Jaco was a Van Halen fan. We were both more intent on getting drunk than anything else”: When Michael Anthony met the self-proclaimed “greatest bass player in the world”, Jaco Pastorius
- “My playing has always sucked, but it sells because I keep it simple”: Steve Cropper was one of guitar’s most modest yet influential figures. In one of his final interviews, he looked back at making Booker T & the MG’s classics and working with Jeff Beck
- December 3
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- “I’m known for these real dumb rock ’n’ roll solos... We don’t think of ourselves as super-pickers”: Primitive solos, Luchador masks, SpongeBob SquarePants? Meet Los Straitjackets, guitar’s most out-there instrumentalists
- “Noel goes, ‘What guitars do you want to borrow?’ I was like, ‘Well, I’ve played that one and it’s incredible. I was going to buy one, but it was about seven grand!’” The story behind Oasis’ new signature guitars
- “Ace was the reason... His image made me go, ‘This is what I want to do with the rest of my life’”: John 5 on his final conversations with Ace Frehley, working on Peter Criss’ new record, and the signature guitar so good he’s written a song about it
- December 2
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- “I’d like to get a Flying V. I saw James Hetfield of Metallica playing one live, and I thought, ‘He’s got such a great guitar sound’”: Kim Deal on finally making her solo debut, working with Steve Albini and why she hates bright guitar tones
- “Bob Dylan wrote some notes on a napkin and said, ‘Give this to McGuinn. He’ll know what to do with it.’ It was like the Holy Grail”: Roger McGuinn on the making of The Byrds’ countercultural classic
- “My mom said, ‘What are you doing? Your kind of music has gotten popular. Why are you changing it?’ I thought it was a good idea – just like Mrs. Robinson was a bad idea”: The Lemonheads’ Evan Dando on the art of cover versions
- December 1
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- “Some might be thankful they only made one because Gibson didn’t waste any more wood”: Meet the obscure ’60s Gibsons that prove double-necks were a thing before Stairway to Heaven
- “He said, ‘Have you heard Metallica’s version of Whiskey in the Jar?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘What planet are you living on?’” Thin Lizzy’s Eric Bell on reinventing an old Irish standard as a rock track and performing it with the “cartoon” Metallica
