Features archive
January 2026
Filter
61 articles
- January 31
- January 30
- January 29
-
- “I turned around and the wall was on fire in just a small area. I unplugged my guitar and a guy opened the side door by the stage, and I went out into the parking lot”: Mark Kendall on Great White’s two big tragedies, and why he welcomed Nirvana's rise
- “It’s four octaves up or down. Some people would argue that’s too much. We’d argue that we look forward to what people could do with it”: How Boss reimagined the wildest effect on your pedalboard
- “I traded Elliot Easton an old left-handed Telecaster for them. I did really well with that trade”: Lenny Kravitz and Craig Ross on how big dreams and gourmet tones shaped a ’90s rock classic – and why modern gear has nothing on vintage
- January 28
-
- “I fell in love with the Revstar because it was different from your Tele, Strat, Les Paul or whatever”: Chris Buck on how Yamaha nailed his new signature Revstar – and why you should reconsider the P-90
- “Our genre was blowing up with Bon Jovi and Motley Crue. So Prince paid for our first demo. Then he saw us live, which he did not like...” Warrant’s Joey Allen saw his own solos re-tracked in front of him – what he did next saved his career
- “His mastery of music, via the guitar, should probably be researched by scientists”: Meet the mystery guitarist rewriting a new future for prog – with a little help from superstar players Greg Howe and Mohini Dey
- January 27
- January 26
- January 23
-
- “A lot of people say we’re their favorite running music”: Josh Menashe of LA post-punk freakazoids Frankie and the Witch Fingers has some advice on riff writing – just up your step count and let them come to you
- “Johnny Marr got hit with a pint straight away. After the show we said, ‘That guitar is too fancy for touring with us!’” Stolen offsets, iconic bandmates and Coco Chanel’s advice – how the Cribs learned to be the best versions of themselves
- “He said, ‘I have to play on this. Give me a track’”: How three session-guitar aces and an inspired intervention from a “wunderkind” Steve Lukather saved a ‘70s soft-rock classic
- January 22
-
- “I just couldn’t believe I was gonna be on a George Harrison record. He’d been listening to what the T-Birds had been doing”: Jimmie Vaughan on longevity, Strats and recording the Porky’s Revenge soundtrack – with a Beatle
- “If you got the Ibanez catalog that year, it was Reb Beach, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani on the first three pages. They said, ‘Whatever shape you want’”: Reb Beach on the story of his ’90s Ibanez signature guitar – and the mystery behind its sequel
- January 21
-
- “James Brown always said, ‘I’m the most humble man out there – and Kool, that guy’s number two to me’”: Kool & The Gang’s Robert Bell on how he laid down three top 10s in a single session – and became one of the most sampled artists in history
- “When I’d watch Meg and Jack White on stage... it felt really inspiring. Eventually I thought, what would it be like if we added another drummer?”: How the Velveteers' Demi Demitro learned to speak through baritone fuzz riffs
- “Common sense said to me, ‘That’s a lot of money to spend on an amp. Don’t be doing that.’ But God, I wish I’d spent the money”: Keith Urban tells the tale of the Dumble that got away – and why he let down the buyer of his ’Burst
- January 20
-
- “Furious? That’s putting it mildly. I was counting how many people I was going to have to kill”: Randy Holden’s 1970 album pioneered doom metal. But he was never told it had been released
- “They played a lot of fast drop D, but they also played a lot of harmony power chords. You can hear a lot of that in our early music”: Kevin Jonas on his love for the Dove, and why you’ll almost always find the Jonas Brothers in DADGAD
- “Atlantic Records told me, ‘Eric should be the singer. You’re just the bass player.’ So I cried in the corner while they came up with Strange Brew”: Eric Clapton was Cream’s biggest star, but Jack Bruce sang most of the band’s classic tracks
- “My main guitar is a Squier. My first guitar teacher gave me that. It’s a very important guitar for me”: How Thomas Raggi produced his raucous, all-star solo album, with a little help from Tom Morello
- “The night he died, I was at Buddy Guy’s club waiting for Buddy, Stevie and Clapton. Then we were told they’d all gone down”: Larry McCray on rubbing shoulders with blues royalty and playing through Joe Bonamassa’s epic rig
- January 19
-
- “Sometimes we were recording a song and the power shut down because of the wind. Since we do everything live, we had to start over”: Assouf rockers Imarhan on how a Peavey amp, the weather and Stevie Ray Vaughan tapes were the making of their new album
- “David Bowie had to mix him out of his own song because Tom drove him nuts in the studio”: Richard Lloyd on episodes with Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, and his bittersweet relationship with Tom Verlaine
- “Playing with Vince Neil, opening for Van Halen, it got to be total rock ’n’ roll excess. I had to reassess why I was even playing guitar”: Steve Stevens on resisting shred, how Paco de Lucia made him go nylon, and Billy Idol’s eternal appeal
- January 18
- January 16
-
- “Here’s a diary entry from July 24, 1974: ‘Argument with Bill Bruford. Bill says, ‘They might as well get a session guitarist’”: The making of Red, the album that pushed King Crimson to the brink
- “He pulled out this D-28 and it sounded magical. It felt like this is the path I needed to be on. I committed to it completely”: How acoustic wizard John Smith went back to the future in search of acoustic transcendence
- January 15
-
- “The one thing that’s making it very hard in the industry – at whatever level – is that there’s just too much choice”: Lee Anderton on guitarists' changing tastes, and why it’s not all doom and gloom for guitar stores
- “All I can tell you is what my father said to me: ‘Someone stole my guitar off the stage.’ Those were his exact words... he couldn’t find another guitar just like it”: T-Bone Walker and the guitar that gave birth to electric blues
- “Jimmy had his own viewpoint when he started working with Robert again. It meant having to dive much deeper into the Led Zeppelin catalog”: How Charlie Jones became the ‘other bassist’ to work with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page
- January 14
-
- “The guitar wasn't always user-friendly, and the old-school lights often became red hot, leading to burns”: The Smoker, the Rocket-Shooting Les Paul… The one with, like, a million lights – here are Ace Frehley’s 5 most iconic Kiss guitars
- “I thought it was a prank, so I didn’t answer!” She put a video of herself playing bass on YouTube. Then Prince called
- “The Stratocaster has been around for 70 years and it’s perfect. Now we come along and say, ‘You’re wrong!’ They don’t like it”: True Temperament wants to disrupt an industry built on heritage, but do its necks actually fix the guitar’s biggest flaw?
- January 13
-
- “I might've invented the scooped guitar sound – I just took the midrange and put it on zero”: Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein, reluctant guitar hero and master of the macabre
- “Don’t get the gig and then complain about it. If you can’t find something good in the music, that’s your fault”: What it takes to get to the top of the bass world, according to Victor Wooten
- “Some Squier guitars have more flash, panache and personality than many standard Fender guitars”: Why the stigma of budget electric guitars has disappeared over the past 25 years
- January 12
-
- The Gibson SG Standard has been played by Angus Young, Robby Krieger, Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, George Harrison... and the list goes on – but is it still underrated?
- “You look at everyone who’s ever stood in front of a band playing guitar and it all traces back to one man”: How T-Bone Walker invented electric blues guitar
- “It sat in my closet until Guitar Hero III came out. I slapped the stickers for the controller onto the fretboard, and everything connected from there”: Stray Kids guitarist Garrett Jones on his journey from suburban Detroit to K-pop session pro
- January 11
- January 9
-
- “I could never play a Strat – with Stevie Ray Vaughan being my first influence, every time I play one it’s like I’m 13 again, hacking through Pride And Joy”: Joanne Shaw Taylor on how the blues helped her find her voice, and why she'll always choose Teles
- “I heard Clarence White, and there were parts that I couldn’t physically do. Then I heard that there was this mechanism within the guitar...”: With Led Zeppelin over, Jimmy Page returned to the Telecaster, and embraced a particular, beloved mod
- January 8
-
- Some say the Fender Stratocaster is a ‘perfect’ design, but there's a whole industry of aftermarket parts to better it – this company is trying to neutralize its biggest ‘Achilles heel’
- “Robert Smith thanked us for supporting The Cure before they played Boys Don’t Cry. It was one of the songs my guitar tutor taught me. I burst into tears!” Just Mustard on learning from The Cure, growing up with Fontaines D.C. – and horrible impulse buys
- January 7
-
- “We submitted plans for a racquetball court”: Eddie Van Halen's 5150 Studios was decades ahead of its time – but it required a white lie to build
- “I didn’t really think about it. I did my best guitar work there without thinking. I just emptied my head!” How Frehley’s Comet sent Ace Frehley’s post-Kiss career into orbit
- “A supremely versatile platform that blurs the line between solidbody and semi”: The PRS 40th Anniversary Special Semi-Hollow Limited Edition is $6,990, impossibly beautiful, and they’re only making 280 of them – but here’s why we want one
- January 6
-
- “2026 is going to be in the record books as one of the most exciting years for Fender”: Fender has announced its new CEO – what does it mean for the future of the iconic guitar brand? We met Edward ‘Bud’ Cole to find out
- “If it sounds heavy on a classical guitar, then it will sound even heavier once I’m plugged in”: Foam swords, steel riffs – and medieval raga? Meet the queen of fantasy doom metal guitar, Castle Rat’s Riley Pinkerton
- January 5
-
- “One of the most expressive effects ever conceived”: Cliché or pedalboard essential? How the Cry Baby wah pedal changed electric guitar – and why it’s still (kinda) underrated
- “Transcribing Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass really helped me on my journey. You can see the amount of joy they were bringing to the music”: How Italian maestro Andrea Rinciari is reinventing the great American jazz guitar songbook
- January 4
- January 3
-
- “Having grown up playing road hockey, I felt I had to hit the bass as hard as I could. Mr Carter taught me to refine my sound”: What Brandi Disterheft learned from her studies with bass legend Ron Carter
- “I was amazed it even worked… the scratchplate looked like somebody had used a hacksaw”: Unorthodox, powered by EMGs, Gary Moore's 1982 Charvel San Dimas was the battle-ready hot-rod he needed in the ’80s
- January 2
-
- “A Tube Screamer is a Tube Screamer. It’s one of the great cons of the guitar industry. They got these dirt boxes right the first time!” Why Jared James Nichols stopped obsessing over gear – and honed in on his playing instead
- “It’s heavy, cutting, psychedelic and very off the cuff. It’s got the vibe of a madman”: Ace Frehley’s 6 greatest Kiss guitar moments
- “I sold my first guitar to my drummer. He paid me $50, put SpongeBob stickers on it, then lit it on fire”: Kiki Wong reveals her Smashing Pumpkins live rig, gear regrets and how a Line 6 amp made her the player she is today
- January 1
-
- “All I remember is thinking that the bass turned into a snake. I broke all the strings, threw it down and left the stage”: Bootsy Collins was tripping on LSD when he took the James Brown bass chair to its most in-your-face level
- “I knew relic’ing was coming. I did it myself, to my own guitar, very crude and primitive. I put it on a stand at a guitar show, with no strategy. And it changed everything”: How relic’ing conquered the guitar world
