Features archive

February 2026

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66 articles

February 28
- “I felt I deserved a songwriting credit because it was a No. 1 hit. They sold millions of records and I only got $200!” Flea’s bittersweet hip-hop recording experience
February 27
- “Scott Gorham and Phil Lynott were taken aback that I wouldn’t party with them. I stayed in my room at the hotel. I got to the studio on time. I was trying to make a point”: Brian Robertson knows what Thin Lizzy lost when he left
- “People got stuck on an image of axe-wielding maniacs on drugs or if they would even speak to each other”: What really happened with Cream behind the scenes? Ginger Baker’s daughter reveals all
- “It was the most coveted guitar chair in rock. I adored Edward’s playing, so I understood that people would be skeptical”: How Steve Vai lived his ultimate guitar rockstar fantasy on David Lee Roth’s Eat ’Em and Smile
February 26
- “It didn’t sound like a big guitar song, so I wound up playing keyboards. Eddie Van Halen played keyboards on Jump, so I figured I could too”: How Billy Idol seized upon the success of Rebel Yell – and Linn Drums – to take his sound to new frontiers
- “We’re not going to import loads of low-end guitars, slap our name on and sell them. We actually design the musical experience to be a great one”: Andy Powers on the evolution of Taylor acoustics, and the promise and challenge of exploring new tonewoods
- “Was this an attempt to challenge Metallica’s success with the Black Album?” A guide to every Megadeth album – and guitarist
February 25
- “The Six Feet Under gig was a fast ticket into touring. One of the first shows was in front of 45,000 people. I was used to playing for 20-30 people”: YouTube star, entrepreneur, go-to death metal guitarist… Inside the unstoppable rise of Ola Englund
- “He did ask, ‘Are you planning to replicate this live?’ He’d done a guest guitar part for a band who had trouble doing it”: Karnivool explain the 13-year wait for their new album – and why we have Guthrie Govan to thank for two of its standout sonics
- “Most Fender colors were inspired by automotive trends. Candy Apple Red stood out because it came from the hot-rod scene”: Why Leo Fender’s favorite custom color finish still drives guitarists wild
February 24
- “My dad said, ‘What happened to you?’ In six months I’d gone from a college-looking kid to looking like a real rock star”: From inventing the Quad Guitar to fast times with Yngwie, Michael Angelo Batio has stories for days – and no regrets
- “There’s a couple of songs on the record where I thought, ‘Gosh, I’m soloing so much. Please be quiet. Let it breathe’”: He played for pop A-listers, now he's transformed himself into one of instrumental guitar's leading voices
February 23
- “The two of us had a similar upbringing. It’s a unique position – our dads are the biggest rock stars around”: Evan Stanley and Nick Simmons are making Kiss a rock ’n’ roll dynasty – just don't mistake their music for their fathers'
- “We thought it was throwaway and argued against it being released. It's incredible to me that it was a single. I was just trying to do my best Pete Townshend!” How bassist Andy Fraser electrified a Free classic
- “Bobby was completely allergic to compliments… I loved that about him. Mostly, he just loved playing”: The life and legacy of Grateful Dead icon Bob Weir
February 22
- “Knowing that I had the other one, Eric starts calling me and asking if I would sell it. He was offering me £200 for it, more than twice what I’d paid for it”: The history and mysteries of Eric Clapton’s Cream guitars
- “Those old players had nothing to hide behind. Just their hands, their feel and the truth coming through the speakers”: 5 modern blues guitar heroes on the impossible task of imitating the blues greats
February 21
- “I tried to talk him out of it... He was too good a writer to have that be his calling card”: The band's guitarist felt the song was beneath its writer, but it became one of the biggest singalong guitar-pop hits of the 2000s
- “My tech said, ‘This bass looks tiny on you.’ I lowered the strap so it would look cooler. You have to throw your whole body into it”: Bought from grunge icons and stolen before Soundgarden reunited – the story of Ben Shepherd’s 1972 Fender Jazz Bass
February 20
- “I have the greatest respect for classical and jazz musicians. Their musicality is far greater than mine. But my imagination and inventiveness, most probably, is far greater”: Steve Howe on overcoming stage fright and the tragic fate of his Gibson ES-175
- “Buddy had a stunt singer in the booth, so he could play his guitar solo live with us”: The late Michael Rhodes provided an unshakable foundation for Buddy Guy’s 2013 salute to his hometown
- “Practicing is boring. Getting better at guitar by playing in a band is much more interesting”: Geese are being hailed as the future of rock. Guitarist Emily Green can’t figure out why – but her ‘cloudy’ playing style might have something to do with it
February 19
- “I had to learn how to get the sound. I was just hooked”: Driven by a Van Halen obsession, Jacob Deraps is a YouTube shred superstar on a mission to bring catchy rock ‘n’ roll back to the mainstream
- “The craft is faultless… the range of sounds that it can produce is quite extraordinary”: Swannell Guitars makes an electric like an acoustic with tones that will blow your mind
- “At the end of the show, Jimmy goes, ‘The way you mix rock and Indian music is something I’ve never seen before’”: Meet the psych-rockers merging Hendrix with 600-year-old Hindustani classical music tradition – who count Jimmy Page among their fans
February 18
- “People want real experiences. There’s a backlash to this era of perfect music, and I appreciate it”: Converge’s Kurt Ballou on mixing pedals with amp modelers, guitar recording hacks and reclaiming metal’s authenticity
- “I wandered into a Guitar Center vintage room, plugged it in and it just floored me. People literally started coming in asking what amp I was playing”: Inside Fender’s mission to bring the ’62 Super Amp back from the dead
- “I love the sound of acoustics and electrics, which is why I try to merge the two… I prefer bigger textures”: How Pavey Ark are reinventing acoustic guitar with pedals, fake nails and a $60 nylon-string that holds its own in any company
February 17
- “I cut my finger and got blood on the fretboard. It felt like the guitar had chosen me”: Deftones are fans. Wet Leg invited them on tour. Meet Mary in the Junkyard, the classically rooted alt-rockers making mind-bending indie with Elliott Smith’s tunings
- “Albert King took me aside. He said, ‘The biggest thing about music is you can’t play what people want you to play.’ My dad said that, too”: Bernard Allison grew up surrounded by blues legends – and hid the fact he was learning guitar for years
February 16
- “Classical guitarists are at war with the guitar. They want to be part of the greater tradition like violin and piano. They want it to be more than it is”: How classical-schooled Derek Gripper rehabilitated himself with 21-string West African technique
- “I did tours sleeping in a tent to save money. I asked this family if I could pitch up in their garden. That helped me get my first P-Bass”: Rock ’n’ roll's ‘Forrest Gump’ Leo Lyons shares the story of Ten Years After and their iconic Woodstock set
- “It was not possible to get a left-handed Jazzmaster in this country. Fender told me, ‘You might as well be ringing Ibanez – we just don’t make them’”: Mike Vennart on the Squier Strats that are simply unbeatable – and why he hates acoustics
February 15
- “There’s more than a whiff of Keef’s fabled old Telecasters”: The Newman Torn and Frayed Edition might be the Rolling Stones-inspired T-type we’ve been dreaming of
- “David shook my hand and said, ‘Here’s the song I want to do.’ It was Golden Years. I was auditioning during the making of the album”: Bassist George Murray’s six-year stint with David Bowie
February 14
- “We were terrified we were going to get caught. A lot of people would have lost their jobs”: That time one of alt-rock’s goofiest bands snuck into a storage space at 2am, and recorded a solo through Carlos Santana’s full guitar rig
- “Tal came over and said, ‘Sting, it doesn’t quite go the way you’re playing it…’” When Tal Wilkenfeld taught Sting the correct way to play an Aerosmith classic
- Five-neck guitars, custom models with nine pickups, and... model train lap steels? Prove your knowledge of the strangest guitars ever built
February 13
- “As soon as they started to jam, all three felt the magic. They instinctively knew they were on to something”: Their first single was so bad, the label pulled 10,000 copies. Yet they went on to be one of the most influential supergroups in music history
- “Demonstrates just how extreme Gibson’s custom division was prepared to get in order to make a customer happy”: When is a Gibson Barney Kessel not a Gibson Barney Kessel? This 1967 unicorn explains all...
February 12
- “I found a Gibson Melody Maker but he said, ‘It’s not good enough.’ I said, ‘Take my Flying V.’ When he came off stage he said, ‘I can’t give it back.’ For my brother I did everything… and still failed!” Rudolf Schenker’s 60 years with the Scorpions
- “He made me want to push the blues-rock envelope. He had this hip-hop persona, playing fiery blues riffs with all the soul you’d get from B.B. King”: Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram has learned from the masters on his road to becoming a modern-day blues great
February 11
- “The tone got me addicted – when it broke I’d say, ‘I can’t play!’” April Wine are hitting arenas again with Triumph – guitarist Brian Greenway discusses his hopes for a new album, and the pedal he couldn't live without
- “He had nothing left to prove. He still showed up whole-heartedly, simply because a piece of music spoke to him”: Steve Cropper played on my song – and his performance was matched only by his warmth and generosity
February 10
- “This guy came up after a gig and said he was a specialist in repetitive strain injuries. He said, ‘What you’re doing is exactly what we tell people not to do’”: Inside the (literally) blistering sound of British alt-rock’s cultest heroes
- “I wanted to pay my respects to James Hetfield, who I think is an amazing guitar player, and Lars Ulrich, who was an excellent songwriter”: Dave Mustaine breaks down Megadeth’s final album, track by track – and why he paid tribute to Metallica
February 9
- “The recording was brutal. Daytime was Dragon's Kiss, nighttime was Jason Becker's Perpetual Burn. I was in the studio 16 to 18 hours a day”: Marty Friedman on leaving Megadeth, reconnecting with Dave Mustaine, and why he wasn't a good fit for Ozzy
- “I asked for a cash discount. The shop assistant said, ‘I could phone up Eric Clapton and he’d come and buy it’”: Robert Fripp’s life in three guitars
- “It became an overnight sensation when Stevie Wonder used the effect”: Loved by Frank Zappa, Bootsy Collins, Steve Vai and more, how the Mu-Tron III became a vintage pedalboard icon
February 7
- “With the Crowes, you’d better step up to the plate and swing your bat – or prepare to get completely ripped apart”: Bassist Johnny Colt reveals the inside stories behind the Black Crowes’ controversial Amorica album
February 6
- “I was the most vocal about being unhappy. That's when George grabbed Bootsy Collins and his band to replace us”: He was schooled by James Jamerson and freaked Larry Graham out – how William ‘Billy Bass’ Nelson founded the Funkadelic sound
- “I taught myself to scream in secret, in the car and the shower. I kept that in my back pocket until we’d had a few rehearsals!” Meet Cwfen, the Scottish doomgazers ruling the night with haunting shows and steel guitar picks
- “Words fail me in describing his impact. He was on the session when history was made. He came up with the parts we all studied. He produced the records we all worshipped”: Why Steve Cropper was one of guitar’s most humble heroes
- “We store our amps and gear in our mom’s basement – that’s where we go to practice and write”: Joyer combine sweet pop hooks with tension, weirdness and gritty guitar solos – and their mom can't get enough of it
February 5
- “He said, ‘I know Eddie Van Halen. I have enough money that if I wanted to have him play on this, I could. I want you to play on it’”: Pete Evick has played with Bret Michaels for 21 years. Here’s what he learned
- “Every modern guitarist from Joe Bonamassa to Jared James Nichols gets the same haters who say, ‘Everything you play is pentatonic’”: Meet Eric Steckel, the high-gain firebrand painting a new shade of blues guitar
- “We’ve been guilty of doing a lot of the Meshuggah, machine-riff stuff. You gotta throw something else in there”: Car Bomb’s Greg Kubacki is exploring new heavy frontiers – with help from Gojira’s Joe Duplantier
February 4
- “I struggle to think of any Fender that surpasses a Mary Kaye Strat in value or collector appeal”: Body dated January 1956, the first of its kind, played on an Aerosmith album – is this the holy grail of all holy grail Fender Stratocasters?
- I've spent 20 years as a touring guitarist. The live industry is broken – now it’s breaking musicians too. Here’s what needs to change
February 3
- “He shoved me down to the floor of the car. He was kicking the windows. The whole time he's yelling at the top of his lungs, ‘Yoko! I want Yoko!’” The wild story of John Lennon's rock ’n’ roll covers album
- “We bring out a ton of guitars. I pick one up, strum, and it sounds like Wild Horses – because it’s the actual guitar from Wild Horses”: The Rolling Stones guitar tech on the secrets behind their onstage sound
- “Dave was telling us how those songs from back in the day came about. It helped us understand how to make a good Megadeth album”: Teemu Mäntysaari on the making of Megadeth’s final album
February 2
- “Pino Palladino and yours truly here at the Grammys”: Marcus Miller and Pino Palladino share the stage alongside Lauryn Hill at the 2026 Grammy Awards
- “Michael Stipe said, ‘Can I sing with you guys in Brooklyn?’ I’m like, ‘Are you serious?!’” How a Chicago alt-rock stalwart and Hollywood A-lister put together a supergroup to celebrate their favorite records
- “We barely knew the songs when we recorded them. They weren’t even finished”: When he joined the Black Crowes, Marc Ford had no time to second-guess his playing – even when he found it embarrassing
- “Legend has it that Robert Johnson was recorded in the corner of a room facing the wall”: How to record acoustic guitars at home – and why you need a dedicated setup