Features archive
July 2026
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52 articles
- July 14
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- “When you feel like your hands aren’t doing well, and you’d like to take a day off, that’s the day you try and play more”: How Rik Emmett tackled the Triumph reunion tour, with added Phil X
- Shoegaze guitar has never been bigger – and these 5 pedals are a shortcut to its otherworldly tones
- “Kurt would always say, ‘I’m gonna get a Chet Atkins.’ But he never did. It wasn’t until he died that I went and looked at one”: Courtney Love refused to turn Celebrity Skin into “a grieving widow’s memoir” – but she paid tribute with the gear she played
- July 13
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- “I always felt like Fender hit the sweet spot with those guitars. All my heroes – Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Knopfler, Buddy Guy – were playing them”: Philip Sayce on the greatest Strats, his tone secrets – and why he always has a Silver Sky in the mix
- “Dave had a beat-up, noisy cassette of Steve Vai. We listened together in some garage with the tape player on the fender of a car. I said to Dave, ‘That’s the guy’”: How David Lee Roth put Van Halen behind him with one of rock's greatest supergroups
- “You can spend, like, 50 bucks, buy a chorus and a DS-1, and get Kurt Cobain’s sound”: Pedal sales are booming despite the modeler movement, and this man can tell you why
- The guitarist's guide to MIDI: how to get more from your pedalboard and stop the tap dancing
- “A guitar pedal that gives you the sound you have in your head but can't buy off the shelf”: Meet Emmergy FX, the British boutique pedal builder concocting effects for Slowdive and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien
- From basements to one of the biggest movements in guitar tone: 12 iconic stompboxes that built the boutique pedal boom
- July 12
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- “I bought a tiger-stripe Les Paul and started playing it on stage. I broke the neck, got it back and it sounded better. Then I was even more attached to it!” Kirk Hammett on Gibsons, the magic of Greeny and why he thinks the age of active pickups is over
- “I was watching Taxi Driver – a bass was sitting on my lap, and I was just hitting the strings. A commercial came on and I realised I’d written an entire song”: How Flea accidentally wrote one of his funkiest basslines
- “I saw Taste on TV when I was 11 – this noise just transfixed me. I decided there and then that I wanted to be Rory Gallagher”: 18 of the greatest Irish guitarists of all time
- July 11
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- “What I do can't be put into any corner. I want to do it all”: Lowell George called beer bottle slide master Danny Gatton “the best player in any style that I've ever heard.” In a rare interview, “The Humbler” reflects on his trailblazing career
- “Everyone was telling us we sucked. We were the outcast band, and every other high school band at that time talked smack about us”: How Death overcame the odds to bring death metal to the world
- “I got a hold of a little psychedelic substance and tripped out all night. By morning, I said, ‘I’m a bass player!’” How a psychedelic-fueled studio session set Ron Blair on the path to becoming a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
- July 10
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- “I started playing some of Steve Cropper's riffs to him and told him how much Soul Man influenced one of our songs. He giggled and was very tickled by that”: Jimmy James on taking Parlor Greens’ funky sound “to the cosmos”
- “From the minute their song came out, my email flooded with people going, ‘Have you heard this song by Coldplay? They ripped you off, man’”: When Joe Satriani took Coldplay to court – and sued them over one of their biggest hits
- “Primal Scream was the loudest band I’ve ever played with. We were using Super Leads and cranking them”: Little Barrie’s Barrie Cadogan on tone secrets of the alt-blues power trio and pinch-me moments with Liam Gallagher and John Squire
- “My favorite Ibanez was always the 550. That’s not to say I felt I needed to improve on it, but I wanted to make one RG that had all my favorite variables”: Nili Brosh on Danny Elfman, shredding with intent and augmenting Ibanez's most popular guitar
- “We left the track and went back out on the road. Two weeks later I hear it on the radio. I said, ‘No, that was just a demo!’ They said, ‘No, it’s a hit’”: Why Keith Richards never wanted anyone to hear his Satisfaction guitar riff
- July 9
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- “I don't have enough breath, and you don't have enough tape, for me to explain that even remotely”: How Dimebag Darrell pushed Pantera bassist Rex Brown to his limit
- “We were all young and naïve. He was just a waste of time. He just sat there with his feet up reading Country Life”: How Iron Maiden forged their debut album with a lazy producer, a dodgy mix and Paul Kossoff's ’57 Strat
- “When you notice one of these signs, it’s probably time to open a fresh set of strings”: When should you change your guitar strings? We asked the world’s biggest string brands to get the definitive answer
- “I knew the guitar was valuable, but this was before Slash blew up, so nobody really wanted Les Pauls. They all wanted Charvels”: Billy Duffy on his greatest guitar deals – and the one he regrets selling to Bob Rock
- July 8
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- “There were just ideas pouring out of him… then he got on that helicopter and took off”: The legacy of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and what could have been
- “I had no money. I couldn’t pay for it, so I borrowed it and never took it back”: How Ronnie Wood began his path to rock royalty with a stolen Fender bass
- “He did all the Ozzy stuff you’d think he would do – he got down on his knees and performed. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is so weird’”: A hair-metal hero turned nu-metal synth-guitar maverick who impressed Ozzy Osbourne – who is the real Amir Derakh?
- “I had too much Jager pre-show… I was puking as they were announcing my band!” Devon Allman on his worst onstage moment – and three all-star encounters he’ll always remember
- “It was kind of a wild idea in 1960 to call a guitar a Hummingbird. As wild as calling your band The Beatles”: How Gibson became an icon of acoustic guitar – 100 years on from its first flat-top
- July 7
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- “There was deep weathering after decades of abuse. As for the guitar – that looked pretty good”: Eric Clapton’s long-lost Les Paul has re-emerged after 60 years – the weird trend of famous guitars going missing, and coming back
- In 1980, Led Zeppelin had new life, and were moving into a new era as a band – then tragedy struck. This was their final show with John Bonham
- “I’d been using Marshall for so long that I’d never listened to anything else. I never gave anything else a shot”: Slash on what made him finally change up his sound – and why we’re living through a renaissance for blues guitar
- “We were part of the Manchester punk explosion – The Sex Pistols and the Clash were exciting and glamorous, we were quite avant garde”: Steve Diggle on the Buzzcocks’ surprising legacy and why he still relies on a 50-year-old solid-state amp
- July 6
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- “I got a call from Keith Richards. He acted like he had known me for 20 years. He asked me to come over and play. They wanted me to join – I couldn’t believe that”: Why Jeff Beck turned down The Rolling Stones
- “He handed me a 1970s maple-neck, Walnut-finish Mustang Bass loaded with flats. I was instantly hooked”: What this perfect pair of vintage Fenders tells us about collecting gear
- “I’m probably gonna get 150 guitarists telling me how I’m doing this wrong, but this is just what works for me. My ’board is a hot mess”: Samantha Fish on finally meeting her fans’ demands and why the SG is the one
- July 5
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- “Working with Hans was great, but the parts were originally composed on a piano – they were written for 10 fingers”: Inside Johnny Marr's blockbuster guitar contributions to Inception
- “He wasn't a fan of tapping or thumbstyle playing. Then he called and gave me one of the highest compliments I've ever received”: How Victor Wooten created one of the most groundbreaking bass albums ever recorded – and won over Anthony Jackson
- July 4
- July 3
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- “People hated us, bullied us, threw stuff at us and even threatened to beat us up. But they didn’t leave”: The strange guitar journey of Devo’s Bob Mothersbaugh
- Loved by George Harrison, the Isley Brothers and Rush’s Alex Lifeson, the Maestro PS-1 Phase Shifter changed the face of popular music – but it sure was bulky
- “Altered tunings obliterated my knowledge of the fretboard. I just put my hands on the guitar, started playing, and found I was using only my ear. It was liberating”: Bentley Anderson is imagining a strange new future for guitar music
- July 2
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- “I miss my brother… But I’d always had it in the back of my mind that if the Heartbreakers ever retired, I would make this my purpose”: Mike Campbell on finding a new life in The Dirty Knobs, and why we should listen to what our guitars are telling us
- “Roth came over to me – he was wearing this little vest, had a cane, and his hair was dyed like a skunk. He said, ‘How do you like my boys?’” How Michael Anthony went from playing backyard parties to sellout crowds with Van Halen
- “Alex said, ‘I don’t want to play my double-neck – it’s too heavy.’ I said, ‘I’ll do it!’ He lent me his white Gibson EDS-1275 for Stairway”: How Crown Lands went from Rush’s spiritual successors to playing Led Zeppelin with their heroes
- “Even if it doesn’t survive, you can just get a screwdriver and screw it back together”: Bill Frisell on why the Telecaster beats the archtop as the touring jazz guitarist’s best friend
- “I saw a kid holding that guitar out for me to sign it. But the train was already moving… I’m thinking, ‘Man, I gotta get the kid’s number to see if I could buy it back’”: Joe Perry on the one guitar he regrets selling
- “I was like, ‘I’m standing in the middle of these young school children destroying my guitar – for this?!’” With a parts-caster his dad found on the street, and a TikTok-inspired rhythm guitar style, hardcore phenoms Hammok are reinventing the genre
- July 1
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- Celebrity guitar auctions: teenage dreams or billionaire boys’ club? How A-list gear sales became the hottest ticket in town
- “Snoop told us, ‘The world needs D12. They’re screamin’ for it. Don’t stop now’”: The Detroit hip-hop icons are back with red-hot flows and real guitar riffs – and they’ve brought Eminem’s right-hand guitar man along for the ride
- “Ry Cooder once said there is really no better tool for the guitar than your right hand. There are so many ways you can approach it”: Eric Bibb on why happiness is a good acoustic guitar – and what makes the electric a different species
- “I don’t want to sound like a w****r, but I’m more of a mystic than a musician”: She’s worked with Courtney Love and Radiohead’s producer. Now Bethia Beadman is embarking on a baritone guitar adventure rooted in Sanskrit and mantra
