Features archive

July 2026

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114 articles

July 31
- “Me and my dad went to pick it up from a woman’s house and it turns out it was her ex-husband’s. Somewhere out there is a guy wondering where his Strat went!” Zac Schulze on the ultimate eBay bargain Strat, and the greatest blues tone ever
- “He’s pretty fearless in the studio. You just gotta trust him and know it’s gonna work, ‘cause there’s a lot of experimentation”: Dominic Davis on growing up with Jack White and what he’s learned playing bass with him
July 30
- “I contacted Stevie Ray Vaughan’s amp tech. He approached amps the way a tailor fits a suit. Watching him work was like seeing magic happen”: Philip Sayce on the gear that changed him – and how he learned to wield it
July 29
- “There was really no plan, but festivals started making offers. Our manager got us on a call, and I was basically crying – it's what I’d been waiting for”: Chris Caffery on the return of Savatage, and his guitar partnership with the late Criss Oliva
- “I’ve been playing the same bass since the ’80s. It’s the only one that could survive a Bad Brains show”: Why Bad Brains icon Darryl Jenifer traded punk for instrumental jazz – without changing his bass
- “I got to play Gary’s Les Paul from the Lizzy days. It was quite difficult, the action was horrendous. He had big, big hands”: Brian Robertson busts myths and shares war stories from Thin Lizzy’s glory days
- “We were going to form a group at the time of the Beck’s Bolero sessions”: Jeff Beck was going to be part of the original Led Zeppelin, according to Jimmy Page
- “Even at nearly 80, he was still creative and highly motivated, looking forward to what his next range of guitars might be”: Remembering the late Alan Entwistle – pickups guru, guitar electrics whiz and repairman to the British blues boom
July 28
- “The music is really interesting. But the backlash has already started”: Love them or hate them, Angine de Poitrine draw real crowds – so why is the viral duo so divisive?
- “I had a few million views before going on stage. I had this pressure”: Laura Cox on taking her sound from YouTube to the studio and the stage – and the release from playing with “real people”
July 27
- “You can usually hum your favorite songs. A lot of virtuosic players these days write music most people would struggle to sing back”: Meet Opal Ocean, the Aussie duo reimagining flamenco guitar
- “Clapton kept calling Andy Summers and said, ‘You need to sell me your guitar. I’m going to record Fresh Cream and I need a Les Paul – that’s the sound I want’”: The hidden history of Eric Clapton’s 1960 Summersburst Les Paul Standard
July 26
- “The original owner was a schoolteacher. It had been under her bed for 15 years in its case”: How a forgotten 1969 Jazz Bass became the go-to studio instrument for one of London’s top session bassists
- The most difficult job in guitar maintenance? How to make and install an ES-335 wiring harness – and why it's easier than you think
- “That’s one thing I don’t like… It’s a completely different scene”: Jimi Hendrix never understood why people pitted him against Eric Clapton
July 25
- “I tried to play rock stuff. I didn’t particularly like jazz – I couldn’t hear what was happening in it”: The pioneering jazz guitarist who bridged Jimi Hendrix and Wes Montgomery – and was gone too soon
July 24
- “Around 4am, Jimi decided we should do some playing – fortunately, I had my Guild with me. It ended up as Voodoo Child”: How Jefferson Airplane's Jack Casady wound up recording one of Jimi Hendrix's greatest studio jams
- “Billie plugs in, puts the guitar on, and plays When I Come Around. He’s like, ‘That's the sound’”: The story of the Marshall Billie Joe Armstrong amp – its first artist signature in 14 years
- “I was in this fold-out chair. The DI was so terrible, because it was going through a generator. It added to the character”: How one of the year’s best metal albums ended up being recorded in Airbnbs, a shed and an RV
July 23
- “A desirable icon of ’80s nostalgia and futuristic innovation”: How Steinberger started the headless revolution – with a little help from Eddie Van Halen and Allan Holdsworth
- “They were all having a difficult time, having lost a bandmate and a good friend. It was a dark moment, and I was in the middle of it”: Robert Sarzo was hired and immediately fired as Randy Rhoads’ replacement – but he has no regrets
- “To this day, I find it incredibly ironic and hilarious that it turned into a song, especially such a successful one”: How Slash’s throwaway riff became the most successful Guns N' Roses song ever
- “Bob Ezrin was recording and I changed to a different guitar. Within five seconds, he stopped the tape and said, ‘There’s something wrong…’” Simon McBride on Deep Purple’s new golden age of heavy
- “I got it for 800 bucks, and it became an important guitar. I took it over to Jake Kiszka’s house – he whipped out a case and he had the same one”: Mirador’s Chris Turpin on the ‘sleeper’ star of his vintage guitar collection
July 22
- “The cleaning lady came the next morning and everyone was on the floor. Mick Jagger had his head up inside the bass drum”: The incredible life and times of Hubert Sumlin, one of the blues' greatest guitarists
- “I gave Eddie Van Halen the parts, and the next time I saw the guitar he had used a spray can to paint it white with black stripes”: How Charvel spawned a custom shop revolution – and became the premier guitar maker in the age of shredders
- “Randy said, ‘Maybe if you tried it in this key…’ He had the patience because he was a guitar teacher. He wouldn’t intimidate me. Because I’m quite easily intimidated”: Ozzy Osbourne on his special writing dynamic with Randy Rhoads
- A year on from the tragic passing of the great Ozzy Osbourne, we dive into the secrets behind Randy Rhoads’ guitar tone on the iconic Crazy Train – and lift the lid on how to nail the sound on a budget
- “Rik told me, ‘Don’t hold back. Do your thing. I don’t want people to see a diluted Phil X, so be you.’ He’s right. I’ll be me”: Phil X on taking to the stage with Canadian rock heroes Triumph – and how he’s switching up his Bon Jovi rig for the occasion
July 21
- “It’s like if you found out Harry Potter’s scar wasn’t from battling Voldemort but done under anesthetic on Harley Street”: The case for and against guitar relicing
- “I was just sick of the white blues rock thing. The whole mentality seemed stupid”: Why The Edge was always destined to become a different kind of guitar hero
- “Frets are necessary, like a baby walker that a small child uses to learn to walk. But after a certain point they can become restrictive”: How a Greek Orthodox priest went viral by turning church hymns into fretless eight-string metal ragers
- “Gibson would have been aware of the popularity of Fender vibratos and maybe considered Bigsbys to be too expensive or too closely associated with Gretsch. Either way, the company devised its own”: What this Golden Era ’63 SG tells us about Gibson design
- “Second song in, the amps blew up. You can hear Jagger apologizing to the crowd, ‘We’re trying to get it together up here. Maybe we’ll do a couple of acoustic ones’”: How a revolutionary amp nearly derailed the Rolling Stones’ 1969 US tour
July 20
- “We told their manager we were open to making them a guitar. Two weeks later they were touring our factory”: The making of Angine de Poitrine’s new Godin double-neck – and why it’s not a signature model (yet)
- "There’s something about the pure honesty of a tube amp that can’t be topped”: 5 reasons I think digital modelers still can’t win the gear war
- “I had to make sure he had all the tones he needed – the intro to Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love is like taking a flint and stone to make a spark”: How a glam-metal guitarist built Joe Satriani an amp that captured Eddie Van Halen’s tone
- “I heard this car come roaring up… Jeff’s coming out and he’s holding this guitar. He said, ‘Here, this is yours for getting me in the Yardbirds’”: The story of the Fender Telecaster that unites Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page
July 19
- “Those records made me think the guitar could be as good as jazz. Up until then, the electric guitar was a stupid instrument to me”: The songs that made Tom Verlaine take the guitar seriously
- “Back then, he didn't know anything about electric guitar… It was like, ‘Don't worry Bob, I'll adjust the amp for you, it sounds great, don't worry’”: Robbie Robertson on Bob Dylan's rocky electric transition
July 18
- “The only way for me to play it was to sit in a chair. I had to explain that to the audience. It was quite embarrassing”: The guitar solo Joe Satriani wished he never wrote
- “Mitch has finally got the intro and then… crash! It's Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones. He stumbles in, and he's out of his mind!”: Inside the chaotic sessions that produced Jimi Hendrix's classic rendition of All Along the Watchtower
- “I was getting calls from George Harrison and Eric Clapton’s group. They were working together. And what were they interested in? The J-180 and J-185”: Inside Gibson's Century Collection acoustics – and the role the Rolling Stones and Beatles played
- “He fired a shotgun out of a window into a bird sanctuary. When we heard the bang, we said to the tour manager, ‘You need to take that gun off him!’” The Sweet's last man standing Andy Scott on wild times and triumphs in glam's most influential band
July 17
- “Suddenly I’m running my bass through this old Marshall guitar amp, but it absolutely roared”: How an off-the-cuff studio experiment unlocked one of Mastodon’s biggest bass sounds
- “Ozzy was used to Les Pauls from Zakk Wylde and Randy Rhoads. He kept asking me if I could play one”: Gus G on whirlwind days with Ozzy Osbourne, his rock-star Guitar World cover shoot, and his difficult choice of guitars
- “When John smashed that guitar above my head, I knew it was coming. But it was terrifying nonetheless”: Stephen Bishop on friendship, luck, and his impossible-to-miss Ferrington guitar
- The pedal that made me ditch my tube amp – and why I'll never go back
- 10 misunderstood guitar pedals that became modern classics
- “His death was an incredible loss, not only for the band but for guitar fans as well”: Every Deep Purple guitarist, from Blackmore to McBride
July 16
- “A Strat gives me all the sounds I want. When I hear that tone, I’m like, ‘That's what a guitar is supposed to sound like’”: He’s jammed with Grace Bowers and collab’d with Cory Wong – now Devon Gilfillian wants to introduce “Nashville Soul” to the world
- The pedal that changed me – I asked the Guitar World staff to name the stompboxes that actually made a difference to their playing
- “The bridge is Deftones. They still sound really good to us now. From there we found shoegaze”: Meet Ulrika Spacek, the nu-metalheads who transformed into hypnotic ’90s alt-rockers
- “When I first played Jump for the guys nobody wanted anything to do with it. Dave said I was a guitar hero and I shouldn’t be playing keyboards”: The story of Van Halen’s 1984, and the end of the David Lee Roth era
- Sort out your ’board! 7 pedalboard accessories to tidy up your stompbox setup
July 15
- “It’s just a Japanese knockoff of a Tele, but it’s just as good, if not better. It sounds better recorded – it cuts through”: How Greg Freeman is rewriting the country guitar rulebook
- “Rock ’n’ roll is full of borderline despots”: Why does Bob Dylan get through so many guitarists?
- “The biggest mindset shift is that guitarists should think of themselves as athletes”: As arthritis creeps into the hands of aging guitar heroes, what can we do to prolong our peak playing days?
- “It’s rewarding to learn your favorite solos note for note, but studying the chord progression underneath will put your own spin on things”: 10 great guitar looping songs that will help you hone your playing
- Analog vs digital pedals: what's the difference? And is one really better than the other?
July 14
- “Höfner offered me this weird-shaped guitar. I said, ‘What the hell is that?!’ They said, ‘It doesn't have a name yet, but we want you to try it’”: Hugh Cornwell on The Stranglers’ biggest hit, hating Twin Reverbs, and his bizarro Höfner
- “If you'd blind A/B'd me between the original amp and this, there's no way I could have told the difference”: How Laney is distilling its mightiest amps into pedal-sized powerhouses – in collaboration with Billy Corgan, Tom Quayle and Martin Miller
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “Robert asked, ‘Do you know a Led Zeppelin song called The Ocean?’ I just casually answered, ‘Yeah, I know that song’”: Robert Plant bassist Viktor Krauss on the genius of the legendary frontman – and the inspiration he gets from his sister Alison
July 3
- “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
- “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
- 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