Features archive
July 2025
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48 articles
- July 16
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- “I walk in and see on the board: ‘Beck, Satriani, Lukather, Slash.’ I thought it was a send-up”: Spinal Tap once surprised Nigel Tufnel with an all-star guitar solo tribute – but he wasn't thrilled about it
- “I don’t think LSD had a real big impact on the songwriting or guitar playing… it was just that we saw brighter colors and got high!” Roger McGuinn on The Byrds’ influential guitar style, and why they didn’t follow The Kinks and The Who into distortion
- “I imagine myself painting a picture. Before I only had 24 colors to use – now I have an infinite amount on my palette”: Meet Ben Lechuga, the Steve Vai-championed Chilean virtuoso who has gone fretless – and why he’s never going back
- July 15
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- “Mike Peters and Eddie Macdonald had written three stone-cold classics by the time they were 25. They showed amazing maturity in their early songwriting”: Remembering Mike Peters, the late frontman of the Alarm
- “This is the way Leo would be building guitars if he were still alive. In our eyes, G&L is more ‘Fender’ than Fender actually is”: How G&L Guitars is carrying on the legacy of Leo Fender
- “I love using toy guitars that you have to wrestle with. It adds to the performance – you’re pulling from the instrument”: Dean DeLeo on why his favorite STP songs are the ones he didn’t write, and barging into Allan Holdsworth’s dressing room
- July 14
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- “We had people crying on our shoulders every night. We had no idea it would be so impactful that it literally saved people’s lives”: We Lost the Sea channeled grief into a landmark post-rock album – then they had to face the pressure of how to follow it
- “One of Eric Clapton’s guitars went for half a million dollars. I was, as I often am, in trouble with the IRS. I thought, ‘This is probably the time’”: Todd Rundgren’s love affair with Clapton’s Fool SG, and how he moved on after selling it
- “I had just done 9 months with Joni Mitchell… But that whole Dark Horse tour was a really weird thing. George was uncomfortable being a band leader”: Robben Ford on the highs and lows of touring with George Harrison
- July 13
- July 12
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- “Cliff played guitar as well as bass – I picked up a few things from him that ended up on Master of Puppets”: Before Robert Trujillo and Jason Newsted, Cliff Burton set the musical bar for Metallica and established an indelible legacy
- “As soon as I saw it my heart jumped into my throat – I’d bought it from a trusted guy and I couldn’t imagine that he would have done something improper”: This 1960 Gibson ES-335 proves that there’s always something to learn from vintage guitars
- July 11
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- “It was a true surprise. And to be shouted out alongside Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ to boot? That felt surreal”: Meet Jesse Williams, the Joe Bonamassa-backed singer-songwriter tackling the mountain blues
- “I try not to be Alex Lifeson from Rush… my days of shredding and playing like a crazy maniac are over. There are a million people on Instagram that do that now”: Alex Lifeson on throwing sonic curveballs with Envy of None – and why he’s all in on plugins
- “The Kennedy Center thing was a wild experience – being around that many famous people and shaking Robert DeNiro’s hand at the White House”: How Goose took flight to become the world’s hottest jam band
- July 10
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- “I just went nuts and added lots of parallel distortion!” Thunderstruck on bass? With slapping and tapping? Modern-day bass hero Toby Peterson-Stewart flexes his formidable chops in tribute to AC/DC
- “People shied away from its political edge – they didn’t get their love songs. But for us it was a lot of fun”: Junior Marvin on Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Survival – and the influence Hendrix’s guitar pedal guru had on its sound
- “That was also where Mitch Mitchell brought Jimi’s white Woodstock Strat for me to set up, prior to him selling it”: My afternoon interviewing Hank Marvin over beans on toast and chickening out of a Paul McCartney 'audition'
- July 9
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- “Korn was doing their 30th anniversary show with Gojira. I was like, ‘I have to go give Christian a guitar, and I have to give Head a guitar’”: Tetrarch on the joy of handing out signature models to their heroes and designing metal’s gnarliest tones
- “Rule number one: When you’re not using a pedal, your guitar must sound like your original guitar sound”: Steve Stevens on the pedalboard the guru Dave Friedman made him, his favorite Klon klone and why he can't use chorus anymore
- July 8
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- “We were doing War Pigs… Ozzy looks at me and mouths, ‘What are the words?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ So he started singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm”: Jake E. Lee on his wild Ozzy Osbourne days and why Tony Iommi is harder to emulate than Randy Rhoads
- “You gotta quit at the right moment, and Gary did the worst thing any band member can do. I was angry, man”: Scott Gorham on how his guitar partnership with Gary Moore came to a dramatic end – and building bridges with the late guitar hero decades later
- “The audience got on my side when I came out with this broken guitar… it started life as a Baby Taylor but got stepped on and snapped”: He's been called the UK's “best, most humane songwriter” but a broken acoustic is the secret to Richard Dawson's sound
- July 7
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- “The songs, the artwork, the image, Ozzy’s sinister, untrained monotone, Iommi’s monolithic riffs. This was the emerging sound of heavy metal”: The complete history of Black Sabbath – lineup by lineup, album by album
- “Journeyman guitars have the lightest relicing available, as if the guitar has been used but not abused during its fictitious lifetime”: Up close with Fender Custom Shop’s ’59 Journeyman Stratocaster – a stunning vintage repro fresh out of the box
- “People think it’s a banjo or a toy, and they’re stunned when they hear it. I put a Slash humbucker and some SG electronics in it, and let me tell you, it rips!” Meet The Frst’s Mikei Gray, the virtuoso whose guitar is made out of a ’50s Buick hubcap
- July 6
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- “He got really upset and ran off down the street. He turned the corner, and I never saw him again”: Jack Bruce’s final encounter with Jaco Pastorius
- “Hearing the crowd sing the War Pigs solo gave me chills”: Back to the Beginning was Ozzy Osbourne’s night – but it was also a tribute to Tony Iommi’s singular impact on guitar music
- July 5
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- “If we played a two-hour show, the blood would be dripping down the bass!” Nile Rodgers on what made Bernard Edwards a bass genius – and the making of some iconic 4-string moments
- “That one’s a ’62. It’s also been shot. There’s a mark on the bottom where the bullet went in”: From his legendary Franken-Les Paul, Old Black, to his Hank Williams-owned Martin, and a pedalboard “ugly button,” Neil Young's rig is like no other
- “I watched Tony a lot. We became friends. It was emotional – not in a ‘pinch me!’ sense, but realizing how on-point he was – and how much he was not phoning in that performance”: Rival Sons’ Scott Holiday on what it’s like to open a Black Sabbath show
- “My dad stepped in to greet the ensemble – and then in came The King”: Billy Gibbons shares the story of the “treasured moment” he sat in on a B.B. King session – as a child
- July 4
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- “Oz said, ‘Let’s just do Free Bird twice. That should take up an hour!’” Zakk Wylde on Tony Iommi’s genius, Black Sabbath’s immeasurable influence – and Ozzy’s unlikely Back to the Beginning demands
- “The original blue Strat that I bought in ’88 became the ‘Bob guitar’… that was when I started reinventing the way I looked at guitar”: From Hüsker Dü’s “fighter jets” to Sugar’s “sheets” of guitar, how Bob Mould built his wall of sound
- “I don’t even think he had a pick. He just heard the tracks once and was ready to go”: Ricky Warwick on welcoming Lita Ford, Charlie Starr and Billy Duffy to vintage guitar nirvana for his new solo album – and the magic of seventh chords
- July 3
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- “Am I supposed to feel jealous or something? Sid Vicious had his moments – but I can have my moments as well. I’m no shrinking violet!” Glen Matlock on how the Sex Pistols have changed, while his bass rig never has and never will
- “Instead of being like, ‘Hey, man, you’re my favorite guitar player,’ I was like, ‘Watch out for that cable running across the floor’”: Bill Kelliher on his awkward Tony Iommi encounter and Mastodon’s Back to the Beginning plans
- “Epiphone’s ’50s-style Flying V is a perfectly decent guitar that emulates the spirit of the real thing without being completely vintage-accurate”: Can we turn an Epiphone Flying V into a vintage Gibson unicorn? It’s easier than you might think
- July 2
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- “I knew the record was good, but when you hear the way he plays, there's no question that Stevie was an all-time great guitar player”: How Stevie Ray Vaughan's biggest hit benefitted from one of the baddest rhythm sections in blues history
- “I took Heaven and Hell to a sleepover – the other girls looked at me like I had aliens crawling out of my ears”: Lzzy Hale on how Halestorm ended up playing Ronnie James Dio’s final show – and doing the same for Ozzy Osbourne
- “He turned out to be George Harrison’s gardener. He gave the CD to George… Next thing I know George and Olivia call to ask if we’d play at their Christmas party”: Meet Robin Nolan, the Gypsy jazz guitarist who collaborated with a Beatle
- “Sabbath and AC/DC are similar to me because people make the mistake of thinking, ‘That’s so easy. It’s like a caveman. Anyone could play those parts’”: Tony Iommi was such a big influence on Scott Ian that he tried to play left-handed
- “Exceptional tuning stability, bright and articulate tone, and enhanced output”: Pro musicians’ go-to guitar strings, Cleartone Strings – founded by music legend Phil Everly – are now available in the UK and Ireland
- July 1
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- “What we've created is a platform where you can upload your collection, and put in whatever prices you want, which only you can see”: We speak to the people behind an all-new, safe way to buy and sell vintage guitars online
- “People hear surf guitar in our music, but I think that comes more from the fact Dick Dale was Greek – so Misirlou was a Greek tune”: Introducing LA LOM, the LA trio turning fiberglass guitars and psychedelia into a dance party of guitar instrumentals
- “Judas Priest were doing something different. Black Sabbath gave us a real confidence boost to carry on what we were doing”: K.K. Downing on coming up with fellow metal gods Black Sabbath in Birmingham, and why no-one can play like Tony Iommi
- “We wanted to play a 20-minute crazy solo. An extended, jammy outro used to be a pretty common thing, and now it feels completely dead”: Meet Dutch Interior, the SoCal indie-rock outfit channeling the Allman Brothers with six – yes, six – guitarists
- “Alice in Chains have had a long relationship with Ozzy, who gave us one of our first breaks – and gave us a bass player”: Jerry Cantrell on his lifelong love of Black Sabbath and touring with Ozzy Osbourne (before taking his bassist)
