Gear damaged during flights is an unfortunate reality for touring bands. However, gear damaged during pre-flight checks, well, that’s another story altogether.

According to the Boston-based blues band GA-20 – comprised of guitarist Matthew Stubbs, lead vocalist/guitarist Cody Nilsen, and drummer Josh Kiggans – one of their high-end guitar cases got damaged thanks to a particularly enthusiastic TSA agent at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport in California.

“Big shout out to this fine TSA @tsaamerica agent at San Luis Obispo airport who insisted that taking everything out of my @monocreators guitar case and swabbing it wasn’t enough,” the band writes on social media, accompanied by an actual video of the ordeal.

“He then spent 20 minutes ripping out all of the padding/stuffing from the case and of course he was unable to put it back together. To top it off we all have TSA Pre check & this agent refused to run the case through xray until he ripped all the padding out of the case. The gig bag is trash now. ($380 case) Good news they gave me a business card and said if I have a complaint feel free to email.”

Safe to say, a multitude of musicians pitched in with similar experiences. Guthrie Trapp noted, “This is f*cking insanity!! Worst ‘case’ of this I’ve ever seen,” while singer/songwriter Bones Owens commented, “I had two guitars destroyed by baggage handlers on a flight earlier this year.. different situation, with a similar disrespect for musicians’ livelihood while traveling by air.

“There seems to be a lack of common sense, a lack of consequences, and mostly a lack of care. Sorry to see this happen to your gear, but thanks for sharing it here. It’s the best thing we can do to spread awareness and hopefully illicit [sic] some change.”

As for TSA itself, its policy states that, “Musical instruments must undergo screening when transported as carry-on or in checked baggage. Musical instruments transported as carry-on require a physical inspection at the security checkpoint. Inform the TSA officer if your instrument requires special care and handling. You may pack brass instruments in your checked or carry-on baggage.”

In more recent news, a clip posted to TikTok – with more than four million views – has sparked outrage after footage of a baggage handler carelessly throwing guitars on the ground went viral.

“It happens all day,” Tom Morello says, speaking about the number of requests he gets from artists looking for him to sprinkle his secret guitar sauce on new pieces of music. “I do a lot of it, too,” he says. “I’ve donated guitar solos to younger bands. They’re fans of Rage Against the Machine or Audioslave, and they want me on their songs.”

He admits he can’t accept every request that comes across his desk. “Hey, I’ve got a lot going on,” he says with a laugh. “These days, I’m driving my kids to a lot of high school baseball games.”

Recently, the guitarist received an offer he couldn’t refuse when noted video game composer Masayoshi Soken reached out and asked if he’d consider contributing a song for the latest update of Final Fantasy XIV.

Morello admitted that he wasn’t much of a gamer, but he understood the significance of the Final Fantasy franchise, and he was delighted at the prospect of working with Soken.

There was just one problem, however; Morello would have to turn in a ready-to-go track within 36 hours. Fortunately, the guitarist was already working on some new music with producer Tyler Smyth, so the prospect of banging out a banger wasn’t out of the question.

“I said to Tyler, ‘I’ve got a hot riff, and you’ve got some beats. Maybe we can do this,’” he says. The producer then rang up his friend Caleb Shomo, singer with the metalcore band Beartooth, and asked, “Do you want to make a song with Tom Morello right now?”

In no time at all – 48 hours, to be exact – the collaboration yielded the monster jam Everything Burns, a feral blend of rap-metal and electronica that features, one might expect, one hell of a gargantuan riff.

When you’re noodling, do you have some sort of litmus test that makes you go, “That combination of notes does the job”?

It’s not overthought. Sometime around maybe 1991 [or] ’92, I began to be able to write music that I loved, and was able to tap into some of the essence of the Tony Iommi and Jimmy Page-ness of it all. From that time, these big-ass riffs have kind of been low-hanging fruit. It’s like, “Stick to the dots, try a little syncopation and don’t be afraid to be equal parts funky and heavy.”

Is it deceptively easy? One wrong note could make all the difference between a classic riff and one that’s just “eh.”

Oh, sure. Some of the longer riffs through my history, like Testify or Down Rodeo, where there was sort of a more simple version of the riff, I said, “Well, if it’s going to happen four times in a row, perhaps it’s a journey that stays true to coming back to the one, but then adds some extra heavy metal flavor along the way.”

So in the case of Everything Burns, you already had the riff.

It was around in a rudimentary way, and it was sort of looking for a home. I have a lot of riffs hanging around, and this was one that Tyler and I had been tinkering with. When this opportunity came up, I was like, “Okay, hold on one second. Let’s see if Beartooth wants to jump on.”

At what point did you realize that the combination of you, Tyler and Caleb was working?

It was maybe two hours after Tyler reached out to Caleb. Caleb dropped everything to do this. He’s a great singer, and he’s also a producer himself. He’s got a studio. He wrote and produced the vocals to it, came back in about two hours with a first draft, and I was like, “Holy shit, that’s a jam!”

I did notice the lack of a solo. Is that something you wrestled with?

I wouldn’t say “wrestle.” There was, however, a version of it that had sort of a more expansive middle section. At the end of the day when we were mixing, it felt like it didn’t add to the power of the song. It felt more like I was just sticking a solo in.

When I was A/B-ing in my car, I liked the version that, while it doesn’t have a guitar solo, it’s about as guitar-y as anything I’ve ever done. There’s no lack of guitar on this song.

As for solos, there will be plenty more to come, let me tell you. I’m in the midst of working on what will be my first solo rock album. I made some Americana albums and some EDM-influenced records, but I want to make a record that is going to be an unapologetically Tom Morello solo rock record.

Any idea when we might see that?

In this day and age, what is an album? We’ve released three singles from this album over the course of the year and a half. There’s a lot of intense work ahead. I hope I’ve got maybe three or four songs in the can and another sort of five or six in the hamper. I’ve got a lot of touring coming up this summer. I’d love to try to get it out before then.

And you’ve been touring with your son.

That’s something I’m most excited about, continuing the collaboration with my son, Roman, who has become quite a technical guitarist. He’s been a collaborative partner on a couple of songs, and that will continue. [Laughs] One of my favorite parts about working with Roman is that if we have disagreements, I’m able to send him to his room.

You can’t do that with everyone.

No, I can’t. [Laughs]

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Joe Satriani may be filling Eddie Van Halen’s shoes during the Best Of All Worlds tour with Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, and Jason Bonham; however, he’s recently revealed that David Lee Roth tried to recruit him for a Van Halen cover band when the sorely missed guitarist was still very much alive and active.

“I remember in the mid-’90s, around ’95 or ’96, David Lee Roth called me and he wanted to put together a band to do Van Halen songs,” Satriani tells Thinking About Guitar in a new interview. “He went on and on about how we were the only guys who could really do it right.

“He had all these crazy plans, and I said, ‘But Dave, Ed’s still alive. He’s still making amazing records. He’s still on tour. What guitar player would ever try to imitate him while he’s still working?’ I said, ‘It makes no sense.’ And of course, I said, ‘Look, I’m not the guy.’”

Ultimately, Roth’s project didn’t transpire, and Satriani could breathe a sigh of relief. Following Van Halen’s death in 2020, though, the Surfing with the Alien virtuoso was once again approached for an Eddie Van Halen tribute.

“When he and Alex [Van Halen] called me after Ed had passed away, it made a little bit more sense, even though I tried to convince them I was not the person who could do it justice. I told them I had tried to avoid playing like Ed for so long that now I really couldn’t.”

He even tried to pitch a couple of other names for the job. “I called and said, ‘Really, are you sure you don’t want to call Nuno [Bettencourt] or Steve [Vai] , or someone obviously more well-suited to sound like Ed? Someone who has demonstrated playing this stuff live?’ But they were adamant that I was the only guy who was going to do it justice.”

Fast forward to 2024, and Satriani found himself joining Hagar on his Best Of All Worlds tour, which heavily celebrated his era with the legendary band.

When asked by Guitarist what it takes to tackle EVH’s parts live, he replied, “It’s all in the fingers; that really is true. We’ve heard Eddie play acoustic guitar, and it’s freakishly just as good as electric. I don’t know how he did that. I’ve seen players online get close, but there’s that magic thing that Eddie had, which was his personality and his heart. No one comes close to that.”

Elsewhere in the Guitarist interview, Satriani revealed the gear he uses to play Van Halen’s parts – and the level of dedication and practice required to nail them.

Angine de Poitrine have been on everyone’s lips since that polka-dot and microtone-heavy live session dropped on Seattleite radio station KEXP’s official YouTube channel. Since then, the Canadian duo’s lives have changed completely, as they’ve brought their unique brand of “mantra-rock Dada Pythago-Cubist” orchestral sounds to, well, the masses.

One of the most distinctive calling cards is guitarist Khn’s microtonal double-neck guitar/bass, built by luthier Raphaël Le Breton. Eastwood even created its own version in the form of the limited-edition Microtonal Doubleneck 4/6 Electric Guitar/Bass, which allegedly came together after Le Breton approached the company about creating a tribute to the original model.

Now, it seems like Khn himself is wielding a new version of the polka-dotted double-neck that led to Angine de Poitrine’s fame. During some of their latest shows, eagle-eyed fans noticed another version – this time by renowned (Canadian through-and-through) brand Godin Guitars.

According to reports by Guitar Bomb, the band’s viral success and subsequent world tours meant that Khn needed a solid backup. However, Le Breton was tied up with other work, so Quebec’s own Godin Guitars came through and built a custom double-neck for the guitarist.

Specs for the new-and-improved backup build include custom fretwork, with the upper neck featuring a standard 6-string electric guitar configuration, and a lower neck that functions as your typical 4-string bass.

Both fretboards are subsequently fretted to split the traditional 12-tone octave into 24 quarter tones, making them microtonal-ready.

Another key feature of this new build is its weight. Godin crafted this model to maximize ergonomics, chambering, and weight distribution – reducing the load on Khn.

Other tweaks include relocating the two dedicated output jacks to the bottom edge, with the guitar and bass necks split into separate signals routed to a Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 and a Hartke HA2500 amp stack, respectively.

The band’s polka-dot aesthetic is further enhanced with matching black-and-white graphics. Finally, the original build’s “69” dice knobs have been swapped for custom “3” dice controls.

Judging by the response on Reddit, it’s safe to say that Angine de Poitrine fans and math-rock aficionados have gone crazy over this guitar – all begging the question: could the band be teasing an official signature model?

In more recent news, GuitarWorld.com’s editor-in-chief recently witnessed the dynamic duo live – and hailed Khn as the greatest polka-dot guitar hero since Randy Rhoads and Buddy Guy.

Fresh off the announcement of his Marshall endorsement, Jared James Nichols is taking it back to his roots – and by that, we mean the very reason he decided to ditch the pick and play fingerstyle exclusively, in a journey that took him from rural Wisconsin to world stages.

“I remember the first guitar I picked up, I picked it up, and I wanted to play it like a lefty. The first real guitar I got, though, the guy at the store was ‘Dude, flip the guitar, you're holding it wrong,” he says in his new Gibson documentary, The Long Road: A Jared James Nichols Documentary.

“He was like, ‘If you want to be a real guitar player and play really good guitars, you got to play righty. They don't really make great left-handed guitars.’”

Nichols was 15 at the time, and while he quickly got used to his newly purchased right-handed guitar, one thing that felt unnatural to him was playing it with a pick.

“It was fucking me up,” he says matter-of-factly, “and I needed to feel the strings under my fingers. I started to play without a pick, and I distinctly remember people telling me, ‘Man, it's never gonna work, you're never gonna be a great guitar player without a pick.’”

Discovering “guys like Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler and Derek Trucks,” was the epiphany that he needed to stick to his own unique brand of fingerstyle playing.

“I was like, ‘Well, they do it,’ and then I just started to kind of do it my own way. No one taught me how to do it. I just said I don’t care. I’m just gonna try and see what happens. And what ended up happening was, I started to develop my own sound and technique with it, and I’m so happy now that I did.”

In one of his Guitar World columns, Nichols broke down his one-of-a-kind fingerstyle technique and waxed lyrical about the players who inspired him.

“Fingerpicking felt like the most natural approach. I use my thumb for downstrokes and my first three fingers for upstrokes,” he wrote.

“There was one player in particular who inspired me the most in regard to playing fingerstyle, and that was blues legend Hubert Sumlin, who was known most notably for his work with Howlin’ Wolf.

“When I heard Hubert play, it changed the way I approached the guitar. Then I heard Albert King, Derek Trucks, and Mark Knopfler, all fingerpickers. All these players demonstrated the incredible range of sounds available when fingerpicking.”

Jeff Beck was playing in the Yardbirds when Jimi Hendrix first came to London and sent shockwaves through the British blues scene. His impact was so big that it left Beck wondering if he should hang up his Les Paul for good.

He survived the scare, ultimately releasing 1975’s faultless Blow by Blow – a watershed moment for instrumental guitar music. But when his solo band collapsed, and the shred scene rose to prominence, Beck, once again, began to doubt himself.

“The last nine years were rough for music,” he told Chris Gill in an interview for Japan’s Player magazine (available via Guitar World), in 1999.

At that time, a decade had passed between his three-piece band album Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop record and his seventh LP, Who Else!, with only session work and covers albums bridging the gap.

“It has been jumping around all over the place, like a fox,” he explained. “I could never tell where anything was going to go. I was also really depressed about not being able to keep the original three-piece band together: me, Tony Hymas [keys], and Terry Bozzio [drums].”

However, Beck also revealed that the guitar arms race of the late-’80s had gotten to him.

“I got really disillusioned with my playing,” he explained. “I knew that there were these other guitarists coming up around the block, and they could really play.

“[It was] not a threat. It was just telling me that it was time to move on. I wasn’t going to let that happen. But they did shove me aside for a while. I just thought that I should be an observer rather than a participant.”

In the end, Beck weathered the storm and forged a successful – and surprise – tandem with Jennifer Batten on the techno-infused Who Else!, before going on to release four more albums of original music before his passing in 2023.

His insecurities never went away entirely, but it’s a useful lesson for us mortal guitarists to realize that, no matter your stature, every player experiences doubts.

Or at least, every player except for Yngwie Malmsteen.

• For more in-depth insight on Jeff Beck’s lifelong evolution as a guitarist, check out the forthcoming biography, Blow By Blow - The Jeff Beck Story (on sale July 14), which features a wealth of original interviews from Guitar World veterans Chris Gill and Brad Tolinski.

Kiss had a rotating roster of lead guitarists over the decades – but one player in particular may very well have comfortably taken the crown for the shortest stint with the band.

Lauded L.A. studio musician and founding member and lead guitarist of the ’80s rock band Mr. Mister, Steve Farris, had the enviable, or – depending on who you ask, the unenviable – opportunity to join Kiss, at least for a few odd weeks.

Back when rumors were swirling that Ace Frehley was on the way out, Farris was well plugged into the Los Angeles music scene and, at the time, was playing with a couple of members of the country-rock band Poco.

“We started doing original shit and rehearsing down in Playa del Rey… or playing a gig at the Blue Lagune Saloon in Marina del Rey when that was still around, and [we were] playing original shit, [we had] a set,” Farris tells Vertex Effects.

However, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself after one of those sets…

“Some tall guy comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, Ace Frehley is leaving Kiss. Would you be interested in auditioning for them? And I’m like, ‘Well, I eat peanut butter and jelly every day, and my Volkswagen Rabbit doesn’t start unless I push it off the clutch. Yeah, I would do that.’

“He writes down on a napkin – that's what you did those days – he goes, ‘Call this number; she’s handling all the auditions.’”

Farris frantically put together an audition tape with the help of his friend – record producer and Carpenters lead guitarist Tony Peluso – consisting of “demos I played with, songs I’d written while I was living in the Midwest, recorded in Chicago, instrumentals, things I sat in… just anything I could find that I showed I could play guitar well.”

Farris immediately drove down to an office on Sunset Boulevard, where he found the person who was handling Kiss’ auditions. “I gave her the tape, and she went and played it while I was there, which is kind of weird. So I sat there listening to the tape while she was listening to it.”

He drove off and didn’t think much of it until two weeks later, when he got an unexpected phone call.

“‘Is this Steve Farris?’ ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘This is Paul Stanley from Kiss.’ He said, ‘Gene and I listened to the tape last night. We really liked it. We're down at the Record Plant, cutting a record, and we just have guys come play on the records, kind of an audition. Want to come down? Come down tomorrow at 2[pm].’”

Valley Arts Strat, Goodrich pedal, and CE-1 Chorus in hand, Farris made his way to New York’s famed Record Plant studios. What he witnessed next is forever imprinted in his memory.

“There's four studios there. I’d been in there where somebody had some free time in the middle of the night, but I [had] never been in there to see anything real. They go to Studio D, and that's where Kiss was… sliding glass doors… You look through there, you see these tall guys with black hair, but at that time [1982] you’ve never seen them without makeup.”

After waiting for three hours, and even spotting a certain Bob Kulick – Bruce Kulick’s brother – being ushered out, Farris was finally summoned.

“Paul goes, ‘Hey, I got a Marshall out there, just plug into this.’ I got the engineer sitting here, Gene’s standing up, Paul’s on the other side, looking at me. He goes, ‘We need an eight-bar solo, it's in D or G – I can’t remember – We’ll scroll up the bridge, and I’ll count you in.’”

This turned out to be the title track of 1982’s Creatures of the Night – and, spoiler alert, his solo even made it onto the final record.

In fact, Stanley and Simmons were so impressed that they called it there and then.

“They go, ‘You dye your hair black?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ ‘So you wear high heels.’ I said, ‘I’ll give it a try,’ and they go, ‘Don’t do a fucking thing, man. We got the guy.’”

“I was the guy,” Farris asserts. “Played two solos. So the next week, I go in and play a little more with them.”

Farris thought it was a done deal until around a month later, when he was asked to sing – a request which was less than ideal considering he didn’t see himself as a singer.

“I realized at one moment, ‘Well, I’m gonna take a stab at this… but if I don't sing, I don’t get the gig.’ So I have the dubious distinction of having played Honky Tonk Women with Kiss, with me singing lead vocal. I wish I had that tape.”

Alas, Farris’ strong suit wasn’t singing, and unfortunately, two or three weeks later, he got the dreaded call.

“Paul calls me and goes, ‘We don’t think you're the right guy for the band. We love your playing. We want to hire you to keep you in session.’”

While Farris ended up playing on a couple of other tracks as a hired gun, the job went to Vinnie Vincent, who stayed with the band until mid-1984.

And, speaking of guitarists who nearly joined Kiss, Punky Meadows, best known as the guitarist for glam-rock outfit Angel, recently discussed the time he accidentally turned the band down.

Last week, stoner rock die-hards choked on their bongs when they learned that drone-metal icon Matt Pike had been replaced in legends of the genre, Sleep. Bubba Dupree, himself a hero of avant-garde metal in ’80s thrash trailblazers Void, is filling his shoes.

Yet Sleep aren’t the first major-league band Dupree has found himself involved with. In the late ’90s, he was on the verge of being drafted into Seattle grunge greats Soundgarden, as revealed in guitarist Kim Thayil’s new memoir, A Screaming Life.

In the fall of 1996, Soundgarden was on the verge of collapse.

The final album from their original tenure, Down on the Upside, showcased an increasingly fragmented songwriting approach. Thayil and bassist Ben Shepherd were creatively checking out. And the guitarist was growing frustrated with management interference in their touring lineups, which included artists he didn’t feel were a good fit, among them Pond, Rocket From the Crypt and a newly punk-oriented Moby.

The one unlikely saving grace was Moby’s guitar player for their European run: Bubba Dupree, who Thayil grew close with during the tour.

Meanwhile, frontman Chris Cornell could see the unhappiness in the ranks – and he was desperate to do something about it.

“Once again, Chris wanted to save Soundgarden,” Thayil recounts. “We were all moody, introspective, and contemplative people, more likely to brood than act, but Chris didn’t want the band to implode due to inaction on everyone’s part. We all knew there was unhappiness, but it wasn’t being addressed in a meaningful way.”

Cornell’s solution was to hire Dupree as another guitarist, in the hope that fresh blood would re-engage the rest of the band – even going so far as to suggest Dupree take over his own rhythm duties.

“Bubba would solve a couple of problems: it would free Chris from playing guitar and satisfy Ben and me,” Thayil reasons.

“While most of Soundgarden’s early and some later material only required one guitar, some songs needed two parts. Having Bubba play the second guitar would allow Chris to focus on vocals and improve everyone’s performance. It would elevate the vocals, guitar, and possibly reignite Ben and me creatively.”

Initially, Thayil and Shepherd were excited about the idea – it would bring, as Thayil puts it, “another talented, cool-­looking brown guy who could take over Chris’s parts and bring fresh ideas”.

Ultimately, however, the group were conflicted by their own admiration for the new recruit.

“He needed his own band, where his creativity wouldn’t compete with four other songwriters. He shouldn’t be a backup guitarist playing our old material, just like he didn’t need to be part of Moby’s punk project. His songs deserved their own voice.

“We all wanted Soundgarden to move forward, but we weren’t sure this was the solution to our problems. I appreciated Chris’s effort to reengage us, even if it ultimately didn’t work.”

Just a few months after the lineup change was discussed, Soundgarden would play their final show on February 9, 1997 in Honolulu, Hawaii. It would be 13 years before they played together again.

Outside of Soundgarden Chris Cornell got his wish to delegate guitar duties: to Tom Morello in Audioslave, and to Alain Johannes, or Pete Thorn and Yogi Lonich in his solo bands. But we never did get the chance to hear what a Bubba Dupree collaboration would sound like..

Don Felder is used to pain when it comes to music. I mean, the guy was in the Eagles, a band that epitomized the idea of seemingly seeking pleasure through agony. He took that to a new level when he was carted off the stage in February 2025 due to a pretty serious case of dehydration.

“My phone has never blown up so much in my life as it did when I had that little thing,” Felder says with a laugh.

That laugh is key, as it shows that at 78 – and now incredibly well-hydrated – Felder isn’t about to curb his touring career. “I’m going to rock until I drop,” he says. “But I didn’t think I’d be dropping in the middle of Tequila Sunrise! I thought I’d be dropping during Life in the Fast Lane, and they’d just drag me off the stage.”

Happily, there will be many more stages to drag Felder from. He has a slate of shows planned in 2026 and released a new record – The Vault 1975-2025: Fifty Years of Music – last year. There is, however, a bit of a gray area when it comes to the word “new,” as some, though not all, of the tracks from The Vault are, well, vintage.

For example, Felder wrote Move On, which features some tasty slide work, as an offering to Don Henley and Glenn Frey when he joined the Eagles. Henley and Frey didn’t dig Move On, but Felder did – especially when he recently rediscovered the original 1973 demo in a storage cabinet. He loved his slide work on the track, the roots of which date to an evening spent with Gregg and Duane Allman.

“We became friends,” Felder says. “One night, Duane was sitting on the floor playing slide. I said, ‘You’ve got to show me how to do that.’ He showed me the open tuning and how to pull down the fifth, slide up to the third and have a flat seventh on it. You know, the basics.”

After that lesson, as evidenced by Move On, Felder made the technique his own. “I’ve never tried to copy or emulate Duane,” he says. “He was so far ahead of me. I just felt like, ‘Now that I know how to get around on the instrument, I’ve got to learn to sound like me.’ I can’t sound like him; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do that. But I stole as much as I could from him, watching him play in the old days.”

The Vault is actually a perfect marriage of old and new – a middle ground, if you will. And that’s just the right fit for Felder, who’s sometimes overlooked when it comes to ’70s guitar titans. Not that he cares.

“I never did it for the money, the fame or the legacy,” he says. “I did it because I was fascinated with music. I love to play and write. I love to go to the studio when it’s dark, turn it on and have no idea what I’m gonna do. I pick up a guitar, see what comes out and put it on record.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I retired; I’d be bored to death! It’s fun to have something to be excited about, and I always hope somebody else will be excited, too.”

You recently released The Vault 1975-2025: Fifty Years of Music. What’s the story with that?

I moved out of Malibu in 2000 after going through five major fires – and all the mudslides and road closures – and moved into town. I had a little studio I dismantled and put into storage, and all my tapes and demos were in storage, too. I hadn’t seen that storage locker for 20-something years, so it was time to go through it.

There were boxes of cassettes, CDs and DAT machines that recorded half-inch four-track, half-inch 24-track, 16-track and all the stuff I’d been working on since 1974 and 1975 as demos. I said, “I don’t even know what this stuff is!”

One of the demos you mentioned is Move On.

I’d just been invited to join the Eagles, and [ex-Eagles guitarist] Bernie Leadon told me, “If you want to write songs in this band, just worry about song structure – don’t write lyrics or melodies. Give those ideas to Don and Glenn, and they’ll write lyrics if they like the track.”

So one of the very first things I did was, with a four-track, I recorded myself playing on a cardboard box for the drum track, and then I played bass and slide. It was a very basic, raw demo of the idea. I hadn’t heard it for 50 years.

What did you think when you heard it again?

I went, “I remember that slide part! I loved that slide part.” When I submitted it to Don and Glenn, they went, “I like the slide, but there’s really not much of a song there,” so that’s what I heard, the slide part. I said, “I like that track. I’m gonna finish this.” I finished it, reproduced it, re-recorded the slide part, did the lyrics and harmonies and brought new life to an old idea.

Steve Lukather plays on Digital World. What’s it like working with him?

When he comes over – and he’s played on just about every solo album I’ve made except for the first one, Airborne [1983] – we spend the first 45 minutes to an hour just laughing, telling stories and having a great time before we plug in and tune up. It takes 30 minutes for us to walk through an idea, trade solos and create harmonies. I enjoy working with Steve. He’s brilliant, and a lot of fun to hang out with.

You re-recorded 1981’s Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride). How’d you approach It?

When I hear the original recording, it sounds technically dated. It was all analog, and just the echo chambers; it doesn’t sound up to the level of technology today. I decided I’d re-record it in today’s technology, which sounds 100 times better. If you were to play the old two-track version of the stereo version and compare it to today, there’s a massive difference.

You’ve been at it for a long time, which probably means you’ve got gear you’ve had for just as long. It would be easy to fall back on all of that, but you’re leaning into what’s new. Why?

I use vintage microphones, and I have a rack of classic outboard gear I use to record. I just think the process of recording at 96 kHz with high-resolution, quality analog gear on the front end is a wonderful combination.

I use some great new guitars and amps, and I’ve got six or seven amps that Alexander Dumble re-did for me. I’ve got Bogners and tons of different amps and guitars. It’s easy to go in and multi-track. I was looking at something yesterday; I think it’s I Like the Things You Do. There might be 30 guitar tracks on that.

What’s the reason behind that?

Some of them are doubles; some are split left or right. Some are effects I use. There’s just a lot of different ideas and approaches to making a track. Instead of just playing a thing top to bottom with the same rhythm guitar, that, to me, is old school. I was trying to explore, taking old ideas musically and making them sound modern with new techniques and approaches.

Do you still fall back on your guitars from your Eagles days?

I have close to 300 guitars. They’ve all been photographed and given a name. They’re separated by manufacturer; everything by Gibson is in one rack, everything from Fender is another. If I want to pick up my ’57 Strat from the locker, I can open up my spreadsheet, walk into the vault, pull the guitar off the shelf and bring it back – or have somebody go get it.

Of those 300 guitars, which is the most important?

My ’59 Les Paul. I played that on just about every Eagles record that I recorded with a Les Paul. I’ve recorded with it a lot for my albums, and I used it on a couple of tracks on this record, too. I used it on I Like the Things You Do and Free at Last. It feels like home.

Do you see yourself working with Gibson on more signature gear?

No, not right now. I’ve dealt with Gibson since I started playing music, and they released the Don Felder Hotel California copy of my ’59 Les Paul and the white Hotel California [EDS-1275] double-neck guitars, probably 10 or 12 years ago. They sold out immediately.

I don’t know that I’ll do many more endorsements. I really respect the fact that Gibson did it, and was honored that they asked me to do it. I work very closely with them; their Custom Shop makes things for me that are spectacular.

You talked about rocking until you drop – and you’re still writing songs.

I write all the time – almost every day. I write, scribble down a little something while listening to something on TV. I’ll hear an orchestra and go, “That was a beautiful change, back that up…” I’ll grab an acoustic and figure out what chord progression this orchestra was playing, put it on my phone, record it and collect bits and pieces.

When I’m on the road, it’s hard to write music; I can write lyrics, but not necessarily music. So when I come back home, I’m in the studio writing, recording, producing and coming up with ideas. Not all of them will become finished products, but you never know what’s going to come out until you step into it.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

In light of Mötley Crüe’s infamous penchant for bad behavior, you’d think trying to get a coherent performance out of them in the studio would be like trying to train a pack of hyenas as valet attendants.

It’s easy to picture the band members anointing the walls of Hollywood’s Cherokee Studios with liquor, spray paint, lighter fluid and various unsavory emissions as their hapless producer begs them to pick up their instruments and give Looks That Kill a run-through.

The Shout at the Devil liner notes do little to dispel that notion: “This album was recorded on Foster’s Lager, Budweiser, Bombay Gin, lots of Jack Daniels, Kahlua and brandy, quackers and krell [the band members’ nickname for their favorite illegal nasal decongestant] and wild women!”

Jonathan Little, owner of the L.A.-based audio gear company Little Labs, had a front-row seat to the bedlam while working as a tech during the Shout sessions.

“I saw all the well-known Mötley Crüe debauchery,” he says. “There would be chicks getting champagne bottles inserted in their private parts, [and] for most of one night, I sat in a little back room with Nikki Sixx and [Doors keyboardist] Ray Manzarek doing blow.”

He adds that even engineer Geoff Workman “always had a big Coca-Cola glass full of ice and Jack Daniels. He’d go through a bottle of Jack each night.”

However, Shout at the Devil producer Tom Werman says the Crüe’s antics didn’t impede recording progress.

“There was a lot of partying in the studio, but it was really softcore,” he says. “They didn’t get near the heroin thing, which they did later, but not in the studio, really. Alcohol and party-favor drugs – that was normal in probably the majority of recording sessions in L.A. in the ’80s, but we got it done. They wanted good music, and they wanted to be successful, so they took the partying only so far.”

Werman adds that working with Crüe guitarist Mick Mars was the best part of the recording experience, largely because Mars came into the studio with his guitar parts worked out in advance.

“The only thing I really contributed to Mick’s playing was fills. He would have the basic guitar lines down, but he wouldn’t have any fills between verses or between a verse and a chorus, so I would suggest stuff to him, and he would be very cooperative.”

The late Geoff Workman’s experience with Mars was less pleasant, according to Little. “Geoff was getting frustrated with Mick[’s performances]. He claimed to me that he would take the tapes to [Toto keyboardist] David Paich’s place, which was called Hog Manor, and overdub his own guitar tracks [in place of Mars’]. Not even the band knew about it.”

Leaving aside the question of whose playing made it onto the record, the rhythm guitar track on Looks That Kill consists of a single performance split to two separate tracks. One track was close-mic’d with a Neumann U 87 and panned left. The other, recorded with a microphone in the back of the room, was panned hard right.

“I was a rhythm guitar player, so that was really the basis of my whole approach to making records; put a good rhythm guitar [track] down, double it and spread it left and right,” Werman says. “That was the cushion on which the whole song sat.”

As the first thing mainstream audiences heard from the Crüe, the Looks That Kill riff was the battering ram the band used to smash their way into popular music’s hall of victors. It played a crucial part in transforming Mötley from underground sensation to the unchallenged trash sultans of the heavy metal world. In the process, it helped set the template for the commercial metal sound that ruled the 1980s.

Werman acknowledges the powerful impact Looks That Kill and Shout at the Devil had on music. “[Mötley Crüe] were as new and influential as Guns N’ Roses was when they came along. It established a new bar for metal achievement and attitude.”

Looks That Kill – Axology

GUITAR: 1972 Gibson Les Paul Standard or Gibson Les Paul Custom with T-Top pickups

AMP: Marshall JCM800 or late-’60s/early-’70s Super Lead plexis with master volume mod and extra gain stage (Volume 1: 7, Volume 2: 8, Presence: 3, Bass: 8, Middle: 4.5, Treble: 4.5, Master Volume: 9 o’clock), Marshall cabinets loaded with Celestion V30 or G12M Greenback speakers

STRINGS: Ernie Ball Light Gauge

TUNING: D standard

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

You never really know when you’re going to get your break. Dead Pioneers’ early single, Bad Indian, created a momentum they hadn’t anticipated. Things only accelerated when they mailed a copy of their music to Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament.

“I was 38 when we went on tour with them,” says guitarist Josh Rivera. “A long time ago I’d kind of given up on the dream of something like that happening. Pearl Jam asking us to come out and play was kind of the ultimate confirmation that maybe we were doing something right.”

That validation can be heard all over their forthcoming album Wagon Burner – while the Dead Pioneers’ politically charged identity remains intact, the record dramatically expands their sonic palette, pushing their sound and identity far beyond straightforward hardcore punk into something heavier, more atmospheric, and surprisingly dynamic.

“We got heavier and dirtier on this record than we ever have before,” Rivera says. “But we also cleaned it up and explored a lot more atmosphere.”

That evolution largely came from the chemistry of the band as a whole; their collaborative approach became central to the record’s identity.

Unlike many punk bands where guitar roles stay rigidly separated, guitarists Rivera and Abe Brennan approached Wagon Burner as a communal creative process where riffs constantly evolved in the room.

“This is the most collaborative band I’ve ever played in,” Brennan says. “Someone brings in a riff, and pretty soon everybody’s adding to it. Suddenly, you’ve got this Frankenstein song – but it works. I’ve always believed punk should evolve. If you’re just recreating the same thing over and over again, eventually it stops feeling honest.”

That attitude pushed the band to explore unfamiliar territory. Songs like Nazi Teeth lean into massive octane-drenched riffs and near-metallic aggression, while tracks like Never Alone incorporate cleaner layers, chorus textures, and the sort of melodic space that was only hinted at in prior releases.

“We explored using all sorts of pedals on this record,” Rivera says. “I probably brought 20 or 30 into the studio. There were always a dozen different things at my feet.”

Sessions took place at The Blasting Room studio in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he had the luxury of recording close to home instead of flying into sessions with limited gear. That freedom allowed him to constantly swap gear and textures. “On the last record I was mostly using whatever the studio had. This time, if I wanted a different guitar or a weird pedal for one section, I could just go grab it.”

They relied extensively on the EarthQuaker Devices Gary Overdrive, while also using the Chase Bliss Generation Loss Mk. II for degraded chorus textures and warped ambience. “Anytime I needed something a little warbly or weird, I was reaching for the Generation Loss,” Rivera says.

He leaned heavily on his Ryan “Fluff” Bruce signature Music Man StingRay alongside several PRS guitars. Meanwhile, Brennan tracked much of the record using his Gibson SG. “I love the way the SG reacts,” he says. “Anything weird or chaotic just feels right on that guitar.”

Brennan’s pedal choices played a huge role in the record’s heavier moments as well. He frequently used the EHX POG throughout the hard-charging Nazi Teeth, helping create some of the thickest guitar tones the band have recorded thus far.

“Once Abe kicked on the POG for some of those single-note riffs, everything just got massive,” Rivera says. “It stopped sounding like a normal punk guitar and started sounding almost mechanical and overwhelming – in the best way possible.”

Even fuzz tones carried deeper meaning. Dead Pioneers have repeatedly pointed to Indigenous-owned pedal company NativeAudio as a defining part of their sound, particularly the Frybread Fuzz and War Party pedals.

Their willingness to experiment mirrors their larger mission: originally born from singer/songwriter Gregg Deal’s spoken word performance project The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy, the band have always approached punk through a political lens rooted in Indigenous liberation, class consciousness, and anti-capitalism.

“You can’t talk about Indigenous rights without talking about capitalism and the way it’s affected our communities,” Deal explains. “You cannot talk about Indigenous liberation without talking about class war.”

That urgency drives the emotional core of Wagon Burner. Deal adds: “If Never Alone is saying music can bring people together, the rest of the record is explaining why you need that community in the first place.

“We have more in common with each other than we do with any billionaire dickhead. That’s the whole point. We’re trying to bring people along with us.”

• Wagon Burner is releaed on June 26, and it’s available for pre-order now.

As the ultimate gear aficionado, Joe Bonamassa and tube amps go hand in hand – with his legion of Dumble amps, 1950s Fender tweeds, vintage Marshalls, boutique builds and even Gary Moore’s Soldano gracing the halls of Nerdville West and East.

And while Bonamassa is largely analog through and through, the blues maestro may very well be changing his tune, or, at least, warming up to the possibility of incorporating more digital gear in his roster, as he was recently spotted brandishing a Fender Tone Master amp on tour.

Bonamassa even went as far as sharing a photo of his signature Fender ’59 High Powered Twin alongside a tweed-covered Fender Tone Master Twin – part of the Fender range that aims to bring its classic amps into the digital realm.

So what spurred this change? “I’ve got to be honest with you and admit when I’m wrong,” Bonamassa tells MusicRadar.

“I still have my other tube amps behind me. It’s just that the high-powered Twin is now a Tone Master. When I first plugged into it, I realised this shit’s good. I wanted to dislike it, I really wanted to dislike it! But I couldn’t.

“My production manager, my sound tech, even my other guitar player Josh Smith – they were all telling me it sounds better and feels right. And I was like, ‘I know!’”

While Bonamassa admits defeat, he does mention that there’s one thing that convinced him that going digital still fits his ethos. Turns out, it’s a deal breaker…

“I think the trick at this point is to be physically pushing out sound,” he says. “You have to be moving air. By having the right speakers, the Tone Master works. It’s not like I’m plugging into a direct box, which I could, but I don’t think that would sound good.

“That’s where a lot of this digital modeling stuff can start sounding a little generic. With a lot of the things out there, you’re not moving air, and the dynamic range is limited. For me, moving air is essential, just like playing loud,” he concludes.

At nearly 90 years old, Buddy Guy is still carrying the torch for the blues and remains a guiding force for current and future generations of blues players.

Fresh off his cameo in Ryan Coogler's highly lauded film Sinners, Guy’s legacy is continuing to be celebrated, as Blackbird Presents and Live Nation are teaming up to organize Buddy’s Got the Blues: A 90th Birthday Concert Celebration.

The event, taking place on October 1 at the iconic Radio City Music Hall in New York City, is set to be a one-night-only event with collaborations, performances, and heartfelt tributes from artists influenced by Guy’s work.

The all-star lineup includes a veritable list of legends and blues virtuosos: Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Susan Tedeschi & Derek Trucks, Jon Batiste, Aloe Blacc, Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr., Shemekia Copeland, Robert Cray, Samantha Fish, Eric Gales, Billy F Gibbons, Ivan Neville, Robert Randolph, Bobby Rush, Isaiah Sharkey, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jimmie Vaughan, Ally Venable, Willie Weeks, and Kim Wilson.

More artists and special guests are set to be announced soon, and the man himself, Buddy Guy, will (of course) also perform, proving that he's still got the blues.

Current Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan serves as the musical director.

Speaking about the event, Guy says, “Can't wait to celebrate 90 years of living, loving, and playing the blues with all my friends. We’ll make it a night not just for me, but for the folks who taught us, the friends we’ve played with, and the ones coming up behind us.”

In a recent interview with Guitar Player, the blues icon has explained why he’s not giving up touring just yet, as he prepares to hit the road on July 15, starting at Massey Hall in Toronto.

“I thought about retiring twice,” he says. “But, y’know, I thought about all those great blues players who are no longer with us – B.B. King. Lightnin’ Hopkins, all those guys – and they used to tell me, ‘You need to keep playing and keep representing the blues,’ ’cause they don’t play it on radio or anything anymore.

“So I said to myself, ‘Well, Buddy, you better hang on a little longer. My health ain’t doing too bad, so I’m still doing what I’ve always done. Every time I get onstage, just try to play the best I can.”

Tickets go on sale to the general public on June 26 at 10 AM ET. Head to Buddy 90 to find out more.

Guy is set for a very busy rest of the year, having also been announced for this year's edition of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival.

Dave Burrluck, Guitarist magazine’s renowned Gear Editor and our colleague and friend, passed away last week following a short illness. Dave was known throughout the industry as a game-changing journalist who set the standard for in-depth gear reviews.

Dave’s knowledge and approach to reviewing – acquired over four decades of experience writing and reviewing instruments, gigging, attending trade shows, and visiting factories – was, frankly, unrivaled, and we will sorely miss his friendship and insight.

He began reviewing music-making gear in the 1980s for International Musician and Recording World, before launching The Guitar Magazine in 1991. He joined Guitar World’s UK sister publication Guitarist around the turn of the millennium as Reviews Editor and held the position throughout a period of massive upheaval in both publishing, and music-making and gear design.

He fiercely championed quality builds wherever he saw them, and consistently offered a rare platform for small and innovative guitar builders, particularly those in the UK.

Here, Guitarist editor Jamie Dickson, his closest colleague, explains just what made Dave such a force for good in his role and the wider industry.

“Dave had something so many guitar reviewers lack – a rigorous, luthier's eye for the measurable, verifiable qualities of an instrument. He kept a cool head about the hype that surrounds so many guitar launches, reserving judgment until he'd had the instrument on his workbench, calipers and gauges ready to hand.

“A thorough workshop survey of each guitar he reviewed was typically followed by using it at gigs, too. Dave judged guitars based on how successful they were as tools for working musicians, and he remained a busy, gigging musician right up to the end of his life, so he knew what he was talking about in this area as well.

“He wasn't unmoved by perfectly inlaid abalone or a beautifully figured maple top – but he was just as fulsome in his praise for a £400 guitar that was perfectly executed for the price as he was for a £4,000 boutique dream machine – yet he also understood the difference between those two guitars and what buyers should expect of them, too.

“Dave was a walking library of guitar industry contacts and backstories, and he usually knew all of the prior variants of any given mainstream guitar by heart. Guitar makers respected and appreciated the experience, knowledge and objectivity he brought to his reviews – for they knew that when Dave found fault with a guitar, he wasn’t being partisan or blinkered by his own personal tastes. He was simply reporting what he found, giving verifiable evidence for his judgment.

“He knew when a guitar looked and sounded cool – but that wouldn't be enough to get it off the hook if it didn't stay in tune or the fit and finish was sloppy. The reverse of that coin was that when Dave saw fit to grant a Gold Award to a guitar, makers knew they’d really nailed it. Such was the respect commanded by Dave’s reviews that a good one could put a fledgling guitar company on the map – for he opened doors just as often as he guarded gates.

“As a friend and a man he was just as reliable as his reviews. If you had trouble in your life, Dave had warm but practical words of advice and support to offer. They really helped because you knew what he was saying was genuine.

“For every feather he ruffled with his frankness, there was a person who felt steadied and reassured about a tough situation – in the guitar industry or in private life – because Dave had been kind enough to support them.

“He was good fun, too – after a grueling trawl round the expanse of the NAMM show halls, you always learned something you didn’t know about how the guitar industry really functioned when you sat down to chat with Dave over a meal or a pint.

“Sometimes gruff but always genuine, he was a one-off – a custom build, one might say, from an inspired but idiosyncratic maker. So many people benefited from his knowledge, and the warmth and affection he was held in can, sadly, be read in the dozens upon dozens of big names who have paid tribute to him since his passing – nor were their comments merely standard condolences.

“One commented that his death was a 'gut punch' and it's hard to disagree. Like Keith Richards, whom Dave admired, we always thought he’d go on forever – an institution of the guitar scene in his way but mainly a much-loved, trusted friend and mentor to maker and reader alike.”

Metallica’s Load came after a period of intense reflection for the metal icons.

Following years of heavy touring between 1991 and 1993, all members broke off to explore influences outside heavy metal and the music realm, with the dynamic guitar duo of James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett taking a deep dive into hunting (for Hetfield) – and film, jazz, and Asian arts (for Hammett).

When they returned to the band, they took a fresh approach to the instrument. Hammett, who had only handled lead guitar on record up to this point, would now join Hetfield on rhythm duties across the album that would define this new phase of Metallica.

Yet Hammett's transition to rhythm guitarist was never planned. It came about quite naturally.

“It was never really something that we spoke about,” Hammett told Guitar World's Tom Beaujour in a 1996 interview. “The first mention of it came while we were recording the drum tracks.

“When we do that, we all play the songs together in a single room, but the only thing that goes onto the multi-track is the drums – everything else just gets taped. Some of the songs were sounding so good on those tapes that James was like, ‘Well, maybe Kirk should play on the final version of some of these.’”

“Later on, on a day when James happened to be away on a hunting trip, I was laying down a couple of solos, and when I finished the lead on one of the tunes our producer, Bob Rock, said, ‘Okay, tune up, and we'll do the rhythm for this song now.’ I was like, ‘What?’”

As Hetfield adds, “By the time I came back, Kirk had put down rhythm tracks on four songs.”

Hammett specifically went out of his way to come up with a second guitar part that would complement Hetfield’s, and not, as he put it, “ape it”.

“Not that the riffs weren't interesting,” he clarified. “The riffs are the riffs – they're the most important part of the song. Our parts have a really good sense of interplay. And you can actually separate the two guitars and tell who's playing what. James is on the left side, and I'm on the right.”

Was it ever a point of contention that Hammett didn't get to play rhythm guitar up until that point?

“Not really,” he replied. “In fact, on this album we argued more about the solos than anything else. But we're always arguing about something, so it was just par for the course.

“I often have a pretty specific idea of what the solo to a particular song should sound like, so it throws me for a loop when Kirk comes in with something else,” Hetfield added. “But then everyone sits down, we talk it out and work out a middle ground that everyone can be happy with.”

While the album proved controversial among Metallica fans for straying from the band's thrash metal roots – complete with a revamped, leather-jacket-clad look and (gasp) short hair – it was nevertheless a commercial success, topping the charts in more than 15 countries.

“I’ve never been very confident, to be honest with you, as a player,” Alex Lifeson told Guitar World in 2025. “I’ve always felt like I had to work hard, and maybe I didn’t appreciate that I have a natural talent for playing guitar.”

Anyone who’s heard his work as one-third of the prog-rock institution Rush – from those crashing, Pete Townshend-like chords to his dramatic, shimmering arpeggios – knows he’s being charmingly modest. That, or maybe he just needs to re-examine his own songs.

But that’s where we come in. To celebrate his 2026 reunion tour with bassist Geddy Lee – which follows the 2015 R40 run, their final outing with late drummer-lyricist Neil Peart – let’s take a closer look at 20 of Lifeson’s finest studio guitar moments.

1. Working Man (from 1974’s Rush)

Rush were still in their embryonic Led Zep-worship mode in 1974, but they did scrape together one genuine classic for their self-titled debut – an overdriven riff monster with power chords, bluesy shredding and a nimble, octave-ascending riff halfway through that feels worthy of spawning its own song.

2. Fly by Night (from 1975’s Fly by Night)

Fly by Night, the bruising title track from Rush’s second LP, opens with a flurry of guitar moves that wound up becoming Lifeson signatures.

The triumphant D major, the resounding sus chord, the beautifully tense and chromatic arpeggio – there are so many little moments, just in the first 10 seconds, that can make any Rush fan smile and nod with recognition.

Guitar-wise, it’s all building to a killer post-chorus solo, stacked with bluesy bent notes and pinched harmonics.

3. The Necromancer (from 1975’s Caress of Steel)

In a 2018 Guitar World feature, now-former Gwar guitarist Pustulus Maximus broke down his love for The Necromancer, a nearly 13-minute psych-prog fantasy behemoth from Rush’s third LP. “The beginning sounds very much like Pink Floyd, but Lifeson’s solo in the rock part has an amazing groove and feel,” he said, describing the epic’s ebb and flow.

This one’s definitely unique in the band’s catalog – from that stoner-ific intro section, with reversed guitars and chorus-y guitars rising like weed-smoke plumes, to the sheer ferocity of the solo and the clean-tone jangle that follows. The Necromancer is (understandably) a divisive Rush song, but no-one can doubt its merits as a well-rounded guitar showcase.

4. 2112 (from 1976’s 2112)

It almost feels unfair to cite 2112 as a song, given that it sprawls out over seven sections and nearly 21 minutes – occupying the entire first side of Rush’s titular breakout LP. But Lifeson really swings for the fences throughout this grand conceptual work: nailing those enormous delayed chords in Overture, bathing his arpeggios in cinematic chorus throughout Oracle: The Dream, adopting an almost punk-like energy during the climactic attack of Grand Finale.

One of his most genius moments actually involves the technically weakest playing; at the beginning of Discovery, his out-of-tune plonking approximates our protagonist stumbling upon a guitar (“What can this strange device be?” Lee sings) and figuring it out in real time.

5. Closer to the Heart (from 1977’s A Farewell to Kings) 

Despite being heralded as an elite of heavy prog guitar, Lifeson has a real knack for gentle, pastoral playing.

As he explained to GW, the band workshopped their earliest material using acoustics and a cassette recorder – then bringing in the amplification and energy later on.

Closer to the Heart shows the best of both worlds, as Lifeson builds from chiming 12-string to, eventually, anthemic harmonized solos.

6. Xanadu (from A Farewell to Kings) 

The mighty Xanadu expertly illustrates how Rush did so much with so few pairs of hands: Lifeson and Lee tag-team the driving main riff with maximum creativity, tackling the descending lines in unison or veering apart for added color. The standout guitar section happens immediately, with Lifeson adding ambient volume swells over Peart’s drifting chimes.

7. La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence) (from 1978’s Hemispheres)

The winking subtitle points to the band’s underrated sense of humor – and on this hypnotic instrumental, Rush use Lifeson’s ever-vivid real-life dreams as a launching pad for some of their wildest genre flips and tightest ensemble playing.

Across nearly 10 minutes, the trio explore everything from psychedelia to hard rock to jazz-fusion, with Lifeson the obvious star of this dreamscape. His solo swells during A Lerxst in Wonderland might be the most evocative playing in his catalog.

8. Jacob’s Ladder (from 1980’s Permanent Waves)

After a bright, strident opening march, Rush chase the storm clouds into one of their heaviest-ever riffs. Lifeson is at the top of his game here, layering his guitar theme into octaves for even more impact. Rush were rarely more intense than they were on Jacob’s Ladder.

9. Freewill (from Permanent Waves)

Despite all the recorded evidence to the contrary, Lifeson and Lee are mere mortals. When they started jamming again after a long hiatus following the R40 tour, the guitarist told Ultimate Classic Rock that they sounded like a “really, really bad Rush tribute band.”

The toughest nut to crack was reportedly the surging fan-favorite Freewill, which features one of the most frenetic guitar solos he ever tracked. “There’s a lot of notes,” he said. “The solo is crazy.”

10. YYZ (from 1981’s Moving Pictures)

It’s the most fittingly proggy sidebar in Rush history; the band’s first Grammy nomination came with YYZ, a track built around a rhythmic Easter egg nodding to Morse Code for a Toronto airport. Just perfect.

The song’s main riff is already ace enough, showing just how much mileage you can get out of two notes if you put your mind to it. But the piece becomes a classic when Lifeson stretches out – the solo at the midway point is deliciously disorienting, peaking with a virtuosic run of finger-tapping.

11. Limelight (from Moving Pictures) 

Limelight is up there with the most poignant Rush tracks, channeling Peart’s fame-induced isolation into four minutes of sleek (if still proggy) radio-rock bliss.

Lifeson’s dreamy arpeggios and chunky chords are already enough – it’s just a bonus that he churned out a god-tier, whammy-filled solo on his Hentor Sportscaster, a Strat outfitted with a Gibson humbucker and a Floyd Rose tremolo.

“It was the perfect selection to create the soulful, elastic and unstable character for the solo of that song,” he told Guitar World.

12. The Analog Kid (from 1982’s Signals)

“Signals was a weird record for me,” Lifeson told Guitar World in 2025, noting that their heavier use of keyboards created “more of a fight for space with the guitar.”

But that argument shouldn’t apply to The Analog Kid, which saves most of its synth presence for some booming pads on the chorus. Elsewhere, Lifeson takes charge – including on the solo, which features a nifty harmonizer-type effect.

13. Digital Man (from Signals)

Upon first listen, Digital Man sounds more suited to a list of Geddy Lee’s finest moments, given his wildly melodic and grooving bass line. You might even look first to Peart, who adds some tastefully placed tom-tom fills and fierce hi-hat work.

But Lifeson also deserves marquee mention, anchoring the track with his stabbing, Police-like chords and a woozy solo with a touch of David Gilmour in its bluesy bends.

14. Kid Gloves (from 1984’s Grace Under Pressure) 

Is this Lifeson’s ultimate guitar solo? The tremolo-bar madness, the blue-sky harmonics, the brushes with ska and rockabilly – all packed into one blistering run that somehow feels both composed and improvised.

15. Hand Over Fist (from 1989’s Presto)

Why did Rush never play Hand Over Fist live? Why did they refrain from releasing it as a single? No great answer. This punchy rocker is a highlight from the sadly overlooked Presto, with Lifeson leading the charge.

He does a bit of everything – that trebly funk-rock intro, the busy bluesy groove, the squealing pinched-harmonic leads, a less-is-more solo with some majestically sustained notes.

16. Leave That Thing Alone (from 1993’s Counterparts)

As the ’80s wore on, Lee’s keyboards grew to be a little controversial, both within and outside the band. After a series of more atmospheric, synth-heavy LPs, Counterparts arrived like a welcome punch of heaviness, offering more of an overall sonic balance – and much-needed presence to Lifeson’s riffs. Leave That Thing Alone is a perfect example, highlighted by his skyrocketing, psychedelic solo.

17. Test for Echo (from 1996’s Test for Echo) 

Lifeson was so enthused about his guitar tone on Test for Echo – a roiling, textured wave of acoustic and electric – that he gave Guitar World a thorough, multi-paragraph breakdown. He used a Les Paul Custom and a Godin Acousticaster, tuned down to D standard, through a variety of heads and cabinets.

But the most important element here is the vibrancy of his riff writing, which suggests that perhaps Rush had been soaking in Tool’s recent work.

18. Earthshine (from 2002’s Vapor Trails)

Lifeson once again sounds like he’s channeling Tool and other modern prog-metal throughout Vapor Trails, often exploring ultra-dark guitar tones via modern-sounding production.

Of course, the album’s sound was, to put it mildly, polarizing, and Rush released a remixed edition in 2013. Earthshine might be the album’s sonic and songwriting peak, with a choppy riff pogoing off Lee’s high, yearning vocal.

19. Bravest Face (from 2007’s Snakes & Arrows) 

When you’ve been a rock band for three decades – especially one with a sizable fan base – it’s hard finding new pathways to explore. It’s admirable, then, just how different Rush sound on Bravest Face. Here, Lifeson often zigs when you expect him to zag, moving from a grungy atmosphere into a raw acoustic riff and a solo with a strangely laid-back, bluesy vibe.

20. Carnies (from 2012’s Clockwork Angels)

Carnies is easily one of Lifeson’s simplest guitar riffs – but it also might be his heaviest, built on some borderline-metal harmonics that carry the entire song.

But he also manages to work in some experimental flourishes, including a kaleidoscopic tremolo effect that lends itself well to the subject matter. “

“It’s almost like a carousel,” he told Guitar World upon the album’s release. “Ged and I were like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s so cool!’ It really sounds like you’re on this horsey going up and down.”

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

As Converge’s in-house gear nerd and owner of God City Studios, Kurt Ballou knows his gear. As such, he never settles for second best, and he’s adopted digital gear into his live rig for one main reason.

Converge have had a busy 2026, having released two studio albums in just four months. While appearing on Chris Garza’s podcast recently, Ballou has underscored why amp modelers have usurped tube amps for touring.

“I kind of love it when people show up expecting me to have JMPs, V4s and other vintage stuff, or boutique amps,” he explains. “I played Bad Cat for a long time. I still play the cabinets. I love that company.”

Yet, when Ballou looks down on tour these days, he doesn’t see a Marshall amp footswitch; he sees Line 6’s Helix Stadium floor modeler. He isn’t letting his reputation precede him.

“There’s something about disappointing the gear heads with using this modeler, “ he chuckles. “I don’t necessarily want to disappoint them, but I think this thing sounds sick. It lets me focus on the song.”

He admits that having “all the gear in the world” is an appealing prospect. But as someone who owns a lot of gear and understands the rigors and the nuances of touring, he sees things from a different angle.

“How many times have you gone to see a band and watched them set up their full stacks and massive pedalboards, and then they just suck?” he asks. “Or everything is breaking all the time, and it’s detracting from the show?

“Let’s just get to the songs, because that’s the thing that I really care about. This lets me do that.”

The Helix Stadium, which also boasts some powerful, gig-minded features, is an ideal one-stop shop.

Recording in the studio, though, is an altogether different matter. Speaking to Guitar World as Converge released their first album of 2026, Love is Not Enough, in February, Ballou noted he saw analog sounds making a comeback.

“People want real experiences,” said Ballou. “Young people ask about recording on tape way more than older people. There’s definitely a backlash to this era of digitally perfect music, and I appreciate it.”

Still, the value of modelers in the modern age is now being embraced by the most ardent amp supporters, with Joe Bonamassa a high profile recent convert to the digital amp world.

Kirk Hammett certainly didn’t benefit from the luck of the Irish over the weekend as he slipped and fell into the audience while playing in Dublin.

Metallica’s wah pedal enthusiast laughed off the incident as the band, touring with Gojira, Pantera and Knocked Loose in tow, headlined the 40,000-capacity Aviva Stadium on Friday, June 19.

He’d just launched into Seek & Destroy, from the band's 1983 debut album, Kill ‘Em All, with the roar from the crowd still audible as he failed to keep his footing and went tumbling in the gap between the band’s massive center stage and the front row of a surprised and slightly amused crowd.

Thankfully, Hammett and his Ouija Board ESP came away from the incident unscathed, with the band closing the show with Master of Puppets.

On the whole, Metallica’s latest trip to Ireland wasn’t a banana skin, with the band playing a snippet of Thin Lizzy’s Black Rose during a jam between Hammett and Trujillo. The pair visited the Phil Lynott statue the following day.

Trujillo assumed vocal duties for the spot as they paid homage to Irish rock icons, with Greeny the obvious guitar for the job. The Irish Examiner, though, called it “ropey at best,” which likely hurt Hammett more than the fall.

Metallica will next play shows in Glasgow, Scotland; Cardiff, Wales; and London, England, as they move across the British Isles before returning to the US for their Sphere residency in October.

Extreme’s breakthrough single wasn’t supposed to be the one – at least, not according to their record label. In fact, the band fought A&M Records to release 1991's More Than Words, complete with its iconic black-and-white music video.

Nuno Bettencourt even went as far as to quit the band at one point over his frustration that the label didn’t believe in the song simply because it was an acoustic track.

“Our label at the time [A&M Records] didn't want to release More Than Words as a single because there was nothing on the radio like that at the time,” he told Billboard in 2016. “The label said, ‘Who's going to play it?’ Everybody was doing big power ballads at the time, and this was more like an Everly Brothers or Beatles track. But we fought for it.’”

Fast-forward to 2026, and in the midst of Extreme supporting Def Leppard on tour for the first time, Bettencourt reflects on the song that changed everything… and the Leppard song he wishes he’d written.

“Oh my god. It’s kind of upsetting to think about,” he tells Classic Rock. “When we came out, bands like Def Leppard and Guns N’ Roses might have their ballads, but they always broke with a rock song.

“Extreme was not like that. We had More Than Words, which was a blessing and a curse. But absolutely, we’ll take it. Without that song, I might be working at Burger King right now. With Def Leppard, it was rocker after rocker, all with great lyrics, melodies, and vocals.”

In last year’s interview with Guitar World, Bettencourt admitted that, for most of their career, Extreme were almost considered a one-hit wonder, especially when it came to the mainstream.

“We were the band that had More Than Words. We were the band that had a guitar player, but there was always something that was a little disconnected. We never had proper respect.

He continued, “A lot of people are saying that it wasn’t until Six [the band’s 2023 release] that – as a band – we’re finally being respected as a rock band with a guitar player who legitimately had a great album.”

And, in case you're looking for your next favorite guitarist, Bettencourt recently named the up-and-coming player who has blown his mind.

Wolfgang Van Halen has said his appearance at the Taylor Hawkins tribute show was “like closing a book” as he honored his late father before marching down his own path in the industry. But he knew that, had he failed that day, his career might have gone down in flames.

The son of Eddie Van Halen was flanked by Dave Grohl on bass, frontman Justin Hawkins, and session drummer Josh Freese at Wembley Stadium in 2022. Armed with his semi-hollow EVH signature guitar, Wolfgang led the band through three Van Halen classics, On Fire, Hot For Teacher and Panama, and though his tapping work and music videos with Mammoth have since nodded to his father’s glittering legacy, he’s steered clear of most things Van Halen since.

The consensus was that he nailed the set, but he knew he might not have recovered had he not brought his A-game.

“It was my way of being able to not only honor Taylor, but honor my dad by playing some of his material, and keep out of the mess,” he tells Andy Guitar (via Blabbermouth). “So it was definitely a do-or-die thing for me.”

“I was losing it that day,” he adds. “’Cause to me, it was, ‘If I don’t do this right, if I don’t serve this justice, then my life will be over.’”

As Andy Guitar says, the performance did little to expose those fears, but it was a big moment in his life and career, as he had only debuted Mammoth the previous summer, having played bass in Van Halen’s final chapter before that. The band has allowed him to move away from the shadow of his ultra-successful family and into his own light, but only because he “ended up playing it pretty all right.”

“I still made mistakes,” he confesses, “but it was all live and in the heat of the moment. Having Dave, Justin, and Josh there to support me, and being able to play with three idols of mine while doing such an emotional and difficult thing for me, was really special. I don’t think I could’ve done it without them. That was a day of catharsis, for sure.”

Wolfgang has previously admitted he harbored doubts about whether he could actually pull off playing Van Halen in front of such a staggeringly big audience – and one multiplied manyfold by the show’s livestream. Truth is, he made it look easy.

Mammoth released their third album, The End, last year as the band continues to rise through the ranks.

Metallica's third proper bass player after Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted deserves all of our praise. First, he's been in the world's biggest metal band since 2003, making him their longest-serving bassist.

Second, he's an absolute monster bass player, powering through funk, rock and metal styles with ease and panache. Third, he produced a documentary, Jaco, in 2012, telling the tragic story of Jaco Pastorius. Finally, he bought Jaco's famous ‘Bass Of Doom’ and restored it to the Pastorius family.

Robert Trujillo's story is one that began not long before the arrival of Metallica's self-titled 1991 album – in the very same city, in fact – when he joined skate-thrash mob Suicidal Tendencies near the end of the '80s.

In 1996, came an even bigger break – and quite possibly the ultimate dream for anyone who grew up listening to Black Sabbath. While Suicidal Tendencies certainly brought him success, joining Ozzy Osbourne's band was the move that enabled him to perform at the top level.

All of these influences and experiences brought Trujillo to the moment famously documented on Metallica's Some Kind Of Monster film, where he auditioned for the band, annihilated the competition and was given a cool million-dollar advance as a “welcome to the family.”

“One thing about being in Metallica is I've always felt challenged,” Trujillo told Bass Player. “It's a lot easier now than it used to be: when I first joined Metallica, I was kinda struggling! I had to learn over 20 years of catalog, plus the 12 songs from St. Anger which had never really been performed as a unit.

“Then there was that magnitude of press and everything else that goes with being in Metallica. I was juggling all of it.”

In this clip from the Beneath the Bassline documentary, Trujillo spoke about his 2003 audition to replace bassist Jason Newsted, as captured in the 2004 band documentary Some Kind of Monster.

“It was a two-day audition, but the first day was more fly-on-the-wall,” says Trujillo. “Bob Rock had already recorded bass guitar and he was also producing St Anger, so I’m just there at the studio watching guitar tracks go down.

“The evening rolls around and Lars says, ‘Hey, let’s go get a drink.’ I could hold my own with a few beers, but we end up drinking until 5 in the morning. I wake up with the worst hangover of my life, and now I’ve got to play with Metallica.”

“James is sober. He’s gone through rehab. So I decided I would connect with my bass tech and decide what bass I was going to use, and what amp.

“What I was really trying to do was get away from Hetfield because I didn’t want him to smell the alcohol on me. Lars was probably just testing me to see how much I could handle, but I just felt like a loser.”

Bassists Pepper Keenan, Jeordie White, Scott Reeder, Eric Avery, Danny Lohner and Chris Wyse – among others – also tried out for the role, but after three months of auditions, Trujillo was officially declared the new bassist.

Instead of squandering his advance on a blur of decadence, as – let's face it – many of us would be tempted to do, Trujillo chose to lock himself in a room, armed to the teeth with nothing but Metallica tablature books. He was the new guy, and in his eyes, he had everything to prove.

“Everyone else had the music figured out because they wrote or recorded it, but the new guy needs to do his homework. Any time a band has an archive, it's almost guaranteed that at some point they're going to play an obscure song. The fans are going to call for it, so once I was caught up, it felt easier to adapt.”

The Smiths guitar icon Johnny Marr has teamed up with auction house Christie’s to sell nearly 100 items from his personal gear collection, with the bulk made up of guitars and amplifiers from across his career.

Over a five-decade career working with everyone from the Smiths to Pearl Jam, Billie Eilish and Hans Zimmer, his collection has understandably gotten bloated.

Each guitar, he says, “has helped me evolve as a musician, bringing new songs, new sounds and techniques,” but now he’s going through the “bittersweet” of letting them go so that they can write their next chapters.

Highlights include his Smiths-era 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo (estimate: £60,000-80,000, approx. $79,000-£105,000). It was bought a year after its construction, after the band signed their first record deal, and it was a key feature of their 1984 self-titled debut album, including on This Charming Man. It also moonlighted on Oasis’ Supersonic single cover, after Marr loaned the guitar to Noel Gallagher during the Definitely Maybe recording sessions.

But it’s his 1960 Cherry Red Gibson ES-355, which could sell for as much as £150,000 (approx. $198,000), that appears to be the most valuable ahead of the auction. Sire Records founder Seymour Stein bought the guitar for Marr as a sweetener for signing to the label for US releases (reportedly a request Marr made after hearing Stein had once done the same for Brian Jones).

It featured on Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now and also appeared on Top of the Pops and The Tube during the band’s heyday; it’s believed this is the guitar that got Noel Gallagher hooked on ES-355s.

The Roger Giffin Korina ‘Telecaster’, built circa 1984 and expected to go for up to £30,000 (approx. $39,000), was an engagement gift from Marr’s now-wife, and was made by British luthier and one-time head of the Gibson Custom Shop, Roger Giffin. Giffin’s also built instruments used by Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Pete Townshend. The Telecaster featured on Top of the Pops (for Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now in 1984) and a year later on the Old Grey Whistle Test (The Headmaster Ritual and Nowhere Fast).

Elsewhere, the Martin D-28 (up to £50,000, approx. $66,000) used to record There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Well I Wonder and Cemetery Gates, the Cherry Red 1984 Gibson Les Paul Standard (up to £120,000, approx. $159,000) is another notable six-string up for grabs. The latter can be heard on The Headmaster Ritual and featured at the Smiths’ final ever show in 1986, before being used alongside the Cribs and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

The auction comes after the 2023 publication of his book, Marr’s Guitars, which spun the individual tales of many of these new auction items. It’s made him realize they need to move on.

“The book turned out to be a cathartic experience, and when it was time for these beautiful instruments to go back into storage, I couldn’t imagine them being put away and left unplayed,” he says.

“It’s bittersweet to be parting with these guitars, but I want them to go to new homes and new people who will love them as much as I have. I hope they bring as much joy, inspiration, and fun – and new songs – as they have given me.”

Marr will donate 100% of the hammer price of 10 lots from the auction to the British charities, The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and The National Autistic Society.

Select highlights from the auction will be displayed in New York from 25 June to 1 July, before being displayed at Christie’s London HQ, ahead of the 9 to 16 September auction.

Visit Christie’s for more.

In recent years, Death Cab for Cutie singer, songwriter, and guitarist Ben Gibbard has become synonymous with the Fender Mustang – he's even got his own signature model.

He wasn't a day 1 Mustang adherent, though. In fact, it was only around a decade ago that he fell in love with a Mustang he got in a trade with a friend, and moved the model to the top of his guitar pecking order.

During Death Cab's early days, Gibbard was actually partial to smaller-scale, beginner-friendly Fender Bullets – not to be confused with Fender's entry-level imports of a few years back.

First launched as an alternative to the Mustang in 1981, the Bullet featured a downsized Tele-inspired single-cutaway shape, but with a Strat-style scratchplate and two single coils.

It was initially produced by Fender in the US, but production later moved to Japan and Korea, the body morphed into a more traditional Strat-style and the headstock was subsequently rebranded Squier. Latter-day versions featured a trio of single coils – and that is what Gibbard has been spotted playing over the years.

His relationship with the Bullet began with a gift that he thought at the time was an act of pure, unprompted generosity. He didn't quite know the whole story...

“In 1997 or 1998, [former Death Cab lead guitarist] Chris Walla showed up at a show we were playing in Bellingham [Washington] and he had a Fender Bullet in his hand,” Gibbard told Guitar World in a recent interview. “He said, ‘Hey, I bought you this guitar today.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, you bought me a guitar.’

“I mean, we were broke. The idea that any of us would buy anybody anything, let alone a guitar, was unheard of. And he was like, ‘No, it was only, like, 100 bucks. I thought you might like it.’

“Oh my God, what an amazing gift,” he continued. “I'd never experienced that kind of generosity from somebody. Only years later did I realize he had dropped my SG and put a crack in the neck, and was terrified to tell me about it, so he just figured he’d go buy a new guitar for me!”

That first Bullet would remain Gibbard's six-string of choice through the band's first three albums and their accompanying tours. To this day, it holds pride of place in his collection.

“I still have it upstairs in my studio. It’s my most prized possession, next to my dad's Gibson LG-1 that his grandfather gave him,” he told Guitar World. “There are two things [I’d] grab when the house is on fire. One is the Bullet, the other is the LG-1.”

Though he'd move on to other models – Teles, G&Ls, and, of course, Mustangs – as Death Cab rocketed to alt-rock royalty status, then subsequently settled comfortably into life as veteran indie statesmen, Gibbard found the perfect opportunity to pick up the Bullet again a few years ago.

The occasion was the tour the band undertook in celebration of the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough 2003 masterpiece, Transatlanticism. Gibbard played Bullets when the band toured the album originally, so, he reasoned, why not be faithful to that period?

“I brought out the original Bullet, which is the one with the Barsuk [Records] sticker that Chris gave me in ’97 or ’98, and I bought a few more, and was playing those,” he told GW. “I think as we move forward I'm going to continue playing the Bullets, but augment them on this next tour with the Pro Jaguar [he played on much of their new album, I Built You a Tower].”

Sometimes accidents do have happy endings, after all.

• Read our full interview with Gibbard and Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Dave Depper.

Eric Gales is one hell of a guitar player, but he says he kept his talents hidden from his school friends – who had no idea when he signed a six-figure record deal.

Gales was still a teenager when he played with Carlos Santana in front of a staggering number of people at Woodstock ‘94, and has since more than lived up to his child-prodigy reputation throughout a prolific career. He has become one of the greats of modern blues.

But his predilection for making an electric guitar purr was his best-kept secret for a long while.

“I’m a drummer first,” he tells Rick Beato in a new interview. “The percussive aspect of my playing nods to the knowledge of me as a drummer, and in my early junior high years, I was the leader of the percussion section at school.

“I didn’t want nobody in school to know that I knew how to play guitar until I went on the Arsenio Hall Show, and the jig was up.”

Over the years, Gales became a regular on the chat show, first appearing in 1991. On that same show, Carlos Santana, his godfather, later hailed him as the next big guitar player, comparing him to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

But there’s only so much hiding one can do when, as Hall says, you “take the place apart” on national television.

“I didn’t want a lot of new friends, you know?” Gales reasons for his secret guitar skills to Beato. “I didn’t want these people trying to be my friend because of what you think you can get out of me. I’d just signed a quarter-million-dollar record deal at 15 years old.”

So he kept quiet about it until the show aired. Then his life really started to change.

Gales had signed with Elektra Records earlier that year. The Eric Gales Band put out their self-titled debut album in 1991, followed by Picture of a Thousand Faces two years later. Gales hasn’t looked back since.

In other Gales news, the blues titan recently teamed up with Kiesel for an all-new signature guitar and enlisted some of the best players in the business to pay tribute to his late brother, Little Jimmy King, with an all-star album.

Steve Vai’s For the Love of God, from his 1990 sophomore album Passion and Warfare, marked a defining moment in his career.

The epic instrumental showcased Vai’s technical prowess – with harmonics, fast legato runs, sweep picking, and whammy-bar tricks galore – all of which he nailed after four straight days of fasting, meditation, and, naturally, non-stop practising.

“I was trying to push myself to the limit,” he said in a 2016 Guitar World interview when reflecting upon the experience. “When it came time to record For the Love of God, my fingers were totally gone. I had pictures of my fingers taken after that session, and they were bleeding under the skin.”

Equally as iconic as the track is its music video, which features a burned Ibanez Universe seven-string that, as brand representative Scot Schwestska told Guitar World in 1991, was intended to “look like the Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix burned at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.”

“The next thing we did was sprinkle mineral spirits on the body of a standard Jem Universe, and carefully started burning it to emulate the look of the Hendrix guitar. It was like a family barbeque!”

Now, as revealed by the guitar star’s devoted tech, Doug MacArthur, in a Premier Guitar rig rundown, the storied guitar has made something of a comeback, officially returning to the road with the SatchVai Band during their recently completed American spring tour.

“It's kind of funny that this is the backup, but this is the guitar from the For the Love of God music video,” MacArthur says.

“It's called Bruno…. They blowtorched it and scraped it up. It's funny – when we moved recently, I found the letter from Ibanez that was like, ‘Hey, we're kind of checking out this new aesthetic,’ so this got delivered to him in 1990 or late ’80s.”

However, all those who were (retroactively) hoping to spot it during this past run of dates were left disappointed, as, according to MacArthur, “He hasn't played it yet, though, because he hasn't broken a string on the guitar.”

But now that it’s officially in his roster of touring guitars, we wouldn’t be surprised if it makes an appearance at any of the supergroup’s future shows.

Speaking of Vai's Rolodex of guitars, the virtuoso has recently announced that he just might be retiring his monstrous triple-neck Ibanez Hydra.

Ask any bass-playing great of the last 50 years who their heroes are, and you can bet that Jack Bruce will feature high up the list.

The driving force behind ’60s supergroup Cream – not to mention his stints with Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and the Bluesbreakers – Bruce was one of a very short list of pioneers who were challenging the traditional concept of what a bass guitarist could, and should, play, creating lines that linked the jazz-inspired drumming of Ginger Baker with the blues-inflected guitar of Eric Clapton.

“Clapton isn’t God. Jack Bruce is,” wrote Jeff Berlin in the October 2003 issue of Bass Player. “When I was 14, I sprayed his name on my bedroom wall with luminous paint to remind me who was the greatest bass player in the world.”

Bruce’s innovations – first with his Fender VI and then with his Gibson EB-3 – provided a cornerstone in the instrument's development. His playing in the trio’s legendary live jams liberated the bass for generations of players who followed.

“Jack's playing on these songs might be the first recorded example of an electric bass player with chops,” said Berlin. “I'm So Glad (Goodbye) is perhaps the most intense of the live jams, but for me the definitive Jack is on Sweet Wine from Live Cream. Jack's playing on that cut changed me forever.”

“For pure composition, listen to As You Said on Wheels of Fire, which features Jack on cello, acoustic guitar, and vocals accompanied only by Ginger Baker's hi-hat. Who else in all of rock could have come up with that priceless tune?”

As well known for his outspoken views on music, bass playing and… er… metronomes as he is for his unquestionable command of the bass guitar, Berlin remembered meeting his hero at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London.

“We were introduced by the fine English drummer Jon Hiseman. I quickly discovered that Jack is one of the funniest guys l've ever met. He gave me a lift back to my hotel, and he had me laughing so hard I was crying.

“The next time we met, I was performing at the Music Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, and I was playing really well. It was one of those special nights that happens only once in a while for musicians. Then Jack walked in.

“My hands developed rheumatism in three seconds. I couldn't play a thing. I got nervous because I know that if Jack can do anything, he can hear everything that's going on – and that's why I played bass like Rocky Balboa when Jack sat down in the front row.

“Another time, Jack did a clinic at the Musicians Institute in L.A. Bruce Gary was on drums and I played guitar. I can't remember how we got into it, but Jack and I suddenly found ourselves singing White Room like Jerry Lewis would sing it.

“Through the laughter, I found myself thinking, ‘Here I am playing Cream tunes with the same guy whose name was spray-painted on the wall of my mother's home, the same guy who influenced me to buy a bass and spend the better part of 25 years trying to learn how to play it.’”

After Bruce's passing in 2014, Berlin released the tribute album Jack Songs, featuring contributions from a stellar line-up of guest musicians, including Alex Lifeson, Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal and Eric Johnson.

“When he died, I immediately set out to choose some of my favourite songs of his and record them via my own musical vision. I wanted this record to be brilliant to honour his spirit. He really means this much to me.”

Punk rock outfit New Found Glory’s guitarist, Chad Gilbert, performed on stage for the first time after undergoing emergency brain cancer surgery in February.

Gilbert joined his bandmates at Nashville's Ascend Amphitheater on Monday (June 15). While he was using a wheelchair to maneuver his way around the stage, he still whipped out his Fender Tele Deluxe and made his grand return after months of treatment.

“Monday was such a special night,” he wrote on social media. “I got to play a show in front of my daughter, something I truly never thought I’d get to do again. And my beautiful wife and all the nurses and doctors, my amazing team that have kept me alive through my battle.”

While Gilbert’s cancer battle started in January 2010, more than a decade later – in 2021, to be exact – he was rushed to hospital after being found unresponsive at home.

It was then discovered that he had a pheochromocytoma tumor that had developed into adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) this past February – a rare and aggressive cancer that originates in the outer layer of the adrenal glands.

Still, the 45-year-old guitarist has vowed to continue playing, telling PEOPLE in April that, “I'll be able to play … I'll be sitting in a chair.”

In fact, during the “special night,” Gilbert played two fan favorites, Hit or Miss, and My Friends Over You, the latter taken from the band’s third studio album, 2002’s Sticks and Stones.

“It was very emotional getting up on stage with my band again to play. So many feelings all at once. Here are some photos from the show. If you were there I hope you had a great time. Love you all,” he concluded in his post.

In 2023, Gilbert spoke with Guitar World about finding a source of artistic inspiration post-diagnosis.

“You might think being diagnosed with cancer would stop us in our tracks,” he said. “And yeah, in many ways, it changed things. But when I woke up from my surgery, I had ideas in my head. I spent weeks in the hospital writing this new album, Make the Most of It, because I suddenly had so much to say.

“When the life is nearly sucked out of you, and then you come out the other side alive, you can't help by having your perception altered.”

A former member of groups such as Blue Mink and Sky, the late Herbie Flowers toured with David Bowie and T. Rex, while his basslines, like the distinctive sliding line on Lou Reed's Walk On the Wild Side, are nothing short of legendary.

A veteran musician who started out playing the tuba and double bass in the Royal Air Force during the 1950s, Flowers recorded over 20,000 sessions, but, as he once told Bass Player, he wasn't always sure who the sessions were for.

“The rate was about £6 for a three-hour session, recording about 20 minutes of music. In those days, I spent more time with session drummer Barry Morgan than I did in bed with my wife! But you wouldn't necessarily know who it was for and the booker wouldn't give a shit who the band was.”

With two tracks simultaneously played on a bass guitar and a double bass, Flowers’ iconic bassline on Walk On the Wild Side is known the world over, adding a touch of class to one of the darkest pop songs ever written.

“I played that on my old English pine double bass and my Fender Jazz. There was no inspiration, just a bar of C and a bar of F going round and round. I'd put double bass on the bottom end, playing the bottom note, and then I asked to put bass guitar above because I wanted to try something else.

“But I'm sick of people saying, ‘Walk On The Wild Side is a classic, you must be rolling in it!’ I got paid £12, and Bowie – who was voted Producer of the Year – didn't even show up until all the tracks were down. That's good production, isn't it? Phone some clever people up, stay out of the way, then collect the award! It was just a lucky thing. I got paid £12 for the session, end of story.”

The following interview was first published in the October 2006 issue of Bass Player.

What are the golden rules for studio musicians?

“The first thing is that you can't ever be late. They play you the song or sling you a chord chart, and you come up with what you think are fancy basslines. You hang on to the click track, get your job done as quickly as you can, and as soon as they say, ‘Thanks very much’, get the hell out of there. Studio work is expensive. The producer doesn't want you hanging around, being in the way.”

Did you ever feel like you were in a band?

“A little bit. I was in T. Rex in the latter years, but T. Rex was Marc Bolan. Marc was the writer, performer, co-producer and publisher, and we were paid wages. It was all his, and I was perfectly comfortable with that.”

Did it bother you that you didn't own any part of a recording?

“I wouldn't want to own it. I don't want to own any part of Diamond Dogs or Transformer, because it could have been anybody. I had no involvement in the composition of Walk On The Wild Side, despite the fact that it's a pretty well-known bassline. It's only a bassline!”

What was the story behind Blue Mink?

“That began at Morgan Studios where six of us were booked for a two day session for a band called Family Dog. We finished in one day, so there was a day free. We decided to lay down some tracks as Roger Cook had this song called Melting Pot, and before we knew it, it was No. 2 in the charts. Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris stopped it getting to number one and I was playing on that too!”

And Sky?

“A hybrid band that sprang out of drummer Tristan Fry, Francis Monkman on keys and myself doing things for John Williams’ Travelling album. John was looking for another musical area so we put Sky together, made a few albums, did a few concerts, and were fortunate enough to get a hit with Toccata.

“Our diverse backgrounds gave us an advantage. We added Kevin Peek, who's really good at electric rock guitar. Francis was the original keyboard player with Curved Air and an early user of sequencers.”

What equipment did you take to sessions?

“If I was booked on bass guitar, I'd take my Jazz Bass and my little Wallace amp. The amp was only for my benefit as a monitor, and the engineer would say, ‘Can you turn your amp off for the take?’, so there’d be no spill. The speaker had wheels on it and if I played loud enough the speaker used to move across the floor! But we never played that loud in studios.

“I’ve also got a beautiful old English pine double bass that I bought in 1959 for £40, and an old tuba that I bought when I came out the Air Force for about £25. They're the only instruments I've ever had.”

Tell us about your Jazz Bass.

“I bought it in Manny's Music Store in New York, for $70 in 1959! To this day, it's got the same frets, pickups and dual pots, in Electric Blue sprayed over red, over the top of a white primer. I know because the paint's worn off the back.

“It's completely and utterly original, but it's never had a transfer on it, just the Fender 'F' on the bridge cover plate. I had to take the covers off because there was no room to play with a plectrum, but I've still got them in a drawer.”

So what else can you remember playing on?

“War Of The Worlds with Jeff Wayne, Brotherhood of Man, The Fortunes, every other Eurovision song, Love Affair, Sports Night and that Tony Hatch Crossroads theme, one of the hardest sessions I've ever done.

“A lot of the Pink Panther stuff, Dusty Springfield, Rock On by David Essex, a lot of the Nilsson Schmillson stuff. Elton John's early things, like Burn Down The Mission and Tumbleweed Connection. Eloise for the Ryan Brothers – that's got the longest bass gliss in the world.”

Keith Richards has looked back on the time a close encounter with one of his guitar heroes didn’t go exactly as planned.

Boil down the Rolling Stones’ music to its core components, and you’ll find nods to the impassioned licks of Howlin’ Wolf and the hip-swinging charm of Chuck Berry. So, when Richards found himself in Chuck Berry’s dressing room early in his career with the Stones, it was a dream come true. Soon, though, he was sent crashing back down to earth.

“He punched me once, years ago, in the ‘60s, I think,” Richards reveals of his meeting with Berry to the Guardian. This would have likely been in 1969, when the Stones, their star rising, toured the US and had Berry as a fill-in opening act on some nights.

“We were in his dressing room, I was having a peek at his guitar, and I was just about to stroke it, and he went: ‘Nobody touches it!’ And bam!”

Chuck Berry’s Gibson ES-355 is the stuff of legend. Richards quickly realized his mistake.

“I would have done the same,” he admits. “I’ve never had to, but then I’ve never caught someone doing that.”

Despite the close encounter, Richards remains effusive in his praise of Berry, who helped shape the Stones sound.

“There’s something about those early records of his,” he says of Berry. “They have an ease about them and a sophistication in a way. I loved his naturalness when he was playing, the way he moved – his whole body became part of the guitar.

“He made me focus on what was possible for me, which made my mother shell out for an electric guitar,” he adds. “I just felt a natural affinity for him, even though he was a cussed bugger!”

Suffice to say, Richards never tried to touch the guitar again. Luckily, he now has his own line of ES-355s that carries more than a little of Berry’s DNA.

The Rolling Stones are set to release their second Andrew Watt-produced album, Foreign Tongues, next month, and Ronnie Wood has been discussing his artful weaving around Richards’ guitar parts ahead of it.

Meanwhile, Joe Perry has thanked Richards for turning him onto the ultimate slide guitar.

Rowan Robertson was 17 when he got the gig as Ronnie James Dio’s guitarist. When he hit the studio to record 1990’s Lock Up the Wolves he was a co-writer on every single track. “When we started the writing process I told Ronnie, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ But he said, ‘Trust me – you can.’”

Dio’s confidence came from the reason he’d chosen Robertson as Craig Goldy’s replacement. “He liked my rhythm tone,” Robertson says. “I know he liked the way British players played, so that was a big thing in my favor.”

The new boy was comfortable enough to avoid emulating his predecessors, Goldy, Vivian Campbell and Ritchie Blackmore. “Strangely, I didn’t feel any pressure,” he says.

“Ronnie told me, ‘There will probably be people at the gigs who won’t like you for replacing Viv’ – but I barely ever saw that. As for replicating the songs live, the ones that sat most easily with me were Ritchie’s ones.

“Ronnie only ever said one thing to me about sounding like anyone he’d played with before; and that was, ‘Tony Iommi used to vibrate the chords with his left hand.’”

Dio was in his 40s when Robertson joined, but the pair felt felt a kinship. “Ronnie wanted a partner in crime and bandmate to hang with – which he certainly got!” the guitarist says. “But being that I was so young, he must have felt an obligation to watch over me, which he did, too.”

After the release of Lock Up the Wolves, Dio rejoined Black Sabbath, and Robertson formed Violet’s Demise with former Lynch Mob voice box Oni Logan. Neither move worked out, but when Dio reformed his namesake band, he didn’t call Robertson, instead soliciting the services of Tracy G.

“Nothing stands out as better or worse for me, playing-wise,” Robertson says of his one-and-done Dio record. “I wouldn’t change anything because I did the best I could at the time.”

How did you end up on Ronnie James Dio’s radar?

I was reading in Kerrang! and Metal Hammer that Dio needed a new guitarist. I was a huge Steve Vai fan and I’d read that Steve got the gig with Zappa at 18. I thought, “I’m almost over the hill – getting too old! I must get this gig!”

I made a cassette tape on my four-track Tascam recorder. I put Dio’s song The Last in Line on track one, and recorded my solo over it on track two. Then I recorded some unaccompanied shredding. My dad called out from the kitchen and said, “I’d be surprised if you don’t get an audition off of that!”

I sent the tape to Phonogram in London, who sent it back to me, saying they weren’t interested. So I resent it, this time to Dio’s fan club in America, with a Polaroid of me doing my best Kerrang! pose in my house.

Wendy Dio called me some months later, after I’d given up hope. She asked how I’d feel playing in front of 20,000 people. I acted very confidently – but after the call I was very nervous. My dad told me I was getting a free trip to America to play with my heroes, and that calmed my nerves.

Ronnie auditioned me twice in LA, then told me to go back to the UK, pack my things and come back to start writing for what became Lock Up the Wolves.

What gear did you use for that tape?

I used my Squier Strat, which I’d modified myself in woodworking class, putting a humbucker in and a Kahler locking tremolo. I played through my brand-new Marshall Jubilee 25/50 head into a 2x12 cab – my first Marshall. I later let go of it and regretted it!

What happened at the LA audition?

It was at The Alley rehearsal rooms on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood. Before we started playing Ronnie said, “I really want this to work,” which was great to hear.

We played through the hits like Stand Up and Shout, Last in Line and Holy Diver. I sneaked a look over at [bassist] Jimmy Bain, who was smiling and enjoying himself. I thought, “That’s a good sign!”

Then they threw me a curveball – they told me to play over these changes: E5, C5 then C#5 played slowly. I played through Ronnie’s Marshalls, which I think were probably the same ones used on their early records: two full stacks of JCM800s. I’d never played through a wall of amps like that before.

After the second audition, how were you told the gig was yours?

Larry Morand – who’s now the guy behind the Monsters of Rock Cruise and many other things – was Ronnie’s personal assistant at the time. He said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but you got the gig!”

Once you joined Dio, how did your life change?

It was total culture shock going from a sleepy village outside of Cambridge in safe little England to catching the end of the hair metal heyday in LA. Larry got me a Jackson endorsement and one with St. Louis Music, who gave me some Alvarez acoustics and a Crate practice amp.

What kicked off the sessions for Lock Up the Wolves?

I don’t remember the first song we wrote, but I do remember I’d come up with the chorus riff to what became Born On the Sun when they’d sent me home after the audition, telling me to write riffs. Jimmy wrote the opening riff to that one, as well as some other great parts on the record, as did Ronnie himself.

Once you hit the studio, what gear did you have at your disposal?

I had good-quality stuff: Marshall, Charvel, and Boss pedals. Ronnie would say that the best tone ever comes from a Marshall, a cable, and a guitar. It was basic classic metal, so those were the correct tools for the job. I tried other things here and there – a Kittyhawk preamp or an A/DA or something – but it would always come back to the Marshall.

How did Hey Angel come about?

There’s actually a video on YouTube of that being recorded. The riff was written when Ronnie had left the room at Audible rehearsal studios, which was opposite Sound City. Vinnie Appice played that open beat, and I jammed something, which in my mind was a cross of Stand Up and Shout and [Ozzy Osbourne’s] Miracle Man. When Ronnie came back in his ears must have perked up at what we were jamming.

What do you remember about Lock Up the Wolves’ reception, considering grunge was kicking off?

It just sort of fell into the abyss. I don’t think it’s a very commercially viable album anyway; and it was overlooked, especially as it was released at the time the industry was changing.

Take us through the shelved second record.

It’s funny how these rumors persist – there was never a second album written! All that happened was I went to Ronnie’s house a few times to knock about some riffs in his studio. That tape is long gone, sadly.

At the time he’d have been still considering rejoining Sabbath but he wouldn’t have made his final decision yet. When Wendy told me the news, I don’t remember feeling much of anything. But I would have loved to play for him on another recording – I could have brought so much more of interest to him, I feel.

Your next band, Violet’s Demise, failed to really launch. What happened?

Our album was going to be released. The record company sent us back into the studio to find a single, which we couldn’t find. They said, “We’ll edit a track for a single.” Oni said, “No, you’re not editing it!” They said, “OK, you’re dropped from the label then!”

Considering the chemistry you two shared, were you surprised that Ronnie went with Tracy G after he left Black Sabbath again?

I wouldn’t say surprised. He may have been interested in me, but I was getting ready to release the Violets album anyway. He never asked, is all I know. Tracy had that crushing rhythm style also, which gave [1993’s] Strange Highways its heaviness. Tracy’s a lovely guy and an awesome player.

What led to you replacing Craig Goldy again with Dio in 2001, and why was that cut short?

I don’t know why they asked me to do the tour. It was canceled, I was told, because there were concerns about safety – 9/11 had just happened.

Since 2014 you’ve been with Bang Tango. How did you get the gig, and where does your rig stand now?

I did a few tours with Joe Leste and now with Kyle Kyle also. They can call on me any time to do gigs with them. The last ones I did a few years ago also included Jason Walker, my friend from Vegas.

Those early Bang Tango albums were really high-quality, I think. My rig is the same as always: Superstrat or hard-tailed Gibson-style, Marshall, extra gain pedal for when you need it, sometimes some modulation, delay, and maybe a bit of wah.

Is there any unreleased material with Dio? is there a chance you’d work with Wendy to put it out one day?

There’s one full song, a really great one, which never made the Lock Up the Wolves album. Wendy said some years back that the sound quality is too low to release it. With AI, it may be possible now to clean it up. Another thing on the to-do list!

How do you look back on some of the hard luck you faced after getting such a huge break?

No regrets at all. I did my best, and I feel so fortunate.

And what advice would you give to a young player getting their first real shot?

Imagine meeting yourself from the future and getting a good slap in the face as he tells you, “Don’t overreact to this!’”

The rise of generative AI has brought about a paradigm shift, leaving both artists and music fans scrambling to differentiate between what is real and what is artificial.

Gone are the days when online sleuths were concerned about whether someone was “fake” playing or using a backing track (that’s so 2025). Now, it’s all about whether the guitarist on screen is even human, or just a figment of machine learning and algorithms.

But even the machines have to learn from real players, as guitarist, songwriter, and social media influencer Sophie Burrell found out the hard way.

“I was scrolling on TikTok and got recommended a video of a ‘girl’ playing guitar,” Burrell tells Guitar World. “It was identical to my setup. Same camera angle, same room, same guitar, same movements. It took me less than a second to realize it was literally my video, except I’d been replaced by an AI-generated character.”

Initially, she found it funny. But that soon turned into frustration and anger when she realized that audiences were engaging with these AI-generated videos – at the expense of her reputation and years of hard work.

“It honestly feels like a Black Mirror episode,” she says. “It blows my mind that instead of learning an instrument or developing a skill, people would rather steal someone else’s work, slightly alter it with AI, and then take credit for it themselves.

“I’m angry that people can steal my content without my consent, replace me entirely using AI, repost it without crediting me, gain attention from it, and then use the engagement to funnel people towards whatever they’re selling – which is usually something inappropriate.”

Feeling helpless after social media platforms failed to act, Burrell went public with a video that has since gone viral. Turns out, her case wasn’t a lone incident but the latest in an onslaught of disturbing AI-generated playing videos specifically targeting female guitarists and their fans.

Sophie Lloyd is no stranger to the guitar world, having crafted videos that rack up millions of views, built a community of millions of fans, launched a solo career, and toured the world with the likes of MGK. Her high-profile public persona has led to her videos being targeted and, in some cases, being manipulated by bad actors to defraud victims.

“I’ve received dozens of emails from people claiming they’ve been speaking with me over video calls for months – clearly scammers using AI impersonation,” she says. “Some of the situations are genuinely devastating, with people being scammed out of large amounts of money.

“The idea that our music and content can be stolen so easily is really disheartening. We rely on interactions with our content for visibility, monetisation, and opportunities. It’s literally our livelihood being stolen, and platforms need to start treating it that way.”

Brazilian breakout star Larissa Liveir agrees. She is also undergoing the futile experience of reporting these videos, only to realize they’ve instead multiplied without any punitive action.

“I started feeling violated because I realized that anyone can take my image and do whatever they want with it, even things that go completely against my values,” she says. “They can put me in clothes I would never wear, create overly sexualized poses that I would never choose, or make it seem like I said or did things that were never actually me.

“I’ve seen them alter some of these women’s images to expose more of their bodies and drastically change their physical features in order to sexualize them without their consent. TikTok often says there’s nothing wrong with accounts using my name, my photos, AI-generated content, and comments asking people to message them privately, even though that obviously leads to private conversations where people can be manipulated and scammed.”

In some cases, bad actors go one step further to damage these guitarists’ reputations.

Tanya Yakimova is a guitarist, performer and content creator from Odesa, Ukraine, with over 1.7 million followers on Instagram alone. She claims: “Some people were using these fake videos to build trust with my fans and then attempt to scam them out of money. I have seen screenshots where scammers, pretending to be me, asked fans to send money or purchase Apple gift cards and account credits.”

After we conducted our interview, Yakimova’s team reached out with more unsettling news. “Recently, we discovered several Telegram groups dedicated to AI-generated explicit content, where Tanya’s face is being inserted into pornographic videos, GIFs, and images without her consent. Some of these groups contain hundreds of pieces of content.

“What is also concerning is that users in these groups somehow share and distribute real personal information about Tanya. We do not know where this information is coming from, but it adds another disturbing layer to the situation.”

While the forms and severity of the fraud and abuses vary between players, the fact that it is overwhelmingly female-presenting guitarists' and bassists’ videos being appropriated suggests a sort of AI-facilitated honeytrap, with an added layer of overt misogyny.

The actions seem intended to either degrade these players and put their reputations in jeopardy, have a financial motivation in defrauding and scamming fans – or both.

“The rock, metal and guitar world is still heavily male-dominated, and when you look at the motives behind a lot of these profiles (especially the ones promoting NSFW sites), it makes sense that they target women,” notes Burrell.

“They’re using female musicians to attract attention from a male audience, often older people, who might not realize what they’re looking at is AI-generated.”

Mercyful Fate bassist Becky Baldwin has also had her image used in deepfakes and AI-generated videos intended to defraud fans. She notes that “social media companies are not interested in protecting women. Women playing instruments gain traction on social media. They attract a lot of male followers.

“When attractive, scantily clad fake women are being generated on a massive scale to make money for an unknown person, it makes me extremely concerned for everyone’s mental wellbeing.”

Because of the wild west that is AI-generated playing videos, she feels “lumped in with fake players,” when, in reality, “people who follow me know that I have had a real music career, touring and recording for almost 15 years.”

Mari Zaghete, a 19-year-old Brazilian guitarist, singer and content creator, first noticed the phenomenon in clips from other players in her circle. However, it wasn’t long before bad actors started targeting her videos. “The audio was the same, the setting, the facial expressions, the dynamics of the performance – only with a different face superimposed using AI,” she says.

Zaghete believes that playing content, carefully crafted by female-presenting guitarists, is particularly easy to target because, aside from the image, “There’s [also] movement, technique, hand speed, performance, iconic songs… so these are videos that capture attention very quickly.

“Instrumental performance videos are easy to reuse because the focus is on the music and the visuals, not necessarily on the person speaking. That makes it easier for people using AI to replace the real artist’s image with an artificial character without the audience noticing.”

For Lloyd, though, “the bigger issue isn’t the gender bias – it’s the theft of copyrighted content and identity.” Indeed, laws relating to AI are practically non-existent or limited in most countries and jurisdictions.

In the US, Executive Order 14365 pushes for a “single national framework” for AI, though critics argue that it does little to address copyright and privacy concerns. In 2025, Congress passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, aimed at non-consensual intimate imagery and deepfakes posted online and typically made with the assistance of AI.

Earlier this year, the Senate passed the DEFIANCE Act, which, if passed into law, would give victims the right to sue over deepfake pornography.

Across the pond, the European Union “lacks specific rules on the copyrightability of AI-generated works.” While in 2024 it enacted the Artificial Intelligence Act – widely regarded as the world's most comprehensive AI regulatory framework, especially at the time – the EU has been criticized for narrowing and softening some of the Act’s original obligations, particularly when it comes to copyright transparency and compliance requirements.

One thing all of the players involved have in common – aside from their gender – is their struggle to get the social media firms to take action. “The problem isn’t the technology itself, but rather how we use it,” says Zaghete.

“AI can be an incredible tool when used properly. The issue arises when it’s used without transparency, without authorization, and without protection for the original creator. Clearly, social media platforms aren’t keeping up with the speed at which this is growing.”

Metal guitarist and content creator Lauryn Leroy, known online as Lauryn’s Guitar, adds, “[When reporting], it’s hard to get through to a real person who understands what the issue is. Platforms need to be more transparent about AI-generated content and give creators better ways to protect their content from being easily manipulated.”

Ultimately, though, the solution is far from simple, especially now that this Pandora’s box has been opened. Some artists, like Baldwin, are calling for a complete boycott.

“We should keep talking about how social media companies should take responsibility and at least clearly mark AI content, or ideally, allow us to block AI content from our feed,” she says. “We should not be funding social media companies through advertising while they are refusing to keep their users safe.”

Others recognize that AI can be leveraged – with limitations and boundaries. “I still believe AI can be an amazing tool for learning, creativity, and enhancing people’s craft, but it needs to be properly supervised and regulated,” says Lloyd. “There should absolutely be stronger copyright laws and protections surrounding AI-generated content and impersonation.”

Leroy emphasizes the need for platforms to be “more transparent about AI-generated content and give creators better ways to protect their content from being easily manipulated.”

Ultimately, nothing will change until there are genuine financial and legal consequences for AI fraudsters. As Zaghete observes: “If AI-modified content were prevented from being monetized, there would be a major decline in this type of material.”

Guitar World reached out to Meta with a request for comment on what it’s actively doing to protect artists and creators in the new world of AI. A representative responded, “We want people to know when they see posts that have been made with AI. In 2024, we announced a new approach for labeling AI-generated content.

“An important part of this approach relies on industry-standard indicators that other companies include in content created using their tools, which help us assess whether something is created using AI.”

TikTok did not reply.

• Have you experienced a similar issue with AI-generated guitar playing videos, or been scammed yourself? Get in touch with the Guitar World team at guitarworld@futurenet.com if you’d like to share your story.

This month in Bought & Sold, Marc Ford pops his head through the door to talk about the guitars in his life, from first loves to current squeezes, and those he loved and lost over the years.

And with a new concert album, Live in Germany, out now, the Lucinda Williams guitarist reveals what’s in his current rig, and tells us why his Asher signature guitars are almost too good to be true.

What was the first serious guitar that you bought with your own money?

Well, I took all of the savings I had accrued as a kid from all the birthdays and Christmases – which was obviously meant for something way more responsible, I think – and I cashed it and went in and had a guitar put together out of Warmoth parts. It was right when that whole Schecter thing was happening and the parts-guitar thing was just starting. I essentially had a hot-rodded [S-type] made.

But prior to that, all of my guitars were gifts from my family. I ended up trading that for something else pretty quickly. It was sort of a flash of the times, you know? It had a humbucker in it and it was [an S-type], so it had the whammy bar… it was very Eddie Van Halen-esque in a way. That was what was going on at the time and I didn’t know enough about guitars, so it just seemed cool. But as soon as I got into guitar, I realised that it wasn’t something I wanted to use.

What was the last guitar that you bought, and why?

The last one that I bought was a Nash [T-style]. I was missing the Telecaster style with the gear that I had with me with Lucinda [Williams], so I went to Mike’s Music – where I bought my ’61 Tele, like, 30 years ago – and now I’ve bought another [laughs]. It’s a great guitar and it made sense because it’s a tool that I’ve been missing in my equipment.

What’s the most incredible find or bargain that you’ve ever heard when buying guitars?

Shoot… probably a short-scale Gibson hollowbody like the one Chuck Berry played in the ’50s before he went to the ES-335 [the ES-350, a close cousin to the Byrdland]. I found one of those in Lake Havasu for incredibly cheap. It needed some work, but it was a great deal. It was the same one that Chuck played, and the same one that [Eric] Clapton played at the Bangladesh concerts [EC played a Gibson Byrdland].

What’s the strongest case of buyer’s remorse you’ve ever had while buying gear?

Well, that first guitar that I had made is one. It was a quality guitar, but it was just a dumb choice. It really wasn’t at all helpful to what I was doing, so I was pretty bummed that I did that, you know?

But other than that, I don’t think I’ve made too many stupid mistakes… at least, not ones that stick out. But there’s always gonna be some stuff that didn’t turn out the way that you thought or didn’t fit once you got it home. But I don’t do a lot of on-a-whim, off-the-cuff buying, you know? I’ve gotta hear it and know that it’s working pretty cool before I buy it.

Have you ever sold a guitar you now intensely regret letting go?

I mean… yeah [laughs]. There’s a lot of gear that I had to get rid of because rent was due. I was always paid as a sideman, so there were only a few moments where I was really paid money that was decent.

There were a lot of lean times, where I had to get rid of stuff just to keep afloat. So that list is longer than I can remember what’s even on there. But gear is a great place to keep your money, you know what I mean? If you have real pieces, you’re really not gonna lose anything on them.

This is when you start to realise that guitars are just tools. Like, you can have your favourites and you can have things that you prefer, but sometimes that can be limiting.

There are times when being on an instrument that’s a little uncomfortable, set up wrong, or not what you’re used to, forces you to be present, think about what you’re doing and not get so hung up about the instrument itself.

What’s your best buying tip for someone looking to buy their ultimate guitar?

The ultimate guitar tip for guitars – and really, any guitar, though it’s more obvious on acoustic and maybe less so with electric – is that it’s got to sound good when it’s not plugged in. There has to be a tone that catches your ear. And it probably needs to be unique compared with other guitars.

Obviously, feel is important. It’s gotta feel good to you. But if it doesn’t sound good when it’s not plugged in, there’s no way that you’re ever gonna get it to sound good through the electronics.

If forced to make a choice, would you rather have a really good guitar and a cheap amp or a cheap electric guitar and a top-notch amp?

I’d buy the guitar. Shit, these days, half the time I’m playing through a rented amp [laughs]. But the guitar is so much more personal. You’re physically touching the thing and, in a perfect world, it becomes a part of you to where you don’t even think about it any more.

It becomes just a way to get your insides out, since your fingerprints are literally on it. There’s direct contact and that’s gonna exchange your subtleties way more than an amplifier will, I think.

If you could only use humbuckers or single coil pickups for the rest of your career, which would you choose, and why?

Single coils. They’re more expressive. There’s more subtleties and they’re way more direct for when you need that. I just find them to be more versatile and more fun. I’ve always been drawn to single coils. Not that I’m knocking a great humbucker; I just prefer single coils.

Marc’s Go-To Rig

Right now with Lucinda, I’ve got a Satellite amp. It’s probably about 25 watts with two 10-inch speakers. I don’t know what [owner] Adam [Grimm] does to them, but they’re just cool and they work.

I’m playing a Wide Sky guitar that’s kind of like a Les Paul Special, and I’ve got the Nash T, and an old 50th anniversary ’54 [Fender] Strat that I really love. I just got the Nash, but I think I’ll bring it out on the road with me.

Aside from all that, I’ve got my signature Asher guitars. Bill [Asher] is an incredible luthier. His attention to detail is almost more than I can handle! I developed a relationship with him over time, and we started talking about ideas and gear.

At the time, my two favorite guitars were a Les Paul Special and a Fender Strat. I thought, ‘Can we marry these two guitars together somehow?’ Then I noticed his Electro Sonic design, so we were essentially using his parts that he’d already designed and just assembling them to my taste.

With pedals, on the road I’m really only using a couple of boost pedals, an overdrive and maybe a slap delay. There’s not a lot of tricks, which is cool because I was never much into tricks anyway.

• Live in Germany is out now.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Sleep have announced they’ve parted ways with Matt Pike ahead of a North American tour later this year.

News of Pike’s departure has been shared alongside a new single, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, which marks the influential doom-metal outfit’ first new material since 2018. In Pike’s place, Sleep have recruited Bubba Dupree of Void fame – a choice that might take some fans by surprise.

“Bubba Dupree, from the fiercely loved band Void, hailing out of Columbia, MD, is a pick that is not only completely mind-blowing, but a choice no one would have seen coming,” a press statement reads.

“Just the thought of Bubba, who was amazing from the first Void shows on, playing guitar in Sleep is almost too much for the mind to comprehend.”

Until this point, Pike has been the band’s only constant member throughout its history alongside bassist, vocalist and leader Al Cisnero. Pike has featured on every album thus far, most recently contributing to their 2018 comeback record, The Sciences.

No reason for Pike’s exit has been given, but a press release from Sleep states: “Have Spacesuit Will Travel begins Sleep’s first mission without Matt Pike on guitar.

“The music and art are alive and after the decades of obstacles that Sleep has overcome, it is time to move forward and make songs and albums. Al wishes Matt the best on his earth bound maneuvers.”

As well as starring in Void – the hardcore punk act that heralded from Columbia in the 1980s – Bubba Dupree has also played with the likes of Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron, and in 2022 formed a supergroup with the Soundgarden alumni and Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic.

Dupree is in the new-look Sleep lineup with drummer Dale Crover, whose credits include stints with the Melvins and Redd Kross.

“The vibe of the first jam was obvious,” Cisneros states. “It was blue sunglasses-era Iommi in the quality, and equally awesome is Bubba is also one of the coolest people I’ve been able to make music with.”

Have Spacesuit Will Travel has been earmarked as a departure from Sleep’s 2018 record, owing to the amount of new blood in the band. As Dupree notes in the press release, imitation would “greatly limit the potential of three very unique and talented musicians”.

Sleep will embark on a North American tour later this year, starting on September 8 in San Diego and concluding at Washington DC’s Lincoln Theatre on November 17.

For a full list of dates and tickets head over to Hemisphere.

In 2022, Pike sat down with Guitar World for an in-depth reflection on his career, looking back on both his Sleep and High on Fire days.

Rhys John Stygal, the teenage blues sensation who’s been hailed as the next Stevie Ray Vaughan, is appealing for help after his Number One electric guitar and pedalboard were stolen.

Joe Bonamassa helped the cause, asking fans and followers to keep an eye out for Stygal’s gear, which went missing in Austin, Texas. Jared James Nichols and Kenny Wayne Shepherd have all also shared Stygal’s plea on their own platforms.

“With an absolutely broken heart I need to let you all know that my Number One and my pedal board were stolen in Austin,” Stygal wrote on an Instagram post yesterday (June 17). “The police are aware and Nico [Little, whose band Stygal plays in] is doing his best to search every possible place in Austin while I am in Mississippi.”

Stygal’s Number One is a Three-Color Sunburst Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Stratocaster. Distinctive marks include Buddy Guy’s signature on the headstock, ‘RJS’ stickers on the pickguard, tape around the middle pickup, and its mismatched bridge saddles.

It also has a picture of SRV behind the bridge springs, a ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ sticker on the back, and plenty of natural wear and tear on the body finish and neck.

Stygal’s pedalboard, meanwhile, comprises a Boss TU-3, Pedal Pawn Fuzz, Ruby Red Sparkle 40th Anniversary Ibanez TS808, MXR Loop Selector, and Walrus Audio Monuments.

Stygal has previously opened up on how the guitar changed his life, helping him overcome extreme anxiety brought about by his autism. His Number One guitar has been by his side for his whole journey.

“My Number One saved me from my own dark days,” he says. “There are 1000s of hours on that guitar, I learnt everything on it, please could I ask you all to share my post to help find it and get it home.

“I’d be forever grateful, I’ll update this post with all the information of my stolen things as soon as I can.”

In his own post, Bonamassa wrote, “Hey folks.. Let's be on the lookout for Rhys' guitar and pedal board that was stolen yesterday in Austin Texas. Rhys is an incredible guitarist from the UK and a world class bloke to boot.”

Steve Lukather, Gary Clark Jr., Susan Tedeschi and Tomo Fujita have all offered their support to Stygal. A GoFundMe page, which will raise funds for a reward or to replace the stolen gear, has been set up. $1,838 has been raised at the time of writing.

Anyone with information is being asked to email info@elmorepedals.com, or contact Stygal privately. A reward of $1,500 has been offered for the guitar’s return.

Stygal burst on to the scene as a 16-year-old, amassing a huge following thanks to monstrous blues chops that channeled prime SRV.

Visit the GoFundMe page and Rhys John Stygal’s Instagram page for more.

The inimitable Billy Squier drops in on GW for a quick-fire Q&A covering all things strings, from first electric guitars to the holy grail threatened by a house fire in New York – and why he doesn’t feel the need to practice.

What was the first guitar you owned?

My first electric was a two-pickup Danelectro I bought along with a little Supro amp. I found out years later that Jimmy Page used the same stuff. I paid around $75 for both when I was about 13. I bought them from the older brother of a school friend who didn’t want them anymore.

I’m not sure why he had them to begin with. It was probably just around when the Beatles were hitting, but it hadn’t yet become a thing where everybody was playing guitar.

What’s the first song you learned on that guitar?

I have no idea. My memory has been worn down by copious LSD experiments that I did back then! I remember being told that one thing to worry about with taking acid is that it doesn’t do your memory any favors. Maybe I’m finding that out now. I’d guess it could’ve been a song from the first Beatles album.

What was your first gig?

At around 14, I had a band in high school called the Reltneys. Our first gig was at a dance at a church hall. The first significant gig I can recall was a battle of the bands at my high school gym, where I duked it out with my local rivals, some of whom were my friends.

Ever had an embarrassing moment on stage?

I’ve never been embarrassed on stage. I do have an irrational fear of embarrassing myself because of the way I grew up – certain things happened to me when I was younger that made me feel I was never really good enough, and I was afraid people would find out.

At the same time, I developed tremendous confidence in myself and where I was going with my music. Try reconciling those divergent aspects of your personality!

What’s your favorite piece of gear?

Amp-wise, my hot-wired Super Lead 100 Marshall heads, which I’ve had since the ’70s. They’re unbeatable – the best Marshalls I’ve ever heard. But I have a lot of memorable pieces. I still have the 1960 Fender Telecaster Custom I used on most of Don’t Say No [1981], the one that’s on the album cover.

The building is burning down. What one guitar would you save?

My ’59 burst, which is named “Fanny.” In fact, it already happened to me a few years ago. It turned out it wasn’t serious, but I live in a large building on Central Park West in Manhattan, and there was a fire in the basement.

There was a big commotion – alarms going off and fire engines circling – so I went straight to the closet, looked at my four Les Pauls, grabbed that one and my dog, and trotted down the back stairs and out onto the street. Everything was fine in the end; we didn’t lose anything.

When was the last time you practiced?

I don’t like to sound cavalier about this, but I rarely practice. I stopped seriously practicing a long time ago because the only time I found it to be really valuable was when I was trying to learn something specific to where I wanted to go.

When I was 16, I was transfixed by Clapton’s soloing on John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. There were so many things I couldn’t figure out and wanted to play. I’d spend hours dropping the needle on those solos, committing them to memory and working out how he did them.

Once I got going, I’d just find myself in situations where I’d be playing a lot of the time, for example, in a tune-up room at a gig or at soundcheck.

I’d always have a cassette player nearby, and if I came up with something I thought was good, I’d record it. The rest I’d leave to fate. If I do feel the need to test myself, I play Peter Green’s version of Freddie King’s The Stumble.

What aspect of the guitar would you like to be better at?

My acoustic playing could be more ingrained. I was never much of an acoustic player. I’m not an adept finger-picker. I could always strum chords and play parts as needed on my records, but it was never something I devoted any time to.

When I made my acoustic record, Happy Blue [1998], I made the guitar the centerpiece of the album; it’s the only instrument other than my voice. I taught myself to play in different tunings and came up with things I never imagined I could play.

I probably couldn’t play a lot of that stuff straight-off today because it was a one-time challenge I gave myself, and I don’t revisit it all that often. I’m very proud of that record; there’s some real good playing.

What guitar-centric advice would you give your younger self if you could?

That’s a tough question. If you ask me about things I’d say to young players today, it’d be something like, don’t learn solos from watching YouTube.

Figure them out for yourself. I’d use the example of how I learned to play by ear and picture the notes on the fretboard in my mind. If I could visualize the fretboard in my head and memorize solos by ear, I could put the pieces together – and it all made sense. Think of it as a relationship; get as close to the instrument as you can.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Mike Campbell has looked back on the making of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' American Girl, for which he had to get creative with his trusty 1951 Fender Broadcaster.

Like the rest of us, Campbell has one guitar that he prizes above the rest. For him, it’s his trusty Broadcaster, which has crafted the quintessential guitar tone of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and many projects beyond.

And while it set him back $600 in 1975 when he picked it up from Nadine’s Music in Hollywood, it's safe to say the investment was well worth it.

Among the Rolodex of tracks it was used on is American Girl – perhaps Petty's most popular song, and certainly a classic rock staple. Released in February 1977, the song was originally supposed to have a 12-string. The only problem was, neither Petty nor Campbell had one to hand. Enter the humble Broadcaster, which saved the day.

“We didn’t have a 12-string, but we wanted one on the song,” Campbell says in the new issue of Guitar World.

“Well, I did! I took my Broadcaster and played octaves – because a 12-string is multiple notes and octaves on one string. I tried to simulate a 12-string on that riff throughout the song. At the end, where I do that triplet thing – that was an afterthought.”

The afterthought experiment didn't sit right with Campbell, nor did the attempts to emulate a 12-string. Petty didn't agree. He wanted Campbell to double down.

“I didn’t like it,” Campbell says matter-of-factly, “but Tom said, ‘No, it’s great. Now you’ve got to double it.’ So I doubled it, and that became the end of that song.’”

As Campbell explains, American Girl encapsulates the sound of that guitar – and vice versa. “It was the harmonics between the rhythm and the Broadcaster on top of it. That became the Heartbreakers' sound.”

Campbell would use the Broadcaster on tracks such as Here Comes My Girl (1980), Mary Jane’s Last Dance (1993) and You Wreck Me (1994).

And while all his Teles “sound good”, Campbell, who even has his own namesake Fender Stories Collection Red Dog Tele, admits that, after all these years, the ’51 Broadcaster is still king of the pile.

“[It] is still bright and has a nice midrange. It’s got a warm tone underneath there, and that makes it sound different from other Teles,” he notes.

In more recent news, Campbell revealed that his current amp of choice is an old piece of gear from the early Heartbreakers days.

For more from Campbell, plus interviews with John Osborne and John 5, pick up the new issue of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

If you've never heard Scott Thunes play the bass guitar, you can’t appreciate how far the instrument can be taken. Thunes will dispute that notion, of course – he takes issue with the idea he’s a great bassist.

The former Frank Zappa sideman is a contrarian of the highest order. He disagrees with almost any statement of a declarative nature, at least when it concerns his role in music and his approach to the bass.

Thunes is of the opinion that much of the brilliant live work he recorded with Zappa is riddled with mistakes, each of which he’s apt to point out in detail.

Regardless of whether he concedes that he’s a great bassist, Thunes played an integral role in music that recognised few limitations.

In an interview with Thomas Wictor for his book In Cold Sweat: Interviews With Really Scary Musicians, which also appeared in the March ’97 issue of Bass Player, Thunes revealed the highs and lows of his seven-year tenure with Zappa.

“I’m a good bass player, fine. I’m a great bass player, great,” said Thunes. “Think whatever you want, but it’s unfair I should be given even slight credit for something I don’t feel pushed the boundaries of the instrument.”

Thunes first contacted Frank Zappa in 1981 at the behest of his brother, who had himself tried unsuccessfully to audition for Zappa’s group. Having recorded some tracks in L.A., he was summoned back for the formal audition a week later.

This session included improvising to arrhythmic tracks played on a drum machine, as well as performing the same song with two other auditioning bassists, the three of them competing face-to-face.

Once hired, Thunes played with Zappa up until the group’s notorious 1988 tour, the demise of which he is reputed to have caused.

“Once in Barcelona, someone in the band came up to me and screamed, ‘Don’t you know what a privilege it is to play with Frank? How can you ruin his music?’

“So at that particular moment I put my headphones on, and I started listening to classical music while this guy’s mouth was flapping. It was delicious.”

So what, in particular, caused tension between Thunes and the rest of the band?

“Onstage, stuff was turned into a negative only by those who didn’t want people to step out of their pre-determined roles. I play a lot of lines; I pick chunks out of the air, and instead of playing bass, I play my part in the orchestration. And of course the whole idea of being a bass player is not to overplay.

“But I dig tension in my music. For the people who perform it, music very rarely releases tension; it almost always increases tension, but I know from modern classical music that tension can coexist with normality. Frank was a fan of that.”

Thunes was put in the untenable position that the band wouldn’t tour unless he left. And yet Zappa loved how he played, allowed him the freedom to put his improvisational mark on the music, and even made him a ‘Clonemeister’, which essentially meant he was in charge of band rehearsals in Zappa’s absence.

Thunes offered to leave but Zappa didn’t want to begin the audition process all over again, and this coincided with his decision to quit touring altogether.

“At the end of the ’88 tour, Frank decided he wasn’t going to play anymore, because the rest of the band had told him they wouldn’t go out with me again.

“When he told me that, I said, ‘I’ll gladly quit.’ He said, ‘That’s not the answer. I like you, and I like what you do, except for all the mistakes you’ve been making.’

“Every night onstage, I was surrounded by daggers and would completely lose my concentration. I was a wreck, and the music suffered because of my mistakes. Frank’s only enjoyment was playing guitar solos, and those fell apart.”

“We also ended up not doing any more three-hour soundchecks. We’d play just two songs, and then he’d get out of there. He could not stand being in the same room with us. It was the worst possible combination of events for him.”

For Thunes, the musical experience of a lifetime became forever associated with extreme personal doubt and loneliness. It might have all been different had Thunes played for some less iconic figure, or some minor music star, but this was Frank Zappa, a true 20th-century icon.

Five years later, in December 1993, Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer, closing the door on a unique chapter of musical history.

Stratocaster loyalist Philip Sayce has compared and contrasted his go-to Fender with the PRS Silver Sky, after the blues hero recently welcomed John Mayer's signature guitar into his arsenal.

Sayce has always relied partly on his trusty 1963 Fender Stratocaster, but these days, it has a new stablemate in the Silver Sky.

“It’s really its own thing,” Sayce says of the PRS in an interview with Guitarist. “It’s not competing with the ‘63s; it’s got its own lane. It’s incredibly comfortable, it stays in tune, and it just goes where you want it to.

“I always say that vintage guitars are like muscle cars,” he notes. “You hear that rumble, and you just know what it is. The Silver Sky is like a modern performance car. It’s got all the bells and whistles, and it handles the corners really well. It doesn’t fight you at all. It’s like the wind is at your back when you’re playing it.”

The John Mayer signature guitar was introduced in 2018, with the SE line coming four years later. That affordable version went on to top Reverb’s best-selling guitar charts in 2022 and 2023, placed third in 2024, and rose to second last year. Every step of the way, it has gone toe-to-toe with the Strat.

It was a collab that saw Mayer sever ties with Fender, and though the Silver Sky’s lineage goes back to that model, he, too, doesn’t see them as the same.

“I want you to understand that I embrace the Fender thing,” Mayer said in an Instagram livestream upon the Silver Sky's release. “I want to see people play the Silver Sky through a Fender amp. This guitar is made to coexist with Fender amplifiers, with Fender guitars.”

Sayce agrees. He says the two guitars represent the very best of vintage and modern, with both available when needed. Because, by his own admission, modern guitars still fall a little short of replicating vintage gems.

“The wood on a vintage guitar that’s 60-plus years old is dry and settled. When those guitars were made, that wood might’ve already been 100 years old,” he continues. “You can get really close now, but there’s maybe that last five or 10 percent [with modern builds] where it comes down to the resonance and the age of the wood.”

Indeed, Sayce isn’t looking to replace ‘Mother,’ his tried-and-true Strat, rather, the Silver Sky is suitable companion, and together, they’re powering Sayce’s work in the studio and on the stage.

Sayce’s full interview features in the July issue of Guitarist. Print and digital copies of the magazine can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

In related news, the link between the Stratocaster and the Silver Sky has been put under the microscope in recent months, after Fender issued PRS a cease-and-desist as part of its legal campaign to protect its rights to the Strat.

Polyphia have announced a world tour, for which the modern virtuosos will be bringing some of the finest guitar talent on the scene with them.

The boundary-pushing band, led by Tim Henson and Scott LePage, have just put out their new house-music-gone-heavy track, CAN YOU FEEL IT, the first single from what will be their fifth studio album. They’ll soon be hitting the road to promote it.

They'll be joined by some of the biggest names in guitar playing with them. Australian prog-fusion maestro Plini and Intervals – the djent- and prog-metal-coded project from Wolfgang Van Halen’s favorite shredder, Aaron Marshall – will feature on select North American dates.

Plini has just released his latest album, An Unnameable a Desire, which sees him responding to a call of the wild as he explores new stylistic frontiers, and Intervals are fresh off the road supporting Karnivool.

Elsewhere, solo guitarist RJ Pasin – CAN YOU FEEL IT's do-producer, who has a similarly genre-defying style mixing metalcore, hyper pop, and electronic music – will play on all dates across North America, Europe, and the UK.

Ladrones, who use eight-string Strandberg guitars to mesh together metal, hip-hop, and regional Mexican music, are another act impressing Polyphia’s guitarists, and they’ll join for all North American dates.

It’s an assembled lineup that will stand as both a celebration of forward-thinking guitar playing, featuring some of the most innovative players around. But it’s also a tour that will kick-start a new era for Polyphia.

CAN YOU FEEL IT, which sees the band creating a wholly new style of music, has got the guitar community’s tongues wagging and sets the scene for their hotly anticipated new album.

They’ve already confirmed a host of guest stars. Henson’s new favorite guitar player is producing the record, which they’ve promised will be heavy.

French electronic genius, Perturbator, meanwhile, will join RJ Pasin on all European and UK dates as the band seemingly doubles down on the electronic party-music side of their evolving sound.

Tickets for the tour will be available starting with VIP and Artist Presales beginning Tuesday, June 16, at 11 am ET / 4 pm BST.

Additional presales will run throughout the week ahead of the general on-sale beginning Friday, June 19, at 10 am local time.

See Polyphia for more.

North America Tour Dates w/ Ladrones & RJ Pasin

> w/ Intervals
< w/ Plini

• Sept 5 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
• Sept 8 – Albuquerque, NM – Revel Entertainment Center
• Sept 10 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
• Sept 12 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
• Sept 13 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
• Sept 16 – Salt Lake City – The Union Event Center
• Sept 18 – Denver, CO – JUNKYARD
• Sept 20 - Waukee, IA – Vibrant Music Hall
• Sept 21 – Milwaukee, WI – Landmark Credit Union Live
• Sept 22 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory
• Sept 24 – Chesterfield, MO – The Factory
• Sept 25 – Chicago, IL – Aragon Ballroom
• Sept 26 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore
• Sept 28 – Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe
• Sept 29 – Toronto, ON – Great Canadian Casino >
• Oct 1 – Montreal, QC – L’Olympia >
• Oct 3 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
• Oct 5 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
• Oct 7 – Wallingford, CT – Toyota Oakdale Theatre
• Oct 8 – Washington DC – Echostage
• Oct 10 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore
• Oct 11 – Virginia Beach, VA – The Dome by Rutter Mills
• Oct 13 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater <
• Oct 15 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – War Memorial Auditorium
• Oct 16 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
• Oct 17 – Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy
• Oct 18 – Nashville, TN – The Truth

Europe/UK Tour Dates w/ Perturbator & RJ Pasin

• Nov 18 – Zurich, CH – Halle 622
• Nov 19 – Lyon, FR – Le Radiant
• Nov 20 – Toulouse, FR – Interference
• Nov 22 – Barcelona, ES – Razzmatazz
• Nov 23 – Madrid, ES – Sala La Riviera
• Nov 25 – Milan, IT – Alcatraz
• Nov 27 – Munich, DE – Zenith
• Nov 28 – Prague, CZ – SaSaZu
• Nov 29 – Warsaw, PL – Progresja
• Nov 30 – Leipzig, DE – Haus Auensee
• Dec 2 – Hamburg, DE – Docks
• Dec 4 – Copenhagen, DK – Amager Bio
• Dec 5 – Berlin, DE – Tempodrom
• Dec 6 – Oberhausen, DE – Turbinenhalle
• Dec 7 – Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique
• Dec 8 – Amsterdam, NL – AFAS Live
• Dec 9 – Paris, FR – Zenith Paris
• Dec 11 – Birmingham, UK – 02 Academy Birmingham
• Dec 12 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
• Dec 15 – Leeds, UK – O2 Academy Leeds
• Dec 16 – London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton

Ed O’Brien has opened up on his insecurities as a guitar playing, reflecting on how the bond with his Radiohead bandmates pulled through.

O’Brien had a feeling that the Radiohead reunion shows were going to be okay when he was at Jonny Greenwood’s 50th birthday party making small talk in front of the fire with frontman Thom Yorke.

Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, he says he could feel the friendship coming back, admitting that over the years they had drifted apart. And this was all the motivation they needed to commit to booking live dates, and to getting into a rehearsal space to learn how to play together after their hiatus.

“I think we felt the friendship come back,” says O’Brien. “I remember standing around the fire, talking to Thom, and Thom and I have always been... We were really close, and I hadn’t seen him for a long time. We’d sort of drifted apart. We stood next to fire and sort of… ‘How are you?’ ‘How are you?’ …the classic guy kind of stuff. You could feel the friendship. I could feel the love.”

There began the path to the reunion, to The Church Studios, Paul Epworth’s studio in London’s Crouch End, and to the live dates in November and December last year.

But the story also reads like a metaphor for how O’Brien has dealt with depression. In recent interviews, he has revealed how he would eschew traditional therapy treatments, force himself to get up on the morning and play guitar for hours at a time.

“My therapy was literally locking myself in a room for three hours in the morning whilst the kids were homeschooling and my wife was working,” he told Rolling Stone. “I was in such a dark place, but I knew that I had to get up each day, get out of bed, and do this thing.”

Little did he know, O’Brien would come out of the other side of it with a new solo album, Blue Morpho. In conversation with Lowe, he expanded on how his depression impacted his feeling of self-worth, his playing, and his place in the band.

“I think I always had an idea of what I brought to the band,” says O’Brien. “I was just really fucking insecure about it. I always felt like, in musical hierarchies, there’s Thom and Jonny, and the rhythm section is its own thing. Where am I?”

Things got worse when Radiohead had an existential volte-face in 1999 and decided upon this grand reconstruction of what they should sound like. Where were the guitars?

“When we made Kid A, I was in a really dark place again,” says O’Brien. “We were dismantling the band – of how it was, the form of it – and I’m smoking a lot of spliff. I’m taking herbal antidepressants, and I’m sort of medicating myself.”

O’Brien says he lost all sense of self-worth.

“Because when you’re depressed, you have no self-confidence whatsoever,” he adds. “And you see other people thriving.”

Working through Radiohead’s issues and eventually coming to the realization that they would do a string of shows together reminded O’Brien of just how the band worked, how the camaraderie hadn’t died, and how important they were to each other. Those pre-show rehearsals took them all back to a more innocent time.

“In a way, it was kind of like our village hall rehearsals back in the late ‘80s,” says O’Brien. “Because it was the first time we’d done a rehearsal where there was no expectation of new material, or all going on a tour. There was no pressure.

“They’re really fucking beautiful human beings. And like family, we’re all little bit gnarly. But everybody has a really, really good heart, really good heart. Nobody’s trying to stiff one another. There’s genuine kindness, and that’s the thing that came to me, but I think it came to everyone else as well.”

In other Radiohead news, it was recently revealed that the band had finally been convinced to ditch their cables and go wireless for their reunion shows thanks to a new piece of tech.

Grace Bowers has announced she's returning to YouTube on her own terms, months after she left the platform.

In April, wunderkind Bowers announced that misogyny had led her to quit YouTube. “Bye YouTube,” she wrote. “I’m deeply uncomfortable with the amount of old men here. I’m no longer interested in playing blues or whatever the hell keeps attracting yall. Im done.”

However, Bowers now seems to be launching a new era. A couple of days ago, the guitarist announced that she’s coming back to the platform, with changes that reflect her growth and reflections on the music industry.

“Let’s try this again huh? I’m making changes,” she writes on her official YouTube community page. “I’m not bothered by just comments, I’m bothered by the things I had to deal with irl. Things I didn’t think about when I was 14 posting videos for fun.

“I’m not a prodigy. I’m not carrying a torch. Im not here for old heads to sexualize me, as I have been for the past few years. I’m creating music I have never felt is so true to who I am.”

Bowers goes on to say that she’s now crafting “music for the girls in the front row. Not the weird dude w a tripod tryna look up my shorts”.

As she puts it, “I’m not letting anyone push me around anymore. I’ve been thru a lot this year as I get ready to turn 20 next month. You’re either in it w me or not. I’m not who you want me to be, and I can’t wait for this next era of music.”

In a follow-up post, Bowers also confirmed that she's going to start posting videos again soon, but warned: “No more guitar content idc we onto new thing.”

And speaking of moving beyond guitar videos, earlier this year she shared that she’s ditching the blues label she’s been known for so far and leaning more heavily into rock and punk.

“There’s a lot of really awesome bands out right now. I just met The Linda Lindas – I’m a huge fan of them, and Amyl And The Sniffers, Lambrini Girls,” she said.

"Rock bands are coming back. You have Geese and Yungblud… it’s super-inspiring to me. I’m like, ‘What can I add to this?’ What I have is not straight-ahead rock; it’s very modern-sounding.”

In more recent news, Bowers spec’d out her dream SG – teasing what a potential signature Gibson could look like.

When Chris Cornell took his life at age 52 in May 2017, the music world mourned the death of the Seattle music pioneer and frontman of Soundgarden, which Cornell co-formed with guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Hiro Yamamoto in 1984.

The tragedy was all the more trenchant since Soundgarden were on tour and working on the follow-up to their 2012 comeback album, King Animal.

“Strange is probably the best way to describe how I felt after Chris passed,” writes guitarist Kim Thayil in his new autobiography, A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond. “Everything turned dark when the band ended so suddenly, taking with it a creative partnership I hadn’t fully understood until it was gone.

“Losing that left me in a constant, grim melancholy. It was a despondency so deep, it felt almost sublime. I wasn’t just feeling it – I was watching myself feel it.”

Thayil processed Cornell’s death in private and avoided the press for 18 months. When he started talking to promote an MC5 50th Anniversary tour (for which he was playing guitar), he revealed that Soundgarden had started working on the follow-up to King Animal before Cornell died, and that there were unreleased multi-track demos that featured Cornell’s vocals.

Soon after, the band started working on a new album, including a song Thayil wrote tentatively called X-Mas, which he says might have been the last thing Cornell ever recorded.

“I was thrilled, but it was also bittersweet,” Thayil writes. “Hearing Chris’s voice again, singing things I’d never heard before, was both joyful and emotional. It was like he was speaking to me from the past, reminding me of our work together. There was another surprise, too – an unheard alternate version of a song we had previously worked on, musically distinct from what he’d shared with us earlier. It was amazing.”

To plug the book, Thayil sat down with Guitar World and talked about the fertile Seattle music scene, how he altered his approach to guitar throughout the band’s career, his unconventional leads, the sources of tension that led to Soundgarden’s breakup in 1997, and the status of the band’s swan song.

You were categorized as a metal band before “grunge” became part of the vernacular. Did you feel like a fish out of water?

Yeah, because we were navigating popular culture and rock themes, but we were giving them context in a way that didn’t feel like metal. There were political and social aspects to our music that seemed closely aligned with underground punk rock.

After Nirvana’s Nevermind topped the charts, most major labels eliminated their metal departments, dumped their hair bands, and entered a mad dash to sign any loud alternative groups that might belong in the same universe as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Alice in Chains.

To be clear, they weren’t dropping Metallica or Megadeth. They were dropping these glam metal bands, but some of them were really damn good and wrote cool songs. It was unfortunate that record companies thought they had to stop promoting them and drop them. It’s also unfortunate that the record labels were motivated by caprice and fads.

What kind of guitar tone were you after when you started out?

Everybody talks about guitar tone now, but it wasn’t much of a topic then. We were just going with a power chord sound. I wanted to be loud. Tone wasn’t an objective.

What was your criteria for the guitars you played in the studio and on tour?

I just had to have a guitar that felt comfortable and did what I wanted. It’s like, ‘I want to play songs like the Ramones, and I want to play songs like Black Sabbath. Can this guitar do that? It can. Okay, cool.’ Being visceral was important to me. I wanted a guitar that felt responsive and a sound that leaped from the amp when I played.

The way I approached the instrument always seemed more important than what actually came out. If I wanted to play a solo that was slashing and manic, I beat up the guitar like I’m filled with that mania.

On the song Hunted Down, on Screaming Life, I wanted to be loose, wild, and feel this careening sound. On other songs, I’d want a more mellow, warm, bluesy sound, so I’d hang onto the notes and play triplets I learned from listening to Rush and Kiss.

Did you have a go-to guitar in Soundgarden?

The Guild S-100 was very versatile. I use a lot of other guitars – Gibsons, Fenders, and Gretschs – but that Guild was a big part of the Soundgarden sound, especially for noise.

You often played a sturdy meat-and-potatoes riff and then countered it with an atonal, noisy lick or an interesting effect.

I didn’t want to follow any particular scales, so I played whatever sounded right to me, whether it was crazy or kind of trippy. The pickups on that guitar were somewhat microphonic, so I could blow on the strings and it would feed back. I did that at the beginning of Flower.

But it wasn’t a shrill, out-of-control noise. It was a weird hum. And the way I set my amps and used a chorus pedal gave me feedback that grew slowly and swirled around in a psychedelic way.

Can you trace your arc of evolution as a guitarist?

A lot of it was informed by whatever I was listening to. When I was young, I liked Kiss, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith, so I learned pentatonic scales. But I didn’t like them. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s only five notes. What about the other two?’

Over time, my playing became a mish-mash of everything I loved, including MC5, Gang of Four, the no-wave compilation No New York, Ramones, Black Sabbath, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Frank Zappa, and Pere Ubu.

Dropped tunings figured largely into your songs as well as those of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and even Pearl Jam. When did you discover the technique?

I was in my young twenties and hanging out with Buzz Osborne from the Melvins. We started talking about Black Sabbath, and Buzz goes, “You know they did this thing called drop D.”

We said, “What’s that?” And Buzz says, “You tune the E string down to D, and it sounds heavier.” When I got home, I grabbed my guitar, tuned it down, and immediately realized it was much easier to play chords, so I could play faster.

What was the first song you wrote in drop D?

Nothing to Say. I showed it to everyone at practice and explained the drop D sound and they loved it. The next song I did in drop D was Flower, and then Chris wrote Beyond the Wheel.

When [bassist] Ben [Shepherd] joined us, he brought in other tunings, and [drummer] Matt [Cameron] does a drop D in G, which we called “digga digga.”

He wrote Birth Ritual with that. It was cool because we were all songwriters and always tried to turn each other on to new stuff and impress each other. Suddenly, we didn’t feel limited by the intervals in which we tuned the guitar. We could do whatever we wanted.

Chris started out as a drummer and didn’t take the stage with his guitar until after 1989. Did having him onstage change the way you played?

Yeah, and at first I was resistant to it. If I wanted to solo on songs like Incessant Mace or Beyond the Wheel, having just the bass and drums behind me freed me up. But if Chris was playing chords, it framed the parameters in which I could play, which felt limiting.

Also, I liked playing riffs on my bridge pickup and solos on my neck pickup. I liked the warm sound of that, which is the opposite of what most players do. When Chris was also playing guitar, I couldn’t cut through, so I had to move to the bridge pickup.

Was that frustrating?

It was annoying, and he didn’t know it at the time, but when he switched from a Les Paul with humbuckers to a Fender Stratocaster or Telecaster, I had to adjust my playing again because his single-coil pickups were brighter than the Les Paul pickups. That’s when I started using the wah-wah.

In addition to cutting through the mix, the wah pedal added a psychedelic splash to the songs.

It was a good addition to the sound. I wouldn’t do a regular wah-wah sweep because that’s been done to death. I wanted to be noisy, so I’d kick on the distortion and step on the wah-wah. It was screechy and screamy, so now I’ve got this weird feedback and noise, and I can do some slashing stuff.

Did you get an equipment upgrade when you signed with A&M for Loud Love?

We got an endorsement deal with Peavey, and they gave us a bunch of cabinets and amps, which built up our stage gear for tour. A few years after that, we did a deal with Mesa/Boogie. But each time we did a new deal, I’d get new heads and have to learn about their different features.

The Mesa/Boogie Rectifier had settings for “modern,” “classic,” and “standard.” Some were bright and percussive, which would be great if you're playing like Metallica, but I had to scramble to set everything to “standard” or “classic” and try to make the amp sound warmer and more like an old Fender Tweed.

Badmotorfinger (1991) was more musically complex than Louder Than Love, yet Outshined, Rusty Cage and Jesus Christ Pose were some of your biggest hits.

Chris was brilliant at taking what might seem like conventional formats and breaking them up in odd ways. Outshined is mostly in 7/4, but it was built around a great riff and had a memorable vocal line. And Rusty Cage was in drop B.

The detuned string is a little looser, so it has a slightly different sound and little overtones. It sounded heavy and incredible. So, we kept going with that. On Superunknown, The Day I Tried to Live is built on descending half steps, and it’s in 7/4. And Spoonman switches between 7/4 and 4/4.

Was becoming a multi-platinum band a double-edged sword?

No, because being famous was never a goal, and we could always sleep at night knowing our songs were still weird. But being in the position we were in was definitely strange, and you don’t know what it’s going to be like until you’re there.

You described the last album you did before your breakup, 1996’s Down on the Upside, as somewhat similar to the Beatles’ White Album, for which band members came to the table with finished songs that were recorded without much collaboration.

We were always coming in with our own ideas, but when we did that album, some people wanted their songs to sound just like their demos. It was like, “Well, we’re not making four solo albums here, we’re making a Soundgarden record.”

It bothered me a little because I write with Chris and [bassist] Ben [Shepherd] in mind, and I thought they should write with me in mind. That wasn’t happening – partly because of success and partly because of arrogance.

Was Down on the Upside a misstep?

When you’ve got a number of cooks in the kitchen, there’s always going to be a little friction. But I love the album. Every song on the record is there because the band wanted to learn it and perform it.

Were tensions mounting in the band before Ben stormed offstage during a show in Honolulu in 1997?

There were frustrations, but we were still moving forward. There have always been times when one of us might have a bad gig. We all just thought, ‘Okay, now we’ll get back on track and do the next show.’

Some have viewed that moment as the beginning of the end.

The narrative that’s out there is incorrect. It was just a fucked-up show, and it happened to be the last show of the tour. We all thought we’d wait until the next tour and everything would be fine. Then, months later, Chris decided to quit the band.

Is there a general misconception about Soundgarden among people who only know you for Spoonman and Black Hole Sun?

Thematically, Soundgarden dealt with pretty big things. We didn't write about parties or cars, and we didn't write he said/she said love songs. They were slightly grander and more psychedelic. They were about identity and orienting oneself in a creative, spiritual, and social world.

You had a tremendous comeback with your reunion tour in 2011 and the studio album that followed, King Animal, in 2012. As you’ve documented in your book, Soundgarden were firing on all cylinders when Chris took his own life on May 18, 2017.

In 2023, Chris’ widow agreed to give you the vocal tracks he recorded between 2015 and 2017 for songs you were all working on. Matt Cameron has said you’ve already got eight songs for a new album. Is it difficult to work with recordings Chris made before he died?

It’s emotionally draining and there are things about it that are sad and melancholic. But at the same time, it’s exciting to finish the work that we started with Chris. It’s a tribute to Soundgarden and a tribute to Chris. To not do this would be a great disservice to everyone, including the fans who knew we were in a writing cycle while we were touring.

Will fans recognize the album as Soundgarden?

I made an aphorism earlier about having too many cooks in the kitchen. Well, now we have one less. But we have these recordings Chris is on, and we all have a strong understanding of Chris’ identity within the band, so we are going to honor that completely, even though Chris isn’t there to throw in his two cents. So, yes, it will definitely sound like Soundgarden and I’m going to sound like me.

Do you have a release date in mind?

It’s too early to say. We’re not making this with any set deadline, and we all have other things we’re doing, so we’re fitting it into our schedules when we can. The whole process is a little sideways and backward. We’re not starting from scratch, we’re rebuilding. It’s forensic.

We’re taking things apart and seeing what we’ve got in there and what we need to add to flesh everything out. And we’re planning to take our time with it.

Has age brought you wisdom or inner peace?

Yeah, and with wisdom can come things like patience. But there was never any real major internal conflict. That wouldn’t have worked. We wouldn’t have made the records we did over a long period if it was no fun.

We probably wouldn’t have even stuck it out through [1987’s] Screaming Life. We did something untraditional because it was fun, not because it was lucrative.

• A Screaming Life is out now via William Morrow.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

In early 1984, MTV bubbled with cheery pop acts like Culture Club and the Human League. It was a Crayola-colored world where girls just wanted to have fun, Huey Lewis wanted a new drug and spontaneous group dancing in public was as common as sneezing.

Enter the four-headed glam-metal beast known as Mötley Crüe. Looking and sounding like supervillains from the underworld, the Crüe marauded mass consciousness by way of a pseudo-Satanic, post-apocalyptic-themed video for Looks That Kill, the first single from their breakout sophomore album, late 1983’s Shout at the Devil.

The song’s brash, sawtoothed guitar riff had a Pavlovian effect on millions, pulling America’s alienated teens toward their TV screens with tractor-beam efficiency.

The Looks That Kill riff is a four-second summation of everything that was awesome about ’80s metal. It’s one of those instantly iconic guitar figures that sound like they fell from the sky, fully formed and howling for blood. In truth, however, this riff took many incarnations on its way to becoming a sonic weapon in the Crüe’s hands.

Its origin story takes us into the heart of Neon Decade-era Hollywood, where Mötley and their fellow Sunset Strip rockers were blazing a musical trail that reeked of booze and Aquanet.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Stop reading now and listen to the song Young Girls by the pop-metal band Dokken. No, really – do it.

Yep, the opening riff is damned near identical to the one from Looks That Kill – a rhythmic pattern built from twin palm-muted tonic pedal tones interspersed with descending chords played an octave higher. Structurally speaking, a single half-step is the only thing setting these two chord progressions apart. Like the Looks That Kill riff – and, for that matter, all the others we’ll be exploring – Dokken’s riff kicks off the song without accompaniment.

On first impression, despite Dokken guitarist George Lynch’s undeniable guitar prowess, the Young Girls riff comes off as a no-calorie Looks That Kill knockoff, lacking the rude, dirty tone that gives the latter its sledgehammer wallop.

However, closer inspection reveals that Looks That Kill might be the imitator here; the European release of Breaking the Chains, the Dokken album that contained Young Girls, came out almost exactly two years before Shout at the Devil.

Precluding any premature assumptions that Young Girls was written before Looks That Kill, Mötley Crüe premiered the latter song live at Pasadena’s Perkins Palace on April 19, 1982, according to setlist.fm.

Since Mötley formed in January 1981, it’s possible, if unlikely, that Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx had already written the song by the time the European version of Dokken’s Breaking the Chains came out in September of that year.

However, Looks That Kill doesn’t appear on live Crüe bootlegs from ’81, so the odds are far greater that Lynch and vocalist Don Dokken penned Young Girls before Looks That Kill was a glimmer in Nikki Sixx’s twisted imagination. Could a gig that Mötley Crüe played with Dokken at the Roxy in November 1981 have sown the seeds of inspiration inside Sixx’s skull?

Breaking the Chains also featured a tune called Stick to Your Guns, which, like Mötley Crüe’s debut single of the same name, used the line “You gotta fight!” to drive home a message of perseverance in the face of hardship.

The Crüe’s single came out in May 1981 – four months before the European release of Breaking the Chains – so once again, no definitive conclusion on which song was written first can be made until one of the songwriters lets that information out of the cellar.

Out on the Streets, That’s Where We’ll Meet

The chord progression from Young Girls wasn’t the first – nor the last – to bear a strong resemblance to the one from Looks That Kill. For example, the rhythm guitar performance that opens a song called Tell the World by Mötley Crüe’s glam-metal brethren in Ratt belongs to the same family of riffs.

Tell the World first appeared on the compilation album Metal Massacre, which was released June 14, 1982, about two months after Mötley’s onstage premiere of Looks That Kill. A new version of Tell the World surfaced on Ratt’s self-titled debut EP, which came out roughly one month before the September 1983 release of Shout at the Devil.

Notwithstanding the musicians’ well-known passion for intoxicants, there’s little chance that the similarity between the Looks That Kill and Tell the World riffs escaped both bands’ notice.

However, considering the close timing of the two songs’ releases, it’s possible that, rather than this being a case of one riff directly inspiring the other, these guitar lines emerged side by side during group rehearsals or songwriting sessions between Nikki Sixx and the late Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby.

In his book Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll, Ratt vocalist Stephen Pearcy recalled that certain members of Ratt and Mötley were thick as thieves, at one time forming a street gang called the Gladiators. “Robbin Crosby and I were closest with [Crüe drummer] Tommy [Lee] and Nikki, and we started tripping around with them frequently,” Pearcy wrote.

Sixx and Crosby, the latter of whom co-wrote Tell the World with Pearcy, were especially tight, eventually sharing a living space. As told in Sixx’s book The Heroin Diaries, the bassist moved in with Crosby after Mötley wrapped up their Shout at the Devil tour.

Naturally, the friendship between Sixx and Crosby sparked some musical collaboration. Sixx confirmed this in a Facebook post from July 2025. After writing that Robbin “had a heart of gold,” he noted, “[I] look forward to finishing some of these songs we started down the road.”

During a conversation with SiriusXM radio personality Tommy London in 2022, Pearcy revealed that he and Crosby rehearsed with Sixx and Lee “a couple of times” in the early ’80s. “I don’t know if we wanted to start a band or if we were just jamming, but something was getting intense in there,” he said.

The singer added that while Sixx ultimately decided to go his own way, “if that would have been a band, it would have been a great band, actually. I don’t know what songs we played, but we were very supportive of each other back in the day.”

Did the alliance between these musicians give rise to the Looks That Kill and Tell the World riffs… or might Ratt, Dokken and Mötley Crüe all have drawn inspiration from an unexpected source that predates glam metal?

The Journey Begins…?

Various rhythm guitar performances from songs that came before Young Girls, Tell the World and Looks That Kill vaguely foreshadow these later songs’ signature riffs, perhaps even helping inspire them. One example is the guitar line that drives You Don’t Have to Be Old to Be Wise from Judas Priest’s 1980 album British Steel.

The link between this tune and Looks That Kill is especially evident at the song’s end, with the group’s shout-along “You! Don’t!” chant prefiguring the gang vocal in the chorus of the latter song.

That said, Where Were You by Journey might be the song that started it all. It appeared on Departure, released in early 1980 and co-produced by future Shout at the Devil engineer Geoff Workman.

Listening to Where Were You and Looks That Kill back to back is a study in the contrasting directions a musical idea can take in the hands of two different bands.

Rather than flying headlong into over-the-top metal aggression, Journey used their riff as the starting point for a high-energy pop-rock tune whose vibrance outweighs its bitter lyrics. The song’s buoyant feel stems in part from guitarist Neal Schon’s relatively moderate use of overdrive.

He likely got his gritty tone on this song by playing a Gibson Les Paul through a Marshall or a “jumped-up Hiwatt head,” the latter of which was one of his go-tos in the early ’80s. Regardless of this song’s possible status as a forerunner to Looks That Kill, Schon’s searing lead playing on Where Were You is worth checking out.

Thus, the journey of the Looks That Kill riff appears to have begun at the dawn of the Decade of Decadence, when Schon cooked up a rhythm guitar part that might make him the unlikely godfather of ’80s glam metal.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Kurt Vile – the “slacker poet of modern indie rock” – has just released an album that's a love letter to the scene that made him, Philadelphia's been good to me.

And, much like his music – which has been guitar through and through since the beginning – Vile is also sticking to his belief that dead strings sound better than new ones.

“We had a new guitar tech, and the first thing he did on the first day – I wasn’t thinking about it – was cut all the strings off. It was devastating,” he laughs.

“[Noted record producer and Vile collaborator] Rob Schnapf is all about that too; I sort of learned that about him. New strings take a while to break in, especially when you’re playing live. When you’ve got to change the acoustic strings, you’re gonna have a weird show at first. They just sound so different, like bells or something.”

A steady companion throughout this record has been a Gretsch Tennessean – specifically, one that he picked up from Travis Good of the Sadies, Canada’s cult rock/alt-country band.

“If you ever see him play, he just shreds so hard,” gushes Vile. “If you look at the fretboard of this guitar, it’s just so worn in from his playing. He sat in when we played Toronto and lent me the guitar to see if I wanted to buy it.”

Vile immediately took to it and “laid down something with the band.” As he explains, some guitars “just sound and feel great and play themselves,” so much so that he decided to take the Gretsch on the road with him.

“It sounds so good in the studio. It’s got really hot pickups. It’s the lead guitar on Zoom 97, 99th Song, and Every Time I Look at You. It really cuts through.”

In a 2020 interview with Guitar World, Vile spoke about the guitars he’s loved and lost – and why he believes that a guitar's cool factor is as important as its sound.

For every wildly successful Metallica, there are countless metal bands that never grabbed the brass ring. In the ‘80s, extreme metal was breaking through, and there was a plethora of great bands to choose from.

While most never reached the heights of the Big Four, many of them are still slugging it out, and they’ve stuck around long enough for new generations of fans to discover them.

When the New Wave of British Heavy Metal hit in 1979, it encompassed a wide variety of bands – from Iron Maiden to Def Leppard. Raven and Venom were both three-piece outfits from Newcastle, England.

Raven’s sound was more upbeat than the Satanic darkness of Venom – and Raven singer/bassist John Gallagher jokingly described the other band’s sound as “Motörhead, on the wrong speed, in a cement mixer!”

Both bands were on the indie label Neat Records, whose owner, Dave Wood, told Gallagher that a guy with the biggest independent record store on the East Coast wanted to work with Raven. “America was a huge thing,” Gallagher recalls. “I never knew anyone who’d been there.”

The guy was the late Jonny Zazula, who signed Metallica and Anthrax to his Megaforce label, and added Raven too. “Jonny Z changed our lives,” Gallagher confirms.

“He was the next really seismic event for us. He was a larger-than-life character – one man against the world, definitely a David against Goliath. He was like a preacher, coming down from the mountain with the metal gospel and spreading it around the world.”

Metallica and Raven went on tour together. KJ Doughton, who ran Metallica’s first fan club, recalls: “Raven’s debut album, Rock Until You Drop, was the first NWOBHM album I’d ever purchased.” The band were featured on a lot of compilation albums, “and they were often the best band featured.” He went to three shows on the tour and argues: “Raven rivaled Metallica as a live band.”

Exodus came out of the legendary Bay Area thrash scene as San Francisco became a crucial area for the development of thrash metal. While it may seem odd that such violent, aggressive music could come from an area so mellow, it was a place where movements – beat poets, hippies, bikers, or the gay community – thrived.

Thrash was even new territory for the musicians who played it. Guitarist Rick Hunolt joined Exodus in 1984, not long before they recorded Bonded By Blood. He’d grown up with Zeppelin, Bad Company, and Thin Lizzy, and Exodus was the first time he’d heard thrash.

“It was all so new back then; no one was doing it,” he says. “I thought, ‘Dude, this shit is crazy – this music is insane!’” Of course, Bonded By Blood is widely considered one of the great classics of the genre. Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian said of it: “Best debut album of the Big 5? I think so.”

In the beginning, most artists didn’t think of success. “Nobody had any idea it was gonna be this huge,” says Hunolt. “It wasn’t about money for a very long time.”

Jeff Becerra, lead singer of Possessed, says: “We felt like we were part of a movement, like a revolution.” But he recalls that bands had to be unique. “If you came out as an Exodus clone band, that shit would not fly. Copying a band was instant suicide. You had to be original or you didn’t get a place in line.”

One of the most underrated bands on the SF scene was Blind Illusion, who had a trippy hippie vibe and weren’t afraid to bring new elements into their music. “Anything good we’d hear, we’d put it into the music,” says singer/guitarist Mark Biderman. “The diversity in the scene was really good. You had to stick to your guns and be what you were.”

Les Claypool was their original bassist. He first joined in 1978 as he was learning to play. “By ’80-81, he was already amazing,” Biderman says. “He was a natural, doing some really great stuff.”

When Possessed wrote the song Death Metal, Becerra says they wanted it to be, “an anthem to brand it. We wanted people to say, ‘Oh, that death metal band!’ That would make us musically different in the Bay Area underground and elsewhere.”

Still, it took time for people to catch on to what Possessed were doing – especially the deep, guttural vocals which are now common place in extreme metal. “I wanted the signing to match the music,” Becerra says.

Many thrash bands had to make do with whatever gear they could afford. While some had metal tools of the trade like BC Rich and Jackson guitars, James Hetfield famously had a cheapo Flying V copy as his main instrument for years.

Exodus’ Gary Holt had to record Bonded By Blood with a borrowed Hiwatt amp when his Marshall went down. He used a distortion pedal with the gain all the way off, and the rest of the knobs on full, turning it into a booster. That was also the key to Ian’s rhythm sound with Anthrax. (Randy Rhoads did it too.)

For Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends – one of the most brutal thrash albums ever recorded – Eric Meyer and the late Jim Durkin used the same stock 50-watt Marshall, and Meyer used a delay pedal to add more gain to his tone. In the case of Holy Terror’s massively underrated Mind Wars, the brutal tone was crafted by playing around with an EQ pedal until they got the right level of crunch.

Metallica entered the top 30 with Master Of Puppets in 1986, and went on tour opening for Ozzy Osbourne. The future of metal was pointing to them, and suddenly a very uncommercial genre looked like it had more potential than many had thought.

“When Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth all got big, that’s where we all went, ‘So you’re sayin’ there’s a chance?’” recalls Forbidden guitarist Craig Locicero. “Very few of us made it through the keyhole – there wasn’t a lot of room in there.”

That year marked the peak of thrash, with the arrival of Metallica’s Master, Megadeth’s Peace Sells, and Slayer’s Reign in Blood. The latter is often considered the big daddy of the genre, while Dark Angel’s Darkness would become a big influence on death metal and grindcore.

But a second wave followed in 1987 as Testament, Death Angel, and Sacred Reich stormed out of the gate with excellent debut albums. Anthrax released their masterpiece, Among the Living, while the scene started to go deranged via Death’s Scream Bloody Gore and Napalm Death’s Scum.

Sacred Reich, who took a nod from the punk scene, were one of many thrash bands with a social conscience. Vocalist/bassist Phil Rind says: “I always felt that the lyrics were the nail and the music was the hammer. If you have the opportunity to say something, you should.

“Every band has to figure out who they are, what they want to talk about. I felt if we could help turn somebody on to something, open their minds a little bit and show them how things are, there was a benefit to that.”

While Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer all did well on major labels, others weren’t so lucky. Bands tended to fall into the same traps. Some faltered because the label had no idea what to do with them. Some suffered when the A&R executive who’d signed them moved on or got fired. Many succumbed to label pressure to be more commercial, and alienated their hardcore fanbase.

“There was a lot of interference and push to be more commercial,” says Gallagher of Raven’s nightmare experience. “We went along for the ride – and got left in the middle of nowhere. It took a long, long time to rebuild the damage done by Atlantic, and by ourselves.”

By the end of the decade thrash was preparing to jump the shark, as many fans turned to much heavier music. “The thrash movement, which used to be dangerous, became safe,” Forbidden’s Locicero says. “Thrash lost it edge, but bands like Sepultura, Pantera and Death had a new edge.”

When the hair bands went down in the ‘90s, a lot of heavier outfits nearly went down with them. But metal came back the following decade, arguably bigger than ever. And for the bands that deserved another chance, a new generation of fans were ready to discover them.

Gallagher says Raven aren’t bitter about not being bigger: “There’s nothing to complain about being a cult band. We have a following where we can tour and play live pretty much anywhere. For a couple of kids from Newcastle it’s pretty amazing.”

Doughton argues: “Raven are still in the fight – kicking ass for over 40 years without the creature comforts afforded bigger bands. They’re more deserving of respect than any other band alive, in my opinion.”

“If I wanted to get big, I’d tone down Possessed’s music,” Becerra says. “I’m happy with my cult status. When people were pushing us to get bigger, I didn’t play the game as much as I should have. But I still just want to play my music the way I want to.”

Rind comments: “It’s funny to see parents bringing their kids to our shows and turning them on to Sacred Reich. I appreciate that people still show up. Metal comes from the underground and it never goes away – it just goes back underground and percolates. It always comes back. And the fans are loyal; they’re the best.

“The fans thought we should have been bigger, but I always thought, ‘We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.’ The fact that we got as far as we did is beyond my comprehension. We’re very fortunate.”

The following feature first appeared in the November 2011 issue of Guitar World.

When Guitar World travelled to Milan, Italy, on July 6, to pull together the Big 4 cover shoot with Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, we narrowly managed to corral everyone together for the cover photo.

But due to transportation delays, Metallica six-stringers James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett were unable to participate in the roundtable interview with Slayer's Kerry King, Megadeth's Dave Mustaine and Anthrax's Scott Ian that occurred earlier that day.

When we eventually caught up with Hetfield and Hammett after the show, they treated us to a lively discussion on the legacy of the Big 4, how drummer Lars Ulrich's nervousness helped create the fastest right hands in the business, and why Dave Mustaine should watch his back during the Yankee Stadium Big 4 show.

When I spoke earlier to Kerry King, Dave Mustaine, and Scott Ian, the consensus was clear: they never expected a "Big 4" tour to actually happen.

James Hetfield: We never expected it either!

Kirk Hammett: Definitely not. At a certain point in the Eighties, it was like we were all running neck and neck to see who could outdo each other. For me, that lasted into the Nineties. Then somehow that attitude became less important, and a certain amount of maturity set in. I think when you get older your priorities change. We started to pay more attention to the musical side of things instead of the more superficial side of things.

Hetfield: We've reached 30 years of being a band. We've hit some milestones and we're at a place where we want to celebrate those things instead of running from them. We felt that it was also important to really put this scene on the map. You always hear about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, but what about the Bay Area thrash scene and the Big 4? Hopefully these shows will help us make an even deeper mark in history.

James, when I spoke with the other guys, Scott and Kerry said Lars first suggested the Big 4 tour idea, but Dave thought you had. Can you clarify who first had the idea?

Hetfield: I believe it was me. But my memory is pretty horrible, so Lars may claim a few different things. [laughs]

But it doesn't really matter, because it's happened. It probably came out of us talking like, "Hey, let's do a Bay Area show with all the bands we grew up with." Then, "What about the Big 4?" Obviously the business and logistical side of things is Lars' deal, but it doesn't matter. It came from the Metallica camp.

Dave said he had reservations about joining the tour. Mainly, he wanted to make sure all four bands weren't scattered across different stages or interspersed with other acts. Did you feel the same way?

Hetfield: When the idea first came into our minds, we were thinking of it as just the four of us. The first European dates already had bands on them, but they were great festivals and everyone was able to play them. So it was like, "This is a great, established festival and lots of people are gonna show up. Let's get the Big 4 in there." I mean, you can't really just throw off bands that are already booked. But for the later shows, in Indio and this last European run, it was just the Big 4 and possibly one opener.

Hammett: There were certain situations where the promoter had to put more bands on the bill to break even. I understand the economics of the situation. To me it didn't matter; it was just important that all four of us were together on the same bill.

Obviously for a New York native like Scott Ian, playing at Yankee Stadium is huge. Does that venue hold any particular sentiment for you?

Hammett: Nope. [laughs] I had no idea of the significance until Scott called me and was hyperventilating. He was more hoarse than he's ever been, going – [in a rough voice] – "You don't understand! Yankee Stadium!"

Hetfield: I think the obvious connection for us is with [Yankee pitcher Mariano] Mo [Rivera]. For the past 10 years, he's used Enter Sandman as the music that's played before he comes out on the field. He's helped keep that song alive, especially in that stadium.

And even though they're in a new building now [across the street from the location of the original Yankee Stadium, which closed in 2008], it's still great to have that connection. That's actually how we first announced the Big 4 show at Yankee Stadium. During one game, right as the song started, they cut to this video I did where I said, "Stop, stop!" and then announced the show. It was pretty cool.

Dave mentioned that he's turning 50 the day before the Yankee Stadium show. Do you have anything up your sleeves?

Hetfield: [laughs] It'll be great, and Dave better beware. [laughs] I'm not releasing any ideas at this point, but it'll be fun. What better place to celebrate than Yankee Stadium?

The press first applied the Big 4 label to you guys in the Eighties. Back then, did you feel the same solidarity with the other bands as you do now?

Hetfield: No, that definitely developed over time. Back in the Eighties there were thousands and thousands of bands, but there's not too many that have survived 30 years. The Big 4 moniker didn't mean as much then as it does today.

Hammett: Back then, Scott [Ian] and [Anthrax drummer] Charlie [Benante] were the only people I had relationships with. I had no relationship with anyone from Slayer or Megadeth. But over the years that's changed. Now these guys are my peers, and I'm really proud of all our accomplishments.

I also love that, because of the Big 4, there's a bunch of little kids out there now that think Slayer is the shit. And they'll tell their friends, and the legacy will spread even farther. It doesn't start and stop with one band. Until you see all four bands together you won't get a picture about what this is really all about.

In the early days, did you look to the other bands for inspiration when it came to guitar playing?

Hetfield: Oh yeah. There's a huge competitive vein that runs through my body. Competition has always been a very healthy thing for us. At first it started out as basically pure hatred for pop music and "heavy" radio rock. From that hatred it went on to, "Ah, Slayer released that song... We're gonna do this!" And that's still happening onstage at these Big 4 gigs, too. You go out there and see how good they're doing and how well the crowd is reacting to them, and you think, Okay, "I gotta step it up."

Scott was talking about how the four of you basically invented that signature right-hand rhythmic downpicking approach. James, is that something you and Dave developed together during the early days of Metallica?

Hetfield: It's pretty interesting that someone is trying to define the origin of downpicking. It's silly. It's like, who invented music? There's plenty of punk rock bands doing that technique.

The first time I remember seeing an extremely fast right hand was Johnny Ramone, except he was doing a more acoustic-style thing and not muting and punching it like we ended up doing. That was one main inspiration, and the other one was probably the competition between Dave and I. Like, "Here's a riff... Wait, you can't play that. Hahaha!" And then he'd come back with an even faster riff. So at that time the competition was not only between bands but within them, as well.

Hammett: Actually, I'd say Scott Ian is the king of alternate-picking rhythm playing. He can do that like no one else. He's super tight and doesn't get the credit he deserves.

But as far as downpicking goes, I was always aware of it. I remember the first time I heard [Black Sabbath's] Paranoid back in 1978, I thought, "Wow, that guy is picking all downstrokes." Then I heard Symptom of the Universe and thought, "There it is, he's hitting all those downstrokes." Then I heard the Ramones, and there it was again.

When I was in Exodus with Gary Holt, we had some songs that had that early fast downpicking. Back in the early days, a lot of the Bay Area bands were doing it. It was really integrated into that style of playing. So it was nothing new to me.

You guys just kicked it up a notch.

Hammett: Well, that was because of Lars. Back then he was very energetic and way into Motörhead and Diamond Head. So his goal was always to play fast.

But I also think that during those first few years Lars was just nervous. And when he's nervous, his tempos speed up, so I think trying to keep up with Lars' nerves was as big an influence as anything on our fast downpicking technique. [laughs]

Speaking of Gary Holt, he's been sitting in with Slayer while Jeff Hanneman is recovering from his infection. Kirk, what's it like reconnecting with Gary on a tour like this?

Hammett: It is great to finally tour with Gary Holt. We totally rekindled our friendship and started hanging out a lot and speaking the old language we used to speak to each other in high school. It's very cool and one of the best things that came out of these recent Big 4 dates.

Touring back in the early days was filled with a lot of youthful, drunken troublemaking. There's the classic story of Scott Ian and Cliff Burton pissing down laundry chutes in London...

Hetfield: [laughs] Yeah, now it's shitting down laundry chutes. [laughs]. There was certainly some childish behavior that happened on the road. There was a lot of pent-up energy back then. And I can only speak for myself, but now I'm able to channel that energy a lot better and focus it on the music.

But I will say watching my kid piss off the balcony is still pretty funny. I wasn't even the instigator, but the wife still busted me. But she's supposed to. So I have to tell my son, "Hey, don't do that again!" But it was so funny. [laughs]

Hammett: For these Big 4 shows a lot of the guys have their families out with them. So you don't get that crazy debauched rock-and-roll party scene you might have gotten 15 years ago. I hate to say it but now it's all about dealing with the family and being tired from hanging with the family. But take away all the responsibility and it would be one great party scene at every show.

Kerry was saying that the party still follows him pretty closely. James, are you still not drinking?

Hetfield: Yeah, I've got over 10 years [sober], which is great. For me, there's plenty of ways to party without getting hangovers. I'm grateful to have all my days and not feel like crap.

But it doesn't stop anyone around me from doing it. They gotta do what they gotta do. I know there's also a part of me that celebrates being a loner. So when they go out hanging and partying, I'd just rather not do that. People annoy me a lot of the time. [laughs]

The Metallica machine has grown significantly over the years. Ever get nostalgic for piling in a van and hauling your own gear?

Hammett: Heck no. [laughs] I have neck, back, shoulder and knee problems. But I do get nostalgic for the old days, when things were very simple. To play a show nowadays it means you have to alert everyone and crank up the machine. I wish we were a lot more stealthy and quick on our feet. But we're an established band that's been around for a long time. What are you gonna do? We're brontosauruses.

Hetfield: [laughs] Usually we'll hop in some vehicle together, take a little ride and realize that's good enough. There's just so much other stuff in life that is fun for us and inspires us. And you know what? Heading out on tour is still one of those things. It's hard to say goodbye and leave the family, but once you get out there you realize you really crave this guy hang time, whether that's jamming and writing together or just hanging out at HQ. We're all still a bunch of guys that need the guy hang.

The circle is just a lot smaller than it used to be, and the word party means something a little different now. We do get nostalgic about the old days, and what they meant to us. But we're making "old days" right now. Ten years from now we'll look back and wonder why we were wasting our time looking back at the previous 10 years. We're making history now, and enjoying it while we do it.

James, I noticed that you were having a good time on the side of the stage watching Megadeth's set. Is that a regular part of the hang, too?

Hetfield: Oh, definitely. I love to see what's going on if I have time. It's real nice to get up there early and see what's up. It's annoying that I don't get to stand there the whole time and watch the show. But there are a lot of other parts of touring for us, with the fan club, interviews, and actually grabbing a bite of dinner.

It's nice to see how the crowd's reacting, and it's a good sign when the crowd's up for it. Because, really, we want everyone to do well and feel the vibe. And when a crowd is anti one of the Big 4, that's no fun. We're all moving forward in the same direction, so you gotta put that stuff aside. Sure, you might like one band better than the other, but hey, you're seeing some history.

What are your pre-show rituals before hitting the stage for one of these Big 4 shows?

Hammett: I usually try to see a chiropractor, then I do yoga to get centered, and then I sit and do guitar warm-ups. I have all sorts of different exercises that I do, but basically I run through different scales. The process takes a long time, mostly because of the yoga thing. I have to unwind and center myself and make sure my thoughts are grounded.

I find that when I do yoga before going onstage my show is much better, both mentally and physically. It used to be like, "Let's do a shot of vodka and go!" But after a while that stops working. Now it's like, "Let's do a shot of espresso!" [laughs]

Hetfield: The first part of getting the vibe up for me is the meet-and-greet. Such a good vibe is created from talking with people and hearing what songs they want to hear and how music's affected their lives. Whether people are introducing me to their kids, who they've turned on to our music, or I'm meeting a Make-A-Wish kid, there's always something in the meet-and-greet that's very inspirational.

Then there's the regular stuff, like grabbing some grub, stretching, and getting our warrior gear on, which is basically putting on a different black shirt than the one you already had on. Then we go into the tuning room. I'll go through my vocal warm-up tape, which helps me get prepared. Then we go in the jam room and knock some rust off. We all trickle in at different times and find out how each other is doing.

[Bassist] Rob [Trujillo] is always there first. He's a bass player's bass player. He loves to play. Sometimes I'll sit behind the drums and we'll goof around on some tunes. It's always a good vibe and we come out pretty sweaty. Then it's right to the stage.

During the Clint Eastwood tape [Ecstasy of Gold from Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] we do a little huddle and someone steps up to be the inspirational speaker of the evening [laughs], whether it's telling jokes or memories of the last time we played that city. Dude, we're human and sometimes people need a little help and a push. And when someone's not feeling it, the other guys rally around them.

These Big 4 dates are clearly significant for everyone. Can you recall a specific gig in your early career that was a similar benchmark?

Hetfield: I'd say our first time playing Day on the Green [in 1985 in Oakland, California]. I can't even tell you who else was there, maybe Yngwie Malmsteen and Y&T? All I know is that we were there, [original bassist] Cliff [Burton] was in the band, and it was a big deal, especially for Kirk and Cliff, because it was their hometown show.

Hammett: Definitely. Those Day on the Green shows had been going on since the early Seventies, and I'd seen so many bands play there. One of my all-time-favorite shows that I've ever seen was Day on the Green in 1978. Listen to this bill: AC/DC, Van Halen, Pat Travers, Foreigner, and Aerosmith.

It was so amazing. I remember coming back feeling so inspired that I played my guitar for days. So going from seeing those shows to playing on that stage was amazing. After I found out we were playing it, I was walking on clouds for months. It really felt like we hit a milestone.

Hetfield: Another memorable show was opening for Ozzy [in 1986]. Also playing in Moscow with AC/DC and Pantera [in 1991] after the coup attempt [against the Soviet Union leadership] was unbelievable.

And then there's our second gig ever, which was opening for Saxon. That was definitely a "We've made it" moment... after which we got our $19 pay, hopped back into our Pacer that constantly broke down, and drove home. [laughs]

But these moments are still happening. Playing the Big 4 in Germany was the biggest show we've done in 30 years. It's crazy to think that after 30 years we're still playing before bigger crowds.

Right now, Yankee Stadium is the last scheduled Big 4 show. Are there any plans to add more dates?

Hammett: Well, there's a lot of surf spots I've yet to hit in the world. [laughs] I think we should bring the Big 4 to Indonesia, Tahiti, the Maldives, and Tavarua. [laughs]

But seriously, the vibe at these shows is genuinely good. We'll do a slew of Big 4 shows, go do our own things for a few months, and when we come back everyone is glad to see each other. It's a super-cool thing for us, and I'm sure there are a lot of fans still out there that would love to see the show. I won't say yes, but I won't say no, either.

Hetfield: We don't know what's gonna happen. We're trying to cover the U.S. coasts, at least. Then we gotta get in and start focusing on writing a new record. But more Big 4 shows? We never say never, because obviously, this was never gonna happen in the first place.

Round-table interviews with rockstars always carry a risk. You can make the intros. Dim the lights. But if the chemistry doesn’t fire, it can feel like forcing giant pandas to mate.

Fortunately, as pan-generational giants of US jazz, Al Di Meola and Julian Lage have long admired each other’s work, and while the 71-year-old Di Meola remains a New Jersey tough-guy with a palpable nostalgia for the old industry, offset by the 38-year-old Lage’s more abstract take on the craft and business, we’re soon off to the races.

All that’s left to do is run the dictaphone, tee up a hot topic – from YouTube shredders to the instrument’s next quantum leap – and catch the flying sparks.

Let’s start with the state of the art. There were once clearly defined new frontiers for guitar, from electric blues right through to shred and beyond. Do you still feel there’s a new frontier for the instrument?

Al Di Meola: Well, there seems to be a whole new generation of great players coming up. But as advanced as a lot of them are, I sometimes feel bad that they’re not in the glory days of the record industry any more. And as great of a record as they make, most of us won’t know about it.

You almost feel like, “Man, you missed out on the best ever,” y’know? The brilliance is unbelievable, but I can’t associate them with an album or piece of music. Unlike when we came up in the mid-’70s, when you’d think of Weather Report and then you’d think of Heavy Weather.

There’s more killers out there than ever before. I’m glad I’m not starting now! It’s a good thing I have a little bit of an accumulation of what could be a legacy, like, 30-something albums, and I’m like, “Okay, phew, I got that done.”

Julian Lage: I think you’re right. Granted, I don’t know what the best days of the recording industry were, and I do think it’s a different topography nowadays, [but] I think everything swings back and forth, y’know? I’m not expecting the record industry to go back to what it was, but the desire to take in music the way we all received it years ago – I think that’s coming back.

What would you say are the big obstacles for guitar players these days?

Di Meola: Here’s the big issue that doesn’t get talked about. Back then, before cellphones and computers, we practised way more. And it was way more focused on the songs. For instance, I made an album about 15 years ago at the Power Station in New York. And I noticed, as soon as we were done with the track, which was killer, everybody ran out in the hallway.

Now, back in the day, everybody would run into the control room to hear their performance. But everybody was on their phone, like, networking, y’know? And I said, “This is not right.” We went as far as to tell the receptionist to hold all calls.

That phone is always right there, within arm’s length. We got addicted to something that we can’t break. But back in the time when we didn’t need it because it didn’t exist, our focus on our work was phenomenal. Like when I did The Guitar Trio with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía: the first tour, we were in our hotel rooms practising for the show that night because we knew we had to be up on our game.

There was no “let me check my phone”. And when I listen to those records, I cannot do what the hell I did back then now. Not that I want to, by the way. Velocity isn’t my number one desire. I’ve been devoting more time to composing.

Is it more helpful to have constraints or freedom when you’re creating music?

Di Meola: My record company gave me, on my last record, as much time as I wanted. And I went, “Boy, that’s a good thing and a bad thing.” Because in the days when they had deadlines for shipments, you had to be done no matter what. In a way, it was good to have that pressure. Otherwise, you start experimenting, doing so many different things, and then you go, “Wait, let me listen to those early takes” – and you already had it.

Lage: I’ve never made a record in more than a few days, ever in my life. It’s always been one or two days, or three days if you really have a big budget and everyone’s available. But I have re-made records. I once made a two-day record, and a month later I realised I wasn’t happy with it – I changed everything about it, and I did another two days. But my perception of what’s a limiting or liberating factor isn’t always accurate.

I can see a situation presenting all these challenges, then in retrospect I look back and realise I had complete freedom. And vice versa: there have been times when I thought, “I have all this freedom, why am I not getting anything I like?” So I can’t say I’m the most solid barometer of what’s helping me and what’s limiting me.

Di Meola: The barometer, Julian, is when you record something, and you want to hear it over and over. I recorded a whole record called The Infinite Desire [1998] and at the end I just didn’t feel like hearing it. So I wound up re-recording the whole record. It took a lot of guts, it took some extra money, whatever, but I gotta like what I do. Then again, I am talking about a different time with better budgets than what we see on our horizon, which is like, “Holy shit.” It looks massively different now.

Guitar virtuosity can be a double-edged sword. What does it mean to you, in its most positive and negative sense?

Di Meola: It’s a balance, man. It’s the variety. It’s the ingredients you put in the soup. If it’s all velocity, it’s overkill. Not that I haven’t been accused of that a few times. But it should be a story within a story. Velocity for velocity’s sake is not the key.

It’s about the lines you play and how they meet one another. There was a big emphasis on velocity back in the ’70s. It was insane, but luckily I was with Chick Corea and playing some meaty compositions in the context of displaying whatever youthful velocity I had at the time.

You need a composition. There’s no two ways about it. If a guy’s only playing licks, they might be phenomenal licks, but what’s it pertaining to? So I have, over the years, been paying less attention to technique and more to developing as a composer because that’s what keeps the attention of the audience. Soloing is an aspect of it, but that’s not going to hold many in the audience.

The worst thing in the world is if you hear [an ambitious part] in your head and it comes out sloppy. So that’s where the ability to play technically – at the moment you hear it in your head – is important. Because there’s nothing worse than sloppy.

What’s your take on the virtuosity debate, Julian?

Lage: I feel the same way about that balance, y’know? My definition of virtuosity has definitely changed over the years. I think, especially in my generation, there’s often a coyness about virtuosity.

Like, you might have the ability to do it, but you don’t because that would be too forward or something. And I’ve had some pitfalls, where I maybe had the ability to play something but didn’t do it at a moment when it would actually have been good for the music. I’ve definitely shifted my perspective on that. Anybody who’s in service of the music, with whatever skills they have at their disposal, I think they’re using it responsibly and beautifully.

And as Al said, it’s as much about space as it is about velocity or density or harmonic complexity, or whatever it might be. You know, I hear Julian Bream, and I think that’s the mastery level I dream of. Or I think Jim Hall is one of the great virtuosos. He was so self-effacing and maybe never thought of himself as ‘that player’, but his mastery over space and time, you can’t tell me that’s not the highest level of virtuosity.

But I don’t think there’s anything offensive about a kind of rudderless virtuosity, either. I just don’t think it does anything for you as a player.

How do you stay in touch with the spirit of music when you play, rather than just mechanically operating the guitar?

Lage: I come from a couple of different traditions of players that really celebrate the kind of kinaesthetic experience of playing the guitar. You think of someone like Derek Bailey, or even Fripp, for that matter. Y’know, players who create sound with an instrument using their gestures, but in an unusual way, and there’s something that feels good about it.

I’ve just never been someone who’s good at warm-ups or ratcheting things up to a certain level. I’m rather rough around the edges in those respects, to be honest. But I play a lot of guitar, and things show up. After an hour of playing, I feel different than after 10 minutes, and different again than after four hours of playing.

If something’s still not coming together, I’ll take a moment and work on it. But not too much. When I was younger, I practised maniacally – and it was good, but I could hear in my own playing, especially on the bandstand, that I was someone who practised a lot, and that was a different thing than the players I was looking up to, who just kind of emanated this thing.

So I made a decision to kind of chill out a little bit, so it didn’t sound like I was preparing all day for something. If I played different music that required it, that would be different. But I’m involved in group improvisation music and songs that are more from the Americana tradition. It’s a different swagger.

You both have a love and appreciation for the acoustic guitar. What do you get from that instrument that you don’t get from the electric?

Di Meola: Well, rhythm is one. The way I’d approach playing rhythm on acoustic guitar is different than with an electric. Electric is more of a voice; it’s like a singer, there’s more lyrical possibilities that you don’t have with an acoustic. But the nature of my compositions signal the necessity of playing with my nylon Spanish guitar because there’s a lot of arpeggiated, rhythmic, syncopated things.

Plus, in some ways, I’ve exhausted the louder electric days. Even though I’m trying to keep it alive, my tendencies over the last 30 years have been going more and more for this acoustic ensemble. Whether it’s a trio or quartet or quintet, it’s just the way it’s gone due to aging and maturity. And the music has gotten deeper as a result.

I feel like I’m more and more into the acoustic camp overall. I got that bug back when I was playing with Paco. With my own band, we had 10 tons of equipment and we’d be rolling up these cases to the airport check-in counter, and they’d weigh it all and at the end they’d charge me $13,000 because it was so overweight.

I’d be crying sometimes, like, “Please, give us a break!” And then I’d watch Paco. Not even a spare guitar. He had his cigarettes in his suitcase, one shirt for a tour. One! I asked him: “Paco, how do you have one shirt?” One day, I caught him in the bathroom, and he had his shirt off and he was taping paper towels under his armpits. I said, “Why are you doing that?” And he said: “One shirt!”

What does the acoustic guitar mean to you, Julian?

Lage: I think of myself as an acoustic player first and foremost. Anything I’ve ever done on electric is kind of an extension of that same sound. But they are different. The electric basically implies that I’m playing with an ensemble, so my role is more one of orchestration – how I contribute to the sound and how I fit between the bass and the drums.

And acoustic is usually more something I would be doing if it was just me, and that is a bit more ‘Technicolor’, frankly. I hear such a wide range of frequencies because nothing’s covering it up. No other sound is there.

So, in my head, acoustic is the louder, more luscious sonic world, and the electric is a little more penned-in, but it kinda threads a needle through an ensemble. I always wanted to have that experience of an electric being this kind of unleashed voice. But it’s just not my constitution. I don’t like loud sounds. I don’t want to play loud.

Julian, you’ve just played in London at the Royal Festival Hall, and Al, you’ll play the Barbican in June. What does the city and its music scene mean to you?

Di Meola: I haven’t been to London in a good five years. So there’s a lot of anticipation for the show. I have a lot of reasons to love London. I once did a tribute record to The Beatles at Abbey Road, and that was one of the highlights of my career.

I felt like a five-year-old at Disney World. It was so great to be in the same environment and tell the engineer: “Pro Tools? No, no, no, I want to go 8-track analogue. Y’know, like the other group that recorded here?”

I did three tracks and I was very happy with the sound. Like, “Wow, that studio really is something.” Then I went back to New York to try to finish it. But I couldn’t match it sonically, so I knew I had to go back.

But before I went back, I rented a house in the Hamptons to really focus on arranging the rest of the pieces. And it just so happens that my next-door neighbour was Paul McCartney. We got to talking, you know, but I never told him who I was. I had this fear that maybe he wouldn’t know me.

But the next year, I rented the house again and by then I had the finished product. And my wife said, “Why don’t you write him a little note about what The Beatles meant to you growing up?” So I stuck the note in the CD case, and when he pulled into the drive in his brown Rolls Royce, she said, “Go down there, give him the CD.” I said, “Oh no, I can’t.” She goes, “Give me that thing!” She runs down – and I was so impressed that she did that for me. It was just a beautiful memory that will live with me.

• Al Di Meola plays the Barbican in London on June 25. For more information on the guitarists’ latest projects and forthcoming tour dates, visit Al Di Meola and Julian Lage.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

So, guys, anything new? Here at Guitar World, we believe in hitting artists with the hard questions first.

“Not much at all,” Geddy Lee deadpans. The bassist is speaking via Zoom from his home studio, a wall of basses behind him. “I’ve just been playing a lot of cards with Al, trying to win some money off him.”

“He always does,” says Alex Lifeson, joining in on Zoom from his own home music sanctuary. “He’s vicious at Go Fish.”

While we’re on the subject of games, suffice to say that nobody – including, for the longest time, Lee and Lifeson – had “Rush going on tour in 2026” on their bingo cards, and it wasn’t until the spring of last year when the idea started to look like a distinct possibility. Even after the two had finally come to a decision that yes, this was going to be a thing, they kept word from leaking out for months.

“Nobody knew,” Lee says emphatically. “I didn’t even tell my kids.”

“In this day and age, it’s so difficult to keep a secret,” Lifeson says. “We did our best to keep it quiet, and we were pretty successful, I think.”

The announcement was made almost casually, during a private event for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, last October, when, responding to an intentionally placed “fan” question asking if the band would ever tour again, Lee answered, “I kind of think we should tour next year.”

Initially, the tour, dubbed Fifty Something, was a relatively short run of seven major cities, but following near-instantaneous sell-outs, more cities were added, and then more, and as it now stands, the tour will encompass North America, South America and Europe, 86 concerts in all, and won’t wrap until April 2027 in Helsinki, Finland.

“It was very surprising,” Lifeson says of the reaction from fans.

“We knew there were fans that wanted us to come back,” Lee says. “We’d get messages from fans all the time and they want to see Al and me playing together again in whatever form we had chosen. We’re very fortunate we have such a loyal fan base, but I don’t think Al or I or anyone associated with us expected the overwhelming response to the very first announcement. It’s very nice, very gratifying.”

Lee admits to feelings of frustration following the conclusion of Rush’s last tour, R40, in 2015. In his view, the band was playing at peak form, and both he and Lifeson wanted to keep going. Drummer Neil Peart, however, had other ideas about how he wanted to live the rest of his life. “He was so happy being a full-time dad,” Lee says, “and his body just said to him, ‘That’s enough as a touring musician. I can’t do it anymore.’”

Over the next few months, Lee and Lifeson accepted Peart’s decision. “That’s life – no hard feelings.” Lee says. “The man certainly earned a break from the madding crowd.”

Following Peart’s tragic death in 2020 from glioblastoma, Lee and Lifeson gradually occupied themselves with various activities. Lee, who already published his first book, Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass in 2018, cranked out two more: 2023’s My Effin’ Life: From Holocaust Roots to Rock and Roll Stardom and 72 Stories: From the Baseball Collection of Geddy Lee. “Writing my first book was very gratifying,” he says. “It taught me that instead of banging out notes, I can bang out words. It sent me down a different path.”

Lifeson posted a couple of solo instrumental tracks, Kabul Blues and Spy House, on his website before forming an alt-rock band called Envy of None with bassist Andy Curran, guitarist Alfio Annibalini and lead singer Maiah Wynne. The group issued a self-titled debut in 2022 and a follow-up, 2025’s Stygian Wavz, but played no live shows. “I really didn’t have any interest in going back on the road,” Lifeson says. “I felt like I was really done with that.”

The former bandmates reunited on stage a few times in 2022, first with Primus to celebrate South Park’s 25th anniversary (the show’s co-creator, Matt Stone, played drums on Closer to the Heart), and they performed mini-sets of Rush classics at a pair of tribute concerts for the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, during which they were backed by a number of drummers: Dave Grohl, Tool’s Danny Carey, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and former David Bowie sticksman Omar Hakim.

“The Taylor Hawkins tribute shows were pivotal for a lot of reasons,” Lee says. “Obviously, we got a chance to pay tribute to Taylor, but also we got a chance in our own way to pay tribute to Neil, which was long overdue. To play our songs again with some other brilliant musicians, it showed us that our music is still alive.”

Riding high from those shows, the two briefly considered taking things a step further and playing together in an official capacity. “But it didn’t work out,” Lee says. “No sense dwelling on it, just move on with your life.”

For Lifeson, that meant tending to his health. Stomach surgery to correct a hiatal hernia resulted in gastroparesis, a chronic condition in which the muscles in the stomach don’t move food as they should for it to be digested.

The guitarist visited a wellness clinic in Austria and learned to manage the condition through strict lifestyle changes (alcohol, smoking, gluten, lactose and junk food are out). Once he was back home, he would get together with Lee, just like always, and soon they began jamming. Then they began jamming on Rush songs, just two old friends having a blast.

Only it wasn’t that simple. This wasn’t just two old friends having a blast. It was something more than that… but what? Could they really tour once again as Rush? Should they? Warming up to the idea took some time, especially for Lifeson, who had previously stated that Rush’s touring days were over. And the biggest question of all was, if they did play live again, who would sit in that drum seat? As Lee says, “How do you ask someone to replace a guy who’s irreplaceable?”

Through his bass tech, John “Scully” McIntosh, Lee was tipped off about Anika Nilles, a German composer, producer and music educator, and as it turns out, a virtuoso drummer (her resume includes a 2022 tour with Jeff Beck). As Lee recalls, “We did a Zoom call together and said, ‘Look, we’re thinking of going on the road, and obviously we need a drummer. Would you be interested in playing some Rush songs with us?’

That’s really all we asked. She was totally game for it and said, ‘That sounds great.’ So she hopped on a plane and played with us for a week, and it was on the last day Alex and I looked at each other and went, ‘Wow, I think we have a drummer… Now what the fuck do we do?’”

When was it exactly when you two started playing Rush songs together again?

Geddy Lee: I would say it was in late 2024. I had just finished my third book, and I was sitting down here looking at all these bass guitars, and they were making me feel very, very guilty. So I started getting my fingers back in shape – and they were really out of shape.

I came down every day and played, and I was having dinner with Al one night and I told him, “Yeah, I’m getting my fingers back in shape. I’ve been writing a bit of lyrics and stuff. Maybe we should jam.” We always saw each other anyway every couple of weeks for dinner or drinks or something.

Al came over and we just started jamming and having fun the way we always do after we drink too much coffee. [Laughs] We’re having a laugh. Then Al, I think, or one of us suggested, “Let’s play a Rush song for fun and see if we can remember it without doing any homework.” Of course, we could only remember parts of them. That’s kind of how it started.

Aside from Rush songs, what else were you jamming?

Lee: We were just jamming, making shit up. That’s what jamming is.

When two guys from Rush get together to play Rush songs, what do they play?

Alex Lifeson: There are only like a thousand songs to choose from. We tried to get the easiest ones –

Lee: There are no easiest ones. [Laughs]

Was it just the two of you playing on your own, or did you have any sort of rhythm loop for accompaniment?

Lee: It was just the two of us. Sometimes we’d pull up the song and play along with it just to see – “What the fuck does that sound like?” That would help you remember all the things you forgot. I think Al remembers Freewill being the first song we tried.

Lifeson: Sure it was, yeah.

Lee: Which for a bass player is not a walk in the park. That was interesting to see my fingers tell me to fuck off. But it was fun. We ended up really laughing. And when we walked away from that goofy session, not only had we put some interesting jams down on tape, which I don’t know what’ll ever happen with them or they’ll remain in the bin, but we walked away with this smile. Playing our songs was so much fun.

The next time we got together to jam, we started challenging each other – “Can you remember this one?” Then we would flail through it. After enough of that, we started getting this sheepish grin at the end of our sessions. It was like, “What are we doing here? Are we doing something? Are we quietly tricking each other into going back on the road?” But that was still a ways away before we could agree to that.

What was that moment like when one of you finally said it out loud? Who was the first to say it?

Lee: I don’t know how that went. In the past, it was usually me who would say, “Hey, Al, do you want to do some shows? Do you want to think about this?” But I was a bit sheepish to do that because we’ve already been down that road and it didn’t work out after the tribute shows for Taylor.

We went down that road a little bit, but Al wasn’t into it for a lot of reasons. I don’t know who… I think we both just kind of gravitated to looking at each other saying, “This is kind of fun.”

Lifeson: I remember Ged saying, “We should get together. You should come over, have a coffee. There’s some stuff we need to talk about.” I went over and we did exactly that. We kind of talked about, “Why don’t we just play one of these days? Just play some stuff, maybe work on some stuff or whatever.”

That’s what led to that. I think Ged knew I was not really enthusiastic about even considering going back on the road, doing a tour, especially something that’s turned into this size of a tour. I think he was cautious and just wanted to have… I mean, we’ve been playing together for 60 years, and he just wanted to play together. That’s what we did the first day, and we were laughing and smiling and really enjoying it.

Like he said, we were jamming. We were playing bluesy stuff and whatever, and that led to playing a Rush song or two. That eventually led to playing maybe more Rush songs, and then the ball started rolling and it started to grow on its own, and it seemed to have a life of its own and an energy of its own. Everything started falling into place and moving toward ultimately getting together and doing this tour.

I needed convincing, for sure. Once I felt better – I got my health in order at the beginning of 2025, and that was one big hurdle for me. I was not feeling well enough health-wise to go back onto the road or to commit to doing anything with that sort of thing in mind.

But as the time went by and I felt good, and we started playing more and other ideas came up, it seemed natural that we would follow through with this and really start playing together.

It’s one thing to do one song, but it’s a whole other thing to do 40 songs. And I’ll tell you, it’s hard. It’s hard, hard, hard, but it’s really exciting, and it feels really good when the songs start coming together, and the fingers start going to the right places and it all comes back to you. Muscle memory is a mysterious thing, but it’s beautiful.

That must have been a strange and incredible process. As you said, you needed convincing…

Lifeson: It was gradual. When we started really sounding good together again, like more recently, when I could see a faint light at the end of the tunnel, it almost turned a switch on for me. I went from having self-doubt and not being really positively sure that I really wanted to do it… but I’d made the commitment. It was at that moment that I realized that, yes, this is going to be a good thing. It’s going to be a good thing for me personally and for us.

No doubt you were also considering your health and wondering, “Physically, should I do this?”

Lifeson: Well, I just concentrated on my digestive system. [Laughs] That was the main problem I was dealing with. I’ve had arthritis for years, and I’m pretty successful in dealing with that, but it was the digestive issues that were the real problem.

Millions and millions and millions of people go through that sort of thing. I managed to find a good way to mitigate some of the worst parts of it, and I just feel so much better about my energy and everything in my life, really.

Would it be right to assume that numerous drummers have approached you two over the years?

Lee: Well, yes. I mean, people who are close to us – good friends that are successful drummers – would never infer something like that because they have too much respect, not only for Neil and for the situation… They were grieving as well, so they wouldn’t be so selfish as to say something inappropriate like that.

There were many other drummers who reached out to me in the aftermath of Neil’s passing that were pushing themselves, and that was most distasteful to me. It was completely inappropriate timing.

Of course, we have some great pals who are amazing drummers in their own right, and they’re in very successful bands. We didn’t really know where to begin to look when it was time to choose a drummer. We started with Anika because she had been recommended to me, and I had done some research on her. I loved her vibe and her diverse style, and I had her in mind in case I was going to do some kind of project.

We didn’t have a list. We never, ever accumulated a list of drummers. When Al and I finally said, “Okay, I guess we’re getting serious. Who’s going to sit in that impossible seat?” How do you ask someone to replace a guy who’s irreplaceable?

It’s daunting. We started with the name that was already on my mind. We called her up, she came, and we hit it off. Once we were sure… She brought a lot to the table, but more than her chops, more than her guts and her willingness to sit in that hot seat, she brought an intelligence and a story. I love her story.

This is someone who grew up in Germany in a family of musicians. Her dad was a drummer. She’s played drums her entire life. She doesn’t even remember the first time she picked up sticks. It’s who she is. I thought, “Wouldn’t that be nice to bring someone so fresh in our midst to inspire Al and me?”

She’s a bit younger than us, and she likes to remind us of that. Every time we tell a story about a gig in 1971, she goes, “Wow, I wasn’t even born yet.” I’m just a big fan of hers, and I think Al has become a big fan of hers.

Part of this little journey we’re on now is about rooting for her. I really want her to succeed in this moment because she’s taking all the heat. The fans love her right now, but they’re going to scrutinize her, and she’s up for it. I just love that about her.

Did you give Anika a big list of Rush songs to prepare for when she came to play with you?

Lee: We just picked a few classic Rush songs. I said, “Learn these as best you can and let’s see what happens.” It was very casual, very relaxed, and it wasn’t an audition. We said to her, “We’re not auditioning drummers, but your playing really interests us. So just come and let’s see what happens.”

Lifeson: I didn’t know what the expectations were. I probably thought, “She’s very good. She seems to have a good grasp of the songs technically.” But there was something that was just not quite there. It wasn’t really until the last day that suddenly she sort of blossomed and understood better what we were kind of looking for or going after. And then after that, it’s just been better progressively through the whole year of rehearsals we’ve been doing.

Lee: On the fifth day, this is what happened: we’d gone four days and Al and I hadn’t even talked about her. We only had her for a few days, so we wanted to work through all these songs and see her reactions. See her gut feel, learn a little bit about it. We didn’t know her. She was a complete stranger, really.

She was a bit intimidated when she first arrived, of course, because she’d heard of the band, but she wasn’t a Rush fan. She didn’t know the songs intimately.

Of course, she knew songs like Tom Sawyer, and she knew of our reputation, and of course, there’s no drummer on the planet that doesn’t know who Neil Peart is and doesn’t revere that name. It was a tall order for her, but we were so busy working through these songs that we hadn’t chatted.

On the last day I said, “Al, can you pop into my house? We have to talk about what’s going on here.” [Laughs] He came over and I said, “What do you think?” And he said, “I don’t know. What do you think?” I said, “I don’t know. What the fuck are we doing?” [Laughs] We talked about her pros and cons. There was a sliver of doubt. Her technique was incredible, her facility…

Playing the fills was the last problem she would’ve had. She nailed the fills. That’s not the thing. There’s a lot more to playing a Rush song than the fills. It’s the feel. It’s the nuances. Our music is idiosyncratic, and that just takes time.

We’ve played Rush songs with maybe five or six different drummers over the last few years. Every time you sit and play a Rush song with a drummer, I don’t care who they are, there’s an adjustment. There’s a little translation that Alex and I have to do with the drummer about this little part or that little part. That’s normal. But we just weren’t sure because this was all new to us. So we went to that last day with an open mind, but a little doubt.

And song after song we played with her, she just killed it. I mean, she understood all those little things that Alex and I had been telling her all that week, and she processed it and delivered. That’s when we looked at each other in the studio and went, “Yep, we have a real problem, because now we have a drummer and we’re going to make a commitment.”

For Anika, it wasn’t just about recreating the records. It was about bringing her own perspective to the music.

Lee: I don’t know if Al feels the same way, but I think she’s very respectful of whose parts she’s playing. She understands that air drummers for the last 45 years have been out there mimicking some of those parts. She wants to do that justice. At the same time, she’s a completely original and independent creative force, but she’s sublimating a bit of that for the sake of a tribute to Neil.

At the same time, the more she knows the songs, the more confidence she has with the songs. There are moments where she’s now able to put her own special sauce on this song or that song. We’ll start looking for moments to let her stretch out. We already have a couple in the set where I look at her and go, “Anika, this is free time. You go wherever you want to go, and I’ll be there. We’ll meet you there.”

I look at it like this: There have been phases to this adventure. Phase one was her understanding Neil’s role in Rush. Phase two is like, we’ve learned all the songs, now let’s have some fun with them. Now we’re massaging the arrangements and seeing how they can go.

At the same time, we’re not out there to turn it into a new thing. We’re there to represent our songs with our hearts and with our best playing fingers forward. And we want fans to celebrate that music with us. The mandate isn’t to change everything. The mandate is to be respectful of the arrangements of the song at the same time elevate from the norm.

You’ve hired Loren Gold as a touring keyboardist, so it’s something of a new presentation.

Lee: That’s correct. That’s what we wanted. When people come in and look at the stage setup, it’s not a trio. It’s not Rush 2.0. It’s a new time and we’ve got a different vibe, but the music is treated respectfully.

Alex, are there any new guitars you’ll bring out on the road?

Lifeson: Yeah, a few. Kirk Hammett gave me one of his Greenies. I’ve been having fun with that. It’s a pretty raunchy Les Paul, for sure. The Gibson Custom Shop did such an amazing job on it. The relic’ing is just spectacular. It sounds really, really great. There’s a couple of other Les Pauls. [He gestures to an Explorer on the wall]

Oh, and I just got this from Gibson. This is a guitar that Cesar [Gueikian], CEO of the company, made with some of the craftsmen there. He sent that along for me to check out, so I’ve been fiddling around with that. It’s so different for me in terms of its shape and style. I’ve got to get used to it.

My original ES-355 has gone to someone else, but I have one of the reissues that I’ll have on the road. I’m still sort of building that arsenal. I think I had 23 guitars on the last tour. I’ll probably have 15 or 16, something like that. I don’t know how many Ged’s going to take out this time around. Ged, I think you had probably 25 basses on the last tour.

Lee: Last tour, I had 27 vintage bases that I played. I don’t know if I’ll get through 27 this time, but it’s a slightly shorter show and I’ve fallen in love with my beautiful ’62 Jazz Bass. I’m going to play that on quite a few songs, but I’m also planning to bring some unusual things out. I’ve got a couple of classic Rickies that I’ll bring out. I’ve got some Hofners and T-birds that I’ve fallen in love with. I’m going to have, I don’t know, maybe 10 to 15 instruments I’ll try to work into the set.

At the end of those five days you did with Anika, if things didn’t work out, for whatever reason, would that have been the end of this experiment, or would you have regrouped and tried something else?

Lifeson: Who knows? I mean, it’s impossible to say.

Lee: My gut tells me we would have regrouped and looked elsewhere, but I’m very happy we didn’t have to do that. We’re really lucky. And also with Loren Gold, our keyboardist – I met him in 2014 when I did a charity show with the guys from the Who in London for their 50th anniversary, ironically.

We kind of hit it off. Again, he was one of those names that just stuck in the back of my mind. And when we talked about adding a keyboard player, his was the first name that came to mind. We’re very fortunate that the two people who were top of our minds both have worked out really, really well. That’s a little bit of a blessing from above, I think. Someone’s looking after us there.

Of course, as you said, Neil is irreplaceable, and he’s beloved by the band’s fans. That said, people seem to be very excited to see Anika play with you guys.

Lee: We’re very gratified with how well she’s been welcomed by the Rush family, so to speak. They haven’t even heard her play one note with us yet, and there’s already this kind of outpouring of love for her, and they’ve shown her tremendous kindness, which I know is inspiring for her. It’s been very gratifying to see the response.

She must be a real inspiration to female drummers around the world.

Lee: Yeah. I think that’s a great part of her story. I love that part of her story. I’ve gotten mail from young girls, older women saying, “Right on, man. Thank you.”

And now she’s part of your story.

Lee: Totally. But let’s be clear: we did not hire Anika Nilles because she’s a woman. We hired her because she’s an incredible drummer, and not just an incredible drummer – an intelligent, hardworking, responsible… I couldn’t even get her drunk last night! [Laughs] I tried.

She’s a unique individual. In many ways, she reminds me of the big goof who sat on the throne before her. She’s a total professional, a work-first person. The fact that she’s female and she’s doing that for women musicians around the world, that’s a bonus. It’s not the reason she’s in that seat.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

John Osborne is one of modern country music’s most notable champions of the B-Bender. But had he taken some friendly advice early on in his career, he might not have made it such a key part of his sound.

Earlier this year, Fender launched Osborne’s signature Telecaster, which came loaded with its first in-house B-Bender system.

The gadget, which leverages a spring mechanism attached to the strap button, is used to – you guessed it – bend the B string a whole step to emulate the sound of a pedal steel. It’s a core part of the country music sound, and one that Osborne developed an affection for early on.

“I heard a solo on the radio on an Alan Jackson song, and I thought, ‘Who is bending that note so perfectly?’” Osborne remembers in the new issue of Guitar World.

“The song is called Who’s Cheatin’ Who? It has these bends that are so snappy, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I learned how to do it with my fingers, but could never quite get the sound right.”

It was only later, after watching a video of Brad Paisley and doing extensive research, that Osborne realized he was missing a trick. The B-Bender. The only problem was, he couldn’t afford one.

It didn’t matter, though. Osborne got so good at emulating a B-Bender with his hands that he managed to fool everyone – even Paisley's guitar tech at a later gig.

“I remember opening up for Brad Paisley in his early career, and his tech was joking with me, ‘Don’t do the B-Bender thing. That’s Brad’s thing,’” Osborne recalls. “Then he looked at my guitar and was like, ‘Wait, you don’t have one!’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I had to learn how to do it like this.’”

Eventually, Osborne did get his hands on a B-Bender, and he’s never looked back since.

“When we recorded [the Brothers Osborne]'s second record, Port Saint Joe, a phenomenal Tele player/artist/songwriter/producer named Keith Gattis – a dear friend of mine who passed away [in 2023] – let me borrow his B-Bender,” he continues. “And when I played that on the record, I realized, ‘This is so much fun.’”

“I finally could get all of the sounds I heard, and it came very naturally because I learned how to do a lot of those things with my hands. After that, I became obsessed with B-Benders.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features a comprehensive celebration of the Telecaster’s 75th anniversary – complete with new interviews with John 5, John Osborne, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and more.

When Kurt Cobain set out to create what would eventually become Bleach, he was still living in Aberdeen, Washington, and working as a janitor.

His guitar playing, coupled with his introspective songwriting, was attracting attention, however – especially when a nascent Nirvana, comprising Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Chad Channing, turned Shocking Blue’s Love Buzz into their live showcase track.

A dozen letters to labels later, Sub Pop head honchos Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman decided to take a chance on a very desperate Cobain, who accepted a less-than-ideal deal that saw the band absorb all the recording costs.

Recorded in four sessions in late December 1988 that spanned roughly 20 hours, Bleach is pure rawness. It cost the band – or, rather, Jason Everman, a musician, soldier, early Nirvana fan, and briefly the band’s second guitarist – $606.17, which he fronted.

“We literally tracked it all in three days,” producer Jack Endino told Cobain biographer Charles R. Cross in an interview published in Guitar World in June 2005.

Their rehearsals carried a similar DIY spirit, as the band honed Bleach in an Aberdeen hair salon owned by Novoselic’s mother, which could only be used after hours.

“The place closed at eight, so we’d start rehearsing then and playing until eight in the morning, when it opened again,” recalled Channing.

Perhaps one of the most underrated elements of Bleach-era Nirvana is Novoselic, who not only served as a reliable friend for Cobain but also stood out as a noteworthy bassist who perfectly complemented the rising face of grunge’s angular guitar playing.

When Cobain brought forward the riff for School, Novoselic told him, “That is the most ‘Seattle’ fucking riff I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Despite the band not living in Seattle, the city’s sludge metal scene of the ’80s and early ’90s, spearheaded by the Melvins, served as a clear influence and gave them a much-needed sense of aspiration early in their career.

Novoselic even went as far as to say that “School is the ultimate grunge song,” and thus, consequentially, the ultimate Seattle song.

Bleach, released on June 15, 1989, did not chart upon initial release, and Cobain in particular was frustrated by Sub Pop’s lack of promotional efforts.

Things started to shift after the British music press began touting the band as rising stars, and Bleach became a staple on many US college radio stations.

Then, following the release of their many-times-Platinum album Nevermind in 1991, Bleach finally received the widespread attention it deserved and became a cornerstone of the grunge movement.

In more recent news, the backline used on Nirvana’s Bleach tour hit the auction block just two months ago.