As headless guitars continue to rise in popularity, one creative luthier's Red Special-inspired take has been dividing opinion online.

Though avant-garde virtuosos like Allan Holdsworth and Eddie Van Halen were early supporters of sans-headstock axes, it took a later generation of players, with Plini at its head, to help the tradition-skewing guitar get its big break.

As such, Brad McDowall's Brian May tribute headless guitar has been turning heads on social media. Comments on his post unveiling the guitar, which tips its (headless) hat to the Queen guitarist's iconic homemade six-string range from “felony” to “need.”

The Instagram post has gained some fun traction, with the headless build following a more like-for-like recreation.

“Finished my newest creation,” his post reads. “My Red Special now has a little brother.”

Granted, the inclusion of an F-hole in the guitar is a little surprising, but otherwise, this writer think it works pretty well. McDowall seems to have brought in a little of Strandberg's semi-hollow Salen Jazz model, which helps convert May's funky body shape of choice into the headless realm, and might explain the F-hole.

Yet, more broadly, the jury is out. One commenter says it's the “first headless guitar I’ve seen that I really like,” while another begs for a seven-string multi-scale model. Then there's one person quoting Dr. Ian Malcolm’s immortal line from Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

The guitar looks to feature Guyton/OEM Series parts, designed to help guitarists build their own Red Specials, as well as Guyker parts.

It's the third Red Special-like guitar made recently. First, May had a special left-handed model made for his friend, Tony Iommi, then there was Steve Vai's heavily personalized take on the recipe. Choice changes had to be made after he said he was like “a giraffe on roller skates” while playing the real thing.

This headless edition completes an unlikely trilogy of Red Special tributes. But it's a crying shame we can't see and hear the guitar in action.

In related news, Brian May has explained what happened when he played through Iommi's rig once, and Ola Strandberg has a fascinating prediction for the evolution of headless guitar designs.

Right before his passing in December 2025, Stax guitar legend Steve Cropper was working on a new record featuring an all-star cast including Eric Clapton, Brian May, Billy Gibbons, and Ronnie Wood.

Now, Cropper’s final project, Watching the Tide – a reference to his performance on Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay – has been confirmed for release on August 28, with the first song, Ticket First, alongside Eric Clapton, giving us a taste of what to expect from the posthumous release.

Speaking about the single and the subsequent album, acclaimed songwriter-producer Jon Tiven – and Cropper’s close collaborator – says, “Making music was Steve's greatest joy. Steve was so encouraged by Friendlytown [his 2024, Grammy-nominated release]. He was adamant he wanted to do another record.

“I sent out some emails to guitar players I knew who had a great affinity for Steve, and two days later, I got an email back from Eric Clapton's manager, saying he’d be in Nashville for a concert and could we do it then,” Tiven recalls.

“He did, I believe, 11 takes on guitar. At the end, Steve and I looked at each other and said, ‘Man, you just turned the song inside out. I think we're gonna have to give you a writer's credit.’ Eric looked pretty stunned by that. And he said: ‘Well, anything to get my name next to Steve Cropper’s…’”

The A-list cameos continue with Brian May and Billy Gibbons, who lend their chops to the ballad My Angels Are Calling, Ronnie Wood on Until Now, and Tiven himself, who takes on lead guitar duties on Blood From A Stone and Here & Gone.

Yet, the process was far from easy, as those around Cropper knew he was running out of time. “I finished the mixes about a week and a half before Steve passed, and we brought a CD to him at the medical facility,” Tiven says.

“He called me the night before he passed to tell me how much he loved it. He was playing it for everyone who came to visit him, telling them it was the best record he’d ever made.”

“I know this record provided great joy to Steve in the last year of his life, and I’m so glad he was able to have this great creative burst that was so strong…” he concludes.

Watching the Tide is available to preorder via Provogue/Artone Label Group.

Does the choice of gear alone determine a player’s tone? Tony Iommi gives his two cents on the highly debated topic, and, well, according to the Black Sabbath legend, it all – or largely – comes down to the player.

His proof of concept? Brian May, who once wrote and performed a solo on the 1989 Sabbath track, When Death Calls.

“I remember years ago when Brian May jumped with us a long, long time ago, and he plugged into a… I think we might have been in the studio, and he got the same sound,” he says in conversation with long-time friend and collaborator, Laney Amplification founder Lyndon Laney, who recently passed away.

“It’s way he played, and it wasn't his gear. It wasn't his guitar. He used a Gibson. I had a white standard Gibson that he played, and it sounded very similar.”

Lyndon goes on to comment, “It's not just the amplifier – it's everything. It's the lead, the guitar, the amplifier, the speaker, the position, yeah, the sweet spot you've got. And most of all, it's the technique and talent.”

Many guitarists have weighed in on the debate over the years. Nuno Bettencourt previously recalled the time he used Eddie Van Halen’s rig, only to realize that, “It’s all about your fingers,” while John Petrucci had the same epiphany when he tried Joe Satriani’s rig.

Steve Lukather once simply summed it up as, “There’s no magic guitar, no magic amp, there’s just magic people.”

In more recent news, Iommi revealed why he shunned the heavy metal tag during the band's early days.

At just 32, Matthieu Lucas has managed to build something extraordinary.

The entrepreneur, guitarist, and music enthusiast has painstakingly chipped away at building the emporium that is Matt’s Guitar Shop from the ground up, attracting A-list clients from all four corners of the globe.

The journey was far from plain sailing. However, judging by the caliber of artist guitars gracing every inch of the walls in this slice of musical paradise – tucked away on an unassuming street in Paris – it has well and truly paid off.

“It was not easy because you just show up at a store, and you look like a baby, and somehow, you start talking big dollars to very reputable dealers or collectors, and some of them were like, ‘How is this possible… this guy is selling drugs somewhere,’” he quips, as he recalls the early days of his ambitious venture.

However, it’s perhaps Lucas’ marketing prowess and ethos – that even the most prestigious of guitars are meant to be played on stage – that has transformed him into the go-to guy for artist guitars, with players such as Marcus King, Craig Ross, Billie Joe Armstrong, Myles Kennedy, and Yungblud all getting in on the action.

“I was very inspired by banks and huge associations buying Stradivarius [violins] very early on and lending them to musicians on tour playing classical music,” Lucas says.

“Guitars need to be shared with the world. That's my theory. That's why we lend ours on stage all the time, and that's always going to raise the value. They're really artifacts of a very specific period when the guitar revolutionized everything.”

What inspired you to start Matt’s Guitar Shop in the first place?

It’s been a little bit more than 10 years, actually. Time flies! [However], it all started when I was 15 years old.

I was not really interested in music or guitar in general. I was just playing video games with a friend of mine. His father showed up in the room and he said, “Guys, you need to listen to AC/DC.” And then I said, "Okay, [I’ll] give this guy five minutes with his old band and then I'm going to be finished with him.”

And we listened, and Angus Young was really the guy who penetrated my brain, and my passion for guitar started there. Six months later, I was seeing AC/DC in a stadium and buying an SG copy, and that started it all. And then I just wanted to buy more and more guitars because I started to discover bands.

Step by step, I went to Paris guitar stores. I was hanging out in a store called Guitar Store in Paris, and the guy was nice to me, and he let me discover the world of guitar sales – buying, selling… the daily life of a guitar shop.

I was already buying and selling privately. So it [Matt’s Guitar Shop] started in an apartment in Paris – a very small apartment. Three years, maybe four years later, we had the opportunity to get the place here, and that was it.

What were some of the initial challenges, especially as a young businessman?

They really put you in boxes initially, and that was not easy, but step by step, we met people that trusted me, and I knew who I wanted to work with over time.

I don’t come from a musical family myself. So I was mainly listening to those guys in my headphones when I was younger. I was listening to Lenny [Kravitz] and Craig [Ross] quite a lot because I have deep respect for that duo and what they represent.

One day, I show up at Rudy's Music [in New York], and Rudy just traded me one of Craig’s main touring guitars, which was his 1964 ES-345.

I didn't have the money back then, so I said, ‘Give me three months. I'm going to buy and sell in France, and I'm going to come back and pick it up.’ And my friend, who was with me at this time, told me, ‘Are you crazy? This guitar is way too much money.’

It was a time when social media was different. I just sent a message to Craig on Facebook, and two weeks passed by, and I was like, ‘Okay, this guy is busy. He's never going to reach me.’ And, suddenly, my phone is popping off, and Craig Ross just answered me, and he was so kind. [He was like,] this guy is 22 or 23 years old, he just made a huge purchase for himself, compared to his capacity.

So when I bought this guitar, we met at L'Olympia in Paris, and we got that connection going. So, for me, just meeting him was great because Craig really proves that you can’t buy class. I met Lenny later, but with Craig, it's been like 10 years and I still have that connection with him.

Which artists’ guitars command the most demand and attention?

It's quite mixed. We have John Frusciante's 1961 [ES-]335 that he played on stage. We have, of course, Paul Kossoff's 1955 “Black Beauty”, which was also used by Eric Clapton during Cream because they used to trade guitars quite a lot.

I’ve had this guitar for almost 10 years now, and I don't regret buying it. Another interesting one is Steve Lukather’s 1951 Esquire. We [also] have AC/DC's Cliff Williams’ bass – we have number three, which was toured all around the world for four years with AC/DC.

How has your vision for the showroom evolved, compared to when you first opened the doors?

When I started this business with artists’ guitars, I had two kinds of people: the people who believed in it and the people who were laughing at me.

Now, I was very proud when I was assisting at the [Jim Irsay] auction in New York City because I think that the guitar changed the world, and that the guitar will still be listened to in 1,000 years, and all those guys will be gone, and what's left is the music and their instrument. [When you buy that guitar,] you are the owner of their legacy.

So we feel kind of amazed at the shop every day because I really believed in that market when it was not fancy.

What made the Jim Irsay auction different?

Everybody was waiting for that auction. That was, after all, the greatest collection [that ever existed] of artists’ guitars.

People are starting to understand that there are good aspects to buying a guitar – whether it's for the investment or whether you're a guitar player – but if you choose wisely, those guitars will never go down [in price] because there is always somebody richer than you who wants to have that guitar.

Why have the Jim Irsay guitars leapt in value in such a short time span?

It depends on the auction house you're dealing with, the place you're buying the guitar from, and the marketing around that.

Marketing is key when you want to sell a pricey instrument like that, and I think Christie’s did a great job. They went everywhere, and when you're doing that, you just attract the best buyers because they don't have any doubt about what they're buying.

Everything went through the roof because those buyers were brought together by Christie’s in one room. They could have been telephone bidders. They could be room bidders, or internet bidders, but they were all together in one room for this collection, which was exceptional.

I see that with the shop. I don't have a single customer older than 60, and usually my customers are between 25 and 50, so it's a new generation who just discovered the world of guitars, and those people are working hard to get those guitars.

When you put them in one room, I can guarantee you that you will see new world records. If Jimmy Page's “Number One” was in that room that day, that would be between 20 and 30 million [dollars] easy.

But who are these people? What are their backgrounds?

I can give you an example of one person I know: Bobby Tseitli in Chicago. Bobby is a good friend of mine – those guys are really amazing, and they're putting together a collection called Family Guitars.

I knew they wanted [Jerry Garcia’s] “Tiger” so much. I gave him a huge hug when he bought that guitar, and I can guarantee you that this guy probably cried like a baby in his room sleeping next to the guitar that night, and that everybody in the room was feeling amazed because he was bidding with all his heart. The night after, Derek [Trucks] played it on stage. I mean, what's better than that?

I think we should be thankful for those guys who believe in the market and make it dynamic because they're not only buying guitars; they are making the shows more attractive. Everybody in the room will remember the day they saw Jerry Garcia's guitar in the hands of Derek Trucks. [In terms of the buyers’ backgrounds], I never ask too much unless they talk about themselves.

For sure, at Christie’s, we saw hedge fund guys, tech guys, cryptocurrency guys… so it's new money, in a good way, not in a bad way. From what I can tell, we have more and more young people who are just working hard, and they could be in tech, they could be in sports, whatever… we have so many kinds of buyers, and that's the beauty of this job.

Do you think we're going to see David Gilmour’s Strat one on stage anytime soon?

I know by name the guy who bought it. I don't know him personally. If he reads the interview, [I would say] I think you should put that guitar on stage. But I hope all those guitars [from that auction] are going to be on stage soon.

How do most of these clients find you?

Social media helps. You put the guitars on stage, and people are always filming. The audience recognizes the guitar, and I get texts or messages on Instagram.

So, I think it's a win-win-win because the crowd is winning because they get to see a very special guitar that day. Marketing-wise it's great for the shop, and it's also great for the artist because when this is going to the press, the tour is gonna get some marketing.

When Marcus King was touring in Paris 10 years ago, he was playing in clubs [in front of] 20 people, and we were there already, and now he's more famous, of course. And he still loves to play that Paul Kosoff guitar. Every time he’s in Paris, he plays that guitar on stage, and it's one of his favorite guitars to play.

What trends are you noticing in the types of guitars that command the highest prices in today's market?

When I started, nobody really wanted a guitar from Green Day, for example. Now, I’m getting asked more often.

I think it's a generation thing – Green Day are getting bigger because the older they get, the bigger their legacy. When the band is getting older, their fans are also getting older, and they have more capacity to buy the items of their dreams. When artists pass away, sometimes you get a bit emotional. So, of course, people are missing them so much that they want their guitars.

But I would be curious to have one of those big “dinosaur” guitars on stage [at an auction]. After the success of the Gibson Keith Richards signature, [I would be curious to have] one of Keith's guitars going on stage, the black [ES-]355, the “Micawber” Tele... or Jimmy Page's guitars or Brian May's guitar or Paul McCartney's bass – those legendary guitars that are still used by them.

I think we would be surprised by the price they fetch because records are made to be broken and are made to be set higher every time. And again, it wouldn't surprise me in the near future if we see a guitar [sell for] between $20 and $30-40 million.

Do you see any risks or misconceptions for new buyers entering the vintage guitar market, especially those treating it as an investment?

I would suggest that you check the provenance of the instruments. You have to choose wisely. If you're advised wisely and if you decide to buy the guitar at the right price, that's great.

To give you an example, when I bought Steve Jones' guitar, I knew there were rumors of Steve selling the original one 14 times to different people.

So we checked the mother-of-pearl inlays. We checked all the dings and marks. We scanned the pictures of the guitar today, and we matched those mother-of-pearl inlays. When [there are] three matches, then you know.

Beyond the monetary value, what makes a guitar collectible?

The more provenance you have and the more history you have with the guitar [the better]. For example, if Keith Richards just played one guitar one time on the sofa two minutes backstage and signed it, that doesn't really make sense to me. But what matters to me is if he played it on stage. Why did he choose that particular one for his personal collection? Was there a reason sound-wise?

I don't agree with comments on the internet that say that, ‘Oh well, David Gilmour modified the Black Strat like 700 times over time…’ [If you want a pristine guitar,] then just buy a vintage guitar. Don't even look at an artist guitar.

I understand that it doesn’t make sense for some people to buy a $15 million guitar, but I think the more modifications it has, the more personal the instrument becomes – and that’s what makes its value even higher.

There's been a lot of criticism over the amounts spent at the Jim Irsay auction. What would you say to people who feel that collectible guitar prices have lost touch with reality?

I think we are living in a world where records are made to be broken.

I would get [that comment] from the perspective of somebody earning a medium salary. That's understandable, because for some people, it's just hard to feed their children, and then you see on the news that somebody just bought David Gilmour's guitar for $15 million.

But I would say it has been like this forever, in sports, the arts… let's not even talk about the football world. I think the world is discovering guitars with these auctions, with these pieces of history, [and] with the new players as well. The rich will always be richer. We can't control that. If they want the David Gilmour Strat for $50 million one day, that's it.

What's been your proudest moment of seeing one of your guitars being played on stage?

I lent Myles Kennedy Jeff Buckley's guitar on stage in Paris a few years ago. That was the final show I assisted before Covid, but that was a moment because it was at L'Olympia [in Paris].

It was full of symbolism. We were preparing for that day for four months. Myles was the perfect guy to sing Hallelujah on stage with the very guitar that Jeff recorded the song with. I still get chills talking about it.

[Another standout moment was when] I saw Craig Ross playing [Jeff Beck’s] Yardburst in Paris.

If I told my young self, [who was] listening to Lenny Kravitz and Craig Ross, that one day I would have Jeff Beck's guitar and then Craig would play it on tour, especially in Paris, my hometown, I wouldn't believe it. It was really a full-circle moment.

• Learn more about Matt's Guitar Shop.

Steve Vai has recalled the time he played Brian May’s legendary Red Special electric guitar at just 20 years old – but admitted he struggled to get a tune out of it.

In a new interview with Q1043 New York, Vai looked back on his early years as an aspiring artist who'd just moved to Los Angeles to make it big as a guitar player. While there, he crossed paths with one of his heroes.

“It was bizarre because I had just moved out to LA,” Vai says “Just a year before that, I was in my teenage bedroom with Queen posters and Led Zeppelin all over the walls. And I walk into the Rainbow [Bar & Grill], and there's Brian May standing at the bar. And I just thought, ‘How is this [possible]?’”

The Rainbow is LA’s famous rockstar-friendly watering hole, which has been frequented by the likes of Guns N' Roses, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and more.

But for a young Vai, walking in and seeing a bona fide rockstar was still a shock. Yet May was welcoming to the starry-eyed fan.

“He actually invited me to a Queen rehearsal,” Vai continues. “I was just this unknown kid, and there I was. And then there it was, the Red Special. I said, ‘Is that it?’ And he goes, ‘That's it. You wanna play it?’”

May has been loyal to the electric guitar he built with his father throughout his entire career. So loyal, in fact, that last year’s Gibson SJ-200 was his first-ever signature guitar, after a series of Red Special releases via Brian May Guitars.

As such, it was made to his liking – no one else’s. Vai figured that out pretty quickly. Some of the specs were just too far removed from his own personal setup – particularly the neck.

“I just remember thinking, ‘I can't play this thing.’ The neck is like a bat,” he goes on. “It's got like, what, gauge 0.8 strings? But it was a miracle to actually have the guitar under my fingers, and he allowed that.”

Indeed, when showing off his custom-built Vai-ified Red Special guitar earlier this year, Vai said the neck was “the size of a small tree,” and him trying to play it was like “a giraffe on roller skates.”

May signed with Gibson in a surprise move in 2024, and while there's been speculation that a Gibson-made Red Special is in the works, there’s sadly no sign of movement there yet.

Elsewhere, May says he gave the Red Special one mod after taking inspiration from Jimi Hendrix, but he quickly regretted it.

Last week, the Jim Irsay Collection auction set a new gold standard for high-profile guitar auctions.

David Gilmour's Black Strat went under the hammer for a record-shattering $14.6 million, with Jerry Garcia's “Tiger” guitar hot on its heels, selling for $11,560,000. These two white whales were followed by Kurt Cobain’s Smells Like Teen Spirit Mustang and Eric Clapton’s MTV Unplugged Martin, which fetched $6,907,000 and $4,101,000, respectively.

And, in a market where the prices of these mythical guitars only seem to be rising, the question on every guitar aficionado's lips is: what instruments could overtake the “Black Strat” one day?

“When a band is getting older, their fans also are getting older, [and] they have more capacity to buy the items of their dreams,” explains Matthieu Lucas, guitar market expert and owner of Paris emporium Matt's Guitar Shop – when asked this million-dollar question.

“So the price of the items is also growing. When, of course, some artists are passing away, people are missing them so much that they want their guitars. That's the only connection they can have with them anymore.

“But I would be curious to have one of those big dinosaur guitars on stage... after the success of the Gibson signature, one of Keith Richards' guitars going on stage, like the black ES-355, the “Micawber” Tele, or Jimmy Page's guitars, or Brian May's [Red Special] guitar, or Paul McCartney's [Höfner 500/1] bass.”

Lucas is, of course, referring to the legendary guitars that these rock giants are still using to this day.

“I think we would be surprised by the price they fetch, because I think records are made to be broken and are made to be set higher every time. It wouldn't surprise me in the near future if we see a guitar [sold for] between 20 and 30, 40 million [dollars]. That wouldn't surprise me at all.”

As for the one guitar Lucas speculates would have actually gone for this price last Thursday, well, there's one in particular... “If Jimmy Page's “No. 1” Les Paul was in that room that day, that would be between 20 and 30 million [dollars] easy for sure,” he asserts.

Guitar World's full interview with Matthieu Lucas from Matt's Guitar Shop will be published in the coming weeks.

The cream of the crop of Jim Irsay's collection of instruments and music memorabilia alone raked in a total of $84,091,350 from 44 lots – smashing all pre-auction estimates along the way. Guitar World’s Jackson Maxwell reported live from the auction floor, witnessing these historic sales.

Benson Boone has welcomed Brian May onto his stage for the third time, with the Queen guitarist a special guest at his recent show in Birmingham, UK.

The pair first linked up for a rendition of Queen’s operatic masterpiece, Bohemian Rhapsody, at Coachella last year. While that set was met with a surprisingly muted reaction from that crowd, the American singer-songwriter hasn’t let that deter him from playing with his hero once more, having invited him to his London show last November, too.

Judging by the seismic cheers ringing around the 16,000 capacity Utilita Arena, and considering May is on home soil, it looks like May's cameo turned up the heat this time.

May stuck around for the entirety of Boone’s three-song encore, tearing through We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, and a gospel choir-backed version of the American’s biggest hit, Beautiful Things.

As the crowd claps along to We Will Rock You – it's illegal not to – the distinctive growl of the Red Special is heard long before we see May, and he gets a hero's reception as he rises from the depths of the stage, one arm held aloft. The smile on his face, as he wrings out the final notes of the guitar solo, says it all.

For May, who suffered a minor stroke in 2024, live outings have become a rarity as he takes his time to recuperate. Another night with Boone was just the spot to grease his wheels.

“Thanks, Benson Boone, dear friend,” he writes on Instagram. “I needed that! And thanks, good people of Birmingham – you were so deafening when I came, on I couldn't hear myself! You gave Mr. Boone the appreciation he so richly deserves. One of the best gigs I've ever been involved in. Epic.”

May later posted a snap of the pair backstage, seemingly in deep conversation, with the Red Special sitting on Boone’s lap.

“Not all my precious moments with Mr. Boone were on stage,” the caption reads. “Beautiful things indeed. Go, safe buddy.”

May’s Red Special has been in the news a lot lately, first with May gifting a custom-made left-handed version to his best friend and fellow guitar hero, Tony Iommi, and then later when Steve Vai added his signature flair to the guitar’s recipe with a stunning reimagining.

Steve Vai has paid tribute to Brian May, after finally getting his hands on his eye-catching reimagining of the Queen legend’s iconic Red Special guitar.

May famously built his Red Special with his father, but for his own radical take on the famed build, Vai went down a different route. He linked up with the UK-based Guyton Guitars for a truly radical variant, which included “Steve specified woods, electronics, and scale length.”

May's original electric guitar has been treated to several spin-offs over the years, including a fundraising pink model and, more recently, Tony Iommi received an exquisitely made left-handed version.

However, Vai and Guyton have gone all-out with theirs, which boasts a quilted maple top and an intricately carved custom pickguard, alongside a host of other Vai-isms. It’s left the For the Love of God shredder in a reflective mood.

“In the 1970s, when I was a kid trying to figure out how to play anything in tune, Brian May was one of my absolute heroes,” he says in an emotional Instagram post. “His tone and touch oozed rock and roll class, the songs he wrote, and the notes he chose dug deep into my psyche and helped shape a future fantasy image of myself in my mind.

“But his Red Special was not just a guitar to me, it was a mythical object, an alchemical wand built by a young genius and his dad. I studied every photo and rumor I could find. That guitar planted the seed that maybe someday I could build my own, which thankfully never happened, due to a total lack of expertise.”

Drafting in Guyton, then, proved to be a masterstroke from Vai, who is now able to honor his hero in the right way. It's an apt full-circle moment for Vai, arriving years after a rather memorable meeting with the British virtuoso.

“At 20 years old, I moved to L.A. and started working with Frank Zappa,” Vai continues. “One night, I walk into the Rainbow Bar and Grill and see Brian just standing there. I thought I was hallucinating.

“Brian was incredibly kind to this unknown kid and then did the unthinkable: he invited me to a Queen rehearsal at Zoetrope. Sitting in a room with the entire band was already unreal enough, but then I saw the Red Special… time definitely slowed down.”

Vai was given the guitar to play. “It was heaven,” he reflects. Then, years after Vai sat in on that Queen rehearsal, May was the musical director at a guitar legends concert in Seville, Spain – and Vai was on the bill.

“Brian told me the story about a young guitarist he once let play his guitar at rehearsal,” Vai adds. “A kid who was in town working with Zappa and who played amazingly well. I let him tell me the whole story and then said, ‘Brian, that was me.’ This stands as one of the most satisfying full-circle twists the universe has offered me.”

Vai says he’s “truly humbled” to own the ‘Green Red Special,’ calling it “beyond beautiful,” crafted with a “devotion made tangible.” It’s certainly living up to its special billing.

It might not be the only high-end Red Special that we see in 2026, either. Gibson – to whom May signed in 2024 before releasing a signature 12-string acoustic last year – could be planning to release Murphy Lab-aged replicas.

Brian May has gifted Tony Iommi a custom-made replica of his iconic Red Special guitar – and it has two unique features.

May famously crafted the electric guitar with his father, and the DIY home build has been his partner in crime throughout his entire career.

Alongside a Vox AC30 and a treble booster – two gear picks inspired by Rory Gallagher – the Red Special was pivotal in creating May's one-of-a-kind guitar tone, and now his fellow-Gibson endorsee and close friend has gotten his own small chapter in the guitar’s history books.

“Huge thanks to my best friend, Brian May, and master builder Andrew Guyton [of Guyton Guitars] for this incredible left-handed Red Special replica,” Iommi writes on Instagram. “Andrew personally delivered it last week – a true gift from Brian, two years in the making. Christmas came early!”

The guitar is built to the exact vintage construction of May’s original, save for the left-handed configuration and one other key tweak – its neck has been shaped to match that of Iommi’s iconic Jaydee Old Boy SG.

The rest, from its built-in treble booster, vintage-style pots, and replica pickups, are just as May would have it. Maybe it’ll feature on Iommi's long-awaited solo album.

May, who has remained loyal to his Red Special over the years, surprised the guitar community when he signed with Gibson last year. And yes, that means that Gibson-made Murphy Lab Red Specials are very much on the cards, but a signature 12-string acoustic has been the only official collaborative launch so far.

May and Iommi share a close friendship, having first met in the early ‘70s. Last year, they sat down to talk riffs and jam Black Sabbath’s Paranoid together – even though May knew it was “sacrilege” to play along.

Meanwhile, Steve Vai enlisted the help of Guyton for a tasteful reimagining of the Red Special, and fans have been going mad for it.

If you're the type that peruses the internet late at night in search of boutique pedals to add to your board, you’ve probably come across Dirty Boy Pedals, which first cropped up in the early 2000s.

But if you’re new to the brand – which was formed by Alex Saraceno, father of American rock guitarist, Blues Saraceno – that’s even better, as Dirty Boy’s CEO, Madrid-born Danny Gomez, has big plans.

“I reached out to Alex for a simple five-minute meeting at NAMM to discuss the Dirty Boy name in 2017,” Gomez says. “I wanted to license the name and image. The concept was to create an homage to the renowned Dirty Boy amp, powered by my proprietary Tube Amp Emulation [T.A.E.] tech, and we made it happen.”

Gomez describes himself as a “fervent Blues Saraceno aficionado,” but ’80s shred wasn’t his only link to the guitar community, as he also has a history with Queen’s Brian May. “I had the privilege of collaborating with Brian May on the We Will Rock You show,” he says. “Brian holds a special place in my journey as a mentor.

“Our connection began in 2003,” he adds. “Since then, we’ve maintained a close relationship, and I’ve had the honor of becoming one of the first artists under his Brian May Guitars brand. In 2022, we released a book, Brian May’s Red Special, detailing how he built his iconic Red Special guitar with his father.”

All of this means that Gomez understands tone, which is perfect as Dirty Boy has long been known for unique, high-quality effects. John Frusciante and Neal Schon have used them, favoring the brand’s Germanium Boy Fuzz.

As for what’s new, in addition to rolling the Germanium Boy back out, Gomez is resurrecting the Buzzy Boy, a favorite of Blues Saraceno. Speaking of Blues, Dirty Boy is digging into bespoke guitars by rolling out made-to-order reproductions of Saraceno’s iconic green and watermelon plaid signature Yamaha RGZ820R.

Gomez’s goals are lofty, considering how competitive today’s gear market is, but with the blessing of the Saraceno family, Dirty Boy’s new era might have a shot. Plus, he has one last trick up his sleeve.

“Getting a Germanium Boy into Brian May’s hands pronto is a top priority,” he says. “Treble boosters like the Germanium Boy are his go-to for coaxing those legendary tones out of the Red Special. And with his history of using my previous designs, like the original T.A.E. and the ’64 version – both amps based on his beloved Vox AC30 – I’m confident the Germanium Boy will find its place among Brian’s arsenal of sonic tools.”

• Find out more at Dirty Boy.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

As the guitarist in Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the house band for Stax Records, Steve Cropper was a key figure in shaping the sound of soul music in the ’60s, backing legendary singers including Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett.

He co-wrote the classic songs Green Onions and (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, and also recorded with rock icons John Lennon and Rod Stewart.

Cropper passed away on December 3 2025, aged 84, leaving a legacy of guitar parts that changed the face of music.

In 2024, he spoke to Guitar World’s sister title Total Guitar for what would be the final time. He was buzzing about the release of second solo album Friendlytown, which featured guest spots from Billy Gibbons and Brian May.

But he also found time to reflect on a storied career, and revealed that he didn’t particularly rate his own skills. What was most important to him was always groove and soul. And nobody grooved quite like Cropper.

How did Billy Gibbons come to be on the new album?

“Billy and I have been friends for 30 years, but we’ve never actually worked together before. He ran into Jon Tiven, my co-producer, in a grocery store and he asked, ‘What’s Steve doing these days?’ He told him we working doing an album and he said, ‘Good. Can I be on it? I’m not doing anything right now.’

“So he was there for two of the writing sessions. He played on all but one song, and we wrote Friendlytown, the title track, together. Most people put the title track of the album as the sixth or seventh song, but this one, I said, ‘It’s too damn good. We need to put it first!’”

How would you describe your guitar partnership with Billy?

“No song on this album is a battle of guitars or knowledge or wits – we’re both fans of one another. All these songs are under 3:30, they’re simple – two verses, two choruses and a bridge. Most songs nowadays are very long and poetic. Billy and I, we’re not bothered about poetry. We’re trying to show how it was back in the ’60s.

“Watching Billy’s hands in the studio, I learnt something I never knew – he plays two things at the same time. He always plays a bass part at the same time as his melody like Chet Atkins would do, and like I do. You know, the first time I saw ZZ Top, I said, ‘How do three guys make that kind of music?’ And I found out in the studio with him!”

And what about Brian May?

“He’s known Jon Tiven for years, and we met at James Burton’s birthday about a year ago. Everybody was there. Brian and I got talking and we sent him a track, but then we hadn’t heard from him in a while. My engineer called him and Brian said, ‘Too much stress – everything’s coming at me a million miles an hour!’

“Four or five days later we got a copy of the track and it was pretty good! So we called the song Too Much Stress and wrote the lyrics around it. We didn’t have modulation in the song until Brian got his hands on it. He’s very talented. I’ve heard a lot of great guitar players and he’s one of the best in the world, I think.”

Going back to your early days, what guitar did you learn on?

“My first guitar is under glass now at the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. It’s only got three strings. I used to play it like a rubber band when I was eight years old. I bought it from the Sears Roebuck catalogue. It was a Country Western, a big round-hole, flat-top guitar.

“I’d sit on the porch waiting for that guitar to be delivered every weekend, waiting for the truck to turn the corner. And then it finally arrived. The strings were loose and the bridge needed fixing, and they wanted a 25 cent delivery fee – 25 cents! My mom said, ‘I’ll lend you that quarter if you become a guitar player’. She’s not around to defend herself anymore, but I think I did!”

What were some important lessons for you in developing your style?

“In the early days when I was playing guitar, I knew the world didn’t need another B.B. King, Chet Atkins or Les Paul. So, what are you gonna do now? I thought, ‘Just be yourself and do your thing. Don’t go changing’.”

Do you remember a moment you felt you were no longer a beginner guitarist?

“It would be doing Green Onions with Booker T. and the M.G.’s. Booker actually started writing that and then we worked on it together. A singer was meant to come into the studio but they never showed up – he’d been singing all night and he couldn’t even say his name in the morning so he never came in. So we were just jamming around waiting.

“A few weeks passed and we were working on the song Behave Yourself and the label said, ‘Do you have anything for the B-side?’ I said to Booker, ‘What were those riffs you had you thought would be good for a vocal song?’ We played it to them and they said ‘That’s pretty good’. And that was it. That was the record.”

What stands out to you in a guitarist?

“Groove. If someone’s got groove, they’re gonna last a lot longer than the person who doesn’t, whatever groove means to you. To me it means soul. And play in the box, not outside it. That’s what people like. If you play too far outside the box people aren’t gonna like it.

“My playing has always sucked, but it sells, because I keep it simple, I guess. I’m not a guitar player, I never took the time. I use it as a tool. I couldn’t afford to hire another guitarist on a lot of Stax records, so I learned to play rhythm and lead at the same time so when I was soloing the rhythm wouldn’t drop out.

“Randy Bachman from The Guess Who taught me a lick, and it was more of a country lick where you could bend two strings at the same time, but he did it with two fingers. I figured out how to do it with one finger. I’ll never use a capo, either. God gave you a capo right here [hold up his first finger], so I learnt how to play a lot of chords with three fingers instead of four. That was important.”

What was the last piece of gear you were excited about?

“The last guitar I bought was probably a Telecaster, but I’ve never been much of a collector, and I don’t play Teles anymore. I play Telecaster copies made by Peavey and I ran over the one I’ve got now. I ran over all the electrics; the tone and volume and the pickup switch. I hammered everything back into place and it all works fine.

“I plugged it in, looked and my engineer and said, ‘It still sounds good to me’, so it’s got something in it. I play it all the time. The problem with running it over is the pickup switch would keep rattling.

“I’d tighten it up and it would start rattling and changing position again. The bridge pickup is too damn bright for me. I’ve always preferred the middle position, so I took a bit of cardboard and stuffed in right in there so the switch can’t move!”

You’ve played with a lot of guitarists over the years. Has anyone surprised you?

“Dave Mason [formerly of Traffic] really impressed me. I didn’t think he was that good until I toured with him, then I found out how good he really is. Live, he’s something else. Jeff Beck, too. Whatever Jeff’s mind thought, his hands would go there. You couldn’t say, ‘You can’t get that’ to Jeff. He’d just reach for things and grab it.

“He did things that no one else thought was possible and he’d make it sound right. Working on The Jeff Beck Group album [produced by Steve and released in 1972] is one of my proudest moments.”

Has anyone not impressed you?

“There was a guy who came into Stax one time that put a handkerchief over the strings so that no one could see what he was doing and copy him. I didn’t care about any of that. I’m sure he was a great player, but it didn’t impress me.”

What about any non-guitarists; who impressed you the most?

“A magazine once called me up and said, ‘I believe Stax Records is the first label to use an automatic drum?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, his name is Al Jackson!’ With Al on drums, you could edit the intro of take one with the intro of take ten and no one would know - he was that good of a timekeeper. He was great to play with.”

What advice would you give to a young guitarist?

“Do not get into this business for money. Do it for fun, and if you’re good, somewhere along the way someone will pay you.”

Can you recall a moment when you felt like you’d failed as a player, or been embarrassed by a performance?

“I don’t ever remember having a bad show. I’ve had records that went out to market and didn’t sell, so I guess I failed there, but the records themselves have been pretty clean and spot-on to me. I don’t release junk, not with my name on it. It has to be quality stuff. It might not sell, but I’m happy with it. I don’t have any regrets.”

• Friendlytown is out now via Mascot.

Steve Vai has partnered with a UK guitar builder to reimagine Brian May’s iconic Red Special, with a few tweaks of his own – and the result is quite something.

The Queen guitar hero’s legendary Red Special is one of the most well-known electric guitars of all time. Originally built by a young May and his father, it laid the foundation for a huge selection of Queen hits and, later, nspired the creation of Brian May Guitars – a brand that offers accessible remakes of the instrument.

As such, we’ve seen a few different takes of the Red Special over the years, but trust us when we say you’ve never seen one like this. And, what’s more, it was built for none other than Steve Vai, bolstered by a few tweaks that take it closer in line with the shredder’s Ibanez signature guitars.

Showing off the build on social media, Guyton Guitars writes, “What a pleasure it is to finally be able to share this. It's been a long term project, but now it's finally in the very talented hands of its owner, the one and only Mr. Steve Vai!!

“Steve specified woods, electronics and scale length, all subtly different from the original RS [Red Special]. The scale length is 25.5", with the neck being much closer to his Ibanez Jem/Pia guitars than Brian's Red Special.”

To compensate for the longer scale length – the OG is 24” – Guyton made the body itself slightly bigger. It comes with Yonderbosk Vai-Sonic pickups (custom-wound pickups made for Vai that fit the Red Special schematic), and some faithful expansive switching, including Series/Parallel and a built-in KAT treble booster.

Oh, and we should probably say, it looks absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. That veneered 5A quilted maple top – which has a matching headstock – is sensational. The birdseye maple fingerboard? Phwoar. Even the smallest details are exquisite; just look at those Yin Yang fingerboard inlays, cut from mother of pearl and Tahitian black pearl, with 9ct gold dots. Double phwoar.

And we haven’t even mentioned the pickguard yet. Crafted by Greg Goodwillie of Goodwillie Guns and Guitars, it depicts Vai’s logo among a swirl of elegant motifs, and raises the humble pickguard to high art levels.

“It’s not every day you get to work for a guitar player rightfully belonging on the pantheon of rock gods,” Goodwillie writes on Instagram. “There’s loads of little bits added into the scroll work .. the more you look the more you see, it was a seriously fun job and I’m very VERY proud to have been part of the build.”

“Mr. V is ELATED with his new guitar,” Guyton Guitars adds. “Rumour has it, Steve and his tech Doug have filmed an unboxing video, watch this space…”

At the time of writing, an unboxing video has yet to be shared by Vai, but we’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for when it lands. Here’s hoping we see him play it soon, too…

It might not be the only high-end Red Special that we see land. Gibson struck up an official partnership with May last year – and, when we spoke to May in June 2024, he dropped a heavy hint about the prospect of US-made Murphy Lab replicas of the Red Special.

Aside from their famous collaboration with David Bowie, Queen were a pretty closed shop when it came to recording with guest stars, especially guitarists. Yet prog rock hero Steve Howe bucked that trend in the early 1990s, contributing to a collaboration that has gone under the radar in the band’s folklore.

Howe, of Yes and Asia fame, has had a storied career outside of his band work. He was a guitarist for hire in the '60s, playing on a multitude of EMI recordings, and he and bandmate Rick Wakeman later played on Lou Reed's self-titled record in 1972.

But, discussing his guest spots with Prog, it's his spontaneous contributions to Queen's Innuendo that stand out.

“I was in a restaurant in Montreux and bumped into one of Queen’s techs,” he explains. “He said, ‘Steve, come down to the studio – the lads would love to see you.’”

The band rolled the red carpet out for Howe, and it sounds like they had a guest spot in mind before he arrived at the band-owned Mountain Studios. It wasn't Howe's first trip to the studios, either. He'd recorded Going for the One with Yes there in the late 70s. David Bowie, AC/DC, and Iggy Pop have also recorded there.

“When I got down there, they’d set up the studio for me,” he reveals. “They played me the whole album, and it was stunning, and they said, ‘How about playing on Innuendo? Play like [Spanish flamenco guitarist] Paco De Lucía; just run around and go nuts.’ So I did!”

The song, another slice of proto-prog pomp from the British rock giants, was born out of a jam session involving Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon in 1989. Mercury was said to be upstairs at the time, and latched onto the song's Kashmir-like groove to turn it into a song. Howe's playing provided the finishing touch, and the song later topped the UK charts.

Speaking to the Official International Queen Fan Club magazine in 2021, Howe shed more light on the session and the surprise instrument he used to record.

“Brian had three Gibson Chet Atkins guitars. [They're] brilliant inventions as they sound so much like classical guitar,” he says. “I played all three of Brian’s and liked one a bit more than the other two, so that’s what I played on the record.”

He also reveals that the solo was completely improvised, ultimately spliced together from three separate takes.

“Spontaneity and improvisation can very much be the spirit of music itself,” he says. “I had no time with Innuendo to be concerned about what to do, and that can sometimes be easier than being premeditated. Wonderful things can happen that way, and that’s how it turned out on Innuendo.”

Meanwhile, Brian May has revealed how influential Rory Gallagher was in helping him find his sound, and discussed the time Jimi Hendrix schooled him in how to use a Marshall amp.

Having landed key spots at international showcases like SXSW and The Great Escape, as well as invites to perform at festivals as renowned as Glastonbury and Reading/Leeds, British duo Baby Said have achieved a lot in the year-and-a-half since they formed.

Led by 20-year-old singer/guitarist Veronica Pal and her 18-year-old sister Jess on bass guitar, the Italian/Punjabi siblings started out playing covers in their AstroModa project before finding their own sonic footprint.

This year’s debut album, BS!, shows them mixing elements of Royal Blood and English indie heavyweights Arctic Monkeys with Italian disco rockers Måneskin, who also inspired the name behind the new band.

“We learned a lot from those covers,” Veronica says. “It’s quite natural how you find things you like in other people’s music. Arctic Monkeys, for example, use a lot of pentatonic patterns. When we started writing our own music, I was looking out for those patterns. My teacher in Italy always told me to sing my solos first. That really helped with phrasing.”

For the debut album sessions, the singer/guitarist relied on her G&L Comanche, an instrument she describes as “the most beautiful guitar I’ve ever held in my arms.”

Though a handful of parts were recorded through a combo, the majority of the tones came direct from her Line 6 Pod Go, which came with a ton of amp models and effects built in and ready to go. Ultimately, the digital option felt easier and more reliable.

“I used my G&L for everything,” Veronica says. “It has three Z-coil pickups, which look weird but sound amazing. There’s a switch that turns them all on, but I haven’t found it yet. For the solos in Burn, I wanted a specific reverb that I’d heard on Dakota by Stereophonics. We recreated it using plugins. Since then, I’ve programmed those settings into my Pod Go so it’ll sound just as good live.”

When asked about her ultimate guitar hero, the singer/guitarist says she’s more passionate about the songs that have inspired her than the guitarists who played on them. But, if push came to shove, there is one person worthy of such a crown.

“I don’t have heroes, but I adore Queen, so I have to mention Brian May,” she says. “My dream would be to work with him. I think you can hear bits of Brian in my solos; our manager even joked it’s him playing on the album.

How the triple-guitar threat of the Texas Headhunters is keeping a Lone Star tradition aliveI also admire Thomas Raggi from Måneskin. His simple ideas can sound complicated and beautiful at the same time. It’s very strange. I’d love to be able to do that one day.”

• BS! is out now via Pal.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

There’s a long history of high-profile guitarists playing the Star-Spangled Banner on electric guitar. Jimi Hendrix’s searing rendition at Woodstock immediately springs to mind, with his take managing to capture the plight of a generation while simultaneously showcasing his virtuosic prowess.

However, when it comes to God Save the King – the British national anthem – well... hearing a player shred a more rock-oriented rendition seems to have stirred up some controversy.

Sure, Brian May did rip out God Save the Queen on the roof of Buckingham Palace back in 2002, but a recent rendition by singer-songwriter and guitarist Sam Ryder at the Gallagher Premiership Rugby Final seems to have divided fans.

Brandishing an Ibanez DT155 Destroyer, Ryder delivered an overdriven take on the national anthem. Alas, some didn’t appreciate the less traditional route, with comments like: “We are not American. Just get a good old military band and a good singer. Some things do not need to be played with,” “Felt very SuperBowly,” and, “We were there. Tried to sing along and gave up. Fan base isn't the same as NFL, give up trying to make it so…” flooding social media.

Others stood up for Ryder, complimenting his rendition and appreciating that it served as a nod to May’s iconic take.

“Everyone knocking this is mad! Did you want some operatically trained singer doing it for the millionth time? It was cool to have it on guitar,” commented one fan, while another noted, “I bet if it had been Brian May playing this it would have been labeled incredible!”

This is far from Ryder’s first rodeo – he had previously performed a Strat-driven rendition of the national anthem at the 2022 Lenovo Formula 1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at the Silverstone International Circuit. That year, the singer-songwriter also represented the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest with his ’70s rock-tinged entry, Space Man – which came complete with a May-esque solo.

He has since gone on to release his debut album, There’s Nothing but Space, Man!, in 2023, and his OH OK EP just last month.

Despite it being more of a tradition in the States, guitarists like Grace Bowers also receive backlash for their renditions of the U.S. national anthem. Last year, the fast-rising guitarist put her wah-laden twist on the Star-Spangled Banner, which received its fair share of criticism despite its originality.

When I caught up with Sir Brian May recently to chat about his fabulous Gibson SJ-200 12-string, he said to me, “We go back a long way, don’t we?” I reminded him that it was, in fact, 40 years since we first met. I had gone to interview him at Queen’s offices in London all those years ago and, needless to say, I was terribly nervous.

At the time he was the biggest star I’d ever met, and he’d stipulated to my boss – who’d arranged the interview when they’d met at some event or other – that “the interviewer mustn’t be late, as I have another appointment that day”.

As a stickler for punctuality myself, I allotted a good hour or so longer than the time it would take me to get from my home in Essex down to West London. All was going well until the A12 came to a halt at Brentwood. And it stayed that way for more than two hours. Tragically, there’d been a terrible pile-up.

In 1985, mobile phones were not the all-pervasive monsters they are today. I certainly didn’t have one, and looking around, no-one else seemed to, either.

I was in the middle of a blocked dual carriageway and couldn’t leave the car to find a phone box. Panic set in and all I could do was wait. I turned to my A-to-Z and plotted a route across town. But even once the traffic had got moving I had to keep pulling over to check that I was on the correct route. It was getting later and later…

Don't stop me now

I finally arrived at the Queen office almost an hour late. I parked my car half on the pavement outside and dashed in, expecting a deserved tirade. I gasped my profuse apologies, but Brian couldn’t have been calmer.

“You’d better move your car, though, or you’ll get a ticket,” he said. This I did, and found my way back, now well over an hour behind schedule. Now, although I was a lover of Queen’s music and a huge fan of Brian’s playing, I didn’t know every little detail about him as a person; for instance, the fact that he wore white clogs…

Well, guess who also favored exactly the same footwear, and had done since working for Gibson in Holland? Brian beckoned me to follow him up the wooden steps to the room where the interview was to take place, and it was then that I spotted them. My heart sank!

“Oh no, he’s going to think of me as some sad copycat fanboy,” I said to myself as we clattered loudly up to the first floor.

Sitting there in the room was a huge flight case. Brian lifted its lid, said something like, “Here’s the beast,” and gestured for me to pick it up, which I duly did. Having primed my Sony Walkman with a fresh BASF C90 cassette, I pressed ‘record’ and off we went. The interview went well. Brian couldn’t have been more forthcoming.

When we finished I loaded the guitar back into its case and we went downstairs, where together we chose the feature’s pictures and cover shot from a filing cabinet full of transparencies. We chatted some more, I bade my farewells, located my vehicle, and started back to the Guitarist office in Cambridge.

I slotted the cassette into my car’s stereo as I always did, to check that it had come out okay. Luckily, it had, but to my utter horror I heard myself noodling all the way through our chat. On Brian’s own guitar! How humiliating.

It must have been subconscious nerves as I’d never normally be so disrespectful. So not only the clogs, now this, too. Would he ever speak to me again? Luckily he did, and it was so nice to catch up with him and hear how proud he is of his new Gibson.

I’ve never asked Brian about the clogs incident, nor me playing non-stop through our first interview. He’s certainly never mentioned it and quite possibly never even noticed it, either, but I still get the chills whenever I remember. Got any star-related embarrassments to report? Do share and I’ll see you next time.

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

It’s bewildering that Gibson never gave its big-bodied super-jumbo the 12-string treatment and offered it in its regular line-up.

The company did create the occasional special based around the concept, but in reality left the door open for Guild to fill the 12-string jumbo hole with its F-512 – a big, bold beast beloved of players as diverse as John Denver and David Gilmour.

And indeed the subject behind this month’s Wishlist, who used one (and in earlier days an Ovation Pacemaker 12-string) for his solo spot with Queen, performing the spine-tingling Love Of My Life.

Brian May is already using his new guitar live and loving it: “I used the Guild for a long time, but I have to admit to favouritism now – because this is it!” he says.

Brian and Gibson spec’d the instrument between them, the company deciding on the timbers and Brian stipulating personal design elements. So we find AAA Indian rosewood for back and sides, matching fingerboard and moustache bridge with 60s-style agoya shell inlays, AAA Sitka spruce top, and a neck of AAA flamed maple.

Other classy appointments include a walnut ‘stinger’ on the headstock’s rear, 12 gold-plated mini Grover tuners, bone nut and bridge saddle. The guitar also comes equipped with Fishman’s Matrix preamp with undersaddle piezo pickup and soundhole-mounted volume and tone controls.

Where things become more personalised is in the aesthetics department. Look to the headstock, fingerboard inlays and pickguard, and you’ll find some very special ornamentation – all designed by Brian himself.

The elongated headstock is the perfect setting for Brian’s ubiquitous ‘eight-pointed star’ logo, inlaid in iridescent agoya shell and mirrored along the fingerboard.

But the pièce de résistance is the pickguard, where the usual floral pattern is replaced by a design reflecting Brian’s other love, that of astronomy. It’s both elegant and rather touching since pride of place, perhaps unsurprisingly, is given to Mercury.

Could you have imagined that the company that made J-200s for Elvis, Bob Dylan and Jimmy Page would offer to build you one – a special one at that?

“It was beyond my wildest dreams, and I so wish my dad had been around to see it because he would have been so happy and so proud. I mean, even touching one of those things back then was a dream.

“You’d go into a guitar store and if you didn’t have any money, and it was obvious that you didn’t have any money, people wouldn’t let you touch anything. They made you feel so unwelcome. And that’s why I love what Gibson has done with the Garage in London; they encourage kids to come in and look and play and make a noise.”

The Brian May SJ-200 has a rosewood body like the earliest examples and not maple, as later ones would be. Was this decision based on historical factors or for sonic reasons?

“Ah, now you’re asking me technical questions that I probably can’t answer! I’m more of an instinctive player and, while, of course, it was a bit about Elvis, for me it was more of an Everly Brothers thing.

“They were such a huge influence on me, not only because of the harmonies but also because of the way they played their guitars. They had ‘12 strings’ because they played two acoustics.”

And Phil had his in regular tuning while Don was tuned to open G, which gave them an even broader, more spacial sound.

“Ah, I didn’t know that. That explains Wake Up Little Susie with that opening riff. I was playing it last night, funnily enough, and I’ve got this guitar with the bottom E tuned down to D, which is such a glorious sound. It’s a gorgeous instrument. And it’s friendly, too. It’s easy to play; your fingers just fall in the right places and it doesn’t hurt you.”

We can see you playing a prototype of the guitar on Love Of My Life during 2022’s Rhapsody Tour at The O2. It certainly sounds fantastic live.

“Well, the guitar has quickly become an old friend. And that’s a very lovely moment as it’s a ‘me and the audience’ thing. I hardly have to sing at all. I just play and they sing – and, of course, at the end Freddie kind of ‘comes back’.”

The strings are configured like a Rickenbacker, with the thicker of each octave pair uppermost.

“Yes, I strung it that way because I pick the strings upwards. And Love Of My Life is a good example because if you pick upwards you want the finger to hit the high string, the melody note, first.”

The planetary motif pickguard and eight-pointed star inlays are tasteful touches, especially as Mercury takes pride of place.

“Well, Freddie is always with me. He was like a brother, and now I have a Mercury on my guitar, too, which makes me very happy.”

Were the fingerboard inlays influenced by the stars on the Gibson Everly Brothers jumbos?

“Indirectly. Gibson offered that to me at first, but I said I’d rather have my cosmic stars. They said, ‘We can’t promise anything because it’s very tricky cutting the shell.’ But after a few weeks, they said, ‘We’ve done it, just wait until you see it!’”

We were pleasantly surprised at the price tag here compared with other artist models that have been around £15k. So will Gibson make a Standard model available?

No news from Montana as yet. Whatever happens, it’s clear from Brian’s enthusiasm that he and his fabulous SJ-200 are meant for one another. In fact, one could say the stars have aligned!

• The Gibson Custom Shop Brian May SJ-200 12-String is available now, priced $7,999/£6,899. See Gibson for more details.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Julien's Auctions has recently announced the return of its Music Icons sale – and this year's two-day sale includes over 700 collectible items from some of the world's biggest music icons.

The sale includes several guitars that were stage- or studio-played by the likes of Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Brian May, Melissa Etheridge, and Bob Dylan, to name a mere few.

“This incredible collection brings together the instruments, fashion, and personal items that shaped the soundtrack of our lives – from the guitars that changed music history to the unforgettable looks worn by the world’s biggest stars,” comments Martin Nolan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Julien’s Auctions. “It’s a celebration of artistry, legacy, and the timeless power and endless enjoyment of music.”

Among the gems, guitar aficionados can find Cobain's 1989 Takamine FP360SC left-handed electro-acoustic guitar, played during Nirvana’s 1991 Hilversum Sessions recorded in North Holland, which is expected to sell for between $300,000 and $500,000.

Elsewhere, Eddie Van Halen's stage-played circa 2007 Charvel EVH Art Series – black with red and white stripes – which the virtuoso played (and signed) on October 5th, 2007 in Uncasville, Connecticut is estimated to fetch $20,000 to $40,000.

Another Nirvana link-up comes by way of a 1989 Warwick Dolphin Pro I bass, which Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic played during a session in Hilversum, also in 1991, just before the band’s performance at Amsterdam’s Paradiso. It’s estimated at $100,000 to $200,000.

Eric Clapton's 1980 Santa Cruz FTC-15 is also part of the auction. This acoustic guitar – owned and played by Clapton – was crafted by Santa Cruz luthier Richard Hoover, who in 1980 received a handwritten letter from an “E. Clapton.” Upon opening it, Hoover discovered it was indeed from Eric Clapton, who had seen the FTC in a magazine and wanted to know how he could “lay my hands on this particular model.” The guitar is expected to fetch upwards of $40,000.

Also featured is a Gibson Les Paul Special DC Tribute in cherry red, signed and stage-played by Joe Perry during Aerosmith’s 50th-anniversary concert in 2022 in Boston, which is estimated at $30,000 to $50,000. David Bowie's name also makes an appearance with a signed 1998 Seagull S6 Mahogany Spruce acoustic, played during his final Australian performance.

Other notable guitars include a Noel Gallagher-autographed Suzuki Hummingbird in cherry burst, and a 2012 ESP Ronnie Wood signature Telecaster, signed by the Rolling Stones guitarist and accompanied by a handwritten lyric: “Have you heard about the midnight rambler?”

An exhibition of the Music Icons highlights will be on display at the Hard Rock Cafe Piccadilly Circus in London from May 9 to May 13, before heading across the pond to the Hard Rock Cafe New York from May 21 to May 31. The collectibles will then hit the auction block on May 30 and 31. For more information, visit Julien’s Auctions.

Late last year, the original Mary Kaye Strat – one of the most iconic Fender electric guitars of all time – sold for $227,500 at an auction hosted by Julien's.

Nuno Bettencourt has looked back on Extreme’s heartfelt act of rebellion during 1992’s Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at London’s Wembley Stadium – and he has no regrets.

For the event, Bettencourt says the performing artists – which included Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, and Def Leppard – were strictly prohibited from playing Queen material during their rapid-fire sets. But Bettencourt had other ideas.

Taking place on April 20, 1992, in front of 72,000 fans – and countless more watching at home – the show was organized in the wake of Mercury's passing to raise awareness of AIDS, the disease that took the singer's life.

After Metallica delivered a rousing opening salvo – playing Enter Sandman, Sad But True, and Nothing Else Matters – Brian May introduced Extreme, deeply begrudging what was about to happen.

“Not only was it one of the greatest concerts of my life to be a part of,” Bettencourt wrote on Instagram, “but when Brian May walked out to introduce us and said, ‘More than any other group on the planet, this next band knew what Freddie and Queen were all about,’ normally I’d take the humble approach, but that statement was 1000% spot on.

“On that day, we wanted to make sure that not only true Queen fans in that stadium and watching around the world knew what Freddie meant to us – but more importantly, that Freddie, watching down from the heavens, one of the greatest composers and rock and roll singers of all time, knew what he meant to us.”

Shunning their own material, the band launched into a Queen medley that included mega-hits Bohemian Rhapsody, Keep Yourself Alive, and Stone Cold Crazy, capped off with Bettencourt and vocalist Gary Cherone’s intimate rendition of More Than Words.

Most of the songs they played were later performed again by Queen with guest vocalists including James Hetfield, Roger Daltrey, and Seal. But Extreme’s tribute would have its consequences.

“Yes, we got into a lot of trouble for performing all Queen music instead of Extreme songs, as no artist was allowed to perform Queen till the all-star jam,” Bettencourt continues. “But it was fucking worth it because we needed to let everyone know how much impact Freddie had on us and celebrate the music of Queen that shaped and changed our lives.

“The only way to do that was to risk performing a Queen medley for the first time. Not very smart in front of Queen, Bowie, Elton [John], Guns [N’ Roses], Metallica, and the immense talent that was there side-stage. But we knew that would be the only way to rock the house that Queen built: Wembley Stadium.

“Having survived it, I can tell you that Freddie was in that building, ’cause the shivers and lightning shooting right through me during every second of that set was something, till this day, I’ve never felt again.”

“Thank you to all the Queen fans at Wembley that day for allowing us to entertain you. It was an honor, a privilege. A gift we’ll cherish forever.”

Speaking about the show with Kylie Olsson in 2021, Bettencourt revealed that Brian May had begged the band not to go off-piste.

“We wanted to tell Brian, and when we told him, it was the first and last time I've ever argued with him. He was upset that we weren't doing us, that we were doing Queen. He was like, 'I want you guys to celebrate all these bands here.' He was so adamant about us not doing it, 'Please do what you guys do' – we weren't even doing More Than Words [at the time].

“He finally said, 'Look, this is your slot, you guys do what you want to do.' He wasn't very happy with it, but he gave us the blessing, and we went up, and we don't regret it, it was amazing, it was what those fans wanted to hear, I believe.”

In related news, May recently revealed the Freddie Mercury tribute that lives in his very first Gibson signature guitar, and made one of his first public appearances since he suffered a stroke last year when he joined Benson Boone for a run-through of Bohemian Rhapsody at Coachella.

Each year, surprise collabs prove to be a key part of Coachella’s festivities. Pop superstar Benson Boone continued that tradition by tapping Brian May for a firework-laced finale to his festival set, which included a romp through Bohemian Rhapsody.

The American singer-songwriter has shot to fame in double-quick time and, was placed just below Lady Gaga – who would later rock a Suhr Custom Classic T for her performance – and Missy Elliot on the bill. However, he was evidently determined to make the most of his time on the world’s most famous festival stage – and the Queen electric guitar legend was to be his trump card.

Dressed in a white and blue jumpsuit and very regal cape that gave more than a whiff of Freddie Mercury, Boone began the cover playing a grand piano – which he then front-flipped off as May and his Red Special guitar soon rose out of the stage high above him in time for his guitar solo.

But not everyone in the crowd was as excited as Boone for the collab, with his flip getting a louder cheer than his fevered shout of “Brian May everybody!”

May stayed on for the show's closing number, Boone's chart-smashing hit Beautiful Things, which was given an altogether riffier sound. May had teased the performance on Instagram earlier in the day, posting a picture of Boone’s scheduled slot saying “Who's gonna be there tonight? This guy will shake the world.”

Afterward, Boone took to TikTok to make light of the underwhelming response May, a hero in the singer’s eyes, received on the night. He called Brian May an “absolute legend” and championed the “cultural impact he has had on the world”, but an apparent generational divide in the crowd meant the cameo fell slightly flat.

Returning to social media the next day, May clearly loved every second of his spot, saying: “I'm still reeling from last night at Coachella. Thanks to all of you folks who made it feel so special… this particular way of concluding Bohemian Rhapsody will be hard to beat in the years to come! I'm awestruck.”

This was one of May’s first major shows since suffering a minor stroke last year.

Elsewhere, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong donned an SG Junior for his guest appearance during the Go-Go's afternoon showpiece, powering through their 1984 anthem Head Over Heels. An excitable Armstrong exclaimed, “Holy shit, I’m playing with the Go-Gos,” before hurtling into the song’s first verse.

Lady Gaga's Suhr-fuelled headline performance, meanwhile, came hot on the heels of her latest album, Mayhem, for which she's cited Nine Inch Nails as a surprise influence. Her guitar choice was likely inspired by her band member's employment of the brand, with Gaga reuniting with long-time guitarist Tim Stewart earlier this year.

Some additional guitar goodness came courtesy of Beabadoobee and LISA, whose own set was filled with some sensational solos.

Last year’s big Coachella collab shock came when Nile Rodgers and his trusty Stratocaster joined K-pop sensation Le Sserafim, while AP Dhillon's guitar-smashing antics caused controversy, leading Guitar World to ponder whether smashing instruments was still deemed cool or not.

Queen pair Brian May and Roger Taylor have spoken about the “injustice” of one of the band’s biggest money-spinning hits, with the drummer labeling some of May’s comments about his guitar playing as “slightly arrogant”.

The British rock icons were a band full of superlative songwriters, with Brian May and Roger Taylor responsible for mammoth hits like We Will Rock You, Tie Your Mother Down, and Stone Cold Crazy. Speaking in the latest issue of Mojo, May and Taylor discuss the tongue-in-cheek hit that became a “sticking point” for the quartet.

While writing for 1975's A Night at the Opera, Taylor began to sow the first seeds for what would become I'm in Love with My Car, even if May wasn't initially impressed.

“Brian was like, ‘Is this a joke?’” Taylor remembers. “I said, ‘Look at all those people out washing their cars on a Sunday morning, lavishing attention on them – they probably love their cars more than they love their wives.’ It’s a valid lyric I think, but kind of tongue in cheek, too, obviously… cars and girls – what else is there?”

Strangely, Taylor’s autophile anthem was picked to be the B-side for what would soon become their mega-selling hit single, Bohemian Rhapsody. A scene in the band’s 2018 biopic, also called Bohemian Rhapsody, plays into what quickly established itself as a running joke within Queen’s ranks that centered on the song’s unlikely success.

“There was a lot of truth in that,” May admits. “We were aware of the injustice of I’m in Love With My Car making as much money as Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a real sticking point for the band and it’s good we got through it. I think our sense of humor saved us.”

The conversation then takes a step back to look at the broader picture of their songwriting contributions to Queen’s hit-filled discography. Taylor may be a drummer by trade, but he is also a guitarist and offered plenty of songwriting heavy lifting in that respect.

“I think Roger would say to you that it’s very simplistic with him,” May had mused. “He thinks in barre chords on the whole. My contribution would be to come in and make the melodies work better. It’s a humble task but that’s what I’ve done on Roger’s songs – add a bit of color.”

That, however, isn’t as Taylor sees it.

“I’d take issue with quite a lot of that,” he retorts. “It’s a little bit, OK, so you’ve got a piano – now I’m going to come in and tune it. I don’t only think in barre chords, that’s a slightly arrogant statement to make. Brian’s a perfectionist and he will chase down the detail, but that didn’t mean I was going to let him fuck up my songs!”

In related Brian May news, the guitarist has highlighted the subtle but heartfelt tribute to Freddie Mercury that can be found on his new Gibson signature guitar and revealed how his flirtations with Marshall amps were extremely short-lived after being embarrassed by Jimi Hendrix.

He's also spoken about his recovery from the stroke he suffered last year, and explained how Rory Gallagher was pivotal in shaping his now-iconic guitar tone.

Half a century later, when discussing the road to Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut album with Brian May, it’s necessary to suspend your disbelief. Imagine, if you can, a time when the classic line-up of May, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and Roger Taylor were not multi-platinum national treasures.

A time, in fact, when they were penniless nobodies, typically found bottom of the bill at a sweatbox club, being ushered from record label offices or facing tough questions from parents convinced these four bright boys were burning their futures for an impossible dream.

Appearing on our Zoom call in a halo of grey curls, May can smile about it now, knowing what lay ahead. In spring ’72, the band cut their first chink in the industry’s formerly impenetrable armour as they were granted nocturnal recording sessions at the famed Trident Studios.

And with precisely nothing to lose, the music flooded out, with the visceral gallop of Keep Yourself Alive leading them across the gamut of soul-metal (Doing Alright), proto-prog (My Fairy King), acoustic percussive tapping (The Night Comes Down), even flashes of flamenco (Great King Rat).

The first Queen record is a head-scratcher, though. Selling modestly on release, for 51 years, it has been the closest thing this all-conquering band had to a curio, its tracklisting unfamiliar to fans who know every note of, say, A Night At The Opera or The Works.

In that same period, the band, too, had an uneasy relationship with their opening gambit, frustrated by the album’s dry, distant sound. It’s a thorn plucked in style, however, by the new Queen I boxset: a paving slab-sized vinyl/CD package whose remastered and expanded treatment finally reveals these songs as sunken treasures to rank among the band’s very best.

If there is one final, jarring aspect of discussing May’s distant youth, it is the 77-year-old’s recent brush with mortality. In late August of 2024, the guitarist was set to conduct this interview when he suffered a minor stroke that left him temporarily unable to use his left arm.

With customary kindness, May rescheduled when his health mercifully returned, and our first question had to be how this great friend of the magazine is bearing up.

Your stroke must have been frightening. Did you wonder whether you’d play guitar again – or was that the least of your worries at the time?

“It went through my mind. When I suddenly couldn’t control this left arm, it was quite scary. I had no idea what was going on. I phoned my doctor and she said, ‘Okay, I think you’re having a minor stroke. Dial 999, get in the ambulance and I’ll see you there.’

“But even at the worst time, although I couldn’t control where the arm was, I could control my fingers. So I thought, ‘I’m probably not really in danger.’ I’m all right now. I’m just taking it slow.”

The first Queen album is largely a story of struggle, isn’t it?

“It was very tough. And I sometimes wonder if that helped to shape us because everything was a fight. It was a fight to get into a studio. It was a fight to get our own way – and we didn’t, entirely, because we were just boys and everyone else was more powerful. It was a fight to get it released – and then it got completely slaughtered by the music press.

“But later I learned we weren’t the only people being hit by those destructive arrows. In fact, that’s one thing that cheered me up. I remember they gave Led Zeppelin a bad review, and I just thought, ‘Well, Jesus Christ, if they don’t understand that [throws up his hands]…’”

Likewise, every label rejected your demo recorded at De Lane Lea Studios?

“Nobody bit. Not one record company wanted it. Some of them said, ‘Come back in a few years, we’ll talk to you then.’ Again, it strengthens your resolve. You look inside yourself and you think, ‘No, actually, I do believe in this.’ Very early on, as soon as we had John, we really felt we had the power.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise your father didn’t approve of your musical career. But could he really complain, given that he helped you build the Red Special?

“Well, you wouldn’t think he could complain – but he did! He liked helping me with my hobby, but when the hobby became my career, he was very unhappy. I think he also felt he’d sacrificed a lot of his own life to enable me to take my education so far.

“Me giving that up was the worst thing he could imagine. So it was hard for him. It took a long time to sort that out. It only got sorted when I flew him to Madison Square Garden on Concorde, sat him down and said, ‘Okay dad, what do you think?’ A great moment. I think we all need that approval from our parents, don’t we?”

The early ’70s was the golden era of blues-rock. And Queen were definitely not that.

“There were a lot of people staring at their feet on stage. I don’t know if that made it easier or harder to break through. We just knew what we wanted to be. It was very arrogant of us, but we had big dreams.

“We wanted to give people the experience we’d felt watching The Who at Regent Street Polytechnic. They were an hour late, and when they finally got on stage, it was like an earthquake.

“We wanted to give people that same intake of breath. The sound, the lights, the performance, the clothing, the drama – give them everything we had. And, yes, it was very different from the mood of the day. It also wasn’t glam-rock. That was going on at the same time and it’s very much about the glitter or whatever. Which we weren’t.”

As a live band, could you have competed with Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin?

“Well, we had to. There’s videos from the early days and I think we were pretty good. Very early on, we arrived at this view that being a live act was not the same as the studio. Actually, it was simpler because there’s only four of us on stage and no overdubs. It took me a long time to feel confident about being the only guitar on stage.

“I always felt like I needed a rhythm guitar. But, gradually, I got into this habit of playing lead and rhythm at the same time – and I realised that nobody noticed the lack of it. So we had enough. You could fashion that live performance to make people feel they’d heard an orchestra.”

It was while recording Queen’s demo that you first tracked a three-part solo. How did that feel?

“Amazing. That was in my head long before I could actually make it happen. It goes right back to hearing Jeff Beck on Hi Ho Silver Lining, where he double-tracks his lead. I never asked him about it, but he goes into a two-part harmony – probably accidentally – halfway through. And I realised it would be possible to build up whole panoramas of orchestral sounds but with guitars. So I had this vision that the solo for Keep Yourself Alive could be this three-part sequence. But to actually make it happen was a great moment.

“Okay, there was one predecessor, when I did a two-part harmony on Earth, a single we did as Smile. But the three-part harmony is the big deal. Because things suddenly get colourful if you use three parts in creative ways.

“Not just parallel 3rds and 5ths, which is an easy trap to fall into; I never wanted to do that. I always wanted the tensions and colours of dissonance and counterpoint. Everything that an orchestral arranger needs to know, you have to get in your head if you’re going to do something that endures.”

Eventually, the sessions proper began at Trident. How was the atmosphere?

“We were pretty jolly. This was an amazing opportunity, and we were all leaving our supposed careers behind. In a sense, we were aware we were leaving our families and friends behind as well. Because once you put a foot on that road, it takes you a long way from everything you know. But we had each other and our belief that we were doing something special that nobody else could do. We had that insane optimism.

“Through the years, there’s been times when there was tension from trying to paint on the same canvas. You’re feeling sidelined, your baby is being neglected or whatever. But in the case of the first album, that hasn’t happened yet. We’re just thrilled to be there.

“So on the ‘Sessions’ CD in this boxset, you hear snatches of us baiting each other, having a laugh. But you can also tell we’re serious about what we’re doing. We get frustrated when it’s not right, when we can’t get the blend or things aren’t in time. Making that album was an amazing exploratory process. It’s like giving a sculptor his first bit of clay and saying, ‘Here you go.’”

Could you immediately relax as a studio player or did that take time?

“There’s a definite learning process. I remember finding that with the backing tracks you could immerse yourself and let go fairly quickly. Overdubbing is actually harder to keep the spontaneity. Because you’re standing there with your headphones on. Your guitar is revved up. And you’re waiting for your moment.

“It feels unnatural. But I got into this little trick where I fooled myself into thinking I was playing live, and when the moment hit, I was on stage and there were people out there watching.”

How would you describe yourself as a guitarist back then?

“I’m surprised, looking back, how complete I was. I don’t think I can play that much better now than I could then. It had all happened in the teenage years. It’s quite a hothouse, where I came from. Richmond and Twickenham is where The Yardbirds and Rolling Stones came from.

“I had lots of mates to play with and there was fierce competition. You know, ‘Have you heard this latest solo? How did Hank Marvin do that? Can you do that?’ So I learned quickly, and maybe you do when you’ve got that amount of passion and hunger in your body.”

Would you play anything differently if you were tracking that debut album now?

“Actually, no. We’re rebuilding the sound on the boxset. But we didn’t feel the urge to change any of the performances. It would be different, but it wouldn’t necessarily be better. I honestly wouldn’t change a note – and we didn’t.”

That was the first run-out for your homemade Red Special. Wasn’t there pressure to use a standard production model?

“Not at the time. I remember, much later, when we did Crazy Little Thing Called Love, I said, ‘I want a James Burton atmosphere on the solo, so I’m going to make my guitar sound like a Telecaster.’ And the producer, Reinhold Mack, who’s a dour old sod, said, ‘Well, why don’t you just play one?’ But that’s probably the only time in my whole career when I’ve given way.

“The Red Special held up surprisingly well. I did have doubts in the early days because I knew it sounded different from what everybody else was using. It was different from a Strat: it’s warmer. It’s different from a Gibson: it’s got more top-end. It’s got a very wide sound.

“But hearing it back through the speakers was thrilling. Everyone had told us, ‘Nah, it’s never going to work.’ But hearing that stuff coming back, we thought, ‘We can conquer the world.’ We weren’t a modest lot [laughs]. But that self-belief has to be there. It has to be the source of your power.”

“You know, the Red Special was designed to make that kind of noise. We wanted it to sing. We wanted it to feed back. That’s why it’s got the acoustic pockets in the body. I still don’t know if it was all thanks to our design or luck, but it just made that sound. Still does.”

Were the other elements of your classic rig – the AC30 and Dallas Rangemaster treble booster – already in place?

“Yes. That was there from the moment I saw Rory Gallagher and managed to stay behind at The Marquee when everyone had gone home. I asked him, ‘Rory, how do you get that sound?’ And he said, ‘Well, it’s easy, I have the AC30 and this little box, and I turn it up and it sings for me.’

“The next day, I went to a guitar shop and found two secondhand AC30s for £30 each. I found a treble booster. And that did it. I plugged in with my guitar, turned all the way up and it just melted my stomach. That’s my sound. And it’s different from Rory’s. His is much more bright.”

You came up in the era of the Marshall amp stack. Did that never call to you?

“It did – but it was a false call! I remember, we played one show at Olympia. Top of the bill was Jimi Hendrix and everybody essentially played through the same gear. So I plugged into a Marshall stack with my guitar and treble booster. Turned it all the way up – and it sounded so awful. I could hardly play. I didn’t know what to do.

“It sounded like an angry wasp. It didn’t have any depth or articulation, I couldn’t play chords. It was a really hard experience for me.

“After we’d played, I stayed behind backstage and I looked through between the amps as Jimi came on stage, plugged into that same amp – and it sounded like cataclysm.

“I think he had some kind of voodoo magic, but he made that amp sound like an orchestra. And for me, it just didn’t work. So I never got on with Marshalls. I knew Jim Marshall and got on with him very well, but I could never quite tell him, ‘Sorry, I can’t quite get to grips with your amps…’”

How did Roy Thomas Baker record your guitars?

“Roy was a brilliant technician, but his head was in a completely different place from us. He’d been recording things like Get It On, when he’d plugged Marc Bolan’s guitar directly into the desk. So it had no ambience whatsoever. You have no natural amp sound, no compression or smooth distortion. All you have is the direct sound of the guitar, and if you turn it up a lot, it distorts the electronics in the desk – which is a nasty sound, I would say.

“So this was the complete opposite of the way I wanted my guitar to be recorded. I wanted it to have the sound of the amp and the room. So we had a bit of a fight. To be fair, Roy and I had a long relationship where we evolved really good ways of recording guitars.

“But in those days, it was such a rush. And Roy was under pressure to get that ‘Trident sound’, which was very clean, guitars all tight – and it wasn’t what we wanted, but that’s what we got because of pressure from above. The Sheffield brothers [Norman and Barry] wanted it to sound like an album that had the signature sound of Trident Studios. And we wanted to sound like Queen.”

What are your own favourite guitar moments?

“I love My Fairy King. We were experimenting with backwards stuff and I used to get the guys to turn the tape over and give me a cassette I could take home, so I was ready when we came into the studio.

“Keep Yourself Alive was supposed to be ironic, a reaction to the idea that life was just about keeping yourself alive. But I discovered it’s hard to be ironic in a rock song. It came out sounding jolly. And in the end I didn’t fight it because people got a lift from it, so why not?

“That riff goes all the way back. I remember playing it on acoustic at parties, late at night, when people are sitting around. And I remember being surprised that people were impressed because I was a loner and didn’t very often play to people. I remember everyone surrounding me going, ‘Wow, we’ve never seen that before.’”

What’s happening at the start of The Night Comes Down?

“That was played on a very unorthodox guitar. It’s a little acoustic that had belonged to my best friend at school, Dave Dilloway, who drilled holes all over it to put pickups on. So it looked a mess. I put my own bridge on and made it lower and lower until eventually the strings were buzzing on the frets.

“But I thought, ‘Well, I actually like this, it sounds like a sitar.’ So I designed the bridge with all sorts of junk, like needles and pins, to make each string buzz. It’s a guitar that no-one else would take seriously, but it made that particular noise on The Night Comes Down. I’m tapping it and making it buzz, and John is playing in unison with me. When it comes to the chorus, that’s me doing Mantovani’s strings with guitars.”

Big rockstars always say the most exciting moment is that first breakthrough. Is that how Queen I felt?

“Yes. And thanks for calling me a big rockstar. I’m still a kid! I haven’t changed since those days. But it’s a good question. And the moment we felt it was that first Imperial College gig after the album was released. I’d been on the entertainments committee at Imperial College. We booked Hendrix to play in that big Union Hall, and I remember thinking, if we ever did anything like that, it would be incredible.

“Three years later, we’d booked it out, and from being a band that everybody walked past, suddenly we had an audience who actually wanted to hear what we did. Instead of people who grudgingly listened but really they’d rather hear us play covers – they were shouting out for our songs. That was an extraordinary moment. I remember that thought in my head: ‘There is a boulder rolling here…’”

• Queen I is out now via EMI.

Brian May unveiled his rather luxurious Gibson SJ-200 12-string acoustic signature guitar last month, and the instrument came fitted with a subtle, wholesome tribute to the late Freddie Mercury that you might have missed.

The Queen guitarist was, in a surprise move, unveiled as a Gibson signature artist last year as he helped cut the ribbon of the Gibson Garage store in London alongside Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi.

The partnership has led to talk of a Gibson-made Red Special, which May hopes will happen, but in the meantime, the 12-string represents his first creative venture with the historic firm.

“The 12-string I was accustomed to wasn’t performing,” May previously recalled of his signature's origin story. “Gibson kindly said, ‘We’ll make you something special.’”

While the SJ-200 stands out by reversing the order of the octave and regular acoustic guitar strings to suit May's strumming style, it also features a subtle but classy nod to Freddie Mercury, the iconic frontman with whom he and Queen took over the world.

Discussing the guitar in an extended video during which he muses on his love for both art and astronomy, May revealed how his Mercury tribute comes via his namesake planet, which has been etched onto its beautiful pickguard art.

“I believe that the best science is done artistically, and the best art is done with a knowledge of the universe. Look at the science of this guitar,” he purrs. “Look how much technology and craftsmanship has gone into this.

“They were able to put the universe here in some figurative way, and look what's right here in the middle: The planet Mercury. That's a little nod to a friend of mine.

“Freddie's always with me,” he continues, “because he was like a brother. The relationships in Queen lasted longer than any of our marriages. It was a big, big thing. We still carry Queen around with us, even though we don't have Freddie. But I have a Mercury on the guitar now, which makes me very happy.”

Since Mercury's passing, May has performed Love of My Life solo (with the help of old footage of the vocalist) with a 12-string guitar as a tribute to the singer, and so it's fitting that his new guitar will carry his spirit into the band's future live performances.

“Love of my Life was written by Freddie on a piano,” he says of the song. “I played harp on it, and in the intro a Japanese Koto.

“We wanted to play it live on stage. I picked up a 12-string and found that I could make it sing with Freddie quite easily, but probably even more importantly than that, it became a staple feature of our set. We would always quit the bombast, come down very small, and just Freddie and I would play together. It was always a lovely feeling.

“When we lost Freddie, I wanted to play Love of my Life just the way we used to, so it became an audience thing where they all sing it and I hardly need to sing it at all. It just seemed right to involve Freddie.”

The acoustic guitar's release comes after May admitted he had originally wanted a rhythm guitarist in Queen and how Jimi Hendrix put an abrupt end to his experiments with Marshall amps. His career has been underpinned by his love of Vox AC30 amps, a gear recommendation he got from none other than Rory Gallagher.

After announcing their unexpected partnership early last year, Gibson and Brian May have unveiled their first collaborative signature guitar creation – and it’s not a Murphy Lab Red Special.

Instead, the legendary Queen guitarist has been honored with a 12-string SJ-200 acoustic guitar.

When May and Gibson first confirmed they would be working together, many speculated that the partnership would lead to Custom Shop (and maybe even Epiphone) recreations of the iconic Red Special.

Hype was further fanned when May himself revealed to Guitar World that reissues of the DIY guitar he made with his father were indeed on the cards, but it seems we’ll have to wait a little longer for a Gibson Red Special.

For their first drop, the pair have instead prioritized a 12-string SJ-200, which was designed specifically for May after he required one for tour. However, it’s quite unlike your standard 12-string – not only are 12-string SJ-200s exceptionally uncommon, this particular example has also been altered to suit May’s personal strumming style.

As May explains in a press release, his signature SJ-200 flips the 12-string script on its head by reversing the order of the octave and regular acoustic guitar strings.

“The idea for this guitar came when I needed a 12-String on tour, and the one I was accustomed to wasn’t performing right on stage,” May explains. “The guys at Gibson very kindly said, ‘We’ll make you something special that you can use on the tours.’

“One of the things I asked for was for the octaves to be placed around the other way from where it is normally done, because I like to pick upwards and hear the top notes when I’m playing. I like to hear the high octave coming through as then I can play tunes on it.”

A bevy of top-notch tonewoods form the foundation of May’s first Gibson, with AAA rosewood back and sides lining up alongside an AAA Sitka spruce top that boasts an elegant Vintage Sunburst finish.

Elsewhere, there’s a rosewood fingerboard with agoya shell eight-point star inlays, a planetary themed pickguard designed by May, and gold Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners, as well as a solid rosewood moustache bridge, walnut stringer and Fishman Matrix electronics.

All in all, it’s a very pretty SJ-200 indeed, but as May is quick to point out, it’s also a display of refined acoustic guitar engineering. The decision to reverse-mount the strings – so the thicker-gauge strings are on top of the thinner octaves – is a small but influential decision that will have a huge impact on its tone and playability.

As Gibson puts it, it lends itself to “a distinctive sound that’s unlike other Gibson 12-String acoustic models”.

May, unsurprisingly, is impressed: “If you look at this guitar, the beauty of it, and the beauty of the sound, and look at the science in this guitar, look how much technology and craftsmanship has gone into this guitar.

“Gibson was able to put the universe on it in a figurative way and the planet Mercury is here, and that is a little nod to a friend of mine that is always with me.”

“As a trailblazing sound pioneer, trendsetter, and one of the most influential musicians of all time, it’s an absolute privilege to be collaborating with Sir Brian May,” says Cesar Gueikian, CEO of Gibson, of the new release.

“Brian’s impact on music and culture is second to none and was a transformational influence on my personal music journey. We are deeply honored that Brian has trusted Gibson with this SJ-200 12-string guitar, and we are excited to finally bring it to music lovers around the world.”

Only 100 of these 12-string SJ-200s will be made, and they’ll be available for $7,999 via the Gibson Garages in Nashville and London, and on the Gibson website.

Head over to Gibson to find out more.

While Queen would go on to become one of history's most enduring live powerhouses (who can forget their Live Aid performance at Wembley Stadium?), Brian May recently revealed that he initially felt insecure about being the only guitarist in the band, and even campaigned for the inclusion of a rhythm guitarist in the band’s early days.

“There’s videos from the early days and I think we were pretty good,” he tells Guitarist. “Very early on, we arrived at this view that being a live act was not the same as the studio. Actually, it was simpler because there’s only four of us on stage and no overdubs.

“It took me a long time to feel confident about being the only guitar on stage. I always felt like I needed a rhythm guitar. But, gradually, I got into this habit of playing lead and rhythm at the same time – and I realized that nobody noticed the lack of it. So we had enough. You could fashion that live performance to make people feel they’d heard an orchestra.”

May's wish did come true in the mid-'80s, when Queen added Spike Edney to their touring lineup for the European leg of 1984's The Works tour.

While primarily a keyboardist, Edney contributed rhythm guitar to various tracks and continued playing with Queen at almost every show until the band stopped touring in 1986.

He later resumed his role, even joining May in The Brian May Band and returning as keyboardist for the Queen + Adam Lambert tours. In fact, he can be spotted supporting May on rhythm guitar during Hammer to Fall in Queen's Live at Wembley Stadium and Hungarian Rhapsody concert films.

Another rhythm guitarist May had the pleasure of adding to his lineup? Jamie Moses – who became Queen’s second guitarist from 1998 through 2009, as well as playing in The Brian May Band.

Speaking to Guitar World about how Edney played a role in him managing to clinch the highly coveted role, Moses said, “I met him at the Freddie Mercury tribute at Wembley while I was playing with Bob Geldof. My old mate, Spike Edney – who still plays keyboards with Queen – said, ‘Come on, we’ll introduce you to Brian…’ Within six months, he put the Brian May Band together; Spike called me up and I got the gig.”

And last but not least, Freddie Mercury himself did occasionally experiment with guitar. “He was very good on the guitar, very unorthodox – all downstrokes,” relayed May in a 2019 Guitar World interview. “He wrote the riff for Ogre Battle [from 1974’s Queen II].

“I used to play it with up- and downstrokes, but he was all downstrokes. Imagine how fast his right hand was moving! He played the rhythm on Crazy Little Thing Called Love [1979]. I wanted to sound as good as Freddie did on that record, which was damn good!”

For more from May, plus new interviews with Eric Johnson and Rosanne Cash, pick up issue 521 of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

Certain elements of Brian May’s gear are imprinted in the consciousness of guitar players. The Red Special is, of course, as inextricably linked to May as his halo of curls. His devotion to the Vox AC30 comes in at a close second.

Now, more than half a century after the release of Queen's self-titled 1973 debut – and with the recent reissue of the Queen I box set, a reworked version of the album that started it all – May looks back on those early days and tips his cap to the legendary guitarist who converted him into a Vox disciple.

“[The AC30 and Dallas Rangemaster treble booster] was there from the moment I saw Rory Gallagher,” May tells Guitarist. “I managed to stay behind at [legendary London venue] The Marquee when everyone had gone home.

“I asked him, ‘Rory, how do you get that sound?’ And he said, ‘Well, it’s easy, I have the AC30 and this little box, and I turn it up and it sings for me.’ The next day, I went to a guitar shop and found two secondhand AC30s for £30 each.

“I found a treble booster. I plugged in with my guitar, turned all the way up and it just melted my stomach. That’s my sound. And it’s different from Rory’s. His is much more bright.”

In an interview for the film What's Going On - Taste Live At The Isle Of Wight [below], May discusses the same meeting – and how he would watch Gallagher and his band Taste on a near weekly basis during the latter’s residency at the London club in the late ’60s.

“We were boys and we hung around and hid when The Marquee was at turning-out time and then we strolled over as if we ought to be there...” remembers May.

“He was incredibly patient. He was packing up his own gear – that’s the kind of man he was... and he had the grace to speak to us. He didn’t go, ‘Get out of here!’”

Later in the Guitarist interview, May reveals that he also experimented with Fender Strats and Gibson Les Pauls during that period – and even recalls one ill-fated gig in which he tried running through a Marshall stack.

“I plugged into a Marshall stack with my guitar and treble booster, turned it all the way up – and it sounded so awful. I could hardly play,” May tells Guitarist.

“I didn’t know what to do. It sounded like an angry wasp. It didn’t have any depth or articulation, I couldn’t play chords. It was a really hard experience for me.”

May notes with good humor that the night’s headliner – Jimi Hendrix – did not suffer from the same issues with the Marshall.

For more from May, plus new interviews with Eric Johnson and Rosanne Cash, pick up issue 521 of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

Brian May has opened up on his recent health scare, which briefly left him fearing he’d be unable to play the guitar again.

In September last year, the Queen electric guitar hero revealed he was recovering after suffering a “minor stroke”, and at the time said there was some concern over whether he’d be able to pick up the Red Special again after he lost control of one of his arms.

In the new issue of Guitarist, May issued an update on his health, and said he was “all right now”, even if he did have those initial fears.

“It went through my mind,” May responds, when asked if he thought he might never play the guitar again.

“When I suddenly couldn’t control this left arm, it was quite scary,” he continues. “I had no idea what was going on. I phoned my doctor and she said, ‘Okay, I think you’re having a minor stroke. Dial 999, get in the ambulance and I’ll see you there.’”

However, while the thought of a future without guitar playing momentarily played on his mind, May was never really in any doubt he’d pick up his six-string again as he could still move his digits.

“Even at the worst time, although I couldn’t control where the arm was, I could control my fingers.” explains May. “So I thought, ‘I’m probably not really in danger.’ I’m all right now. I’m just taking it slow.”

It is, of course, a positive update. Although May did his best to allay fan fears at the time, hearing the guitar virtuoso admit he’d lost control of his arm was still alarming.

“I'm here to bring you some good news: the good news is that I can play guitar after the events of the last few days,” he said in the clip last September.

“I say this because it was in some doubt because that little health hiccup that I mentioned happened about a week ago, and what they called it was a 'minor stroke.'

“All of a sudden out of the blue I didn’t have any control of this arm, so it’s a little scary. I had the most fantastic care and attention from Frimley Hospital.”

Elsewhere in his Guitarist interview, May recalls the one time he experimented with a Marshall stack – which he says “sounded awful”, only for one Jimi Hendrix to step after him...

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitarist, which also features interviews with Eric Johnson, Rosanne Cash, and Andy Timmons.

Brian May and the Vox AC30 guitar amp: it's like peanut butter and jelly, bread and butter, baseball and hot dogs. That and, of course, his trademark Red Special electric guitar, and you have one of the most iconic player/instrument/amp combos in rock.

That's not to say, though, that May arrived at that setup straight away.

In Queen's early days, May didn't have a backup Red Special on hand, leading him to have to turn to Strats and Les Pauls – neither of which he ever clicked with – on occasion.

Having gotten his real start in the rock guitar world in the early '70s, May was also absolutely surrounded by Marshall stacks, which were seen as both a necessity in the nascent arena rock circuit – which didn't really exist until the late '60s – and a weapon in the loudness war of sorts that was fast developing between the biggest bands of the period.

Asked by Guitarist in a recent interview if he was ever tempted to follow his contemporaries down the Marshall road, May replied in the affirmative, vividly recalling the night he experimented with a fabled Marshall stack.

“We played one show at Olympia [in London]. Top of the bill was Jimi Hendrix and everybody essentially played through the same gear,” the guitarist recalled. “So I plugged into a Marshall stack with my guitar and treble booster. Turned it all the way up – and it sounded so awful. I could hardly play.

“I didn’t know what to do. It sounded like an angry wasp. It didn’t have any depth or articulation, I couldn’t play chords. It was a really hard experience for me.”

Naturally, as May observed, Mr. James Marshall Hendrix seemed a bit more at home with that particular sonic weapon.

“After we’d played, I stayed behind backstage and I looked through between the amps as Jimi came on stage, plugged into that same amp – and it sounded like a cataclysm,” May recalled.

To read the full interview with May – in which the guitarist discusses the new Queen I boxset, poverty, parental disapproval, and the Red Special’s first run-out – pick up a copy of the new issue of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

“When you have a new guitar in your hands, it makes you feel good. When you’re playing and messing around with sounds that are inspiring, that’s when the ideas come.”

That’s Chris Shiflett – veteran Foo Fighter, thriving solo artist and Shred With Shifty podcast host – waxing lyrical about his all-new, American-made Fender signature model.

It’s a rollout he’s been teasing since early spring, when prototype versions started appearing on his social media and onstage with him at Foos shows in the US. Now, road tested to perfection and ready to hit guitar stores, meet the Fender Chris Shiflett Cleaver Telecaster Deluxe.

Available in Dakota Red or Charcoal Frost, it comes loaded with two Custom Chris Shiflett Cleaver Noiseless CS-90 pickups and features a resonant alder body with a comfortable belly cut. It boasts a large, ‘70s Strat-style headstock, a speedy 25.5” scale maple neck with a 12” radius rosewood fingerboard and 21 medium jumbo frets.

It promises gutsy stadium-sized tones as well as the twangy cleans that you’re much more likely to find in Shiflett’s countrified solo sets.

It’s not his first rodeo with Fender signatures – in 2012 he teamed up with the company to launch a wallet-friendly Mexican Tele Deluxe, before going full bells and whistles on a more exclusive Masterbuilt variant in 2019.

Dubbed “The Cleaver” for its ability to slash through the mix – thanks to a pair of high-end Fralin P-90s – the Masterbuilt has been one of his main weapons of choice ever since. But he admits it was “crazy expensive” to make, and not suited to any kind of mainstream rollout.

Thus, the new Cleaver Deluxe was conceived to bridge the gap between the two previous models in terms of spec and price point.

Before we get onto the new Cleaver Deluxe, what do Telecasters mean to you, and what are your most enduring associations with them?

“Going way back, Keith Richards is probably the first person I associated with the Telecaster. Then Joe Strummer, of course, is a huge one. Then you get into all the country pickers. The Telecaster is so closely associated with country music – it's the gold standard of honky-tonk guitar playing.

“I think of it as the perfect workhorse guitar. You can’t really break them. You can drop them or kick them and they just keep coming back for more!”

What sets this signature model apart?

“The pickups. The original production model had humbuckers. This one has Fender pickups that are modeled after the Lindy Fralin noiseless P-90s I have in the Masterbuilt one.

“When I got the first prototype from Fender, I A/B’d it with my Masterbuilt and – to my ears – it sounded literally the same. I think they got that right on the very first pass.”

What other design elements were you most specific about wanting to include?

“I’m always excited by new colors. This comes in Dakota Red, like the Masterbuilt, but we’ve also got it in Charcoal Frost, which is super cool. I love that we painted the headstock. As an aesthetic detail that just appeals to me.

“All the details are spot on. The tint on the neck, the rosewood fretboard, the 500k pots. Those little details make a big difference to me going out on stage and playing all the time. This thing’s great out of the box and there’s no tweaking necessary.”

How did the guitar got its name?

“I think it was my old guitar tech, Sean Cox, or maybe our sound guy. I don’t remember who came up with it, but we called the original one ‘The Cleaver’ because it cut through!

In Foo Fighters we have a lot of sound coming off the stage and as one of the guitar players in the band it’s something I’m always thinking about. Where should my tone sit? The P-90s just have that growl.”

You’ve been using Superstrats onstage as well lately, which feel like the antithesis of the Cleaver Deluxe – or any Telecaster for that matter. So where does the love of shred guitars come from?

“You’re totally right! I’ve gotten a few of those over the years. When I grew up it was the era of Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Yngwie Malmsteen and all those full-ripping guitar heroes. But I could never play like that! By the time I was playing in high school bands I’d moved into a different space musically.

“There was a time you wouldn’t have touched a Superstrat, at least in my world – that was very illegal. It’s cool to be able to let go of those old feelings and those silly rules we put on ourselves when we’re young.

“The nice folks at Fender have given me one of those yellow and black Eddie Van Halen Strats. I’ve got a Charvel. I’ve got a regular Strat with a humbucker and a Floyd Rose in it. I’ll go to those occasionally for certain things.”

What other gear is most essential to you right now?

“For my solo stuff I’ve been using a Quad Cortex. For my podcast, I use the Tone Master Pro that Fender put out. It sounds amazing and it’s super intuitive. I like it a lot and I like messing with all that stuff.

“In Foo Fighters I have my real amps, but I also have the luxury of a giant road crew that sets all that stuff up for me. When it’s me on my own on a van tour, I’ll just take the Quad Cortex because it’s so much easier.

“They’re all just tools to get the job done. I think people get really worked up about new technologies, when it’s all just about whatever sounds good in the room.?

Has the experience of interviewing guitar superstars on your Shred with Shifty podcast impacted your approach to playing?

“It has – a lot! The premise of the show is that we’re breaking down one of my guest’s guitar solos. In advance of every interview I have to spend some time trying to figure out how to play the solo.

“First off, a lot of them are just hard and I can’t play them! But even the ones that aren’t as advanced technique-wise, it’s an interesting challenge to try to put somebody else’s phrasing in my hands.

“As guitar players, we’re all kind of doing the same stuff. It’s just our individual feels, where you start the lick; all that kind of stuff that makes your personal style.

“Over the course of a couple of seasons – and we’ve got most of season two in the can now – the idea has been that there’s so much information out there on how to play anything, but it’s almost always wrong!

“The mission was, ‘Let’s go to the source and find out exactly what was played.’ But you do that, and you realize they don’t know! They played it on a record at one point and they don’t remember it exactly.

“The biggest takeaway is that it doesn’t matter; that’s not the point of playing guitar. It’s not about learning anything exactly; but I love putting myself in somebody else’s mindset to try to understand what they did.”

What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned from a guest?

“I interviewed Wolfie Van Halen, and even though I didn’t fully learn the tapping pattern of the solo we focused on, that definitely inspired me to learn the little tapping bit in Eruption to the best of my ability, and start throwing that into some Foo Fighters sets.”

What guests do you have lined up for season two?

“We’ve got Michael Schenker, Keith Urban, Molly Tuttle, Derek Trucks and a bunch more after that. I interviewed Zakk Wylde just the other day. So there’s some really good guitar players in this season.”

As somebody who’s also shared stages with a lot of legendary players over the years, who has been the most memorable?

“Brian May would be a big one – that was when I first joined Foo Fighters and we played at Brixton Academy. Brian came out and played a song with us. All of a sudden you’re standing next to that dude and you’re like, ‘It’s Brian May! That sounds like Brian May!’

“I love when you play with some of these folks and it reminds you of how much of it’s in the hands. It’s who they are; it’s how they play and it’s that tone.”

Is it difficult to focus on what you’re doing when you’re standing next to people like that?

“Absolutely! When we played at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Paul McCartney came out and we did a song with him. I remember really specifically prepping myself to stay in the moment, look around, breathe deep, take it all in, look at your bandmates, look at Paul McCartney, look at your family right over there.

“And of course, when you start doing that, you start playing the song wrong. So there you go!”

• The Chris Shiflett Cleaver Telecaster Deluxe will retail at $2,499.99 USD / £2,599 GBP / €2,999.

For Chris Shiflett, joining the Foo Fighters in 1999 quickly turned into a whirlwind adventure.

Within 48 hours of becoming the band’s second guitarist, he found himself guitar shopping with Dave Grohl’s Amex, and not long after that, he was sharing stages with some huge names.

More recently, that’s included jamming Hot For Teacher with Wolfgang Van Halen, but when Shiflett was asked who his most memorable stage-sharers have been in an upcoming chat with Guitar World, a few key names stood out above the rest.

“When we played at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Paul McCartney came out and we did a song with him,” he reflects. “I remember really specifically prepping myself to stay in the moment, look around, breathe deep, take it all in, look at your bandmates, look at Paul McCartney, look at your family right over there.

“And of course, when you start doing that, you start playing the song wrong. So there you go!”

Macca wasn't the only artist to have made an impression on Shiflett. Elsewhere in his GW chat, he also singles out Brian May as a particularly influential collaborator.

“Guitar-wise, Brian May would be a big one,” he says. “That was when I first joined Foo Fighters. We played at Brixton Academy not too long after that and that was the first time I experienced Brian coming out and playing a song with us.

“All of a sudden you’re standing next to that dude and you’re like, ‘It’s Brian May! That sounds like Brian May!’”

May had joined the band for their encore that evening, digging into two Queen tracks – We Will Rock You and Now I'm Here – with Roger Taylor also starring behind the drum kit. What Shiflett heard coming from May’s Red Special guitar taught him a valuable lesson.

“I love when you play with some of these folks and it reminds you of how much of it is in the hands,” Shiflett goes on. “It’s who they are, it’s how they play and it’s that tone.”

Shiflett has just dropped a stunning signature 'Cleaver' Telecaster Deluxe with Fender. The guitar has been “road-tested, kicked around, and X-rayed” to meet the guitarist’s exacting specs.

He’s also recently took a divebomb-friendly custom-built Superstrat on tour with him for the Foo’s latest shows, having gotten the idea from Richie Sambora.

Keep your eyes on GW for the full interview, which includes an in-depth look at his new Tele, essential gear, and the impact his Shred With Shifty podcast has had on his playing.

Iommi’s innovations in Black Sabbath would not only prove to be influential on the sound of the genre in its most classic form, but would also spawn many of its offshoots and subgenres, from the doomy discordance of the self-titled track that opened their debut to the groove-metal thunder heard on the chromatic riffs of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and the proto thrash of Symptom of the Universe.

Then there’s the more progressive side of his playing, exquisitely documented by lesser-known deep cuts like Megalomania, Spiral Architect and The Writ, where the bold stream of consciousness seemed to laugh in the face of musical boundaries and choose to follow no calling but its own.

In that sense, his stature as the original and definitive metal riff lord often can feel like a double-edged sword; a well-intended acknowledgement doesn’t quite do justice to the wide breadth of his genius in full. To put it bluntly, Iommi’s influence on guitar playing and wider culture as a whole goes far beyond the obvious.

There’s a famous quote attributed to punk rock icon Henry Rollins: “You can only trust yourself and the first six Sabbath albums.” Some say the comment was made about the first four records (not the first six), but either way, there’s a comforting truth in such a notion.

The Ronnie James Dio-fronted years were mesmerizing in their own way, and there were certainly creative victories on later conquests with Tony Martin, and an honorable mention definitely goes to 13 – the 2013 Ozzy Osbourne comeback that would serve as their artistic farewell – though between 1970 and 1975, Black Sabbath were quite simply untouchable.

Iommi and his bandmates changed the face of music forever, to the point where even 56 years after their formation, you’d be hard pressed to find a heavy metal band that doesn’t owe them a colossal sense of debt.

The group called it a day in 2017 and are now spoken of in the past tense, though their fearless leader has soldiered on with ventures new. There’s been a slew of reissues spanning each and every era of the band, not to mention a photo book and his own aftershave line with Italian company Xerjoff, where fragrances have been promoted by the release of a new track. The latest offering, Deified, combines screaming wah-wah leads with gothic orchestration and medieval menace.

Given how it would so easily sit on the soundtrack for a horror movie, it’s very much business as usual for this metal master.

“Yeah, I agree, it would work nicely for a scary movie!” he says, talking to GW on a warm summer’s day from his home in Poole on the south coast of England.

“I do like that sort of stuff and always have. But I still feel like I’m experimenting and trying out new things. My approach to music has always been about venturing out a bit and pushing myself further.”

That concept of pushing himself further also can be attributed to the gear he’s used on these latest recordings, which includes the 2021 track Scent of Dark.

For someone who has built a career out of plugging Gibson SGs into Laney amps, it comes as a surprise to hear the metal innovator talking about digital gear – proving that it really doesn’t matter who you are, what you sound like or what generation you’re from; the quality of amp simulation in the modern age is something that just can’t be ignored.

“These latest songs were done in my studio,” he says. “I either used my Jaydee guitar or my main Gibson SG, possibly both. The guitars were going through my Kemper Profiler. I’ve also got a Laney plugged in over there, so it could have been a mixture of the two.

“I have to say, I really like the Kemper. It was my producer Mike Exeter who introduced me to it a while back, and I was very impressed. Especially because you didn’t need to have all the speakers mic’d up; you could sit with it next to you in the control room.

“Mike sampled my Laney tone, and then we improved on that a little bit. I’ve found it to be very useful. And the sound quality is incredible; it can actually be quite hard to tell the difference between the Kemper and a real amp.

“Of course, I do like being in a room with a head and cabinet, just to get that bounce back from the speakers. But as far as new gear goes, the Kemper has been working very well for me in the studio.”

How’s the next solo album shaping up?

“There’s definitely something coming. When it will be here, I do not know. [Laughs] I won’t put Deified and Scent of Dark on the next album. Those are separate things for me. The tracks I’m working on right now are a mixture of styles from acoustic to heavy stuff. There’s a variety.

“I haven’t picked out exactly what I’m going to do with the songs or who I’m going to use or whatever yet, but I’ve recorded quite a few ideas. A lot of them have been done at home. The next thing we’re going to do is put some drums on, so it’s coming along.

“I’m just taking my time with it. I can only work on the new music on certain days because I’ve got other stuff on. I tend to work on a Monday and Tuesday with Mike Exeter. We’ll go in and focus on a particular track while also fiddling around with sounds and whatnot for other stuff. It’s been an interesting process, juggling lots of different ideas.”

Other than the Kemper, what’s the last piece of gear that impressed you?

“Mike gets sent things for me to try, as did Mike Clement – my old guitar tech [who passed away in 2022]. Things would get brought over and I’d say, ‘Oh yeah, I like that one.’ But most of these things are very similar. I must have hundreds and hundreds of pedals at home.

“I’ll try them and think they sound good but also realize they sound a lot like something else I’ve already got. Finding something unique is actually quite hard. There have been a couple that stood out, though. Anything I think is good gets to stay, and then there are boxes full of things that don’t stay.

“Mike Exeter brought me an octave pedal, the Electro-Harmonix Nano POG, a while back. It sounded really great, and we ended up putting it in my rack. I’m always open to trying things; I love doing that. Recently there was a guy from Mustard Effects who tried to copy my original booster and called it the War Pig pedal. I thought it sounded good.

“There was one pedal I got sent that did a ghosting effect, a bit like my old Laney amp. It was originally made by the cheap transformers and weird circuits in the heads, but this gadget – the Origin Effects RevivalDRIVE [overdrive] – recreates that effect really well. I’ve used it a bit here and there.”

Your last major public appearance was at the opening of the London Gibson Garage alongside Brian May and Jimmy Page earlier this year. You and Brian see each other a lot; what was it like reconnecting with Jimmy?

“I’ve seen Jimmy a few times over the years. We’ve gotten together here and there. He’s a really nice guy, I like him a lot. It’s fun to talk about what we’re doing, stuff that we’re working on – we’re both from the same era and still creating. We come from the same sort of stable. I don’t think either of us are into technical stuff; we stick to what we know, the things that work. The same goes for Brian.”

You’re all very multifaceted, mixing heavy riffs and aggressive blues with more psychedelic and acoustic influences. It made some headlines when you turned up together.

“It is great to hook up with each other. We don’t do it enough. Brian and I see each other all the time, but I don’t see Jimmy that much. When I do, we always have a great conversation and enjoy each other’s company. It’s rare to do that with the people from our generation because they’re all popping off. [Laughs] That can make it difficult.”

Let’s go back to the beginning. You were 17 when you lost two fretting-hand fingertips in a factory accident and got told you wouldn’t play again. That is undoubtedly every guitarist’s worst nightmare.

“Oh, it was awful. I just couldn’t believe it, particularly as it happened on the day I was going to leave the job, which is insane. I’d given my notice to leave so I could join a band and go to Germany. It was a good opportunity. I went in on the last day and that’s what happened. It shocked me. I never had any idea something like that was going to happen. I was truly devastated.”

And then somebody told you about Django Reinhardt, which must have felt like a ray of light given how much he accomplished after his injuries.

“It really felt like that. It was actually the foreman at the factory I worked at. He came over to see me afterwards. He knew I had the accident and also knew the machine was wobbly and faulty. I shouldn’t have been on it, really. So he came over with a Django record and said, ‘Have a listen to this.’

“I was down at the time and didn’t want to listen to anything, but he got me to put it on and I went, 'Yeah, it’s brilliant.' Then he told me the story [Reinhardt suffered extensive burns over half his body – including the ring and little fingers of his left hand – in late 1928], and I must admit it really did help and inspire me to work on a way to play with what I had left.”

You were briefly a member of Jethro Tull. What did you learn from them?

“That was a strange meeting. We did a gig with Jethro Tull and it was the night Mick Abrahams was either fired or left – I don’t know what happened there. I saw them passing notes to each other on stage and thought it was weird. After the show, they asked if I’d be interested in joining, which was really surprising.

“On the way home in the van, I said to the other guys, ‘Tull asked if I wanted to join them,’ and they all told me to go for it. Then I had to come down to London and audition, because there were so many guitar players interested. I walked in and saw all these musicians waiting in line and thought, ‘Oh no, forget it.’ But one of the crew saw me and told me to go and sit in a cafe across the road.

“They fetched me when everyone was gone. I played and they told me I’d got the job. It was quite a different thing for me. A big step in them days. It was a big deal for me to even get out of Birmingham. That’s how it all happened. And it certainly was a good experience for me, because I learned a lot about how they worked and how [founding frontman] Ian Anderson would run the band.”

And how was that, exactly?

“They would rehearse at a strict time every morning at nine o’ clock or whatever it was and then break for lunch. It was a bit like going to work, really. In Black Sabbath, we never did that. We’d get together whenever, probably after midday. Those early morning starts were a bit of a shock. It was good to learn about how other people work.

“If you want a career in music, you’ve got to take it seriously. That’s what I spoke to my guys about. After a couple of things with Tull, including The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, I left and said to the Sabbath guys, ‘Let’s get back together – but we’ve got to work at it and put everything we’ve got into it.’ They agreed.”

You’ve said Hank Marvin and Eric Clapton were your main influences early on. Was there anyone else?

“I might have picked up other influences, but I didn’t tend to realize them. As you say, Hank Marvin was the original one, but his playing was worlds apart from what I would go on to do. That was the start for me, though. The Shadows were an instrumental band and I learned to play through their music.

“Then I went from there to Eric Clapton’s take on the blues and the John Mayall stuff, all of which I really liked. It kickstarted a whole genre of heavy blues players. Mayall put forward a lot of guitar legends, from Peter Green to Clapton to Mick Taylor.

“After that, I never thought much about influences. You get into the habit of doing it yourself. Everybody starts off by copying their favorite players and learning from them, and then you do your own thing and venture out. Well, some people. Others are happy copying things perfectly and exactly, because that’s what feels good for them.”

Jeff Beck was another one of the early British blues heroes. Were you a fan of his work?

“Oh yeah, Jeff was great. I met Jeff early on because we had the same manager. He was so different and unique. A truly great player who was just doing his own thing that was 100 percent him. It’s true what they said; nobody could play quite like Jeff.”

Black Sabbath was born out of your fascination with the macabre. Much of its eeriness stems from that tritone interval. When did you first become aware of tritones – and how did you come up with that riff?

“I’ve always been interested in horror films and that type of music. I’m into anything dramatic. We went into rehearsal one day, and Geezer [Butler, bass] was just playing around doing some [English classical composer] Gustav Holst stuff on his bass. I came up with this riff made out of three notes, the second being the same as the first but an octave up.

“But I didn’t know anything about the last note being a tritone. I didn’t know what the term even represented, though I knew I liked the sound of it and the feel we got from it. The mood was like what you’d experience watching a horror film. That’s what I related it to while putting the song together.”

The faster palm-muted riff toward the end is built off the Aeolian scale. How much were you aware of the modes at this point?

“I knew nothing about the modes. I never read music and don’t know anything about that side of it. For me, it’s all about feel and what I come up with at the time. When we did that section, just like everything I’ve ever done, I started playing something and thought, ‘Oh, I like that.’ If I like what I hear, I use it, and if I don’t like it, I won’t. That’s how Black Sabbath came about.

“I knew I wanted the end section to lift up into this galloping idea. I like tempo changes and felt it needed to go somewhere else. For some reason, that’s something that’s just embedded in me. One riff will take me so far, and then I will think about going into a chorus or another riff. It’s what I’ve been doing the whole time.”

That galloping rhythm is associated with a lot of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands that followed.

“Yeah! I can hear how the up-tempo stuff like the end of Black Sabbath and Children of the Grave affected what came next. It’s almost like this throbbing sort of rhythm.

“A lot of the bands that came after ended up looking up to Sabbath as an influence, because there were very few of us doing that in those early days. It was just Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and ourselves. The heavy groups that came after went back to the three of us and learned things.”

Sleeping Village doesn’t get talked about enough. From the nylon-string intro to the meaty Dorian blues riffs and up-tempo layered solos, it’s very experimental – despite your all being very young at the time.

“I like mixing different moods and styles. If you have a heavy song, it makes sense to have a bit of a rest and go into something more laid-back, like Sleeping Village or whatever. And then go back into something heavy again, just to give it a bit of light and shade. It’s more interesting than having an album stay heavy the whole way through.

“I like to mix these elements on the albums but also within actual songs, like Sleeping Village or Die Young, where we drop down to a quieter part. It’s an important part of the way I write.”

From what you’ve told us in the past, that first album was made with your backup SG into a Laney LA100BL and a Dallas Arbiter Rangemaster boost. But Wicked World was recorded with your Strat, which had a pickup failure during the sessions.

“That’s correct. When the Strat went, I couldn’t bloody well believe it. I’d worked on that guitar myself for a long time, getting the fretboard right, the frets down and the feel just how I like it. I needed to do all of that because of my accident. So we went in to make our first album and the guitar pickup went right at the beginning of the process.”

“In those days, it was a big fiasco getting a pickup changed or fixed. It wasn’t like how it is now, where you can go into any guitar shop and someone will be able to swap it. Not only that; we only had two days to make the album, one of which was for recording. I had to use my SG, which was the backup I kept on the side.

“I hadn’t owned it long, so I’d never really used it. When the Strat pickup went, I had to pick up the SG. From that day on, I never looked back. I stuck with the SGs. But at the time, I’d only used my Strat in combination with my booster and the Laney. That’s what I’d been using to create my sound, so it was quite scary having to improvise with something else.”

As you say, you ended up sticking with SGs for your entire career. Why that instead of, say, a Les Paul?

“I’ve always felt the SG is a comfortable guitar to hold. I really like the look of a Les Paul, but with my injuries from the accident, I always felt I couldn’t get up to the top frets, almost like my fingers weren’t long enough.

“It didn’t feel as comfortable as the SG and it’s very important as a player to feel comfortable. I did have a Les Paul later on but I never played it much. They look great and I love the sound other people have gotten with their Les Pauls, but the SG seemed to suit me best, so I stuck with it.”

Have you ever been tempted to try out an ES-335, a Telecaster or maybe even a superstrat?

“I think I tried a 335 at some point. But the problem was you couldn’t get left-handed ones. I had to get a regular one and turn it upside down, playing it that way. But I never used them much. It was always back to the SG.

“The only other guitar I really liked was that original Strat, which I wish I’d kept. I can’t believe I got rid of it. This was before I knew you could easily change pickups and things. I just thought the guitar had completely had it, so it was time to get rid of it. A big mistake.”

How many guitars do you own in total, and which would you say are the most collectable?

“I don’t really know, but the figure is probably around 70. I’ve gotten rid of quite a few. Some have gone to the Hard Rock Cafe and places like that, or auctions that are raising money for charity. So in terms of what’s left, it’s probably around 70 or 80. I only use so many, to be honest.

“You can have all these guitars but you don’t use them. Some might get pulled out now and again, but I tend to stick to about three or four that I use all the time. That’s the Gibson SG, which is a replica of my original, and the Jaydees, which were great instruments built by John Diggins. He’s passed on now, but he made me a guitar just before that happened, which was a great honor. I have the last guitar he ever made.”

The Monkey Gibson SG is probably the guitar you’re most associated with. Is that still with the Hard Rock Cafe?

“Yeah. I did try and get it back, to be honest. The guy who used to buy memorabilia for the Hard Rock came to England and visited me. He wanted to buy some stuff and I said it should be fine.

“I’d retired the Monkey SG because it was too valuable to me; I didn’t want to take it on the road and risk it getting damaged. He offered to buy it and it seemed like a good idea because the guitar could be displayed for people to see and kept safe, instead of sitting in a case somewhere in my storage.”

“But the deal was if I ever wanted it back, I could let him know and buy it back for the same price. It seemed fair enough, a good deal. Anyway, he passed away, so that was it. We tried to get in touch with Hard Rock to get it back and they knew nothing about the deal. But they allowed Gibson to go in and take the guitar in order to copy it exactly.

“They made the replicas; I think we did about 50 of them and I own two of those. I have to say they are exactly like that one I owned and they are what I use in the studio. They have the same knocks and bumps as the original, plus the little monkey sticker. It’s the same guitar, basically.”

The second album is loaded with hits. Even the lesser-known cuts like Hand of Doom and Electric Funeral are firm fan favorites. What are you most proud of from that album?

“It’s hard to pinpoint because I don’t really think like that. Certainly, as far as riffs are concerned, there’s a lot to like about Iron Man. I’m proud of how all the different changes piece together in that song. To be honest, I’m very proud of Paranoid as a whole. There are a lot of good tracks on that.”

The Iron Man riff uses power chords built off the natural minor scale. But perhaps the real magic lies in the drag of the tempo you chose to play it in. Maybe it wouldn’t have had the same effect sped up.

“Funnily enough, when we used to play live, we’d slow it down even more. When we went into the studio to do that album, we were so hyped up we were actually playing it a little faster. Then you end up sticking to that tempo because that’s what everyone hears on the album.

“But as we carried on playing it live over the years, it got slower and slower, just to give it more depth and power. That’s what you do as a live band. And other songs would end up being faster when we played live. Bill [Ward, drums] would get carried away with the tempo – or I would.”

The E Dorian runs in Planet Caravan are responsible for getting a lot of metalheads into jazz. How did you go about attacking that one, and what influences were you thinking of?

”I’ve always listened to jazz and would say Joe Pass was one of my favorite players from that style. There’s some blues stuff in the mix too. I was listening to the chord movement and thinking to myself, ‘What does this need and what leads would fit best?’ And I’d still happily play in a jazzy style now if the song calls for it.

“I’ve always liked jazz. In fact, for some of the live shows in the past we used to do a bit of a jazzy bit. Bill really loved jazz drumming, so we’d incorporated some of that into our show. Even the debut album, Wicked World had a lot of jazz going on.”

You’ve mainly stuck with the boost and wah pedal over the years, but the Paranoid solo famously features a ring modulator effect.

“I remember trying it out and thinking, ‘Oh, that could work here!’ It’s so easy to fall into the trap of not experimenting. It’s nice to try things out and surprise yourself. If it works, I keep it.”

Early songs like Iron Man, N.I.B. and Fairies Wear Boots have these really melodic vocal-like guitar leads higher up the neck.

“I like that stuff because I don’t see myself as a technically great player. I prefer to focus on the feel. All these amazing guitar players today, I think they’re great, but I couldn’t do what they do. It’s just not my style. I like to improvise and feel it. What I play might not be technically that hard, but it’s the sound I’m going for.”

Who was the last guitarist that impressed you on a technical level?

“The first one was Eddie Van Halen. When they toured with us early on in their career, I thought he was really good and had come up with something very different for its time. Nowadays you can see how all the technical players have learned from Eddie. The funny thing about him was, much like me, he didn’t read music or anything. It was all from feel. He was inventing stuff just using his ears.

“Some of the guitar playing I hear these days is too technical. You have to be precise on this note or that note. I can’t do that – if I do a solo on a record, it’s never the same live. I can’t reproduce what I did in the studio. I’ll do something similar but not exact.”

The respect was mutual. Eddie once said heavy metal wouldn’t exist without you. It must’ve been incredible to see him so early on in his career, witnessing the changing of the guard first-hand.

“He was great. We became really close friends on that tour, because we went out for eight months or something like that. He used to come round to my room in the hotel, because we’d often be staying at the same one, and we’d stay up for hours talking.

“It was lovely, and we stayed friends through the years until he passed. He was a great friend, such a nice guy who did so much for us guitar players. I really liked Eddie.”

Did you ever get to jam together?

“Yes, we did. Van Halen came over to play in England, so he got in touch with me. He was in Birmingham and wanted to meet, but we were rehearsing that day so I didn’t think we’d get together. Then I suggested he came to rehearsal and he said he’d love to. So that’s what he did.

“I picked him up at the hotel and we went by the guitar shop so he could bring one along and have a play. It was good. The other guys couldn’t believe it – at the time it was the [Cross Purposes, 1994] lineup with Tony Martin, Bobby Rondinelli and Geezer. I turned up with Eddie and they were like, ‘What’s going on?’ We all ended up having a play together and it was a lot of fun.”

Henry Rollins once described your tone on Master of Reality as like “hearing lava.” You started tuning down to C# to get more of a sludgy feel, which in turn gave birth to a whole movement of stoner and doom metal.

“It did! Again, it came out of experimentation. I’ve never gone by the book, thinking I have to do things a certain way. I always go with what I feel is right, and quite often that might involve stepping out of the regular thing I’m known to do. I’ve had such an ordeal with gear following my accident.

“I made up my own set of guitar strings because the regular sets were too heavy for me. So I got some banjo strings for the first and second, and then dropped the gauge down on a regular set in order to make it lighter for me. That way it wouldn’t be so hard for me to press down.”

“And then I went to companies asking if they could make me a light gauge set of strings, and they told me ‘Oh no, that will never sell – they won’t be good and they won’t work!’ And I argued, ‘Well, they do work – I use them!’

“Of course, years later, you’d have things like [Ernie Ball] Super Slinkys and all sorts of stuff. It’s peculiar, because when I first approached these companies in the early days, they really didn’t want to know. It’s been the same all round for me, even with guitars.”

How so?

“I went to a company years ago and asked if they could make me a 24-fret guitar and got told they wouldn’t because nobody would use it. That’s why I invested in John Birch’s company. He was from Birmingham and had done a couple of repairs for me. When I asked him about making a 24-fret guitar, he said, ‘Let’s have a go!’

“You have to jump out of the box and try stuff. I used that 24-fret guitar for years and then, of course, what happens? Later on guitar companies started making them. That’s what it’s all about, though. You have to come out of the box, experiment and try things.”

It’s funny you say that; it was around this period that you started introducing more acoustics and cleaner tracks like Embryo, Orchid and Solitude.

“People were telling me you can’t put an acoustic track on a Black Sabbath album. And I would say, ‘Why not?’ It’s like there was a law against it. The same people told me I couldn’t tune down on Master of Reality – but why? The reactions were very peculiar in those days. The only way to prove it was to do it, and then it would become acceptable later.”

After Forever encapsulates the fantastic chemistry shared between you and Geezer, especially when he plays up high.

“That’s the thing with myself and Geezer. We could always lock in together. It’s amazing how quickly he could pick onto stuff. I’d play him things and straight away he’d put something to it.

“I never ever questioned what Geezer did because I know he’d always play the right thing. He always knew how to accompany me, it’s almost like he knows what I’m going to play before I play it. I guess that came from us being together so long and creating that sound together.”

Wheels of Confusion kicks off Vol. 4 with some heavy blues that sounds like Eric Clapton on steroids – arguably some of the best tones you’ve ever recorded.

“It’s interesting – my rig never changed much. I’d always go in with my booster. To go back, I started off in the Sixties with this Rangemaster. I lived up in Carlisle with Bill, we’d joined a band up there [the Rest]. There was a guy who lived nearby that worked in electronics and he came up to me one day saying he could make my treble booster sound better.

“I said, ‘Oh, can you?’ and he told me to hand it over and he’d bring it back in a couple of days. So he took it away, brought it back and I really liked what he’d done and how it worked in combination with the guitar and amp. I used the same booster right up to the [1980] Heaven and Hell album.”

“Then there was a guy who came to work for me who used to do Ritchie Blackmore’s stuff. We’d ordered six Marshall amps, and he said he’d put an extra valve stage in them. We had a house in Miami back then and gave him his own room. He started rebuilding these amps for me and did a great job.

“One day I went in and asked, ‘Where’s my booster, by the way?’ and he said, ‘What booster?’ When I told him which box it was, he said he’d thrown it away ages ago. I couldn’t believe it and never saw that pedal again.

“Annoyingly, nobody ever saw what resistors or transistors or whatever else was in it, which means nobody has ever been able to reproduce it exactly for me, though we have tried. The guy who built it passed away. But I’ve stuck with the same concept for my gear since forever – the SG into a Laney via a booster.”

You chose to bring in a major third harmony to add color to the opening riff of Supernaut.

“I realized what might work well there just through trying stuff. You have to remember, some things don’t work out. But that one did, and it really added something to the riff.”

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath could be your heaviest riff of them all, using power chords that snake their way around the second, third and fourth frets.

“Before making that album, we went to L.A. to record and it never worked out. I got writer’s block and just couldn’t think of anything. I was a bit like, 'Oh, shit!' Then we came back to England and had a couple of weeks off. I’d never had a creative block like that before.

“I was really worried because I just couldn’t think of anything. So we decided to create a bit of atmosphere and hired Clearwell Castle. We set our gear up in the dungeons. Bloody hell, straight away the first riff I came up with was that one from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

“I knew I really liked the sound of it, and then we built it up from there. It ultimately comes down to the mood you’re in, where you are, the atmosphere there and what you can create. Being in the dungeons of a castle clearly had the right effect on me.”

The closing track on that album, Spiral Architect, is like a love letter to progressive rock in terms of how it builds from a reverberated acoustic into the full band against an orchestral score. How’d that one come together?

“It’s another example of us trying out different approaches. People used to say we couldn’t use orchestration in a band like Black Sabbath. But why not? Also in those days, the orchestras and classical musicians didn’t look on us favorably. They looked down on bands like us. To have some people [the Phantom Fiddlers] come and accompany us was great. The fact that they enjoyed it was even better.”

Don’t Start Too Late is a solo performance where you use an acoustic with loud repeats. Brian May, Nuno Bettencourt, Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Bonamassa have done similar things with delay in the time since.

“There are definitely a lot of similarities between Brian May and myself. We’ve been very close since the Seventies. It’s funny, we’ve both been using the Rangemaster since early on. Mine were going into Laneys and his were into Vox AC30s. But it’s the same principle.”

“I used to rely on Brian a lot because I’d constantly have problems with people saying there was too much interference coming through my booster. And I’d have to explain, ‘I know, but that’s part of my sound!’ In them days, you’d pick up bloody taxis and everything. There was no isolation. Brian would back me up and say, ‘That’s the sound – don’t change it.’

“Sometimes you’d get some boffin come along telling me, ‘I can get rid of that for you,’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, can you?’ But it would always change the sound and I didn’t want my sound to change. The only person who understood how I felt in those days was Brian, because he had the same problem. We both had a bit of noise but were ultimately getting the sound we wanted.”

Symptom of the Universe would directly influence the thrash metal bands that arrived the following decade.

“And it was nice to hear those thrash bands paying tribute to us. It’s great how they were able to push it forward into something new and turn it into their own thing. I was just coming up with things I liked.

“So it was brilliant to hear about other musicians liking what I’d done, taking the same kind of idea and improving on it, evolving it into their own sound. Like Metallica, for instance, who probably learned things from us as well as other people.

“What they did with the metal sound, turning it into thrash, was fantastic. They’ve always been respectful toward us and they’re lovely guys. I love their attitude toward things, the way they write and everything. It reminds us a lot of how we were – everyone in one room rehearsing together and taking it seriously.”

The Writ and Megalomania are up there with the most leftfield tracks you’ve composed.

“I have no idea how I came up with ideas like that, but I agree. To be honest, I’m still doing it now. I’ve got hundreds of riffs at home. I’ll put something down and then move onto something else, start working on that and something else comes up. It’s always been that way. I seem to be able to come up with lots of riffs. It’s probably the only thing I can do!”

What kind of exercises helped you most on your guitar journey?

“There weren’t really any exercises. For me, the main thing was getting used to playing with thimbles. That was the difficult bit, that was the exercise, I guess, trying to move my fingers and hit the notes. And it’s probably why I ended up using a lot of trills. Early on, I couldn’t bend the strings that hard because it would hurt my fingers, so I came up with the idea of using trills. I do that a lot and it’s probably become a bit of a trademark.”

You are well-versed in the art of the blues. What’s the secret to playing with heart, soul and authority?

“I can only speak for my own playing, but I love the sound of blues because it’s from the heart. It’s about how you feel at that moment in time. Like I said earlier, I can’t read music or play the same thing twice. It’s all about how I feel right there and then, which is where the blues comes from, when you think about it.

“You have to believe in what you’re doing and play it like you mean it, as opposed to performing the fastest guitar solo in the world or something exactly note-for-note. The guitar should be a part of you. By doing it more and more, you learn from yourself. If I sat down now and watched a video of someone shredding, I’d probably turn it off. I can’t do that stuff, it’s not how I play.”

“I remember doing an instructional video years ago, one of the first ones when they started doing those things. I was in L.A., and they were asking me to play my solos from the records – but slower. It wasn’t natural for me. I can’t play the same solo; it would always be slightly different. If someone’s learning guitar, my best advice would be to use your ears and feel it in your heart.

“Sure, some people watch videos and copy things, and that’s great. The technical players these days are brilliant. Even really young kids in their bedrooms are doing incredible things. But I always go back to the roots of the blues, looking deep inside myself and telling the truth. I don’t think about what can impress people or break speed limits. The only thing that matters in my mind is how it sounds to me.”

One final question. Will we ever see Black Sabbath on stage again? Bill recently said he’d love to join you.

“Who knows? You can never say never, and we never have said never. It really depends on everybody’s health and what we’d expect from each other now. Can we still play and sound the same together? I don’t know because it’s been such a long time. It’s in the air.

“By the time it comes around, if it ever does, we’ll have to see what state everybody is in and whether we can climb on stage. If we did, it would have to be good otherwise I wouldn’t do it.

“There’s no point in just getting up, what can you prove by doing that? If it’s not right or as good as it was, then there’s no point in doing it. In my eyes, it has to be as good or better.

With respected producer Jon Tiven at the helm, the session icon is back again with Friendlytown, the follow-up to Fire It Up, the critically acclaimed debut album from his quintet Steve Cropper & The Midnight Hour.

But this time, he’s called in some larger-than-life pals, Billy Gibbons and Brian May, to spice things up. In celebration, Guitarist checked in with the trio of guitar masters to break down their relationship in and out of the studio.

Steve, tell us about the origins of your new album, Friendlytown. What kicked this off?

Steve Cropper: “Well, I think Mascot got us going, especially after getting a Grammy nomination last time [with Fire It Up]. Once the budget came in for this one, I started writing right away.”

Billy, how did you become involved?

Billy Gibbons: “Having been acquainted with Steve from way back in the Memphis days, fast forward to the present by a chance exchange on the street with record producer Jon Tiven, whispering the name ‘Steve Cropper’. Needless to say, we got fired up!”

And where did you come in, Brian?

Brian May: “It was a roundabout way through Jon Tiven, like Billy said, the producer of the record. Jon is a very old friend of mine and we’d kept in touch over the years. He’s a very interesting spirit and great at getting spontaneity.”

This appears to be the first time the three of you have worked together, a phrase we use loosely, seeing as the way records are made these days doesn’t always involve an in-person experience.

Brian: “I met Steve properly at a concert we did as a tribute to Elvis’s guitarist James Burton. We did this wonderful tribute and I had the time of my life because James was such a hero of mine. But my other great hero, Steve Cropper, was there. We had an amazing time; I’ll never forget it.”

Brian, given your styles are so different, people probably don’t realise the impact of Steve’s playing on you.

Brian: “Yes! I’m a little nervous when I meet my heroes; I’m not really relaxed. I’m not quite sure what I said to him, but it was great. I supposed the actual playing together was a deal. When you hear the guy on the other side of the stage and you hear your guitars together, it’s an amazing feeling and such a privilege for someone like me.”

Billy, when did you first meet Steve?

Billy: “We both were residing in Memphis during the heyday making records that jolted a range of artists into international prominence. And, like so many, I was magnetised with what Steve was doing with his guitar and production sounds.

“And now, ‘fast-backward’ to a fateful encounter with Steve at the infamous Molly’s Mexican Casita down Madison Avenue between John Fry’s Ardent Records and Steve’s Trans-Maximus Studios. From that point forward, it’s remained our mutual admiration of the mystique of guitars, guitars and more guitars.”

Was he a big influence on you as he was with Brian?

Billy: “Yeah, man. Steve is legendarily low-keyed, with an upfront passion for tastefulness and tone. When seeing what is possible with the straightforwardness of a bare‑naked Fender slab-body straight into a Fender Tweed amp, it is better to stand back for the attack.”

What does your songwriting process look like now, and how has that changed from your early days recording for Stax?

Steve: “Songwriting has always been easy for me, like water off a duck’s back. But I can’t write by myself, I’m too critical. I love having someone there to say, ‘That was good, do that again.’ I usually put down titles first, then see what’s good for that day.”

Has that changed much since your early days with Stax in the 60s or doing sessions in the 70s?

Steve: “No, it’s pretty much the same. I’ve always loved co-writing. There are only one or two songs out there with just my name on them, like [Booker T & The MG’s’] Soul Dressing with The Mar-Keys.”

What was the first song you wrote for new record, Friendlytown?

Steve: “The first time Billy Gibbons came in, we worked on the song Friendlytown. I love one or two-word titles. ‘Friendlytown’ sounded good to me, so we decided to name the album that.”

Billy, once you got rolling, what was the process like working with Steve on riffs and songwriting?

Billy: “One word when working beside Steve is ‘acceleration’. The adrenaline works overtime, which ironically is balanced when creating laid-back guitar figures. The title track, current to this behind-the-scenes view with Steve’s disc, Friendlytown, slips a bluesy six-string smoothness throughout, which paves the way for absorbing the record’s feel.

“There exists a mutual awareness of the challenge of maintaining impact through simplicity. It might be fair to say Steve wrote the book on economy while staying focused on ferociousness.”

As far as tones, what gear did you use when recording Friendlytown, and did you consider what Steve used in order to create contrasting textures?

Billy: “Knowing Steve’s prowess playing stridently Cropper-like on just about anything, we waited for Crop’s arrival in order to spy out which axe of his many would be favoured for session ignition. Lo and behold, Steve, in fine fashion, strolled in, having a look around and, of course, grabbed the studio’s classic, 1960 Fender Esquire!

“Pearly Gates [Gibbons’ 1959 Les Paul Standard] was immediately put into service as a complementary tonal companion. Steve held back his twin-pickup Telecaster for extra sass. Fender and Magnatone amplification made the collection of sounds blend together handily.”

Brian, let’s talk about your track, Too Much Stress. That song originates from an email to Jon Tiven, where you initially declined to participate, right?

Brian: “So Jon emails me one day, saying, ‘Look, I’m producing this record for Steve Cropper. Do you want to play on it?’ I said, ‘Oh, I’d really love to, but I’m in the middle of all this stuff at the moment, including being on tour. I’d really love to, but right now there’s too much stress in my life. My apologies.’ I said, ‘Maybe I can do it another time, but at the moment, there’s too much stress.’

“Two days later, an email comes back from Jon, saying, ‘Okay, I hear your email. I’ve written a song about your email. It’s called Too Much Stress. Do you want to play on this for Steve?’ I had to say yes! He sent me the track and it was just full of life and fun. It made me smile.”

Of note, you and Billy share the solo on Too Much Stress. Can you tell us a bit about how that came about?

Brian: “That was an interesting situation because Billy had already played half a solo. Jon said to me, ‘Can you play the other half?’ I said, ‘Jon, look, can’t you give him a whole solo and me a whole solo?’ Jon said, ‘No, this is the way it’s going to be.’ I said, ‘Oh God, all right.’ But I listened and thought, ‘Actually, this probably does make sense.’

“Billy, of course, is the coolest guitar player on the planet. He plays so little, but it counts so much. It’s just very, very cool. He’s not showing off or trying to prove a point. He’s just playing from his heart – so I did the same thing.

“I took over where he left off and did my half of the solo, and it was a very rare thing. My wife loves it. She doesn’t love anything I do, generally, but she loves this track. She said, ‘This is what you should be doing. Going out on tour with these guys and being on this record.’ [Laughs]”

Did you stick with the Red Special in your beloved Vox AC30?

Brian: “Nothing different from that – that setup is really an extension of me. The Vox and that guitar, along with a copy of the [Dallas] Rangemaster Treble Booster that’s slightly souped up. That’s basically what it is. It’s the sound of Rory Gallagher, though my sound ends up different.”

Billy, what was your perspective on sharing space within Too Much Stress with Brian?

Billy: “It was quite obvious we both were enamoured with the opportunity to keep the invitation front and centre. Ain’t no doubt the joint enthusiasm accompanied the performances to a satisfying sense of ‘Steve-approved’ style.”

Steve – Billy and Brian have dug into their gear a bit, but what’s the secret to harnessing the coveted Cropper tone?

Steve: “I don’t switch much. The first guitar I played for 14 years was just a regular run-off-the-shelf Telecaster model. The second one I’ve been playing for 10 years and I might retire it soon. I’ve had two custom guitars made up, but they’ve got to feel right, you know?

“I’ve been using a Victoria amp made in Chicago. It’s a handmade [Fender] Twin [clone], and I’ve been using it for years. People like Bonnie Raitt and Buddy Guy have played it, too. I just stick with what works for me. So, there’s no magic. If it’s comfortable, that’s what matters to me.”

And when you take a solo, how do you approach things?

Steve: “The guitars stayed the same for me. I prefer not to hear something before I work on it; I like reacting to it fresh. It’s not always the first take, but I keep at it until it’s perfect.

“My solos are more lyrical, kind of vocal-like. I always try to play the melody, like in (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, where I tried to mimic the sound of seagulls. I stick to that formula – it’s worked so far.”

Friendlytown is unique – if only because it features three contemporaries who have impacted each other and shaped the sound of guitar over the past 50-plus years.

Billy: “We positioned a sizable studio corner to allow that elusive element of providing a sense of space for everybody to enjoy a slice within each song. Steve’s direction was invaluable, indicating moments within each arrangement where a slight sonic stab might be enough, still leaving room for everyone on the session. Brian May’s injection dug in right, keeping the three-lane avenue wide open, joining three parts together as one.”

Brian: “What we have in common is that we don’t shred for the sake of it. In my case, it’s because I can’t! [Laughs] But guitar playing, for all of us, is the voice; it’s how you feel. If your guitar can express that feeling, you’ve done your job. We have that in common. Nobody is showing off or zooming up and down the fretboard. Everyone is playing what feels right, and there’s passion in it. There’s an incredible sense of integrity that Steve helped to create.”

Steve: “[Jon] Tiven ran into Billy and told him about the record. Billy said, ‘Can I be on it?’ That meant a lot to me. But other than Billy being a superstar with ZZ Top and playing his butt off – our styles are pretty similar! [Laughs] And I have always been impressed with Brian’s vocal harmonies. I’m just glad we were able to mix everything and figure out where it all should fit [on the record]. Thank goodness! Beyond that, I wouldn’t break it down; listen for yourself!”

Which of these tracks best represents the connections you made on this record?

Steve: “Aside from Too Much Stress, I’d say There’s Always A Catch. It’s the most R&B track, it’s unlike anything I’ve played before. The track is funky and sticks with you.”

What does this experience mean to you all?

Billy: “Just another day in Groovesville. Kinda tops it off in soothing the soul. If you need further reassurance of the depths of Steve’s importance, just take it from that well-known shout-out in the hit with Sam & Dave’s Soul Man. ‘Play it, Steve!’ says it all.”

Brian: “With Steve, there’s a form of unbroken coolness. That’s the beauty of a collaboration like that. The perk of doing what I do is playing with fantastic people; I’m so lucky. Steve’s guitar playing moves people, but it’s not just notes, there’s structure. Steve sees the whole picture – he co-wrote (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, he didn’t just put some guitar on. His playing is colossal and immortal. So yeah, he doesn’t feel like a contemporary… he feels like an icon to me.”

Steve: “I just hope to be remembered as a nice guy. That’s all I care about, so I don’t think about what’s next. I just focus on what I’m doing at the moment.”

• Friendlytown is out now via Mascot.

Queen I, the legendary band's 1973 debut, presented a band full of ambition and genre-hopping ideas, offering a sneak peek into what would become a legendary career.

Fast-forward to 2024, and Queen has now unveiled a reworked version of the album that started it all, in the form of an opulent six-CD, one-LP deluxe box set – including alternative takes, live recordings, demos, and revamped guitar parts.

“Every instrument has been re-examined from the bottom up,” Brian May tells MOJO. “The guitars were originally recorded very dry, so we’ve remedied that. I remember my dad saying, ‘There’s no ambience, Brian. I don’t feel like I’m in the room with you playing next to me.’

“But we weren’t in a position to lay down the law, and we felt that if we stepped out of line we would lose the opportunity altogether.”

May goes on to say that while producer Roy Thomas Baker did a great job given the circumstances, he found himself in a difficult position, wedged between the “young hopefuls” and a “management company [Trident Audio Productions] who saw us as a can of beans.”

The guitarist clarifies that he isn’t saying the original version was bad; rather, “it just wasn’t what we dreamed of.” He reveals that both Freddie Mercury and John Deacon were quite unhappy with some parts and were “conscious” of an important piece of their past that “seemed like it couldn’t be fixed.”

The reworked version doesn't take away the magic of the original, but as May stresses, it amplifies it.

“All the performances are exactly as they originally appeared in 1973, but every instrument has been revisited to produce the ‘live’ ambient sounds we would have liked to use originally,” he writes on his official website. “The result is ‘Queen’ as it would have sounded with today’s knowledge and technology – a first.”

In other Brian May news, the Queen guitarist recently endorsed The Last Dinner Party's Emily Roberts, referring to the band as “the new British Rock Royalty”.

Queen I is now available from the official Queen store.

In her early 20s, Emily Roberts, guitarist for fast-rising UK theatrical rock outfit The Last Dinner Party, landed a gig as Brian May in a Queen tribute band. Fast-forward a few years, and May himself showed up at the band’s London show – and branded them “British rock royalty”.

“I got to meet the new British Rock Royalty tonight – The Last Dinner Party – and they completely smashed it tonight at the Eventim Apollo. What a great show! What a joy!” May posted on social media. “Thanks Emily for inviting me. That was just what I needed – a good ol' dose of Rock Tonic. Folks, you have to see these guys.”

Roberts responded to the full-circle moment, writing: “It was such an honor to meet you Brian!! Thank you so much for coming, it meant the world to us!!”

Queen, along with May, remain a key source of inspiration for Roberts and her bandmates, who earlier this year earned the biggest album debut in the UK by a band in nine years with Prelude to Ecstasy.

During her time moonlighting as May, Roberts fully immersed herself in the band’s repertoire and the nuances of the guitar legend’s playing.

“I loved Queen and knew it would be fun to learn all the solos and parts. Then the pandemic happened. We only did one gig in the end, at a Queen convention near Hull. It went great,” she told Total Guitar.

“That probably ended up influencing my rock playing more than anything else, because I spent an entire summer solidly trying to get inside Brian’s playing, hearing all the little details.”

Roberts went on to call May her “original guitar hero,” sharing, “I love being able to sing along to the solos. I didn’t even learn them at that point; I was just listening and appreciating because Queen were one of my first musical loves.”

In other Brian May news, the Queen guitarist revealed he was initially reluctant to share a solo with Billy Gibbons on Steve Cropper's new album, and what eventually changed his mind.

From the second Jamie Moses laid hands on a cheap Silvertone guitar, a life in the music industry became his only aim in life.

“You’ve got to make it work. You’ve got to have ambition,” he tells Guitar World. “Today it’s a completely different setup – kids don’t play in pubs for next to nothing and spend the whole night sweating to work their way up, which is a real shame. They’re missing out.”

After putting in his hours, he secured a gig with The Animals’ Eric Burdon in the late ’80s, even though he felt his style wasn’t a match, before hooking up with Brian May’s solo band in the early ’90s.

That morphed into his gig as Queen’s second guitarist from 1998 through 2009. Moses has since played Mike and the Mechanics, Broken English and others, and with his own band, Los Pacaminos.

Asked what’s kept him around, Moses says: “There’s a million guitar players and a lot of them are better than me. But not every guitar player can sing. If you can, that’s one less person to hire, one less wage, one less hotel and one less flight. It’s a no-brainer. If you can do that, it’s important.”

How has being a self-taught guitarist impacted your journey?

“In around 1965, when I was 10, all you could do was watch others play, listen to them and steal from them! You’d watch their wrists and licks and think, ‘I’ll give that a while and stick it into something else.’”

When did guitar go from a hobby to a legitimate career path?

“I saw the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, and there was just something about those guys holding those guitars, enjoying each other’s company, having a laugh and making great music. I had to do it – I just had to.

“I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. A career counselor at school said, ‘What if that doesn’t work out?’ I said, ‘It’s got to work out because that’s what I’m going to do.’ He said, ‘Yes… but let’s imagine that it doesn’t…’ I said, ‘I can’t do that.’”

You never considered giving up even when it got hard?

“There were loads of those moments. But you can’t give into those; you’ve got to put that aside and keep going. I had friends who said, ‘I’m going to get a part-time job to see me through; that’ll give me some money to pursue music.’ Many of them stopped being musicians because they relied on that income to keep bodies and souls together.”

How did you jump from playing on air force bases to kicking off your freelance career in the UK?

“When my dad retired from the US Air Force, the family moved back to England, where my mother was from. The Melody Maker music paper had loads of classifieds; I’d look every week to see if anybody needed a guitar player and worked my way up from there.”

One of your earliest gigs with The Animals’ Eric Burdon. What was that experience like?

“Eric is a special soul, almost like a father figure to me, being the big Animals fan I am. To work in that band was such an honor. But I’ve got to say, back then, in the ’80s, me and the rest of the band were not suited for his style. He needed an old-style bluesy, R&B kind of band.

“We were very ’80s; I had an Aria and an Ibanez, the Tom Scholz Rockman and four or five rack-mount units. Just terrible, awful! The ’80s never suited Eric. What he’s doing now is truer to his roots.”

You hooked up with Brian May in the early ’90s. How did that happen?

“I met him at the Freddie Mercury tribute at Wembley while I was playing with Bob Geldof. My old mate, Spike Edney – who still plays keyboards with Queen – said, ‘Come on, we’ll introduce you to Brian…’ Within six months, he put the Brian May Band together; Spike called me up and I got the gig.

“It was a fun thing. We did a world tour with Guns N’ Roses, opening for them. That was eventful – as you can imagine! I hung out with Slash quite a bit. I remember going out for a Mexican meal with him and his wife at the time. We were going up to his place after the restaurant, and he’d had a couple of drinks and was driving.

“His wife grabbed hold of the steering wheel because he was heading toward a canyon! Me and Spike were in the back seat going, ‘Nooooo!’ We ended up at his house, and that went on till four in the morning or something. Steve Lukather turned up and fell in the front door, which was hilarious. Luke is a very good friend now.”

The gig with Brian’s solo band gave way to Queen + Paul Rodgers. Did you need to alter your rig to accommodate the iconic Queen sound?

“When I auditioned with Brian for his band, I had this amp called the Fender 75, which was a combo. I had two of them and and old Strat that I still use. Brian said, ‘What a great guitar sound you’ve got!’

“Once we got to doing the Queen thing, I used that for a little while. One day Brian said, ‘How would you feel about using one of my Brian May guitars? Like a copy of mine?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and I ended up doing that.

“I found it harder to use and control because all the switches and knobs are in a weird place. But Brian said, ‘I’ll get one made for you – just tell them if you want anything different.’ I got it, and Brian came to soundcheck and said, ‘Is that the new guitar?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘What’s that knob for?’

“I had an extra knob by the bridge in the same place a Strat volume knob would be, so I could use it with my little finger and make the sort of violin sounds. I said, ‘It’s a volume knob.’ He said, ‘Great idea. I should put mine there now!’ But he was just humoring me – he didn’t change anything.

“I did that because the volume knob on his guitar is near the jack socket, and it’s very difficult for me to keep adjusting it from there. But there were big discussions on the Queen tour: ‘Jamie’s guitar has got a third knob; what’s that one do?’

“When they modified my guitar, the one that was the volume knob, they left it on there. So, I put a little label on it that says ‘DFA,’ which stands for ‘Does Fuck All!’”

Did you gain a greater appreciation for Brian after playing alongside him?

“Oh, he’s staggeringly good and so creative. There is nobody else as individual as him. He’s unique, and he even built his guitar from scratch. The whole sound of it, the way it goes through the treble booster, is as unusual and fantastic as it gets. Playing next to him was such an honor.”

Is there a piece of advice Brian gave you that you’ve carried onward?

“He didn’t really hand out advice. But I’ve gotta say he was very generous with me. What I took away from it is: be yourself, be true to yourself, stick to whatever you say, and play as loud as you want or need to because that’s how the greats do it. That’s how Brian does it.”

Since leaving Queen, how has your rig evolved?

“I tried a Kemper, but I realized I’d need a degree in astrophysics to make it work! I went back to my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, which works, and I use it for just about everything. Other than that, it’s whatever is appropriate for the gig. It’s easy to look at the gig and think, ‘Ah, I know what’ll work here.’”

Where do you go from here?

“I’ve got some gigs with my group Los Pacaminos, which is a thing with Paul Young that I’ve done for 32 years. I’ve another thing called Jamie and the Falcons, which is a party band. We’ve done parties for the ’Stones, Tina Turner, Paul McCartney and everybody, really.

“Then, I’ve got my SAS band with Spike Edney. We’ve got some stuff coming up before Christmas. It’s an all-star band; maybe we’ll have Roger Taylor and people like that. And I’ve got a Christmas album coming. It’s taken me three years, but I’ve done all of it and am really proud of it. It’ll be available on iTunes and wherever you get your music nowadays.”

• Moses’ album Crimbo With Jimbo – Christmas From Jamie’s House will be released in November. Check out Jamie Moses’ website for details and tour dates.

The highly anticipated Eddie Van Halen tribute tour that was set to feature Joe Satriani and ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted performing alongside David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony fizzled out before it could make it to venues – but the reasons behind its failure have remained unclear. However, in a new tell-all interview with Alex Van Halen, the drummer has revealed that a chain of circumstances prevented the tour from ever transpiring.

Van Halen shared that rehearsals were already well underway, with himself on drums and Roth back as frontman, alongside two musicians from Roth's solo band serving as substitutes. Satriani was indeed slated to play guitar, with Anthony being considered to reprise his role as Van Halen's bassist for the first time since 2004.

However, a shooting range incident in 2022 led to severe back issues, which Van Halen claims felt like “an omen from above.” To confirm his gut feeling, he called Brian May several times to discuss how Queen managed to continue without Freddie Mercury.

“The thing that broke the camel’s back – and I can be honest about this now,” he told Rolling Stone, “was when I said, ‘Dave, at some point, we have to have a very overt – not a bowing – but an acknowledgment of Ed in the gig. If you look at how Queen does it, they show old footage.’ The moment I said we’ve got to acknowledge Ed, Dave popped a fuse.… The vitriol that came out was unbelievable.”

According to Van Halen, Roth flat-out refused to pay homage to Eddie during the planned reunion tour, which Van Halen took offence to, leading to an alleged physical altercation.

Looking back, Van Halen now believes that the original concept for the tour wouldn’t have been fitting anyway.

“In retrospect, playing the old songs is not really paying tribute to anybody. That’s just like a jukebox, in my opinion… To find a replacement for Ed? It’s just not the same. The heart, the soul, the creativity, and the magic were Dave, Ed, Mike, and me.”

Recently, Sammy Hagar's Best of All Worlds tour – which features Satriani, Anthony and Jason Bonham performing a setlist chock-full of Van Halen songs – has served as a quasi-stand-in for the what-could-have-been tribute tour.

Not content to rest on his (formidable) legacy, Booker T & the MG's and Stax Records guitar legend Steve Cropper is still releasing new music, his most recent offering being this year's Friendlytown.

One byproduct of that aforementioned legacy, though, is that Cropper had little difficulty recruiting some famous friends for the album – Billy Gibbons and Brian May being the two most prominent.

Along with Cropper, both Gibbons and May sat down with Guitarist to discuss the making of Friendlytown, and their respective approaches to its material.

Though Cropper's immaculate, soul-flavored rhythm work, Gibbons' Texas-flavored blues riffology, and May's stadium-filling electric guitar heroics have little in common on the surface, according to May, the trio are more alike in their playing than you might think.

“What we have in common is that we don’t shred for the sake of it. In my case, it’s because I can’t!” May told Guitarist recently. “Guitar playing, for all of us, is the voice; it’s how you feel. If your guitar can express that feeling, you’ve done your job. We have that in common.

“Nobody is showing off or zooming up and down the fretboard,” May continued. “Everyone is playing what feels right, and there’s passion in it. There’s an incredible sense of integrity that Steve helped to create.”

Though he's the author of some of the world's best-known and beloved riffs and solos, May showed great deference to both Cropper and Gibbons during his appearance on the Friendlytown track Too Much Stress (Gibbons appears on almost every one of the album's tracks), to the point where May actually tried not to solo with the latter.

“Billy had already played half a solo. Jon [Tiven, the album's producer] said to me, ‘Can you play the other half?’” May told Guitarist in the same interview.

“I said, ‘Jon, look, can’t you give him a whole solo and me a whole solo?’ Jon said, ‘No, this is the way it’s going to be.’ I said, ‘Oh God, all right.’ But I listened and thought, ‘Actually, this probably does make sense.’”

To read a full breakdown of Friendlytown with May, Gibbons, and, of course, Cropper, pick up the new issue of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

Brian May and his Red Special electric guitar are inseparable, and across his career the Queen legend has used the humble DIY build to cement his status as a bona fide rock legend. But that doesn’t mean his beloved six-string is immune to criticism.

Back in 1963 – with a Fender, Gibson, or Höfner guitar way out of the May family budget – Brian and his father set to work on a custom guitar, which would eventually become the iconic Red Special.

A handful of mods were later introduced to the guitar as time went on, with May at one point integrating a full-blown distortion circuit into the instrument. However, at a recent Red Special meet-up event in the UK, May revealed he ended up removing the circuit because he “just didn't like the sound of it”.

“It was very early I put this on,” May says [transcribed by Ultimate Guitar]. I bought a Vox Distortion Booster, which is a red oblong box, a die-cast box. I still have it but I took the guts of it out and put it in here.”

The integration of the tiny stompbox came about because May “wanted to sound like Jimi Hendrix's sound on his first album”.

“But Jimi Hendrix didn't use a fuzz box for very long,” he goes on to explain. “He went back to using the distortion of the amps. [I watched a] clip of Eddie Van Halen the other day where he said, 'I don't have any fuzz boxes or distortions. I just have a guitar and the amp.' So, I feel like the simplicity is the best way.”

Summarizing the trials and tribulations of modding guitars, May says there were some benefits to having the distortion circuit, but it was ultimately a mod that failed.

“It was good to have that there for a while, the fuzz box,” he reflects. “Especially when you're playing in a place where you can't turn up very loud, that would be very useful. But I just didn't like the sound of it, to be honest, very much.”

The circuit did stay in his good graces long enough to feature on a few recordings, though, and can be heard on Step On Me from his pre-Queen outfit, Smile.

The future of the Red Special now lies in Gibson’s hands, after the guitarist was announced as a member of the Gibson family earlier this year. The prospect of Gibson-made Red Specials, then, is an exciting one, especially considering the developments of its Murphy Lab aging processes.

For the past 20 years, the guitar has been mass-produced under the Brian May Guitars moniker, but May has already admitted that “it would be lovely to have an edition of the Brian May guitar based in the States”.

Reflecting on the building process behind the original Red Special, May adds: “I spent hundreds of hours making it with my dad. We'd make mistakes, we didn't have electric tools. It was made with chisels and sandpaper.

“The guitar became famous before I did. When we started, the guitar was viewed as the only interesting thing about the group by some people. I think she'll last just about as long as I do as a functional unit.”

While May has played other guitars at different points in his career, he remains fiercely loyal to the instrument, so much so that he convinced Queen's second guitarist, Jamie Moses, to switch to a Red Special.

Steve Cropper's 2021 record, Fire It Up, may be a tough act to follow considering it was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category.

However, with Friendlytown, recently released under the moniker Steve Cropper and the Midnight Hour, Booker T. & the M.G.'s founding member managed to one-up himself, recruiting Billy Gibbons and Brian May for a proper guitar extravaganza.

The collaborative spirit extended to the solos, as the two guitar icons shared one on the track Too Much Stress.

“That was an interesting situation because Billy had already played half a solo. Jon [Tiven, the album's producer] said to me, ‘Can you play the other half?’” May tells Guitarist.

“I said, ‘Jon, look, can’t you give him a whole solo and me a whole solo?’ Jon said, ‘No, this is the way it’s going to be.’ I said, ‘Oh God, all right.’ But I listened and thought, ‘Actually, this probably does make sense.’”

May goes on to call Gibbons “the coolest guitar player on the planet”. Despite tending to play “very little,” his playing style resonated with May and perfectly complemented the Queen guitarist’s more flamboyant approach.

“He’s not showing off or trying to prove a point. He’s just playing from his heart – so I did the same thing,” May explains. “I took over where he left off and did my half of the solo, and it was a very rare thing.”

This solo nearly didn’t come to be, however. May initially passed on the project, telling Tiven he was dealing with “too much stress” – an encounter that ultimately inspired the song title.

For more from Steve Cropper, Brian May, and Billy Gibbons, plus new interviews with Martin Barre and Joe Perry, pick up issue 517 of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

Queen guitarist Brian May has returned to the stage despite being “low on energy” following a recent minor stroke that temporarily affected mobility in his arm.

Last Saturday, he participated in the Red Special Convention in Reading, UK, and treated attendees to a special performance on his trusty Red Special, playing through a VOX AC30.

“Me at the Red Special Convention out west of London Town on Saturday. Never been before. Wasn't too sure about going this time because I've been really low on energy – but so glad I did,” he posted on Instagram.

“Thanks so much guys - you gave me so much love and a huge boost of confidence. Here I am explaining why I love VOX AC30's so much... showing what happens when you gradually turn up the input level - and a sharp glitter becomes a throaty roar - but without ever losing clarity.”

The 77-year-old guitarist also revealed this was the first time he'd picked up his guitar in two months – seemingly a first for May, who has been touring consistently for over 50 years.

Speaking about his physical health in relation to his touring schedule, May told Guitar World earlier this year: “I am [full of energy] when I’m on stage. I take my training seriously now physically. I think Roger and I are playing together probably better than ever, which is great. We don’t always get on, but we always play together great.”

This year alone, May wrapped up the Queen + Adam Lambert Rhapsody Tour in Japan, guested with Andrea Bocelli in Italy, and performed at Starmus VII Festival in Bratislava, Slovakia, which included a stellar performance with electronic, ambient, and new-age pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre.

On December 27, 1969, just a few days before the dawn of the new decade, the music world witnessed an extraordinary changing of the guard as Led Zeppelin II reached Number 1 on the Billboard charts, dethroning the Beatles’ final full-on studio effort, Abbey Road.

After hearing Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant proclaim “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love” on their hit, Whole Lotta Love, the Beatles probably realized their days of singing sweet harmonies in an octopus’s garden were numbered.

And if the cover of Abbey Road is any evidence, the Fab Four apparently saw no other choice but to immediately vacate their recording studio and march, single file, into the streets of London, never to be heard from again.

Zeppelin would go on to dominate the sound and psyche of the ’70s. Their first four albums created templates for almost everything that was to follow in the next decade, including riff rock (Whole Lotta Love), heavy metal (Immigrant Song), prog (Dazed and Confused), power balladry (Stairway to Heaven), arena blooze (The Lemon Song), glam (Black Dog) and country rock (Bron-Yr-Aur-Stomp).

They even paved the way for late-’70s punk and the first Van Halen album. Guitarist Johnny Ramone once confessed that he honed his pioneering punk-rock skills by playing Zeppelin’s Communication Breakdown repeatedly. And Edward Van Halen told Guitar World in 2008 that, “I think I got the idea of tapping [while] watching Jimmy Page do his Heartbreaker solo back in 1971.”

But perhaps Led Zeppelin’s most important contribution to the ’70s was their fierce, uncompromising attitude. The band revolutionized the music industry when they negotiated their game-changing record deal with Atlantic Records that allowed guitarist Jimmy Page to produce their albums without any label interference. Additionally, the group retained control of all jacket artwork, press ads, publicity pictures and anything else related to their image.

As Page explained, “I wanted artistic control in a vise grip, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do.”

And what Zeppelin wanted to do was… everything and anything! They had this crazy notion that musicians should have the artistic freedom to play what they want — and that their fans might enjoy it. As it turned out, people did indeed love their wild experimentalism, and so did the record companies, who discovered they could make a ton of cash by allowing the band to have their own way.

Zeppelin’s example opened the floodgates to an intensely creative era that ushered in dozens of astonishing new genres of music, all played on adventurous FM radio stations.

Just a tiny sampling of the albums released in ’70s is enough to make any guitar nerd choke on their Ernie Balls – The Dark Side of the Moon, Sticky Fingers, Hotel California, Marquee Moon, Night at the Opera, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Van Halen, Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols, Machine Head – the mind boggles.

Given the vast scope of music made during the ’70s, trying to sum up guitar playing in the era is like attempting to solve a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded while riding a roller coaster in sequined bell-bottoms. It’s damn difficult! But let’s give it a shot…

The rise of heavy metal

You could argue that heavy metal was forged in the Sixties by bands like Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Jeff Beck Group and, of course, Led Zeppelin. But you’d be wrong.

Sure, those bands started the ball rolling by chugging power chords through big-ass 100-watt Marshalls, but most of what they were playing was just amplified blues mixed with a bit o’ weird hippie psychedelia.

To make real heavy metal – 100 percent certified heavy metal – they were missing two ingredients: the devil… and Tony Iommi.

Hailing from the sooty factory town of Birmingham, England, Black Sabbath, featuring guitarist Iommi, along with vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward, set the world ablaze in 1970 with two groundbreaking albums, Black Sabbath and Paranoid. Their ominous riffs and occult-inspired lyrics on anthems like Iron Man, The Wizard and Electric Funeral would inspire thousands of bands, including Judas Priest, Van Halen, Slayer, Metallica and Ghost.

Given their preoccupation with the supernatural, it’s no surprise that their backstory reads like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales… but a whole lot grimmer. On the day Iommi was quitting his sheet metal factory job to become a full-time musician, catastrophe struck – he lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand in a gruesome industrial accident.

A machine press came down and caught his fingers, and when he recoiled, the ends were ripped right off! (If there was ever a sentence that deserved an exclamation mark, it’s that one.)

However, Iommi wasn’t going to let a little thing like a couple of severed fingers stop him from playing guitar. Resourcefully, he used his machine-shop skills to custom-make special fingertip pads out of plastic and leather. Then, to make his guitar easier to play, he set his instrument’s action as low as it could go and detuned his strings to lessen the tension even further.

To Iommi’s surprise, when he plugged in his guitar into his Laney amp and cranked up his Dallas Rangemaster overdrive pedal, those elements coalesced into a deep, gut-rattling sound unlike anyone had heard before.

As Iommi later observed, “Some people believe the accident invented heavy metal, and it probably did. It helped me invent a new kind of music – a new sound and different style of playing.” He probably should’ve added, “But kids, don’t try this at home…”

Southern Harmony

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so while Black Sabbath were busy serving up doom and gloom in U.K. in 1970, the Allman Brothers Band were spreading good vibes and magic ’shrooms throughout the southern United States.

Formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969, the Allman Brothers Band migrated to Macon, Georgia, where they began building a reputation for their incredible live shows that combined elements of rock, blues, jazz and country music into memorable songs and explosive improvisations.

Their exciting smorgasbord of influences was unlike anything audiences had ever heard, but what really made the six-piece band unique were the soaring, harmonized twin lead guitars of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts.

Traditionally, when you had two guitarists in a rock band, one played rhythm and the other played lead. Betts and Allman threw that playbook out the window, trading leads and orchestrating tight harmony parts similar to the way jazz horn sections worked together.

The concept wasn’t completely new. Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck briefly experimented with the idea when they were both in the Yardbirds in 1966, but Allman and Betts elevated their two-guitar attack into a brilliant artform – one that would influence and shape dozens of Southern bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, the Outlaws, 38 Special and the Marshall Tucker Band throughout the ’70s.

It helped that both Allman and Betts were terrific musicians with distinct sounds and approaches to their instruments. Allman brought a new level of virtuosity and aggression to the electric slide guitar that remains influential today, while Betts added a sophisticated sense of composition and melody to the duo.

Their landmark live album, At Fillmore East, released in July 1971, sent shockwaves through the guitar community. It not only changed the way blues and metal guitarists thought about two-guitar bands and improvisation, but it also influenced the sound of country music in ways that can be felt today.

The Allmans were primarily a U.S. phenomenon, but British blues rock legend Eric Clapton took notice. After seeing the Allmans play in Miami, Clapton was so blown away by Duane’s slide technique, he invited him to play an equal role on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, one of the greatest albums of the ’70s and one of the most exciting blues rock albums of all time.

“The Allman Brothers were unbelievable,” Clapton told journalist Sam Hare. “Duane and Dickey Betts were in such harmony. Their playing was very strong and well thought out. When Duane came to the studio [to play on Layla], I was so taken with him that I started ignoring my own band.

“I just tried to keep thinking of songs we’d both know so we could duet. We’d play blues standards like Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out and Key to the Highway. All these things were just really vehicles so we could play – just excuses to jam with one another.”

Tragically, on October 29, 1971, Duane Allman, then 24, was killed in a motorcycle accident. But despite the loss, the band miraculously carried on, recording their most commercially successful album, Brothers and Sisters.

Without Duane, guitarist Betts flourished, his sunburst Les Paul planting the seeds for modern country artists like Chris Stapleton, Eric Church, Lucinda Williams and the Zac Brown Band, all of whom have covered Allman songs in more recent years.

Just say Yes to prog rock

They say the best comedy is based on the truth, and that certainly goes for the one guitar joke that everybody knows:

Q: How many guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: One to screw it in and another dozen to say, “I could do that.”

Guitarists have always been competitive, and that was certainly true in the ’70s. It was no longer enough to write great songs and look good – you also had to have serious chops.

Musicians playing under the banner of “progressive rock” or simply “prog” turned technique into a religion, and the result was some of the strangest and most ambitious music to ever grace the Billboard Top 20 charts. The most interesting prog bands were King Crimson, ELP, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Rush, Kansas, U.K. and Gentle Giant, but it was Yes who were the most commercially successful exponents.

Each member of Yes was an exceptional musician. Singer Jon Anderson – with his sweet tenor – had one of the most distinctive voices in rock; and virtuoso keyboardist Rick Wakeman – who wore sequined capes on stage – was flashy both visually and technically.

But the real star of the group was guitarist Steve Howe. Howe thrilled audiences by playing in a formidable assortment of styles on an astonishing array of electric, acoustic and steel guitars… often during the same song. Some critics accused him of being excessive, but for the most part, he was tasteful and generous, allowing his Yes compatriots to shine and take turns in the spotlight as evidenced by the band’s biggest hit, Roundabout.

During the band’s heyday, which lasted throughout the ’70s, his work on The Yes Album (1971), Fragile (1971), Close to the Edge (1972), Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973) and Relayer (1974) opened huge doors for guitar players looking to expand the techniques and colors they could use within a rock context.

Howe experimented with flamenco, Chet Atkins-style fingerpicking, classical harmonies and exotic chord voicings while shredding some of the speediest, harmonically advanced soloing ever heard on a rock album.

He was an amazing technician, but his lead playing also had an appealingly jagged edge that always kept the music rooted in rock ’n’ roll, no matter how complex it got.

Howe pushed the boundaries of popular music about as hard as any musician in the Seventies, and he did much of this on electric f-hole guitars like the Gibson ES-175, which was more associated with jazz players.

“The decision to buy the ES-175 set me on a course,” Howe said. “I didn’t consider myself to be someone who played solid bodied guitars at the time. It’s helped me to forge an identity as a guitarist with a full sound that isn’t reliant on distortion or tremolo or other gadgets.”

He was so dominant in the ’70s that he won “Best Overall Guitarist” in Guitar Player magazine an unprecedented five years in a row, influencing players as diverse as Alex Lifeson (Rush), John Petrucci (Dream Theater) and John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers). But unlike Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen, few people attempted to sound like him, probably because it was so difficult to do.

His lasting impact has been more about his grand concept than his style. He is the guy you can thank for introducing the idea of owning dozens of guitars for different colors and sounds. So, the next time anybody gives you shit for buying yet another Les Paul Junior or Epiphone Casino, just blame it on Steve.

Lighting the fusion

Guitarists like Howe, Frank Zappa, Tommy Bolin and Jeff Beck shaped the sound and style of Seventies rock by incorporating elements of jazz into their arsenal of licks. But just as significant were a new crop of young jazz players who started experimenting with the volume and aggression heard in rock music.

Guitarist Larry Coryell, sometimes called the “godfather of jazz-rock fusion” summed it up when he said, “We loved [jazz trumpeter] Miles Davis – but we also loved the Rolling Stones.”

Starting in the early ’70s, a gang of extraordinarily gifted young jazz shredders like Coryell, Pat Metheny, Al Di Meola and John Scofield scared the bejeezus out of rock’s greatest players with their command of the electric guitar. But the jazz shredder who made the most impact was the fast and furious John McLaughlin, who played a double-neck Gibson EDS-1275 through a 100-watt Marshall amp “in meltdown mode.”

Starting his career as a session musician in England, McLaughlin moved to the U.S. in the late ’60s, where he played with jazz drummer Tony Williams’ group Lifetime.

He then performed with the legendary Miles Davis on several pioneering electric jazz fusion albums, most notably In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson. But it was his work in the ferocious Mahavishnu Orchestra that made him a superstar in the rock world.

The five-piece Mahavishnu Orchestra combined elements of metal, jazz, funk and Indian classical music into their compositions, which they performed at lightning tempos. As Guitar World once put it, the band left you feeling as if they “were always on the very edge of exploding into a thousand pieces, so far did they push and extend themselves and each other.”

Guitar legend Jeff Beck was particularly floored. “Things took a funny turn for me in the early ’70s,” Beck recalled. “But it all turned out well after hearing John McLaughlin play on Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson album and with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Every musician I knew was raving about him, and I thought, ‘I’ll have some of that.’ The mastery of his playing was unequaled.”

Soon after hearing McLaughlin, Beck turned down a spot in the Rolling Stones and began experimenting with his own jazz-rock band. He was warned that playing fusion was commercial suicide, but ironically, it resulted in his most commercially successful album, Blow by Blow, released in 1975.

In the early ’70s, the radical Mahavishnu Orchestra recorded two brilliant studio albums, The Inner Mounting Flame and Birds of Fire, and performed more than 500 shows, playing unlikely bills with straight-up rockers like Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult and the Eagles.

While many rock audiences were confused by their weird, explosive music, others were intrigued, catapulting 1973’s Birds of Fire to Number 15 in the Billboard charts. However, just as it looked as though they were about to achieve the impossible by bringing avant-garde, freak-out jazz to the masses, they imploded.

“It was fantastic that we had popularity, but I think we had too much success too quickly,” McLaughlin said. “The band ended very acrimoniously, and that upsets me to this day. I have great relationships with all the musicians I worked with. Except that bloody band.”

Despite their brief lifespan, Mahavishnu left a lasting mark. Not only did they influence classic rockers like Beck and Carlos Santana, but their albums have also inspired current avant-garde heroes like Guthrie Govan, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (the Mars Volta) and Ben Weinman (Dillinger Escape Plan), proving that musical boundaries are meant to be shattered.

Glam bam, thank you, ma'am

While it was exciting that bands like the Allman Brothers and Yes were stretching the boundaries of popular music with their technical skills, many musicians were less than enthusiastic about prog. It was too damn complicated, and besides, who was going to piss off parents, disrupt social norms and have fun while looking cool? It didn’t take long to find out.

The answer came slinking out of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1971 when the Alice Cooper Band rose to fame with the hit single I’m Eighteen. Featuring a male singer with a woman’s name, the five-piece group were notorious for their theatrical stage shows, androgynous outfits and playing loud, obnoxious rock.

Boring old farts called them “degenerates,” but the press referred to them as “glam rock,” and it wasn’t long before the glitter craze took off, especially in England where David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars, T. Rex, Slade and Queen became mega-stars.

Glam was primarily about “the look,” but the bands also shared a common approach to their music. Unlike the progressive movement, glam rockers kept their songs tight, danceable and catchy. Instrumentally, their tunes were often powered by chunky heavy metal guitars and short, memorable guitar solos.

Mick Ronson, the iconic blond guitarist for David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars band, made no bones about being more interested in composing great riffs than diddling around with weird scales or playing 30 different guitars. Ronson believed if you wanted to play like John Coltrane or Mozart, go fuckin’ do it – but leave rock ’n’ roll out of it.

He had a point. It didn’t mean Ronno was a primitive musician. In fact, he was quite sophisticated. In addition to providing killer guitar parts to memorable rockers like Bowie’s Suffragette City, Panic in Detroit and Jean Genie, he was also a deft arranger, composing the dramatic orchestral parts on Bowie’s 1972 glam rock classic, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

One sterling example of his artistry can be heard on the album’s classic, Moonage Daydream. He begins the song with a couple thunderous power chords, then slowly layers parts on his blonde 1968 Gibson Les Paul Custom through a half-cocked wah-wah pedal, until the song reaches a soaring, spiraling conclusion of ascending strings and tape-delay guitar.

While his parts aren’t particularly difficult to play, they are beautifully constructed, executed, and perfect for the song. In other words, totally rock and roll.

Ronson’s smart, economical playing (and glittering stage outfits!) helped create the template, not only for glam rock in the Seventies, but also Eighties hair metal. Ozzy Osbourne guitarists Randy Rhoads worshipped Ronson, meticulously imitating his look and use of a blonde Les Paul.

“Randy was a big fan,” said his brother, Kelle Rhoads. “That’s where his obsession with polka dots came from. He saw Mick Ronson with polka dot knee pads and Randy took it to another level.”

However, it would be wrong to imply that Ronson was the only influential glam guitarist in the ’70s. There were plenty of others including Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls, Marc Bolan of T. Rex and Glen Buxton of the Alice Cooper Band. But perhaps the most famous and fairest of them all was Queen’s tall and elegant Brian May.

Queen have become so ubiquitous in our modern music culture that it’s easy to forget that in the ’70s they were originally a huge part of the same glam movement that spawned Bowie and the likes of Roxy Music and Sweet. But it might also be because Queen didn’t really sound like anybody else, and that was primarily due to May’s unique approach to playing and recording.

Far more ambitious than his fashionable contemporaries, his multi-layered guitar orchestrations on songs like Killer Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody ventured perilously close to being “prog.”

But May also knew how to boogie and always balanced his excesses with some good old-fashioned hard rock, as on We Will Rock You, Stone Cold Crazy and Keep Yourself Alive. Yes, Brian May could go over the top, but with Queen, he also knew when to kick royal ass – even while wearing flowing silk blouses and crushed velvet trousers.

Never mind the bollocks here's punk

Given how disheveled the typical punk rock musicians appeared with their ripped-up jeans and spiky hair, it was almost comical how much in they had in common with their glam rock counterparts. The Clash, Dead Boys and the Sex Pistols also believed that rock music should sound gritty, dangerous and close to the streets.

Punk guitarists didn’t just dislike progressive rock – they actively hated it. They were repulsed by what they perceived as the bourgeoisie snobbery of bands like Yes and Genesis. As for the Mahavishnu Orchestra… they couldn’t even pronounce it.

Punk musicians wanted to return rock and roll to its “everyman” fundamentals, so that anyone wanting to master three chords could take the stage and become a star. No one represented this attitude more singularly than the Ramones, a raucous four-piece juggernaut from New York City.

All members of the Ramones looked the same (shaggy hair with bangs), wore the same clothes (jeans, leather jackets and Converse All-Stars) and even shared the same surname.

Their songs all sorta sounded similar and their lyrics were hilariously moronic with titles like I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend and Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue. From a guitar perspective, it was the same story: every song consisted of an interchangeable series of power chords played with the same jack-hammer downstrokes by Johnny Ramone on his cheap Mosrite guitar.

On paper the Ramones sounded stupid and one-dimensional – and they were – but it’s also what made them great. They say the hardest thing about making great art is deciding on a direction and sticking with it. If that’s true, then the Ramones were the Picassos of punk.

They did one thing, and they did it incredibly well, and in concert, the band was as direct and as powerful as a locomotive. (I was tossed around so much during an out-of-control Ramones show that I lost one of my shoes after the third song and never saw it again.)

When the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, it was said that their first album, Ramones (1976), saved rock from becoming “bloated and narcissistic.” While that’s not completely true – there was certainly plenty of bloat and narcissism to go around – they did provide a compelling alternative.

AOR in the USA

Punk wasn’t for everyone. But neither was metal, Southern rock, glam or any of the junk we’ve been talking about. That was the great thing about the ’70s. A lot of the music was kinda weird or extreme in some way. Even the biggest bands were odd when you really examined them closely.

The Wall by Pink Floyd was psychotic. Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin was fantastic, but totally wacky. And let’s not even get started on progressive bands like King Crimson and Jethro Tull.

Was there anything that was normal in the ’70s? Well, yes, there was plenty of meat and potatoes to be had. About halfway through the decade, many of the FM stations that were adventurous during the early part of the ’70s discovered they could grab more listeners and sell more advertising if the music they played was a little shorter and a bit more conventional. The stations shifted gears, and so did many rock bands who discovered they could sell more records if they did the same.

Suddenly, bands that appealed to more mainstream tastes started popping up like toadstools in Pennsylvania. Some called it “pop metal,” but most referred to it as Album Oriented Rock or AOR.

Platinum-selling bands like Foreigner, Journey, Boston, Styx, Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Steve Miller Band, Kiss, Toto, Pat Benatar, Kansas, Heart, Triumph, Bad Company and Fleetwood Mac were not particular innovative, but they wrote catchy songs that sounded great in the car.

While that might sound like an insult, it isn’t. Much of the music was very good and featured incredibly skilled guitarists like Neal Schon, Joe Walsh, Rick Nielsen, Ace Frehley, Steve Lukather and Gary Richrath, among others.

Now mix a bit of AOR with some Led Zeppelin, a bit of Pink Floyd and the more accessible “hits” of some of the more adventurous bands we’ve mentioned, and there you have the ’70s in a nutshell.

But wait… wait, wait, wait. What about Van fuckin’ Halen? Weren’t they part of the ’70s?

Well, the truth is – and this is highly classified information – that even though Van Halen’s first two albums came out in 1978 and 1979, they did not belong to the ’70s – they belonged to the ’80s. It was all a big mistake.

Eddie Van Halen insisted on arriving two years early, so he could gently guide guitarists to the next decade, where he would rule like a king for the next 10 years.

But you gotta promise not to tell anyone! If you do, I’ll deny everything. You know, conspiracy theorists, they’re all 5150…

Jamie Moses cut his teeth performing Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and James Brown on Air Force bases, as well as on radio and TV, all by the tender age of 13. After a stint with The Animals’ Eric Burdon in the late '80s, Moses' hard-fought hours led to a golden opportunity with Brian May, where he played second fiddle to the Queen guitarist in his solo band.

This gig morphed into an 11-year stint touring with Queen – an experience that solidified his reputation as an in-demand guitar player. However, touring with May meant adjusting his rig – specifically, his axe of choice.

“Funny thing is when I auditioned with Brian for his band, I had this amp called the Fender 75, which was a combo. I had two of those, and Brian said, ‘What a great guitar sound you’ve got.’ I had an old Strat, which I still use, and he loved the sound,” Moses says in an upcoming Guitar World interview.

“Once we got to doing the Queen thing, I used that for a little while, and one day, I could see that Brian was thinking about something, and he said, ‘How would you feel about using one of my Brian May guitars? Like a copy of mine?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And I ended up doing that.”

Switching from a Strat to a Red Special replica came with its challenges. “I find them harder to use and control because all the switches and knobs are in a weird place,” he explains.

However, May was cognizant of Moses' preferences and suggested he could get a custom one made especially for him.

“He said, ‘Just tell them if you want anything different.’ I got it, and Brian came to soundcheck and said, ‘Is that the new guitar?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘What’s that knob for?’”

Moses had modified the Red Special replica so that it had an extra knob by the bridge in the same place a Strat volume knob would be. He did this so that he could control it using his pinkie and “make the sort of violin sounds.”

Earlier this year, the Queen guitar icon was announced as the newest member of the Gibson family, a move that led May to confirm that Gibson-built Red Specials are on the cards.

Guitar World's full interview with Jamie Moses will be published next month.

Brian May has confirmed he is doing “okay” after he recently suffered a minor stroke.

The legendary Queen electric guitar player quietly dropped the news of his recent health scare in a post on social media. In the video, May said his ability to play guitar was initially “in some doubt”, but he has since been able to pick up his Red Special.

“I'm here to bring you some good news: the good news is that I can play guitar after the events of the last few days,” he says in the clip.

“I say this because it was in some doubt because that little health hiccup that I mentioned happened about a week ago, and what they called it was a 'minor stroke,'” May continues.

“All of a sudden out of the blue I didn’t have any control of this arm, so it’s a little scary. I had the most fantastic care and attention from Frimley Hospital.

“I didn't want to say anything at the time because I didn’t want anything surrounding [me]. I really don't want sympathy. Please don’t do that because it will clutter up my inbox. The good news is I’m okay, just doing what I'm told, which is basically nothing.”

At the time of writing, May isn’t scheduled to go on the road with Queen + Adam Lambert before the end of the year, having seemingly already finished his concert commitments for 2024.

And it's been a relatively busy year for May. After completing the Rhapsody Tour in February, May has been racking up his cameo credits with a number of high-profile guest appearances.

Over the past few months, May joined Jean-Michel Jarre for a “challenging” virtuosic collaboration, and linked up with The Offspring to perform Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy.

In guitar news, May also surprise-announced he’d joined the Gibson family, and confirmed that Gibson-built Red Special guitars could become a reality.

Visit Brian May’s Instagram account for updates.

His tone is unmistakable, his solos are breathtaking and his influence is boundless. Even if somehow, some way, you’ve managed to make it this far without knowing his name, undoubtedly, Brian May’s music – most likely with Queen – has been a part of your life.

With his trusty, self-built Red Special guitar in hand and a sixpence between his fingers, May – beside Freddie Mercury, his partner in crime – charged through soaring guitar solos and melodic riffs soaked through cuts like We Will Rock You, Bohemian Rhapsody and Hammer to Fall.

Mercury has been gone since 1991, but that hasn’t stopped May from championing the music that Queen created. Since 2011, he’s toured the world as Queen + Adam Lambert with Queen’s original drummer, Roger Taylor, plus vocalist Adam Lambert, the 2009 American Idol runner-up who was tasked with upholding a legacy that was impossible to replicate.

“Freddie would love it,” May says. “I often wish Freddie was around and could share the joy of putting these shows together. But Freddie is with us; he makes little appearances in the shows. So he’s always in there, and I think it should be that way. He’s part of what we built together all those years and will always be massively important.”

Having just finished another slate of mega-shows, you’d assume May would opt for some downtime, but in February – to the surprise of many – he turned up at the grand opening of the Gibson Garage London (aka, “The Ultimate Guitar Experience,” a place where visitors can “try out a guitar, take a lesson, learn about Gibson’s history or see a live show”).

Why, you ask? At the very least, for some hobnobbing with fellow legends Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi; beyond that, we do know May will have a new Gibson guitar coming out in early 2025 – but we’ll just have to wait for the details.

Anyway, mega-tours, top-notch hobnobbing and Gibson collaborations are great, but after more than 50 years in the business, the thing that really brings a smile to May’s face is family.

“I’ve just had a Red Special made for a dear relative,” he says. “When I got it and I opened the box, I thought, ‘Oh, geez, I really don’t want to give this away. I want to keep this.’ But I will give it away. I don’t think I’m ruining the surprise by saying this, but my grandson said he wanted a Brian May guitar for his birthday. He knew the exact specifications he wanted, so I got our guys to make him something super-special.

“He’s taken the bit between his teeth and really wants it,” he adds. “He’s marching down that road without being pushed by anyone. It’s great to see that passion coming out in somebody so young who has got my blood in his veins.”

You were at the grand opening of the Gibson Garage London with Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi. What are your thoughts on that event?

“It was great. It was a really nice opportunity to socialize because none of us do much socializing. You might imagine we do, but we kind of have separate lives. It was good to see them, and the Gibson Garage is great. Some people were saying, 'Well, what the hell are you doing at Gibson? You’ve got your own guitar company.' But actually, I have a great relationship with [Gibson] now.”

I think a lot of people were thinking you might do something with the Red Special associated with the Custom Shop or the Murphy Lab.

“It’s not out of the question. We have spoken about such things, and it would be lovely to have an edition of the Brian May guitar based in the States. After all, that’s where I started with Guild. Guild made the first Brian May models, and then I went with Burns in [the U.K.]. And then things changed, and I just wanted to do it myself. Now we have our own Brian May Guitars company here, but to have the facility to have some made in the States would be wonderful.”

People will always associate you with the Red Special, but as I recall, you did use a Flying V and a Les Paul Deluxe as backups in the '80s.

“I was thinking everybody had forgotten that. But you haven’t! [Laughs] I had a Les Paul Deluxe for a long time; it’s a long story, but sort of a rich sugar daddy of a fan gave it to me. I used it for a while.

“It was a beautiful instrument, but it was never quite right for my gear. So eventually, [since] I always felt I wasn’t deserving of having been the recipient of it for nothing, and having received it for nothing, I gave it away. It now has a nice home, a secret home with somebody else.”

Did you use those guitars on any notable recordings?

“No, I don’t think I’ve ever used anything but my own, with one exception – the Telecaster I used for the solo on Crazy Little Thing Called Love, which is really a James Burton tribute. [The Red Special] makes that kind of sound, you know?

“With all the switching I invented for the guitar, you can have any combination of pickups, and there’s one combination that really sounds like a Telecaster. So we were in the studio [Musicland Studios] with [Reinhold] Mack in Munich, and I’m about to do this solo, which I hear in my head as James Burton.

“And I said, ‘You know, I can make this guitar sound like a Telecaster,’ and Mack, being a very ‘doer’ German producer, says, ‘If you want it to sound like a Telecaster, why don’t you use a Telecaster?’ And I went, ‘Fair point.’ Roger [Taylor] just happened to have one, so I used Roger’s Tele, which was a very early Telecaster. I think that’s the only time I’ve used anything but my electric.”

You mentioned the Guild and Burns renditions of the Red Special, and now you’ve got the ones you make yourself. Of all the reproductions, which do you feel is the most faithful to your original guitar?

“The ultimate you can get now is what we call the [BMG] Super. It’s all made by hand, and it costs a lot more because of that. But on this model, you get everything I put on mine, including my self-designed tremolo. Usually, we use other people’s tremolos, which are really good these days, but the one I designed is a bit special.

“With the Super, you get that same design of trem, which rocks on a knife edge, which at that time was revolutionary. Everything else is done custom; my neck is thicker than normal, so you get everything. It’s an exact replica of my guitar, [and it’s] as close as you could possibly get. If I close my eyes with the Super, I don’t know that it’s not my guitar.”

Going back to the ’70s, as the Red Special has ridden along with you, what were some of the things you’ve had to do to keep it up to par?

“It’s been surprisingly resilient; I’ve never re-fretted it, which everyone is shocked to hear. The only fret I’ve ever replaced is the zero fret. And it was designed to be replaced because I knew it was going to wear. That’s where the strings rub when the term’s working, so I think I’ve replaced that twice in its whole history. But not a single fret has been replaced.

“There’s been a little bit of a touch-up to the black surface of the fingerboard. And it’s not an ebony fingerboard; it’s because I couldn’t find ebony when I was building the guitar. I wanted it to be ebony, but it’s multi-layers of Rustins Plastic Coating. Some of those wore through at certain points, so we’ve touched those up.

“We have touched up the body, and it’s mainly Andrew Guyton who’s done that. Although the first repairs were done by Greg Fryer; he also made three replicas, which are fabulous. I still have two of them. Unfortunately, the other one’s gone somewhere; I don’t know where that is. We called them George, Paul and John. [Laughs]”

Which of the two do you still have?

“I have George and Paul. John is out there someplace, I think, because that’s the one Greg kept. So, the neck of the guitar, I’ve never touched; it has lots of layers of plastic coating on [it], and it’s the same as it always was. There’s matchsticks in there with stain on them to fill up the worm holes because it had some dead wood worm in it.

“But it’s never been touched since the day I finished it. It’s worn incredibly well. The tremolo is exactly as it was, with no replacements ever. I replaced a few little rollers; that was an invention of mine.

“Nobody had really dealt with the fact that when you work a tremolo up and down, it scrapes the strings over the bridge. I think somebody had designed a loose bridge, but really, you want each string to be able to move separately because they all move different amounts.”

What did the process of coming up with that look like?

“I made this little assembly – with grooves in the top – out of a piece of mild steel. Then I machined the shiny little rollers to sit in the grooves so the strings could go over the rollers. I think a few people have done that since, but everybody says, ‘Why didn’t you patent it?’ And I go, ‘Well, life’s too short.’

“Patents are a pain in the neck. If you take out a patent, it costs money and takes a lot of time and effort. Then you’ve got to protect your patent, go around the world policing it, and it’s a real pain in the neck. I’ve tried it elsewhere. It’s really not the way you want to spend your life. All my inventions in the guitar are out there for everybody to enjoy.”

You undeniably have one of the most idiosyncratic guitar tones of all time.

“Oh, well, that’s very kind of you to say.”

Some of it is the Red Special, but surely a lot comes from the fingers. What did the evolution of your gear look like in terms of harnessing that tone?

“The truth is, it hasn’t changed very much – except to make it more robust. Talking about amps, I love the [Vox] AC30 sound; to me, it’s perfect. The moment I first plugged into an AC30 with a treble booster, I knew that was me. That was my voice. That was my sound. The only problem with them has been that they’re not very road-worthy, so you have to keep on top of them, maintenance-wise.”

How do you go about keeping up with them?

“The ones I use now have been completely rebuilt. They started off as classic; they come from the ’70s, but they’ve been rebuilt inside, or hard-wired, and [are] very robust and [have] a lot of ventilation.

“You have to ventilate the valves, or they get too hot, and then performance suffers and eventually they peg out. The guy who does it for me now is a genius. He’s really rebuilt all my AC30s, so they have all the original character, but I think you could probably drop them from a plane and they’d still work. [Laughs]”

Have you gotten much into effect pedals, or is it mostly just the Red Special into the AC30?

“It’s very simple, my rig, except that I’ve always had a stereo chorus built in. That was sort of, again, a dream from when I was a young boy; I realized that if you get a chorus, and you get this lovely, broad effect, if you turn it up, the components of the chorus, the pitch-shifted ones, interfere with the original signal, and it all becomes distortion and you lose your breadth.

“Very early on in our career, I found a machine that provides those phase shifts, and it has two separate outputs. One I put to the left side, one to the right side. And those separate outputs have separate amps, so if they go into distortion, they’re completely separate. They don’t interfere with each other; you don’t get the inter-modulation effect, which is so ugly.

“So, you get your breadth; in fact, the breadth gets more and more as you go into distortions. And that’s just kind of my sound, the stereo sound. The middle is straight through, the left is one pitch shift, and the right is the other pitch shift. It’s a very gentle pitch shift, but just enough to give it breadth. That’s how I hear my guitar in my head; it’s always stereo, and it maintains its width when you turn it up full.”

As a tube amp devotee, would you ever consider using an amp modeler?

“I’ve tried modelers, and there are some very good ones now. There’s a great simulator; it’s a pedal [Catalinbread Galileo] that really does a very good job of simulating my sound. But, of course, there’s nothing quite like the original when it comes down to it. In the heat of the battle, all those tiny little peculiarities count, and when I’m at top level and top volume, there’s nothing quite like those amps.

“They have a personality of their own, and I couldn’t swap it for anything. And I wouldn’t like to be on stage with the amps someplace else; I need my amps to interact with my guitar – physically, in the air – and interact with me because I feel it in my body as well. I don’t think I could do the modeling thing live on stage.”

Many people’s introductions to the tone we’ve been talking about came through The Works, Queen’s 1984 album, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. It was a bit more guitar-forward than Queen’s early ’80s albums.

“With me, it always starts off with a burst of activity, belief and inspiration. And thinking, ‘Ah, this is gonna change the world.’ And it’s usually followed by a period of complete insecurity, thinking, ‘Oh, no, this is rubbish. This is never gonna work. Everyone’s gonna, you know, my band’s gonna hate it.’ And then working through it.”

Was it that way for a track like Hammer to Fall, for example?

“I think that’s true of Hammer to Fall because I came upon this riff, [and] I thought, 'This is great. I can do anything with this; this is just what I want to hear when I put my guitar on. This is what the audience is gonna want to hear…' And then I got into the studio and played it to the guys, and they went, ‘Yeah, okay.’ It wasn’t like, ‘We love it!’ And then I got back in and worked on the song.

“That one came fairly easily; I had the idea for the lyric pretty early on, but I had to build it up and build it up to the point where I could play it to them as an almost-finished song. And then they got it; they went, ‘Oh, yeah. Okay, we like this. This is going to be great.’ It takes a bit of belief, I think, to get from the first riff to the point where you’re happy with the result.”

Oscillating between confidence and discomfort is something I think a lot of creative people can relate to.

“I think it’s common to a lot of people – that moment when you spring it on your people around you, and you’re looking at their faces, and you feel very insecure in the moment. When I sing a song to someone, it’s always nerve-racking for me, no matter who it is. If they’ve never heard it before, I get all kinds of insecure. You just have to get over that.

“Freddie [Mercury] was always great. I used to sing stuff to him, and he was always very encouraging. Of course, I was generally writing for him. I was conscious that I had to write something that would work for him, not just for me. And generally, he would take hold of it very quickly.

“In many cases, I’d say, ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, I can do this, darling. Just give me a chance; just put me in there, and I’ll do this.’ [Freddie] was always very upfront; he had an amazing amount of drive, optimism and energy. He was very helpful with my insecurities – and he kind of chose me as his guitarist in the early days.

“Even when Freddie was nothing and nobody, he was Jimi Hendrix in his mind. And I enabled him to have that at his fingertips. He always said, 'You can do anything anyone can do, Brian. You can do this for me.' That sounds like I’m making him out as big-headed, but he wasn’t; it was just this enthusiasm of, ‘We can do this together. We can be the best thing in the world.’”

Freddie’s voice is iconic, but your guitars were almost like a second vocalist because of how distinct your tone is.

“I always saw my guitar as a voice. I was looking for that voice in the early days; I was inspired by those people who first made the guitar speak, like James Burton and, of course, Hendrix and Steve Cropper.

“Those guys, to me, are still the bedrock. They’re the beginning of that kind of expressive playing that comes from country, blues and something inside, which was new. I’ve just had the pleasure of working on a record for Steve Cropper. Do you want to hear the story?”

Let’s hear it!

“My old friend [composer/producer] Jon Tiven has loads of Grammys; I mean… my mantelpiece is not decorated with Grammys, but his is. He’s produced lots of really nice blues records, and he has a very instinctive, light touch. He said I needed to make a guest appearance on the Steve Cropper record.

“I went, ‘I’d love to. Steve Cropper’s a hero of mine, but I’m incredibly busy. I’m not feeling very energetic, and I’m too stressed. Too much stress. Apologies, but I don’t think I can do it right now.’

“That was my email to Jon. Jon emailed me back and said, ‘Okay, I’ve used your email to write the song, and it’s called Too Much Stress. So now, you have to play on this.’ I just smiled and went, ‘Okay.’

“He wrote all the lyrics from my email, and his singer, Roger, sang it and very graciously said, ‘Let’s split the vocals.’ So, I sing it as a duet with him and play some guitar on it. Billy Gibbons also played some guitar on it, so we shared the soloing. It’s become an inspiring project from something that started off as just a whisper. That’s the kind of stuff I love in my life – when things just grow out of a momentary conversation.”

You’ve just given us some insight into what piques your interest, inspiration-wise. But since you’ve been at it for so long and have an established sound, it is difficult to keep from feeling repetitive.

“If you do a lot of touring, it’s incredibly productive in some ways, but it can hold you back from having that freedom. I have been feeling that a little bit. I’m not 35 anymore; I’m 76, and you have a certain amount of energy. If you use it all up by touring, your spontaneous creation side tends to suffer.

“I have been feeling that. This project came as a welcomed beacon to me like, 'Okay, this stuff is still here. You can still go in the studio and create spontaneously; it still happens.' I found that influential in the way I feel right now.”

You still seem filled with energy and have done an incredible job of keeping Queen’s legacy alive.

“I am when I’m on stage. I can do it, and I have the physical capability. I train; I work on that. And I take my training seriously now physically. I think Roger and I are playing together probably better than ever, which is great. We don’t always get on, but we always play together great. [Laughs] We’ve both grown up and mellowed over the years, so we don’t fight as much as we used to, but there’s definitely that chemistry.

“I’ve been proud of the way we’re playing, but I’m wary of it becoming too much of a formula. I’m always aware of that. I like the freedom to evolve, and sometimes, I’ve been questioning whether we still have that. But yeah, I’ve been proud of the shows – especially production; I think our team is amazing. Those shows are way beyond anything we could do in the early days.”

Which of your classic solos are the most difficult to undertake on stage?

“It’s all difficult, really! I think it’s all difficult when you think about treading that fine line between giving people what they want to hear in terms of recognizability and keeping it fresh. So, the little changes that you make consciously and unconsciously need to be there or you become a fossil. [Laughs] I’m always treading that line.”

Do some songs require more nuance than others?

“Some of them have to be reproduced pretty closely, like the Bohemian Rhapsody solo. That isn’t particularly difficult for me, [but] strangely enough, the riffs in that song are quite difficult. They’re not the kind of places your fingers naturally go to play those riffs in Bb and Ab, which are the keys that Freddie liked to play in.

“That stuff never gets easier for me, playing the heavy-riffing thing in Bohemian Rhapsody. You have to keep the energy going; you can’t get too studied about it. But at the same time, you have to hit the right notes, and, as I say, [they] don’t fall naturally under the fingers. I’ve got to keep a watch on that.

“There are all sorts of things that might not be the things you expect. You know, on Another One Bites the Dust, I didn’t play the rhythm; John [Deacon] played that. He played it on a Stratocaster, I think. He was very much influenced by the punk guitarists, which I’m not so much. So for me to get the feel he got on the record is quite hard.”

How do you approach something like that?

“I approach it from different directions, with different pickup combinations. And with a pick, without the pick, but it’s never quite what John did. I’m always conscious of that, so I told myself, ‘I can’t be John. I can just be me, and I’ll be me [in] the best way I can.’ But that’s not easy.

“It’s not an easy groove for me to hit, especially as you have to hit the ground at 100mph, do it for three minutes and then stop. It’s not something I can organically fit into my playing. People might be surprised; they might think that’s the easy bit, but it’s really not [easy] to do that rhythm. I find it takes an application of mind and body.”

Are there any young players out there today who have caught your ear?

“The young people to me are people like Nuno [Bettencourt]. [Laughs] I know he’s not young anymore, but boy, he’s beyond belief. I know he’s influenced by me; he’s kind enough to say so, but he’s very influenced by Eddie Van Halen, as should be the case. He always pays wonderful tributes to Ed, and he has that magic in his fingers that Ed had, I think.

“Nuno, to me, is just stratospheric in the way he plays. These are the people I adore, really. And if I were that kind of person, I would be deeply jealous because I can’t do that shit. [Laughs] But I’m not, because I just love it; I love seeing him do it… I’m awestruck by all sorts of people I see on the internet.

“I’m on Instagram and there’s so many kids out there that are just beyond belief in terms of technique. They start where we left off, and I couldn’t even go there. I couldn’t even begin to emulate the stuff they do… Ah, and I should mention my friend Arielle.”

She’s incredible.

“She’s an extraordinary technician who doesn’t let technique hold her down. She’s very expressive, very free and old-school in many ways. She loves analog recording; she loves the old tubes and stuff. She’s a beautiful player. Her tone is magnificent.

“And there’s still this thing in every business where women are slightly undervalued. It’s changing, thank God, but she’s experienced people not quite taking her as seriously as they would have. But she’s an awesome player.”

Do you have any other old favorites?

“For me, my favorites are still, I suppose… I think the generation that kind of follows mine is other people who moved me the most. That’s why I’m so into Nuno. Steve Lukather is an awesome player, beyond belief. I look at him and think, ‘How do you do that?’ He has so many influences.

“His ability when he moves into the jazz area is phenomenal. But he’s a rock player through and through, and his technique is indescribable. I don’t know if he’s on people’s list of the world’s greatest guitarists, but to me, he’s unforgettable and a model of what a guitar player should be.

“I should also mention Paul Crook. He took such loving care of our dear friend Meat Loaf. I have great admiration for Paul, not only for his amazing fireworks guitars but also for taking over the production of those albums and absolutely maximizing whatever power Meat had left, who was fighting a hard battle.”

What’s a parting piece of advice for young guitarists?

“Believe more. Smile, be confident and don’t apologize for anything. Just be proud of being yourself, the best you can be. I spent too much time being nervous, uncertain and worried that I wasn’t good enough.

“Be confident, even if you don’t feel it right down in the deepest part of your soul. Play as if it’s there; build on that belief that you put inside yourself that you are good enough – that wherever you are, you’re what it takes.”

Steve Cropper has debuted his new group – Steve Cropper & The Midnight Hour – with a single that features a high-profile guest electric guitar star.

Earlier this year, the Stax soul legend revealed his then-unnamed album – now confirmed to be titled Friendlytown – would feature the likes of Billy Gibbons and Brian May.

It’s the Queen icon’s contributions that have been shared first, with Cropper dropping Friendlytown's lead single, Too Much Stress.

May himself addressed his Cropper cameo in the latest issue of Guitar World, in which he discussed how Too Much Stress got its name from – of all things – an email exchange.

As May explained, he was approached by producer Jon Tiven, who tried to encourage him to work on the Cropper record. The Red Special creator, though, didn’t think he could fit it into his schedule, and replied with an email that said as much.

He recalled, “I went, ‘I’d love to. Steve Cropper’s a hero of mine, but I’m incredibly busy. I’m not feeling very energetic, and I’m too stressed. Too much stress. Apologies, but I don’t think I can do it right now.’ That was my email to Jon.”

That email, though, was used to May’s disadvantage, and soon he was roped into featuring on the album after it became the lyrical and thematic backbone of the song.

“Jon emailed me back and said, ‘Okay, I’ve used your email to write the song, and it’s called Too Much Stress. So now, you have to play on this,’” May went on. “I just smiled and went, ‘Okay.’”

The tactic clearly worked. The lyrics were written from that email, and May himself helps bring them to life by supplying secondary vocals. He also lends his guitar chops to the track, and squares off against Billy Gibbons – a fully fledged member of the new band – for a quick-fire solo off that features amidst a flurry of improvised licks littered throughout.

The result is a track that paves the way for the new record, which Cropper is evidently very proud of.

“If your booty is not shaking in the first two bars of this album you’re already dead in a chair,” he observes.

“I feel so good about this batch of songs. They’re packed with radio hooks, and we have Billy Gibbons, Brian May, and Tim Montana playing on the album – it’s like guitar heaven.”

Gibbons completes the Steve Cropper & The Midnight Hour lineup with lead vocalist Roger C. Reale and drummer Nioshi Jackson.

Friendlytown's tracklist can be found below.

1. Friendlytown
2. Too Much Stress (feat. Brian May)
3. Hurry Up Sundown
4. Let's Get Started
5. Talkin’ Bout Politics
6. I'll Take Tomorrow
7. Lay It On Down
8. You Can't Refuse (feat. Tim Montana)
9. Rain On My Parade
10. There's Always A Catch
11. In God We Trust
12. Reality Check
13. I Leave You In Peace

• Friendlytown is available to preorder now ahead of its release on August 23.

Brian May’s combination of his Red Special electric guitar and Vox AC30 guitar amp has helped create one of music’s most coveted guitar tones, which is the muse of many tone-chasers the guitar world over.

Many have tried to harness May’s Queen sound through analog means, but in the age of pedal amps and digital modelers, there's no shortage of products promising to deliver that vintage guitar tone at a fraction of the price.

Indeed, there are a handful of affordable amp-in-a-box stompboxes and modelers dedicated to delivering May’s guitar tone – and in the new issue of Guitar World, May himself revealed which particular pedal gets the closest to replicating that iconic sound.

However, it’s not one that can be found in the Line 6, Neural DSP, Fractal or Fender range – instead, it’s something a little more niche, and significantly more affordable.

“I’ve tried modelers, and there are some very good ones now. There’s a great simulator; it’s a pedal that really does a very good job of simulating my sound,” says May of the Catalinbread Galileo.

Now, strictly speaking, the Galileo isn’t an out-and-out amp modeler in the same way that the aforementioned crop of multi-effects are. Rather, the Galileo is a purpose-built “Queen in a box” overdrive pedal that looks to bottle “his entire rig” into a tiny stompbox.

And, at $180, the Galileo is significantly more attainable than a Red Special, vintage AC30 and Treble Booster, all of which are at the core of May’s sound.

That’s not to say the Galileo could ever replace his current rig, though. As May goes on to explain, the Galileo – or any amp modeler, for that matter – lacks a certain tangibility that makes them inferior to a proper amp-and-pedal setup.

“There’s nothing quite like the original when it comes down to it,” he continues. “In the heat of the battle, all those tiny little peculiarities count, and when I’m at top level and top volume, there’s nothing quite like those amps.

“They have a personality of their own, and I couldn’t swap it for anything. And I wouldn’t like to be on stage with the amps someplace else.

“I need my amps to interact with my guitar – physically, in the air – and interact with me because I feel it in my body as well. I don't think I could do the modeling thing live on stage.”

Read the full interview with Brian May in the new issue of Guitar World, which you can pick up at Magazines Direct.

The interview also sees May discuss his new partnership with Gibson, which the guitar icon says could lead to Gibson-built Red Specials in the future.

Brian May has confirmed that a Gibson Custom Shop/Murphy Lab recreation of his iconic Red Special electric guitar is firmly on the table.

In February, at the grand opening of the Gibson Garage UK, the Queen legend was surprise-announced as a new member of the Gibson family. 

The news swiftly led to intense speculation over what this meant not only for May himself, but also what the move meant for the Red Special.

May’s iconic six-string sidepiece has been a mainstay for his entire musical career. The rock veteran has remained fiercely loyal to the guitar he first built with his father all those years ago, and for the past 20 years has been selling mass-produced versions of it under his own brand, Brian May Guitars.

At the time of the Gibson Garage UK opening, Guitar World theorized the new partnership could usher in a new breed of Red Special replicas – an awe-inspiring, meticulous tonal and visual recreation of the guitar fashioned under the watchful eye of the Gibson Custom Shop and Murphy Lab.

Gibson’s credentials for doing the job are evident. Over the years, the Custom Shop and Murphy Lab have recreated Kirk Hammett’s Greeny Les Paul, Jimmy Page’s EDS-1275 double-neck, and Jason Isbell’s 'Red Eye', to name a few.

Well, as May reveals in the new issue of Guitar World, such theories are correct, and a Murphy Lab Red Special could indeed become a reality.

“It’s not out of the question,” May responds when asked about the replica. “We have spoken about such things, and it would be lovely to have an edition of the Brian May guitar based in the States. After all, that’s where I started with Guild. 

“Guild made the first Brian May models, and then I went with Burns in [the UK]. And then things changed, and I just wanted to do it myself. Now we have our own Brian May Guitars company here, but to have the facility to have some made in the States would be wonderful.”

As May mentions, he did previously work with Guild and Burns to build licensed replicas of the Red Special, but it’s been more than two decades since a Red Special outside of the BMG umbrella was launched.

Now, it seems as though May is readying for another high-end replica that could go one step beyond the current crop of BMG models, and give guitar fans the most realistic recreation of the original Red Special to have ever been built.

“The Gibson Garage is great,” May continues of his grand unveiling. “Some people were saying, ‘Well, what the hell are you doing at Gibson? You’ve got your own guitar company.’ But actually, I have a great relationship with [Gibson] now.”

Since the first part of the theory is coming to fruition, just how far can we expect the Gibson/May partnership to go? If Gibson stays true to its trickle-down release schedule, it's possible a standard USA version may arrive shortly after.

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features the full interview with Brian May.

Over the last 50-odd years, a hell of a lot of great guitarists have come out of Texas. Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Johnson, Johnny Winter and Billy Gibbons come to mind – but ever-rocking blues bruiser Rocky Athas should never be far from top of the list.

Having connections with SVR, Brian May, Glenn Hughes and John Mayall, Athas has seen it all since breaking ground in the ‘70s. He’s also been a member of Black Oak Arkansas, covered Hendrix and Cream, and dropped nine records under his own name.

What he’s learned is that it all comes down to one thing: “Tone – the elusive Ark of the Covenant,” he laughs. “Finding your tone is difficult to explain because tone is subjective. What sounds good to me might sound offensive to you and your ears.

“I know what pleases me when I hear it. I want the good round, rich, deep tone of a world-class operatic tenor like Pavarotti. It has to sound great in every register and be effortless. My job as a lead guitarist is to sing my leads with great phrasing and make a statement.”

With his new record Livin’ My Best Life, Athas has that dialed in. “Every album is like a time capsule of who I am,” he says. “I’m always trying to learn something new, so my new album is the best representation of me. Not because it’s new, but because it backs up what I believe about playing leads that sing and say something memorable.

“Taking my time to find the right paint brushes to work with to fit a song’s mood and message is important to me. How boring would it be for every track on an album sounded the same?”

At 69, Athas is full of life and playing better than ever. “Being remembered as the guitarist with the identifiable, monstrous tone that always made an audience smile would make me happy,” he says.

“Things that sound good become timeless. Music is about making people feel something. Happiness and joy align with my belief system of why I am on this Earth.”

What inspired you to pick up the guitar?

“As a baby boomer I witnessed the Beatles’ performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which birthed a generation of aspiring musicians. But my older brother, Nick, already played guitar and influenced everything in my life from sports to music; so the guitar was probably predestined for me.”

Can you remember your first guitar? 

“It’s impossible to forget! My parents memorialized my budding musical interests with an 8x10 Sears portrait of me, my Beatles haircut and my Kingston three-pickup pawnshop special with a million buttons.

“It’s no longer in my possession, but if anyone finds it I’d love to hear from them! My first real guitar was a beautiful 1964 tobacco sunburst Gibson ES-330 that I cherished.”

How were you impacted by growing up in Texas surrounded by great players?

“Texas has a deep, rich musical environment; I was lucky to be born here. The level of diversity and excellence, especially in Dallas, was so high that it raised the bar for everybody in or near it. The motivation and competition were contagious in a good way. All the musicians I hung out with were generous with their knowledge, and we all reciprocated.

“Even though Eric Johnson was in Austin, we had the same manager for several years and we did many shows together. One day I was with him at his parents’ house, and he sat down at the piano and wowed me – I had no idea he was so awesome on piano. Eric is one very talented, multi-faceted guy.

“And, of course, Stevie Ray Vaughan and I met in elementary school and became very good childhood friends, all because of the fifth-grade talent show. I played House of the Rising Sun, Secret Agent Man and I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone on my 330.

“Afterward Stevie walked up and said, ‘I play guitar too,’ and our friendship began. We would call each other and talk about great guitar players and what guitars they were playing, what kind of amps they used, and all that.

“In junior high we ate lunch together, and the only thing we talked about was music. Since we both had older brothers who were close in age, we were influenced by their choices. Once I was old enough to drive, I would pick Steve up in my brother's car, and we would go to jam sessions as often as we could find them. Those were great times before we chose a lane to pursue, and he followed his brother to Austin.”

As I understand it, Brian May borrowed a few licks from you.

“When Guitar World published the interview that mentioned it last year, my phone blew up! My friends… they all knew it was me.

“Dallas was an absolute hotbed of live entertainment during this time. My original band, Lightning, had a reputation for putting on an amazing live show. Promoters had us opening for The Kinks, Ritchie Blackmore, Pat Travers, Montrose, Trapeze, Joe Walsh, Rick Derringer, Alice Cooper, America, Mountain…

“We would pull out all the stops, including our drummer doing backflips at the end of the show. The word was out, and we were happy to show off everything in our arsenal. So, our reputation preceded us when Queen came to town in 1977 with Thin Lizzy.

“Brian came to [Dallas venue] Mother Blues with the guys from Thin Lizzy, and at the end of our show, he walked up to me and said, ‘Hey, I dig that thing you do with your right hand.’ I was finger-tapping with my right hand. Then he says, ‘I’m going to nick that from you.’ I was cocky in those days and said to him, ‘Go for it!’”

Did May ever follow up with you?

“Brian has never spoken directly to me since then, but I would love to have a chat with him now if that could be arranged. I’d love to hear how he remembers that night. As a producer now, I have an entirely new appreciation for his skills as an arranger. He’s done brilliant work.”

Tell us about the rig you used with Black Oak Arkansas and Glenn Hughes.

“In Black Oak Arkansas I was all about the tone and decibels for live shows. I used my Lab-L5 and my Fender Twins. When I was with Glenn, I used Marshall Amps on most of those shows because that’s what the promoters provided.”

You later recorded with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s backing band, Double Trouble. What was that experience like?

“Phenomenal! Working with a rhythm section so tight without rehearsal is a dream come true! They were the real deal with a solid pocket that allowed me to breathe and play all over the place. Steve was very lucky to have them.”

You covered Jimi Hendrix’s The Wind Cries Mary for the Blue Haze – Songs of Jimi Hendrix record. How did you approach that?

“The recording came from the Blues Berries sessions and was given to Ruf Records for the Blue Haze compilation album. I used a 1959 cream Tolex Fender Bassman amp and a 1960 Fender Strat.

“Hendrix was always a favorite of mine, and I developed a catalog of his covers when I was young, so recording it for that album was easy. I just reached into my bag and played like I did Villanova Junction on my Shakin’ the Dust album. I don’t overthink it – I just let it flow.”

How did you get the gig with John Mayall in 2009? 

“It was a simple call out of the blue from John asking me to join him. There were no middlemen, handlers or auditions. I wasn’t even looking for a gig; I actually thought it was a prank call by one of my best buddies. The first few minutes were awkward – I didn’t believe it was John and I almost hung up on him!

“Ultimately, he convinced me it was really him and said he remembered seeing me play years before. He’d heard my album, Miracle, on the radio in the UK and liked what he heard, so he bought it and eventually called me.”

Was it challenging covering licks by Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor?

“The most challenging thing was John’s massive back catalog. There was no way to prepare all the material – John thrived on improv and never repeated the same set twice in all the years I was with him. The band wouldn’t know what we were going to play until about half an hour before the show, when John wrote the setlist.

“Even if you knew the song, John changed the keys constantly. Every set list had a song, and next to the title was the key he wanted to play that night. You have to have complete mastery of your instrument to be able to just go with the flow and watch John for any changes.

“It was challenging at first, but it made me a better player by forcing me out of my comfort zone and into keys that are not necessarily guitar-friendly for lead work. John was extremely generous; I got to stretch lead breaks into infinity, expanding into possibilities I’d never tried before. He encouraged experimentation.”

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned?

“I picture my life as a three-act play. The first act is about discovery, development, and the discipline of finding my way. The second act is about living with what I chose to create and being productive. I expected to start slowing down by the third act, but I was wrong!

“Covid gave me time to reflect, recharge, and embrace whatever’s next. I’ve learned so many new things in the last decade – especially when it comes to technology and what it can do for an artist’s career.

“I never envisioned having an online presence where my music would be available to a worldwide audience, having a band that included the next generation of our family with my son on bass, or having a family business that involved my wife and my daughter! That’s the lesson: never stop learning.”

So what’s next?

“I’m open to anything and everything. I’d love to do another European tour on a double bill with another good blues-rock band and have fun. Maybe I’ll go back on the road with a big band as their lead guitarist. I’d love to produce someone else’s album or collaborate with someone new.

“I’d also love to do one of those rock and blues cruises to jam with some of my old friends. I especially love answering guitar questions through social media. Maybe I’ll do all these things! 

“The only thing I’m sure about is that it will be interesting. That's the beauty of being an artist: I get to create whatever makes me happy.”

• Livin’ My Best Life is on sale now.

The Last Dinner Party's lead guitarist Emily Roberts has recently revealed how a spot as Brian May in a Queen Tribute band was key to developing her sound, and in turn, the guitar parts on the band's celebrated debut record Prelude to Ecstasy. 

“I was around 21 or 22 years old when someone messaged me on Facebook about being Brian May in that band,” she explains to Total Guitar. “I thought, ‘Yeah, why not?’ 

“I loved Queen and knew it would be fun to learn all the solos and parts. Then the pandemic happened. We only did one gig in the end, at a Queen convention near Hull. It went great. 

“That probably ended up influencing my rock playing more than anything else, because I spent an entire summer solidly trying to get inside Brian’s playing, hearing all the little details.”

Naturally, the set list included some of Queen's greatest hits.  “My favorite song to play was Hammer To Fall. That was always fun! Don’t Stop Me Now has a really great solo. Then there’s We Will Rock You, The Show Must Go On… there are so many. A Kind Of Magic was great, especially for those fast, staccato licks. I loved it all, to be honest.”

May’s influence can be heard all over the band's debut, with single-note riff ideas replacing the chordal approach generally favored by rock bands. 

“The single-note thing has massively influenced the way I write parts in The Last Dinner Party,” she continues. “Listen to what I play on Portrait Of A Dead Girl or Sinner – it’s all single-note ideas, which comes from Brian.” 

Roberts also took another page from May’s book. “I found out he used a sixpence, and my Dad has a collection of old coins,” she divulges. “So I asked him for the right one with the serrated edge. I ended up using that for while, which was a bit of a challenge!”

The Last Dinner Party will embark on an extensive festival season, followed by a UK, European, and North American tour this Fall in support of Prelude to Ecstasy. 

In 2021, Brian May told Guitar Player he’d been inspired to develop his two-hand tapping chops after witnessing an unnamed electric guitar supremo use the expansive technique during a gig in Texas.

That anonymous virtuoso was again referenced by May in an interview with Classic Rock, and though he was never explicitly identified by the Queen guitarist, sources suggested that mystery virtuoso was Rocky Athas.

A Texan native, Athas cut his teeth jamming with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson, and was reportedly admired by the likes of Billy Gibbons and the late Dimebag Darrell.

Well, it turns out it was Athas who inspired May to two-hand tap – and Athas recalled the exact moment it happened in an upcoming interview with Guitar World.

“When Guitar World published the Brian May interview that mentioned it last year, my phone blew up!” Athas says of May's initial revelation. “My friends… They all knew it was me.”

By the time Queen went to Dallas during their tour with Thin Lizzy in 1977, Athas and his band, Lightning, had already developed a reputation as one of the city’s hottest acts “for putting on an amazing live show”.

Lightning – who opened for The Kinks, Ritchie Blackmore, Alice Cooper and countless others – pulled out all the stops for their shows. Apparently, the drummer would do backflips at the end of the gig.

It was under these energetic circumstances that May witnessed the playing of Athas, who was evidently intent on bringing some six-string showmanship of his own to the table. That came in the form of two-hand tapping.

“The word was out, and we were happy to show off everything in our arsenal,” he continues. “Our reputation preceded us when Queen came to town in 1977 with Thin Lizzy. 

“Brian came to Mother Blues [live music venue in Dallas] with the guys from Thin Lizzy, and at the end of our show, Brian walked up to me and said, 'Hey, I dig that thing you do with your right hand.' 

“I was finger-tapping with my right hand. Then he says, 'I'm going to nick that from you.' I was cocky in those days and said to him, 'Go for it!'”

May did indeed “go for it”, and would introduce tapping into his technical repertoire, using it on songs such as It’s Late – another cut that May said actually inspired Eddie Van Halen’s tapping style.

According to Athas, he and May have not spoken since that night in 1977, but the blues supremo would like to cross paths again, if only just to reflect on the Mother Blues gig: “I would love to have a chat with him now if that could be arranged. I'd love to hear how he remembers that night.”

Keep your eyes peeled to GuitarWorld.com for the full interview with Rocky Athas.