They say the best way to improve as a guitar player is is to record yourself and listen to it back. But it’s not easy. In fact, it can be all kinds of horrible.

It used to be worse. At least nowadays we can quickly record something, apply a little bit of digital voodoo to it, a nice IR, some reverb for space, gussy it up and make it sound all right, even if the playing stinks.

But if you’re at the stage where you are listening to yourself back and thinking of sticking your electric guitar on Reverb and giving up, then just take a moment, because you’re not alone. Even the pros feel this way from time to time.

Chet Atkins is one of the greatest to ever have done it – hero and mentor to Tommy Emmanuel, inspiration to a generation and all-round virtuoso. They called him ‘Mister Guitar’ – he’s the one and only Country Gentleman – and yet Atkins would hear himself play and his heart would sink.

Speaking to Guitar World in March 1986, he admitted that his playing made him feel sick. “I never like what I play – especially the old things,” he said, and there was one incident that especially stuck out in his mind.

“I remember going down the road one day and I heard a tune on the radio called The Love Bug Crawl,” said Atkins. “I can’t even remember the artist, but I was listening to this thing and I said, ‘Boy, that sounds good. Wonder who that guitar player is?’ Then suddenly I realized it was me and it sounded terrible.”

Atkins would have been forgiven for the lapse. The Love Bug Crawl was an old rockabilly standard from 1957, recorded by Jimmy Edwards. Atkins was just a young buck when he sat in on the session, alongside the likes of Floyd Cramer and Buddy Harman, aka the Nashville A-Team.

But then again, Atkins would later sign Edwards to RCA on a one-year deal, and got him to track y Otis Blackwell’s Your Love is a Good Love. So there’s that.

But anyway, the point is, our perception of our playing is now how others hear us. When Atkins was listening to this long-forgotten recording, it sounded good. It still sounds good.

But there’s a psychological switch that’s flipped when we know that’s us. For Atkins, it was a particularly violent and visceral reaction.

“It’s always that way when I hear myself,” he said. “If I don’t know it’s me I think, ‘Damn, that’s pretty good. Wonder who that is?’ Then when I realize it’s me I kind of want to throw up.”

The moral of the story? There’s a fine line between applying a critical ear to your playing and to trashing it completely, and if the great Chet Atkins feels like this, what hope do the rest of us mortals have?

Last year, Tommy Emmanuel – one of Atkins' proteges – revealed how he first met his biggest guitar hero by knocking on his door unannounced.

It’s often hard for players to recall the exact moment they stumbled across a riff or lick that would end up becoming a hit. It’s equally difficult to pinpoint the ins and outs of a recording session. That was especially the case for Mars, who failed to remember recording of Mötley Crüe’s Girls, Girls, Girls – because he was unconscious for it.

Bizarre stories fly out of the Mötley Crüe camp with wild abandon, and have done since their 1981 debut album, Too Fast for Love, hit the shelves. In the May 2005 issue of Guitar World, Mars regaled another.

The story centers around the band’s fourth album, Girls, Girls, Girls. It was a standout smash in 1987, and is certified four times platinum in the US.

Mars revealed he recorded the title track’s water tight rhythm parts with a “Kramer through a Marshall head absolutely dry”. No effects were allowed anywhere near his signal.

“It's doubled,” he adds. “So it's big, but everything's dry – a nice big dirty sound.”

As for its leads, while a guitar solo punctuates the middle section, a descending staccato run rounds the song out in flashy fashion. The rumor was that Mars fell off his chair while recording it and producer Bob Rock simply let the tape run. Mars remembers it in a slightly more dramatic – and suitably rock ’n’ roll – manner.

“I was drunk,” he says. “I fell flat on my face, but I held onto the guitar neck, so I could still squeeze out some notes, even though I was unconscious.”

It sounds impossible – and it could well be, given that not all stories that come out of the Crüe camp are based entirely in reality. But we’ll let this one slide, as it’s a great tale regardless. Even if it comes from the band’s most substance-soaked era.

“That was during a dark period,” Mars accepts. “I was drinking my head off. It's always something. I have a very addictive personality. Even when I quit drinking, I couldn't stop taking pain medication.”

Sadly, for Crüe fans, Mars acrimoniously left the band in 2023. John 5 was drafted into the group in his place. Mars has since said that reconciliation is off the table and the relationship between both parties continues to sour amid disputes over the resulting lawsuits.

But the crazy stories of the band’s 1980s peak cannot be taken away from Mars, and recording licks like that on Girls, Girls, Girls – while slipping out of consciousness – is classic Crüe, whichever way you look at it.

Rory Gallagher’s heavily weathered 1961 Stratocaster is a blues-rock icon. So much so that it sold for $1.16m at auction last year. Naturally, icons have their admirers, and a young Johnny Marr went to brutal lengths to make his own electric look like Gallagher’s. It didn’t go to plan.

Speaking in the May 1995 issue of Total Guitar, the former Smiths guitarist, then working with New Order’s Bernard Sumner in Electronic, was asked about his first guitar.

“It was a Vox that looked like a Strat,” he said. “It was well weird.”

For years, the guitar was his pride and joy, and it remained by his side unscathed until he hit his teenage years.

“It had two Strat-like pickups, and a curved head,” he remembered. “Great sound, and it was red.

“I had that for a few years, then when I got to secondary school, about 13, I took a blowtorch to it. I wanted it to look absolutely fucked like Rory Gallagher’s. It looked so funky, and that’s what I wanted it to be.”

Gallagher’s Strat itself tells a remarkable story. He bought the guitar from Crowley’s Music Store in Cork, Ireland, for £100 in 1963, and it originally had a Sunburst finish. He was said to be in tears when its paint started stripping away, the result of his aggressive picking technique, highly acidic sweat, and the fact that he never stopped playing it.

Not once did he take a hammer, a chisel, or a blowtorch to the guitar to give it one of rock guitar’s most unique ‘colorways’. Marr was forced into cutting corners.

“I nearly killed myself trying to get the lacquer off; it kept catching fire,” he laughed. “I kept blowing it out; I’d inhaled all these fumes. I ended up conking out in the road.”

Given Marr’s age – he was born in 1963 – this would have been roughly the same time period when Adrian Belew enlisted the help of Seymour Duncan to relic his Strat, in truly brutal fashion. The difference is, Belew was so happy with the results of his aggressive modding that it went on to grace the cover of Guitar World in May, 1982. He also never passed out during the process.

“I guess I went a bit too far with it,” Marr conceded. “It ended up looking terrible.”

Marr has just sold nearly 100 of his guitars – and a healthy dollop of amps – in a bumper Christie’s auction that raised nearly $5m. Guitars tied to milestone indie moments with the Smiths and beyond went under the hammer, including a bizarre nine-pickup Strat, and his prized ’82 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo.

Last month, we asked Guitar World readers to name the best guitar duo of all time.

It didn’t come as a massive surprise to see the Allman Brothers Band’s original six-string tandem of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts come up over and over again.

In the all-too-short time between the band’s formation in 1969 and 1971, when the Allman’s life was cut tragically short in a motorcycle accident, the pair left an indelible mark on rock guitar. The two both had an incredibly melodic touch – with Allman always having an answer to Betts’ sweet statements on slide.

According to Betts, Allman wasn’t a fiery character, per sé, but he had an incredible drive, a firm belief in himself and his vision. Betts was no shrinking violet himself, though.

Once the Allman Brothers kicked into gear, the two clicked – musically and personally. But, as Betts told it, their first couple of interactions didn’t exactly foretell a history-making partnership...

Recounting his relationship with Allman in a 2007 interview with Guitar World, Betts vividly remembered the first time he saw the slide great play.

“It was around ‘65, ‘66. I kept hearing from different people about this hot guitar player named Duane Allman over in Daytona [Florida],” Betts told GW.

“I started going out with a girl that had dated Gregg [Allman], and she told me about the brothers. I had a pretty good band at the time [the Jokers]. We had the biggest crowds in Sarasota. So my girlfriend took me over to Daytona to see Duane and Gregg’s band, the Allman Joys, and introduced me to them.”

“I thought they were real good, but to tell you the truth, we didn’t get along right away,” Betts explained, adding, with a laugh, “I thought they were stuck-up, and they thought I was some hillbilly hayseed.”

A couple years later, the brothers rocked up to a Florida club where Betts was playing, and jammed with him for the first time. Unfortunately, that didn’t go particularly well, either – though this was due more to a misunderstanding than anything.

“Duane came up onstage to play and I showed him the amp to plug into, which was on the dark corner of the stage,” Betts recalled to Guitar World. “It was hard to see, so as he was plugging in, I tried to help him, saying, ‘This here is the bass and treble, and here’s the volume,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Man, I know how to run an amp by now, I think!’

“I was just trying to be nice! So I said, ‘Okay, well, fucking have at it then.’ So we didn't get along that time either.”

Ironically, once Betts and Allman began to play together more over the coming couple of years – overcoming their earlier bad impressions of one another – and the nucleus of the band that would make them famous began to form, the Allman brothers themselves had to get over some bad blood before all could finally come together.

Encouraged to contact his brother to round out what would become a six-piece band, Duane was hesitant.

“At that point, Gregg was out in LA and [he and Duane] were mad at each other,” Betts told GW in 2007. “It was just a brotherly thing; they fought all of the time. Duane said, ‘Oh, he ain’t coming,’ but we knew Gregg was going to have to come.”

Early tension and brotherly spats aside, once the Allman Brothers Band hit their stride, Duane – aside from laying down the mind-boggling slide work that helped establish the band as one of the most groundbreaking in rock – did much to help keep the band’s eye on the ball in their early days.

“Duane was such a great guy for keeping things positive,” Betts explained. “He would talk about all of the things that we all had been thinking about and gave us what were, essentially, pep talks.

“He’d often say, ‘I’m not the leader of this band, but if and when we need one, I’m a damn good one!’ And he was.”

For the casual observers, it’s Angus Young who gets all the plaudits in AC/DC. Guitarists, however, understand that the band’s rhythm guitarist, Malcolm Young, was the glue that held the band together.

So much so, in fact, that Angus believes his brother was a better player than Eddie Van Halen.

In 1986, AC/DC had already established themselves as industry veterans and were on the promo trail for their 10th studio album, Fly on the Wall. Van Halen, meanwhile – another band to feature two brother musicians – were kickstarting their Sammy Hagar era with the ultra-successful 5150.

Even without David Lee Roth, who was busy recruiting Steve Vai for his solo band, Van Halen were one of the biggest bands on the planet, and it was Eddie Van Halen’s shredding that put them center stage.

But their Australian counterparts operated in different circles. Sure, they had guitar solos galore, and more riffs than you could shake a stick at. But speaking to Guitar World in March 1986, Angus insinuated that Eddie’s shredding was often a little superfluous.

“Malcolm makes [AC/DC] sound so full,” Angus said. “It’s hard to get a big ego if you play in a band with your brother – it keeps your head on the earth.

“Malcolm is like me. He just wants the two of us to connect. Although he lets me take all the lead breaks, Malcolm’s still a better guitarist than Eddie Van Halen.”

The word “better,” of course, brings the element of taste into the equation. Look at Guitar World’s list of the world’s greatest guitarists, and you’ll see that the top rankings are taken up by virtually incomparable players. So it’s hard to say what makes David Gilmour better or worse than Yngwie Malmsteen – they’re very different creeds.

In fighting his brother’s corner, Malcolm Young also took a swipe at his world-conquering counterpart.

“Van Halen certainly knows his scales, but I don’t enjoy listening to very technical guitarists who cram all the notes they know into one song,” Angus bemoans.

“I mean, Van Halen can do what he does very well, but he’s really just doing finger exercises. If a guitarist wants to practice all the notes he can play, he should do it at home. There’s definitely a place for that type of playing, but it’s not in front of me.”

Strong words indeed. And in a bid to better underscore his point, he turned to two blues icons – Chuck Berry and B.B. King – to explain why technicality doesn’t resonate with him. He’s looking for someone else.

“Those guys have great feel,” he noted. "They hit the notes in the right spot, and they know when not to play.

“Chuck Berry didn’t care whether he was playing his tune, out of tune, or someone else’s tune. Whenever he plays guitar, he has a big grin from ear to ear.”

But perhaps, by this point in time, Angus Young had grown cynical about his contemporaries. In the same interview, he fired shots at Eric Clapton, saying he wasn’t sure what the hype was about. No name was too big for the SG loyalist not to try and scythe down.

In his eyes, no-one comes close to Malcolm Young, and many will agree with him. The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins believes him to be rock’s most underrated player. Steel Panther’s Satchel also reckons he influenced more guitarists than either of the two players Angus has snapped back at.

Billy Gibbons picked up the art of playing the guitar in a different era. People were less online. People were not online. You took your wisdom from books. You learned from speaking to people, from watching them play.

Some of the best guitar tips the ZZ Top frontman ever got came from some friendly advice, or from lessons with the greats. Jimi Hendrix once gave him a lesson. B.B. King, famously, had some great advice.

Now, when the King of the Blues spoke, you listened. This was the man who not only inspired Gibbons the guitarist but inspired the name of the band, ZZ Top. He was responsible for Gibbons choosing a lighter gauge of electric guitar strings, and by proxy visited an act of mercy upon the fingertips of his left hand.

“At the time, using heavy-gauge guitar strings was thought necessary for getting a big tone,” said Gibbons, speaking to Guitarist in February. “When B.B. asked to try a few licks on my guitar, he quickly smiled and asked, ‘Why you working so hard?’ He then laid it down to show off a new set of his super-light-gauge strings.”

This was an epiphany.

“It was at that very moment that everything turned around,” he said. “As B.B. then said, ‘Light is all right!’”

But what about Gibbons’ unorthodox choice of a guitar pick? Again, he grew up in the online era. There were no buyers guides on the best guitar picks money could buy. Well, that’s what Guitar World reader Paul Shuffield, Jr. wanted to know. How come he ended up using a Mexican peso coin as a pick?

On this score, Gibbons had another blues legend to thank, and this cat played bass guitar.

“Tommy Carter of Jimmie Vaughan's Dallas band the Chessmen used a quarter to play bass,” said Gibbons. “He described the serrated edge of the coin as producing a delightful scratchiness as he scrubbed the strings. That gave me the idea, and our love of the Mexican border is what drew us to the peso. The peso coin is a rarity, but we’ve still got a few filed down for the ready.”

Gibbons, of course, is not the only guitar player to use a coin. Brian May famously only uses a sixpence, which really is a rarity because it’s not legal tender. He is very particular about his sixpences, favoring the pre-1950s spec, when they, like guitar strings, had a higher nickel content.

“I used to play with those little plastic picks but I always found that they were too bendy,” he told the Guardian in 2023. “I couldn’t really feel what was happening as the thing touched the strings. I went into harder and harder picks, until they were too stiff. Then one day I picked up a coin, which happened to be a sixpence, and I thought, ‘That’s all I need.’”

Like Gibbons and Carter, May liked the fact that the serrated edge gave him an option the regular Delrin or nylon picks didn’t have.

“Sixpences are very soft metal, which doesn’t hurt the guitar strings, but if I turn that serrated edge at an angle to the string, I can get that kind of articulating, percussive consonant sound,” he said. “I call it graunch.”

And, fellow gear hunters and tone hounds, if you’re looking for the best sixpence to play guitar with, seek out one minted in 1947. They’re May’s favorite, and that was the year he was born.

Behind every king there’s a kingmaker. When B.B. King filled the spotlight in the clubs of downtown Chicago, casting his audience and aspiring blues guitar players under his spell, he got there on his charisma and talent. He had it.

But it did not come out of nothing. Even the King of the Blues needed someone to show him the way, to coax the best out of him, to become the player that he never thought it was possible to be.

That man was Robert Jr. Lockwood. You might know the name. You will if you’ve been keeping up with blues history. He comes from a storied lineage.

His stepfather was none other than Robert Johnson – the O.G. blues guitar virtuoso who, according to legend, got his crown in a pact with the devil. It was Johnson who found his voice at the Crossroads. And Lockwood learned from him.

Speaking to Guitar World in March 1986, Lockwood remembered a young B.B. King approaching him when they were both in Memphis, and this young man wanted some help. He was just no good on the guitar.

In fact, he was so bad that Lockwood demurred when King asked him.

“After I heard how bad B.B. was sounding, I didn’t want to help him,” he said, and he didn’t sugarcoat it none. “It was no fun to play with him. When he found out who I was he begged me to join him.”

Lockwood weakened. Maybe B.B. King wore him down. Maybe at heart he was just a soft touch. Together they played and B.B. King watched and learned.

“I stayed about two years before leaving for Chicago. I’m responsible for him being what he is today,” claimed Lockwood.

If the blues came together in Memphis, Mississippi, and all across the south, it was in Chicago were it gathered steam – when players such as Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and Willie Dixon were putting it together. The Chicago scene was the making of Buddy Guy, and speaking to Guitar World in 2021, he explained how it was all going on in the Windy City.

“Well first of all, I didn’t think I was going to join this crowd here, because when I came, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, you had Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Rogers and all those guys were making hit records at Chess Records,” recalled Guy.

“You had the jazz guys… We was listening to everything! But I said, ‘Buddy, you in Chicago but sit back, listen and learn. Don’t rush out there and think you can join these guys, just sit back and hope you can learn something from them.’ And I learned a lot from them.”

And that’s how it went. Players passed their knowledge along, at least to those whom they thought deserving. Otis Rush gave Buddy Guy his shot on stage. The players who were destined for greatness were the ones who watched and learned. Like Buddy Guy says, they sat back and watched, soaked it all up.

B.B. King did just that. When he offered his side of the story, as to Lockwood’s contribution to the making of him as a player, he didn’t quite go as far as Johnson’s stepson did. But he did acknowledge that the company of a pro player taught him the ropes. Lockwood helped show him the path.

“He happened to come by where I was playing. I was in my early twenties, and he was a professional guitarist,” said King. “I was terrible, but the people liked me because I had a good beat, a good tempo, and they could dance.”

Sometimes, that’s all you need to let the good times roll. But King had higher aspirations for his playing. He watched Lockwood like a hawk.

“My head was like a sponge,” said King. “Everything he did I wanted to learn. Everybody I hear play is doing something I wish I could do.”

And the sound coming from Lockwood’s guitar was exactly the sound in King’s head. King sure mastered the blues all right, but there was one jazz standard in Lockwood’s trick bag that he just couldn’t play.

“Robert Jr. Lockwood is one of the few people that played blues like I'd like to,” said King. “He didn’t just try to play blues, but anything he feel like he want to play. He was playing Count Basie’s One O'Clock Jump on the guitar, and I still can’t do it.”

The famous writing on the wall read “Clapton is God” but not everyone was a believer. Sure, he helped write the book on British blues-rock, was electric guitar point man in the archetypical rock power trio Cream, and made acoustic blues platinum in the MTV era, but still there were doubters.

Some had little faith. Angus Young was one of them. Speaking to Guitar World in 1986 – granted, six years off Clapton’s triple-Grammy-winning turn on MTV Unplugged – the AC/DC lead guitarist admitted that he never understood all the fuss. Given Clapton or the Godfather of Rock ’n’ Roll, there was just no contest.

“Everyone always used to rave about Clapton when I was growing up, saying he was a guitar genius and stuff like that,” said Young. “Well, even on a bad night, Chuck Berry is a lot better than Clapton will ever be.”

When Clapton broke out, he was on a mission. He wanted to bring the blues to the world. Speaking to Guitarist in 1994, he saw his life’s mission to make others feel what he felt when he put the needle down on a Freddie King record.

“I thought everyone else was either in it just to be on Top Of The Pops or Ready Steady Go, or to score girls or for some dodgy reason,” said Clapton. “I was in it to save the world. I wanted to tell the world about blues and to get it right. Even then I thought that I was on some kind of mission, so in a way I thought, ‘Yes, I am God; quite right.’”

Clapton always cited his sources. He was devoted. But that didn’t wash with Young.

“Clapton just sticks licks together that he has taken from other people – like B.B. King and the other old blues players – and puts them together in some mish-mashed fashion,” said Young.

He did, however, give Slowhand some credit. Clapton’s work with John Mayall cut the mustard. And Cream – Sunshine of your Love, White Room, et cetera – were OK.

“The only great album he ever made was the Blues Breaker album he did with John Mayall, and maybe a couple of good songs he did with Cream,” continued Young. “The guy more or less built his reputation on that. I never saw what the big fuss was about Clapton to begin with.”

Young was more impressed with Clapton’s fellow Yardbird alumnus, Jeff Beck, whom he argued was… well, he wasn’t boring.

“There are guys out there who can play real good without boring people. Jeff Beck is one of them,” said Young. “He’s more of a technical guy, but when he wants to rock and roll he sure knows how to do it with guts. I really like the early albums he did with Rod Stewart.”

But Young’s all-time favorite is the irrepressible Chuck Berry, from whom Young took much of his sound – not to mention stagecraft. Berry was brilliant because he just didn’t care. Put an electric guitar in his hands he would light up.

“Chuck Berry was never a caring person. He didn’t care whether he was playing his tune, out of tune or someone else’s tune,” said Young. “Whenever he plays guitar, he has a big grin from ear to ear.”

On that note, Young and Clapton have something in common. Chuck Berry played a huge role in both players’ musical education. In his interview with Guitarist, Clapton said it was players like Berry and Bo Diddley who encouraged him to investigate the roots of rock ’n’ roll and explore where it came from.

“I remember hearing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and not really knowing anything about the geography or the culture of the music,” Clapton said. “But for some reason it did something to me – it resonated.”

Guitar teachers always have some good stories to tell. There are those who teach younger kids, a cohort who is liable to say – and do – all kinds of crazy things.

We’ve known teachers having to point a toy ray gun at their student’s head to get them to concentrate on the exercise. And there’s always a problem child whom you wouldn’t trust with a solid piece of wood in their hands.

But consider who Joe Satriani taught. His alumni roll call reads like a who’s who of rock and metal guitar. There’s his old pal Steve Vai. Then there’s the whole Bay Area first-generation thrash scene, players such as Larry Lalonde, then of Possessed and now Primus, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Rick Hunolt of Exodus fame, and of course another former Exodus guitarist Kirk Hammett, who went onto achieved some success with Metallica.

Speaking to Guitar World in December 1995, Satch said some privileges came from teaching such gifted players, like when Hammett would turn up and and bring him some of the first recordings of what Metallica were up to in the studio.

One particularly memorable session came towards the end of Satriani’s teaching career, when Hammett and Metallica were putting together their most ambitious album yet, And Justice for All. And some of this stuff was really out there.

“Kirk Hammett was my last student in late 1987/early ’88, and he would bring to the lessons some of the progressions Metallica were working on,” recalled Satriani.

“They were the weirdest things. Here was a band who were really forging ahead of other people, but he was asking me, ‘What do you think I should play over this stuff?’”

And Justice For All would be Metallica at their most audacious just as they were rebounding from their lowest ebb, the death of their bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus crash in 1986.

Burton was a gifted musician, knew theory inside and out, and was a driving force for Metallica’s cresting musicality during the mid ‘80s.

Speaking to Guitar World in 2016, Hammett said Burton’s knowledge far outstripped his.

“Cliff studied music in college,” said Hammett. “I had a grasp of music theory, thanks to Joe, but Cliff went the whole length and learned musical theory and everything. And he was way into harmonies.

“James really absorbed the dual-harmony thing and took it to heart. He made it his thing, but it was originally Cliff’s. Cliff also inspired James greatly on counterpoint and rhythmic concepts.”

When Metallica were really starting to build a bit of momentum following their incendiary debut LP, Kill ‘Em All, Hammett would still travel for his lessons with Satriani – only he didn’t have the car. As Metallica were writing Ride the Lighting, Hammett was riding a bike all the way down to the guitar shop where Satch taught.

“It took me over an hour and a half, because I lived, like, 25 miles away,” he said. “So I would ride the whole way there – all huffing and puffing and sweaty – and I’d grab a guitar off the wall. After we finished, I’d grab my lesson papers and bike 25 miles again home! [Laughs] It was hilarious. I felt like Lincoln walking 18 miles to go to school or something.”

Satriani could not believe some of the stuff that Metallica was coming up with. Hammett was looking for ideas for where he could take his solos – and Satch had the theoretical bona fides to guide him. Though, he says, Hammett would have to choose his own path.

“I couldn’t tell him, ‘This is what you play’, although my understanding of theory allowed me to suggest options,” said Satriani. “He took that information and made an album.”

And that was Satch out of the teaching game, January 1988. He would of course reunite with is other most-famous student, Steve Vai. What was the other have of the Satch/Vai Band virtuoso duo like as a student? Capable, says Satriani. Very capable.

“Steve was a great student, really motivated and gifted,” said Satriani. “He was an accordion player before I met him, so he had a musical background, but he was pretty much a beginner guitar player when he started with me. He was so good when we got things going that he grew up on the instrument extremely quickly.”

In its earliest days, Guitar World ran a number of columns authored by the late Merle Travis. One of the greatest country guitar players of all time, he was so influential that one of the more common styles of fingerpicking is named after him.

Travis was one of the ultimate “been there, done that” guitar guys (though he was always incredibly humble), and had stories aplenty, some of which he kindly shared to Guitar World readers when the magazine was still in its infancy.

In Guitar World’s second ever issue (September 1980), Travis paid tribute to his late friend, Paul Bigsby, inventor of the revolutionary vibrato tailpiece that still bears his name.

Travis had already known Bigsby – who, in addition to his luthiery hobby, was a motorcycle designer and racer – for years when he asked him to take a look at his Vibrola, the earliest guitar vibrato device. Fitted to Travis’ Gibson L-10, the Vibrola was fine mechanically, but it often pulled the country legend’s strings out of tune.

Bigsby had impressed Travis when he crafted a guitar for his friend, Joaquin Murphey. Travis wrote in Guitar World that when he asked Bigsby if he could fix the Vibrola, “Without hesitating a second, he roared, ‘I can fix anything!’”

Only, things didn’t quite go according to plan at first.

“In about a week he brought it back,” Travis wrote in the 1980 column. “With a flourish he pitched the thing to me and said, ‘Now, see how it works.’

“It was as bad as ever. We all kidded P.A. [Bigsby]. He turned a little red around the ears. His only comment was, ‘The damn thing’s made wrong in the first place.’

“‘You're just a big blowhard,’ I kidded him,” Travis recalled. “‘Let me see you build a vibrato contraption that works.’ ‘By god, I'll do it,’ Bigsby said, and had a hearty laugh.”

Bigsby was confident, determined, and innovative, and had no intention of striking out twice.

“In a couple of weeks he brought over a neat-looking thing with pegs sticking out of a roller for the string ends, and a handle on it. A triangular affair went back to the guitar where the tailpiece fits,” Travis wrote.

“On it was the name ‘Bigsby’. A ‘Bigsby Vibrola’. I put it on my Gibson L-10 and it worked like a charm. There was no way I could pull the strings out of tune.

“I still have that Vibrola. I see its great grandchildren on every kind of guitar imaginable. Later P.A. sold his gadget to Ted M. McCarty. His name is still on it, as it should be.”

The Yardbirds’ revolving mid-’60s line-up is unrivalled when it comes to guitar star power. The London group famously featured Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, in that order, across a period of just three years.

However, what’s less well documented is that there was an attempt to recruit Page to the band’s ranks before Jeff Beck’s arrival, while Eric Clapton was still in the band.

Page discussed the clandestine offer in one of his most detailed and candid interviews – a legendary six-hour discussion with Dave Schulps of Trouser Press in 1977. Part of that interview was later featured in the book Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell: An Illustrated History, and appeared in Guitar World in 1991.

“The Yardbirds’ manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, approached me and said that Eric wasn’t willing to ‘expand,’” recalled Page. “I guess it was probably pretty apparent to them after they did For Your Love – Clapton didn’t like that at all. They had already started using different instruments, like harpsichords, and at that point Clapton felt like he was just fed up.”

Page then revealed that it wasn’t the only time he was approached while Clapton was still in the mind.

“The first time… was some time before then,” said the guitar icon. “Gomelsky said that Eric was going to have a ‘holiday,’ and I could step in and replace him.

“The way he put it to me, it just seemed really distasteful and I refused. Eric had been a friend of mine, and I couldn’t possibly have been a party to that. Plus, Eric didn’t want to leave the band at that point.”

Clapton, Beck and Page had a rivalry of sorts, but it was a friendly one, with all three players forming part of the bustling blues scene that was coming out of London’s Richmond-upon-Thames, at venues like The Crawdaddy Club and Eel Pie Island.

When Page did eventually agree to join the Yardbirds, it wasn’t as Clapton’s replacement, or even Beck’s, but after a request from the latter, who suggested he play as emergency cover for bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, who had quit suddenly in 1966.

That would prove to be a fateful decision, laying the foundation for Beck’s departure and emergence as a solo star, for Page’s own chapter with the group, and his eventual vision for ‘The New Yardbirds’ – perhaps better known by their later moniker… Led Zeppelin.

When Vivian Campbell joined Dio in early 1983, he found himself thrown in the deep end. The band had just parted ways with future Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee, and had already written most of their debut studio album, Holy Diver.

“One reason I was hired for this band was because I have empathy with song,” Campbell told Guitar World back in 1985.

“I’m not out there to be the fastest guitarist in the world,” he said. “There’s also too much competition among players. They approach the instrument like an athlete approaches a race… I’m not in competition with Eddie Van Halen or Gary Moore or Yngwie Malmsteen. They’re my contemporaries, not my competitors.”

It was perhaps Campbell’s self-confidence that helped him push through the initial doubts of joining Dio.

“I was playing in my first band, Sweet Savage, and we were touring through Ireland with Wild Horses, a band which featured Brian Robertson on guitar and Jimmy Bain on bass. Jimmy told me he really liked my playing a lot.

“And then, when we ran into each other again, he told his friend Ronnie James Dio called him from L.A. to tell him that he and Vinny had just left Black Sabbath and that Ronnie was looking for a guitarist and bassist.”

Bain went as far as to recommend him for the guitar spot. Campbell gave him an audition tape, and a month later, he scored the gig. While he maintained his cool, he soon came face to face with the reality of recording the band’s debut record. Safe to say, the new responsibility took its toll.

“My hands started shaking as soon as I began recording,” he admitted. “I mean, we weren’t talking about it or rehearsing – we were actually doing it. It was the first time I was ever in a professional situation of this sort, and the pressure was getting to me.”

Released on May 25, 1983, Holy Diver became a heavy metal staple and cemented Campbell as a fast-rising guitar hero. While he parted ways with the band in 1986 – or, as he later revealed, was fired – and subsequently joined Whitesnake, those years proved to be formative.

“Ronnie gave me great advice about building a guitar solo with memorable lines – and not overplaying,” he told Guitar World in 2024, despite his complicated relationship with the frontman.

“I appreciated that guidance; if left to my own devices, it would have been a case of how many fucking notes I could fit in.”

A decade before he joined Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, Nils Lofgren was flirting with the idea of joining another rock institution when he heard Mick Taylor was quitting the Rolling Stones.

For any player in the mid 1970s, the chance to join the Stones as Taylor’s replacement would likely be the gig of a lifetime.

So, when Taylor’s eventual successor Ronnie Wood was having second thoughts about the gig full-time, Lofgren volunteered his services.

Taylor left the Stones in late 1974, having played a starring role in classic Stones albums. A fleet of big-name players were linked with his vacated spot.

Wayne Perkins, Harvey Mandel and Jeff Beck, who turned the band down, were among those considered, while Wood came in as a temporary replacement. The Black and Blue recording sessions taking place across Europe at the time of Taylor's departure were going to be used as a trial by fire for the aspiring suitors.

Lofgren wanted to be on that shortlist. In the September 1988 issue of Guitar World, he recalled how he volunteered his talents. Soon afterward, he says, “I pulled another U and went bowling because I remembered, ‘Ronnie Wood! Of course they’ll get him.’”

His intuition turned out to be correct but that didn’t stop him from shooting his shot. Ironically, Wood was his inroad.

“I had been pretty friendly with Ronnie Wood and decided to give him a call,” he explained. “Just to find out what was up so I could get it out of my head.

“He wasn’t so sure about joining, ’cause he felt loyal to the Faces. So he gave me the number where to call up Keith Richards. And I’m shaking and nervous and call Keith. You know... ‘Hi, Keith, this is Nils Lofgren, Ron Wood might have mentioned me...’

“And I hear him go, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, how’s it goin’, mate?’”

Richards was getting tired of the lack of progress in finding a replacement. Lofgren was poised to audition. Then the door slammed shut.

“They were trying out a lot of people,” he says. “Rather than take two years and follow up every lead, the Stones decided to hold open auditions, play as a band, and have guitar players go up, play a song or two, [then onto the] next guy, and do the same.

“I was all set to get on the plane to Geneva,” he adds. “But, as it turned out, Ronnie decided to do it.” It paved the way for his iconic weaving partnership with Keith Richards.

Mandel, who also played on Black and Blue, has since stated he would have been a better fit for the band than Wood, who remains in post today. Both he and Lofgren can now only look back and think about what could have been.

By the time Springsteen came calling, Lofgren was broke and living with his parents. He said linking up with the Boss saved his life. The heartbreak of missing out on the Stones gig was remedied overnight.

Back in 2005, Brian May and Roger Taylor embarked on their first full Queen world tour since the death of their enigmatic frontman, Freddie Mercury.

Not only did it find May and Taylor performing under the Queen moniker for the first time since 1986, it also saw them joining forces with a new lead vocalist.

Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers was given the unenviable task of filling Mercury’s shoes, but he stepped up to the plate. Queen + Paul Rodgers, as the project was officially called, was a huge success, lasting for two world tours, several high-profile shows and a studio album over the course of four years.

And, as May explained in the May 2005 issue of Guitar World, the lineup had rather surprising origins: a celebration event for the Fender Stratocaster.

For Fender’s 50th Anniversary Strat Pack concert, May and Rodgers joined the bill to play a cover of Free’s All Right Now. May knew they were on to something.

“We were both so knocked out by the sheer chemistry between us on stage,” May remembered. “Afterward, we were talking together when someone – I guess it was me – said, ‘Well, you know, maybe we should do more of this sometime.’”

Taylor remembered May’s excitement over the prospect of getting the band back together with Rodgers at the helm.

“After the Fender gig, Brian got on the phone to me and said, ‘You really have to look at what we just did,’” Taylor recalled. “He sent over a videotape and I could see what he was talking about. I wondered why we hadn’t thought of doing this before.”

To test the waters, May and Taylor teamed up with Rodgers to play at Queen’s induction into the UK Music Hall of Fame. The trio was easily convinced. The Return of the Champions World Tour was swiftly announced. A studio album, Queen’s first post-Mercury, was made.

“Paul does amazingly well, I think,” May said of the collaboration at the time. “The first time I heard him sing We Will Rock You, I knew we had something valid and new here. Paul brings things out of that song I never even knew existed before!”

Despite skeptics surrounding the project, Queen + Paul Rodgers got the Queen machine up and running again. Mercury’s presence was undeniably irreplaceable, but it gave May and co. the chance to honor his legacy by taking the band’s music back on the road. And it can all be traced back to that Stratocaster event.

Things eventually fizzled out in 2009 after Rodgers reunited with Bad Company for a summer tour. It was an amicable split; no one thought it would be a permanent arrangement.

“We did two world tours and a couple of live recordings, and...made a studio album… which was pretty historic,” Rodgers told Billboard (via NME). “They hadn't really gone in the studio with anybody and recorded something like that for a very long time. So it was quite an achievement, I think.”

On the flipside, Queen hasn’t been the only rock institution that Rodgers joined – or at least came close to joining – in his time. Earlier this year, it was reported that Rodgers was approached to front the new Van Halen album.

Jeff Beck was once asked to follow in Eric Clapton’s post-Yardbirds footsteps when he was scouted by John Mayall for the Bluesbreakers.

In the 1960s, Beck and Clapton both cut their teeth in the Yardbirds. After Slowhand left in 1965, Beck was drafted in as his replacement. And, when Clapton departed his subsequent seat in Mayall’s band shortly after, Beck was high up on the list to replace him yet again.

The prospective move made sense. The Bluesbreakers was a fellow incubator of British blues and rock music. It would go on to welcome Peter Green, Mick Taylor, and other guitarists destined for greatness among its ranks over the years.

Mayall had earmarked Beck to fill the vacant guitar spot. But this time things were different. The project wasn’t quite what Beck was looking for.

“He did,” Beck told Guitar World readers in May 2010, when asked whether Mayall ever approached him.

“John called my mum several times. He found my mum’s number, and she said to me, “Oh, that John Mayall sounds very nice!” [laughs] But I didn’t want that – I didn’t want to be playing blues all of the time.”

The blues-heavy direction didn’t appeal to Beck, who had grander designs on experimenting with a more distinctive rock guitar sound. Plus, he didn’t think he could live up to his predecessor.

“I’d seen Eric with them, and he was fantastic, really,” Beck reflected. “He did the job better than I could have, and I just didn’t want to have that challenge. My musical taste was changing radically from 12-bar blues.

“I might have done better in that band than in the Yardbirds, but I certainly would not have been given the same kind of free rein to do the experimenting that I did in the Yardbirds”

Mayall had shown interest in Beck before. He’d attended a Yardbirds gig before he broached the idea of the two teaming up. He even gave some rather pointed feedback.

“He was very straightforward. He never embellished or gave us any flowery comments about the gig,” Beck remembered, “He said, ‘The audience loved it, but there was not much blues, was there?’

“And I thought, ‘Excuse me, but this isn’t a blues band.’ It sort of was, but he’s a purist and he was listening for Little Walter-style harmonica solos.

“I didn’t want to be mimicking Chicago blues musicians forever. My thinking was, We’re not them, we’re not Black, we’re British middle-class kids and let’s get on and do our own music. We had a bit of disharmony about that, but not to take away from John’s dedication to it.”

Mayall got a no, Peter Green got the gig, and six months after leaving the Yardbirds (having been fired on tour in the US in October ’66), Beck released his first solo single Hi Ho Silver Lining, with Beck’s Bolero as the B-side.

A year later he dropped his seminal debut album, Truth. The rest was history: Beck went off in his own direction and became one of the all-time greats of rock guitar.

There’s no doubt he made the right call, but still, we can’t help but wonder what Beck in the Bluesbreakers would have sounded like…

When inducting Tele-master James Burton into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Keith Richards famously said, in reference to one of the many illustrious names the guitarist has backed, “I never bought a Ricky Nelson record, I bought a James Burton record.”

It was that already formidable reputation that led Elvis Presley himself to call Burton in 1969, when he was forming a crack band to back him for his first full live performances in over a decade.

Burton took The King up on his offer, and would anchor what would become known as the TCB Band until Presley’s tragic death in 1977.

Though Presley’s latter-day concerts were sometimes glitzy affairs, Burton maintained that the performances afforded him more musical freedom than you might expect.

“It was great,” Burton told Guitar World in 1983 of his time backing the game-changing superstar. “I enjoyed every minute of it. The music was great, the excitement, the energy that flowed through the music, the feeling with everybody, it was super.

“I got to stretch out more so than was usual in most bands, because he did a lot of uptempo bluesy stuff and we worked out great country things.”

Even as Presley’s health declined towards the end of the ’70s, his touring schedule remained relentless. Indeed, the day he died suddenly at 42, he was scheduled to depart his Memphis mansion, Graceland, for Portland, Maine, for another tour. The TCB Band were already on their way.

Asked by GW about that day, Burton said, “We had just left Vegas that morning on our way to Portland. They called us in the chartered plane and told us to turn back.

“We couldn't figure out what the problem was, so we told the pilot to return to Vegas. He told us there wasn't enough fuel, so we had to stop in Pueblo, Colorado, to fill up. When we got down, Marty Harrell – the trombone player – called Vegas. I decided to call my wife while he was doing that. Everyone was walking around, kind of stretching, and I headed to the phones. I didn't quite make it.”

It was Harrell who had the unenviable task of delivering the sad news to the band and crew.

“Marty was on his way back from the phones and there were tears in his eyes,” Burton recalled sadly to GW in the 1983 interview. “He put his arms around me and said, ‘Elvis passed away this morning.’ God, chills went all over me and I couldn't believe it.

“Well, that plane flight back to Vegas was one of the longest flights I've ever been on. Everybody was just all tore up. It was such a shock to the world.”

Though he was already a titanic figure in rockabilly and country guitar before his Elvis tenure, Burton’s years with Presley cemented him as a true legend – the dream choice for anyone looking for that fleet-fingered twang.

He still casts a massive shadow, something that was apparent when he appeared with multiple generations of Tele talent (all of whom owe him some degree of debt) at Fender’s massive Telecaster 75th anniversary show in Nashville earlier this year.

Nils Lofgren’s life changed with the invite to go play some guitar with a friend. It was Bruce Springsteen on the phone, and he was wondering if Lofgren could come over.

“‘Jam with the band,’ is how Bruce phrased it,” said Lofgren, speaking to Guitar World in 1988. “I thought it was a little funny, really, ‘cause it was only four weeks or so until the start of the tour. And, you know, the E Street Band has something like a million songs at their instant recall.”

The call could not have come at better time. This was a tough time for Lofgren. His life was in retreat.

“I didn’t have any money and I was forced to stay with my parents in D.C., my hometown,” he said.

It was also a little spooky that the Boss would be on the phone calling him. They were friends, so it was not unusual. But it was all Lofgren heard at home over the kitchen table.

“My mother was funny, saying, ‘You’re friends with Bruce Springsteen, why don’t you play with him?!’” said Lofgren. “And I was going, ‘Aw, Mom, he’s got a band, he doesn’t need me.’”

Sometimes a mom’s straightforward logic is just what you need to hear. Mom always knows best. Because this was 1984. There were changes afoot in the E Street Band. Steve Van Zandt was on his way out. Not that Lofgren was to know, and either way he could not bring himself to get his hopes up.

“When I heard ‘Jam with the band’ ...well, what was I to think? The first thing you do is think nothing,” he said. “I tried not to take it too seriously, ’cause you can be pretty crushed when something you want doesn’t turn out the way you planned.”

Springsteen did not give him much information to go on. This was just an invite. But even so, Lofgren’s mind started racing – with the possibilities, yes, but also with the realization that the E Street Band repertoire was already pretty formidable, and Springsteen was liable to call a tune from any record.

“Bruce called and asked me to come to Jersey and jam with the band. Real low-key, nothing big was said, but I, of course, don’t let go of an idea,” said Lofgren. “So I contacted a local bootlegger who had all of these live Bruce tapes – he even had a tape of Born In The US.A. before it was released – and I studied pretty hard, so people wouldn’t have to call out chord changes in my ear or anything.”

Those jams, informal or otherwise, turned out to be sounding pretty good. “Real good,” was how Lofgren remembered it.

They played for a couple of days, the band getting into their groove, Lofgren familiarising himself with the changes, with the dynamics of a Springsteen set. There was no serious talk about anything. It was still casual. Until it came time for Lofgren to split.

“It was the day that I was supposed to go back home, and I guess Bruce had asked all the band when I wasn’t around what they thought of me,” recalled Lofgren. “I was all set to say goodbye and all, and Bruce asked me to come outside. There and then he asked me if I wanted to join.”

There was only going to be one answer. It was also an act of mercy from Springsteen. Lofgren’s mind could finally be at ease, or at least it could rush ahead to thinking about leaving his parents’ house.

“Thank God he did it like that, ’cause I was all prepared to spend four or five sleepless nights wondering,” he said.

Bruce Springsteen has always made good driving music. It had never sounded so sweet to Lofgren’s ears than when he got behind the wheel and headed back to Washington D.C.

“I couldn’t have been more elated,” he said. “I drove all around playing Dancing In The Dark, stopping every half-hour or so, you know, to break down sobbing with relief. It was a dream come true, right when I needed it.”

Back in 2019, Lofgren sat down with Guitar World to look back on his Springsteen days, as well as his collaborations with Lou Reed and Neil Young.

As fast friends and close collaborators, Eric Clapton and Duane Allman formed one of rock guitar’s most potent partnerships.

They may not have been in a band together per se, but that didn’t stop them from working together on one of Slowhand’s most iconic recordings.

At the turn of the 1960s, the Allman Brothers Band guitar hero was a Clapton fan. The feeling was mutual. Clapton said Allman’s turn on Wilson Pickett’s Hey Jude was the greatest rock guitar playing he’d ever heard.

Allman wanted to meet Clapton. And so, when he caught wind that he was coming to town to record a new record, Allman requested a meeting through a mutual contact.

“I said to Tom Dowd [producer for both the Allman Brothers and Derek and the Dominos], ‘Man, you’ve got to call me when he comes to town,’” Allman told Good Times magazine in 1971, which was re-published in the November 1991 issue of Guitar World. “‘I want to hear him play, and I want to meet him.’

“He’s a good player and I’ve always admired him a lot – his style and everything he ever did,” Allman continued. “So Dowd told me, ‘He’s going to be in. Come down.’ So I got down there, and Eric knew who I was – he’d heard some of my records and stuff.”

The pair, clearly fans of one another, decided to work together then and there. This was no ordinary collaboration, though. Allman caught Clapton at a good time.

With his band Derek and the Dominos, Slowhand was about to set to work on what would become Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs – a magnus opus that would be widely regarded as one of Clapton's finest works.

“He said, ‘Okay, man. We’re going to make us a record here, and we’re going to have two guitar players instead of one,’” Allman remembered. “Then we made the Layla album.

“And we worked our butts off on it! It’s a good record! Everybody got behind it, with no [ego] trips or anything. It’s just good music all the way through. And it was a pleasure to do it.”

The impromptu partnership would become the beating heart of some of Layla’s… most iconic guitar moments. On tracks like I Am Yours and Nobody Knows You, Allman’s landmark slide guitar work injected the record with elevated dynamics and melody.

Little Wing, Tell the Truth and Key to the Highway showed Allman and Clapton’s potent chemistry. He even played a starring role on Layla, twinning with Clapton for the opening iconic riff. Not bad for an off-the-cuff collaboration.

The pair continued their partnership after the Layla sessions, sharing the stage across a handful of Derek and the Dominos gigs. Tragically, before they got a chance to enter the studio again together, Allman died in a motorcycle accident less than a year later, in October 1971.

It made Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs their final, and only, record together.

But Allman was eternalized in the Slowhand repertoire, with his slide playing in particular stealing the spotlight on Layla. His work proved to be a fruitful source of inspiration for Clapton.

“It’s all in the wrists,” Allman said of his technique at the time. “Eric is coming along on his slide. He’s doing okay. He ain’t no Duane Allman of the slide guitar, but he's doing all right!”

When Eddie Van Halen burst onto the scene in the late-’70s, aspiring players and professional virtuosos alike were all lining up to watch him up-close.

Like Hendrix before him, the Eruption mastermind was changing the very fabric of guitar playing in real time. He needed to be seen to be believed.

But not everyone was swept up in the hysteria. The late Jeff Beck, for instance, was full of admiration for the virtuoso’s ability, but kept a level head about it – this not being his first brush with a generational guitar talent.

“I love it, I think it’s the greatest,” Beck said of Van Halen’s music in the January 1985 issue of Guitar World. “I've been there, y'know, but he lives and dies for that whereas I don't – I'm not really a heavy metal boy, through and through.

“I’d love to go and see him but I probably wouldn't stay for the whole concert: I’d just get a flash of brilliance and then I’d go, saying to myself, ‘That guy is really great.’”

At the time, Beck appeared to believe Van Halen – as has often become a criticism of the shred scene, though rarely EVH himself – was prioritizing technicality and showmanship. Beck was all about expression and storytelling. He didn’t get that from Van Halen.

“I wouldn’t want to get bored with it, which I could easily do with that style of music,” Beck continued. “I like rock concerts, concerts in general, to go through different moods, but there aren’t too many concerts like that now.

“I mean, those guys like Van Halen are so great, but they seem to be stuck in that kind of stuff. Still, he’s got the most amazing technique, you’ve got to take your hat off to him for that – the speed and the frantic element. I could do well to learn from him some of those tricks he pulls.”

It wasn’t the only time Beck praised Van Halen, even if he couldn’t see himself sitting through a whole show.

“He brought tapping to the forefront, and I still think he was one of the tastiest players doing it,” he gushed in Van Halen: A Visual History (via Van Halen News Desk) “It wasn’t his fault that all these other horrendous people tried to emulate him.

“I actually saw Eddie play some blues once and it was really beautiful. It would be great to hear him play more in that style.”

The two heroes certainly met in later years and were photographed together in 1987, albeit not in a show setting – and the respect was mutual.

Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2011, Van Halen noted, “I didn’t get into him until [1975’s jazz-fusion album] Blow By Blow. Just the instrumentalness of it. And [1976’s] Wired. Interesting stuff in there.

“I guess it was just the experimentation in there that I liked. Jeff Beck is definitely a standalone. You never know what the hell he’s gonna do.”

Imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery, but from a guitar perspective that has never sat right with The Edge. In fact, he’s never been that impressed by those who look to copy his sound and style.

In a 1996 interview with Guitar World, the U2 icon reflected on the guitar scene at the time, and discussed the fact many were settling with imitating a style as opposed to developing their own.

“It is so hard to really pull something out of yourself,” he conceded. “If you think about guitar players down through the years who have that fire, who have that ability to play and really, really connect with you, there aren’t that many.

“The odds are really stacked against you doing it, so most people settle for the imitation – that’s reliable at least, and kind of impressive, if not life-changing.”

He turns to Jimi Hendrix for an example. Trailblazers will always have their imitators, but he questions what value that actually brings.

“Jimi Hendrix’s work was life-changing, astonishing,” The Edge observed. “But all the people down through the years who’ve played his style have been, at best, impressive. Is it craft and not art?

“I tend to cringe a bit when I hear people who’ve obviously taken my style. I think it’s a joke that’s often played on me in that it’s the simplest of my ideas that ends up taking off – it’s my one-note solos that work! And the problem is you cannot argue with something if it really works.”

Naturally, many players will always wear their influences, perhaps a little too proudly, on their sleeves. Wolfgang Van Halen, for instance, once suggested his dad ruined ‘80s guitar because of the legion of copyists his magic conjured.

The Edge was getting tired of imitation, which is perhaps why, in 1997, U2 made a stylistic U-turn and embraced electronica on Pop, peeling away from the blues rock pool.

In the same GW interview, The Edge spoke out against the stupid mentality of the “white blues rock thing”, and shrugged off players who commit to 15-minute guitar solos.

But musical brilliance doesn't always mean virtuosic prowess. As he found out while tracking one of the band’s biggest records, sometimes the simplest ideas work for a reason.

“I remember on Achtung Baby [1991], I wanted to “fix” the solo in The Fly, and I just wasn’t allowed. ‘No! You cannot touch that! You cannot argue!’” he reports. “As much as my pride would have loved me to go back and do something more elaborate, I knew that this thing did work.”

It proved a valuable lesson for the guitarist. Blazing virtuosity and fanciful fretboard dances aren’t always the answer, even if most players have that urge to do so. Sometimes, it’s better to leave an itch unscratched.

You could forgive Blondie for soaking in the incredible run of success they were enjoying in 1980.

They’d certainly paid their dues – spending years slogging it out in New York City’s dingy punk spawn point CBGB’s and throwing spunky guitar-pop darts at a wall to no avail, before they hit it (really) big in 1979 with the irresistible Heart of Glass.

Disco-tinged as that song was, Blondie were and are still a guitar band first and foremost, and six-stringers Chris Stein and (at that time) Frank Infante were heartily enjoying their much-expanded tools-of-the-trade budget.

“By the time I got to CBGB’s. I didn't have any money or resources,” Stein recalled to Guitar World in a 1980 interview. “I used this old Supro Ozark guitar. I played it for a long time but it was only on loan; I had borrowed it from this guy who later had a sex change operation and decided he wanted his guitar back.”

By the end of 1980, though, those trying days were three chart-topping hits behind Blondie, and the sort of kid in a candy (guitar) shop stories we all dream of were now well within reach for them. And, when asked by GW during that peak-era interview where the Burns Ampeg guitar sitting on his living room couch came from, Stein had a story to tell...

“We’re in Indianapolis and we’re staying in this hotel across from a huge, gigantic pawn shop,” Stein recounted to GW. “So Frankie [Infante] or somebody went over there and came back with this really weird story. He said, ‘This guy in the pawn shop says he has a roomful of Les Pauls upstairs, but he won't let me see them.’

“So we went over to the store and there were lots of guitars all over the place, and the guy said, ‘Yes, there is a room upstairs filled with guitars, but you can’t see them because we’re only selling them all at once.

“So we finally came back and we waved hundred dollar bills in his face and said, ‘Let us in and we’ll buy the guitars individually.’ We were on tour with Rockpile. We had two bands and roadies there ready to spring for them. Finally he let us into the room which was filled with guitars.

“It was sort of like a dream, you know,” Stein continued. “We spent the whole day opening up these dusty guitar cases. They had been saving them up for years. A lot of them were brand new. I got six guitars all together. They weren't all Les Pauls. There were some really old Epiphones, in great condition. I got a Gibson Trini Lopez custom model. And I also got that Burns Ampeg.”

Offbeat in design and origin story, the Burns guitar in question appealed to Stein's punk roots.

“I mostly used to use Strats before this, and I still use Strats,” Stein explained. “But I like Burns [company founder James Ormston Burns] and I like what he is about.

“I was immediately attracted to it because it looked like a Telecaster I once carved up with two sets of horns and painted black. I had to sell it because we were out of money. Burns has been fucked over by the system so much that he says this guitar is against the system. He says it's the devil’s guitar.”

Besides great guitar playing, two things come to mind when Angus Young is mentioned: Gibson SGs and his iconic school uniform.

The Australian riff machine has stayed loyal to the Gibson double-cut across his career. He’s bought many, and played them all across his prolific career. But one holds dominion over all the rest.

“I’ve lost count of how many SGs I have,” Angus Young admitted to Guitar World in 2009. “But none of them match up to that one guitar.”

His late brother and rhythm master, Malcolm, favored a heavily modded 1963 Gretsch Firebird. Angus, by comparison, has never been able to look past his red 1968 SG. And it’s not for a lack of trying.

“I’ve tried getting copies of it, but no, they’re not even close,” he said. “You might get the feel, but you don’t get that same kind of sound out of it. I don’t know why. I wish I did.”

The '68 SG in question is one of Young's most iconic instruments. It was used for most major AC/DC recordings and taken across the globe on numerous world tours. It was also the source material for an Angus Young signature SG in 2009. Noted for its unusually slim neck, it became the bedrock of the AC/DC lead sound.

Young's 2009 GW interview charted the creation of their 15th studio album, Black Ice. Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden) was tasked with producing the 15-track barnstormer, and he wanted to change things up a little by prizing Young away from his tried-and-trusted workhorse.

“I’ve got a couple of other guitars that I use onstage and as spares,” Angus relayed at the time. “I’ve got an early Sixties black SG, and we’d try that one. I’ll try anything and, if it works, use it.”

So, what fans are hearing on Black Ice isn’t always that guitar – Young is happy to experiment.

“Another guitar that I’ve got, a ’68 SG, dates from the Highway to Hell days, and I’ve used it for backing tracks and stuff,” he continued. “It’s a factory reject, I think – it has the number ‘2’ on it. I got it for 70 or 75 bucks when I first came to America. It was quite beat up.”

The Aussies played their first US shows in July 1977, meaning the $75 price tag is roughly $650 in today’s money. That alone makes it sound like a steal, but given its provenance, it's probably added a couple of zeros by now.

Today, the SG is finding plenty of love in the hands of Derek Trucks, Samantha Fish, Grace Bowers, and Yungblud as new generations take to the iconic axe. That said, a new signature Angus Young SG from Gibson wouldn't go amiss...

In a 2020 interview with Bass Player, AC/DC low-end legend Cliff Williams explained how he got the AC/DC gig in 1977, and charted the gear that defined his sound.

Jimmy Page and the late Jeff Beck’s origin stories overlap in all kinds of ways. They emerged from the same scene and became friends. Both had stints in the Yardbirds, both became greats of the instrument.

But in a 1977 interview with Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press, which was republished in the November 1991 issue of Guitar World, Page revealed just how close he and Beck came to forming a band together – and this band was the O.G. Led Zeppelin.

“We were going to form a group called Led Zeppelin at the time of the Beck’s Bolero sessions, with the line-up from that session,” said Page. “It was going to be me and Beck on guitars, [Keith] Moon on drums, and maybe Nicky Hopkins on piano.

“The only one from the session who wasn’t going to be in it was [John Paul Jones] Jonesy, who had played bass. Instead, Moon suggested we bring in Entwistle as bassist and lead singer as well.”

Not only would it have a twin-guitar act of Beck and Page, this Original Led Zeppelin was to have the rhythm section of the Who, with Keith Moon on drums and John Entwistle on bass guitar.

“After some discussion we decided to use another singer,” Page added. “The first choice was Stevie Winwood, but it was decided that he was too heavily committed to Traffic at the time, and probably wouldn’t be interested.

“Next, we thought of Stevie Marriott. He was approached, and seemed to be full of glee about it. Then a message came from the business side of Marriott, which said, 'How would you like to play guitar with broken fingers? You will if you don’t stay away from Stevie.' After that the idea sort of fell apart.”

This ‘Original Led Zeppelin’ could have returned to Moon’s original idea of having Entwistle front the band. But the year was 1967, and things were moving fast.

“We just said, ‘Let’s forget about the whole thing, quick.’ Instead of being more positive about it and looking for another singer, we just let it slip by,” said Page. “Then the Who began a tour, the Yardbirds began a tour and that was it.”

And all things considered, it worked out just fine. Page might have been upset that the Yardbirds were coming apart but they were soon to evolve. John Paul Jones called Page and asked if he wanted to do something together. “Jonesy was in,” said Page.

Terry Reid was mooted to front the next iteration of the Yardbirds, though he had signed up with Mickie Most. But he was eager to help. Reid put Page in touch with the singer in a band called Hobbstweedle. Robert Plant was his name.

Page had to pinch himself. He couldn’t believe it. This guy Plant had the stuff.

“When I auditioned him and heard him sing, I immediately thought there must be something wrong with his personality, or that he had to be impossible to work with,” Page remembered.

“I just could not understand why he hadn’t become a big name yet. So I had him down to my place for a little while, just to sort of check him out, and we got along great. No problems.”

And Plant knew a drummer by the name of John Bonham and that was that… The real original Led Zeppelin was born. Though Keith Moon can still take the credit for naming the band.

“It was Moon,” Page answered when asked who named the band. “I’m sure, despite anything Entwistle may have said. Entwistle must have just been upset that the original Led Zeppelin never took off.”

In the late 1960s, when both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were leading the charge in blues rock music, the two change-makers were pitted against one another in a fierce battle for ultimate guitar god status.

It was, in theory, an easy comparison to make. Both guitarists were taking the electric guitar to an all-new level.

Clapton had already been anointed ‘god’ by the press, but Hendrix’s arrival in London in ’66 exacerbated the six-string arms race. Within months, he left his contemporaries quaking in their boots – Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, you name it. Britain’s biggest players knew they had met their match.

Clapton was included. After Hendrix crashed a Cream gig and famously stunned Slowhand and his audience with an impromptu stage appearance, he knew things would never be the same again.

It was one of guitar’s most intense – yet respectful – rivalries, one which found fans and the press alike comparing the two guitarist’s playing styles.

This didn’t sit right with Hendrix. As he once explained during an interview with Jazz & Pop Magazine in 1968, it was a forced rivalry he didn’t really understand. In his mind, they were two completely different players.

“That’s one thing I don’t like,” Hendrix had said at the height of the pair’s perceived rivalry. “Sometimes the notes might sound like [we’re alike], but it’s a completely different scene between those notes.

“First they do that [compare him to Clapton], and then they expect me to play blues exclusively. We just say we don’t want to play blues all the time – we just don’t feel like it all the time. You see, there are other things we can play too, nice songs or different things.”

Clearly, Hendrix didn’t think of himself and Clapton as similar players, but that’s not to say we didn’t rate his ‘rival’. After that Cream gig, the pair remained friends, and Hendrix never held back in dishing out praise.

“But as far as the blues scene goes, some of the things that Albert King and Eric Clapton do are very good,” he continued in his Jazz & Pop interview, which was re-published in the November 1991 issue of Guitar World.

“I don't have any favorites. It's very hard because there are so many different styles, and it's so bad to put everybody in the same bag. I like to listen to anybody, so long as they don't bore me. I tend towards the blues as far as guitar players are concerned.”

The ‘competition’ was healthy, and both players left a lasting impact on one another. Clapton once credited Hendrix with influencing his decision to turn to the Stratocaster.

Slowhand even purchased a rare left-handed Strat as a gift for Hendrix in 1970. As fate would have it, he never got the chance to give it to the American guitarist, who died the night it was going to be presented.

Hendrix and Clapton never let the forced rivalry get between them. Instead, it helped them both hit new heights.

Starting in 1996, Guitar World was honored to publish a handful of lesson columns authored by Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. The following column, from our April 1997 issue, has been edited for use online.

A mature musician exercises restraint when the situation calls for it. In other words, what you don’t play is just as important as what you do. It actually takes more discipline to stick to an ostinato (repeating) figure for eight or 16 bars than it does to throw in gratuitous fills that don’t necessarily add to the music.

There are times, however, when playing a high melodic figure is most effective. The key is to know when to walk and when to run, or when to “stomp” and when to “noodle.” I’d like to illustrate this concept by citing a few contrasting examples of bass (and keyboard) parts I’ve played, and explain why I chose to play what I did.

First, let’s look at Trampled Under Foot, from Physical Graffiti. For the main verse figure in G minor, I simply stayed on the low G root note and locked in with Bonzo [John Bonham]’s kick drum. I also took this same “four-on-the-floor” approach with the clavinet part. The lesson here is: don’t mess with a great groove.

A fine example of a tune that epitomizes both approaches – “hard” and “soft” – is The Song Remains the Same, which we looked at briefly in one of my previous columns.

For the D-Dsus4 parts I played a tight, punctuated bass figure together with the drums. But when it came to the “floaty” part (:36-:42), where Jimmy Page quietly strums Dm9 and G13 chords, I played a lofty melodic run high up on the neck using the D Dorian scale.

The slow part of the tune (the half-time verse section) also illustrates these contrasting approaches. After hitting the big kicks (C-C-G) with Page and Bonzo (2:02), I played a descending scalar figure (F# Mixolydian) and then an ascending arpeggio (F) behind Page’s jangly F#7-Fmaj7 changes.

For most of Kashmir (Physical Graffiti), I played rather straightforward and repetitive bass and Mellotron keyboard parts. The only exceptions were the sinuous “Arabian string symphony” Mellotron parts I improvised during the two choruses. If you listen to the recording, you’ll notice how those string melodies move independently of the rhythm of the underlying groove.

In quite a different vein is Ramble On, from Led Zeppelin II. Behind Page’s two-bar chord vamp during the verse sections, I repeated an upper-register bass counter-melody that ended up becoming one of the more memorable parts of the tune.

I took a similar approach in What Is and What Should Never Be (Led Zeppelin II), but with a bit more variation. Playing in this sort of casual, melodic way seemed like the best thing to do at the moment, considering the fact that Jimmy’s part was so simple and subdued (E9-A13 chords).

Notice on the recording how well all the parts mesh during the verse sections, especially the bass and drums, and how everyone comes together in locked-step fashion for the chorus.

The main point here is that when it comes to playing music, there’s a time and a place for everything. Listen carefully to the overall sound of the rhythm section, and make wise, unselfish decisions as to what you should play at any given moment.

Approaching every arrangement in terms of opposites or contrasts between different sections – loud vs. soft, loose vs. tight, floaty vs. busy – will ultimately make your music more interesting.

“When I first started to play, it was a real bitch. You have to prove yourself every time. You have to play twice as good as any man. But you just can’t let it intimidate you,” virtuoso jazz player Emily Remler once told Guitar World. And prove herself she did.

By that year, the early 20-something guitarist had already cut her teeth training at the prestigious Berklee College of Music and playing in blues and jazz clubs around New Orleans.

She took things a step further when she released two studio albums under the respected label Concord – 1981’s Firefly and 1982’s Take Two.

“Berklee didn’t prepare me for Little Queenie and the Percolators, say – it gave me a good knowledge of harmony, though, and I learned to read there,” she told GW in a January 1983 interview.

“I could solo over something without hearing it first, just by knowing the idea – but I didn’t learn to play with soul or feeling. You learn that yourself.”

As Guitar World observed her performing at New York's legendary Blue Note in the lead-up to her second release, Remler spoke about her wide-ranging influences.

While jazz icons Wes Montgomery and Barney Kessel were central to her style, she also drew inspiration from rock ’n’ roll and Jimi Hendrix.

“I’ve been listening to The Essential Jimi Hendrix, which I had on cassette while I was spending time on the beach in Jamaica this summer. Hendrix was amazing; he was singing and playing scat lines long before [George] Benson…”

“Somebody just told me I sounded like Hendrix,” she added with a shrug.

And while she sounded nothing like Hendrix, Remler's unapologetic approach to her instrument and her knack for blending genres were reminiscent of Jimi.

“I’ve been playing for 10 years,” she explained, “started out with folk songs, like everybody does. But I knew something was up – I could sing all sorts of rock solos, sax breaks, and my friends couldn’t do that.

“So then I tried to play rock stuff – Johnny Winter, Hendrix, the Stones.” Remler noted that, at that point, she “didn’t particularly like jazz; I couldn’t hear what was happening in it.”

“But at Berklee School of Music, I couldn’t avoid jazz,” she continues, “and when I heard Pat Martino and Wes Montgomery, I got really excited right away. I changed to jazz in my first year.”

Remler's fire continued to burn brightly until 1990. After leaving Concord and signing with Justice Records, the guitarist recorded This Is Me, which would prove to be her final album.

It marked a radical departure from her previous works, reflecting a more experimental and singular voice that forayed into electric jazz-pop.

Remler never saw the album's release. She died of heart failure at 32 while on tour in Australia, after grappling with a heroin and Dilaudid addiction.

34 years later, in 2024, producer Zev Feldman, alongside Bill Milkowski and George Klabin, paid homage to the virtuoso by releasing the posthumous live album, Cookin' at the Queens: Live in Las Vegas 1984 & 1988.

It offers a glimpse into the live performances of a pioneering guitarist who was gone too soon.

This article was originally published in Guitar World Acoustic Magazine, 2005.

Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighers discover the delights of going unplugged on their 2005 double album, In Your Honor.

Dave Grohl calls himself “the luckiest guy in the world,” and who can blame him? Since he was 21 years old, Grohl has known nothing but success - first as the drummer with the rock colossus Nirvana and then, in the wake of that band’s tragic dissolution, as singer and guitarist with the Foo Fighters, who in a decade of existence have scored numerous platinum albums and hit singles.

But there’s little question that while he’s been lucky, Grohl has also been good—very good. Yes, he played with Kurt Cobain, but Grohl is no ordinary drummer; over the years, his distinctive, hard-hitting style has earned him a reputation as a latter-day John Bonham, landing him high-profile appearances with the diverse likes of Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age and Cat Power.

And his work with the Foo Fighters has proven Grohl to be not only a skilled musician, but a first-rate songwriter as well. Foo tunes like “I’ll Stick Around,” “Monkey Wrench” and “All My Life” showcase both Grohl’s ability to compose melodically inventive riffs and chord progressions as well as what appears to be an endless supply of memorable pop-rock hooks.

Yet the fact is that, for all his clearly deserved success, Grohl remains surprisingly unsure of himself. “I have to admit,” he says, “that I thought every Foo Fighters album we made would be our last. We’d finish recording and I’d be like, ‘Okay, that was cool. But that’ll probably be the end of it. Now I can go get fat and bald and start having kids.’”

It’s the talk of an enduring pessimist, or perhaps of someone unable to believe that things have been going so well, for so long. “I never imagined the Foo Fighters would get anywhere near the same amount of attention and success as Nirvana,” says Grohl. “To still be here making music with my friends, playing enormous shows in front of tons of people and having a great time doing it - that’s incredible to me. From the first day this band got together I’ve been thinking, Wow, it doesn’t get any better than this. And it just keeps getting better.”

While he is primarily an electric guitarist, Grohl explains that an acoustic guitar has always been his main writing tool. “Most of our songs, from ‘Everlong’ to ‘Monkey Wrench,’ “ he says, “were written on acoustic. I would bring the demos into the rehearsal space and then we’d plug in and dirty them up.”

As for his playing style, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Grohl says he approaches the instrument “as if it were a drum kit. The low E is you kick, and the A and D strings are like a nice snare/tom combination. You can use the G string really prominently to fill up space like you would with a high-hat, and if you ring your B and high E strings over everything it gives you that nice high-end wash, like a crash cymbal.

“I’m not a flashy guitar guy, and I’m not a ripper,” he continues. “I can’t do that sort of thing. But I do enjoy finding chords that have no name, and I do enjoy writing riffs that are rhythmically a little complicated.”

Over the last few years you’ve built your own recording studio, wrote and recorded several discs of new material, directed a documentary and managed to contribute drum tracks to albums by, among others, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age and Garbage. Would it be accurate to describe you as a workaholic?

Perhaps, but the thing is, I don’t consider making music to be “work.” A lot of the stuff that comes along with it definitely is, but walking into a studio and jamming with some friends? That doesn’t seem like work at all—as much as I try to convince my wife that it is.

I have these great opportunities that come up day to day, and I’m going to take advantage of them. I talk about imagining each new album to be my last, but I know I’m not going to quit playing guitar or drums anytime soon. I look at a guy like Neil Young as a hero, and as such a good example of how to make a life out of making music. With that attitude it can last forever. I’m gonna be playing until I’m 112.

Your fifth album, In Your Honor was a double album. How did the idea for making it half acoustic, come about?

After we finished touring for the 2002’s One by One I thought, Okay, I’m in my mid-to-late-thirties now. Do I really want to run around festival stages screaming my head of every night? I don’t know, maybe it’s time to start playing some music [laughs]. So I thought that, rather than just jump back into the album cycle, I’d see if I could find a movie that needs a score.

One of my favorite albums of all time is Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas [Cooder’s soundtrack to the 1984 Wim Wenders film of the same name]. I love that album—I’ve listened to it for years and years. So I envisioned finding a project that I could turn into my own Paris, Texas. After about a month of writing I thought, Wait a second, this could be a killer Foo Fighters record.

You’ve made big rock albums in the past—you have a pretty good idea of how to record them, and what they’ll sound like when they’re done. That wasn’t the case with the acoustic material on In Your Honor. How did the finished product compare to your original concept?

I really didn’t know what was going to happen with that album, and I think that’s why I consider it to be one of the best things we’ve ever done. We were in a panic when we recorded the acoustic record. We spent about two months on the rock disc, and then one day I thought, Okay, I know when our deadline is, and if we don’t start in on the acoustic album we might be fucked. Having never done anything like that before, I didn’t know how long it was going to take. So we had a little meeting where I sat everyone down and said, “Here’s what we have to do. Everyone has to be here all day, we need to do one song a day and no one’s leaving until that song is done.”And that’s what we did. I’d get in front of a mic, someone would put a click track in my headphones, we’d find a tempo and I’d just roll an arrangement off the top of my head. And as everyone else was putting their parts down, I’d sit in the corner writing lyrics. And we pulled it off. In two and half weeks we record 15 songs, of which we used 10. It was perfect. Rock bands—particularly hard rock bands—often fail when they go acoustic because they’re unable to alter their unusual approach. You saw that so often on MTV’s Unplugged.That’s totally true. When Nirvana performed on Unplugged we were very aware of that. We’d seen a lot of other shows where bands basically just strapped on some Ovations and played their songs exactly as if they were using their Kramers, you know? We tried to make it different, a little more delicate and mellow. And even making this new record with the Foo Fighters, there were times where the songs got dangerously close to turning into rockers. For example, Taylor [Hawkins] is an unbelievable rock drummer, and his first instinct is always to give you that 4/4 rock beat. But you have to rethink a lot of what you’re used to doing. There were times where I’d have to say, “Okay, I don’t think this one requires a whole drum kit. Could you just shake a tambourine or something?Unplugging a rock band can be risky business. Did you ever find yourself treading that line between sweetness and schmaltz?Yeah, it can be tough. Take a song like “Virginia Moon,” which is a bossa nova. That was brand new territory for us. At one point we put an organ on the song and it turned into something that you’d hear in an elevator. That one in particular could have gone south real quick.Lyrically, tracks like “Still” and “Friend of a Friend” have more of a singer-songwriter, storytelling approach than is customary in your material. “Still” is probably the first song I ever wrote that comes close to any sort of storytelling. It’s about my being a kid, going to the lake by my house on a Saturday morning and seeing all these ambulances and fire trucks because someone decide to kill himself by sitting on the train tracks. When you’re a child, you’re so naïve—you have no idea what’s really going on, and you start to explore and find yourself playing with pieces of the… it’s a pretty gory story, actually, but it happened.”How about “Friend of a Friend”? That song was written out of loneliness. When I first joined Nirvana, I moved from the east coast up to Olympia, Washington, and into this little apartment with Kurt. And it was just so quiet—there was nothing to do. It was winter, and it was dark, cold, wet and dirty. Just depressing. The only thing there was to do was sit on the couch and play acoustic guitar for, like, 10 hours a day. So I wrote that song about these two strangers—Kurt and Krist [Novoselic, Nirvana bassist]—that I’d just met. It’s basically about the three of us, at a time before Nevermind, before all of the fame and everything else. It’s the first song I ever wrote on acoustic.Are there any other acoustic songs from your past that found their way onto the album?The main riff in “Over and Out” is something I’ve been messing with for five or six years. And “Virginia Moon,” that’s about eight years-old. It’s just my lame attempt at recreating “The Girl From Ipanema.” We’d actually tried to turn that into a rock song back when we were making [1999’s] There Is Nothing Left To Lose, and it just sounded completely ludicrous. There was no way it would work.When playing electric you often incorporate ringing open strings into fretted chords to create drones and extended voicings. That stylistic device also lends itself well to the acoustic.I think that comes from listening to a lot of Alex Lifeson when I was a kid. As a drummer, I know that I should say Rush belongs to Neil Peart, but I kinda feel like Alex is the badass in that band. And using open notes in conjunction with fretted notes was a big thing with him. I love that sound, and it’s probably even more noticeable on an acoustic track, if only because the guitars aren’t drowned in cymbals and distortion.What is your acoustic setup in the studio?It tends to be real simple. There isn’t a lot of mucking up the signal path. We’ll put a Neumann microphone in front of the guitar and then run that into a Martech mic preamp, into the Neve or the API board and straight to tape.
.

Here's a classic Guitar World interview from 1998:

"Shit, that's cool, man!"

Jerry Cantrell is sitting in the breakfast room of New York City's Rhiga Royal Hotel, inspecting the cover art for the vinyl version of his album, Boggy Depot, and he clearly likes what he sees.

The mock-up is striking-a neo-Gothic tableau depicts a naked Cantrell waist-deep in, well, a boggy depot, and rubbing mud all over his body while a craggy tree hovers menacingly overhead. Cantrell's coolly diffident facade fades away, and his eyes and voice become filled with the giddy enthusiasm of a heavy metal stoner kid who used to spend hours examining Black Sabbath album covers for cryptic messages.

"I grew up listening to vinyl, and I miss the cover art," says Cantrell. "How can you do cool designs on a puny little CD? This is killer, man!"

Cantrell's amped up, and with good reason. After six years as the guitarist, primary songwriter and occasional vocalist for Alice in Chains, he's about to come out as a solo artist. For all his excitement, Cantrell cannot view the development as the culmination of a well-planned career strategy. The truth is, he really had no other choice.

Three years have passed since the release of Alice's last studio album, Alice in Chains, during which time there has been endless speculation about the band and especially Layne Staley, the tortured frontman who has been less accessible of late than Jimmy Hoffa. During a rare public appearance for the taping of the band's 1996 performance on MTV Unplugged, Staley acquitted himself well -- give or take a few flubbed cues-but looked like a leather-clad cadaver. Other than that, nothing, aside from talk that the hermetic Staley was succumbing to a brutal heroin habit.

Soon, the band members' pat reassurances about Staley's well-being began to ring hollow, and when they didn't tour behind Alice in Chains or the Unplugged album, there was talk of an imminent split. This from a band whose last studio album had entered Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart at Number One. 1992's Dirt, their previous full-length effort, had sold over three million copies and been hailed as a metal masterpiece. Alice (which also features bassist Mike Inez and drummer Sean Kinney) was at the peak of its game-and yet it looked like it was throwing in the towel.

While Staley was waging a losing battle with his demons, Cantrell was enduring a private hell of his own. Not only was Alice's inactivity frustrating him, but he was also in the throes of a nasty break-up with his longtime girlfriend. Making matters worse was the advent of electronica; suddenly, it seemed, Seattle was known more for its silicon chips than its guitar bands. Feeling unmoored both professionally and emotionally, Cantrell decided to stop moping and start writing.

The end result, Boggy Depot (Columbia), is at once a rallying cry for beleaguered fist-pumpers and a wrenching exercise in public soul-baring. Free from Alice's chains, Cantrell roams from one genre to the next with impunity, his guitar grinding and boring its way through it all like a drill bit. "Cut You In," the album's first single, is a twisted samba, while "Jesus Hands" is just plain spooky; there's even a country-fried tune called "Between."

Is this the start of a new phase in his career, or merely a temporary detour? As the following interview indicates, it seems that not even Cantrell knows for sure.

GUITAR WORLD: The status of Alice in Chains has been uncertain for a while. How long have you been wanting to do your own record?

It's something I never really wanted to do, but the way things have played out, it's like, why not? To be honest, I'd just be happy being the lead guitarist and singer for Alice in Chains. It's always been my first love, and always will be, but with the situation being what it is…we've been together for a long time, and right now it's kinda played out. It's time to let it be. Now I've got to step up to the plate and take a few swings.

Has the band broken up?

We haven't gone public and said that we've broken up, because how do you call something like that over? You never want to shut that door. I love those guys, and hopefully we'll be able to do something again, but it won't be for a while.

It's admirable that you've stuck together despite all the drug and personal problems that have beset the band.

We're buds first and foremost, and all that stuff is nobody's business but ours. There are things that need to be addressed, but we don't want to talk about the drug issue anymore, and we don't want to talk about Layne anymore. As his friend, it's not my right to do that. It's been really tough, and we've been hammered a lot because we kept our word to each other. It's easy to get fucked when the shit's going down, but you've got to stick tight.

You've got some interesting players on the record-Norwood Fisher and Angelo from Fishbone and Rex from Pantera, among others.

Actually, it was pretty much the same guys from the 1993 Lollapalooza tour. I really wanted this record to have its own vibe. I didn't want Alice to carry over to these tunes. These are guys I've always admired, and it worked out great-they wound up choosing the songs we wanted them to play on. I've known Rex and the Pantera guys since I was 19. I like the range of players we have. There are four different bass players, but the record doesn't stray at all, from a stylistic standpoint.

There are some really interesting departures for you on this record. "Cut You In," for example, is almost like a samba, but it has that bizarre, inverted riff.

I was pretty hammered when I wrote that tune-I just started humming this thing I had in my head, and I grabbed this guitar I made in high school-it's a white Strat that I call Embo, which stands for Eat My Butt Out. Anyway, I grabbed the guitar and wrote it out in about 20 to 30 minutes.

The song features one of your trademarks-several odd time signatures-as do other songs on the album.

I really don't know where that comes from; it just comes naturally to me. I could sit down and figure it out, but what's the use? Off-time stuff is just more exciting-it takes people by surprise when you shift gears like that before they even know what the hell hit 'em. It's also effective when you slow something down and then slam 'em into the dash. A lot of Alice stuff is written that way-"Them Bones" is a great off-time song.

You're obviously still into slow tempos.

That's just a natural thing-it's more dramatic, and it carries more impact. I guess that's just how I am. I'd rather draw something out then rush it and get it over with. It's good when you can drag someone though it, and slowly turn the spit that way.

You experiment a little with country music on the record. "Between" has a distinctly county feel to it, and you even sing with a little twang in your voice.

That's very easy for me to slip back into. I'm half Yankee and half redneck, and I love country music; I was raised on it. My mom and dad played it all the time - Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, George Jones. Country is simple, heartfelt and very sad; that's probably why I like it so much.

On Boggy Depot, you demonstrate yet again your proclivity for exploring the dark side in your music.

I don't know why I'm drawn to that. I can relate to that vibe because I know it. My parents divorced when I was seven, and my mom died in 1987 when she was only 43. It was really hard; I miss her all the time. She's still with me, though-I fully believe she's watching out for my ass.

Tell me about the gear you used to record the album.

A lot of it was the same stuff I used with Alice. I used the Peavey 5150 head that Eddie Van Halen gave to me, a lot of Marshalls, some Fenders, Soldanos-a bunch of different amps. We just switched it up based on what the song called for. We used a lot of old Rat pedals, and an Electro-Harmonix distortion on "Jesus Hands." We also used some vintage crappy mikes on a bunch of stuff. [Producer] Toby Wright used this mic he bought for $20 at a pawn shop on "Keep the Light On."

How about guitars?

Pretty much the same guitars I used on the Alice records: the G&L; Rampage, the '52 Goldtop Les Paul, some old Strats and Teles. I bought Nancy Wilson's Les Paul Jr. and used that a lot on the record. I've got a new Fifties-era Les Paul that Gibson sent me that I really like a lot. On certain songs, I mixed up the guitars. Like on "Dickeye," I had the Goldtop on the left channel, and the white Les Paul reissue on the right.

So what's next for you?

I'm gonna get a band together and go on tour. I want to get a band together that has its own identity, tour, and then go right back into the studio and make another record. Basically, the main thing is to take as much time putting together the band as I did putting together the album. Then we'll see what happens after that.