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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Visit Christie’s for more.

Gaining a bonafide legend as a music coach was a game changer for Rebecca Mardal, a Swedish guitarist and composer whose delicate and nuanced playing has built an army of fans online.

As one of three guitarists chosen for a mentorship by Johnny Marr – who helped write the script for jangly 90s alt-rock in the Smiths – Mardal didn’t waste time picking his brain.

“I heard him say in some interview that if you only play electric guitar, you're half a guitar player,” says the instrumentalist. Until then she’d only played electric, so she asked him about it. “He said, ‘When you play acoustic guitar, not only do your muscles have to be more involved, but it's a whole different approach.’ I sort of took that to heart.”

She grabbed a 70s-era Sigma acoustic and began to reinterpret her tune I Think I Was Meant to Be Alone per Marr’s suggestion: “He said to spend 30 minutes every day on acoustic guitar.”

When she sent him the results, he wholeheartedly approved. She recently released the song on digital platforms alongside Lossbyn, which Marr declared “an amazing piece of music.”

Initially inspired by Green Day, Mardal played punk rock on her first guitar, a sunburst Strat copy, before broadening her lens after a few years and catching up with guys in bands around her, who were playing Led Zeppelin and AC/DC.

She’s since upgraded her arsenal with a 2003 American-made Fender Stratocaster, retrofitted with a Giffin-made neck that Marr gifted to her, as her main guitar.

Mardal may not be a household name yet, but millions have already heard her music through her compositions for the music library Epidemic Sound. While her atmospheric tracks are centered around guitar playing, she also dabbles with soul and lofi hip-hop, inspired by YouTubers like Miles Jasnowski.

The songs tracked in her modest home studio have garnered placements on TV shows like Survivor and in TikTok shorts via brand videos from Vans, ESPN, and McDonald’s. Guitarists may be more keyed into her own clips on social media, where she’s accumulated more than 25 million streams and an audience exceeding 70,000 followers.

She built that fanbase by posting videos of herself playing glossy, reverb-laden licks and walking be-bop jazz lines on her Strat and PRS axes, alongside clips of her takes on older songs such as Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, popularized by Frankie Valli and later given a hip-hop makeover by Lauryn Hill.

While covers are a great way to reel people in, Mardal sees them less as straight tributes and more as her own versions of the songs. “The percussive and rhythmic side of my playing has really taken off on social media, as a result of the covers,” she says.

“It developed further after I started playing the slimmer neck that Johnny gave me. It’s now a big part of what I’m exploring on my upcoming album, through reworked songs.”

As she explores new ways of creating unique soundscapes, Mardal isn’t concerned with rushing matters, in the studio or on the fretboard.

“I’m interested in keeping things almost ridiculously harmonically simple for my original songs, so that the focus naturally shifts toward feel, phrasing, and dynamics.”

“It’s not about playing fast. It’s not even about technique. It’s about making people feel something.”

Choosing feel over the itch to shred comes naturally to her, and the continued pursuit of elegant passages has endeared her to fans who find peace in her playing.

“I got a message this morning from someone who was like, ‘I have cancer and I have a hard time sleeping, but your music helps me relax,’” she says.

“I think that if I want a niche on social media, it’s gonna have to be that – I don’t really want to be part of that short-attention-span, fucking stressful scene, with all the vicious comments. I want to be a safe place.”

It was the summer of 1985, and Johnny Marr was a man out of time. Three years earlier, while still a teenager, the guitarist had co-founded the Smiths in Manchester, England, with vocalist Morrissey (bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce completed the lineup).

But the crystalline chime of his Rickenbacker 330 was still a lone voice in the era of sweep-picked flash. “The ’80s shredders were a joke,” Marr told this writer in 2009. “That’s guitar playing as an Olympic sport. If you’re into decent music, it’s just offensive.”

What, then, did Marr deem ‘decent music’? In their early career, the Smiths had covered more ground than their indie-jangle elevator pitch would suggest, roaming from the swampy tremolo judder of How Soon Is Now? to the airtight Chic-inspired funk of Barbarism Begins at Home and the ringing doublestops of This Charming Man (a track Marr always denied was influenced by African highlife, but it sure sounds like it).

But the band’s opening albums had been patchy, and now, as he sketched out the songs for third release The Queen Is Dead, the guitarist knew nothing less than a masterpiece would do.

“It occurred to me one afternoon that the next Smiths album had to be a serious piece of work,” wrote Marr in his 2016 autobiography, Set the Boy Free. “The stakes had got higher, and greatness was a possibility for the band if we were prepared to go for it. I stood and thought about it, and then I said to myself, ‘You’re going to have to dig deep, whatever it takes.’”

The material took shape fast. Marr remembers sitting nose-to-nose with Morrissey to present the new songs on his 1971 Martin D-28, and in a single evening, the pair had chased down the foundations of Frankly, Mr Shankly, I Know It’s Over and There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.

“We didn’t waste any time,” he wrote of his ferocious work ethic in the period.

Likewise, as the band loaded into London’s RAK Studios, the 21-year-old guitarist became the driving force. When he wasn’t out on the floor with a rig that included a ’78 black Les Paul Custom (later loaned to Noel Gallagher of Oasis) and a ’63 L-series white Strat, Marr was to be found presiding over the mixing desk from morning until midnight, fueled by an endless stream of joints and strong coffee.

“Smoking pot in the studio never hindered me – it helped me shut out the outside world just enough to do the job,” he reflected. “I didn’t need anything else in my life. My world was the studio, and I tried to ignore everything that might distract me.”

That was easy: these were songs you could lose yourself in. The Queen Is Dead’s opening title track began with Joyce’s tribal tom tattoo, but it’s Marr’s thrilling wah-soaked outro that defines it, the guitarist channeling the Velvet Underground’s I Can’t Stand It as he beats his Les Paul almost into matchwood.

“Johnny did that pretty much live in one take,” recalled engineer Stephen Street. “It was just one of those inspired performances. He just got this great harmonic feedback from his Les Paul and as he changed the angle on the wah pedal, it changed the note.”

At the other extreme, there was the melancholy shimmer of There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Morrissey’s ode to doomed romance and shared suicide (‘To die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine’) driven by a stuttering chord sequence that held magic even in embryonic form.

“I decided to record it using the Martin acoustic I’d written it on,” explained Marr, “and it felt like the music was playing itself. We were high with it, and after just a few takes, we had one of our best ever songs – something that felt at the time like pop music and beyond.”

With the possible exception of the turgid Never Had No One Ever and the demented rockabilly of Vicar in a Tutu, The Queen Is Dead demanded front-to-back listening.

There was the sardonic swipe at label boss Geoff Travis on the aforementioned Frankly, Mr. Shankly (“It was in total contrast to the others and sounded like an eccentric vaudevillian romp”). There was the grave-waltz of I Know It’s Over (one of the few songs where the Smiths deserved their miserabilist reputation). “I’ll never forget when Morrissey did that vocal,” Marr told journalist Johnny Rogan. “It’s one of the highlights of my life.”

On the flipside, that desolate number was countered by the spring-heeled rhythm punch of The Boy with the Thorn in His Side and Cemetry Gates.

“I was on the train,” reflected Marr of writing the latter song, a joyous Kinks-influenced sunbeam that belied Morrissey’s lyric about an afternoon exploring the tombstones. “And I was thinking, ‘Right, if you’re so great, first thing in the morning, sit down and write a great song.’ I started with the Cemetry Gates B-minor-to-G change in open G.”

At the album’s midpoint, meanwhile, was Bigmouth Strikes Again, its visceral minor-key assault establishing Marr among the most muscular players in British indie-rock. “I wanted something that was a rush all the way through,” said the guitarist, who described the song as his take on the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash. “I thought the guitar breaks should be percussive, not too pretty or chordal.”

Finally, signing off the album was Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others, a baffling ode to the differing dimensions of the female form that would have been a throwaway curio without the hypnotic glide of Marr’s folk arpeggios. “Some things just drop out of the heavens, and Some Girls was one of them,” he reflected. “It’s a beautiful piece of music.”

So The Queen Is Dead was done, and Marr knew “no-one could touch us – that was the peak of the Smiths’ career.” An unequivocal triumph, then? Not exactly. The laser focus of helming the album sessions had weighed heavy on the young guitarist, whose weight fell to about 98 lbs. as he ran on nervous energy, brandy and cocaine.

“I rarely thought about food unless it was absolutely necessary,” he recalled. “I’d just get on with recording and sometimes someone might make me a sandwich.”

The music was just one of the burdens carried by Marr. Facing legal action over the Smiths’ move from Rough Trade to EMI – and serving as the band’s de facto manager, right down to the logistics of van hire – it’s easy enough to join the dots between the overworked, rail-thin figure haunting the mixing desk and the borderline-alcoholic who would soon write off his BMW, then walk away from arguably the most important British guitar band of the decade at the peak of its powers.

“The more bitter the split became,” wrote Marr of that 1987 parting, “the better off I felt out of it, and soon I was just happy to be out of it altogether. I was in charge of my own life again.”

But that was all to come. For just a heartbeat in the summer of 1986, the Smiths were the greatest band in Britain. With 40 years of hindsight, it might seem gloriously unlikely that The Queen Is Dead came into our lives the same year as Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Van Halen’s 5150 and Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In – and stranger still that the album defied the zeitgeist to achieve gold sales in the U.S.

But perhaps that just speaks to the magic of a charmed 12 months in music, when it seemed anything was possible.

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

What is it?

Johnny Marr’s first Fender signature guitar was a celebration of the Jaguar but also with a hint of, ‘okay, let’s fix the bits that don’t work’. This new Special Jaguar follow-up doesn’t really change the sentiment except for the obvious addition of three lipstick pickups (that we associate with Danelectro, of course), which replace the custom-wound Bare Knuckle Jaguar-style pickups of the original.

You’re certainly not going to mix up the iterations; the lipsticks’ unique appearance in their domed split-tube chromed covers almost adds a boutique-style mash-up vibe.

The bright plating also matches the guitar’s lower control plate and upper shoulder ‘rhythm circuit’ plate, plus the additional treble-side chrome plate, which originally held three slide switches to switch each pickup on/off, and the classic ‘strangle’ switch, which mounts the four-way lever switch for pickup selection here.

It’s not the only change as, like the original, there’s no rhythm circuit: that bass-side chromed plate holds the ‘universal’ bright switch and another bright switch for the lever switch position 4 (bridge and neck in series). On our new model the addition is the lowest-placed third switch, a three-position switch specifically for the middle pickup: off, on and solo’d.

Pickup and control changes aside, the guitar follows the original JM Jaguar with its all-nitrocellulose gloss finish, although this time the only colour offered is black. Its offset body is still alder and also features subtly enhanced body contours, while the maple neck retains its vintage style with the body-end truss rod adjustment and a profile based on Johnny’s 1965 Jaguar, like the original.

While vintage-style ‘small’ frets are retained, this time they’re on a more modern 241mm (9.5-inch) radiused rosewood ’board; the first version used the original 184mm (7.25-inch) camber.

Another area that Johnny tweaked was the classic offset bridge and vibrato tailpiece. The former swaps the individual threaded-rod height-adjustable saddles for the Mustang style, which uses three different-diameter solid-brass barrels (each with a central string groove) to create the string camber, which can’t move.

The original signature had wider vintage-style string spacing of 56.5mm; here that’s narrowed to 52.5mm and, as a result, the outer strings sit in a little more.

Another tweak is the nylon ‘locks’ for the bridge’s needle-point height-adjustment screws, which stop the screws moving as the originals tend to. Here, these are stainless steel and larger in diameter than the standard Fender screws. There’s also another nylon collar for the push-in vibrato arm, which means it’s not only tight‑fitting, but it stays put where you want it and is also really responsive to the lightest of touches.

Many of the tweaks for the original guitar – and that feature on this new Special, too – were conceived with the help of the late Bill Puplett, Johnny’s long-time repair person of choice.

For example, Johnny shares that it was Bill who suggested swapping to Kent Armstrong lipstick pickups for this Special. Meanwhile, the hardware tweaks, such as those bridge-post locks and the vibrato arm stabilisation, were conceived by engineer John Moore of Staytrem fame.

Specs

• PRICE: $2,999/£3,099/€3,649 (inc case)
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric
• BODY: Alder
• neck: Maple, custom shape (based on Marr’s ’65 Jaguar), bolt-on
• SCALE LENGTH: 610mm (24”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Synthetic bone/42.6mm
• FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, ‘ivory’ dot inlays, 241mm (9.5”) radius
• FRETS: 22, vintage style
• HARDWARE: Fender Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles and vintage style ‘floating’ tremolo tailpiece, split-post tuners — nickel/chrome plated
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm 
• ELECTRICS: 3x custom-wound Kent Armstrong Johnny Marr single-coil lipstick pickups, 4-position lever pickup selector switch, 3x slide-switches: Universal Bright Switch, Bright Switch for lever switch position 4, middle pickup off/on/only. Master Volume, Master Tone
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.89/8.56
• OPTIONS: None
• RANGE OPTIONS: Original Johnny Marr Jaguar (£2,619) features a pair of Bare Knuckle Jaguar-style single coils and is available in Olympic White and Metallic KO (red)
• LEFT-HANDERS: No
• FINISHES: Black – gloss nitrocellulose neck/body
• CONTACT: Fender

Usability and sounds

Offset guitars can be heavy thanks to their enlarged bodies, and this sample isn’t the lightest we’ve played, though it is trimmer than the original 2012 sample we had for evaluation. Strapped on, it has a very centred balance and, while it has that shorter scale, it doesn’t feel small. It’s a very comfortable feel.

The same can be said for the neck profile, which is quite full in the hand, even in lower positions where it’s a lot thinner, depth-wise, at 21mm than it is by the 12th fret, where it measures 25mm. This vintage-style profile is also structurally very sound and there’s zero neck-flex here.

You really need to get your head around the expansive possibilities that the array of switches offer – particularly before you head off to a gig. First of all, it might have three pickups like a Stratocaster, but you can also run it as a two-pickup ‘Telecaster’ (like the original JM Jaguar), and that depends on where you set the lower-placed three-position push-switch on the bass-side panel.

Pushed up towards the headstock, the middle pickup is out of circuit so the four-way switch on the treble side gives us bridge, both, neck, and neck and bridge in series like a Telecaster, with the four-way switch series mod.

Move that lower push-switch to its centre position and the middle pickup is now added to the first three selector-switch positions, creating bridge and middle, all three, and neck and middle, while the previous series sound is now just the middle pickup. Finally, with the switch pushed down towards the bridge, the middle pickup is solo’d in all positions of the four-way switch.

Then we have the two bass-cut switches: the universal bright switch (the top one) moves left to right, or treble to bass side. In the treble-side position it’s bypassed; in the bass-side position it’s active on all selections on the four-way selector. The middle switch is another bright-switch, but for the bridge/neck series sound. To add to the confusion this switch moves north to south, or up and down: in up position it’s on; in down it’s off.

To warm up our test amp, we use a ’69 Telecaster with its long-serving Fender Custom Shop pickups and four-way lever switch to add the bridge/neck series voice. And the Special sounds a little polite in comparison. That’s no bad thing, though, as the lipstick voices have something of a purity to them.

There’s a lot of attack, but at the bridge there’s a relatively smooth high-end. The snap continues with the neck pickup, although it’s a fuller and richer sound, of course. Quickly soloing the middle pickup – and, yes, it sits nicely between those two extremes – it’s easy to hear why Johnny Marr wanted to effectively highlight this voice.

Bridge and neck in series is the biggest voice on the guitar, but it only appears with the middle pickup out of circuit. Switching the middle pickup to on (but not solo’d) we get bridge and middle (in parallel), which adds some Strat-y bounce.

Likewise, neck and middle while all-three on (again in parallel) is a subtle shade in between: all three selections are a little softer sounding. We’re beginning to feel spoiled for choice. The two bass-cut bright switches obviously thin out the low-end and enhance the honk.

If you’re after articulate clean jangle and chime, well, this is your vehicle, not least with some – or quite a lot of – modulation. But while that may be a major draw, the Special works extremely well with some much more gained sounds, like a good Danelectro, from spluttery fuzz to heavier and much heavier voicings. Here, again, those bass-cut switches really work, tightening the low-end, and are a great tool for band playing and recording, helping to focus the sound.

One thing to note is that the tone control – which is wired a little differently from standard, and has a lower value capacitor – gives a very usable range and seems to slightly reduce the volume as it’s initially rolled back. Subtle, yes, but another useful sonic-shaping tool.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

It certainly does what it says on the tin. This really is a Johnny Marr tool with all the brightness and articulation his style demands, but it’s far, far from limited to our man in terms of its potential use. It also builds on the sonic options of his first signature: there’s a bit more Strat in here, plus that ‘all round’ middle pickup, which can be solo’d.

Yet dig a little deeper and there’s a lot more to enjoy, especially when you get your head around the switching options, not to mention the very usable tone control, which does a pretty usable jazz-box impersonation when rolled down, before you turn it back up and launch into Spaghetti Western twang. It loves a pedalboard, too, and takes on yet another character with fuzz and overdrives.

Guitar World verdict: At the time of writing, it is the most expensive USA production Jaguar – nearly double the price of the recently introduced Professional Classic – so its considerable appeal will be somewhat limited, but it remains a beautifully crafted piece with very sensible upgrades and those stellar sounds. A serious outlay, then, but also a very serious and considered pro-level and quite unique instrument.

Hands-on videos

Fender with Johnny Marr

Empire Music

• Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar Signature review
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

At first glance, Beyonce and Lil Yachty collaborator Patrick Wimberly might not rank highly on your list of potential producers for The Cribs – but on new album Selling A Vibe, the UK indie stalwarts felt it was time to surprise themselves.

“The idea that working with somebody like Patrick would seem unusual for us is actually a little bit distressing,” says bassist Gary Jarman. “Because we never envisioned ourselves to be a raw rock band; we're very hook-oriented.”

The trio’s own idea of who they are has often contrasted with wider perception. Formed in Leeds, UK, by twins Ryan and Gary, plus brother Ross Jarman (on guitar, bass and drums respectively), they arrived in the last gasp of the old record industry and were slung in with the indie sleaze movement.

However, hailing from Northern England – and far removed from the industry tastemakers, drug-takers and nepotism that came out of ’00s London – they’ve fought an uphill, DIY battle against the unwritten class system of the British Phonographic Industry [this is still the name of the UK industry body, in the year 2026 – Ed].

“We grew up without much money and so we just used whatever we had at hand and tried to make it sound good,” explains Gary. “We always got called a lo-fi band. It was frustrating, because to me, all the records deemed lo-fi are by people who don’t have much stuff trying to make it sound as good as they possibly can.”

Still, success has brought its rewards; and the group have gone on to make albums with their hero Steve Albini, produce Squier signature guitars, and even attract indie rock’s superstar contractor Johnny Marr to their ranks for three years.

Wimberly has his own indie credentials as one half of Chairlift with Caroline Polachek, and with Blood Orange and MGMT productions under his belt. But in contrast to what you’d expect from a big-name producer, he came in with no preconceptions.

“I've got this tiny little Silvertone amp from the 60s, and Patrick loved the tone,” says Ryan by way of example. “It’s just my practice amp at home – a $200 amp that became the main amp on the record because he heard something in it.”

That and Gary’s favorite ’73 P-Bass was about all they took along. And in contrast to what you might expect from working with a big producer, the brothers Jarman describe the whole process as a “liberation”.

“You can get stuck with a degree of baggage over time,” says Ryan. “It’s good to purge yourself of all the stuff you think that you need – you don’t really need it. The most important thing is what you’re playing. All the other stuff is just a distraction or a crutch.”

What were your favorite moments on Selling a Vibe from a guitar and bass perspective?

Ryan Jarman: The playing in If Our Paths Never Crossed is something I wanted to get on a record for ages. When we first started the band, I figured out a way of making the guitar sound like an analog synth but without any effects, just a Tube Screamer.

It involved taking all the tone off the guitar and it was down to certain things with the pickup selector, pulling the strings and muting in a specific way. We never found a place for it on a record before, but that's what I'm playing in the chorus of If Our Paths Never Crossed.

Gary Jarman: From a bass point of view, I really like the bassline on Brothers Won’t Break. It’s really soul-influenced. The other one is Self Respect. We were in the practice room, and I said to my brothers, “What we really need is some kind of Michael Jackson thing,” and I played that line! It was off the cuff, as an example, but it became the signature line in the song.

Ryan: We did our best to get out of our own way on this record. If something felt good it was like, “Alright, let's just call that done.” Everyone has a tendency to keep working on something, thinking, “I can make it better!” It doesn’t take long until it tips over and you’re making it worse.

Gary: It’s that saying, “Look at yourself in the mirror and take one item off before going out.” Coco Chanel said that, but I think it’s a good thing to think about in music too.

We’re coming up to the 10-year anniversary of your Squier signature models. Is there any chance of a reissue?

Ryan: I've been hassling Fender for ages to bring them back. The amount of times I get asked about those guitars is crazy, and there’s been people pushing them online to do it. But for whatever reason, Fender seems more interested in making their own weird hybrids these days.

I had three, but two of them are prototypes, so I only really had one good player. I’m like, “I really need another one,” because, for me, it wasn’t just a vanity project. I spent ages getting that guitar just right. It’s the only Fender bridge – the only setup – that really works for me.

So to placate me, they made me a Custom Shop version, which is great. I’m really liking it, but I was hoping that they’d bring the signature back; so many people ask me and I never have an answer. Some people think I’m gatekeeping them, or I’ve got a big stash at home!

Like you’re sat there feeding them into Reverb every month.

Gary: Yeah! There’s an irony in that those guitars were built to be affordable guitars. That’s why they were Squiers – so people could afford a quality instrument that could be functional and look good. Now they’re changing hands for $2,000!

There was an article about how it’s the most expensive Squier ever or something – that and that baritone. The appreciation is higher than any other guitar. It’s gone from like $300. But they weren’t intended to be collector’s pieces or expensive instruments.

Ryan: That's the way I always saw it. I spent a long time making sure the functionally was there, if it was going to be someone’s first guitar. And I played those Squiers live. It’s absolutely a professional instrument. But I have no idea what the future holds for it.

Last year your friend and collaborator Steve Albini passed away. You’ve spoken previously about how he was a warmer guy than people might expect. What are your memories of him?

Ryan: One of the things I liked about working with Steve was on the first day we got to Electrical Audio in Chicago, before we’d set anything up, he asked us some questions with his clipboard. He went, “What do you want to do?” We said, “We want to record it live and we don’t want to do any overdubs.” And he was like, “Yeah, that’s fine.”

He set up, and so quickly we were hearing that sound that’s so familiar. It was always exciting for us – that sound is part of your childhood. One day I said, “I think I need to double the guitars here,” and Steve was like, “I wouldn’t.

“You told me at the start of the session that you didn’t want to do that. You’re going against your original vision for it – and I don’t think that’s ever a good idea.” I really appreciated that about him. It’s so easy to start doing stuff out of protocol.

Gary: He was a community-oriented guy. When I went in there I felt quite shy but as I come from an engineering background, I had a lot of questions for him. Steve sat me down and drew diagrams, showing me exactly what he was doing. He told me all his secrets. He was like, “If you want to take any element of this, it’s yours. This is public domain.”

Some people, especially in the music world, think it’s their thing and nobody else can have it. Steve Albini developed one of the most iconic and recognizable drum sounds ever, and he’s just there like, “Yeah, I’ll show you how to do it!”

People saw him as this abrasive character – but that’s only because he looked out for the artist above everyone else. The people writing the checks saw him as difficult because he was sincere, honest and very egalitarian. He was the absolute perfect collaborator, just a really generous guy.

Your former bandmate Johnny Marr is also known for being generous – he famously gave Noel Gallagher his first Les Paul. Did he ever gift you any guitars?

Ryan: Me and Johnny were supposed to do a guitar swap when we first started working together. I had this white ’70s Mustang as my main guitar, and he really liked the album that was on, The New Fellas. He kept saying, “We should do a guitar swap!” It was like a talismanic kind of thing as he was joining the band. Eventually I was like, “Let’s do it!”

Then when we were at his house I’d be like, “Come on then Johnny, what guitar you gonna trade me?” He had an amazing collection. He’d always show me this really horrible Stratocaster that had nine pickups on it! It became a joke – every time I brought up swapping, he’d be like, “I’ve got it for you here!”

Gary: It was joked about so often that you started to think, “Is this actually what the swap’s going to be?” But I think he likes that guitar now, that black Strat with all the pickups.

It was in his video for Spirit Power and Soul.

Ryan: It weighed an absolute ton! The first time he showed me it, he was like, “Look at this!” He was laughing. When I first started going to his studio, after we decided we were going to write songs together, we got stoned and we’d just sit in his studio all night. It was really fun – and he’d be showing me that guitar, like, “Who in their right mind built this?”

Johnny just released a new signature Jaguar Special – you could always drop him a line about that.

Gary: Between the three band members, we all had a little bit of input on Johnny’s first signature Jaguar. The prototype was built for touring with The Cribs because, when he first started touring with us, he was bringing out this ’60s blue Jaguar.

At a gig at Leeds University Refectory he went out and got hit with a pint straight away! After the show we were like, “Johnny, that guitar is too fancy for touring with us!”

So he got two US vintage reissue Jaguars, a white and a black one, and we changed the pickguards, and they were his workhorse guitars for The Cribs. When he was working with us on the road he started developing his signature guitar with Neil Whitcher from Fender.

Ryan: He was going to give us one of the first ones when he came through, but that never happened.

I'm spotting a pattern here…

Ryan: Yeah, I’m just going to say – don’t hold out much hope on getting one of these Jaguar Specials, know what I mean?

You guys have a lot of knowledge of the Fender offset guitars and oddities as well.

Ryan: That was because we could never afford guitars. The first thing I got was a Jag-Stang and I’d saved up for it all summer by washing dishes. But as a result of not being able to afford them, we’d spend all our time reading about them, in magazines, Fender catalogs or dial-up internet!

If you did get the money together, you needed to know exactly which one you were going to get. So we always had a fondness for the oddballs. The Duo-Sonic was the one I always liked because it was £150 from a pawnshop in the middle of Wakefield. I loved it because it was cheap.

Gary: We’d set our sights on stuff that seemed attainable, like a Music Master bass or a Duo Sonic, because they weren’t £2,000 or whatever. That’s why we wanted to make Squiers – just to evoke that memory we had as kids; something that’s cool and attainable.

Ryan: Or that '70s Mustang. Should we tell him about that?

Tell me about the ’70s Mustang!

Gary: For Ryan's 18th or 19th birthday he got a ’78 Sunburst Mustang, which was really cool. The neck was figured.

Ryan: It was like a bird’s eye maple neck and headstock. It was really weird.

Gary: It looked really cool. It was still cheap – £600 or whatever, in the late ’90s. We used it on all the early Cribs stuff. But in 2002 it got nicked after a show in Leeds, at the Cockpit, and went missing for years. Then in 2020 I was reading an interview online, and there, in the background in a photo, was the Mustang on the wall!

It had the figured maple neck and also a little bit of the pickguard missing, like Ryan’s. So I sent it to him – “Ry, is this your guitar?” He’s like, “Looks like it!” The interview was with the owner of Dirty Hit [Jamie Oborne], The 1975’s label. We started matching photographs and it looked the same. Eventually, we heard from Matty Healy, who was like, “Yeah, it was my guitar for a bit!”

Ryan: He’d used it in some of his videos [including Sex], and he was like, “I swapped it with the guy from Dirty Hit. I know all about that guitar.”

Gary: We’d given a report to the police, but it had never showed up. I suspect it was stolen in Leeds, then moved over to Manchester, where Matty obtained it, then gave it to the guy from Dirty Hit.

So I contacted the guy from Dirty Hit, and Wakefield police put together a forensic thing with photographs, showing it was the exact same guitar, and Fender verified it was the same guitar. Then Jamie from Dirty Hit was like, “The problem is I don’t have it anymore!”

He’d given it to one of their other artists, Beabadoobee and it was like her main guitar. So it was Ry’s guitar, it went missing for 20 years, then it was with Matty Healy in The 1975, then it went to Beabadoobee. I don't know where it is now; we’re still trying to get it back.

Ryan: I still want it back! It’s one of the only guitars that’s ever meant anything to me. I used it in The Cribs before we became a professional band and it sounded great. West Yorkshire Police keep saying, “We’ll go get it for you.” But I don’t want there to be a bad vibe about it.

Technically it’s still mine. But I'd feel guilty about getting it back if someone else is using it. But then I’m like, “Why do I feel guilty because it was stolen off me?” It’s just a weird thing.

Gary: Ultimately it just hit a wall. But it’d be really nice to get it back. It would be a really circuitous, cool story.

• Selling a Vibe is out now via Play It Again Sam.

Over the years, Johnny Marr has developed a reputation for gifting and lending out his guitars to his musician friends – including the likes of Oasis' Noel Gallagher and Radiohead's Thom Yorke, to name a select few.

Now The Cribs have shared a story about a “talismanic” guitar trade that Marr proposed during the time he joined the British indie rockers – from 2008 to 2011, spawning the album Ignore the Ignorant – recalling Marr’s ‘joke’ attempt to swap Ryan Jarman's tasty ’70s Mustang for his nine-pickup Stratocaster.

“Me and Johnny were supposed to do a guitar swap when we first started working together, because I had this white ’70s Mustang,” Jarman tells Guitar World in an upcoming interview.

“It was my main guitar at the time, and he really liked the album that was on, The New Fellas. He kept saying, ‘We should do a guitar swap!’ And also, it was like a talismanic kind of thing, as he was joining the band.

“Eventually, I was like, ‘Let's do it!’ Then, the next time we'd be at his house, I'd be like, ‘Come on then Johnny, what guitar you gonna give me [for the trade]?’

“He had an amazing guitar collection... and he would always show me this really horrible Stratocaster that had nine pickups on it… this stupid guitar that was in his studio. It became a joke that every time I would bring up swapping the guitars, he would be like, ‘I've got it for you here!’”

As for whether the swap did actually happen, well, let's just say that Jarman never ended-up with a nine-pickup Strat.

“It was one of those things where it was joked about so often that you started to think, 'Is this actually what the swap's going to be?’” recalls bassist Luke Jarman. “[But] I think he likes that guitar now. That black Strat with all the pickups!”

Indeed, Marr memorably put the guitar to use in his video for Spirit Power and Soul.

“It weighed an absolute ton,” recalls Ryan. “I remember the first time he showed me... we were stoned in his studio – when I first started going up there, after we decided we were going to write songs together. We would just sit in his studio all night. It was really fun – and he'd be showing me, like, ‘Who in their right mind built this?’”

Guitar World’s interview with the Cribs will be published in the coming days.

And, speaking of vintage guitars, Jarman recently recounted how one of his other Mustangs miraculously ended up in the hands of contemporary British indie powerhouses The 1975 and Beabadoobee nearly two decades after it was stolen.

Performing alongside Paul McCartney must feel nothing short of surreal for those who've been lucky enough to experience it. Johnny Marr knows that feeling first-hand – and he recently recalled what he learned from his “mind-blowing” jamming sessions with Macca.

“If you take a band like the Beatles – they always come to mind because they’re the yardstick everyone thinks about,” he says on The Overlap podcast.

“Ringo is so important to the sound. If it was anyone else it would be a completely different band. But, pretty lowkey, George Harrison – speaking as a guitar player – [he was] one of the greatest guitar players ever.

“Paul McCartney, on the other hand – and speaking as a musician – I had a mind-blowing experience playing with Paul McCartney when I was younger.”

Marr goes on to say Macca is equivalent to having “two guys” in a band, “Because he’s so melodic, he’s so attitude-y, and just [has] amazing musicality.”

The guitarist notes that, perhaps nowadays, McCartney's legendary status beyond the musical sphere makes it easy to forget his bass chops.

“You forget, actually, about what their craft is,” he asserts. “And Paul McCartney reinvented a way of playing the bass. You think of him as a songwriter and a singer really, but as a bass guitar player, it’s next-level, really.

“I think that was really deliberate. I think he took great pride in being... he wanted to be the best bass player in the world.”

The Beatles as a whole revolutionized music, but as Marr notes, Macca's bass chops were equally evolutionary, helping to transform the traditionally 'background' instrument into a melodic force that could carry hit after hit.

Post-Smiths, Marr developed a reputation as a gun for hire, which included a brief period during which he jammed with the Beatles bassist.

“I didn’t do a recording session with him as such, but we did get together for a good long eight-or-nine-hour day, and just played and played and played very intensely, really loudly,” he told The Autojubilator in a 2013 interview.

“Which was pretty great, obviously. I remember everything about it. We played I Saw Her Standing There, Twenty Flight Rock, Tutti Frutti. I got him to play Things We Said Today, and I think we played some Wings stuff. C-Moon, I remember. That was fun. He and I were singing harmonies on I Saw Her Standing There – that was a pretty good moment, too. I was only 23, maybe 24.”

Marr recently launched his latest signature Jaguar with Fender, and shared what he hopes this new version communicates to the next generation of guitarists.

Having been in the industry for over 40 years, Johnny Marr knows a thing or two about how the guitar world – and, by extension, the music industry – operates. While many may have been introduced to his work through his early years with ’80s indie rock legends The Smiths, he has since carved a path that traverses genres and labels.

That path has seen him work with a diverse spread of artists from The Pretenders to Modest Mouse, The Cribs, The The, and even Hans Zimmer. In short, a true chameleon – with the guitar serving as the unifying throughline in all his various endeavors.

When he released his first signature Jaguar with Fender 13 years ago, it was clear that Marr had put his years-long experience on stage and in studios worldwide – along with his in-depth knowledge of what makes a guitar tick – to good use. The result? One of Fender’s best-selling signature models.

Fast-forward to 2025, and he took this one step further with the recently released, limited-edition signature special Jaguar, which expands the model’s tonal palette into Strat and even P-90 territory.

“My original signature guitar does so many sounds,” he enthuses. “[For this new one, I've lost count], and the thing I'm most proud of is, it's not active. There’s no batteries living in it.

“Aside from the radius and it being a bit more of a rock sound in quite a few positions, it sounds very much like a Stratocaster, which means that when you play at high gain, it almost does a kind of blues rock sound, which is unusual from a Jag, because a Jaguar is notoriously difficult to get a decent rock sound out of.

“I wouldn't say it’s for metal or for shredding, but you never know!” he quips. “Maybe I'll do a third one that you can shred on.”

What motivated you to create a second signature Jaguar model, and how does it differ from your original design?

[The original] has been really commercially successful, and has continued to sell and sell, which makes me really proud, because other guitar players like it, and of all different kinds of music – it's not just an indie rock machine.

I wanted to continue to do what I do on my [first] signature Jag, but make it for people who wanted a bit more of a conventional feeling guitar – [for example,] make the radius a little bit different [9.5” as opposed to the original’s 7.25”]. It's not me improving my original signature Jag. It's just an alternative to my original Jag.

The new one has a pretty unique pickup selection system, and it also has lipstick pickups, as opposed to the first’s custom-wound Bare Knuckle single-coils. Can you walk us through the thought process behind all this?

For nearly 40 years, I had the same guitar luthier, whose name was Bill Puplett, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago. I don't use the word genius a lot, but there are some people who worked with Billy who would use that word.

Bill got very excited about the idea of the lipstick pickup. And I have to give him credit for putting that idea in my head. And then I had the burgundy Jag, which I thought was a really good-looking guitar, and so we used that as a prototype. So, between Bill and myself, we started to try these different lipstick pickups. But really, it was Bill's ingenuity that came up with the configuration of the pickups.

So, my original signature Jaguar does a lot. It has a Telecaster blade switch [that] gives you four different scenarios: the bridge pickup, the two pickups together, the neck pickup, and the bridge and middle pickup in series.

But with the new Signature Special, you have all of that – but then you also have all of that with the middle pickup added, and then also just the middle pickup.

What the other switches do is all of the above, but with a high-pass filter, which is what I retained from the original ’60s design. And then the third switch [is] a slider switch [that] when it's in series position is an extra notch filter, because when the pickups are in series, they are so fat-sounding that they just take it away from the Fender realm, and they almost sound more like a P-90.

Would you consider it a tribute to Bill?

Yeah, that's right. And we all felt that because it was the last project that Bill was involved in, and he was very passionate about it. The wiring is really ingenious.

This year, I got to collaborate with Gorillaz and also with Franz Ferdinand. Because I've got the prototype, I wanted to see how it would work with a different kind of music to my own, and the fact that it's so versatile has really come up pretty good.

Your first signature Jaguar inspired a new generation of players. What do you hope this new version communicates to younger guitarists?

There are people who bought my signature Jaguar because of its reputation – and because they don't necessarily have to be a fan of my music – but what I feel I did with both my signature Jags [is that] they are more efficient than the original ’60s design. That's to do with the change in the blade switch and the way the bridges behave – staying in tune, the saddles, and all of those things that I felt were necessary improvements.

So I want for that to continue, but also maybe a new person coming along who thinks that they want to do all of that, but also for it to be more of a rock guitar. I think that was my original idea, to not lose anything of my signature Jag, but for it to behave better as a driven guitar.

You've lent a lot of guitars to other musicians in the past, like Noel Gallagher, of course, and Radiohead. Do you still lend your guitars out these days?

Well, I think most of my friends actually own my guitars now [on a sort of] a permanent loan [laughs]. I tend to encourage my friends to try different things. So, for example, when Radiohead were making In Rainbows, I couldn't believe they'd never used a Les Paul before. I think I loaned them an SG for the album. And Thom [Yorke] ended up buying an SG himself.

Who, in your opinion, are some of the artists or bands right now who are really shaping the guitar scene?

I feel a little weird even bringing this up, because I've been around for so long, but I can't help but celebrate the fact that we're just now so used to female bands.

When I was starting out in the early ’80s, particularly when I started with the teenage bands in the late ’70s, women in rock, certainly playing guitar with bands, either as the lead singer or lead guitarist, were nowhere near as common. You had Chrissie Hynde, obviously, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell… but there were few rock guitar players.

And now, you only have to look at social media for a couple of minutes, and you see all these girls playing dazzling guitar.

I know the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been around a long time, but I always really, really like whenever they put a new record out, because I think Nick Zinner is a really, really exciting guitar player. I like The Last Dinner Party – [Emily Roberts] is a good guitar player. And also, I'd say Fontaines D.C.'s latest record's [Romance] got the type of guitar playing that I just really like.

Speaking of influential guitar players, what are your thoughts on Oasis’ recent reunion shows?

From the minute the reunions were announced, in the UK, at least, almost three-quarters of the country were cheered up. Because Noel's my friend, to give you a serious answer, I'm very happy that he's reunited with his brother. That's a great thing, obviously, but the concerts had such an elevated atmosphere and a real positive message of the power of music.

When I was in America, because people know that I play with Noel, so many people were telling me that they went to the concerts and how amazing these concerts were – and, sometimes, it was people who you wouldn't think were fans of Oasis.

So it became like a cultural phenomenon, with the main inspiration being about unity. That's something that is very much in need in today's world. So they've done something really great, not only for themselves, but really, for a lot of people. They brought a lot of people joy. And it's something I've never seen in my lifetime. Biggest reunion of all time.

Did they ask you to guest star?

There were three very, very loud guitar players up there, because Gem [Archer] has got a big sound as well, and between Bonehead [Paul Arthurs, bassist] and Noel, I think they've got plenty of decent jackets up there. They don't need me in a good jacket! [laughs]

And finally, which guitar players have inspired you over the years – particularly ones people might not expect?

You know who I think was a really, really interesting guitar player? John Lennon. Some of the things that people don't quite realize he was doing on the White Album... I can go down rabbit holes.

And John McLaughlin. Whenever I mention John McLaughlin, I think people are surprised because I come out of the indie rock scene. But you know, when I started out, I would be talking about Nile Rodgers. And at the time, I remember that all those boys who were working in the British music press couldn't believe what they were hearing when I was talking about Nile Rodgers.

But now, everybody can understand that me and Nile Rodgers have got a lot in common – mostly to do with the way we make music: collaborating with other bands, producing and arranging, and using the guitar as a kind of hook.

The idea of someone standing behind a mixing desk working on vocals with the singer, but with their guitar around their neck, while still being known for playing the guitar – Nile was a bit of an example for me, really. It's [all] an evolution.

• The Limited-Edition Johnny Marr Signature Special Jaguar is available now from Fender retail partners. For more information, visit Fender.

Hello, and welcome to Guitar World’s gear round-up, your one-stop-shop for keeping up to date with what’s been happening in the big wide world of guitar gear over the past seven days.

From new electric guitars to amp modeler updates, the guitar industry is never short of fresh releases, and it can sometimes be hard to stay abreast of every new launch that may be of interest to you.

To make things a little easier, we’ve put together an essential must-read guide that will cover the major releases, the boutique drops, and everything in between.

This week, Jacob Collier's ascension to the status of modern-day guitar hero reached new heights with two accessible signature five-string acoustics, Johnny Marr reinvented the Fender Jaguar once again, the original Tube Screamer designer returned with a new take on the classic overdrive, and more...

Taylor Jacob Collier GS Mini and Academy 22e

Last year, Jacob Collier kickstarted a five-string revolution. The revolution is now entering its second phase with the arrival of two new Taylor signatures, which help make the Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalists expansive new guitar language more accessible than ever before.

The first Collier Taylor from last year weighed in at $2,799. This new Academy 22e is $999. Its companion GS Mini is just $699. If you’ve ever been intrigued to dive into the waters of five-string guitars, there has never been a better time than now.

It’s got the ergonomics of a six-string, so there’s plenty of room to move about in, but only five strings tuned to DAEAD. It’s an accessible entry point to easy open chord shapes and expansive soundscapes, and encourages a whole new way of playing. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience. The five-string isn’t going anywhere. And we love it.

For more: Taylor Guitars

Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar

Johnny Marr’s guitar collection certainly isn’t short in variety, but there’s one model above all else that the Smiths legend is intrinsically linked to: the Fender Jaguar. It’s been by his side for much of his career, prompting Fender to release a highly acclaimed signature version that many believe to be the finest modern Jag of all time.

Well, that’s now got competition, because Marr has reinvented the Jag once again for his newest signature. It is an absolute corker of a guitar. That finish is stunning. The addition of those lipstick pickups? Utter genius. Of course, it sounds as good as it looks, and it also has a new not-so-secret switch to flick between wiring modes. Marr himself said he wanted to make a model that “pushes players to explore new tones and possibilities”. This does exactly that.

We also saw a prototype floating around on IG with a maple neck. It would be nice if Fender had plan to release that one as well…

For more: Fender

Marshall Spinal Tap Infinity amp

When Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel revealed that he had asked Marshall to build an amp that went to Infinity for the band’s recent sequel, we began wondering whether the British amp brand had any plans in motion to make those available to the wider public.

After a few weeks of whispers and speculation, Marshall this week launched a special-edition JVM410H, which brings a 40-year collaboration in the making full circle. It’s been called ‘the loudest amp ever made’, and while that may not be strictly true in terms of output, it certainly is loud in style.

Two channels have been named after St. Hubbins and Tufnel. The bass knobs have been renamed ‘Smalls’. Each control goes to 11, a nod to that infamous scene from the first film. The Master Volume goes to Infinity. It is about as Spinal Tap as you could have hoped for.

“I think it's amazing that something so off-the-cuff has become an integral part of our company's history,” Marshall’s Steph Carter told Guitar World. “That one line has cemented itself as kind of a tagline for the company.”

For more: Marshall

Universal Audio UAFX 2.0

Universal Audio’s UAFX pedals have become a firm favorite among casual players and pros alike. The Edge ditched his tube amps for a UAFX amp modeler at The Sphere. John Mayer recommends them to all beginner guitar players. Guitar World has dished out plenty of rave reviews over the years.

They’ve not been without fault, though, with the V1 pedals all lacking MIDI compatibility, suffering from less-than-ideal app integration, and offering a limiting one-additional-preset function. That’s all been rectified with UAFX 2.0, though – a free-to-download software that addresses all those shortcomings.

As far as updates go, this is pretty major, and it spans across all dual switch effects pedals and amp modelers, so each and every UAFX stompbox is about to hit a new level.

For more: Universal Audio

Gibson Les Paul Junior / Special Double Cut

Gibson may have first developed its Les Paul Junior and Special guitars as entry level student models, but it didn’t take long before pros were harnessing their full potential and they both became rock ‘n’ roll staples beloved by everyone from Leslie West to Billie Joe Armstrong.

Fortunately, the double-cut versions – which, I’d argue, are infinitely cooler – are now back. They closely channel the spirit of those vintage models, and come complete with the P-90 pickups that made them such standout models. That LP Jr. DC in Cherry Red is calling my name. Woof.

For more: Gibson

Third Man Hardware x JHS Pedals Troika

Jack White’s Third Man Hardware effects company has announced its latest collaborative release – the Troika, a ‘horse-powered’ delay pedal made in partnership with JHS Pedals. It’s a spin-off of a rare Honda Sound Works Fab Delay pedal from Japan that White brought into early development discussions.

Funnily enough, JHS founder Josh Scott had apparently never come across it before (that’s how you know it must be rare). The Troika has been kitted out with three slider controls, and a bunch of I/Os to make it work with vocals and guitar. In fact, White used a prototype Troika all over his latest record, No Name, and now relies on it as an indispensable part of his live rig.

If you’re wondering about the ‘horse-powered’ bit, peep those horses on the front. Troika is, after all, the name for a Russian sleigh that gets pulled by three horses. Duh.

For more: Third Man Hardware

Sterling by Music Man Mike Herrera

Who even needs control knobs anyway? Well, I recently went on a spiritual journey of six-string self-discovery, so, I very much do. MxPx punk pioneer Mike Herrera certainly doesn’t, though – and his new Sterling by Music Man signature very much makes that clear.

It’s a stripped down version of his OG StingRay and an ode to both his DIY spirit and modded bass, with two dummy knobs that channel his frills-free playing philosophy. Oh, and it looks cool as hell, too.

For more: Sterling by Music Man

EHX Pico Atomic Cluster

EHX flipped the mini-pedal market on its head back in 2023 when it announced its “most ambitious pedal release” since Mike Matthews first opened up shop. The range's original aim was to downsize the firm's classic stompbox. It has since evolved, serving as a platform of experimentation. The Pico Atomic Cluster is a prime example of that. In EHX’s own words, it’s “unlike any effect Electro-Harmonix has made before”.

It’s a weird, lo-fi, synth, glitch-y, auto-arpeggio pint-sized package of sonic chaos that just sounds and behaves differently. It really needs to be heard to be believed; words don’t do it justice. It’s a mini pedal, so I’m sure I’ll be able to squeeze one into my ‘board somehow…

For more: EHX

TWA Source Code

No, this isn’t just another Tube Screamer. It might in fact be the Tube Screamer of all the Tube Screamers. One Tube Screamer to rule them all. See, the TWA Source Code isn’t a clone – it’s the ultimate evolution of the iconic overdrive pedal, designed by the original creator of the TS808 himself, Susumu Tamura.

It is a culmination of Tamura’s five decades of experience in overdrive design packaged into a single chassis. The next-gen TS has increased headroom, and multi-transistor input buffer for signal preservation, and ‘Magic IC’ op amp for improved amp-like feel, a new ‘Bite’ control, and +6dB of boost for increased output.

And it has a really, really cool ‘’ logo that lights up when the Source Code is switched on. And there I was thinking I don’t need another overdrive pedal…

For more: MaxonFX

Benson Portable Distortion 424 MKII

Let’s go over it again: over the last few years, the guitar world has witnessed something of a tone revolution thanks in part to Mk.gee – a maverick emerging guitar hero who shunned amps for a guitar rig that relied heavily on multi-track Tascam Portastudio for its preamp. It was everything modern players had been encouraged to avoid, but it’s back – and now blown-out, bit-crushy analog DI tones are all the rave.

JHS Pedals got in on the hype with the 424 Gain Stage, and now Benson – which has been developing its own solution to the Tascam pedal conundrum for some time – has also thrown its hat into the ring.

This limited release actually goes one step further though, expanding the versatility of the original circuit by adding a bypassable buffer that drastically alters the tone and character. In other words, it’s more of a pedal’s pedal, and will play nicely with the rest of your rig. Unfortunately, it’s already out of stock…

For more: Benson

Heather Brown Darlene

The pedal to level up your compressor game? Heather Brown Electronicals’ Darlene is an ultra-quite analog compressor designed with one goal in mind: to let players’ dynamics breathe and keep their sound pure.

It’s meant to solve some common compressor qualms, those being flattened tones, choked dynamics and unwanted noise. The Darlene has a low noise floor to combat the latter, the choice of either true or bypassed buffer, and three knobs (Sustain, Blend and Volume) to dial in the required compression.

It’s also said to be something of a Swiss army stompbox, capable of being an always-on polish, a transparent clean boost, and a thickener for drives.

For more: Heather Brown Electronicals

Fulltone Ultimate Octave

One of Fulltone’s most celebrated designs – and, indeed, one of the most well-known octave pedals full stop – is back on the market, with the effects firm announcing the return of the Ultimate Octave.

A firm favorite of Joe Satriani and something of a pedal cult classic, the pedal returns with a smaller footprint to make it more pedalboard friendly, but keeps the same capacity for tone-tweaking. Two footswitches; knobs for Volume, Fuzz and Tone; and a Bright/Fat switch is all you need to harness what Fulltone is calling “one of the most intense upper-octave circuits ever made”.

For more: Fulltone

Schecter John Browne Zenith

I’ll be the first to admit that “metal” guitars in their truest form aren’t my personal favorite, but while I was scoping out the show floor at Guitar Summit 2025 a few months back, I did do a double-take while strolling past the Schecter stand.

Why? Well, because it had its new John Browne Zenith signature on display, of course. That finish – dubbed Fracture White – is gnarly as hell. I love the matching headstock. The single pickup and hardtail bridge is up my street. Not quite enough to convert me, but I admire it for what it is: a ruddy cool metal guitar.

For more: Schecter

Vox Micro Superbeetle

Vox has aimed to reimagine portable amplification with the Micro Superbeetle – an authentic Vox amp capable of delivering the company’s singular sound in an, erm, micro-sized package. What’s neat is it’s a stack format – the head can be used as a standalone portable five watt amp. It offers three Vox tones – Clean, Drive and High Gain – plus Bluetooth connectivity for music streaming.

For more: Vox

Fender has reunited with Johnny Marr for a limited-edition signature Jaguar that not only builds on the success of his original best-selling signature model with the brand, but promises to blend “vintage character with modern innovation.”

“The Jaguar has been central to my sound and style for nearly 15 years,” enthuses Marr. “With this new model, I wanted to create an instrument that feels classic but also pushes players to explore new tones and possibilities.

“From my work with The Cribs playing gritty in-your-face indie, to the cinematic soundscapes I crafted with Hans Zimmer, the Jaguar has been an incredible asset in helping me expand my sound, no matter the genre or the occasion.”

Specs-wise, the Limited-Edition Johnny Marr Signature Special Jaguar features a custom gloss nitrocellulose black lacquer finish, a smooth custom neck inspired by Marr's own 1965 Jaguar, and a rosewood fingerboard with 22 vintage-style frets and ivory dot inlays. Furthermore, it boasts a Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles, complemented by a vintage-style ‘floating tremolo’ tailpiece.

Perhaps one of the most interesting additions is the set of custom-wound Kent Armstrong Johnny Marr single-coil lipstick pickups, which offer a “unique range of tonal versatility.”

The tonal palette is further enhanced by the presence of Marr’s personal wiring scheme and an all-new four-position blade switching system – plus three slide-switch options – all of which deliver a “fresh perspective” on the classic Jaguar tone.

Speaking about this new signature release, Max Gutnik, Chief Product Officer at Fender, says, “Johnny Marr’s legacy as one of the most inventive guitarists of the last four decades is undeniable.

“The new Signature Special Jaguar is a versatile, performance-ready twist on his classic instrument that delivers a captivating tone with great feel. We’re thrilled to share it with guitarists everywhere.”

Priced at $2,999.99, the Limited-Edition Johnny Marr Signature Special Jaguar is available now from Fender retail partners.

For more information, visit Fender.

This year’s Oasis reunion tour has been widely cited as a musical phenomenon, with many calling it the event of the year.

And after reuniting for their first shows in 16 years, who could blame fans – and those in search of a good dose of nostalgia – for the palpable excitement, really? Among Oasis’ many fans is Johnny Marr, who famously loaned a struggling Noel Gallagher a 1960 Gibson Les Paul and, later, a black 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom, when the band was starting out.

Now, in a new Guitar World interview, Marr gives his two cents on the resounding cultural impact of the Oasis reunion tour.

“It's an amazing thing that I saw, from the minute the reunions were announced in the UK, at least three quarters of the country were cheered up,” he notes. “Because Noel's my friend, of course, to give you a serious answer, I'm very happy that he's reunited with his brother. That's a great thing, obviously, but the concerts had such an elevated atmosphere and a real positive message of the power of music.

“When I was in America, because people know that I play with Noel, so many people were telling me that they went to the concerts and how amazing these concerts were, and sometimes, it was people you wouldn't think were fans of Oasis,” he relates.

“So it became like a cultural phenomenon, with the main inspiration being about unity. That's something that is very much in need in today's world. So they've done something really great, not only for themselves, but really for a lot of people. They brought a lot of people joy. And it's something I've never seen in my lifetime. Biggest reunion of all time.”

As for whether he ever got the call to, perhaps, guest star at one of the shows, Marr replies with a laugh. “Well, there were three very, very loud guitar players up there, because Gem [Archer] has got a big sound as well, and between Bonehead [Paul Arthurs] and Noel, I think there's plenty of decent jackets up there as well. They don't need me in a good jacket either!”

In more recent Oasis news, band co-founder and rhythm guitarist Bonehead recently announced he's temporarily pulling out of the rest of the reunion shows following his cancer diagnosis.

Every guitarist has a missing gear story. Whether it’s a stolen electric guitar or a pedal that mysteriously disappears right after soundcheck, it happens to the best of us.

Unfortunately, Johnny Marr has himself mixed up in a “missing gear” story at this very moment – and he's been pleading online with UPS to help him recover his lost equipment.

Days before kicking off a run of shows, Marr has taken to X to air that his guitars have gone missing, alleging UPS has misplaced, or even lost, a fair few of his touring instruments.

“Dear UPS where are my guitars?” he wrote on X. “They disappeared a week ago. I’m hearing from you now that they’ve been lost. Explain.”

The guitarist goes on to tag Fender and Gibson – meaning that he had at least a couple of Fenders and Gibsons in the mix. However, the final straw for Marr came when he was asked to provide some, er, visual support.

“Asking me to describe what my guitars look like is not filling me with confidence,” Marr continues. “They look exactly like the ones you put in one of your delivery vans days ago. Remember?”

"Look for one that says ‘80’s Icon’ on the case and another one that says ‘Woke As Fuck,’” he quips.

While UPS is reportedly investigating the matter, as of the time of writing, Marr hasn't issued an update on his missing gear.

Late last year, the Smiths guitarist launched a new signature Martin M-7, whose specs don’t stick to the script.

Some producers find their niche and stick to it. Others, like two-time Grammy winner Andrew Watt prefer to challenge themselves with each new project.

He’s made himself at home while working with pop heavyweights like Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, and Lady Gaga and rock royalty alike: see Ozzy Osbourne, Pearl Jam, and the perpetually shirtless Iggy Pop for evidence.

His ability to spearhead success stories has made him one of the most in-demand producers in the business. A guitarist first, he’s also played on most of the records he’s worked on and his chops have proved as versatile as they come each and every time. So how does he do it?

“It’s not about ‘your thing.’ In the studio, it’s about what’s right for the song,” Watt tells Guitar World. “There are so many musicians that you hear or see live that you could be blown away by, but once they get into the studio, they can’t come up with parts that will last forever.

“That’s what being in the studio is about. It’s about a great part, something that makes a kid want to go and play guitar, or something that’s just accentuating rhythmic accents or providing a good accompaniment to what’s being sung.”

The studio, he feels, is a humanizing experience. When the songs are in the can, artists can waltz onto stages across the globe, play rock star, and feel 10 feet tall. The experiences to get to that point, however, are where an artist can be challenged, and belittled even, if artistic struggles get the better of them.

David Gilmour recently said that his 2024 album Luck and Strange was the best thing he’d put out since The Dark Side of the Moon. That was thanks, in part, to the fact that producer Charlie Andrew (Alt-J, Wolf Alice) didn't care about his prestigious back catalog. His role was to challenge Gilmour and ensure the record was the best it could be.

“He has a wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine. He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that,” Gilmour explained. “He said things like, 'Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?' and 'Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?'”

Watt’s approach is wholly similar. For whoever he works with, he has but one burning question.

“What’s the part?” he asks. “That’s what leads everything – providing a groove for the song or a good chord base for the song to do its thing, and for the message of what’s being sung to hit someone in the heart. I’m parts-focused, and I would say that is the most important thing when being in the studio.

“It’s not just about the jam,” he continues. “Even the Grateful Dead had parts, you know what I mean? It’s about finding the part.”

Working on Patient Number 9 with Ozzy – a record that looks like it might be the Prince of Darkness’ last – saw Watt recruit a trio of guitar legends in Jeff Beck, Tony Iommi, and Eric Clapton. Still, when it comes to a player who understands this mentality better than the rest, he always refers to a British indie rock legend: Johnny Marr.

“That guy’s parts on every single song he’s on, no matter what the artist is,” he enthuses. “Whenever he plays, he has his tone and sound, but he’s just sculpting these perfect parts, weaving in and out of the song, even if the song is written to what he’s playing.”

Watt’s full interview with Guitar World, which charts the evolution of his producing career, his love of Black Sabbath, and his role in the band's star-studded final show, will be published in the near future.

Given that it was designed by the man who quit The Smiths at the peak of their powers in 1987 – having single-handedly invented indie-rock – perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Johnny Marr’s new signature Martin M-7 doesn’t stick to the script.

Teaming with the fabled Pennsylvania-based luthier for the project is a logical move: Marr has been loyal to the Martin brand since he hired his first D-28 for The Smiths’ 1985 Meat Is Murder album (and refused to give it back).

But from the hybrid body shape to the three-piece back – not to mention the pièce de résistance, an octave G string – the 61-year-old’s creation is anything but a cynical rebadge, its widescreen jangle and seventh tuning peg making fans question their eyes and ears when he walks on stage.

“You have these instruments that you already think are perfection, so, in my case, the D-28 and D-35,” he considers. “But then, when you change or personalise one aspect, you start getting into invention…”

How did this collaboration start?

“Well, Fred Greene [Martin’s VP of Product Management] contacted me a couple of years ago. We got together at a show in Pennsylvania, near the Martin factory, and about halfway through our conversation, I realised I was being invited to invent my dream Martin out of thin air. Which was such a privilege and surprise.

“What Fred drew out of me were my enthusiasms about different aspects of the guitar. So the M-7 and M-6 [the standard six-string equivalent] were designed very organically. I realised I was daydreaming of this ideal acoustic.”

The acoustic has always been in your toolkit, hasn’t it?

“Yeah. My connection to acoustic guitars goes back to the very first guitar sound I was drawn to, which was the strumming of Don Everly on Wake Up Little Susie. But at the same time, also, C’mon Everybody by Eddie Cochran, where the acoustics are layered and loud. There’s this idea that acoustic guitars are about fingerpicking and folk accompaniment.

“I’m an acolyte of Bert Jansch, so I can testify to that. But that really loud, layered, straightforward strumming on those rock ’n’ roll records is a singular sound. You hear Jeff Lynne pay homage to it on Runnin’ Down A Dream by Tom Petty. Or Queen Of Hearts by Dave Edmunds. They’re all echoes of this signature technique that snagged me when I was six or seven.

“I’ve had a lifetime of doing this now, all my adult life. And I’ve always incorporated acoustic guitars into what I do. I mean, this thing I’m talking about – just really driving the acoustic into the ground – I did it on a song from my last solo album called Counter Clock World.

“Other times, I’m playing in tunings, which is something I got from Joni Mitchell, via David Crosby. Through all the records I’ve made, I was very deliberate in putting acoustic guitars to the foreground.”

You’ve said Rory Gallagher was the player who turned you onto Martins.

“Well, that was the first time I ever saw a D-35, when Rory used to do Out On The Western Plain. Sadly, but luckily for me, I got to play that very D-35, not long after Rory passed away.

“And then, my D-28 that I got in the Smiths days in around ’85 – I hired that, and within about 10 minutes, I said to myself, ‘This is not going back.’ That one has magic in it, and I’ve done a lot with it over the years. But then, almost to break out of that, when I started playing with Bert, I used a 70s D-35.

“When I was a kid, I could name the owner and whereabouts of every guitar within a 20-mile radius. And as an adult, I can reel off a whole load of musicians and what acoustic guitar they own.

“For example, Bernard Butler’s got an amazing J-200, as does Ronnie Wood. Then again, one of the best D-28s I ever played belonged to Beth Orton. They really make an impression on me, these guitars. Always have done.”

Let’s talk about the M-7’s flagship feature. What inspired that octave G?

“My friend Bill Puplett – who is sadly no longer with us, but he worked on my guitars from 1987 – we had a conversation about a British blues player in the ’60s. I’ve forgotten his name, but he added an extra tuning peg, pin and string to his acoustic, and pioneered this seven-string model.

“I also saw Roger McGuinn talking about his signature model on stage in the late ’90s. I’d never played a seven-string – or heard one in person. But the concept intrigued me and I hoped it would do what I thought it’d do, which was to behave, technically, like a regular six-string acoustic but have something that just delights your ear.”

Sonically, the M-7 seems like a close cousin of a 12-string guitar.

“Over the years, I’ve always kept up playing 12-string. Every so often, I’ll go through phases of playing 12-string to keep my acoustic chops up and not get lazy.

“And then, a few days into that, I always go through the same thing, which is, I think, ‘I’m going to get rid of every six-string I own. There isn’t a better sound than this, and anyone who bitches about them being hard to grapple with – buy a tuner.’

“However, sometimes you just don’t want all of that high-octave stuff. So my M-7 does what you think it’s going to do, but it sounds like it’s got added production on it. When I’ve been using it live, I tend to forget that it’s even got the high octave on it.

“And then, sometimes, I’ll really dig in and make a point of playing a little more around that octave. I’ve been living with it now for a long time and I’ve found that regular six-strings almost sound like they’re missing something to me now.”

It’s that little bit of extra harmonic information, isn’t it?

“Exactly. Within minutes, you forget it’s there. But you’d notice if it disappeared.

“In spite of that, it was my idea to do the six-string version [M-6] because when I was talking to other players, I could see that when I said ‘seven-string’, they got stuck on that information and I had to qualify what I’d done by saying, ‘But even without the seventh string, it’s still a great instrument.’ I thought we should offer people who may only want one luxury instrument the option of not having that seventh string.

“The six-string version is killer anyway because of all the other things about it. Y’know, the bracing, the shallower M-style body, the three-piece back, et cetera. The neck, as well, is not trying to be all things to all men.

“Which I find frustrating with some modern guitars because in trying to please everyone, sometimes the feel is just so generic. So I was very specific about the dimensions and absolutely adamant that we didn’t have any satin finish nonsense on the back.”

You’re not a fan of satin necks?

“As I understand it, satin necks were a ’90s idea. But I’m of the opinion: ‘If it’s too problematic moving your hand up and down a glossy neck, you’re in the wrong job, mate.’

“I used to read that in the ’80s with some metal players: ‘Oh, I can’t handle it when there’s too much gloss on the neck.’ The only person who’s allowed to say that is Eddie Van Halen.

“I’ve got friends who have taken sandpaper to the neck because they can’t handle the gloss. But it’s like, ‘Stop being a baby. Put the hours in and wear it down yourself.’”

How did you settle on the body shape?

“The seventh string was the first thing I thought of, and then the dimensions of the M-7 was the last remaining piece. I said to Martin, ‘Can I make the front like a D-28 and the back like a D-35: has anyone ever done that?’

“What I love about both the six- and seven-string version is that the bottom is essentially the size of a dreadnought but the depth means that if you want to play unaccompanied arpeggios and do the West Coast thing – without a pick, just with fingers – it really holds up. But then, if you hammer it like a rhythm guitar, it sounds like The Who.”

Martin guitars have a reputation for mighty bottom-end.

“That’s right. I’ve got a friend in a well-known band, and he’s sometimes peeved me about my use of Martins because he says they have unnecessary bottom-end. My retort was always: ‘Well, you need to learn to play properly using the lower strings and start writing songs in tunings.’ Because he’s a Hummingbird and J-200 freak.

“But with my signature models, I’m trying to do that thing where they sound good recorded and they will take that really punchy rhythm playing. That’s why I say it sounds like The Who. I think a bit of that is down to them being slightly shallower than the dreadnought, but they still have the rest of those dreadnought dimensions.”

Do you find the M-6 and M-7 more comfortable than a dreadnought?

“Well, that was an unexpected bonus. As soon as it arrived, I went, ‘Oh, hello – I could get used to this.’ I’ve been touring with my seven-string and I don’t miss that extra depth of a dreadnought, particularly on stage when you’re going through a PA. You absolutely don’t need it.

“As for the electronics [LR Baggs Anthem], I just went with Martin’s advice. I’ve used them live and they sound great.”

The new model sounds like it would really sing with a guitar capo.

“I almost use capos too much. I’m trying to wean myself off ’em somewhat. I’m not joking. Just Google pictures of me: more often than not I’m using capos, and so many times on the 4th fret. For some reason, guitars like capos on the 4th fret; they sing out really well. In my live show, I move capos around all the time.

“That’s something I learnt really young, when I was copying players like Stephen Stills, and what Bert, Martin Carthy and John Renbourn were doing. These days, on electric, I use G7th capos, but the last few I’ve been using [on acoustic] were actually my old Jim Dunlops, believe it or not. They’re fantastic.”

The spruce top and rosewood body have a lovely warm finish.

“I was really pleased to get the top colour in a shade that I consider to be ‘classic’. Because there’s a lot of acoustics that come out, for some reason, in a shade I don’t like.

“Martin were great about it. I drove them a bit mad about the shade. And I had the option to relic it, but I wasn’t going to do that, given my feelings about the neck.

“The thing about old guitars is that people beat them up through playing them, and that’s what I wanted. If someone buys one of my guitars, one day it will be old. It doesn’t need to come out of the box looking pseudo-old.”

Finally, what inspired the retro-cool Souldier strap supplied with the new guitars?

“I’ve had all kinds of different designs with Souldier, and when I came to do these acoustics I wanted a classic colour scheme, and Jen [Tabor, founder] gave me a few options. Because I was a kid in the ’70s, I was seeing a lot of acoustic players, so I went for a sort of ’70s style.

“I get quite obsessive about these things, so I tried out way more designs than I ought to have, but I got there in the end. I remember when you couldn’t get decent straps – I call them the dark times.

“In the ’80s, when I was coming up in the Smiths days… Oh, man. I’d go into guitar shops and could I find one without skull and crossbones on? No. So it’s definitely progress!”

• Johnny Marr’s M-6 and M-7 are available now from Martin Guitars. 
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

It was December 2023, and backstage at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, Johnny Marr was wrestling with a dilemma. Playing the same venue the night before with a 30-piece orchestra, he’d turned to a Martin D-28, of the kind that propelled him to ’80s stardom in the Smiths, and gifted him classics like There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.

Now, flanked by elite classical musicians and facing an expectant hometown crowd for the second show, Marr found himself debating whether to give a trial by fire to the prototype of his new signature Martin M-7, which was delivered half an hour earlier.

As the man who jumped from that most cherished of British indie-rock bands with no safety net in 1987, perhaps it’s no surprise to learn that Marr took the leap of faith that night, walking from the wings with the head-turning seven-string model.

“The minute I took it out, people noticed the tuning configuration and did a double-take,” Marr tells us. “But the most striking thing is when you hear it.”

Conceptually, the M-7 is not quite without precedent. Back in 2005, that other great master of crystalline chime, Byrds icon Roger McGuinn, launched a signature Martin guitar that also offered a doubled G string.

Even so, it’s remarkable to hear how Marr’s new model sings, its jangle-ready format accentuated by a wishlist of build features including an all-solid Grand Auditorium body, full-thickness mahogany neck and three-piece back (a regular six-string, the M-6, is also available).

“It was all instinct for me,” he says. “But the really exciting thing was whether all those different features would work together as one instrument.”

Do you remember the first time you saw a Martin?

“Yeah. It would have been Rory Gallagher in 1976, when he did that acoustic bit in his set. Before that, it was Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell.

“I was just a kid then, but in the ’70s, it was mostly American artists who were playing Martins. It was the Californians’ choice. I don’t think John Martyn played Martins. And I think Bert Jansch would have played whatever he could get his hands on at the time.

“I was always into D-28s – from before I could get one, really. A lot of my heroes were playing them and I thought they were dead cool. The first Martin I got myself was the 1971 D-28 that I wrote loads of the Smiths stuff on. I got some great songs out of it, straight out of the gate, and it recorded really well.

“I think the first song I wrote on it was Well I Wonder, and I used it from the Meat Is Murder album onwards. It was from some hire company – I just refused to give it back! I did end up paying for it, by the way. And I’ve still got that guitar.”

What was so good about that particular D-28?

“Well, I think if it’s a Martin from the early ’70s, it’s gonna be a good instrument. We all know there’ll be some narky idiot on the internet who’ll want to contradict me on that – but they’re wrong.

“Every early- and mid-’70s D-28 I’ve played has always been really musical. It seems an obvious term to use about a guitar, but that’s the best way I can put it. I did notice that mine was a particularly good one. But I’ve got loads of mates who bought early-’70s Martins, and they’re all great.”

Which other Martin models have been in your lineup?

“Usually, I don’t go for lots of pearl and fancy designs. I like things that feel a little more pragmatic and straightforward. So the D-28 appealed to me on that level. That was my main six-string until the early ’90s, when I got into D-35s with Electronic and Pet Shop Boys. I guess I just fancied a change. I also used a D-41 on Strangeways, Here We Come, so I would flip between that and the D-28.”

Let’s talk about the standout feature of your new M-7 – that octave G. Were you aware of Roger McGuinn’s model?

“No, I’ve never come across it, although I saw him talking about it once. I think the idea came out of conversations with my dear friend Bill Puplett. He told me about some obscure blues player in the early ’60s who played around the clubs in Soho with a seven-string.

“Conceptually, it seemed like a good fit for me, because of the ringing thing I do. I just thought, ‘Seven strings are probably better than six.’ In that regard, anyway. I wouldn’t be interested in a seven-string electric with the low B.”

The M-7’s tone has a 12-string guitar flavor, but how does it compare to play?

“With the way I play – which is a bit of a ‘one-man band’ approach – I’m trying to play the whole song, a cross between rhythm and top lines. You can do that on a 12-string, but you have to apply yourself and you need a big breakfast. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

“I’m really glad I persevered when I was younger and it didn’t alienate me too much, because I know a few players who just don’t want to know.

“So I’m au fait with 12-strings, and the seven-string is definitely a different beast. It’s much easier to negotiate, and in terms of technique and application, it’s hardly any different to a six-string, but sound-wise, it adds a new dimension. With some of my old riffs that would have been played on a regular six-string, it sounds more like the ‘deluxe’ version.

“It’s definitely different, particularly if you lean into it with voicings that have a lot of activity on the G. What can I say? Ring ring, y’know? But some of that sound is also down to the construction of the actual guitar, more so than just the extra G string. That’s almost as significant as having that extra string, which is why we’re also doing the six-string version.”

You’re known for using dreadnoughts, but this is a Grand Auditorium.

“That’s right. I wondered whether the narrower body would be more comfortable. Had that not worked, I would have gone back to a regular size. But it makes me want to play with more attack. I’m playing more like Pete Townshend, because my ear instinctively wants me to get more juice out of it.

“I think that’s what certain players – some of whom are my friends – like out of [Gibson] J-200s and Hummingbirds, that are traditionally used for rhythm. This is a really strong rhythm guitar. I think it’s the closest that Martin has got to those rock ’n’ roll records that usually have J-200s on.”

And you specified a full-thickness neck with gloss finish?

“I have to try and talk about the neck without sounding offensive or angry. Satin finishes: why? No need. You’re really playing that fast that you need to have a satin neck? Really?

“Like, a beautiful glossy neck, that was on all the old guitars since time immemorial – your technique is so dazzling, or you’re so uncomfortable putting your hand on that gloss, or you’re so affronted by it, that we’ve had to have years of really bad finishes on necks? No need. Wear it down yourself, you lazy sod!”

Why did you decide the L.R. Baggs Anthem acoustic guitar pickup would bring out the M-7’s voice?

“It’s a little bit of a throwback to the Baggs on my D-35 I used with Bert Jansch. Bert – who was a great lover of guitar technology – always remarked on my Baggs pickup. It was a coincidence that Baggs was the Martin company’s pickup of choice anyway. So that was a lucky thing.

“It’s really nice to calibrate, the preamp is great, and then, as I was saying, I got to try it out literally 30 minutes after it arrived with an orchestra. I wasn’t sitting around for two weeks being conceptual, because there’s no better test than getting up on stage in front of 2,000 people.”

What was it about the acoustic guitar that called to you as a teenager?

“Well, unlike my pals, I didn’t feel the need to abandon the acoustic as soon as I could get an electric. It’s partly the reason why I play electric the way I do, which is born out of moving first-position chords around the neck and finding melodies within those shapes.

“A couple of my pals wanted to be Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix – and I get it. But I wasn’t intending on forming a band that sounded like Voodoo Child or Highway Star.

“I liked the sound of Bus Stop by the Hollies, and what Tony Hicks was doing on those records. Going even further back, to being a little kid, the first guitar sound I was hooked on was what Don Everly did on Wake Up Little Susie, and those early Everlys records, because my parents used to play them at parties, very loud. And the acoustic overdubs on C’mon Everybody by Eddie Cochran.”

You’ve talked about the Stooges’ Gimme Danger as a key influence.

“A hundred percent. That’s a great example, now you bring it up. And Nils Lofgren – a big track for me is Share a Little, off of Cry Tough. It’s so compressed, and because he plays with a thumbpick, he’s got so much attack on his downstrokes. The sound of that, for a long time, I thought was one of the best things I’d come across.

“He also had a band called Grin, and there’s a similar sound on a song called Love Or Else. You can hear the bridge rattling because he’s hitting it so hard. And then, of course, growing up in the U.K. in the ’70s, you can’t ignore the Who’s Pinball Wizard.”

Likewise, you’ve said you wanted your Smiths acoustic parts to have attitude…

“I was determined that this aspect of the band was going to get noticed. I was so proud for us to be an all-out guitar band, that I didn’t want to be polite about those things. The songs I’ve mentioned – the Everlys, Eddie Cochran, etc. – were in the rear-view mirror in the culture of the early ’80s. But not in mine. So it was my agenda to push that.

“You know, like on the start of Bigmouth Strikes Again, say, and Unhappy Birthday. At the time, I was conscious that no-one else was doing that, even after I’d been doing it for a few years. That was another one of the things I was proud of the band for.”

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke supposedly once said he considered the Smiths to be a powered-up folk band. Would you agree?

“Yeah, I like that. I really liked Bert Jansch. And because of Bert, I listened to Martin Carthy, John Martyn, eventually Nick Drake and Donovan. So folk is in there.

“I did go through a time where I thought of us exactly the way Thom puts it, a folk band but [fused with] the Patti Smith Group. I think I was pretty deliberate about that. And d’you know what? A lot of the Velvet Underground sounds like folk to me.”

Do you feel like the M-6 and M-7 have good songs in them?

“Oh yeah, I absolutely do. Let’s put it this way – since I got my signature Martins, I really don’t feel the need to pick anything else up.”

You could have easily just stayed in the Smiths. Where did that musical curiosity come from?

“I think it’s just my personality. I can’t remember a time when that impulse and that broad remit as a musician wasn’t there. Everything was fair game to me, although there’s definitely things I don’t like – some classical music just doesn’t resonate with me, and there’s a lot of extreme metal I’m not interested in, obviously.

“For some reason, the only word I can find for it is ‘wonder.’ It’s that, really – wonderment in music. I didn’t know it was going to happen, but working with Hans Zimmer now makes total sense to me. I had to kind of beat through the undergrowth for that privilege. But it comes as no surprise to me.”

• Find out more about Johnny Marr's signature M-7 at Martin Guitar.

Gibson has partnered with Johnny Marr to produce a highly limited run of hand-signed Gibson Les Paul signature electric guitars, which are inspired by The Smiths legend’s 1984 Les Paul Standard.

The partnership has been formalized to celebrate the first anniversary of Gibson Garage London, whose birthday will be commemorated by the Gibson Garage Fest.

News of the festival that arrived earlier this month promised it would include the release of high-profile six-strings designed in collaboration with some big-name artists, and now we have our first of the event.

As such, the new LP will be available exclusively from the Gibson Garage London starting next Friday (February 21). Only 20 will be made, and each will be hand-signed by The Smiths icon himself.

They will be up for sale at an as-yet-undisclosed price until they are sold out, following which they will be gone for good. All the profits from the LPs will be donated to Teenage Cancer Trust.

As for the guitar itself, Gibson and Marr have clearly pulled no punches, opting to recreate one of Marr’s most important Les Pauls. Specifically, they’ve reissued the Les Paul that was first played during the recording of The Smiths’ Meat is Murder record, and that promptly became one of his go-to guitars.

It featured heavily both on stage and in the studio with The Smiths, and was one of Marr’s guitars of choice during his time with The The, The Pretenders and The Cribs, as well as during his work with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Not only that, Marr once picked it as one of his favorite guitars, and revealed it to be the one he has used on more records than any other.

“I bought this guitar from A1 Repairs in Manchester for the second Smiths album, Meat Is Murder,” Marr once told The Guardian. “It may surprise some people to learn that this is the guitar I’ve used on more records than any other.

“When people think of me having a ringing sound, they usually assume it’s a Rickenbacker, Fender Telecaster or Fender Jaguar, but it’s often been this 1980s Les Paul. It’s the guitar I played on the last song the Smiths played together in concert.”

Marr has waxed lyrical about this particular Les Paul in the past, and included it in a run-down of his most prized guitars during a conversation with Guitar World last year.

“I got it to write on and used it a lot during that album,” he said at the time. “Before the Jag days, that Les Paul was on more records than any other guitar I owned. Many people think I was doing it all on the Rickenbacker in the ’80s, but a lot of the clean arpeggio stuff was done on that Les Paul.”

“These guitars are a faithful reproduction of my beloved 1984 Gibson Les Paul, bought in Manchester back in the day,” Marr explains in a new Gibson release. “It’s the guitar I’ve kept and used since that time on loads of different records, so I was beyond delighted to see it recreated in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust.

“It’s an amazing organisation that I've had an association with for about ten years. It’s a privilege to be involved in this good cause and I’m very glad to be affiliated with it, especially when it involves making a fantastic Les Paul.”

To ensure their authenticity, each guitar was created through Gibson’s Made-to-Measure program, which employs “the artisans of the Gibson Custom Shop locations in Nashville, Tennessee, and Bozeman, Montana, handcraft the world’s most desirable electric and acoustic guitars”.

It features a classic Les Paul spec sheet, and boasts the same small B50 Bigsby tailpiece that can be found on the original.

“It’s a great honour to continue our partnership with the Teenage Cancer Trust for another year, and for 2025 we have the legend that is Johnny Marr adding his support,” adds Lee Bartram, Head of Commercial, Marketing and Cultural Influence – EMEA.

“These guitars Johnny has signed take inspiration from his 1984 Gibson Les Paul Standard with Bigsby which has been featured on many British classic records over the years, and are a fitting tribute to the amazing work the TCT continue to do.”

It’s the latest addition to Marr’s stock of signatures, which now spans a number of different guitar manufacturers. Not only has Marr now been the recipient of both Fender and Gibson signature guitars, he also partnered with Martin last year for a seven-string acoustic model.

Visit Gibson to find out more.

Gibson Garage Fest will also see Jack Bruce's iconic EB-1 bass – which starred during the Cream reunion in 2005 – be put up for a one-time-only public display.

There are players who like factory-fresh satin necks, and those who don’t. Johnny Marr can very much be considered a member of the latter camp.

On paper, the appeal of a satin neck is seemingly obvious. Unlike gloss necks, those given the satin treatment promise an easy worn-in feel, and promote improved speed and better neck navigation by offering significantly less friction between the neck and fretting hand.

Gloss necks, on the other hand, are prone to becoming ‘sticky’, especially in sweatier playing scenarios, and are sometimes avoided in favor of sleeker satin.

For Marr, though, traditional gloss necks are by far the better option for players. In fact, in the new issue of Guitar World, he had some rather choice words for those who subscribe to the satin school of thought.

When asked about why he opted for a gloss neck on his new Martin M-6 and M-7 signature guitars, Marr replies, “I have to try and talk about the neck without sounding offensive or angry. Satin finishes: why? No need. You’re really playing that fast that you need to have a satin neck? Really?

Marr’s comments are certainly going to cause a stir, owing to the strong popularity of satin necks and the sheer number of players who consider reduced friction and a smoother neck – one they don’t stick to – to be the superior option.

Indeed, satin necks are becoming increasingly the norm on modern builds from the likes of PRS and Fender, and many DIY players are partial to sanding down gloss necks in order to speed up the process of achieving a vintage worn-in feel without having to spend years manually doing it themselves through playing.

Of course, there are those who prefer gloss necks, and there are plenty of companies (Gibson immediately springs to mind) that remain loyal to the more high-end finish.

Marr is one of them, and as he goes on to explain, he doesn’t feel like there’s a need to tinker with the time-tested treatment – and he’s especially skeptical of those who artificially sand their own gloss necks.

“Like, a beautiful glossy neck, that was on all the old guitars since time immemorial – your technique is so dazzling, or you’re so uncomfortable putting your hand on that gloss, or you’re so affronted by it, that we’ve had to have years of really bad finishes on necks? No need. Wear it down yourself, you lazy sod!”

It's a point of view Marr shares for all his guitars. His signature Fender Jaguar, for example, is inspired by his own 1965 model and that, too, features a full-on gloss neck.

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features the full interview with Johnny Marr.

Martin has partnered with Johnny Marr to produce two new signature guitars – one of which is an oddball seven-string acoustic guitar.

The Smiths legend has become widely known for his left-field electric guitar creations. Back in 2021, for example, he recorded new music with a bonkers nine-pickup Fender Stratocaster, dubbed ‘The Spirit Strat’.

Speculation that a similarly out-there acoustic was in the works recently arose, after Marr was spotted playing an unidentified seven-string Martin at various gigs over the past few weeks.

Now, Marr has officially injected some of that experimental spirit into the Martin M-7, which offers a generous Grand Auditorium body size and throws an octave G string into the mix to help deliver that unmistakable Marr jangle.

Joined by a standard M-6, both instruments feature mahogany necks with a slightly thinner nut width for “a unique feel”, as well as a unique hybrid design that combines the width of a Jumbo guitar with the thickness of a regular 000.

Other specs include a spruce top, East Indian rosewood back and sides, and an ebony fingerboard that boasts 20 frets. Ebony has also been used for the bridge, while a scalloped X Brace pattern and LR Baggs Anthem electronics can both be found under the hood.

What's also notable about the M-7 is the fact that, despite having seven strings, it only has six bridge pins. That's because the two G strings share one pin – meaning the fretboard hasn't had to be drastically widened in order to accommodate an extra string.

“I've now got my own signature guitar that makes me sound like in the studio when I've put this really great old compressor on it with a great mic and a little hint of the high string in there,” says Marr.

“All of these things that I do on record using a few guitars, I've got it all in the one guitar that I can carry around with me, and if I go play with a pal or go and guest with someone, I sound like me.”

As Martin notes, the M-6 and M-7 are the latest footnotes in Marr’s storied association with the brand. Over the years, he’s loyally played a D-28, and famously used his 1971 model to record hits such as There Is a Light That Never Goes Out and Cemetery Gates.

The Martin M-6 and M-7 models are available now for $4,999 apiece.

Visit Martin to find out more.

In the final issue of Total Guitar, the esteemed British guitar magazine is celebrating 30 years of history with an epic search through its sprawling archives. One of the highlights that has been unearthed is a classic interview with Noel Gallagher – where he discusses the time Oasis nearly had Johnny Marr as a second guitarist.

The interview dates back to a moment in time when the Britpop band were finishing work on their fourth album, Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants.

During that interview at Wheeler End Studios, just outside London, Gallagher reflected on handling nearly all of the guitar and bass parts on the album due to the departure of two founding members: guitarist Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs and bassist Paul 'Guigsy' McGuigan. He also revealed how Smiths legend Johnny Marr had been ready to step in if needed.

“I never really wanted to play lead,” Gallagher admitted. “I’m more of a rhythm guitar player. That’s how I write.”

“Johnny Marr offered his services to the band. He said, ‘If you can’t find anyone I’ll step in for a while’. And we said, ‘Fine’. But then we recruited Gem [Archer]. Johnny was just gonna save us if we didn’t have anyone.”

Marr and the Gallagher brothers go way back. In addition to sharing the common thread of being from Manchester-Irish families, the veteran guitarist met Oasis when they were still relatively unknown.

As the story goes, Marr noticed they were taking a long time tuning between songs, so he loaned Noel a couple of his guitars, including a Les Paul previously owned by The Who's John Entwistle.

For Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, Gallagher continued the tradition of using Marr's guitars.

“I got this Les Paul from Johnny,” he said. “There were really modern pickups in it and I didn’t like it. So I tossed the pickups out, took some from another guitar, and put them in this.” He quipped, “It’s a better guitar now, so he’s not getting it back!”

Following the band’s much-hyped reunion announcement, a handful of Oasis guitars – including Noel’s Definitely Maybe Epiphone Les Paul – exceeded initial estimates at a recent Sotheby’s auction.

Johnny Marr's 1988 Fender American vintage 1962 reissue Stratocaster and 1980s Mesa Boogie amplifier rig are expected to reach £15,000-£25,000 ($19,500-$32,500) and £2,000-£4,000 ($2,600-5,200) at an upcoming auction.

The Strat, which features an Olympic White finish, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, upgraded EMG pickups and upgraded hardware, is in good condition, despite having a few scuffs from its heavy usage.

“This guitar was given to Johnny Marr by Fender back in 1988. And in 1988 itself, he joined The The after a short stint with The Pretenders. The seller purchased it directly from Johnny Marr,” says auctioneer and guitar expert Luke Hobbs from the auction house Gardiner Houlgate.

The guitar was Marr's touring instrument during his tenure with the English post-punk band The The, particularly during their lengthy 1989 to 1990 The The Versus the World tour.

It was made in the premises that later became the Fender Custom Shop, and was crafted to the same specs as Marr's favorite guitar, his 1962 Strat, which was too valuable to risk damage or theft.

Johnny Marr's guitar tech, Phil Powell, kitted it with EMG pickups during the American leg of the tour to deal with hum issues. Moreover, it has an old-style Precision bass brass knob, which allows for better grip.

The guitar can be spotted in the live concert film The The Versus the World at The Royal Albert Hall and was featured heavily in promotional material released during that era.

The Strat comes in its original case, which comes with Marr's personal thumb pick and a custom Ernie Ball ‘Johnny’ plectrum, various photos of Marr, a signed provenance note and signed headstock, a postcard detailing the guitar's use, and various magazines from that era.

Alongside the Strat, the auction features Marr's 1980s Mesa/Boogie amplifier rig. This comprises a Mesa/Boogie studio preamp, quad preamp, Simul-Class 295 power amplifier and footswitch, bearing live settings hand-marked to the control knobs.

In a 1997 The Guitar Magazine interview, Marr talked about his rig during this era: “I decided it was time to concentrate on playing just one guitar onstage through an entire set and letting technology do the rest of the work.

“In the Smiths, I used to take 14 guitars out on the road; in The The I’d just take two Strats… my rack cost more than the entire guitar collection! But it was all about playing, which was great.”

The auction is set to take place on September 3, alongside a limited-edition Malmbeg ABBA 40th anniversary star guitar, left-handed Gordon Smith GS-2 inspired by John Lennon's Gibson Les Paul Junior, and a 1973 Gordon Smith guitar made for Nightwing's Alec Johnson.

For more information, visit Gardiner Houlgate.

Johnny Marr has long been known as “the man who would not solo”. But that’s kinda inaccurate, as Marr has soloed, sometimes in decidedly sing-song fashion, like on the Smiths’ Shoplifters of the World, for example. So maybe, Marr should be known as “the man who used crystal-clear arpeggios and interesting chord inversions rather than pulling off divebombs via big-ass amps” instead. Then again, legends via folklore aren’t born through literalism.

Anyway, as per the perpetual positive vibes slung Marr’s way, we can agree that he’s the proverbial king of the antiheroes – regardless of whether he solos. None of that has mattered to Marr, though, as he continues to craft landscape-defining indie music. But beyond that music, Marr’s life has been defined by utter devotion to all things six-string.

Marr is so intertwined with his now-massive collection of curios that he’s decided to celebrate them via Marr’s Guitars (HarperCollins, 2023), a 288-page book that reads more like a life story than an art project. To that end, Marr agrees.

“I’m glad it reads that way, because it’s basically my life story through the lens of photographing my guitars”, he says. “The original inspiration came through photo shoots with Pat Graham while he was working on a book called Instrument. I recognized his unique way of photographing guitars, which I found very beautiful. 

“Pat takes these close-up, abstract shots that show a bit of rust on the bridge or a scuff on the neck, and I was fascinated by that. I originally wanted Marr’s Guitars to be full of abstract photos, but as more guitars were photographed, it evolved.”

If you’ve been following along with Marr, you’ll know he’s almost never without his trusty Fender Jaguar. It’s understandable, as he has done some incredible things with the guitar that figuratively and literally bears his signature. 

When asked what drew him to the offset, Marr says, “The Jag, specifically my signature Jag, is a cross between a Gretsch and a Rickenbacker. And it plays like a Fender, but sonically, it’s like playing all three. It’s completely custom-made to sound like me. Like the Rickenbacker, the Jag made me play like me. 

“When I picked up Isaac Brock’s [Modest Mouse] ’63 Jag while writing Dashboard, it was life-changing. And here I am still playing the Jag. I don’t even like guitar changes in my live set.”

Putting together Marr’s Guitars has re-established Marr’s connection with many long-relegated axes in his extensive collection. “When I picked up my Epiphone Casino that I hadn’t played in 25 years, I was transported back to the last time I played it. When I grabbed my green Fender Tele I got in ’84, I remembered the clothes I wore when I got it. It’s hard to explain; guitar players will know what I’m talking about.

That “hard to explain” thing is precisely what Marr’s Guitars is about. Sure, Marr has a massive, covet-worthy collection of guitars, but if we step outside the grandeur and dig into the crux of the thing, undoubtedly, one can understand the relationship. More so than any other instrument, a guitar in hand can transport the player to a time when a literal millisecond defined a feeling.

“There’s tiny little messages you get from your brain when you put your hand on a neck,” Marr says. “You expect it to be slim, and it’s not. It’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is like a 1960 neck.’ Or you pick up a Tele, and you’re like, ‘I was expecting this to be much lighter,’ but you remember why it’s not.”

Marr smiles before adding, “And when you plug it in, you hear that sound and the nuances that make old, non-generic guitars different. The pickups are hand-wound, and human beings carved out the neck. You forget how individual guitars are and how they get that character – until you pick them up again.

“A vintage guitar isn’t rad because it’s old and cool,” he says. “It’s about the unusual things that – as soon as you grab it – make you say, ‘Okay, yeah, that’s right. I remember that about this guitar.’”

Tell me about how you came upon your Rickenbacker 330. 

“I got it when the Smiths started taking off. It was the first ‘Does this mean I’ve made it?’ thing I got. Before that, I had been playing a Gretsch [Chet Atkins] Super Axe and constantly snapping strings because I was tuned up a whole step. I was forever snapping strings, and when the band got a deal, I got the Rickenbacker to be my backup guitar,’ but that changed because it was better than my ‘main guitar.’ [Laughs]”

Did you immediately know it was special?

“I knew it would make me play a certain way about chords and arpeggios. I knew the strength of the Smiths in those early years was the chord progressions I was using, and I didn’t want to do anything that reminded me – or anyone else – of pentatonic stuff. 

“The Rickenbacker steered me in the harmonic direction of unusual arpeggios and chord changes. It was an excellent instinctive choice; I’ve had friends buy Rickenbackers, and they’re never as good as mine. It turns out that in the early ’80s, Rickenbacker made some particularly good guitars.”

Have you figured out why?

“I used to think it was the finish. But then Martin Kelly [musician, label boss] told me that John Hall took over Rickenbacker in ’84 and spent 18 months getting all the specifications improved. 

“And it’s often said that ’86 is the vintage year, but I bought mine in ’84 when John Hall took over the company, and it’s been great. I’ve always had an instinct that those few years in the ’80s were particularly good, and I was right. Those were the comeback years for Rickenbacker.”

And how about the 12-string sunburst ES-335 used during the Strangeways, Here We Come sessions?

“At that point, I liked 12-string guitars, but like almost every other player on the planet, I learned that they took some application. I had been playing a Rickenbacker, and a 12-string was a hassle for an impatient guy like me, who was now working with some impatient tech. 

“I had to get used to it, and it was a bitch keeping it in tune, especially those ’60s ones. But when I discovered the ES-335 12-string, I said, “Okay, let’s give this a go,” and it immediately clicked. It was a big guitar, but the humbuckers were dialed down and a little darker. That was the guitar I gave Bernard [Butler] from Suede, who remains the custodian of that guitar.”

Do you subscribe to the idea that we’re only temporary stewards of our guitars, as the best guitars will outlast us?

“That’s a lovely notion, and I agree with that, but that’s not why I’ve given guitars away. I gave them away because I’m close with people like Bernard, Noel [Gallagher] and [Radiohead’s] Ed [O’Brien], and I did it as a sign of respect. It was an act of sharing because I’m close to them. 

“As you can see from the book, I’ve got a lot of guitars, so it was a way of letting go and letting my friends love them. But I will say the Oasis thing with Noel was different because in the very early days, they’d only played a few shows, and no-one knew they’d be so big. I just liked Noel and wanted to help him as he was just starting. When I was starting, I got a helping hand, and I wanted to help a fellow Mancunian, Irish fellow, so I gave him the Les Paul I wrote Panic on.”

These days, you’re most often seen with your Fender Jaguar. Does it carry the same cache as some of the guitars you’ve had longer?

“Oh, there’s no competition when it comes to that. No guitar will ever come close to the Jag because I’ve played it exclusively for years. I’ve had these moments with the Jag, like doing the [James] Bond thing with Billie Eilish, the Inception thing, and playing Glastonbury. 

“When I had 60,000 people singing There Is a Light That Never Goes Out back at me… I’ll never forget that because it was so brilliant. As for the older guitars, I became famous for using those through photographs from the ’80s, and they were close to me. But nothing comes close to the journey I’ve had with the Jag.”

Is there one guitar of yours that people don’t pay enough attention to?

“One guitar that people who have followed me probably know about but maybe don’t realize is such a big deal is my ’85 Gibson Les Paul. It’s the cherry red one I got when the Smiths were about to start recording Meat Is Murder. 

“I got it to write on and used it a lot during that album. Before the Jag days, that Les Paul was on more records than any other guitar I owned. Many people think I was doing it all on the Rickenbacker in the ’80s, but a lot of the clean arpeggio stuff was done on that Les Paul.”

One oddball guitar I can recall is the nine-pickup Strat used in your Spirit, Power, and Soul video.

“Ah, yes. [Laughs] That was created by some crazy loon, who I imagine is somewhere in the north of England; they did that to a guitar. I got that Strat in the early ’90s, while I was out with a young Noel Gallagher. 

“Back then, I used to drink, and when Noel and I went to a guitar shop after a long night out, I saw that guitar, and it made total sense to me. But the thing about that guitar is it sounds terrific! There are nine on/off switches and nine out-of-phase positions. She’s a guitar tech’s nightmare, but I used it on [2022’s] Fever Dreams Pts. 1-4, and I wrote Spirit, Power, and Soul on it.”

Are there any guitars or tones you’re still chasing?

“The answer is not in buying another guitar, only because I bought one a few days ago. But I am sort of working on a sound… I’m chasing a sound I hope to use on the next record. You can have all these things, like a Uni-Vibe; I can have that, but I’ll only ever sound like Jimi Hendrix, you know? 

“As the years go by, it gets harder to do things that haven’t been done, and you end up sounding like yourself anyway. So there’s always a bit of chasing, but maybe the point of it all is adventure. I look around at all this tech, and I remind myself not to let it overtake me. I love adventure, but what I love most is the element of mystery that comes with it.”

• Marr's Guitars is out now via HarperCollins.

Gibson has rekindled its partnership with Noel Gallagher to produce an ultra-limited, special-edition reissue of the Oasis legend’s 1978 Les Paul Custom, which will be released to celebrate the grand opening of the Gibson Garage UK.

Notably, the incredibly classy electric guitar is based on the same ‘78 LP that was given to Gallagher by Johnny Marr. The guitar quickly became a studio and stage stalwart for Noel, who used it extensively for both live performances and recording sessions.

For example, the Les Paul – which Gallagher identifies as one of his favorite instruments – can be heard on (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, and also starred in the music video for Whatever.

As mentioned, this particular six-string has been created to mark the opening of the Gibson Garage UK, which will officially open its doors to the London public on Saturday, 24 February. As such, only 20 of these instruments will be made, and they will be available exclusively from the store.

Further still, all profits from the sale of the personally hand-signed ‘78 Les Paul Customs will be donated to the Teenage Cancer Trust.

“The Les Paul Custom that Johnny gave me in 1994 was always one of my favourite guitars and it carries a lot of history,” Gallagher said in a statement. “The reissues are great, they feel almost identical. I am delighted they are being sold to support the Teenage Cancer Trust.”

It’s a statement release from the two parties, so it comes as no surprise that Gibson has made every effort to make the ‘78 LP as close to the source material as possible. 

To do so, the brand’s Custom Shop Murphy Lab was involved in the project, with the guitar featuring a lightly aged Ebony finish, uncovered humbuckers and classic Custom flourishes, including the block inlays and sleek binding.

As Gallagher himself says, the guitar has a pretty intriguing history. It’s well documented that Marr gifted instruments to a young Gallagher while Oasis were still finding their feet – in fact, the 1978 Les Custom wasn’t even the first one that the Smiths legend bestowed to his compatriot.

Before that, Marr lent a struggling Gallagher a 1960 Les Paul, which ended up smashed after Noel attempted to deal with a stage invader at a gig.

As the story goes, Marr then received a call asking for another guitar to take its place. In response, he supplied a replacement 1978 Les Paul Custom. The same Les Paul, it turned out, that featured on The Queen Is Dead.

“Me giving Noel those guitars has become such a big story over the years, but people don’t realise that at the time he wasn’t who he is now,” Marr told The Guardian. “He was just a kid from Burnage.

“I had no idea Oasis were going to go on to such big things. I did it because he was in need, because I was lucky and had lots of guitars, and because I wished someone had done it for me.”

Over the years, Gallagher treated the ‘78 LP to a few tonal and cosmetic adjustments, including swapping out the original humbuckers for a pair of P-90s that he had cribbed from a Gibson Firebird, and covering the body with some gnarly stickers. The control knobs and pickguard were also changed during Gallagher’s custodianship. 

“Somewhere down the line, the pickups had got damaged, and I had taken them out,” Gallagher said of the Les Paul (which looks like a totally different beast now) in an interview with That Pedal Show. “That guitar is the heaviest piece of equipment I’ve ever picked up.”

For this release, the Les Paul has been revived in its original-looking format, complete with the humbuckers, cream pickguard, amber control knobs, and the coil-tap switch that Marr had originally had implemented into the instrument – the same coil-tap, it should be noted, that helped create the opening lead line of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

That it’s been revived for such a good cause makes this release all the more significant. 

“These guitars are steeped in their own musical history celebrating the iconic moment one British music legend gifted a priceless guitar to another, like the handing of a baton,” said Teenage Cancer Trust Head of Music and Entertainment, Jane Ashton.

“Our sincere thanks to Gibson guitars, long-term supporters of Teenage Cancer Trust, and our Ambassador Noel Gallagher. The money raised will make an enormous difference in the lives of young people with cancer and could fund two Outreach nurses for an entire year, helping us to reach more young people in the UK no matter where they live.”

Only 20 of Gallagher's hand-signed '78 Les Paul Custom will be made, and they will be exclusively available at the opening of the Gibson Garage UK this Saturday. A price is yet to be revealed.

This isn't the first time Gibson has partnered with Noel Gallagher to produce a guitar. In August 2922, the brand recreated two of Gallagher's prized guitars – the 1960 ES-335 and Epiphone Riviera.

Over the course of Brian Fallon’s three-album solo career – all recorded and released while on hiatus from his main gig fronting the Gaslight Anthem – he never played any of his other band’s songs with his solo group, despite having sure-fire crowd pleasers like 45 and The ’59 Sound in his pocket.

“I just felt it was weird to have another band playing your old band’s songs,” Fallon says from his home in New Jersey, where he’s been tinkering with amps ahead of the October 27 release of History Books, the first Gaslight Anthem album since 2014’s Get Hurt.

“I guess it’s not weird if you’re Noel Gallagher and your band’s broken up and you’re not getting back together – or Johnny Marr,” he says. “But for us, it was less about it being over and more like, we just don’t know what the next move is. And it took about eight years to figure that out.”

Being off the road for a year and a half following the release of the introspective Local Honey in 2020 gave him space to think about what might come next for his solo career. The answer was easy: nothing. “I was like, ‘I’m good,’” he says. “I feel like I did what I wanted to do for myself, and I really did not have anything else to add.”

While at first he was hesitant to whisper the word “reunion” even to himself, he began writing songs that felt a lot like his old band. Positive Charge, the first song fans heard from History Books this summer, was also the first song he wrote in that initial spurt of creativity. “I was like, maybe I wanna write rock songs again,” he says, “and then that came out so quickly and easily, like it was waiting there for me to grab it.”

Fallon slow-walked the steps to the band’s eventual reset in 2022 from there, first calling on drummer Benny Horowitz, whom he credits as the “unofficial spiritual advisor” of the band. 

They talked, and then they jammed some of Fallon’s new songs. Once they brought in guitarist Alex Rosamilia and bassist Alex Levine, they dove into the back catalog without a plan, calling out songs on the fly to see if they still felt like the Gaslight Anthem. 

That reconnection inaugurated the second era of the band, consummated with sold-out shows on both sides of the Atlantic later that year. But none of it would have happened without the spark of Positive Charge, an archetypal slab of their barnburning style – “Gaslight Anthem 101,” as Fallon says – that connects right out of the gate with tortured licks from the J Mascis school of phrasing and overdrive. 

As they prepared to record History Books, they reached far beyond their early punk influences, and even beyond the oft-cited inspiration they gleaned from Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen (who turns up on the title track). In the process, they focused more than ever on guitar solos, the time-honored rock cliché that even Nirvana and Sonic Youth embraced.

“Everybody knows we came up on Bruce Springsteen, the Clash, all that stuff,” Fallon says, “and that’s true. But the music that was ours, when we were 11, was Jane’s Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, all that stuff. It was very guitar focused. So I said to Alex, ‘I want the music to be more focused on guitar solos, and we should both try to do ’em.’”

True to his word, the 10 songs on History Books pack more adventurous guitar work than much of the band’s previous five albums. Despite their straightforward, punk-influenced heartland rock sound, Fallon and Rosamilia aren’t necessarily boxed into off-the-shelf pentatonic runs. 

On Autumn, Rosamilia veers into Come As You Are territory by manipulating an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone, the same pedal Kurt Cobain used on the Nirvana hit, with producer Peter Katis ratcheting the intensity with more effects on his side of the callback mic. 

“Peter comes in with this really hard tremolo, and he’s stuttering the guitar part while Alex is making a bend, and the two of ’em are insane together, and I’m loving this,” he says. The taste of freedom led to more experimentation in sounds, an about-face from the more conventional guitar sounds of their previous work.

“We kept the sound pretty traditional, always – clean guitar, tape echo, whatever Bruce Springsteen and Joe Strummer had, that’s what I want,” he says. “And when we did [Autumn], we were like, but that’s not ours. What’s ours? And what was ours was all this noise-rock insanity, ’cause we came from this angular punk.”

Those out-there sounds are an even bigger departure for Fallon, whose singer-songwriter solo albums became more mid-tempo and employed more acoustic instruments from 2016’s Painkillers through Local Honey. But with History Books, he not only slams the cover down, he practically tosses it onto the pyre. 

“Springsteen for sure taught me how to write songs, but Hot Water Music and Pearl Jam and Dinosaur Jr. and Fugazi and Sonic Youth, and even the Beastie Boys, that’s who taught me how to play those songs that I’d learned to write,” he says. 

“We didn’t know how to play as well as Jimi Hendrix or even Mike McCready or any of those guys, but we definitely could go [imitates guitar noise] with a fuzz pedal, and it was great. That’s the first time you felt like you had Thor’s hammer and there was electricity running through your guitar and shooting out into this lame town that you lived in. And that’s why you get into music – to kick stuff over, you know?”

• History Books is out now via Rich Mahogany Recordings.

Hello, and welcome to Essential Guitar Tracks. As you may well know, every seven days (or thereabouts), we endeavor to bring you a selection of songs from across the guitar universe, all with one thing in common: our favorite instrument plays a starring role.

Our goal is to give you an overview of the biggest tracks, our editor’s picks and anything you may have missed. We’re pushing horizons and taking you out of your comfort zone – because, as guitarists, that’s something we should all be striving for in our playing. 

So, here are our highlights from the past seven days – now with a Spotify playlist…

blink-182 – More Than You Know

Released alongside Box Car Racer-esque ballad One More Time, More Than You Know strikes the opposite tone to the feelgood pop-punk of Edging – Tom DeLonge’s first song of his second reunion with blink-182 – and taps right into the band’s ‘serious’ eras.

The track ranks among blink’s heaviest offerings thanks to Travis Barker’s relentless kick drum work in the chorus, but more importantly, Tom DeLonge’s knack for an irresistible moving octave shape riff shows no sign of abating.

All of which bodes well for the reunited trio’s first album since 2011, One More Time…, which drops next month. (MAB)

Joanne Shaw Taylor – Sweet ’Lil Lies 

No, this isn’t a blues-y rerun of Fleetwood Mac’s Little Lies – it’s the latest track from Telecaster titan Joanne Shaw Taylor, who brings her A-game (both in terms of tone and phrasing) for more than five minutes of top-notch noodling.

Seriously, if you’re looking for examples of flawless blues guitar tone, look no further. Taylor tightens things up for a compressed, just-over-the-edge-of-breakup lead tone that she channels into not one, but two of the finest blues solos you’ll hear this week. (MO)

The Breeders – Divine Mascis (feat. J Mascis)

Two giants of alt-rock unite for this previously unreleased alternative joyride through The Breeder’s 1993 song Divine Hammer. Reportedly, it was sent to “guitar god” J Mascis for his input, only to be returned with an alternate vocal. The brass baubles on that guy…

Still, it’s all worked out and Mascis’ crackling vocal sounds superb over the real Deal backing, laden as it is, with colorful distortions and vocal harmony. (MP)

The National – Crumble (feat. Rosanne Cash) 

We sure weren’t expecting – less than five months after they returned with First Two Pages of Frankenstein – another new record from America’s favorite sad indie dads, and yet, this week the quintet surprised us with yet another new LP, Laugh Track.

The album finds the band pushing themselves in some refreshing ways, no more so than on Crumble, on which the Dessner boys put their cowboy hats on, throwing in some tasty, appropriately bend-y country fills to accompany Rosanne Cash’s sterling guest vocals. (JM)

Chelsea Wolfe – Dusk

The queen of gothic industrial guitar returns after her blockbuster 2021 collaboration with Converge. Dusk is typically brooding, but it’s less chaotic than Wolfe’s usual electric fare, easing off on the distortion pedals and upping the atmosphere. But all hell breaks loose for the outro as an arsenal of direct fuzz tones add an explosive edge to wiry riffs that would otherwise border on blues territory. (MAB)

The Vaccines – Heartbreak Kid 

British indie rock stalwarts The Vaccines ushered in news of their sixth album this week by dropping their first single of 2023. With the cavernous reverb soundscapes that hark back to early years Vaccines – especially their cult classic debut album – Heartbreak Kid has everything you’d want from a Vaccines song: a catchy chorus, infectious melodies, and searing guitar licks that test the band’s indie rock resolve. (MO)

Squirrel Flower – Intheskatepark

Imagine Wavves recontextualised away from the ocean in an overcast city and you’re getting somewhere near the super-chunky tonal touchpoints for Squirrel Flower’s new single Intheskatepark. That fuzz is thick, but it’s all juxtaposed with a wispy vocal that drifts over the top like smoke. (MP)

Johnny Marr – Somewhere

It may not feature his 9-pickup Fender Stratocaster, but alt-rock guitar hero Johnny Marr’s new tune, Somewhere, has pretty much everything else you’d want from the man. By that, we mean – from literally the first downbeat – arpeggios that sound as if they’ve descended from the heavens themselves, and ringing motifs that’ll stick in your head for hours. And just what is that Lipstick-pickup Jag? (JM)

Steven Wilson – What Life Brings

The first tastes of The Harmony Codex, the Porcupine Tree mastermind’s forthcoming seventh solo album, haven’t been especially heavy in the six-string department, but What Life Brings is a rich tapestry of gentle acoustics, shimmering tremolo’d electrics and an epic, exquisitely delivered guitar solo that is pure Gilmour. (MAB)

Yasmin Williams – Dawning 

Virginia native Yasmin Williams is nothing less than one of the most innovative and exciting acoustic guitar players in the game right now, and her new single, a fingerpicking masterclass titled Dawning, may just be her most dazzling composition yet.

While it’s technically airtight, the real riches of Dawning are its sense of melody and its rewarding small details – just listen to the harmonics that close out the intro, and the song as a whole. (JM) 

Art of Anarchy – Vilified

This hard-rock supergroup have gone through an enviable roster of singers, all of whom feature ‘Scott’ in their name: first Scott Weiland, then Scott Stapp, and now Jeff Scott Soto, who appears on their first new material since 2017.

For all the lineup shifts, the guitar heroics of Jon Votta and Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal have remained intact, and if you like your solos with plenty of aching bends and pentatonic runs, you won’t be disappointed. Oh, and hi, Cuba Gooding Jr.! (MAB)

Bleachers – Modern Girl

Recording extraordinaire Jack Antonoff has quickly become The Big Name in pop production in recent years, helming the desk for the likes of Taylor Swift, The 1975, Pink, Lana Del Ray, St. Vincent and many, many others. It’s no wonder that an artist with such a talented ear for crafting records would also be able to make exemplary music of his own, which he does through the Bleachers medium.

His latest track, Modern Girl, is Antonoff with the chains off, loaded with awe-inspiring Springsteenisms aplenty and copious amounts of jangling, chorus-coated guitars. (MO)

Malina Moye – Courage

Back in March, Moye singled out Courage as one of her favorite tracks from her latest album, Dirty. “It has delicious chords,” noted the guitarist and singer. “It’s full sonically and has layers.” Several of those layers consist of beautifully melancholic blues leads that deftly probe through lush, soulful chord work. Call us crazy but we even detect hints of Gary Moore in the overdriven solo tone and hangdog sustain. (MP)

Also on this week's playlist...

• Bad Nerves – USA (Live)
• Eliza McLamb – Glitter
• Hannah Wicklund – Lost Love
• HotWax – Phone Machine
• Pretenders – Losing My Sense Of Taste
• Crawlers – Would You Come to My Funeral
• Being As An Ocean – Death Can Wait
• The Beaches – Kismet

Johnny Marr is preparing to publish a new book documenting his gear collection throughout his career with The Smiths and beyond. The straightforwardly-titled Marr’s Guitars is essentially a six-string biography and is due on shelves this fall (October 17).

“Guitars have been the obsession of my life,” says Marr. “They've been a mission and sometimes a lifeline. So I'm delighted to have made Marr's Guitars. 

“It's very different to other guitar books and is more of an art book, with stories of songs and sounds. It's been a long time coming and is a labour of love.”

The book will reportedly run the gamut from his teenage pickings, through to iconic Smiths instruments, including his Rickenbacker 330 and Gibson ES-355 and onwards to the development of his widely praised signature model, the Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar.

The entries will be accompanied by shots from music photographer Pat Graham, which we’re told will “showcase the guitars fully and in beautiful micro detail”, alongside Marr’s personal reflections and tales about each instrument.

In addition to Marr’s better-known equipment, one of the more tantalizing aspects of the press release is the mention of various instruments that the guitarist has been gifted or acquired from other notable musicians. 

Among the inclusions is a Stratocaster from Nile Rodgers (we wonder if this was a signature model trade, or something more vintage in flavor), a Hagstrom from Bryan Ferry and a Yamaha acoustic guitar that once belonged to Scottish folk and fingerstyle great, Bert Jansch.

Marr’s Guitars will also detail some of the instruments that the Smiths icon has given away or sent on productive loans, including a Stratocaster that Noel Gallagher used in the creation of Oasis mega-hit Wonderwall and a Gibson Les Paul that went to Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and subsequently wound up on 2007’s In Rainbows.

We reckon it’s a safe bet it will also feature the nine-pickup Stratocaster from 2021’s Spirit, Power, Soul video.

The guitarist has reportedly been directly involved in all aspects of the book “right down to the finest detail,” or so says Tristan de Lancey, Creative Director at the book’s publisher Thames And Hudson. “The result is nothing short of a careerography expressed through a photographic deep dive into the cherished creative tools of a living legend.”

Which is basically what we’re all about, so count us in. Marr’s book can also be viewed as the latest in an emerging trend in guitarist gear biographies (or ‘tone tomes’ as we’re calling them in group chat). 

James Hetfield recently announced his own book, Messengers: The Guitars Of James Hetfield, which will also be published in October, while Slash arguably set the template with his book The Collection, which was released via Gibson’s in-house publisher last year.

For more information and pre-order details for Marr’s Guitars, keep an eye on Thames and Hudson.

For enthusiasts, spectators, and aficionados, the '80s proved to be a fascinating time in the evolution of guitar-driven music.

In the '70s, rock music was mostly about sex appeal, glam, glitz and high-octane machismo. And while the '80s would provide plenty of hot-rodded presto-clones, a budding movement was bubbling to the surface.

The '80s indie and alt-rock era would ultimately diverge in many directions, detouring to the depths of goth-rock and riding the speedway of punk while hitting the off-ramp to post-punk on the way, before finally nestling into the safe harbors of jangle pop. But amidst the chaos, fresh music was forged via increasingly interesting and off-beaten techniques.

Remembered as a time when the elicit sounds of angst and discontent were allowed to run free, '80s six-stringers inadvertently amalgamated eccentric sounds and ideas, rewiring the brains of unsuspecting fans and critics alike. Call it blissful devastation via over-amplified glory – or, more simply, a changing of the guard.

The soundscape of indie and alt-rock had many originators, and while we'd love to cover them all, below we've narrowed down 22 guitar heroes who played a particularly significant role in shaping the sound of '80s indie and alternative rock.

22. Guy Perry (The Motels)

These days, The Motels' former lead guitarist goes by Adrian Peritore, but back in the group's heyday, the new wave strummer was known as Guy Perry. Perry served as a perfect sideman to The Motels leader, vocalist and star of the show, Martha Davis.

He used a variety of guitars in his day but could most often be seen brandishing a Fender Stratocaster. A capable songsmith with an innate sense for texture, Perry is one of new wave's earliest heroes.

21. Peter Case (The Plimsouls)

This Buffalo-born indie original was a staple among a bustling '80s scene with his band The Plimsouls. As the leader, vocalist, primary songwriter and guitarist, Case carried a heavy load for The Plimsouls but did so with style and class.

Though he's shifted chiefly to an acoustic guitar later in life, in the '80s Case often wielded a Fender Telecaster when laying down his indie magic. Though The Plimsouls' run was short-lived, their two early '80s records are essential listening.

20. Andy Partridge (XTC)

Swindon-forged art rock outfit XTC has never been known as a "guitar band" per se, but make no mistake, the contributions of vocalist/guitarist Andy Partridge are not to be taken lightly. As one of the originators of art rock, post-punk, new wave and more, Partridge formed an intrinsic musical relationship with bassist Colin Moulding, resulting in sheer musical magic.

Though Partridge was never one to showboat or take an excessive solo, his use of layering and chameleon-like approach to chord progressions handily defined the early years of the art rock and new wave scenes.

19. Craig Scanlon (The Fall)

Between 1979 and 1995, Mark E. Smith, leader of the legendary Manchester post-punk act, The Fall, worked with myriad musicians. But of all those various cohorts, Smith never once connected with any in the same way he did with guitarist Craig Scanlon.

Featuring across 17 albums and the co-writer of over 120 of The Fall's songs, Scanlon's use of Hagstrom II and III guitars, along with Fender Jags, quite literally defined The Fall's disruptive sound. After leaving The Fall, Scanlon was rumored to be dormant, with whispers of him possibly joining Elastica afoot as well. And though that never materialized, Scanlon does resurface for air now and again.

18. Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes)

With an acoustic guitar in his hand and enthusiasm for days, New York native Gordon Gano aided in the Violent Femmes' '80s ascent. As critical darlings and commercial underdogs, Gano and the Femmes merged folk, alt and punk into a blissful blend of unsettling and downright weird glory. 

Surely, you've heard Blister in the Sun, but the depth of Gano's songsmith runs far deeper, as evidenced by the gospel-punk group he formed in the late '80s, The Mercy Seat. An avid storyteller and an enthusiastic guitarist, if you have the chance to see Gano live, don't forsake it.

17. Michael Timmins (Cowboy Junkies)

Hailing from Toronto, Canada, the Cowboy Junkies were mainly comprised of three siblings, Margo Timmins (vocals), Peter Timmins (drums) and chief songwriter and guitarist, Michael Timmins. The early days of the Cowboy Junkies are the stuff of cowpunk lore, after the group's debut record was recorded in their family garage with a single ambisonic mic. 

But the group's second record, The Trinity Session, changed the game. Timmins' varied stylings are all over the Junkies' music, funneled through an electric mix of hollow body and Telecaster guitars. Known for playing while seated, Timmins' approach to his instrument is genuinely singular among his peers.

16. Jason Pierce (Spaceman 3)

The epitome of Rayban-wearing cool, and with a vintage Fender Jag adorning his wiry frame, Jason Pierce – AKA J. Spaceman – dazzled Spaceman 3's cult audience during the '80s.

Seamlessly splicing alt, space rock, and neo-psych, Peirce's shapeshifting tendencies as a guitarist proved a linchpin for Spaceman 3's chaotic blend. In addition to being increasingly active within the free jazz networks, Pierce found time to form another seminal band in the early '90s, the experimental Rugby-based act, Spiritualized.

15. Jon Auer (The Posies)

As a disciple of Big Star's Alex Chilton, Jon Auer carried on with the '80s tradition of lionizing forgotten '70s forefathers to power-pop perfection. Alongside partner Ken Stringfellow, Auer formed a bond via music that resulted in a sublime blend of indie heaven. Though not an innovator, Auer is undoubtedly a defender of the faith. 

His status as an able guitarist and über-talented songwriter made him worthy of the 12-string Epiphone he often proudly strapped across his chest. As one of the architects of 1988's Failure, Auer's legacy is cemented. But if you asked him, his aiding in a reformed Big Star's '90s return may well be the proverbial feather in his cap.

14. William Reid (The Jesus and Mary Chain)

A master of feedback and noise via a Gibson ES-330, William Reid deeply weaved himself into the fabric of '80s post-punk. The fuzzed-out, gain-drenched ruckus the Glasgow native conjured alongside his brother Jim verged on white noise, with just a touch of pop sensibility to keep things on the rails. 

As frontrunners among the masses, The Jesus and Mary Chain's first two records, Psychocandy (1985) and Darklands (1987), proved to be hyper-critical moments in a decade awash with pertinent music. Though a bit petulant, Reid and his brother still soldier on with their flagship band to this day, keeping intact the core of their sound via Reid's able fingertips.

13. Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü)

Considered an icon among the punk, alt and indie scenes, and a champion of human rights, vocalist and guitarist Bob Mould took the '80s by storm with his band Hüsker Dü. An aggressive guitarist flaunting an array of Strats, and the occasional Gibson Flying-V, Mould's aggressive approach, coupled with his cheeky songwriting, provided listeners with a shuttering display of off-beat duality. 

While Zen Arcade (1984), New Day Rising (1985), and Candy Apple Grey (1986) are showstoppers, Mould nearly managed to better them in his second and third act's with Sugar and as a solo artist in the '90s and beyond.

12. Daniel Ash (Bauhaus/Love and Rockets)

After challenging consumer appetites for oddity via music with goth rock act Bauhaus, guitarist Daniel Ash sought new ways to break the soundscape. The result of that yearning was Love and Rockets, an act Ash formed with fellow Bauhaus alum, bassist David J. While Love and Rockets featured much of Ash's signature brooding cache, he was able to flex his melodic side as well. 

From the start, Ash was on a mission to "make the guitar not sound like a guitar", and with a Fender Telecaster slung over his shoulder, Ash did just that. In retrospect, Ash's tone is like no other, proof of which can be seen through his enduring influence over the likes of Dave Navarro, Kim Thayil, and John Frusciante.

11. Lee Ranaldo/Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth)

Hailing from Long Island, New York, with noise rock stalwarts Sonic Youth, Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore sought to tear down the idea of guitar-driven music completely. One of many struggling bands in a busy NYC scene, Sonic Youth emerged as Greenwich Village darlings, riding to the top of the heap through a string of genre-defying albums. The pair's viewpoint on their instruments was fresh, vivid and untethered to all established norms. 

Most associated with Fender Jazzmaster, Ranaldo and Moore weren't afraid to deploy modified Les Pauls, luthier-built Moonlanders, and Tele Deluxes to forcefully push their alternative tunings into unsuspecting listener's earholes.

10. Bob Stinson (The Replacements)

He was by no means a virtuoso or a hard worker, but as a founding member and the lead guitarist of The Replacements, Bob Stinson changed alt-rock forever. Known for being completely unhinged and often disastrously inhibited by copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, Stinson angrily attacked his guitar like a sloppy drunk on payday. Still, the six-stringer seemed to have a heaven-sent gift, and though he fought it through the use of intentionally abused guitars, garish technique and a punk rock attitude, his gift bled through. 

Stinson proved integral to the band's first four albums before being ejected from the band for bad behavior. In the wake of his departure, though, The Replacements soldiered on for three more records. Alas, without Stinson, their sound and vibe were never the same.

9. Bernard Sumner (Joy Division/New Order)

Sumner is primarily known in the modern age for his consistent jarring with former friend and bandmate, bassist Peter Hook. And though the state of the band may be something of a sad situation in 2022, dial the clock back some 40 years, and New Order was a true pillar of the alt and post-rock communities. 

In the wake of Ian Curtis's death, New Order rose from the ashes of Joy Division, embarking on a musical journey for the ages. Sumner's approach to the guitar is not unlike many of his contemporaries, but his ability to write catchy riffs via his Gibson SG set against a gothic background proved a distinctive and successful calling card. 

8. David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Scottish-born artist David Byrne's resume is as long as it is varied. As such, to simply rule him a "guitar player" would be doing him a great injustice. Byrne was the leader, vocalist, primary songwriter and guitarist of the legendary art-rock meets new wave act, Talking Heads. 

While Byrne played many guitars during the Talking Heads reign, he was most often seen with his beloved red Fender Telecaster Thinline Deluxe, which accompanied him on the Talking Heads Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2002. Perennially underrated, Byrne was a highly inventive guitarist and energetic performer, crafting many tracks throughout his career that are considered some of the greatest of all time.

7. Andy Gill (Gang of Four)

As one of the premier purveyors of post-punk, Gang of Four's Andy Gil deconstructed all preconceived notions of what the guitar could achieve within a three-to-four-minute cut. With an angular, jagged style, Gill harbored little regard for listeners' delicate eardrums. As a guitarist, Gil was unique, to be sure, but as a songwriter, he was in a class nearly unto himself, penning many of Gang of Four's most famous tracks. 

A notable producer as well before his 2020 death, Gill managed to oversee records by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Jesus Lizard, the Stranglers, Killing Joke, Therapy? and many more. As a man of many hats, Gill's impact is everlasting.

6. James Honeyman-Scott (The Pretenders)

As one of the most versatile and talented guitarists of his era, it's tragic that Honeyman-Scott is most often remembered for leaving us too early at age 25. He was handpicked by Chrissie Hynde, a choice that paid dividends immediately. To be sure, Hynde is an able songstress, but Honeyman-Scott handily added melodic fretwork and skillful-yet-subtle lead lines that tied Hynde's songs together. 

The duo's contrasting styles resulted in a divergent yet magical stew set to take the '80s by storm, but Honeyman-Scott's sudden death changed the trajectory of The Pretenders forever. While his moment in the sun was brief, his influence over his bandmates and peers is felt to this day.

5. Joey Santiago (Pixies)

Seemingly allergic to pentatonic scales and harboring an aggressively defiant swagger, Filipino-American indie hero Joey Santiago broke in with the Pixies in the late '80s. As originators of the loud/quiet/loud dynamic that would be perpetually mimicked in the '90s, Santiago and the Pixies should be considered true precursors to grunge. 

A perfect sideman for Frank Black, Santiago was a willing participant in a vision to erratically steer the Massachusetts-bred act off the beaten path and into an unknown wilderness. The Pixies internally combusted in the early '90s but would reform in 2004. Some 18 years on, Santiago can still be seen with his favored jet-black Les Paul, dutifully strumming for indie rock's favorite band.

4. Robert Smith (The Cure)

It's not a stretch to deify The Cure's Robert Smith. As The Cure's vocalist, guitarist and voicebox, Smith, set the gold standard for post-punk, goth rock, new wave, and art rock. With his skillful blending of melody and a never-ending desire to genre hop, Smith found himself an unwilling critical and commercial success, exploding to worldwide fame in the mid to late '80s. 

As one of indie rock's first "influencers", Smith evoked an emo aesthetic using lipstick, black eyeliner and a nasty habit of scribing depressing lyrics, bookended by classically influenced, detuned-yet-poppy guitar stylings. These days, Smith and The Cure aren't always active, so when they take the stage, be sure you're there to see it.

3. Peter Buck (R.E.M.)

At its crux, R.E.M. was a cavernous blend of sweeping desire, with its Rickenbacker-toting guitarist, Peter Buck, at its epicenter. While Buck is a capable songwriter and master crafter of memorable melodies, his approach to the guitar has always been simple. Through the idiosyncratic use of open strings and delicate chording to create chiming effects, Buck made a name for himself. 

Known to be prickly with a strong sense of "fuck off" exuding from his bristling fingers, Buck could quickly provide sudden bursts of aggression. And though R.E.M. shuttered its doors in 2011, Buck recently released his first new music in 12 years, All the Kids are Super Bummed Out, proving the unassuming legend's story has yet to be entirely written.

2. John McGeoch (Siouxsie and the Banshees/Public Image Ltd.)

Few guitarists in the 1980s could elicit sounds akin to Siouxsie and the Banshee's John McGeoch. With a tobacco sunburst Yamaha SG1000 in hand, McGeoch possessed an authoritative style, propped up by an array of inventive arpeggios, delicate string harmonics and a seething disdain for conventional scales. McGeoch would prove a massive influence over his contemporaries and future standouts alike. 

Still, sadly, he ended his career without a band and with no outlet for his music before his untimely death in 2004 at the young age of 48. The passing of time has been kind to McGeoch and his work, though, and as the years wear on his influence becomes staggeringly apparent.

1. Johnny Marr (The Smiths)

Marr has been described as "arguably Britain's last great guitar stylist", a "God-like genius", and most affectionately, "the man who would not solo". No matter the title, Johnny Marr effortlessly shrugged off once-ironclad notions. Unafraid to lay back, Marr's jangly sound, open tunings, melody-ridden arpeggios and chordal chiming are all notable components of his playing style.

Marr's restraint, dynamic refrain and fluid action while using various Fender Jags, Strats, Teles and Rickenbacker 300s set him apart from the pack. Marr starred with The Smiths before playing sideman with The Pretenders, The The, and Electronic, showcasing a pared-down approach to create harmonious space. 

As his career has worn on, Marr has continued to reshape and upend established norms with Modest Mouse, The Cribs and his solo work. In short, Johnny Marr is an indie guitar treasure.

Welcome to Guitar World’s weekly roundup of the musical highlights from the, erm, world of guitar. Every seven days (or thereabouts), we endeavor to bring you a selection of songs from across the guitar universe, all with one thing in common: our favorite instrument plays a starring role.

Maya Delilah – Pretty Face 

What is it? The latest single from 22-year-old British singer-songwriter Maya Delilah, who – after amassing a huge following via Instagram and TikTok thanks to her soulful six-string chops – releases Pretty Face to celebrate her new partnership with Blue Note/Capitol Records. It’s a perfect intro into the sonic universe of Delilah, which sees her emotive vocals orbit around a mixture of elite phrasing, impeccable feel and irresistible tone.

Standout guitar moment: Though Deliliah spends most of the track strumming away, she gives herself the opportunity to let loose on the fretboard around the 2:00 mark, breaking free from the shackles of rhythm guitar to belt out a blues-y, bend-heavy solo that literally oozes soul.

For fans of: John Mayer, David Ryan Harris, Madison Cunningham

– Matt Owen

Yo La Tengo – Fallout

What is it? The lead single from This Stupid World, the beloved Hoboken, New Jersey indie trio’s first new non-instrumental album in five years. Few bands have aged as gracefully into their fifth decade as Yo La Tengo, and Fallout, quite simply, is everything that’s so damn good about them in a four-and-a-half-minute package – snarling layers of distorted riffing that cleverly disguise sweet-as-candy pop songwriting.

Standout guitar moment: Ever the Neil Young fan, guitarist/singer Ira Kaplan – perhaps unconsciously – tips his cap to one of his heroes by stabbing a single chord over and over and over again at around 2:50. On first listen, you might expect those to be the opening bars of one of Kaplan’s trademark bizarro fretboard freakouts, but after all these years, he doesn’t need to race frantically up and down the fretboard to offer that same cathartic release.

For fans of: My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground

– Jackson Maxwell

Kiichi Chaos – Metality (The Vitality Anthem)

What is it? A modern-day renaissance man, Matt Heafy is apparently never settled unless he’s putting out new music. After Trivium put out their latest album, In the Court of the Dragon last year, Heafy turned his sights to Ibaraki, a black metal side project, under which he released his first album, Rashomon, earlier this year.

And now, in the relative downtime from both projects, Heafy has released a new single under a new moniker: Kiichi Chaos. This time, Heafy – a keen gamer himself – lends his formidable song writing talents to Team Vitality, a French esports organization who play first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO, competitively.

“Metal and gaming are two constants in my life that I hold near and dear,” Heafy states. “I've always found that gaming and metal go so well together... it's as if they belong together.”

Standout guitar moment: The riff that kicks in from the 0:47 mark following a melodic choral section is Trivium-esque, with galloping palm-muted chugs and ever-so-heavy arpeggiated low-string runs.

For fans of: Trivium, All That Remains, Killswitch Engage

– Sam Roche

David Knudson – No Ways No Means (feat. Tim Kasher of Cursive)

What is it? 2022 has become one of the most prolific years in David Knudson’s career. Four years on from the demise of Minus the Bear, the sonically inventive guitarist released his debut album, unveiled a new song with Botch, and even announced live shows with the mathcore heroes.

As if that weren’t enough, he’s now releasing a new EP, Undo / Redo, and No Ways No Means, which features the vocal talents of Cursive’s Tim Kasher, is the first single: a fuzzed-up hard-rock stomper that will have MTB fans bopping in an angular fashion.

Standout guitar moment: That main riff has something of a Morello feel to it, but check that octave-up solo with wild whammy (or Whammy?) bends: there aren’t loadsa notes, but the delivery is perfection.

For fans of: Minus the Bear, Cursive, Sparta

– Michael Astley-Brown

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Pretty Boy (feat. Johnny Marr) 

What is it? Manchester, England, has produced some of the biggest bands – and in turn, some of the biggest guitar players – of all time, boasting alumni such as Oasis and The Smiths. Now, two of those Mancunian guitar gods, Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr, have teamed up for a new single, released under the former’s High Flying Birds name. It’s a perfect combination of the pair’s respective playing styles, filled with jangly leads, punchy rhythms and some acoustic layering for good measure.

Standout guitar moment: The acoustic and bass both do a grand job of holding down the fort for the first few minutes, but what follows the breakdown at the 2:30 mark is especially tasty – a wall of rhythm riffs that play host to an infectious lick.

For fans of: Oasis, The Smiths, Sam Fender

– Matt Owen

Buffalo Nichols – Meet Me In The Bottom

What is it? Side A of his new two-sided single, Meet Me In The Bottom is a thrilling expansion of the Milwaukee bluesman’s sound. Punctuated by a fuzz-blasted bass line and dramatic punches of feedback, the song – a re-working of a blues classic – is a magnificent roller-coaster ride that grabs you from the first bar and never lets go. 

Standout guitar moment: While distantly related to the blues, Nichols’ thrilling lead breaks – especially the second one – more readily recall the mind-expanding sounds of the psychedelic ‘60s, with their droning, almost sitar-like melodies and quick-fire pickin’.

For fans of: The Black Keys, The Doors, The White Stripes

– Jackson Maxwell

Iggy Pop – Frenzy 

What is it? A standalone single from the Godfather of Punk, who has tapped Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith for three-minutes of raw riffage. With production hero Andrew Watt behind the desk, the one-time-only supergroup smash speakers left right and center, serving up one of the most raucous 180 seconds we’ve heard in quite some time.

Standout guitar moment: We can’t think of a track title that would better describe Frenzy, with the single-note stabs and warbling riffs exploding into an off-the-chain, wah-loaded throwdown for the outro.

For fans of: The Stooges, Guns N’ Roses

– Matt Owen 

Vended – Overall

What is it? With the potent blood of metal royalty coursing through their veins, it’s no surprise that budding five-piece Vended have a sound that’s undeniably Slipknot-esque, with drop-tuned, distorted guitars, pummeling rhythm sections and spine-tingling sound design elements.

But for the stylistic cues the group have taken from their metal titan fathers, vocalist Griffin Taylor and drummer Simon Crahan – along with guitarists Cole Espeland and Connor Grodzicki, and bassist Jeremiah Pugh sure are paving their own path.

And another brick in that road is laid with the band’s ferocious new single, Overall, a dynamically varied metalcore cut peppered with enough weighty riffs to get any pit spinning.

Standout guitar moment: Lead guitar is generally abstained from to leave more room for straightforward riff brutality, and no riff hits quite as hard as the one in the breakdown from the 2:21 mark.

For fans of: Slipknot, Tallah, Tetrarch

– Sam Roche

Longheads – Glossolaila

What is it? Throw King Gizzard, the Doors and Black Sabbath into a melting pot, add a dash of desert rock and you get UK four-piece Longheads, who dropped new EP Mars Doesn’t Feel Like Home Anymore this week. The whole thing is a tripped-out journey that oozes atmosphere from every note, but Glossolalia is a relatively succinct summary of the band’s groove-heavy psychedelic approach.

Standout guitar moment: The second that solo kicks in against a backdrop of phaser-set-to-stun rhythms is a trip in itself.

For fans of: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, All Them Witches, Black Mountain

– Michael Astley-Brown

Samia – Mad At Me

What is it? The rising singer/songwriter’s first collaboration with pop mastermind (and ex-Vampire Weekend guitarist) Rostam Batmanglij, Mad At Me is the most outwardly accessible song of Samia’s career so far. Loaded with bubbling synths and packing an effortless chorus, the second single from Samia’s forthcoming album, Honey, signifies that she might not be an ‘under-the-radar’ talent much longer. 

Standout guitar moment: There’s not a whole lot of guitar on this tune, but what little there is – particularly that heavily-processed, feedback-coated lead after the first chorus – sure makes its mark. 

For fans of: MUNA, Vampire Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers

– Jackson Maxwell

Voice Of Baceprot – PMS

What is it? A hard-riffing, melodic new single from Indonesian trio, Voice of Baceprot. Short for perempuan merdeka seutuhnya (“completely independent woman”), PMS celebrates women who are breaking stereotypes and boundaries in all forms.

Impressively dynamic and varied, the track flips consistently between hard-rock riffing and more melodic chorus sections, even carving out a section from the 2:04 mark for bassist Widi to do a spot of noodling.

Standout guitar moment: Guitarist and frontwoman Marsya lets loose with a solo from the 1:37 mark, crafted with simple-but-effective melodic runs and occasional spurts of alternate picking.

For fans of: Burgerkill, DeadSquad

– Sam Roche

Noel Gallagher has teamed up with fellow English guitar legend Johnny Marr on his new single, Pretty Boy.

The first taste of the upcoming fourth album from Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – which is due to arrive next year, almost six years after the band’s last full-length, Who Built the Moon? – Pretty Boy finds former Smiths man Marr serving some of his trademark jangly electric guitar riffing over a bed of quick-strummed acoustic guitar. Watch the track’s music video below.

As Gallagher explains, Pretty Boy was the first track he wrote, demoed and finished for High Flying Birds’ yet-untitled fourth record, “so it’s only right that it’s the first thing people get to hear”.

“Massive shout out to my mainest man Johnny Marr for taking it somewhere special,” he says, adding that the first person to spot his cameo in the track’s music video “wins a packet of Flamin’ Hot Wotsits Giants” (a British snack similar to Cheetos).

In an interview with the Daily Star earlier this year [per Music News], Gallagher described much of the new High Flying Birds album as having an “orchestral” vibe.

“There is a track on the album called Dead to the World, which is one of the best songs I have ever written,” he said. “It gives people goosebumps. It’s quite orchestral and a bit like [1969 film] Midnight Cowboy.” 

Gallagher added: “The whole album has got a vibe. There’s 10 songs and six of them have got strings.”

The former Oasis guitarist also revealed that the album “took [him] a year to write”, adding that those who have heard it so far have given their approval.

“People are coming to the studio and you play them the track and they’re like, ‘Fucking hell! I’m getting goosebumps listening to that’,” he said. “I forget because I’m so into [it] now that it’s just a bunch of songs that I want to finish so I can write some more.”

Johnny Marr and Noel Gallagher have enjoyed a decades-long friendship, with the former loaning the latter guitars in the early days of Oasis in the early ‘90s.

As the story goes, Marr attended one of the band’s early gigs after they had generated some buzz around Manchester, but was not impressed with how long Gallagher had spent tuning his guitar. “You could go get a pint and come back, and he’d still be tuning,” he told Far Out Magazine.

At Marr’s suggestion that he buy himself a new guitar, Gallagher – who was unemployed at the time – retorted: “Alright for you, isn’t it? I’ve got like 12 quid.”

So he offered to loan Gallagher one of his guitars: a sunburst 1960s Gibson Les Paul and formerly owned by The Who’s Pete Townshend. The budding Oasis man accepted, and the guitar quickly became his main six-string, and was used to write Live Forever, from the band’s 1994 debut, Definitely Maybe.

But some time later, while on tour, Noel’s brother Liam became involved in an altercation when an audience member rushed the stage, prompting Noel to take a swing at the invader with the loaned guitar. 

As a consequence, the guitar was badly damaged, but fortunately Gallagher was able to convince Marr to issue him a replacement, this time the black Les Paul he used to write the entirety of the Smiths’ 1986 album The Queen is Dead.

But this guitar was sent to Gallager with a word of warning. “This one’s well heavy,” Marr wrote. “If you take a big swing with this one you’ll take the fucker out!”

In another interview with Stereogum, Marr described Gallagher as “a hell of a lot more than meets the eye”.

“He’s very disciplined,” he said. “He’s one of the most disciplined people I’ve ever worked with, without a shadow of a doubt. Maybe even the most disciplined. Incredibly industrious. 

“Then there’s the other side of his life. He can’t walk 100 meters around the British Isles without people stopping him for selfies, and he’s not insane. [Laughs] I would be, without a doubt. I only have to get stopped five times and I go into a meltdown about culture. He’s a very impressive dude.”

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ new album is yet to receive an official release date, but it’s slated to arrive next year.

Fender has reskinned Johnny Marr’s signature Jaguar electric guitar in a “highly limited color option," Fever Dream Yellow.

First unveiled on the guitarist’s social media a year ago in September 2021, and officially announced in May this year, the Fever Dream Yellow Jaguar is named after Marr’s fourth solo album, 2022’s Fever Dreams Pts 1 – 4.

Like the already-available Olympic White and Metallic KO iterations of the Johnny Marr Jaguar, the Fever Dream Yellow-finished model features an alder body, custom-profile maple neck with vintage-style truss rod adjustment – a design based on Marr’s trusted 1965 Jaguar – and a 7.25”-radius rosewood fingerboard with 22 vintage-style frets.

Elsewhere, the guitar features two custom-wound Bare Knuckle Johnny Marr signature single-coil pickups, controlled by master volume and tone knobs and a modded four-position blade switch, which can select both pickups at once either in parallel or series, or each pickup individually.

Other features include a Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles and nylon post inserts for improved stability, and a vintage-style floating tremolo tailpiece with a taller tremolo arm and nylon sleeve insert to prevent the arm swinging during playing.

This guitar is now the sixth color variant of the Johnny Marr Jaguar. Alongside the mainstay Olympic White and Metallic KO colorways, Fender once launched a run of three limited finishes – Black, Lake Placid Blue and Sherwood Green – though these are now discontinued.

The Fever Dream Yellow Johnny Marr Jaguar is available now for $2,299. For more information, head to Fender.

While we first caught wind of the Fever Dream Yellow Jaguar last year, we suspect Fender put its launch on hold after Marr unveiled his insane nine-pickup Stratocaster in August 2021, for fear it would be overshadowed by the latter.

In an interview with Total Guitar back in April, Marr spoke about how Covid lockdowns inspired the creation of Fever Dreams Pts 1 – 4.

“I had the title Fever Dreams before the pandemic, but what was happening to everybody fed into the concept of the record,” he said. “I wanted to write about consciousness and perception. For the song Hideaway Girl, I wrote the lyric, ‘Every day is a fever dream.’

“My experience of lockdown was of time not meaning what it should. I’ve had conversations with people where it seemed like weeks were whizzing by in seconds. And then other times a day would feel like a week.”

It may come as a surprise to many, but the late blues guitar legend Rory Gallagher had a profound impact on Johnny Marr.

Despite cutting his teeth with The Smiths and building a reputation as one of today’s most prolific indie rock musicians, Marr’s musicality was significantly shaped by the untamed blues rock licks that emanated from the Irishman’s 1961 Fender Stratocaster.

Such styles may differ significantly, but, in Marr’s own words, Gallagher‘s 1971 album Deuce was “a complete turning point” for him as a guitar player – a significant shift in his guitar-playing journey during which “the penny just dropped”, thanks to the swing of In Your Town and blues licks of Should’ve Learnt My Lesson.

That context provides an even greater level of significance to the video below, which sees Marr wield Gallagher’s iconic ‘61 Strat to pay tribute to one of his biggest heroes.

Not only that, Marr can also be heard playing the battered-and-bruised Stratocaster through Gallagher’s Fender Bassman – the streamlined setup that was the crux of Gallagher’s world-beating tone.

The video, taken from 2013, was first published on February 28, just days before what would have marked Gallagher’s birthday.

To celebrate the occasion, Marr – who had just received the God Like Genius Award from NME – picked up his hero’s Strat to noodle through a range of blues-y licks and classic Rory riffs.

Marr has been vocal about the influence Gallagher had on his playing in the past, telling The Guitar Magazine in January 1997 that the Irishman’s “straightforward street image” appealed to him at a time when he was “desperate for something to call my own”.

“He had a very straightforward street image – jeans, plimsoles, a really battered guitar – and it just connected with me,” Marr explained. “I went to see him in concert and he scared the life out of me, honest! 

“He was so intense I couldn't believe it,” he continued. “I wanted to get closer, but I was scared in case he made eye contact with me and the earth swallowed me up or something. I can remember staying off school for a couple of days pretending I was ill and trying to play along with his records.”

However, the transformative moment for Marr came when he was playing along to Deuce: “There was one day when I was playing along to his Deuce album, which was just a complete turning point for me as a guitar player. 

“I sussed it out, and the penny just dropped; ‘I can play!’” Marr went on. “It's funny, 'cos about six months ago I dug all the records from that period of my life out again, and I can hear echoes of what I do chordally in what Rory Gallagher used to do. I don't know if anyone else would pick up on it but for me it was quite shocking.”

Few Stratocasters are as rare or revered as Gallagher’s own ‘61 model. Purchased in 1963 for £100 from the owner of Crowley’s Music Store in Cork, Ireland, it was supposedly the first Stratocaster to ever enter the country.

After acquiring the guitar, Gallagher quickly made it his go-to instrument and treated it to many modifications over the years, including new pickups and tuners. He also swapped out the vintage three-way switch in favor of a more versatile five-way, and wired the bottom tone pot to act as a master parameter.

The Strat was briefly stolen in the late-'60s, though was eventually found abandoned in a ditch after it was featured on a segment of the Garda Patrol TV show – a domestic program that worked to reunite people with their lost possessions.

Though Gallagher played a handful of other guitars throughout his career, such as a white 1966 Fender Telecaster, it's the '61 Strat that is synonymous with the blues great, having served him faithfully right up until his death in 1995.

Johnny Marr jumped onstage during The Killers headline set this weekend to perform a short run of Smiths tunes with the Las Vegas band.

Marr is currently supporting Dave Keuning and co on their North American run, and appeared during their shows at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on Friday (August 19) and Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday (August 20).

Fan-shot footage from the Vancouver gig shows the indie guitar icon arriving onstage before Killers frontman Brandon Flowers asks, ‘Do you wanna hear a couple of songs?’ 

Marr and the band performed Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.

The following night’s performance in Seattle saw Marr join the band during their encore, once again performing There Is A Light…, alongside Smiths tune What She Said and The Killer’s knee-sliding mega-anthem Mr Brightside. 

Setlist.fm also lists Marr as performing during the encore of The Killers’ Portland show last night (August 21). Fan-shot footage has since materialised of all three shows (though audio quality is not great, sadly).

The recent North American shows are not the first time Marr and The Killers have teamed-up. Way back in the halcyon days of June 2019, the guitarist joined the band onstage in the UK during their Glastonbury Festival performance to play The Smiths’  This Charming Man.

The Killers are clearly relishing their chance to get back on the road and play (both with and) in front of people. 

Last month, they invited Phoebe Bridgers onstage for the first live performance of their song Runaway Horses, which was released during the pandemic on 2021’s Pressure Machine. 

The album saw the return of Keuning on guitar. Speaking to Guitar World in 2021, Keuning admitted that the pressure of constant touring made him reconsider his position, and ultimately take some time out.

“It’s exhausting – especially if you have children or family back home,” he said. “But even if you don’t have children or family back home, you’re never home… or you’re barely home and then you’re planning to leave again. I was burnt out from traveling more than anything. Because 80 per cent of the time, you’re not home. A little more balance would have been nice.”

Keuning says he missed playing shows but ultimately did not regret sitting out the tours. Once he was back onboard he co-wrote two tracks for Pressure Machine, including the title-track, which came together with him playing some chord changes on acoustic guitar while Flowers improvised vocals.

“I really like that one,” said Keuning. “That was one [where] I was on acoustic, and kind of the same process – I was playing acoustic in the room, he started singing scratch vocal lyrics, and it came about pretty nicely. There was a bridge I had for it that we never needed. And that melody, he came up with right on the spot. So, nice and natural on that one.”

For Johnny Marr, the idea to record a 16-song double album came to him in a flash of inspiration. The title Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 simply popped into his head one day, and that was it. 

“That title solved a lot of problems for me,” he says. “First off, it’s a great title. If I just called it Fever Dreams, you know, that’s good, but it’s not that good. Fever Dreams Parts 1-4 makes you go, ‘OK, what’s that all about?’ It made me think that – ‘All right, what’s this business of four?’ 

“So I had to work backward from the title, and immediately I realized, ‘All right, it’s got to be a double album, and we can release it in stages.’” He laughs. “The record company thought I was a marketing genius, but it was purely because I had this title.

From there, all Marr needed was enough songs to match the expansive nature of his concept. Fortunately, the British guitar legend found that he had plenty of time on his hands. 

After wrapping a 2019 tour in support of his previous album, Call the Comet, he began work on new demos just as the Covid pandemic forced much of the world into lockdown mode. “I had already planned to make the record anyway, so in a funny way I was kind of fortunate in my timing,” he says.

During this period, the only project that conflicted with Marr’s album schedule was his work with composer Han Zimmer on the soundtrack to the new James Bond film, No Time to Die. It’s their third collaboration, a relationship that began with the dream-based movie Inception in 2010, and continued five years later with The Amazing Spider-Man 2. 

“I worked on the Bond film for a few months, but even then I was still able to write songs for my album,” Marr says. “As most people no doubt know, there’s plenty of downtime when making movies.”

Although the guitarist insists he was dead set against making a straight-up Covid-influenced album (“that would come off as dated very quickly”), he admits the day-to-day experience of recording in relative seclusion subconsciously permeated his lyrics.

“I wanted to avoid being too direct about the state of the world, singing about stores being closed and all that,” he says, “but a lot of the album is about how I perceive things, and I made the leap to presume that my audience might be feeling the same way.”

He cites the dark and dramatic groover All These Days as an example: “On that I sing, ‘Drinking with my shadow / escape the sensory / another day tomorrow, tomorrow, endlessly.’ A lot of people were doing that, sitting and drinking on their own late at night going, ‘What’s tomorrow going to bring?’” Similarly, there’s the surging disco-pop gem Night and Day, which finds Marr singing, “Just want to breathe in the hot spots / it’s all TikTok to me / stop the clocks, please.” 

“That was being really informed by all the imagery I was seeing from your country in the United States on the television,” he notes. “The album is littered with all these references without being too overt to the point of losing the poetic sensibilities, I think.”

Taken as a whole, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is something of a masterstroke – a meticulously plotted 70-minute opus that breezes by like a record half its length. Throughout much of the album, Marr surrounds his songs with au courant electronic rhythms while drizzling his arrangements with the kinds of sweeping, kaleidoscopic guitar textures that have been his calling card since the early days of the Smiths. 

Whether he’s dabbling in driving electro-disco (Spirit, Power & Soul), getting introspective inside sophisticated balladry (Rubicon), rocking a rootsy rave-up (Tenement Time) or luxuriating in arty dream anthems (Ariel, Sensory Street), his rousing – and at times, symphonic – six and 12-string guitar treatments brim with commanding authority and crafty individuality. 

At 58, Marr still maintains the seemingly ageless mod hairdo he’s worn for years, and he boasts the kind of resume (the The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, the Cribs, and for a brief time, the Pretenders) that would make most guitarists green with envy. 

As he eases oh-so-coolly into elder statesman status, he considers his legacy as a pioneering modern rock guitar hero: “I was never a shredder, but the term ‘guitar hero’ to me sounds actually quite noble. Back when I started, I wanted to be a guitar hero who played great songs. This was at a time when there were a lot of things being done on guitar that I felt were outdated and corny. 

“But there was also a generation of young men in the U.K. and America who were onto something new – Robert Smith, John McKay, Will Sergeant. A lot of us took note from Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine. Those guys were game-changers. I loved all that… and still do.”

On the topic of game-changing guitarists, a lot of people would cite you and Peter Buck for how you both popularized the rhythm-lead style of playing in the early Eighties.

“Well, I wouldn’t disagree with that.”

While other players showboated their skills, you both seemed to operate with a kind of tasteful restraint. 

“A big lesson I learned when I was very young – maybe 11 or 12 – was when I read an old interview with John Lennon. He was talking about serving the song and being a really good rhythm player. And then growing up in the Seventies, it seemed as if one of the Ten Commandments of Guitar was, “Thou shalt be like Keith Richards” – you know, be the engine of the band. There’s people like Mike Campbell, too.”

I remember that Lennon interview. He said, “I play rhythm. It’s an important job. I can make a band drive.”

“Exactly. There it is. Now, to be honest, I’m still not above fetishizing the guitar the way we all do. You get me with another guitar player, and we’ll trade our stories about the SG we got in 1980 or whatever. If there’s a room full of guitar players, I’m the last to leave, man. I’m just as hooked as everybody else, and I have been since I was 5 or 6. 

“I just think that the way I looked at guitar playing was perhaps a little different from what others were at the time, and I think somebody like Peter Buck felt the same way. We both loved the look of Rickenbackers. 

“In my case, it was actually to restrict me and force me to play a certain way, believe it or not. With a Rickenbacker, I had to focus on chords, which was the right thing to do. Peter and I have that in common. Over the years, we’ve become friends, and of course, he’s someone I’ve got great respect for.”

Not to belabor the Smiths, but does your time in that band now seem like a million miles away at this point?

“Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. I’ve never felt like I’ve been running away from it, but I left that band when I was 24. Any 24-year-old leaving any job wants to not be defined by that. I’m proud of the records the group made, but in all honesty, I’d say I feel like I’m probably on part four of my career now.” 

After the Smiths, you’ve played with quite a few other bands. Do you go into these situations thinking they’re temporary, or do you sometimes think far beyond that? 

“Actually, I go into each situation with no idea how it’s going to turn out, and that’s the exact same headspace as when I was 13, 14 or 15, when I would go around the neighborhood and play in different bands. The first major band I joined was called Sister Ray, and they were these really gnarly adults. 

“I wanted to play with them because they sounded like a cross between the Stooges and Hawkwind, and I’d never played that sort of stuff. I thought, “Well, I’ll be a better guitar player if I learn to play at very high volume with these fairly druggy sort of reprobates who have a reputation for being amazing live.”

Sounds like a solid career move.

“Yeah. And then this other band that I joined had a really talented songwriter who lived just a few blocks away from me. It was a real challenge for me because he used to employ all these key changes and tunings. He was into Todd Rundgren and Andy Partridge, so we were playing all these passing chords. I got quite a lot of chops from that. 

“Going into Modest Mouse, for example, was the grownup version of that. I was invited to go to Portland, Oregon, as a 10-day experiment, and what happened in that scenario was we got tight as pals very quickly. It was like a brotherhood, and then it was just too fucking weird to bail.” 

Did the same thing happen with the Cribs?

“Very similar situation. We were supposed to cut four songs for a seven-inch or a 45 EP. I went in with all these riffs, and we just kept writing. The inspiration was flowing, so we went, ‘Let’s make an album out of this.’ From that experience, we formed a very strong friendship. So it’s actually the opposite of what it may appear to be on the outside. If you ask people I’ve been in a band with, they’ll tell you that I get very committed.”

Why then don’t you tend to stick around longer?

“I was in Modest Mouse for four years, and I was in the Cribs for three years. In each case, pretty much, I was ready to make another album, and the other guys weren’t. So I’d just go somewhere else and make an album.”

Let’s touch on some songs on your new record. Tracks like Receiver, All These Days and a few others have guitar sounds that hark back to the early days of the Cure and U2, but they also recall the early days of… Johnny Marr. Do you hear that? 

“Yeah, that was a conscious thing. I like those sounds. OK, I really have to put a kind of a modest disclaimer here: Along with some other people, I’m one of the reasons why those sounds exist. I like them, so I use them. On the other hand, it’s not like I haven’t gone out of my way to do other shit. 

“For example, on the song Ariel, or on Receiver, as you mentioned, there’s a real kind of flange thing going on, which is very much of my generation. And you know what? The part sounded great because of it. 

“On Ariel, when I played the main riff, I thought, ‘This is either me or Will Sergeant – or it’s both of us together.’ Those sounds were the vocabulary I used in the Eighties. They were useful then, and they still hit the spot when required.”

Tenement Time is drenched in delay sounds that collide off each other. And in Speed of Love, you play a heavily delayed solo that sounds as if you’re using an E-Bow.

“That’s me playing one of my Jaguars that’s customized with Fernandes Sustainer pickups. The guitar becomes a six-string E-Bow. Those pickups are amazing. If you’ve got the guitar on low, you can feel all the strings vibrate while you play. It’s beautiful, like an electrical storm all through the track.” 

Are you using that on the solos in Human?

“The first solo break has the sustainer on, but the end solo is a 12-string SG, which is pretty rare. I’ve got it going through a Leslie. If anyone can be bothered getting that together, I really recommend it for the sound.”

In many ways, the album is like an instructional course on the many ways a guitarist can use delay and reverb pedals. As it is with the Edge, those sounds are a real part of your approach to composition. 

“I just assume that delay is going to be part of the equation. I didn’t realize how much delay I’d grown into using until in the early 2000s, when a friend of mine picked up one of my guitars in the rehearsal room and started to play. And I thought, ‘Shit, man. There’s so much delay on there.’

“Around about the same time, Neil Finn pointed out to me that I play very loud yet gently. I never knew I played loud, because it doesn’t sound loud to me. My amps are very hot, but they’re also clean. As far as delay, I think I differ from somebody like the Edge, where it’s almost a mirror of what he’s doing. I play to it, so it’s just this halo.

“If you took it away, you would really notice. But while you’re listening to it – well, maybe you would notice, but a lot of people don’t realize just how much is on there. When I do sessions, which I still do, people are usually quite surprised how much delay I’m dialing in at first, but it usually kind of disappears behind what I’m doing because I’m quite a busy player.

You mentioned your Jaguar. Was that your main guitar on this record?

“Yeah. Over the years, I’ve kind of honed things down. The Jag does a big job. In short, my Jag sounds exactly like a Rickenbacker crossed with a Gretsch, but it plays like a Fender. It would’ve saved me quite a lot of money back in the day. I use that, but I always use a Gibson, as well. These days, I use ’73 Les Paul Customs for that dark thing. 

“For the last seven or eight years, I’ve also played Yamaha SGs for their articulation. The guitar I’ve recorded with more than any of the guitar is the red Les Paul Standard that I got in 1985 when the Smiths did Meat Is Murder. If I’m ever doubling arpeggios, that’s my go-to clean arpeggio guitar. 

“A while ago I started to use a Gibson doubleneck. Now I’m never without one because it’s just the best 12-string sound. It started with the movie Inception. It would be 3:30 in the morning, and I’d be jet-lagged and driving engineers mad while we were making a movie about people putting themselves to sleep. I realized the sound I was chasing was this distorted harmonic 12-string. And the only one that was in the building belonged to another composer. 

“It was this funky old EDS-1275. I started using it, and I realized that it’s the best goddamn electric 12-string sound. For a start, you’ve got the old humbuckers on there, but then you’ve also got this massive wood. 

“That gives you the option of letting the other neck ring out if you want to put it in a drone, which I sometimes do. That’s why I’ve recently acquired this very rare SG 12-string, because moving the other one around London, it’s like carrying a friggin’ sideboard.”

Any other guitars?

“I use a few acoustics that I’ve been using forever – Martins. There’s this company in the U.K. called Auden that makes these beautiful 12-strings, all handmade. So that’s it then – my Jags, some with the sustainer and my regular Jags, and then all the other ones. I try to keep things honed down.”

• Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is out now via BMG.

Pearl Jam brought out Johnny Marr during their set at BST Hyde Park on Saturday (July 9).

The Smiths guitarist joined the veteran Seattle rockers midway through the set for their cover of Throw Your Hatred Down – originally from Neil Young’s 1995 album, Mirror Ball – playing the track’s extended guitar solo during its outro. 

Marr also appeared for the final song of Pearl Jam’s set – a cover of The Who’s Baba O’Riley – alongside producer Andrew Watt, who accompanied frontman Eddie Vedder on his recent Earthlings solo tour.

Much to our minor disappointment, Marr didn't pull out his monstrous nine-pickup Strat for the performance, instead opting for a Gibson Les Paul.

Pearl Jam’s Saturday set at BST Hyde Park was the second of the band’s two performances at the London festival, following a vastly different set on Friday evening (July 8).

Highlights of the band’s Friday set included Better Man – the first time the band have played the Vitalogy cut as an opener since 2014 – a cover of Public Image Ltd’s Public Image, and staple encore outro, Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World.

The group’s Saturday set featured hits including Animal, Alive and Dance of the Clairvoyants, and Not for You, which the audience requested over Whipping.

• Learn Johnny Marr's rhythm guitar secrets

Pearl Jam wrapped up their recent US tour in support of 2020’s Gigaton early after bassist Jeff Ament tested positive for Covid.

Aside from the last-minute cancelations, the tour served a host of notable moments, including a performance of Eruption by guitarist Mike McCready in tribute to Eddie Van Halen, and a tribute to late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins featuring Chad Smith and the band’s resident touring guitarist Josh Klinghoffer.

Also of note: McCready – known to be a tube amp man – was seen playing through Fender Tone Master digital guitar amps, while frontman Eddie Vedder and guitarist Stone Gossard busted out some rare Gibson electric guitars for the trek.

Pearl Jam’s current European tour is set to wrap July 25 in Amsterdam, after which the band will take a month off, before heading back to North America for a string of dates from September 1.

When John Frusciante made his 2009 solo record The Empyrean, he invited Johnny Marr to play on several tracks. From there, a deep connection was formed between the two musicians.

“It was really fun,” John recalls. “I got to see how Johnny’s creative process worked on the guitar. He’s very unorthodox: in The Smiths’ stuff, the guitar is often a thing blending in with the band, but when you actually see the way Johnny comes up with things, and the way he thinks through the instrument, it’s just totally unconventional. And it was amazing to see that creative process at work fitting into the context of a pre-recorded piece of music. 

“He’s is an extremely nice person as well: mild-mannered, no ego there or anything like that. When we were doing the mix of that album, it wasn’t like normal, when you write down what’s on each track on the sticker that you put on the mixing console – you write rhythm guitar, lead guitar, whatever it is. But with him, it’s just ’Johnny Marr!’ 

• John Frusciante names his favorite modern-day guitar players

“It’s like a synthesizer or a sound effect or something. It doesn’t function in the mix in the way that a guitar usually does. It’s its own little universe coming out of that one track. It was really exciting to see it from that perspective. It just doesn’t fit into the mix in any kind of traditional way. You’ve just got to look at it as its own rule.”

Repaying the compliment, Johnny says: “Without being overly simplistic or corny, guitar players are definitely a breed, and John and I hit it off straight away. There is this obsessive thing with guitar players – whether it’s about sound or scales or models of guitar, it just seems to be part of the package. 

“John and I were recording in his house, which was nice. And with him, there was a quiet sort of intensity. There’s an almost zen-like stillness about his focus when he’s writing. There’s this underlying honour in what he’s doing. John has an approach to music which is almost sacred.”

• Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is out now via BMG.

He’s the Smiths guitar wizard who inspired a legion of indie guitarists to experiment with jangly tones. And, from the Madchester scene and 90s Britpop to later acts like The Killers, The Decemberists and The Drums, Johnny Marr’s influence is truly lasting. 

Notably, he’s created his legacy without languishing in one band for four decades – Marr’s influence comes from the breadth of his career’s work with acts such as The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, The Cribs, and in more recent years as a solo artist. 

Here, we’re looking at some key elements of Johnny’s playing style; parts of his playing that were at the core of the sound of The Smiths in the 80s, right up to today’s solo work. Our tab examples showcase some of the technical and compositional approaches Johnny has used over the years. 

Work through at your own pace and appreciate the magic...

Example 1.  Sophisticated chords: Slash chords

Johnny Marr is a fan of using rich sounding chords in his arrangements, such as the C/F slash chord here – it’s a C major chord over an F bass note. 

F doesn’t appear in the C chord (the notes are C, E and G), so you can be sure you’re adding colour to the sound of the basic chord. To record our part we used a 12-string electric guitar, inspired by Johnny’s use of the Rickenbacker 360-12.

Example 2.  Sophisticated chords: Extended major chords

This example showcases a great way to play the major 9 chord sound, but listen out too for those dips on the tremolo arm, which are key to the sound. 

We used a trem-quipped Gretsch but Johnny is better known for his Bigsby-loaded Gibson ES-355, which featured on tracks such as The Smiths’ Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now. 

Example 3.  Sophisticated chords: Major 7ths & minor 9ths

Here we’re using one chord shape in two different contexts. Firstly we play the shape at the 12th fret with the bass guitar playing an E note, creating an Em9. Then the shape is played at the 7th fret over a D bass note to give a Dmaj7 sound. It’s a trick Johnny used in The Smiths’ I Don’t Owe You Anything.

Example 4.  Acoustic strumming

Johnny has a great rhythmic sense, and songs like Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths or Hi Hello from Marr’s Call The Comet 2018 solo album feature strummed acoustic parts. 

The galloping rhythm here features on many The Smiths songs; the open strings help create continuity between the chords and add to the ringing jangle. 

Example 5.  2nd fret capo

In this example, we add a simple electric guitar line over our strummed acoustic example – similar to Marr’s work on The Smiths’ Back To The Old House or This Tension from his 2014 Playland solo album. Use alternate picking and make sure the strings ring out constantly.

Example 6. 2nd fret capo

In some recording sessions with The Smiths, Marr would tune his guitar up by a tone to F# standard tuning (F# B E A C# F#). Obviously a capo at the 2nd fret is the more practical choice for the sake of experimenting. 

Our example is inspired by 2nd-fret capo songs like Barbarism Begins At Home and This Night Has Opened My Eyes. 

Example 7. Fuzzy tones

There are several The Smiths songs such as What Difference Does It Make and Sheila Take A Bow that feature fuzz distortion tones, in addition to more recent songs like Tenement Time. Our example has a shuffle feel, so all of the eighth notes are slightly swung. The open strings provide sustain, ringing out to provide a denser texture. 

Example 8. Funky partial chords

For this example, we’re embellishing the acoustic guitar foundation we laid down in Example 6. Johnny’s two-note chord approach can be heard on Smiths tracks such as This Charming Man and Meat Is Murder. The main consideration here is to maintain the muting of the open strings with your idle fretting fingers. 

Example 9. Layering parts 1: Jangle chords

Marr is known for his multi-tracked soundscapes with layered guitar parts. For our example we started by double-tracking an acoustic guitar part with a 2nd-fret capo. The next layer is notated here and consists of simple spread chords played on a 12-string electric guitar with a capo on the 2nd fret. The idea is to add to the track, but still leave enough space for the next layer.

Example 10. Layering parts 2: Doublestops and harmonics

Inspired by Cemetry Gates and This Charming Man, we’re adding another layer to the previous part here with a simple motif using doublestops and natural harmonics.

Johnny Marr has taken to Instagram to share an image of what appears to be a new finish for his enduringly popular signature Fender Jaguar. 

The guitarist has been using a yellow Fender Jaguar throughout his time promoting 2022 solo album Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, posting images of the instrument on Instagram as far back as last September.

At that time, it seems its arrival was largely overshadowed thanks to the headline-grabbing nine-pickup Spirit Strat, which featured in the video for the album’s first single Spirit Power Soul.

Since then, the yellow Jaguar has featured in numerous publicity shots, live performances and video recordings. On May 9, Marr then posted an image from a live show alongside the not-so-cryptic hint of a new signature run…

“Fever Dreams Yellow signature Jag,” runs the accompanying comment. “News coming soon. Pic Laura Dean. #fenderguitars #fenderjaguar #johnnyfuckinmarr #feverdreams”

Marr’s signature Jaguar launched in 2012 and remains a popular offering for Fender. The original signature model is based on his 1965 Olympic White model, with a four-position blade selector switch mod and Bareknuckle Johnny Marr pickups. 

That model retails for around $2,249 and is part of Fender’s USA-made range. It’s currently available in Olympic White and Metallic KO but has previously been issued in limited run Black, Lake Placid Blue and Sherwood Green finishes.

The Fever Dreams Yellow edition is most likely another limited run finish option, but we also note that 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the Johnny Marr Jag launch, so we wonder if there might be more to it than a simple paint job. Fans have certainly been crying out for more affordable Mexican-made option, for instance...

It looks like we’ll have more news soon, but until then, keep an eye on Marr’s Instagram page, even if it’s just to appreciate Johnny Marr using the hashtag #johnnyfuckinmarr.

There’s a handful of players out there that have carved out their own style and flavour, and Johnny Marr is definitely one of those. He and The Edge were the most interesting guitarists from that ’80s era with what they’re playing, and they both had a great band. 

For sure they did something worth noticing, instead of a slew of guitar players just doing rock chords or whatever. It’s hard for me to know exactly how much each one of my influences has influenced me, but Johnny Marr, Robert Smith, Billy Corgan and Angus Young are all part of the recipe of who I am. They pop their head out at different moments.

I’ve been listening to The Smiths recently while I’ve been working on stuff with The Killers. When we’re writing, I try and I go back to the old influences because there’s still plenty more stuff I can do. I haven’t sat down and learned every Smiths song. I’ve only learned a handful of them, so there’s always something more to discover.

A lot of people try to say the coolest answer to why they picked up a guitar as a kid, but when I started I wanted to play songs that were fun – and what was fun on guitar was AC/DC, Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses. There are Smiths songs like This Charming Man that are fun to play too, but with Johnny Marr some of the songs aren’t entry-level guitar, so it had to come later.

There were some Smiths songs I grew up listening to, but I got more into the band in the late ’90s, when I was looking for more music post-Kurt Cobain. The Cure, New Order and The Smiths – those are probably the three biggest [bands] I was listening to in the early Killers days. We talked about countless Smiths songs. 

I like a certain sound that’s clean but tough. I like my voicings to be heard. And that’s what’s beautiful about some of Johnny’s stuff, like Back To The Old House – there’s these cool voicings that if it was full of gain you wouldn’t really hear. It sounds geeky, but as a guitar player I really enjoy new voicings.

If I’m practising on something like The Smiths or The Beatles, from time to time I’ll still stumble onto a new chord voicing after all these years. It’s cool because to my ears each one evokes a certain emotion, a certain flavour that’s unique to it. 

You’ve got to appreciate all the different chords to really understand that. I like it when there’s a song full of seventh chords and you hear the voicings, and you’ve got to have the right sound for that. When Johnny has chorus on it, it sounds even more beautiful. 

I like the sound right down the middle. That’s why I like the Fender Hot Rod Deville. I want to take a different approach with every song, and Johnny has definitely has been an influence on that. You don’t have to be dirty. You can let your chords speak for themselves. But Johnny has got plenty of dirty songs, too. London has got heavy guitar. There’s a time and place for it.

There’s a certain jazziness to some of Johnny’s stuff – and I don’t like jazz – but like a willingness to play different jazz chords and great clean, pretty parts. I always liked the Smiths song Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. 

There’s just a lot of beautiful chords in it that evoke emotion, a lot of major seventh chords. That stuck with me. Johnny also has a lot of dirty, great single lines, too. He was ahead of his time just playing all this single line, angular stuff.

I think of Johnny sometimes when I write a pretty acoustic song with cool voicings. I usually think, ‘Oh, is that too much like some of that Smiths stuff?’ But no, I usually just go with it. I’m probably influenced more by his guitar playing, but I wish the songwriting would be the bigger influence. 

He throws in a lot of sudden out-of-key chord movements. He’s out of key just for a second on a couple chords, but it’s all really cool. I wish I would do a little more of that. Not to mention the quality of his songs is really good as well, so I might have to learn a few more and try and let those influences sink in!

It was an honour to see Johnny play Mr. Brightside with The Killers at Glastonbury 2019 [Dave did not perform with the band]. It’s pretty cool that I’ve learned a few of his songs and then he had to learn one of my songs. He played the riff a little differently from me. If he wants to do a different interpretation, I think it’s great.

• Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is out now via BMG.

John McGeoch was a truly unique guitarist who quietly elevated most of the UK’s great post-punk exports of the late-’70s and early-’80s. Playing a key role in records from Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Public Image Ltd, McGeoch’s innovative, textural approach to the instrument helped redefine the guitar in an era that was left to rebuild in punk’s explosive wake. 

He had a glittering, forward-thinking career and contributed to several of the era’s most important bands and recordings, but he was rarely in the spotlight. As a player, his name is known by those who know – and his musical legacy has travelled much further than his personal fame.

John Frusciante, Johnny Marr, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, The Edge, Dave Navarro and Steve Albini have all cited McGeoch as a key influence. Now a new authorized biography, The Light Pours Out Of Me, sees author Rory Sullivan-Burke tell McGeoch’s story with the input of those who knew him best, personally and musically. 

The book features interviews with friends and family, as well as key collaborators and famous fans of the late guitarist. 

Below, Guitar World is pleased to be able to share exclusive excerpts from The Light Pours Out Of Me, including tributes from Steve Albini, John Frusciante, Johnny Marr and Ed O’Brien among others, all of whom share their insight on his legacy and playing style.

John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

“I don’t know much about McGeoch as a person, but I can say from the perspective of a musician that it really requires a genuine artistic confidence to not overstep those bounds [musically].

“When I was 18 or 19 and starting my band, I had no ability to stay within that and it wasn’t until I was about 20 that I started seeing how you could get more out of trying to stand out less. It’s something that he seems to have understood from the very beginning of his recorded output, and understanding how to adapt to the people that you’re playing with. How to do something, like I say, extremely colourful and creative within those boundaries that if you step outside of them you’re going to be stepping on the other people in the group, and they’re not going to sound as good as they can sound.

“He does a lot of fancy things, on [Siouxsie and the Banshee’s 1981 album] Juju especially, there are so many sixteenth note-based guitar parts on there where he’s very comfortable playing at that speed, and where open strings fit into it as well. I tend to think when somebody is playing that comfortably that they are actually capable of going even further than that, but they are staying within what’s comfortable and that has a certain sound as well.

“I don’t want to hear somebody where it’s like they are doing the absolute top limit of what they are capable of doing; you want to have the sense that somebody could be doing more but they’re not – they are restraining themselves in order to be more expressive, and that’s a paradox. I think a lot of guitar players go their whole lives and never get that through their heads.

“Hearing somebody who understands it so well from the start of their career really shows what I believe to be true artistic confidence, and you can’t get that by trying to make people see how confident you are – you have to just be that way inside yourself, and really appreciate the colour and the feeling that music produces.

“It’s incredible how much you can learn about somebody from studying their playing and trying to do exactly what they did and seeing the relationship to the other instruments. I’m always surprised when I hear about musicians that they learn how to play only from playing with other people – I wouldn’t have ever gotten anywhere if I did that. It’s only from studying what people have recorded – that’s where my whole style comes from, that’s where my conception of music comes from, that’s where my songs come from.

“It’s like getting to know somebody as a person even though they’re not there. That’s what it feels like – it feels like they are there and like their heart is there, their soul is there. It all just needs to be decoded and you just try to get better and better at decoding. It’s an incredible thing what recording has brought to the possibilities of musicianship. I don’t know if I would have ever been a musician if recording didn’t exist.”

Johnny Marr

“With all great groups there’s a collective vision that comes from all the members, really. You can’t ignore that the name of the band and the titles of the songs like Permafrost or Motorcade go so perfectly with the music, and vice versa. Those words for me are synonymous with what John’s sound is.

“You know, Permafrost is a great word to describe his guitar sound and then maybe, later, when it gets to the Banshees, you could call it glacial. Not that it was soulless, but it was a long way from the down-home bluesy vibe which is the easy way out. It’s a real sad thing that John McGeoch’s not around to get all the appreciation from musicians and music fans. That’s a really sad thing.”

Ed O'Brien (Radiohead)

“His playing contribution to Magazine was so good, but I really think he hit his stride with the Banshees, and Juju for me was the epicentre of his playing... so, so good.”

Steve Albini

“I admired and sometimes emulated John McGeoch, though I don’t think I ever had any direct interaction with him. In particular, I liked the way his guitar played abstractions of the music rather than the structure of the music, even in a three-piece band setting, like with Siouxsie and the Banshees. I liked that he could play away from the song and let the listener figure out how it fit in.”

Mille Petrozza (Kreator)

“I’ve always looked up to the sound McGeoch got from his guitar. It had something that was lacking in metal, which was all about the big solos, the big chords. McGeoch brought a dark, chilling atmosphere – almost like it was set in ice.

“It was very expressive and creates images in your mind and I think it is especially true of his work with Siouxsie. McGeoch in that period took you on a journey. It was so influential to me.”

Mark Arm (Mudhoney)

“He was someone that I latched on to immediately with his playing in Magazine, and then with Siouxsie. There are things you could try to say about the music and how it makes you feel, but I just don’t think that would be fully accurate. It can be easy to reduce it all to a game of comparisons and that doesn’t do the music justice.

“He’s got a very unique style, you know. It’s not a style I’ve emulated – I’m not that good! He’s a very original thinker and not an ‘overplayer’ – the little bits where he does a solo are really innovative and super-cool. Whatever scale he was using on Permafrost, it’s brilliant.

“Space is key, a secret ingredient for musicians which shouldn’t be a secret. Knowing when to step back – John had that ability.”

Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai)

“John McGeoch was the best post-punk guitarist. He played like no-one else, totally distinct and with unyielding imagination. I hear his influence everywhere to this day. A total legend.”

• The Light Pours Out of Me is available now via Omnibus Press. A limited, hand-numbered signed slipcase special-edition will also be available, including a previously unreleased live recording on vinyl. One copy includes a ‘golden ticket’, winning the recipient an Eastwood McGeoch 1000.

On October 4, 1982, an 18-year-old Johnny Marr walked on to the stage at the Ritz in Manchester to perform his first gig with The Smiths. A lifelong guitar devotee, Johnny had been playing in various local bands since the age of 13. 

The Wythenshawe lad had “served an apprenticeship” and was ready to take on the world. Four decades on, as he speaks to Total Guitar from his Manchester home, it is obvious Johnny’s enthusiasm, curiosity, and love for playing guitar remains as strong as ever.

His latest solo album – Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 – is an expansive sonic masterpiece that brings together myriad styles while somehow managing to retain that quintessential Johnny Marr sound. The secret lies in his instrument of choice. 

“Me and my band feel a duty to represent the guitar,” Johnny says. “As more time has gone on, I’ve reverted to the idea that if there is space for an instrumental passage then it has to be done on the guitar, because that’s what people want from me.”

Johnny Marr co-founded The Smiths, the groundbreaking British indie band, just when the guitar world was in dire need of a new kind of antihero. Johnny’s inimitable tone underscored the band’s gritty elegance and forged an aesthetic that has galvanised generations of guitar players since. 

Within The Smiths’ five-year lifespan, Johnny recorded a slew of timeless tracks that remain touchstones of guitar technique. By the time the guitarist had parted ways with his band in 1987, he had established himself as one of the most in-demand players around. 

At the age of 23, Johnny had already created the kind of legacy many hope to achieve in a lifetime. And yet the young guitarist’s musical life was only just gathering momentum.

Before long, Johnny found himself in the studio with the likes of new wave pioneers Talking Heads and The Pretenders, even touring with the latter for a brief period. Since then, his work as a session player has seen him hopping genres with a plethora of musicians including Bryan Ferry, Billy Bragg, Bert Jansch, Hans Zimmer, Noel Gallagher, Beck and John Frusciante.

At the same time, Johnny has pursued various longer-term projects. Riding high on the wave of Manchester’s late 80s rave scene he joined forces with Joy Division and New Order founder Bernard Sumner to form Electronic, releasing a trio of albums throughout the 90s. 

Simultaneously, Johnny became a fully-fledged member of post-punk outfit The The, stamping his unique identity into the band’s sound as they scaled the charts with hits like The Beat(en) Generation and Dogs Of Lust.

As a new millennium got underway, Johnny’s career took a more direct turn with Johnny Marr + The Healers. Having self-produced the group’s 2003 album, Boomslang, Johnny confidently stepped into his role as a name artist and frontman (though fans would patiently have to wait another decade for his first bona fide solo release). 

In the meantime, Johnny immersed himself in several other collaborative projects, notably American indie rockers Modest Mouse, with whom he recorded 2007’s US Billboard 200 number one album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. 

The following year, Johnny teamed up with Wakefield alt-rock brothers The Cribs – a creative venture that culminated in the 2009 UK top ten album Ignore The Ignorant. Appearing at major festivals including Glastonbury and Lollapalooza, he toured extensively with the band until finally deciding to focus on a solo career.

Unveiled in 2013, The Messenger album heralded the arrival of Johnny Marr the solo artist. Co-produced with long-time collaborator James Doviak (better known simply as Doviak) this was quickly followed up by Playland in 2014 and the Adrenalin Baby live album in 2015. 

After spending a year writing the candid autobiography Set The Boy Free, Johnny then continued to follow his calling as a solo artist, emerging triumphant from the studio in 2018 with a third album, Call The Comet.

Now, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 continues his trailblazing trajectory. “If people want to know what I do as a solo artist,” he says, “it’s all there across four or five albums.” In a lengthy conversation, Johnny talks in depth about his latest endeavours as a solo artist and reflects upon his long and varied musical career as one the UK’s most influential guitar players.

How does Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 compare to your previous solo album, Call The Comet?

“With Fever Dreams, I was going into my studio in this old factory building during the daytime on my own – this big industrial space with all these windows which were flooded with light. 

“It was completely the opposite to my experience recording the previous album which was very much nocturnal. And that’s why the album cover is the way it is – the picture of me in a completely empty room with no one else around. 

“That was my experience of making the record and I think that’s seeped into a lot of the music. I get a lot of the basic ideas together on my own in my own setup and then I call [James] Doviak in, my co-producer. He’s a Jedi on Pro Tools. But I’ve also been operating Pro Tools for many years, so I do know that stuff. I got even more into the sonics on this album than any other. 

“For a very long time, I was the guy who was first in the studio in the morning and the last to leave. Like when I was producing with Electronic, I tended to be in there first thing and leave last because it was my studio. 

“In my thirties and forties I was very into engineering and programming, but then when I started with the solo band it was just a good idea to get someone in who can take over.”

What were you going for in terms of overall sound with this new album?

“I wanted it to be slightly more hi-fi than the last record. My frame of mind was more about the kind of technology I was using. I think that may have been something to do with the pandemic, but it was also just where my head was at. 

“Because I’d decided it was going to be a double album, that gave me the idea, maybe subconsciously, that the sound was going to be a bit more expansive.”

What does the title Fever Dreams mean to you?

“I had the title Fever Dreams before the pandemic, but what was happening to everybody fed into the concept of the record. I wanted to write about consciousness and perception. For the song Hideaway Girl, I wrote the lyric ‘Every day is a fever dream’. 

“I don’t know about you, but my experience of lockdown was of time not meaning what it should. I’ve had conversations with people where it seemed like weeks were whizzing by in seconds. And then other times a day would feel like a week.”

Practically speaking, how did you go about fine-tuning the sounds to fit your vision?

“I paid more attention to the software plug-ins I’d bought whilst being out on the road. I also borrowed a drum machine from Steve Morris [Joy Division, New Order] which was a good thing because he was very helpful when some of the software wasn’t behaving like it should have been. So, thanks Steve!”

What guitar effects did you use across this album?

“Like pretty much everybody who reads your magazine, I’m a sucker for guitar gadgets and technology. But I tend to have a pretty good and quick instinct for what sounds are going to work for overdubs. I’ve always tended to be able to find a sound to go with a part. 

“Usually, the part comes first in my ears. And then I kind of go, ‘I know that’ll work really well on an MXR flanger’ or ‘the Carl Martin chorus pedal on a really slow speed will really do the job there,’ for example. 

“There is a lot of Uni-vibe on this record. I’ve got a 90s Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe – they’re really great. And I’ve got a Fulltone Deja’Vibe. It’s a sound that not every pedal maker gets right. The song Sensory Street is built on a Uni-Vibe riff. That was a Hendrix-style riff I was kicking around. 

“There’s also a fair bit of the Boss RT-20 Rotary [Ensemble] used on the album. The other Boss pedal I really love is the TR-2 Tremolo. During my days in The The and Modest Mouse, I experimented a lot with modulation – even ring modulation. There are a few different things I like. 

“You can go round and round forever with these things, but the chorus in the Kemper is really good, I like Electro-Harmonix stuff, and the [Strymon] BlueSky, Eventide... the list goes on and on. But overall, Boss pedals are great, and the Carl Martin pedals are really beautiful. I use the Carl Martin [Headroom] reverb pedal a lot.”

What gain pedals do you like to use?

“For years now I’ve used the Carl Martin AC-Tone and PlexiTone. They work really well with my [Fender] Jaguar[s].”

What guitars did you use on the album?

“I used the new Jaguar a lot, of course. I also used a Yamaha SG-1000 quite a bit. The Yamaha SGs are really great instruments to play. Around the time I left school in 1980, a lot of the innovative players had switched to the [Yamaha] SG, most notably John McGeoch [of Siouxsie And The Banshees]. 

“Andy Partridge was playing one in XTC for a while. Stuart Adamson was playing one with Skids. And also [Be-Bop Deluxe founder] Bill Nelson, who was very important to my generation. As good as those players were, when I left school, I wanted to do something of my own. Vintage guitars were the holy grail for me. So, I sidestepped the Yamaha. 

“My thing with The Smiths was about Gretsches and Strats and Rickenbackers. Doviak and I decided to track Yamaha SGs down about ten years ago. They do the thing a Les Paul does, but with a different kind of articulation. And those pickups are a little more hi-fi. They’re a good alternative to a Les Paul. And they were beautifully made. They make me play in a very precise way. 

“I also used my Smiths 1980s red Les Paul with the Bigsby. That’s always on the records. That’s been on more records than any other guitar, including [The Smiths’ 1985 classic] Meat Is Murder. I use that a lot to play clean arpeggios and to double [track] the Jag. It adds a real creaminess. 

“I use a couple of ’73 Les Paul Customs for that kind of glam thing. You can hear that on Tenement Time particularly. I always have the Jag in there somewhere. But the Les Paul made me come up with the riff for that song. It’s a very glam rock kind of song.”

Which 12-string guitars did you use?

“I used a new Auden 12-string acoustic. They’re really beautiful, well-made acoustics. I used that on Counter-Clock World to do a pseudo-Eddie Cochran thing. I sometimes double lead parts to make it stand out a little bit. 

“For my 12-string electric sound I used a Gibson EDS-1275 double neck. I discovered those by accident when I was recording Inception [with Hans Zimmer]. It was about one o’clock in the morning and the sound still wasn’t right, but I wasn’t ready to call it a day. I knew it had to be a 12-string but the only one in the building happened to be a double-neck. 

“I thought, ‘alright, I’ll give it a go,’ and so I strapped myself in and it turned out to be the best 12-string sound ever! The combination of the [shallow] SG depth, that larger width, and the humbucker sound all adds up to a darker, deeper picture. It darkens that 12-string top-end chime up in a really good way. Also, you can leave the other unused half of the guitar ringing out in an open tuning, which sometimes works well at high volume.

“When I was recording the Bond movie [No Time To Die] soundtrack, I happened to come across a single-neck 12-string SG, which is a bit of a rarity. I owned a black [Gibson ES-] 335-12 back in the day. In fact, up until the last album, that’s what I was using.”

What guitar amps did you use this time?

“I tend to always use the same amps – my ’64/’65 Fender Deluxe Reverb and a Fender Super Reverb from around 2008 (my Modest Mouse amp). I also used an early 60s Fender Twin and a late 60s Marshall Plexi. But for some parts I used an HH Electronics combo – it’s got some really nasty solid-state distortion. 

“For this album, I also dug out my old Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amp. Transistor amps have a sonic presence that puts the sound right in your face. It’s sort of an Ennio Morricone sound. 

“Some of the best examples of transistor amps are on the first Buzzcocks album, Another Music In A Different Kitchen – songs like Autonomy and Fiction Romance. Mic'ing up a Roland JC-120 is very pleasing. The chorus sound is incredible.”

The Roland JC-120 was one of the amps you used during the earliest days of The Smiths. It’s nice to hear some of those familiar sounds on Fever Dreams...

“Sonically, I feel like I was let off the leash a little bit. I kind of decided to just do what the hell I wanted. When I’ve been talking about the album, I’ve started to notice that some people are mentioning bits of it sound like stuff I did in Electronic, stuff I did in The The, stuff I did in The Smiths. And I realise that’s not only because of the 90s electro sounds. 

“It just didn’t occur to me that some people might think, ‘he’s quoting himself,’ or, ‘he’s being self-referential.’ I had to answer that with: it’s my sound; I fucking invented it. I can use it as many times as I like!”

Where in other people’s music do you hear your influence?

“I suppose you hear echoes of what I’ve done in what got called dreampop several years ago – but with other people’s own twist on it. Just when you think it’s been done to death, a new generation runs with their own imaginations. 

“Which is very gratifying and very flattering to me. When I was asked to do The Avalanches collaboration a few years ago [The Divine Chord from 2020’s We Will Always Love You], they sent me the track and I almost thought, ‘I should do someone trying to do me.’ 

“That was a bit of a first. When they sent me the track, I could hear what they were going for. It was like, ‘I see, you want a kind of dreampop thing here.’ But I’d rather do that than just me doing a version of me.” 

How would you define that sound?

“The thing we’re talking about here is a clear ringing sound that is modulated and quite dreamy. When I hear it, I just think I’m listening to like-minded souls, really. I don’t think I’m hearing people who are copying me. I think they probably would have done it anyway. 

“The stuff I’ve done may have inspired their imagination, but everyone’s approach is a sensibility. If you’re playing with the sort of sound I use, I think it’s a sensibility and it is kind of a statement. I still think that sound is trying to be out of the box a little bit and fighting against anything that is too kind of gnarly. In my case it was trying to be heady, in a way. 

“I don’t see it as being particularly polite though. Something like [The Smiths’] The Headmaster Ritual or The Messenger are quite neo-psychedelic, if I was going to put a word on it. To me, it’s heavier than someone who thinks they’re trying to do Led Zeppelin. And it’s more interesting. 

“The guitar really helps you stamp your own identity – on your band and ultimately on the world, or at least anyone who’s listening anyway. I love that about the guitar. 

“You obviously have to get past the initial bit of finding your vocabulary and being adept, but that thing I’m known for with my sound was fairy deliberate. That’s one of the great things about the instrument – you are expressing yourself and you are taking a position.”

What artists influenced your approach to guitar tone early on?

“My approach to sound had been on my mind quite a lot. When I left school, there was a new movement of people who were thinking along the same lines. But they were all a little older than me – people like Will Sergeant [Echo & The Bunnymen] and Robert Smith [The Cure]. 

“People often overlook what Robert Smith was doing on guitar. The fact that he joined Siouxsie And The Banshees was really fucking cool. Keith Levene [Public Image Ltd] and John McGeoch, too. In our own little ways we were all thinking along the same lines, which is anti-rock. 

“But we also wanted to bring a certain kind of mystery and, dare I say, an underground kind of ‘drugginess’ to it. In other words, it wasn’t about being pretty and polite just because you were playing clean. Listen to Charlotte Sometimes by The Cure and what Robert was doing on that. I went to see a lot of these bands when I was a kid and I have to give credit to the times. It rubs off on you. We were all young, and it all added up to this feeling of futurism. 

“The main proponent of it who had kicked that off in the UK was Bill Nelson with Be Bop Deluxe, and his first couple of solo records with Red Noise. Bill Nelson was very respected. Be Bop Deluxe were pre-punk – around 1974/75. 

“I saw Be Bop Deluxe a couple of times and he was great because he was doing flash stuff on guitar that all teenage boys like, but his songwriting and approach was not hoary old blues rock; he was doing this kind of glam art-rock thing.”

In more recent times you discovered an affinity with the American indie scene...

“I’d gone off British rock music because I felt that a lot of it from the late 90s was starting to sound like a lame imitation of OK Computer. A lot of the things I liked on the guitar were coming out of America. Broken Social Scene’s first album [Feel Good Lost] restored my faith in what guitar bands can do. 

“When I started to explore that American scene a bit more, I realised all roads led to Modest Mouse. But I couldn’t work out what their influences were. And I found that really refreshing. I just knew I liked it. We really hit the ground running and got on a very creative streak. 

“I fell back into my experience of being a teenager when the chemistry is really good. The Cribs happened like Modest Mouse happened in that we initially got together to do something short and temporary. When it comes to me joining bands it’s really a matter of having been through such an intense experience with other people making music that it would just be plain fucking rude to bail. 

“When I’m writing songs at a rapid rate and having a great time in a creative situation, everything in my life comes secondary to that. I just get completely focused and single-minded. To get serious for a minute: I’m not really sure how great that is for you as a human being. But that’s the way I’ve been since I was a kid. And that’s what I’ve had to do to make this double album.”

So you’re still as single-minded as you’ve always been?

“Yeah. It’s not just my name, but it’s the next chapter in my life and I know I’m going to be judged on it and it’s got to sustain me and my band for the next couple of years. I know this all sounds very serious. But I don’t know any other way.”

• Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is out now via BMG.

With his Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 double-album right around the corner, Johnny Marr has heightened anticipation with the release of new single Night and Day.

Described as an exploration of “the confusion, torpor and entropy of the way we’ve all been living”, Night and Day sees the Smiths icon team up with Simone Marie of Primal Scream, who assumes backing vocal and bass guitar duties.

It's the latest song from the project to be shared – following the release of Fever Dream Pt 1 and Fever Dream Pt 2 – and will feature on the Fever Dream Pt 3 tracklist alongside The Speed of Love, Counter-Clock World and Rubicon.

Along with Marie’s fuzz-tinged basslines, Marr concocts a sweet blend of diamond-clean acoustics and bite-y single-note rhythms, while dishing up chime-y electric layers that add tasty nuances throughout the mix. 

There’s also some sweet tremolo effect work in the transition phases, too, serving as a bridge between the tamer verses and soundscapes of the chorus.

“I’m trying to be positive, for me and my audience, really,” Marr said. “My personality is such that it occurs to me to think that way. I’m not just writing with positivity for the sake of a song. It’s real, and it’s also very necessary.”

All of Marr’s EPs will combine to form the ambitious double-album, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, which will drop on February 25 via BMG.

Labeling the “inspired” project as “wildly diverse”, Marr has previously teased that Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 will feature a sound he’s been working on ever since he left the Smiths. 

“There are so many strands of music in it,” he said. “We didn’t do that consciously, but I think I’ve got a vocabulary of sound. I feel very satisfied that I’ve been able to harness it. It’s an inspired record, and I couldn’t wait to get in and record every day.”

Not only will the record feature this new sound, it will also showcase Marr’s Fender Spirit Strat – an absurd, nine-pickup Stratocaster that was used on Spirit, Power and Soul.

Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is available to preorder now.

Elsewhere in the Marr family, Johnny’s son Nile Marr recently shared his new single, Only Time Can Break Your Heart.

Nile Marr has dropped an upbeat new single titled Only Time Can Break Your Heart, taken from his new two-track seven-inch, How We Drift.

Marr, son of Smiths legend Johnny Marr, described the track – which was recorded at a home studio situated in an abandoned mill – as “liberating”, and said How We Drift is the product of “writing the kind of songs I’ve always wanted to write”.

As you’d expect, there is some gorgeous guitar work – the layered acoustic guitars and electric guitars carry the track with a breezy feelgood personality, which is later souped up by an airy solo that flexes Marr’s keen ear for some fretboard adventuring.

Marr’s self-professed inspirations for the song can also be deciphered from the track. Perhaps most apparent are those jangly, chime-y guitars from the chorus/verse transitions, which have an openness reminiscent of The La’s There She Goes.

"The threat of being kicked out by developers is real so I’ve been trying to make as much music as possible," Marr explained. "The pandemic helped me refocus my life and prioritize what I felt was most important, writing the kind of songs I’ve always wanted to write. 

“Only Time Can Break Your Heart is me doing The La’s, Big Star, hell, even Tom Petty,” he continued. “Bands that made me want to write songs when I first heard them as a kid. 

“It doesn’t have to be shouty, it doesn’t have to be loud. It’s singing because I like it, it’s melody because I like melody. It’s liberating."

Marr’s premiere musical turnout of the year is his first new solo material since his debut album, 2020’s Are You Happy? In recent years, Marr has also occupied himself by touring with Hans Zimmer and featuring on two of his father’s albums: The Messenger (2013) and Playland (2014).

Johnny Marr has been equally busy. Last year, he announced his new solo double-album Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 – two EPs and eight tracks from the project have already been released.

Nile Marr’s Only Time Can Break Your Heart is available now on Bandcamp.

Johnny Marr has announced details on Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 – his upcoming 16-track, double-album effort that will be released early next year.

Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 will be Marr’s fourth solo studio record proper – after The Messenger (2013), Playland (2014) and Call the Comet (2018) – and is set to be divided into four individual chapters that contribute to the record’s overall sound, which has supposedly been in development since The Smiths split up.

The first installment of the saga – Fever Dreams Pt 1 – will be released digitally and on limited-edition 12” silver vinyl on October 15, with the rest of the album due to drop February 22, 2022.

Of the album, the Smiths icon said, “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing – really since getting out of The Smiths until now, and I hear it in this record. 

“There are so many strands of music in it,” he continued. “We didn’t do that consciously, but I think I’ve got a vocabulary of sound. And I feel very satisfied that I’ve been able to harness it.”

The album is also set to be a compositional tour de force, taking inspiration from “wildly diverse music from across Marr’s career” and featuring “lyrics that are direct, emotional, deeply human, and thereby true to what Marr calls The Language of the Song”.

Marr also commented on the impact the pandemic had on the album’s creation, saying it encouraged him to dissect his own interior life and explore the emotional and psychological states of others.

"It's and inspired record, and I couldn't wait to get in and record every day," he continued. "But I had to go inwards."

An insight into the record’s sonic universe has already been released in the form of Marr’s electro-soul anthem Spirit, Power and Soul, for which the Smiths guitarist wielded an utterly absurd nine-pickup Fender Stratocaster, dubbed the Spirit Strat.

Joining Marr on the credits sheet is his longstanding band, comprising bassist Iwan Gronow, drummer Jack Mitchell, and vocalist Meredith Sheldon, a Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter.

Doviak – another one of Marr’s collaborators – has also been drafted in to helm co-production duties.

The tracklist for Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 can be found below.

1. Spirit Power & Soul
2. Receiver
3. All These Days
4. Ariel
5. Lightning People
6. Hideaway Girl
7. Sensory Street
8. Tenement Time
9. The Speed of Love
10. Night and Day
11. Counter-Clock World
12. Rubicon
13. God's Gift
14. Ghoster
15. The Whirl
16. Human

Accompanying the album news is the announcement of Live At The Crazy Face Factory – an intimate livestream that will premiere on November 10 and be available on demand until November 14. 

The event, which will take place at the Crazy Face Factory studio where Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 was recorded, will feature a set of full-band live performances from across Marr’s career, and will see the Smiths icon discuss his creative process and songwriting career.

Tickets for Live At The Crazy Face Factory go up for general sale on October 20, though will be available early to those who preorder Fever Dreams Pts 1-4.

• Fever Dreams Pt 1 will be released on October 15. Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is available to preorder now ahead of its February 25 2022 release.

When Johnny Marr announced his all-new double album, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, and celebrated the news by releasing the record’s lead single, Spirit, Power And Soul, many were taken aback by the Smiths hero’s exciting new project.

However, six-string-keen individuals tuning in to witness Marr’s new outing were even more surprised by the electric guitar he employed for the song – an absurd, totally bonkers nine-pickup Fender Stratocaster.

Making its debut in the Spirit, Power And Soul music video, Marr’s eye-catching axe bamboozled viewers, striking awe and an element of intimidation into the hearts of keen guitar players around the world.

After the dust settled, there was one question on everyone’s lips: when can we see more of the nine-pickup Strat?

Now, due to “popular demand”, Marr has shared an up-close shot of his new model to social media, allowing us to gaze upon the beastly, SSSSSSSSS-configured six-string in all its glory.

Dubbed the “Spirit Strat”, Marr also took the opportunity to respond to a fan who enquired about its unorthodox pickup pairing, revealing the nine pickups “all feed into each other” to make “one giant one”.

One giant humbucker with nine coils, or nine single coils wired in series? That’s just one part of the puzzle – we’ve yet to even begin unpicking the 18 toggle switches littered across the pickguard.

Nonetheless, there are a few familiar features, including the suspected master volume and tone controls, which are a friendly sight amongst the rest of the mind-bending appointments.

It would take one truly brave soul with an incredibly impressive memory to wield such a complex-looking axe and operate the absurd switching system – one capable of executing numerous nimble-fingered mid-gig switch flicks with pinpoint accuracy.

So, are we about to see one of the wildest Fender signature guitars to ever be released? Or is Marr’s new model merely meant to be admired from afar, as opposed to wielded by mere mortals? 

Whatever the answer, the Spirit Strat should come with a disclaimer – that thing does not look safe for the faint of heart.

Though his last solo effort was 2018's Call the Comet, Smiths (not to mention Modest Mouse, The Cribs, The The...) electric guitar hero Johnny Marr has kept busy in these COVID times, teaching fans how to play Smiths classics on Instagram and revealing juicy, hitherto unknown gear secrets about some of his most famous riffs.

Evidently, with today's announcement of his new double album, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, he's also spent the last 17 months or so writing and recording plenty of new music.

You can check out the music video for the album's first single, the propulsive Spirit, Power And Soul, below.

“Spirit, Power And Soul is a kind of mission statement," Marr said of the song in a press release. "I had an idea about an electro sound with gospel feeling, in my own words – an electro soul anthem.”

Now, that's all well and good (so is the song, for that matter), but what's got us buzzing is the absolutely bonkers custom Stratocaster Marr is using in the video.

We count nine pickups on that beauty, each (by the looks of it) with a pair of switches to boot. Even more interestingly, the Strat – like Marr's signature Fender Jaguar – boasts only two master knobs.

This might be a long shot, but could we be in for the release of one of the wildest custom Strats we've ever seen? We'll have our eyes peeled...

In any case, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 will be released as a series of four EPs, with the first arriving October 15 via BMG Records. You can check out Pt. 1's cover art and track list below.

To preorder Pt. 1, step right this way.

Johnny Marr – Fever Dreams, Pt. 1:

1. Spirit, Power And Soul
2. Receiver
3. All These Days
4. Ariel

Johnny Marr may be best known for his signature Fender Jaguar, but the Telecaster also holds an important place in the indie icon's recorded history.

Here, Marr details his own relationship with the first mass-produced solidbody guitar, and why it features on more Smiths tracks than you might expect…

“My most famous one is my green sunburst Roger Giffin. My wife, who was then my girlfriend, very kindly wanted to get me a gift and the great Alan Rogan [Pete Townshend’s guitar tech] tipped her off to this one-off that Roger Giffin had made.

“A lot of people remember it because it is very distinctive-looking, but Alan recommended it to me because it sounded very unusual. It’s maple, so it weighs an absolute ton, and it has a lot of brass on it. It has a very distinctive sound. I was only a little slip of a thing when I got it [laughs], so I could only play two songs with it before I had to go and lie down.  

“I still have that guitar. It has a coil-tap on it, which I disabled. To this day, I do not know what the pickups are on there. They might be really early Seymour Duncans – knowing Roger. The first time I ever used a Telecaster was the day I recorded This Charming Man. 

“The sound of that intro was always assumed that it was a Rickenbacker because that is what I was most known for at the time, but it is actually – mostly – a ’54 Tele, maybe ’53, that belonged to the producer [John Porter] tracked with a Rickenbacker, so it is quite an interesting sound. That was a refinished ’53 or ’54 Tele and it was the first time I had used one. It really suited my super-clean sound. But it still had plenty of attitude.

“The combination of that '50s Tele sound and the Rickenbacker was perfect for what I was looking for. That was my first experience with a Tele. Quite quickly, I was lucky enough to acquire a few different guitars, but I made it my business to get a Tele.

“That’s why Angie knew I needed one. The green one I used mostly on Meat Is Murder – Nowhere Fast and the title track. I guess by the time of the last [Smiths] album, I acquired a mid-’60s Tele which had been customised with a humbucker in the neck position.

“Right now I have got four or five Telecasters, mostly ’60s models. I’ve got a ’64, and I really like that period, because I want that clean, classic Tele thing but they’re just slightly darker. It’s a combination of the bodies and the fingerboard being rosewood. I like that darker clang. I’ve still got the black and white Custom one, and in the 2000s, Fender gave me a Custom Shop early ’60s reissue, Olympic [White] with the black 'guard.”

NAMM 2021 isn't taking place in the physical realm this year, but you'll find all the hottest January gear launches in our guide to the biggest guitar, amp and pedal releases of 2021 so far.

NAMM Believe in Music Week kicked off on January 18, and among the highlights so far has been Boss presenting its sixth-annual Lifetime Achievement Award to electric guitar icon Johnny Marr.

The Boss Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes individuals for their contributions to the music industry while using Boss gear throughout their careers.

Marr, of course, began his career in the 1980s with the Smiths, quickly becoming established as one of the most influential songwriters and guitarists in British music. He’s enjoyed success as a solo artist since, and has collaborated with acts including Talking Heads, Electronic, Modest Mouse, the Cribs, the Avalanches, Hans Zimmer and Billie Eilish, recently recording the score and soundtrack for the forthcoming James Bond film, No Time to Die.

Opening the awards presentation, Roland Europe Head of Artist Relations Jamie Franklin said, “In terms of inspiring a generation to pick up a guitar and think differently about tone, melody, and life changing music, no one comes to mind more than Johnny Marr.”

Boss President Yoshi Ikegami presented Marr with the award, and during his acceptance Marr thanked Ikegami and Boss for the CE-2 Chorus, explaining how the pedal was “such a big part” of his sound in the Smiths.

He also recalled getting his first pedal in 1980, a purple Boss BF-2 Flanger.

“I got it because, and I was 16 or 17, the guitar sounds were changing,” Marr said. “It was a shift in the way new musicians were playing, and a big part of it was that Boss Flanger pedal.

“Musicians like John McGeoch, who was playing with Siouxsie and the Banshees and Magazine, he was a big flanger guy, and the Cure as well. Bands like that were coming out. We were changing the approach of guitar.”

Among the artists congratulating Marr on the award were Sting guitarist Rufus Miller, who said, “I remember being a teenager, even younger than that, and hearing your jangly guitar parts, and the way you played was so original, the arpeggios, everything. I think everyone has taken something from it. And the way you’ve adapted to join all of these different bands is just phenomenal. You are a huge inspiration.”

Also commenting was Broken Social Scene bassist and guitarist Andrew Whiteman, who added, “Me, like ten-thousands of others, we listen to that guitar player, and we hear the ‘saudade,’ the Brazilian word that means melancholy, longing for something. You keep it in the confines of a pop song. You reach for eternity. You go through something. It’s both heart-wrenching and uplifting at the same time. How is it done? I don’t know, but you do it, each and every time.”

Registered attendees of NAMM Believe in Music Week 2021 can watch the Boss Lifetime Achievement Award presentation to Johnny Marr on-demand through February 28 here, or by heading to the Boss virtual booth accessible from the exhibitor directory at NAMM.org.

Here’s the thing. Choosing the 100 greatest guitarists of all time turned out to be just too darned tough for Total Guitar’s fanatical team of guitar nerds. So, armed with a ‘shortlist’ of over 250 players, we asked our lovely readers to have the casting vote in an online poll on Guitar World. Here’s how it works. 

We took 170 guitarists from our big list and grouped them into six categories: classic rock, blues, heavy metal, shred, indie/alternative and a ‘best right now’ contemporary poll. Six categories and six polls later, we had some results. The winning guitarists make up 80 of the 100 you’ll see here.

We've also singled out a number of other players we deemed too important to leave out, who appear at the end of each section as ‘Also in the running…’, as well as early innovators, trailblazers, acoustic, and jazz/fusion categories.

Read on for the lowdown on all 100 players – you can use the handy navigation bar above to jump between categories.

The best rock guitarists of all time

1. Brian May

Arise, Sir Brian Harold May, the greatest guitarist of all time, the player most regal, and the one whose pathway to the summit began in the most unorthodox fashion, with a father-and-son woodcraft project converting a fireplace into one of the most inventive electric guitars ever made, the Red Special. 

This homespun mad scientist sensibility served May well. Just look at how he used the Deacy amp. Appropriating a sixpence for a guitar pick, he would develop a sound that was instantly and unmistakably his, a three-dimensional cushion of overdrive that ferried Queen’s magisterial songs through the ether. 

There really is something texturally gourmand about May’s tone, a phalanx of Vox AC30s, with the Dallas Rangemaster in front, the phase shifting, the tape echo. As for his playing, it was sheer rock as theater, the fire to match the bombast, and the operatic splendor of a peerless band whose frontman must have been a dream to play alongside.

Indeed, with Freddie Mercury’s voluminous charisma onstage, May was given free rein to be himself as a guitarist, to make his sound as big or small as the song needed to be. He made full use of that freedom, with solos you could sing along to, melodies that stuck with you for days, and timeless riffs that will forever remain exhilarating as the first time we ever heard them.

2. Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix was the supernova of creativity that the electric guitar had been waiting for. It’s tempting to say that Hendrix was ahead of his time, and yes, it’s true, he was. There’s a stronger case explaining why he was born just at the right time. 

Gear had evolved enough to accommodate high volumes and new noise, rock ’n’ roll had deflowered pop culture, the time was just right. And if he were born any later, say, in today’s climate, would he have been so free to shepherd that squall of feedback in an era in which limits are placed on stage noise, in-ears and all that jazz? Would he be lost to TikTok?

For better or worse, Hendrix lived free in an age of danger, and took the guitar to the limit, pushing it with this newfound technological superpower, the Marshall stack, and the supplementary ordnance provided on the floor by Roger Mayer et al – wah, fuzz, Uni-Vibe, all those new toys. And he used them to spectacular effect, turning blues into rock, into a fug of psychedelia.

At times, the whump-whump pulse of the Leslie effect would knock you sideways, but for the most part Hendrix knew when to roll the crazy back and let that phrasing of his, those chord inversions and vibrato speak for itself. His was a guitar sound you heard in color. Oh, he set his guitar on fire? It was was always on fire…

3. Jimmy Page

Years honing his chops as an on-call session musician had prepared Jimmy Page for what was to come, namely being guitarist and producer of the biggest rock band on the planet, a band whose creative ambition matched the scale of their success. 

Like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, Page was an alumni of the Yardbirds, at first on bass guitar, then guitar, briefly alongside Jeff Beck. The signs were there that Page was going to be different breed of guitar player. He used a bow on the guitar. Like Beck, he too appreciated the creative potential of high-volume, fuzz, wah and all the good stuff, and he took those creative epiphanies with them into Led Zeppelin.

Page would be the first to tell you that it was the chemistry between the players that made Led Zeppelin what they were. There were no weak links. That meant anything was possible.

Albums I and II brought riff after riff, Page opening his account with his Telecaster, a gift from Beck, moving to the Les Paul, experimenting with more gear, acoustics, 12-string electrics, Echoplex tape echo, adding more layers, folk and blues brought into rock and all emulsified by his singular vision. And then you have those solos, teetering on the edge, the suspense not killing you but leaving you having on every note to see if he can stick the landing. Spoilers: he did.

4. Eddie Van Halen

We can argue over who is the greatest guitarist of all time but surely none have been more entertaining than Eddie Van Halen, whose hot-wiring of hard rock norms was like a power-up for electric guitar culture, making a spectacle of the instrument that could rival the Super Bowl, Hollywood, the aurora borealis… great herds of wildebeest migrating across the Serengeti.

EVH did all this by restlessly MacGyvering his gear, pressing a Variac into service, monstering a Strat, D-Tunas, double-locking vibratos, just looking for that tone, the so-called Brown Tone. You know it when you hear it: juicy, all harmonics, crunch – again so, so very electric.

He did all this by similarly redrafting the guitar player’s technique, most notably an approach to two-handed tapping that remained exhilarating in his hands even after a generation had rotated it into their trick back. Thing is, no one could quite do it like Van Halen; it always sounded just like him. When all is said and done, that’s what a great guitar player is. They sound like no other.

5. Eric Clapton

The writing on the walls of 1960s London said everything: “Clapton Is God”. Theologically unsound? Sure. But back then Clapton was providing plenty of evidence. He introduced himself with The Yardbirds before leaving for John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers.

The band’s studio debut, simply titled Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton but most commonly known as The Beano Album, remains a touchstone. But more greatness was incoming, and Clapton was in a hurry. He formed Cream with fellow Bluesbreakers alumnus Jack Bruce and cut some of the most classic rock tracks of all time. 

The Marshall stack was expanding the possibilities, and Clapton’s ‘woman tone’ brought the electric guitar – in this instance his 1964 Gibson SG – closer to a soul singer’s voice than anyone had got before. After Cream came the short-lived supergroup Blind Faith, before he recorded his masterpiece, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs with Derek and the Dominos in 1970.

Solo success, addiction and redemption followed. A disciple of the electric blues progenitors, Muddy Waters et al, and of Robert Johnson, Clapton immersed himself in blues history – an education that informed his playing across his career. The vibrato, however, that was all him. And it is godly.

6. David Gilmour

Great civilizations have risen and fallen in the time that it has taken for one of David Gilmour’s notes to decay. It is as though Gilmour’s career has been one long stand against time, a battle to make time itself dance to his tune. Notes are fretted, picked and soar through the firmament, receiving guests in planetary orbit for tea before gracefully making their way back to terra firma. The effect on the audience is transcendent. 

Replacing Syd Barrett in Pink Floyd was no easy task. Gilmour, however, had the vision, the chops, and the proficiency with a Binson Echorec to take the British prog icons’ sound to the next level.

Gilmour’s playing and songwriting nous allowed Pink Floyd to expand into grandiose concept albums without them being leaden by the gravitational weight of their own ambition. Because, of course, it is not just that great Strat tone, carried on the wings of fuzz and echo, it’s the writing, the changes, all calibrated to land an emotional punch, to make us think the big thoughts along the way.

7. Ritchie Blackmore

Hard rock’s own Man in Black, Ritchie Blackmore redefined guitar for a generation. Okay, we are at that spot in the list where everyone is redefining things but, really, he was the one who made the riffs harder and the solos that bit more ambitious with Deep Purple, who looked beyond the Pentatonic shapes and towards classical music for inspiration, classing up the denim-and-leather demographic and expanding its horizons.

And of course, he is a character, too, and in this game that goes a long way. Blackmore might have been a renaissance man who enjoyed a little Baroque ’n’ roll when it came down to what was right there before him on the treble clef, but he was volatile, too. It was often thus, that the geniuses among us have something of the unexploded bomb about their personalities.

Without Blackmore, it is hard to see Yngwie Malmsteen operating out there on the neoclassical frontier. Without Blackmore, it is hard to envisage power metal happening.

8. Alex Lifeson

Rush had many artistic triumphs, but if we take the broad view of their career it was the Canadian trio’s ability to make progressive rock translate to all comers that is most impressive. Quite how they did it is an open secret. Their songs could be Joycean epics, complex, knowing, but they always radiated humanity, and Alex Lifeson’s note choices, his ear for a melody enriched their biggest ideas with hooks that pulled us along for the ride.

With Lifeson on guitar, and the warmth of Geddy Lee on the mic, prog was for all. Or at least pretty much all. Lifeson’s chord choices were inspired, dropping in suspended chords and letting them hang there in the air – an evening with Rush was an indoctrination of sorts into the musical appeal of the F#11, the sus2, and how open strings could transform a chord voicing and deepen the meaning of the song.

Heck, Lifeson is so good, he can even rock a Gibson Les Paul with a Floyd Rose double-locking vibrato. That’s a little like painting the Bentley neon pink, plimsolls with a suit, but go on, Alex, you’ve earned it.

9. Jeff Beck

Yet another genius player to emerge from the Yardbirds to carve out a singular career, Jeff Beck was the guitar player’s guitar hero. He was the player who eschewed the pick, used his Strat’s whammy bar as truly an extension of himself, and spent his career chasing down every dynamic he could find from the instrument.

The guitar was already electric by the time Beck picked it up but there was always the sense that he hacked the grid and upped the voltage, ushering in a new era of high-volume, fuzz and noise, feedback too, without forgetting that it sounded just as good whispering as it did with a shout. Stick on Shapes of Things today and the seminal Yardbirds cut still sounds fresh as a daisy.

Beck would return to it as soon as he left the Yardbirds, reworking it for his solo debut, Truth, then reworking everything he had known on the guitar for a prolific career thereafter. The tributes from his peers since his death on January 10 2023 say it all. He was not just the guitar player’s guitar hero; he was the guitar hero’s guitar hero.

10. Slash

You just could not imagine Slash in a regular nine-to-five, coaching little league, varnishing the fence. If ever there was a man born to be a rock star… Where do you start with Slash? Well, Appetite For Destruction, Guns N’ Roses’ incendiary 1987 debut album is a good a place as any. It still sounds dangerous, bad for the health. 

Of course, GNR is a sum of its parts – Axl straining at the leash, popping veins at the mic, Steven Adler hitting the drums with all he’s got – but Slash’s animalistic style, ripping leads and good sense to know when to pull focus with a big set-piece melody was the main ingredient, and it introduced arguably the last great rock guitar hero.

In many ways, Slash was and is a throwback. He made the Les Paul cool again in an era when hockey stick headstocks gained the upper hand, and he did so with a fake. He was on a different level, rocking back and forth between the major and minor, making a spectacle of rock guitar in one moment, revealing its seedy underbelly the next.

And he’s still doing it. His latest album with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, 4, recorded all but live in Nashville’s RCA Studio, retains that sense of danger, an all but impossible feat in this self-aware and sanitized era.

11. Carlos Santana 

Carlos Santana expanded rock’s perimeter. The Mexican-born guitarist arrived in San Francisco right in time to bear witness to the ‘60s pop-cultural revolution. Taking a deep breath of the pungent air, he loosened rock at the hip, introducing percussion and rhythm from Latin America and Africa, and placed a guitar sound at the heart of it that was elemental and unmistakable.

Woodstock ’69 will always be talked about in guitar circles on account of Hendrix’s off-grid excursions with a Stratocaster but consider Santana’s 11-minute jam on Soul Sacrifice, which has become the stuff of legend – perhaps to Carlos Santana himself – as he navigated the alleys of the mind after some pre-show hallucinogenics, but all the while somehow remaining present. Yeah, one foot in this astral plane, the other on the next. That’s how Santana rolls. No one else could have made a record like Abraxas in 1970.

He was and is always looking for more sustain, swapping out his Gibson SG Special – the veteran of Woodstock – for a number of Les Pauls, the Yamaha SG double-cut, before becoming the first Paul Reed Smith signature artist, helping to cement the brand’s burgeoning reputation. 

12. Mark Knopfler

If you take only one thing from Mark Knopfler’s playing style, it must surely be his fingerstyle technique. Though his pick-hand position might appear unusual, Mark is able to control every nuance of his sumptuous tones and Strat cleans with a beautifully sensitive touch. 

Fingerstyle offers unique phrasing options too; the ‘thumb, pull-off , thumb, first finger’ picking pattern of that lick in Sultans Of Swing can’t really be played another way if you want Mark’s feel. 

“With me”, Mark says, “there are two sides to it. Most of the time I just use the guitar as something to help the songwriting. But every now and again, if I’m sitting down and trying to learn something, moving it forward a little bit, you realise the depth of the thing. It’s a whole different thing being a musician from being a ‘guitar player’.”

13. Angus & Malcolm Young

Ever since 1976’s High Voltage landed like a right hook, nobody has done it harder, louder or lairier than the Youngs. There’s a case that AC/DC’s wrecking-ball riff-raff hinges on those world-beating right hands, but you won’t nail the vibe without getting the gear cornerstones right. 

Angus has been an SG disciple since his first ’68, and has used various Standards, Specials and Customs, retiring them when the pickups get waterlogged by sweat. 

“They’re all the basic, stock Gibson pickups,” said his tech Geoff Banks. “He plays on the bridge pickup all the time.” Malcolm generally turned to his ’63 Gretsch Jet Firebird, customised by removing the middle pickups; leaving a solitary ’60s bridge Filter’Tron. 

The classic AC/DC lead sound is built on just a Marshall 1959 SLP 100-watter with the EQ at half-mast and volume cranked.

14. Gary Moore

A powerhouse blues player with a sideline in virtuoso jazz fusion, hard rock and metal, Gary Moore’s sound was so big it is almost hard to wrap our heads around it. He will always find himself on guitar compilations on account of Parisienne Walkways, which was a masterpiece of intonation and sustain, grand and elegant. 

Tracks such as Still Got The Blues and Oh Pretty Woman, that famous two-hander with Albert King, demonstrated how his unerring phrasing and searing tone could give voice to his heartache and pain. 

Moore started out in Skid Row, joining his old bandmate Phil Lynott in Thin Lizzy, with whom he served as an on-off pinch hitter, but it was as a solo artist where we saw the best of him.

Influenced by Peter Green, for whom he recorded a tribute album, Blues For Greeny, Moore would also be custodian of the late Fleetwood Mac blues-rock icon’s 1959 Les Paul Standard, 'Greeny', which now resides in Kirk Hammett’s collection.

15. Billy Gibbons

There is a humility to Billy Gibbons and a low-key cool that suggests he might be tickled but mortified to be in some sort of high-chartin’ best players list. That’s just not how you do things in ZZ Top, that lil’ old band from Texas. Gibbons’ demeanor, his philosophy – all Zen and the art of beard maintenance – suggest that if you are serious about making it as a purveyor of boogie, as a storyteller and chronicler of the American experience, riff-writer extraordinaire, you’ve got to chill, because otherwise all the things you see might set your hair on fire.

Because Gibbons has seen it all, touring with Hendrix with the Moving Sidewalks, having the audacity to perform Hendrix tracks to fill out the set, a feat met with Hendrix’s approval, then building one of the all-time great rock acts with ZZ Top, branching out aesthetically on his solo work. 

As a player it is all tone and touch, knowing when to tickle it and when to hit it hard. Famously, he switched to a set of 7s upon B.B. King’s advice. He wears his slide on his middle finger, which when written down sounds like a metaphor. His 1959 Les Paul Standard Pearly Gates has given us all a Holy Grail tone to shoot for.

16. Duane Allman

The young Allman had greatness thrust upon him after Clapton heard his blistering outro solo on Wilson Pickett’s Hey Jude. Having supplied all the slide and Gibson tones on Derek And The Dominos’ album, Allman played on records by soul stars Aretha Franklin and Percy Sledge. 

Fame beckoned with his own band, and he established himself as the world’s foremost slide guitarist. His style laid the groundwork for Southern rock, influencing every drawl-inflected band from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Black Stone Cherry. He was dead at just 24, but thankfully one of his slide students – a certain Master Joe Walsh – kept his style going...

17. Joe Walsh

Joe Walsh was already orbiting greatness by the time he replaced Bernie Leadon in the Eagles – with James Gang and Barnstorm he had announced his presence as a songwriter, a player, and a tone-smith of some repute. But when you record an album such as Hotel California, putting your own spin on the Eagle’s easy West Coast sound on tracks like Life in the Fast Lane, dueling with Don Felder in the title track’s peerless guitar solo, that seals the deal.

A prodigious slide player, and inveterate modder who would – like Frampton – make the talk box a talked-about guitar effect via the superlative Rocky Mountain Way, Walsh has always been a seeker, chasing down new tones to complement a rhythm style that came naturally to him but remains out of reach of lesser players. His career is marked by acts of casual genius, like finding the riff for Life in the Fast Lane in a “coordination drill”. It’s mind blowing to think that anyone could keep a riff like that as a warm-up.

18. Keith Richards

Aka The Human Riff, Keith Richards needs little introduction. As co-founder of the Rolling Stones, a veritable pop-cultural institution, his story is right there in the songs. 

Using a variety of open tunings, often with only five strings on his guitar, never jumping all over the track if he can help it, Richards style sees him weave in and out of the song, out of rhythm and lead but always in its pocket, his tone analog and warm. 

There is new music coming from the Stones. Let’s not eulogize a man while he is still at work, but besides that unimpeachable discography you can stick popularizing the fuzz pedal with the riff to Satisfaction (I Can’t Get No) on his legacy achievements. 

Once upon a time, the Stones were this brand new thing, young and dangerous, but looking back with the luxury of hindsight – and we are all only young once – what they’ve been doing all this time is drilling back through music history, mining old blues, lost RnB and soul for inspiration, regressing to the mean to be an ever more perfect version of themselves, the ultimate rock ’n’ roll band.

19. Frank Zappa

Rock’s mad scientist and savant genius had the iconoclastic wit of a Robert Downey picture and a musical knowledge like, well, like no other. Some orchestrated counterculture. Frank Zappa made an orchestra out of counterculture. He made high art of the gaudy and the ribald. He turned scratchy guitar rock into unsparing and forensic examinations of American society and its discontents. He made composing hip. 

Zappa is not always easy to digest. The audience has to tune into his frequency. Sometimes the reception is fuzzy. Those who approached his canon with an open mind were rewarded with a trip through a singular mind. As Lowell George, Adrian Belew and Steve Vai can attest to, he was just as intimidating as a band leader. But then it takes a certain someone to make a record like One Size Fits All.

20. George Harrison

George Harrison was the coolest member of the coolest band ever. Lennon/McCartney of course has its own pop-cultural gravity – there is no one to match them – but some of the Beatles best tunes came from Harrison, and some of the most interesting guitar playing of the ‘60s and ‘70s, too.

Some of the most selfless, too. His playing stopped when the melody was rendered in full, when the song got what it needed. One of his great talents lay in how he sublimated his technique into material that was readily digestible. The Beatles, of course, were masters of this, of top-tier musicianship and craft that spoke to everyone.

As to the songs, take your pick. Taxman and Hear Comes the Sun show the spiky and the mellifluous side to his playing respectively. But it all comes back to Something, a song Sinatra covered and paid Harrison the ultimate tribute by crediting it to Lennon and McCartney. What a band. What a player.

21. Pete Townshend

The player who launched a thousand insurance premiums as the Who’s propulsive rock style chewed through the scenery and backline, Pete Townshend was the windmilling firebrand who may well have been operating out on this animalistic frontier – all instinct and embodying the very id of ‘60s youth, the ne plus ultra of rebellion – but the brain was whirring all the time.

The Who matched big sounds with big ideas, and Townshend, driven on by the compelling power of a Marshall stack, kinetic and dangerous, was at the heart of it, putting great riffs in timeless tunes. 

22. Lindsey Buckingham

Eight years, nine albums and four guitarists down in their career, Fleetwood Mac would hook up with a player who would accompany the group from the brink of major worldwide success to multi-platinum domination. 

The band’s first release with Buckingham – their ‘White Album’ – would be their first number one, in the USA at least, and the follow-up, 1977’s Rumours, hit the stratosphere all round the planet. 

Favouring fingerstyle over picking, and citing Scotty Moore and Chet Atkins as heroes, Buckingham would steer Mac in a broader musical direction, from pop and rock to folk and more avant garde offerings.

23. Steve Howe

Steve Howe joining Yes in 1970 was Big Bang moment for prog guitar. Its universe expanded, and when its stars aligned all kinds of strange magic occurred. There is a touch of sorcery to Howe’s work.

Renowned texturalist, he makes more out of less, applying volume pedal to accentuate his dynamics. But listen again to iconic works such as Fragile and Close to the Edge. You will hear Howe listening, giving the song just what it needs. He has amassed such a broad vocabulary on guitar that he now tours with a Line 6 Variax and leans on amp modelers to store all these sounds.

We’ll leave you with some advice from the man himself: “I don’t think guitarists should concentrate on being guitarists. They should concentrate on being musicians. Being a guitarist can be a dangerous thing if you just want to race off and steal the show all the time on bended knees with your tiddly tiddly tiddly.”

24. Peter Frampton

Like many players on this Top 100, Peter Frampton cemented his legacy among guitar players by popularizing a sound; who can think of the talk box without the electric presence of Frampton coming to mind? 

He made his name with Humble Pie and the Herd, and played with David Bowie (they both attended the same school) on Never Let Me Down and the ensuing tour. This, said Frampton, made him cool again. But he was always cool, as anyone who owns the his tour-de-force live album, Frampton Comes Alive!, can attest to.

25. Joe Perry

The popular perception is that Joe Perry is the proto-Slash of the early ‘70s: shirtless, legless and elegantly wasted, requiring only a Les Paul and Marshall for his blues-box sleaze. In fact, there are many toys in Perry’s attic. 

In 2008, he estimated his guitar collection at 600, citing his workhorse back then as the one-off ‘Billie’ Lucille semi-hollow, while other treasures include 50s Supro Ozarks for slide, BC Rich Biches and Dan Armstrong Plexis, and the Guild T-250 that was all over Aerosmith’s late-80s comeback albums. 

“For me, a lot of how I write a song or riff comes from the particular guitar sound,” Perry explains.

Also in the running…

Paul Kossoff

AC/DC copied the Free legend’s frenetic vibrato and muscular riff writing, and All Right Now remains a masterclass in building excitement.

Mick Taylor

“Taylor was a very fluent, melodic player,” said Mick Jagger. With wah and slide, he create impressively vocal sounds.

Steve Hackett

Tapping before Eddie and sweeping before Yngwie, the Genesis wizard was also an early adopter of the guitar synth.

Steve Lukather

His easy groove, wild bends and fluid runs made Toto’s guitarist the first call session player of the '80s.

Scott Gorham & Brian Robertson

Thin Lizzy drove the Les Paul and Marshall combination harder than anyone had before, defining the sound and licks of heavy rock guitar.

Tom Scholz

Second only to EVH for defining '80s rock guitar tone, the Boston man invented the gear behind hundreds of hits.

JJ Cale

He wrote Cocaine, originated the Tulsa sound and counted Clapton, Knopfler and Neil Young among his disciples.

Andy Summers

The Police’s songs would have sounded generic without Andy’s innovative add9 voicings and his EHX Electric Mistress flanger pedal.

The Edge

By using delay as an instrument of its own, with U2 he found an entirely new way to orchestrate guitars.

Robert Fripp

Guitar’s premier mad scientist, Fripp has defied convention and influenced every subsequent progger.

Wayne Kramer & Fred 'Sonic' Smith

The MC5’s garage rock kicked out the jams, predated punk by a decade and sounded angry as hell.

Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter

He played on more records than some people own, most notably adding inspiration to Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers.

Mick Ronson

Created the arrangements for Bowie’s best material. Find any guitarist in makeup and Ronson is probably the reason they started playing.

Dick Wagner & Steve Hunter

They shook the sound of rock first with Lou Reed, then again with Alice Cooper. Hunter played uncredited for Aerosmith.

Neal Schon

When rock became a speed competition, Schon made solos you could sing. Journey are still on the radio as a result.

Ry Cooder

An undisputed slide master, Cooder’s smoking licks even vanquished Steve Vai in Crossroads. His feel and vibrato are unrivalled.

Andy Powell/Ted Turner

Wishbone Ash did more than anyone to introduce harmony guitars to metal. Their twin guitars gave Iron Maiden their cue.

Jerry Garcia

Garcia idiosyncratically borrowed banjo techniques, leaving behind 22,000 hours of recorded music with the Grateful Dead.

The best blues guitarists of all time

1. Stevie Ray Vaughan 

Stevie Ray Vaughan brought physicality and soul to guitar playing, and he brought it in spades. The soul came through the speaker. The physicality was there for all to see. To watch him play, there were occasions in which SRV would throttle the guitar as though it were an arm wrestling contest at last orders in a Nantucket alehouse. 

His strings were the stuff of legend – 13s? No, 14s; 17s! Heck, some might argue he used piano wire. Either way, he went down the heavy-gauge route and had the dexterity to manipulate them as though they were dental floss. This, the fire in his belly, and the tone-gussying Tube Screamer playing mediator between Fender Strat and amp give him a range of dynamics that few, if any, players could match.

And yet, there was a tenderness to his playing. There are many who argue that his cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing eclipses the original. That’s for debate. What is not is that Vaughan, who was only 35 years old when he died in a helicopter crash, he left an over-sized impression on guitar culture in a short space of time. Just like Hendrix.

His debut studio album with backing band Double Trouble, Texas Flood, remains a blue-chip classic of the genre, and showcases the range of those dynamics. That title track – a cover of the 1958 Larry Davis number – could convince you that the sun never shines on Texas, least not while Vaughan was in it. 

The likes of Pride and Joy and Tell Me demonstrate what he could do with a groove behind him. Sadly, generations won’t get to see him onstage, but so long as sets such as those at Montreux in 1982 are available on YouTube and DVD, more will bear witness to this singular talent.

2. B.B. King 

B.B. King was pure class, from his exquisite licks to his heartfelt vocals. Brought up on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, he was born Riley B. King in 1925. 

King attended various churches, attracted to the blues-tinged gospel songs they sang. His pastor taught him three chords before his plantation boss advanced him the money to buy his own guitar. 

King taught himself to play and by 1946 had moved to Memphis with his cousin, slide guitarist Bukka White. Before long he was playing on local radio and scored a residency at a West Memphis grill. King soon gained his own show, where he was dubbed ‘Beale Street Blues Boy’, shortened to ‘Blues Boy’ and then ‘B.B.’.

At this time he was still playing acoustic guitar, but influenced by his hero T-Bone Walker, King moved to electric. He initially played a Gibson ES-150, then an ES-5 Switchmaster, even a Fender Esquire, before finding the instrument with which he will forever be associated, the Gibson ES-355 thinline.

King named his guitars ‘Lucille’, after a fight over a woman of that name caused a burning oil drum heater to overturn. King ran back into the blazing building to retrieve his beloved instrument, and christened it (and every subsequent guitar) in her honour.

Several elements make King’s style unique. Prior to King, few guitarists used vibrato with such artistry, but he loved the fluttering sound of slide guitarists such as cousin Bukka White, and the powerful quiver created by blues harmonica player Little Walter. So he developed his own, by quickly rotating his finger while holding down a fretted note. 

It made his licks sound more vocal, and set him aside from others. Also, King considered his singing and playing equal partners in his success, so rarely played chords while he sang, instead devoting each moment to a sung or played line, thus heightening each one’s intensity.

In his early years, King followed the five-shape fingerboard template laid down by T-Bone Walker and others, but before long discovered a fretboard position that suited him perfectly. We now call this ‘the B.B. box’. Essentially ‘shape 3’ in the pentatonic scheme, King pivoted his first finger on the root note of the key, on the second string – in A this would be 10th fret.

From here he could easily reach a 5th above (first string, 12th fret), find b5th and 4th one and two frets down, and 2nd, b3rd and 3rd on the second string, 12th, 13th and 15th frets respectively. One string down on the 11th fret was the major 6th, so all these important notes were easily available within one small area – and that’s before we take into account King’s incredible string bending.

When the white blues boom of the 1960s exploded, artists like Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and Paul Butterfield used their success to champion their own heroes. Thus artists like King, who had previously been dubbed “race” acts, gained the mainstream appreciation that they rightly deserved. 

3. Buddy Guy

The world’s greatest living bluesman, Buddy Guy is a master showman and storyteller. He was born in Louisiana, the son of sharecroppers, and would migrate north of the Mason-Dixon to Chicago where he make his name and become one of the foundational giants of the city’s blues scene. Otis Rush invited him onstage to play, and he would learn what works by looking at the audience’s faces. If they liked it, he gave them more. And he would give and give.

He would walk through the crowd, engage with them, then jump off the bar with his guitar so they’d surely remember his name. These tricks he would learn from Guitar Slim. People soon called him the ‘Little Wild Man from Louisiana’.

Guy soon had to find a more robust guitar than the semi-hollow Guild Starfires he played at first. He needed a solidbody, and the Fender Stratocaster became his weapon of choice. His super-juicy tone influenced Hendrix, all the young British dudes – Beck, Clapton et al.

If he heard a horn part he liked, he would try play it on guitar, expanding his repertoire, finding notes that others missed. Polka dots would become a trademark. Only Minnie Mouse wore them better. But no-one puts on a show quite like Buddy Guy.

4. Albert King

Born Albert Nelson in 1923, Albert King stood 6’ 4” and weighed 250lbs. Like B.B. (no relation, although Albert often fudged the reality), was born on and worked on a cotton plantation in Indianola, Texas.

King fashioned his first guitar from a cigar box, with a tree branch neck and strung it with a strand of broom wire. When he finally got a guitar, being left-handed he simply turned the right-hander upside down and played with the strings reversed. He also tuned very loosely – Gary Moore told Guitarist magazine that while working with King he took a sneaky peak and found it to be C# F# B E G# C#.

This down-stringing made his action very pliable. Albert could play a whole lick by bending his top string by a 4th and letting it down to create other intervals. 

After various attempts at a record deal he moved to Memphis and was signed by soul label Stax, with superb house band Booker T & The MG’s. The MG’s backed King on his legendary 1967 album Born Under a Bad Sign which contained the brilliant Crosscut Saw, The Hunter (covered by Free), Oh Pretty Woman (covered by Gary Moore) and the title track (covered by Cream).

Nicknamed The Velvet Bulldozer due to his huge size but sweet singing voice, Albert played simply but beautifully on his 1958 Gibson Flying V. You can hear huge slabs of him in the playing of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Joe Walsh among others.

5. Joe Bonamassa

You kind of get the impression from Joe Bonamassa that his position as the highest-grossing blues artist of all time is a little embarrassing – thrilling, sure, but it’s quite the affirmation. Perhaps this is why he has made it his life’s mission to widen the blues’ appeal. 

There’s the KTBA blues cruise, the label, the production, Nerdville... But ultimately, Bonamassa leads with his fingers when it comes to advocacy, toting a muscular, pyrotechnic style that not only references the '60s British blues scene, and the pantheon of electric blues greats, and classic rock and prog when the song requires it.

6. Robert Johnson

Arguably no musician has ever been the subject of such incredible mythology as Robert Johnson. Would rock ’n’ roll ever have given us Sympathy For the Devil and Highway To Hell and if not for rumours of Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads? Would metal fans be scrawling pentagrams on guitars and throwing the horns if Johnson hadn’t sung Me and the Devil Blues?

Beyond the incredible imagery, there’s a sophistication and variety to Johnson and his delta contemporaries that modern blues often lacks. The art form is often reduced to endless 12-bars, while Johnson’s own work embraced jazz and country. His blues compositions did not limit themselves to the 12-bar format, and his debut recording, They’re Red Hot, was an uptempo ragtime number. 

Playing unaccompanied allowed Johnson and his contemporaries the freedom to play with time and tempo, and his songs have odd-length bars in unexpected places. With his singing and slide playing, he even explored microtonality in subtle ways that Jeff Beck and Derek Trucks are showered with praise for achieving today.

Musical immortality is mostly about having great songs. Beyond the legend, Johnson’s name still looms so large because he wrote tunes that slap. Dust My Broom, Crossroad Blues and Sweet Home Chicago are the blues’s biggest standards.

The Rolling Stones covered Love in Vain and Stop Breaking Down, Led Zeppelin had Traveling Riverside Blues and The Lemon Song, while Steve Miller and Duane Allman both took a bite at Come On in My Kitchen. Guitarists like Ike Turner and Chuck Berry evolved Johnson’s template into rock ’n’ roll, and from that came a slew of hits. 

It’s not quite right to give the credit solely to Johnson. Delta blues musicians shared their creativity with each other more freely than today’s copyright-driven music industry.

Johnson’s music carries plenty of influence from his and forebears and peers, some of whom are now forgotten. Johnson might be the most important musician in the development of 20th century popular music, but he’s also emblematic of dozens of black folk musicians who developed the genre without the pay or credit they deserved.

Still, if you want to learn acoustic blues fingerstyle, Johnson’s turnarounds are still the benchmark. If you want to play slide, you’ll need to learn his licks. And if you’re writing songs, you can only hope to capture an element of the human experience so profoundly as he did.

7. Rory Gallagher

The Irish guitar maverick would stand astride the boundaries of blues and rock, showcasing a virtuoso electric style – and a sound – that would resonate through popular culture. Brian May started using a Rangemaster treble booster through a Vox AC30 on account of him. 

Gallagher made his name in the early ‘70s with Taste, later going solo, and adhering to the cardinal rule of blues that it must be authentic. On that score, he would give the blues a Celtic flavor, drawing influence from skiffle and folk. 

He was nifty with a slide, on acoustic, whatever. You just had to give him a guitar, then pray for its finish. He was hard on them, as his heavily weathered Strat could confirm.

8. Muddy Waters

Six-time Grammy winner McKinley Morganfield ruled the Chicago blues scene from the mid 1940s on. Moving from Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1941 and switching from acoustic to electric guitar two years later, Morganfield (now Muddy Waters) assembled a band of the finest players in town, including Little Walter (harmonica), Otis Spann (piano) and Jimmy Rogers (guitar). 

Live, Muddy’s band was a powerhouse. Jimi Hendrix found it terrifying – “I first heard him as a little boy and it scared me to death,” quipped Jimi, who took a famous Muddy lick and turned it into Voodoo Chile. Muddy’s playing was almost primeval. 

Bluesman John P Hammond stated, “Muddy was the master of just the right notes; profound, deep and simple.” Although he wrote songs, he is mainly remembered for covers that became the definitive versions, such as Rolling Stone (from which both magazine and band took their name), Got My Mojo Working, Mannish Boy, and Hoochie Coochie Man. 

Muddy was rarely seen without his red Fender Telecaster, on which he mostly played slide and the occasional riff, but his legend and musical influence remain almost unequalled. As B.B. King put it, “It’s going to be years before people realise how great his contribution was to American music.”

9. Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas, in 1944, and grew up with music all around him. He started cutting records age 15, and got his big break in 1968 when Mike Bloomfield invited him to play in New York, Columbia Records paid attention and gave him a record advance. His debut album, 1968’s The Progressive Blues Experiment, showed which way the wind was blowing.

Winter would enjoy a prolific career, making the angular silhouette of the Gibson Firebird his calling card – most notably his 1964 Polaris White Firebird V – but so too his slide chops and fierce attack, the flurry of triplets and double-stops. Like many blues players of his age the influence of Muddy Waters was writ large in his style. Winter would repay the favor, jamming with Waters and producing three studio albums for him.

10. Freddie King

Of the legendary ‘Three Kings’, Freddie was the youngest and most raucous. His guitar style was fast and ferocious, with huge string bends and vicious vibrato, his vocals almost guttural in their delivery. 

Born in Gilmer, Texas in 1934, Freddie learned guitar from age six, but moved to Chicago while in his teens. Freddie would sneak into the blues clubs and watch legends like Muddy Waters, Elmore James and T-Bone Walker. He took onboard their stagecraft, marvelled at their musicianship and determined to make it big, just like them.

But after continual rejection by Chess Records on Chicago’s South Side he finally struck a deal with Federal Records on the city’s West Side, where a hipper blues scene was burgeoning. Freddie became a hit in the clubs here, and his first single for Federal would become a standard – Have You Ever Loved a Woman, later a staple in Eric Clapton’s career.

Freddie influenced a raft of later white guitarists, like Clapton, Peter Green, Michael Bloomfield and Stevie Ray Vaughan. His instrumentals became legendary – Hide Away, The Stumble and San-Ho-Zay, among others – and he will also be remembered for having one of the first mixed race bands. Freddie was hard working and hard living, and died of pancreatitis, aged just 42.

Also in the running…

Samantha Fish

With her four-string cigar box guitar, Fish evokes the rawness of early bottleneck recordings, plus punk levels of aggression.

Peter Green

No other British blues boomer matched Greeny’s subtlety or his precise bends. His dynamic control evoked an aching longing.

Elmore James

By pioneering electric slide guitar and loud, dirty amplifiers, James gave us Dust My Broom, and the blues-rock blueprint.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Long overlooked, it’s now recognised Tharpe turned Gospel into rock ’n’ roll. Her electrifying performances inspired Chuck Berry and co.

Jeff Healey

With guitar flat on his lap, the blind Healey found new levels of control over bends, slides, and vibrato.

John Mayer

Proving that blues can still sell, Mayer puts Hendrix and SRV vibes into memorable pop songs, breaking the 12-bar rut.

Derek Trucks

His mastery of microtonality – the pitches in between the frets – plus glorious phrasing makes Trucks’ slide playing uniquely compelling.

Gary Clark Jr.

Wisely chosen to pay tribute to BB King at the 2016 Grammy awards, Clark is authentic without just rehashing the all old stuff.

Early innovators

1. Chuck Berry

Neither bluesman, entertainer nor country boy, Charles Edward Anderson Berry fused all three personas into a rip-snorting style that formed the very language of rock guitar as we know it today. It’d be easy to see Chuck Berry simply as a flamboyant character from the early rock ’n’ roll days – the duck walk, the chunky boogie rhythm and those signature doublestop introductions. 

But there was much more to it. We often view players from that era in terms of being a ‘beginning’. Without Chuck Berry or Duane Eddy, there could never have been a Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen, and so on. As it turned out, Chuck was particular about his gear too. Of all the guitars he used in his lifetime, two are predominant: the Gibson ES-350T and ES-335. 

In 1955, coinciding with the release of Chuck’s first single, Maybellene, a thinline version of the 350 – the ES-350T – was born into the new age of rock ’n’ roll (although it’s alleged that the actual guitar used for the recording session was a Gretsch Duo Jet). Chuck has been pictured with both the P-90 and humbucker versions. The release of the ES-335 in 1958 was the same year that Chuck had further hits with Sweet Little Sixteen, Carol and, of course, Johnny B. Goode.

Another thinline model, but this time with a double cutaway, the 335 took full advantage of the nascent humbucking pickups as well as offering added access to the guitar’s upper register with its 19th-fret neck joint. If you’re dead set on authentic Chuck Berry tones, it’s just got to be Gibson!

2. Hank Marvin

As The Shadows’ King Of Twang, Hank Marvin was Britain’s first guitar hero of the electric era, inspiring a generation of players with single-coil tones as springy and lush as a manicured lawn. 

Speaking to Guitarist in 2017, Hank said: “My reference points were the human voice, various jazz sax ballads with a strong melodic content and guitarists like Les Paul. The human voice and saxes usually had a vibrato that I emulated on the Strat, helping the notes to be more expressive.

“My sound and style more or less happened by accident; the combination of the Strat, the AC15 amp, which soon became the AC30, and the echo box sort of pushed me in a direction, and who was I to argue?”

3. Les Paul

Already a star when he invented the solidbody guitar (there’s a reason Gibson wanted his signature), Les was a virtuoso jazz and country performer. By inventing multitrack recording – discovering delay, flanging, and phasing en route – he provided the equipment for everyone following him. His dense layers of harmonised guitars anticipated Brian May. 

Decades before Paul Gilbert and Bumblefoot, Les recognised that fast guitar could be funny, using tape speed for both musical and ludicrous effects. Stars like Zakk Wylde lined up to perform at his infamous New York club nights, only to limp offstage after being schooled by the master.

4. Scotty Moore

Winfield Scott ‘Scotty’ Moore III can lay a very good claim to the title of Most Important Guitarist That Ever Lived. Influenced by the country jazz picking of Merle Travis and Chet Atkins, he conspired with a young truck driver called Elvis Presley to create a new strain of white blues called rockabilly. 

Backing the 'King Of Rock 'n' Roll', Scotty Moore had no shortage of admirers, from Keef to Page, Beck and many, er, more.

5. Buddy Holly 

Rock ’n’ roll was well established in the 1950s – Ike Turner, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard all had hits – but white audiences had largely rejected it. Buddy Holly presented blues, rock ’n’ roll, and country licks in a package the ‘suits’ would put on American television.

Regardless of the questionable values of the marketing machine, Holly and his Stratocaster were immediately popular. Iconic even. His strummed open chords on [1957 single] Peggy Sue were easy to play, embodying the “I can do that!” spirit of early rock ’n’ roll.

And his lasting influence? The Beatles’ name was a deliberate nod to Holly’s band The Crickets, as they and hundreds more sought to imitate him. Holly tragically died only two years later, aged 22, having changed music history in his short time on earth.

Also in the running…

Chet Atkins

Almost his every touch displayed astonishing technique, but if you didn’t try to play his toe-tapping tunes, you’d never know.

Merle Travis

Do you have an entire technique named after you? Country, folk and rockabilly would all be unimaginable without Travis picking.

Carl Perkins

He fused country and blues, wrote Blue Suede Shoes and recorded the definitive version. Rockabilly guitarists still learn all his licks.

Bo Diddley 

The ‘Bo Diddley rhythm’ has been used by Guns n’ Roses, George Michael, the Stones, U2 and hundreds more.

Duane Eddy

When someone asks for a ‘twangy’ guitar sound, they’re (perhaps unknowingly) the latest to be inspired by Eddy’s tone.

Link Wray

Wray – and his knackered speaker – invented distortion. Think about that and be thankful next time you plug in your guitar!

Dick Dale

More than just the Pulp Fiction connection, Dale brought new scales to rock, while his unbelievably physical attack inspired SRV.

James Burton

The Elvis sideman took what Merle Travis and Carl Perkins started, stuffing the King’s songs with tasty guitar licks.

Maybelle Carter

This chord-melody country pioneer was a leading star of the Grand Ole Opry, which inspired every subsequent country star.

The best metal guitarists of all time

1. Tony Iommi

There could be no one else at number one. Tony Iommi created metal from the ground up, taking rock and blues as raw materials, drawing a songwriting logic and atmosphere from early horror cinema, and writing some of the best riffs – and, ergo, the best songs – in metal history. Black Sabbath, the opening track from the band’s eponymous debut, served as the perfect introduction – this was rock’s turn to the dark side. It was doom metal before we had the words to describe it.

And Iommi famously did so through injury, drawing inspiration from Django Reinhardt to overcome a machining accident on his fretting hand. One of his strategies was to use lighter strings, and to tune down, the latter a move that shifted the band’s sound downwards, further away from the heavens.

With a Gibson SG Special, a Dallas Rangemaster and a Laney backline, Iommi changed the course of rock history, riff by riff. Black Sabbath started heavy and turned progressively heavier, arguably finding their range with the breakdown riff of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. But there was light and shade in there, too.

Once Sabbath hooked up with Ronnie James Dio, Iommi would give his writing a metallic polish, a subtle stylistic shift to match Dio’s vocals. His lead playing is underrated; the riffs might land on the grid but there is an unpredictability to Iommi’s solos that belies a jazz sensibility.

2. Dimebag Darrell

Dimebag’s ferocious lead technique was a full-frontal assault that drew as heavily on blues as heavy metal. His penchant for the lead work of rock and metal giants such as Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads was combined with his own unique take on the humble pentatonic scale. 

Although favouring extreme techniques such as wide, aggressive vibrato, whammy bar antics and huge squealing harmonics, Dimebag was always in control of his sound; no mean feat when dealing with large amounts of distortion and boosted treble.

He initially favoured tuning to an ‘in between’ point roughly 0.6 of a semitone below standard tuning. Later on, he used D standard (DGCFAD) and drop C (CGCFAD), which allowed wider bends and more aggressive vibrato in his lead playing.

3. Randy Rhoads

Randy Rhoads was just 25 when he lost his life in a plane crash in 1982 but he left quite the legacy. He was supremely gifted, book smart but not ostentatiously so, and would deftly introduce the highfalutin grandeur of classical music into popular metal compositions.

He would pioneer the asymmetrical V, working with Grover Jackson on what, posthumously, would become on of the most popular metal guitar designs ever. And more than this, the hot-shot guitarist from Quiet Riot would be the one chiefly responsible for resurrecting Ozzy Osbourne’s career after his acrimonious departure from Black Sabbath. In Rhoads, Osbourne found his white knight.

As Paul Gilbert once said, Rhoads played like he was battling a dragon; Rhoads was slight, and the guitar just looked so big on him. But he would always, somehow, have it under his spell. He made the impossible possible, like when he would gentrify metal for dramatic effect with Revelation (Mother Earth), giving the Prince of Darkness an almost Beethoven-esque epic to work with, to show his range. 

In uptempo rockers such as I Don’t Know and the ubiquitous Crazy Train, he would spin pure spectacle from the guitar, then turning on a dime, would imbue tracks such as Suicide Solution and Mr Crowley with fatalistic gravitas. Ozzy was the entertainer par excellence; Rhoads supplied him with the material, the fireworks, the magic.

4. James Hetfield

The doyen of down-picking, the riffmaster supreme, Hetfield is the combustion engine that drives that unstoppable and unlikely phenomenon that is Metallica. Unlikely? Sure it is. Just listen to the ferocity of Hetfield’s tone on Kill ‘Em All, the brittle and hostile atmosphere of …And Justice For All, or the straightforward pummel of Master of Puppets bookends Battery and Damage Inc. None of this suggests ‘stadium rock’, Jimmy Kimmel, superstardom.

Of course, the Black Album inaugurated that chapter of Metallica’s success, and made Hetfield a household name. The through line, however, is unimpeachable songcraft, much of which rests upon Hetfield’s rhythm style. He plays lead on Nothing Else Matters, but you wouldn’t get your people to call his people and ask him to play a guest solo. Hell no, that’s like asking Federer for a round of golf. No, Hetfield is the rhythm king, the G.O.A.T., all riffs and song structure. He’s the engine, but he’s the architect, too.

5. Mark Tremonti

The man, the myth, the Tremonti, the player whose Roman candle lead guitar lights up the Alter Bridge canon… There is an argument to be made that, pound for pound Tremonti is the ultimate all-rounder. Here he is hanging out on the Metal Top 10 when, on another day, he could probably be a rock player, or in an alternate universe, perhaps in the blues. 

At least, we can hear all of these elements in his playing, all of these flavors are in the pot, sauced with a high-gain tone that could only be described as boutique. PRS all the way, baby.

With Myles Kennedy, he has formed a sort of creative hive mind, like their cerebella are connected to the cloud, making Alter Bridge a dynamic, box-office proposition, a blue chip premiere metal act who might pin you to the wall with a riff but have the humanity and good grace to lift the soul with some huge melody. Tremonti’s ear is well attuned to both.

6. Dave Mustaine

Irascible, complex, brilliant, there is no one quite like Dave Mustaine. His origin story as a bona-fide metal icon is as though it were scripted by William Goldman. It goes a little something like this; he joins Metallica in ‘82, gets kicked out in ‘83, is not very happy about this, and on occasion over the years he will mention this, but he takes that almighty funk and forms Megadeth – the ultimate state-of-the-art thrash metal band.

Technically audacious, sauced with Mustaine’s sulfurous temperament, Megadeth became a repository for some of thrash, nay, metal’s most enduring anthems, with Rust In Peace (1990) a landmark release.

Megadeth would become a proving ground for metal’s best players, with Mustaine recruiting so well you’d swear his middle name was Randstad. Chris Poland, Marty Friedman, Chris Broderick and his current lieutenant, Kiko Loureiro, are all supremely gifted. But they all play off this Mustaine fellow, whose animalistic lead style typifies his incorrigible nature.

This is the man who relearned the instrument from the start after injury, who wrote and recorded his latest album while receiving treatment from cancer, and when he is on his game his riffing patterns are like a HIMARS strike.

7. Zakk Wylde

Zakk Wylde’s CV as a top-tier practitioner of metal guitar takes some beating. Here’s the guy who burst onto the scene in ‘87, all fresh-faced and often in a bowler hat, heir to Randy Rhoads’ throne as he replaced Jake E Lee as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist, and over the years he has transmogrified into the ursine biker shredder and frontman of Black Label Society, now sitting in for the late Dimebag Darrell as Pantera tour again.

He’s also started his own gear company, Wylde Audio, teaches on his Berzerker Guitar Camp via Riffhard. But what of his playing? Well, a former GW columnist, his leads are lit up with high-gain, throaty wah, and a fierce alternate picking style that suggests he prepares for showtime with a nutritious protein shake laced with hydrocarbons.

8. Adrian Smith

With Iron Maiden’s guitar talent having long formed a trident with Dave Murray and Janick Gers, assessing each player on their own merits almost feels inappropriate when what we are hearing from each is in service to the whole.

But there is a common theme to Iron Maiden records; the best tracks have Adrian Smith all over them, and they make metal guitar a renaissance activity, light on its feet, foregrounding melody above all else. That perhaps comes from Smith starting out as a singer – sometimes it pays for your guitar’s phrasing to take its cues from the human voice.

9. Synyster Gates

Avenged Sevenfold’s success rests upon the cavalier genius of Synyster Gates, a player who draws influences from across the board and applied them to a style that was 100 percent entertainment. John Williams, Mr Bungle, Danny Elfman, Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, “classical cats and then jazz guys like Allan Holdsworth” all figure in the mix. 

But it’s where he takes those influences; inventing scales to complement those already canonized, having that his expansive guitar vocabulary readily accessible, sometimes on shuffle, just to see what comes loose. 

10. Glenn Tipton & KK Downing

You can have the argument over who was the finest guitar duo in the history of heavy metal but after debating of the merits of Hanneman/King, Hetfield/Hammett, Murray/Smith et al, it all comes back to Judas Priest’s Tipton and Downing. None more influential. None more effective.

Their sound was a durable yet precious alloy, hard rock hardened and burnished over years at high volume into an instantly recognizable brand of British Steel, pure total metal.

Also in the running…

Jeff Hanneman & Kerry King

Together they set the bar for speed and brutality in riffing. King’s dissonant, chaotic solos match Slayer’s songs perfectly.

Nuno Bettencourt

While others imitated Eddie, Nuno took his ideas to new places. His devastating syncopation gave Extreme funk where their peers had none.

Ace Frehley

Every American rocker’s childhood hero, Ace gave Kiss an endless supply of repurposed Chuck Berry licks. And he could FLY.

Wes Borland

One of the few truly innovative post-Korn nu metallers, his Limp Bizkit work used tapping, whammy and 7-strings creatively.

George Lynch

The Dokken man mastered playing ‘wrong’ notes the right way in a metal context. His sideways vibrato was much imitated.

Devin Townsend

With one of the most devoted fanbases on earth, few musicians have produced a back catalogue so varied, creative or extreme.

Mikael Akerfeldt & Fredrick Åkesson

It’s rare to find chops and melody together in such abundance as on Opeth’s albums. Their tone and vibrato are killer.

Jim Root & Mick Thomson

Nu metal albums used computer editing to place every note millisecond perfect, but the Slipknot pair have the tightness to reproduce it live.

Munky & Head

The first band to realise 7-string guitars’ metal potential, Korn ushered in the sound of the 90s.

Brent Hinds & Bill Kelliher

As well as making terrifying rhythms sound easy, the Mastodon duo bring classic rock tone and licks to metal.

Fredrick Thordendal & Mårten Hagström

The djent innovators revolutionised ideas of how heavy it’s possible to be, with rhythms so complex many fans still don’t understand them.

The best shred guitarists of all time

1. Steve Vai

In two interviews, with Guitarist and Classic Rock, the virtuoso talked gear and guitars, revealed the secrets of his creative process, and discussed the art of shredding...

My First Love

“Once I saw a guitar for the first time at the age of five, I immediately knew the infinite nature of the guitar’s ability to be expressive. It was this beautiful thing.”

Inspiration

“If I have to sit down and write a new song I’m usually not very good at it, but when I pick up the instrument, something will always come out and I’ll document it. I’ve got thousands of ideas and thousands of boxes of DATs.

“Sometimes you just know that something’s coming and there are many different ways in which I’ll catch an idea. Sometimes I’ll do it by just singing straight into a microphone, or I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with a piece of paper and a guitar; if you don’t document those moments of inspiration you’ll never remember them!”

Perspiration

“The song Oooo [from 1999 album The Ultra Zone] was one of those where I felt I had to get to a guitar real quick. So I picked up the first guitar I saw – a Bad Horsie JEM that was tuned down to C – and I just started playing that song. I got through it fairly cryptically by just playing and hearing a melody – it’s all ear – and I ran to the nearest cassette player, which was playing all weird, and got it down. 

“Then I put it on the shelf and I didn’t come back to it until two years later. You see, every Christmas, I document all the little ideas. I heard that again and I thought, ‘I have to do this song now or I’m gonna explode’. It took me four weeks of 16 hours a day to complete it.

“Whenever I use the Whammy, I try to do so creatively. Most people just go ‘weee-wahhhweee-wahhh’. I’ve been experimenting a lot with stompboxes, but it’s funny – you get one of those boxes, and for a time it’s one of the greatest sounds you’ve ever heard, but after a while it’s like, ‘Whatever...’”

My Ibanez JEMs

“I pick up on other guitars and I try to play them, and it’s like, urgh, you know? I always go back to Evo, which is my main JEM, but I did use a Strat-type guitar that Ibanez built me. I went out looking for Fenders but nothing excited me, and the thing is you can spend a fortune on an old guitar, but it’s not necessarily gonna sound good. So they made three of them and we worked on it until it sounded great: more Stratty than a Strat... Oops!”

Shredding

“I’m having a blast on the track Jibboom [also from The Ultra Zone], and being able to play the guitar like that is so liberating. I piss myself when I play that song! Sometimes I like the idea of the guitar being handed to you on a silver platter; there’s nothing in its way, there it is, balls to the wall.”

My Trademark Sound

“I know what it’ll sound like if I put eight guitars on a melody in the treble pickup position with an amp that’s in the closet, and if they all hold out certain notes, mixed with vocals that are pitched along with a synthesizer sound. I mean, there is an element of experimenting – I’ll futz around with some sounds here and there – but I pretty much approach my music as a build: it’ll start out simple and just evolve. 

“Often I’m surprised how it comes out because it’s better than I thought. That said, nothing’s off the cuff, absolutely nothing. I’ll know exactly what it’s going to sound like before recording and the torture is knowing it and being inundated with the pressure of making it real.”

Lydian Flavours at the Heart of the Vai Sound

“The most important thing to remember when you’re playing modally is what the atmosphere of the mode feels like to you. What it sounds like is one thing, but what it feels like – the quality of that mode, that’s when you’re owning that mode. Look at it as an open field. One thing I like to do in Lydian is play every note in the scale except that raised 4th until the last note or close to! That will change the whole atmosphere.”

2. Yngwie Malmsteen

Yngwie talks his influences

“Here are some pieces that are good to, maybe not learn, but certainly draw inspiration from. For instance, Nicola Paganini’s 24 Caprices – and the ones in particular are 5, 16 and 24. Seriously, when you hear 5, you will think, ‘Oh fuck, Yngwie really ripped this shit off !’ Any piece of Bach’s music I listen to makes me feel miniscule... It’s so humbling. If I could bring any musician back from the dead, it would be him.”

3. Joe Satriani

Satch outlines one of his many trademarks: pitch axis

“On Not of This Earth, the E bass note comes in and puts the first chord in either E major or E Lydian. The next chord moves to E minor. The third chord moves it back to E major/Lydian and the fourth chord moves to E Mixolydian. The melody over the top reflects the changing keys. All the time the bass note is just playing an E note and it creates this funny vibe. 

“You can also do it with a bassline that changes slightly. With Jupiter in Mind [Crystal Planet, 1998] shifts between E Dorian and E Lydian. The bass riff stays basically the same, but the intervals are adjusted to reflect the change in key. It’s pitch axis, but stepping up the quantity of notes.”

4. Paul Gilbert

Paul says… Look at intervals like colours

“Lately, I’ve been improvising and have found it’s really important to know the language of intervals, which is the relationship between each note. If you look at the pentatonic scale, it’s important to know how each one relates to your key centre. Find out where your 3rds are all over the neck; don’t think of them as ‘C’ or whatever – think of them as your minor 3rds. 

“Those become your colours, and soon you’ll find there’s your blue, there’s your yellow and so on. Improvising is so important for creating melodies. It’s a bad habit for guitarists to simply just play scales in order; it’s much cooler to hear melodies with wider intervals.

“A good example of this would be The Beatles’ guitar solo on the song Birthday: the first two notes are a 5th apart. I would never have thought of that in a million years – guitar players naturally would go to the scale in order. It almost sounds like Ray Charles once you start connecting all the dots, so I’d say knowing your intervals is incredibly important.”

Take Paul’s advice and identify the intervals to breathe new life into this well-used scale.

5. John Petrucci

John’s ‘Hit and Miss’ philosophy: introducing the feeling of speed to your practice routine

John has a clever way of building speed – he calls it his ‘Hit and Miss’ philosophy. The idea is that you play faster than you are really capable, and, rather than thinking about hitting each individual note, you think about generally keeping your hands in sync. As John says: “I wouldn’t recommend you do it all the time, but it’s a useful tool and you can gain a lot of speed from it.” 

Try applying John’s ‘Hit and Miss’ method to a favourite shreddy lick. Play for a couple of minutes at warm-up pace, then finish off by blasting through your lick at high speed. Even though at first you’ll probably miss more notes than you hit, the point is to let your hands experience the ‘feeling’ of moving fast. At some point your hands will hopefully synchronise.

6. Buckethead

It’s anyone’s guess why Axl’s choice to replace Slash was someone who could perfectly imitate an 8-bit video game, but it was guitar’s gain as this enigmatic maestro shot to prominence. After Vai, Morello, and Satriani, listeners could be forgiven for thinking they’d heard everything the guitar could do. 

Buckethead showed they were woefully mistaken. Some of his ideas are more novel than musical, but others, like his legato licks performed while barring harmonics with the picking hand, have real applications. The influence of his teacher Paul Gilbert is often visible, but Buckethead is among the last true innovators.

7. Guthrie Govan

A shred phenomenon he may be, but Guthrie prefers to wax lyrical about ‘feel’

“The older, wiser player knows in an intuitive way that it’s the quality of the playing that counts. But if you are a beginner who’s looking to derive enough joy from the instrument so that you’re still pleased to see it the next time you practise, you need a mixture of those core values and things that are a little bit exotic or exciting. I think there’s a real value in learning the ‘forbidden mode’. When I was a kid, I didn’t actually care about soloing. 

“Everything I did in those days was easy rhythm, lots of I-IV-V songs, for which I’m profoundly grateful, because if you are focusing on that type of music it’s not hard to play it, it’s only hard to play it well. Something I figured out a long time ago is this nebulous concept of ‘feel’ – how you play something; the dynamics, the timing and all the subtleties.”

8. Jason Becker

Perpetual Burn – Jason’s three biggest tips

1. Listen back to your playing

“There are so many fantastic guitar players out there and I just love seeing anyone with passion for guitar. I guess the most common thing is that some of them haven’t put enough time into developing their vibrato and bends. It is good to record yourself so you can see where you need to improve. Listen closely to your favorite players and try to see how far off you are – that’s exactly what I did. It is so much fun when you start to see yourself getting better and better.”

2. Think about note choices

“I have to admit that I haven’t cared or thought about this stuff in so many years. If I kept it in my mind, I would probably always be depressed! But I liked to mix up note choices and octaves in arpeggios. 

“I might start with a low note, and then instead of playing the 3rd on the same string, play the 3rd an octave up, and then a lower 5th. It has been so long since I have thought about intervals like that, but my teacher Dave Creamer was a master of this kind of stuff. Him and Marty [Friedman] would often break scales into patterns of five or seven, which sounds really cool.”

3. Learn to break the rules

“What felt like the most groundbreaking lesson was something that Marty taught me, and that was once you’ve learned some theory, it’s more fun to break the rules. We would make up weird harmonies that made no theoretical sense, but we liked how they sounded, so thus it was good. If something is ‘wrong’ but it sounds interesting or funny, then it still can be good!”

9. Eric Johnson

Have a peep at Johnson’s live rig from the 2010 Experience Hendrix tour

10. Michael Angelo Batio

Three tips from the face-melting, double-necked axe toting shred pioneer

1. Make your weak hand stronger

“A lot of people don’t know that I’m left-handed, though I play right-handed guitar, but it actually worked out well for me for the first couple of years when I was learning, because I had to think of ways to make my weaker hand stronger with specific exercises. It wasn’t easy!”

2. Economy of motion

“What I still focus on, after all these years, is absolute economy of motion with my picking hand. I try to move it as little as possible from the elbow to avoid placing too much stress on my arm above the wrist. If you take care of those physical parts of your body you’ll find that it helps the rest of your technique, believe me. A lot of players don’t realise how crucial that focus is for the whole of your guitar playing.”

3. Try different genres

“I’m known for playing fast, and a lot of people expect very fast playing from me every time I play live. But I play in other styles too, and I’ll play them despite the pressure to just stick to fast playing. Right now I’m starting to learn a bit of bluegrass country picking because it’s a real challenge. A lot of shredders move away from rock and into jazz because the theory behind jazz is so much more challenging, but at the moment I’m enjoying the different sound and feel of country.”

Also in the running…

Tosin Abasi

Abasi throws unexpectedly complex chords into his visceral 8-string riffing, then turns around and perfectly executes slap bass licks on guitar.

Steve Morse

Most shredders would not even attempt Morse’s fearsome alternate-picked arpeggios. His artificial harmonic melodies are equally scary and beautiful.

Jeff Loomis

While others battled with 3- and 5-string shapes, Loomis swept effortlessly across seven strings, dazzling with extended range arpeggios.

Richie Kotzen

By 19, Kotzen had mastered every contemporary shred technique. He quickly tempered this with Hendrix-like soulfulness before losing his plectrum.

Greg Howe

With palm-muted pull-offs, hammer-ons from nowhere on descending arpeggios, and inventive tapping sequences, Howe changed the legato game for everyone.

The best alternative and indie guitarists of all time

1. Johnny Marr

The most influential guitarist of his generation on his evolution from The Smiths to Electronic and Modest Mouse, and why the shortest solos are the best. As told to TG’s Henry Yates

The Early '80s

“Guitar culture had many crimes and criminals. There was some good stuff, but the art of the song had disappeared. Pop had become very manufactured. Rock was about virtuosity, and machismo was lurking everywhere, or else it was about ‘groove’, which often implies a fear of chord changes. I’ve tried to wipe out the memories of poodle-cuts, but The Smiths was definitely a reaction.” 

To Solo or Not to Solo 

“When people talk about a ‘guitar solo’, they’re generally talking about a pentatonic break in classic rock, and it does imply a certain thoughtlessness and showboating. But actually, when I think about it, it can be an opportunity to do something beautiful, interesting or violent. There are plenty of guitar breaks that I absolutely love, like I Can’t Explain [The Who], or The Last Time by The Rolling Stones. They’re interesting because they’re little 10-second bursts of pop art, and when I have done solos that’s been my approach.”  

Layering 

“One of the most insanely layered (Smiths songs) was Hand in Glove, which I think had 16 guitar tracks. This Charming Man has seven or eight. It’s gratifying that people are still working out those little bits and pieces that are on top, because it was worth me taking the time. These days I’m able to do it more with one part. I’m more technically proficient, I guess.”  

Recycling

“The Headmaster Ritual is interesting. It’s in open D with a capo on the 2nd fret, and it’s a combination of two riffs: one from before I joined the band, and another bolted on when I got this burst of inspiration a year later.”

Tapping

“Modest Mouse is my most mind-bending playing. It was like being thrown in the ocean. If you listen to Invisible, it’s crazy-busy and sounds like five guitars but it’s just me and Isaac Brock bumping into each other! On Fly Trapped In a Jar, people who don’t know me personally would be surprised to hear me playing that stuff. I play a tapping riff on Little Motel... The evidence is there!”

Evolving

“I’d have to live several lifetimes to be as good as I want to be. I once read an interview with someone who said you get to a certain point and never get any better. Playing guitar has always been the thing I love most in life, and that sounded like such a sad state of affairs. Luckily, that hasn’t been the case for me. I don’t think it ever will be.”

2. John Frusciante

From alt-rock to funk, Frusciante’s input helped take RHCP to a new level of stardom

Line-up changes can signal life or death for a band, but over their three-decades-plus career, the Chilis have always bounced back from personnel shifts with a new dynamic and refreshingly accessible sound. 

Numerous guitarists have stepped in throughout the years to tour and record with the band, but, with John Frusciante back in the fold since December 2019, we’re seriously looking forward to the next album. 

In the Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik era, Frusciante would often eschew the Chilis’ trademark pure, hard funk 16th note rhythms to play with a raucous, grungy alt-rock edge.

3. Jack White

One of the biggest songs of its time saw guitarist Jack White’s guitar tuned to open A. You can play the mega-easy verse riff in any tuning, really – it’s in the chorus where open A comes into its own. Those slide guitar lines wouldn’t be possible in standard tuning.

4. Tom Morello

Tom tells us how to take the power back by making the most of our old gear…

“I was about 26 when I made that first Rage Against the Machine record, so I did have some experience behind me. In my late teens and early 20s, I really chased tone. I wanted to sound like Randy Rhoads or Nuno Bettencourt or Eddie Van Halen or Andy Gill, but I couldn’t make it sound like those guys. 

“I couldn’t afford any other gear, so one day I must have spent about five hours with my amp trying to make it sound the best that it could, marking all the settings as I went. It was a conscious and life-changing decision: ‘I’m not going to worry about tone ever again!’

“Instead, I’d just focus on creating music with the tone that I had and thought, ‘Okay, it looks like I’m stuck with this tone, so what kind of music does this tone make?’ All you have to do is listen to something like Led Zeppelin’s The Ocean. The greatest grooves, the greatest riffs, heavy as can be... And played on a Telecaster?! Gain does not equal heaviness. A huge riff doesn’t need gain, it needs deep groove and the right notes.”

5. Jonny Greenwood

It’s hard to play like Greenwood and it’s even harder to write like him. His parts aren’t confined to conventional shapes and patterns, so he produces arresting and unexpected sounds. 

His most famous four seconds – the percussive stabs before the chorus of Creep – began as his attempt to ruin a song he hated, and ended up making the track. 

For the rest of his career, he has been similarly fearless about shaking things up. He experiments freely with avant garde, modern classical and jazz influences, always either sidestepping clichés or recontextualising them so they sound fresh again.

6. J. Mascis

The Dinosaur Jr. man talks us through his favourite pedals

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff

“This one was made in 1976. I don’t know how much it’s worth, maybe up to $1000. It’s probably the most important pedal on my board because it’s where my distorted sound starts. I might add stuff on top of it but, the Big Muff is always in there. I got this on our first American tour in 1987, from a pawn shop in Arizona. Before that, I was using a Deluxe Big Muff, and for a while I used both – but as it turns out I liked this one better.”  

Tube Works Real Tube Overdrive

“This is responsible for my main clean sound... It only has a little bit of drive dialled into it. I can turn down the volume and it still sounds really good. I like doing that so when I turn on the Big Muff it gets louder... Though with four amps, it’s always loud!” 

Electro-Harmonix Mistress Flanger 

“This was the first flanger I ever bought and I guess I love it because it sounds more extreme than most of the others I’ve heard!” '

7. Kurt Cobain

Three lessons that Kurt’s playing style and songwriting has taught us

Fill space and add tension by using chromatic notes

The Bleach album has a raw, high-energy punk-rock feel as delivered in songs such as Mr Moustache via Kurt’s constantly aggressive pick attack, developed with chromatic passing notes and palm-muted single-note riffing. ‘Chromatic’ simply means that some of the riffs are semitone-based runs, taking in notes from other keys and thus sounding less centred around the root note. Chromatics are a great way to generate a feeling of unease and unpredictability in your riffs. 

Use softer dynamics to put focus on the vocal 

Nevermind is full of dynamic shifts, often using clean guitars and a thinner arrangement during verses. This puts the focus on the vocals and leaves plenty of room for overdriven, powerful choruses. Lithium establishes this in its opening four-chord progression that ascends for the first three chords and descends on the last one (a pattern also used on Polly). Drain You and Smells Like Teen Spirit are similar but the third chord descends, instead of the fourth. 

Employ dissonance to grab attention 

The intro to Serve The Servants sets the tone of angst and unrest that permeates In Utero, thanks to the grating dissonance in the guitar and bass. This puts the listener on edge at these points and leaves a sinister undertone when returning to the more conventional verse and chorus sections. For an additional jarring effect, Cobain often ends phrases of the vocal melody with a note that clashes with the guitar chord he’s singing over.

8. Matt Bellamy

Muse’s Matt Bellamy has long been famous for his tech-loaded, forward-thinking approach to the electric guitar. 

Need proof? Just check out his collection of Manson guitars where you’ll find features like the Roland GK MIDI pickup system, built-in effects pedals, LED lights, Fernandes Sustainer pickups, ribbon MIDI controllers, Kaoss pad controllers and plenty more. 

Despite the high-tech sonic influences, Matt’s love of traditional classical music permeates Muse’s, er, musical output – and the harmonic minor scale is a great spot to get started.

The guitar parts in tracks such as Plug In Baby and New Born show Matt’s love of classical music. These lines tend to use arpeggios based within the harmonic minor scale (1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7). We’ve used Am and G#dim7 arpeggios mixed in with other melody notes from the key for a typical classically influenced sound.

9. Graham Coxon

The Blur six-stringer and solo artist on his unique, unconventional lead playing

Despite being one of Britpop’s most recognisable guitarists, Blur’s Graham Coxon has never enjoyed playing by the rules. 

As Coxon tells TG: “I was listening to [2012 single] Meet+Drink+Pollinate the other day and had a mini-revelation that I do sort of booby-trap my own lead lines. But maybe that’s my skewed idea of melody. I couldn’t play scales and things. 

“I think I’m more in the free-jazz world when it comes to lead playing, and I play physically. I like the sound of a guitar being thumped! I’d hear other people making rock albums that sounded really polished, but my records always sound like me: slightly shambolic and about to break. I cover my lack of technical ability with weird noises!”

10. Josh Homme 

As it turns out, no one really knows how Josh Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen dial in their sound. The QOTSA brain trust keeps its own counsel on gear and tone. 

But this much we know: Homme is a vintage gear aficionado, favouring guitars by Ovation, Maton and Motor Ave. He loves Ampeg’s VT series combos. Having played a Maton MS500 in the No One Knows video, we’d bet one would have been in the studio, too. 

He’s a neck pickup guy but his tone is never muddy. There’s plenty of low-end, some overdrive crunch and a saucing of fuzz. Pedals such as the Stone Deaf PDF-1 add the dirt, the likes of the Fulltone Fat-Boost hold it together. Probably. Homme tunes down to C, so using a heavier gauge of string (0.011s should do it) will help those riffs cut through.

11. Jerry Cantrell

Unchained... The grunge and metal pioneer’s playing secrets unlocked

Though known as grunge pioneers, Alice In Chains are heavily influenced by metal and hard rock, with a sound that sets them apart from the loud-soft cliches of some other early-90s alt-rock acts. 

A big feature of Jerry’s playing is dissonant harmony and a fondness for that staple metal scale, the Phrygian mode – take a listen to the main verse riff in Would? for an example. Try out our riff to get a little of Jerry’s magic in your playing.

There’s a great mix of some of Jerry’s favourite chords here – F#7add11 and E5dim will help you capture some essential AIC harmonies. Alice In Chains employ odd time in tracks such as Them Bones; count an eighth note pulse to keep time with the unusual feel of our 3/4 and 4/4 time change.

12. Billy Corgan

Corgan created guitar armadas, placing up to 40 guitar overdubs on a single track. These stuck out in an alternative scene that was competing to make the most lo-fi album. The Smashing Pumpkins’ defiantly massive orchestrations were inspired by the shoegaze scene and unfashionable pomp rockers like Queen and Boston. 

He fully harnessed the Big Muff fuzz’s potential to create a wall of noise, and like his heroes Cheap Trick, created a sound that was equal parts rock fury and pop magic. When metal was a dirty word, Corgan embraced Sabbath and Van Halen, revealing an artist always unafraid to be himself.

13. Thurston Moore & Lee Ranaldo

One of New York’s most celebrated alternative bands, Sonic Youth championed alternate tunings for new alternative generation…

Speaking to Guitarist in 2015, Moore said: “When Sonic Youth first started, I didn’t feel like I needed to be at any level of playing to do what we had to do. Lee [Ranaldo] was more accomplished. 

“He had actually been playing guitar in a way where he could work his way around a fretboard fairly well, but I was just instantly like, ‘F*ck it, I’m just going to put a drumstick under the 12th fret! We kind of started f*cking around a little bit with stuff on Confusion Is Sex [1983]. 

“And a lot of that was just based on the guitars we were using, like one just had four tuning pegs on it and four low strings. It wasn’t until after that that this tuning of F# F# F# F# E B happened, and that was the first real tuning that was sort of notated. 

“I immediately started writing songs in it, like Brave Men Run and Death Valley ’69. Then we refined how things worked and worked with other tunings. Lee would either do something that was in unison or he would do something of his own invention that was complementary. It wasn’t discussed. It was just the way we were doing it.”

14. Kevin Shields

The original exponent of the giant pedalboard, the My Bloody Valentine guitarist has more tones at his feet on any given gig than anyone else has in their career. 

Shields held onto his Jazzmaster’s tremolo arm constantly, meaning the chords slid in and out of tune as he strummed. The result, known as glide guitar, gave voice to the disaffected mood of British youth who felt equally unrepresented by the Conservative government and by mainstream rock. 

Shields’ enormous, dissonant sound birthed the shoegaze scene and inspired the likes of Billy Corgan and Butch Vig, producer of Nirvana’s Nevermind.

15. Nick Valensi & Albert Hammond Jr.

Just when we needed it most, the Strokes made guitars raw again. Their debut arrived amid a sea of nu metal so overproduced it was difficult to detect human involvement. 

The Strokes captured the excitement of five kids in a garage discovering rock ’n’ roll, and spawned an entire scene of bands called ‘The ...s’. Even shock rock godfather Alice Cooper was inspired to return to his garage rock roots. 

The Strokes’ guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. had great interplay, each playing different parts to create a bigger whole without compromising their immediacy. Three chords, loud amps and total honesty win every time.

Also in the running…

Alex Turner

His lyrics may overshadow his playing, but the Arctic Monkey’s spikey guitar lines communicate his sentiments equally well.

Noel Gallagher

Perhaps only George Harrison has recorded more solos you can whistle...

Stone Gossard & Mike McCready

With their ingenious twin guitar parts, the Pearl Jam pair achieve sounds their heroes like Hendrix couldn’t achieve alone.

John Squire

90s England didn’t produce many guitar heroes, but the Stone Rose was one in the tradition of Beck and Page.

Bernard Sumner

Thanks to his work with Joy Division and New Order, there isn’t an indie kid in the UK he didn’t influence.

Kim Thayil & Chris Cornell

The Soundgardeners set themselves apart with unique tunings and somehow making riffs in 5/4 and 7/4 sound catchy.

Robert Smith

Goths, indie kids and alt-rockers try and fail to imitate him, partly because he purposely detunes his guitar by ear.

Dave Navarro

The 90s alternative scene wasn’t big on solos, but Navarro kept the fire burning with Jane’s Addiction and RHCP.

Peter Buck

The greatest non-Liverpudlian ever to plug a Rickenbacker into an AC30, Buck’s parts have distinguished REM’s catalogue.

Adam Jones

A stunningly creative and original part writer, Jones is known for his inventive use of delays and odd time signatures in Tool.

Stephen Malkmus

If only rock critics had voted, Malkmus would have dominated this poll – his band Pavement defined 90s US indie.

James Dean Bradfield

The Manics’ frontman gave us rock n’ roll and low-slung Les Pauls when such things were thin on the ground.

Black Francis & Joey Santiago

The Pixies basically invented a new chord progression, the mediant major, unheard in alt-rock before but now inescapable.

The best guitarists in the world right now

1. Nita Strauss

Nita Strauss is the very definition of a guitar hero in the modern age. In 2018, she joined the likes of Steve Vai and Joe Satriani in having her own signature Ibanez model – an achievement that made her the first female musician ever in its history to have done so. 

Similar things can be said about the Pandemonium DiMarzio pickups that come fitted on her JIVA axe, a feat she also holds close to her heart having idolised many of the company’s virtuoso endorsees. None of this would have happened if it were not for her dizzying technique and hard work ethic, which has seen her play guitar alongside artists as diverse as Alice Cooper and Demi Lovato.

2. Erja Lyytinen

A top tip from the Finnish blues maestro who spoke to TG in our April edition

“I’ve always loved Albert King’s overbends and experimenting with those sorts of sounds – like bending a whole step up, then come down slightly a microtone, go back up to the first note and repeat that a few times! It’s a great exercise and once you’ve mastered it, it can make the world of difference to your sound.”

Some things never change. Since the dawn of electric guitar-based blues, string bends have been a staple soloing technique – and Erja has a full arsenal of chops. Here in our Lyytinen-style, lick you can hear how bending gradually higher up the fretboard builds the excitement.

3. Mateus Asato

Electric guitar has always been an ensemble instrument, and there are few classic recordings where it appears unaccompanied. Brazilian YouTube sensation Asato exploits the electric guitar’s potential as a true solo instrument. 

Often accompanied only by shimmer reverb and delay effects, he takes the chord-melody principle Hendrix started with Little Wing and takes it to lengths perhaps even Jimi wouldn’t have imagined. 

As with the legendary Chet Atkins, the technique on display is astounding but not ostentatious because it always serves the music. Whether on covers or original compositions, his groove, dynamics, and depth of emotion are compelling.    

4. Plini

He’s received accolades from iconic shredders, but the Aussie prog wizard had chords on his mind when he spoke to TG... 

“One chord I use way too much is the major 9th. For example, try fretting the 7th fret on the G string, 5th fret on the B string and 9th on the E – so you get the root, 2nd and major 7th. There’s the weird dissonance to those notes; it’s happy but it’s not cheesy happy... It’s an intelligent, happy chord! 

“Another type I use could involve the 6th fret on the D [string] with the 5th frets on the B and E strings, muting the G string. Raising that 6th fret note one semitone up gives it a nice resolution. There are various tonalities like that which I enjoy implementing. It’s the same concept with my lead playing; I like to take a note that isn’t quite the one you want it to be... It might be next to it.”

5. Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram

The future of blues is safe in the hands of this young talent

Hailing from Clarksdale – the birthplace of blues heroes Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters – this talented young guitarist has been making a name for himself since he appeared on Eric Gales’ 2017 album Middle of the Road. Despite only being 16 at the time of recording, his contributions for the track Help Yourself were delivered with the conviction of an old blues master.

A fierce soloist, Christone also knows how to lay down a solid shuffle riff – an essential part of the blues. Our classic riff is based around the bottom three notes of an E chord, but the surrounding notes make it sound authentic.

6. Tim Henson & Scott LePage

Two of the most technically-capable players of today say they're inspired by simple melodies and having fun

Tim Henson: “I like to write hooks, so sometimes the melodies are simple, which is great, because that’s how it gets stuck in your head. I flex on the inflection of each note. Rather than the amount of notes, it’s how I play each note, so doing a different set of techniques per set of notes keeps the phrase interesting.”

Scott LePage: “Don’t just run up and down scales because you think that’s the answer. If you don’t like playing guitar, you don’t like playing guitar; but if you do, then have fun with it.”

7. Jason Richardson

The All That Remains technician on the subject of arpeggios

“I exclude barring from virtually all triadic shapes when playing ascending and descending arpeggios on every part of the fretboard. I feel that omitting barring helps tremendously in eliminating any possibility of two notes ringing together while moving from note to note through the arpeggio shapes. The literal definition of an arpeggio is a ‘broken chord’, so none of the notes are supposed to ring simultaneously.”

8. Ichika Nito

Anyone who had their mind blown by Eruption in 1978 should be equally amazed that it ultimately led to Ichika Nito. With his sparkling clean tone and sophisticated chord voicings, Nito is in another galaxy from Van Halen, but he expands the possibilities of finger tapping just as Eddie did. 

He often plays the instrument more like a piano, reminiscent of '80s genius Stanley Jordan. Like Mateus Asato, Ichika is rarely seen with a pick or a backing track, and his flawless technique is made even more apparent by his exposed clean tone. He shows that virtuoso guitarists can make original, beautiful music.  

9. Nick Johnston

The Canadian solo artist on his preferred techniques

“The first thing that attracts me to a player is the touch. It’s their vibrato, the sound of their hands. It’s not about how much technique they’ve developed, or what they can do with the guitar. It’s more about notes, pitch, harmony, songwriting, and melody. 

“It’s the stuff that you don’t develop in the first 10 years of playing guitar. It’s the stuff that takes a lifetime. I use some legato lines, hybrid picking stuff, some of the bending stuff. I watch [myself] back and it’s like, ‘Oh sh*t, I’m doing that again!’

“I like to take a note that’s not in key, just so there’s a bit of tension, then bend it up. Like, I’ll take the b5, bend it to [the] 5. Basically, I like to take stuff that’s not in [key], and bend it in. With legato, I like string skipping stuff. I do a lot of stuff with the volume knob and pickup slider – the guts of the guitar.”

10. Yvette Young

Another player tearing up the rulebook and taking influence from different instruments

“I never really listen to guitar music, so I only listen to bands and composers. My piano upbringing – the two-handed tapping I play, I approach the guitar just how I’d approach writing polyphony on a piano. I started playing the way I play because I didn’t have a band; I just wanted to sound as full as possible by myself. I think a good melody is eternal. People have just gotta write good riffs and think about tones that aren’t total cheeseballs. Something that’s catchy – we all like catchy shit!”

Also in the running…

Misha Mansoor, Mark Holcomb and Jake Bowen

The Periphery trio harness complex chords and rhythms to show 8-strings are no gimmick.

Lari Basilio

Lari throws technical brilliance into melodic passages without sacrificing tone or musicality.

Ana Popovic

It’s rare a blueser can show such technical proficiency without compromising feel, but Ana rivals Robben Ford and SRV.

Sarah Longfield

Any normal human would be satisfied with one decent fretting hand. Sarah’s utterly clean two-handed technique is just greedy...

King Solomon Hicks

The blues has a fourth King, and he’s a 25 year-old from  Harlem.

Trailblazers

1. Prince

The Purple One’s ambition knew no bounds, just as he refused to be restrained by any one genre. An underrated guitarist as well as a songwriter-extraordinaire, here are five things you can learn from his sensational playing

There’s a famous Clapton anecdote; you’ve probably heard it. Slowhand was said to have been asked, ‘What’s it like to be the best guitar player alive?’ To which he responded, “I don’t know, ask Prince.” 

But did he ever actually say that? Well, no, he didn’t. But the fact a completely fabricated quote (that’s also been attributed to Hendrix on Rory Gallagher) has been widely accepted speaks volumes about Prince Rogers Nelson, whose sudden death on 21st April, aged 57, shocked the world. 

In response, Clapton would pay real tribute to the late legend for pulling him out of depression in 1984 when he saw Purple Rain and was instantly re-inspired. Many were introduced to him by the title track, but the few interviews he gave rarely focussed on his musicianship, especially a guitar approach that brought a remarkable Hendrix fire to his facets of James Brown funk and Little Richard showmanship. 

He always played plenty of guitar, but was highly proficient in a number of instruments; a 19-year-old Prince played everything on his 1978 debut, For You.

“The key to longevity is to learn every aspect of music that you can,” he said in 2006. Prince certainly learned his lessons well, but let’s celebrate one thrilling aspect of Prince that is often overlooked; why he should be remembered as one of the greatest guitar players of all time.  

Develop Talent With Hard Work 

The idea that all Prince’s achievements were as effortless as his cool are a myth. Yes, he was clearly a naturally gifted musician and songwriter but he never stopped working on his craft, which is why he will be remembered as one of the greatest live showmen of all time. 

He put painstaking hours in behind the scenes on the world’s stages and in his Paisley Park studio; he confirmed there’s vaults of unreleased recordings, and there’s even reports of him arriving to shows hours early in the 90s to personally set up the sound. 

As his career progressed, his shows became looser and his musicianship became more of a showcase of his theatrical abilities, with two shows a night not uncommon as the diminutive dynamo moved from arena to intimate late-night club. It was a reflection of a player who never stopped learning, and teaching others in the process, with his last live band, 3rdeyegirl, seeing him play rockier guitar again, too. 

“One thing that I’ve learned from Prince is his amazing work ethic,” his bandmate Donna Grantis told TG. “Always doing your best. I think that’s a huge thing. I think, always giving your all, and putting the art first. It’s the dedication and the passion and the talent, all together. Just being so prolific. It’s really a way of life.”  

Be a Slave to the Rhythm 

Prince was funky from the start; he wrote his first song at age seven, and it was called Funk Machine. He was also a student of the Grand Master Funkateers; Brown, Bootsy, Sly, Clinton – while naming Sonny T (former New Power Generation guitarist), Tony Maiden (Rufus) and Ike Turner as key influences. 

And this is the key to his DNA as a player; his masterful rhythm playing is what really set him apart. Being Prince, he had a distinct approach and opinion on the matter... 

“I’m always trying to work in the bass notes when I’m playing funk rhythms,” Prince told Guitar Player magazine in a rare guitar chat back in 2004. “It’s the same way that Freddie Stone [Sly And The Family Stone guitarist] would always play the same parts as [bassist] Larry Graham, but just a tad higher. 

“Kids don’t learn to play the right way anymore. When the Jackson 5 came up, they had to go through Smokey Robinson and the Funk Brothers, and that’s how they got it down. I want to be able to teach that stuff, because kids need to learn these things, and nobody is teaching them the basics. 

“See, a lot of cats don’t work on their rhythm enough, and if you don’t have rhythm, you might as well take up needlepoint or something. I can’t stress it enough.” 

Make Your Solos Fly

Prince could certainly shred with speedy runs, but if you haven’t watched the YouTube clip of him stealing the show in 2004 from Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Steve Winwood with his Hohner T-style on an two-minute extended outro in While My Guitar Gently Weeps, do so now. 

It’s one of the most glorious moments of his live blend of taste and heroics that hasn’t been taken down from the site. 

When Prince went off on a pentatonic rock solo, it was pure emotional expression being mined with a Santana-level vibrato (Prince was a huge admirer of the early Santana records especially), and he understood the power of holding a sustained note for the emotive shot to the heart. 

But his energetic improvisation was always anchored in the hooks reflected in his approach to vocal melody construction. “Guitarists should listen to singers for solo ideas – especially women singers,” he told Guitar Player in that 2004 interview. “Women haven’t had a chance to run the world yet, so you still hear the blues in their singing. Try to play one of the runs that Beyoncé or Ella Fitzgerald does and you will surely learn something.” 

Groove Through the Genres 

Prince was completely committed to his creativity; he founded his own Paisley Park Studios and estate in the city of Chanhasen, Minnesota as a base to develop his music (it was also the site of his death). 

By 1987’s Sign O’ The Times, he was ready to showcase his most chameleonic and arguably finest work with the double-opus touching on a wide range of styles; pop, funk, soul, jazz (his parents were both jazz musicians) through rock, psychedelia and even electronic sampling on If I Was Your Girlfriend. 

He could be brilliantly sparse with his blues (the politically-fired title track’s tasty licks), add the perfect riff and melodic leads to drive his anthemic pop sensibilities (I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man), hold down taught James Brown-esque funk (It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night) and take a surprising diversion into raw overdriven rock (The Cross). 

And that was just one of nearly 40 studio albums, although be warned; his jazzy departures on 2001’s The Rainbow Children and instrumental excursions on 2003’s N.E.W.S. and Xpectation are not his best work by any stretch. 

The Band Help Maketh the Man 

Like all great showmen, Prince understood that his talent needed the right band around him to really shine live. Though he’d frequently track instruments himself in the studio, he carefully chose and nurtured the best to back him onstage. 

It began with The Revolution, the backing band he formed in 1979. Dez Dickerson was his guitar wingman until the 1999 album (he supplied the stunning solo for Little Red Corvette) when Wendy Melvoin took over until 1986’s Parade and the folding of the Revolution (since Prince’s death they have announced their intention to reform and tour in his honour).

After that came The New Power Generation. Prince was always notably supportive of female musical talent, none more so than his 2014 four-piece, 3rdeyegirl, which featured guitarist Donna Grantis, drummer Hannah Welton and Danish bassist Ida Kristine Nielson.

“One of the main ones that comes to mind is committing and playing with a tremendous amount of conviction,” Donna told TG of what she learned from Prince. “Playing always from the heart and with a great amount of purpose. He’s an incredible soloist and just a master rhythm player as well…” Knowing when to take centre stage and when to let others shine is something we could all learn to do.

Also in the running…

Bob Dylan

By popularising simple and effective ways for acoustic guitars to accompany vocalists, Dylan has influenced every songwriting strummer and fingerpicker.

Tommy Emmanuel

Recognised by his peers as the world’s greatest fingerpicker (and equally gifted with a pick), Tommy’s recordings overflow with musicality.

Albert Lee

It’s surprising the world’s best country picker comes from Herefordshire. His pedal steel impressions and lightning runs are even more surprising.

Nile Rodgers

Le Freak, Let’s Dance, Like A Prayer, Get Lucky. Rodgers is the sound of electric guitar in pop music.

Steve Cropper

Cropper co-wrote and played with soul greats including Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding, inventing genius economical riffs all pro guitarists should try to learn.

The best punk guitarists of all time

1. Johnny Ramone

Every new electric guitarist should learn a Ramones song, but some people mistakenly think this means his style is easily replicated. Few realise Johnny produced that tirade of powerchords using all downstrokes – even live, when the Ramones often played at adrenalin- (or substance-) fuelled tempos far in excess of their albums. 

The sound is wildly aggressive in a way that down-up alternate strumming can’t match, and it directly inspired the rhythm styles of '80s thrash and '90s pop-punk, and any song that makes use of a regular eighth-note powerchord part carries Ramones DNA.

2. Steve Jones

Some of Steve’s best playing with the Sex Pistols was on debut single Anarchy in the UK. In 2012, Steve told TG...

“We banged it out in rehearsal while John was in the corner figuring out the words. I like the fact that it has two guitar solos. Out of all of the Pistols singles, that was the slowest. If you wanted to attach ‘punk’ to it, it’s not a fast track; it’s laid-back, almost like Booker T & The MGs. 

“There are loads of [guitar] tracks on that – I don’t even remember how many. I used one of those MXR Phase 90s on one of the rhythms as well. At the time, [producer] Chris Thomas kept telling me to tune up and it drove me mad, but looking back I’m glad he did and I’m glad we spent time on it. I think that’s what makes the Pistols album different from The Clash or The Damned. We didn’t just go in and crash, bang, wallop.”

3. Mick Jones 

A punk-rock innovator who refused to be painted into a corner

Punk guitar solos, like punk songs, have to walk a fine line: they need to be melodic and simple without being cheesy, and they need to have teeth. Many punks eschew them altogether, but Jones’s tough Les Paul licks kept a place for string bending in the synth-dominated early '80s. 

He drew on Carl Perkins’ rockabilly trickbag but also soaked himself in ska and reggae, making way for future genre crossovers. With The Clash, he expanded the boundaries of punk to help make room for the post-punk scene, and then continued to explore new territory with Big Audio Dynamite.

4. Ian MacKaye & Guy Pucciotto

The Fugazi guitarists inspired one of most dedicated fanbases in the world. Many punks talked the DIY talk, but these two lived their principles. When Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun offered them a blank cheque to sign the band, they told him where to go, instead reaching arena status on their own terms and keeping ticket prices to a target $5. 

This complete lack of pretension translates to their guitar playing, which has the kind of tightness and anger that only comes from playing 1000 toilet-circuit gigs. Every upcoming punk band draws on the Fugazi sound and ethos.

5. Billie Joe Armstrong

Keeping punk alive for the masses to this day

Billie Joe Armstrong sure knows how to make guitars sound big! Even shred god Paul Gilbert described him as one of the best guitarists in the world for his blistering downpicking, and his mastery of palm-muting and powerchord riffing rivals even thrash-metal giant James Hetfield. 

A couple of picking and fretting tricks will help you play like the pop-punk great - see below.

Billie holds his pick at an angle between his thumb and index finger, not quite flat on the pad nor on the side. Attacking the strings at about 30 degrees gives Billie an aggressive tone and reduces resistance so he can play faster.

When fretting octave shapes with their roots on the fifth string, the tip of Billie’s index finger brushes (or ‘stubs’) the sixth and fourth strings just enough to mute them. Perfect for solos like American Idiot.

Also in the running…

Ron Asheton

He formed the Stooges with Iggy Pop, giving him a better claim than most to having invented punk.

Joan Jett

Jett’s power chords and anthemic songwriting paved the way for women in punk rock.

Tom Verlaine

‘Punk virtuoso’ might sound like an oxymoron, but Television’s frontman incorporated avant garde influences to prove punks could play.

Greg Ginn

Black Flag’s founder was pivotal to developing hardcore and post-hardcore, bringing to punk jazz influences, breakbeats and, most shockingly, playing slowly.

Johnny Thunders

Not many people can say they influenced The Smiths, Guns n’ Roses and The Sex Pistols, but Thunders can.

Chris Stein

Blondie’s six-stringer expanded his palate by drawing on reggae, disco and punk simultaneously.

David Byrne

Talking Heads were so experimental there was barely a sound they didn’t try, starting new wave in the process.

Geordie Walker

Equally a hero to the metal and industrial genres, Geordie gave Killing Joke haunting arpeggios and remains a cult figure.

Rowland S. Howard

The goth genre might never have been born without this top Jazzmaster exponent and his band, The Birthday Party.

John McGeoch

McGeoch’s un-guitarlike sound landed him gigs with Magazine, PIL and more.

Andy Gill

The Gang of Four founder’s influence dwarves his sales. REM, Nirvana, RHCP and Franz Ferdinand owe him a great debt.

The best acoustic guitarists of all time

1. Bert Jansch

Folk-blues pioneer Wizz Jones shares his memories of and reflections of the influential virtuoso

In the mid-'60s, it was Jansch’s folk and blues contemporaries in London, such as Roy Harper, Martin Carthy, John Renbourn, Ralph McTell and Long John Baldry who were the first to be mesmerised by this outrageously talented young troubadour from Edinburgh. 

Then Paul Simon, Pete Townshend, Nick Drake, Jimmy Page and Neil Young all latched on to Bert’s genius during the remainder of the '60s. In more recent decades, Johnny Marr, Bernard Butler, Beth Orton, Graham Coxon, Pete Doherty and Jonathan Wilson have all heralded the enduring influence of Jansch’s timeless music on their own work. 

“I think the big thing that he did more than anything was to bring traditional Scottish, Irish and English music into the modern world,” Wizz enthuses. “Bert had this wonderful stark way of doing it, and it was so revolutionary at the time. And, later on, he very much influenced the American scene somehow. 

“There must have been an American release of a sampler record later on, and it really influenced all of them. We all thought that they were playing American music, but in fact it had a real English/Scottish slant to it.” 

Incorporating jazz inflections into his arrangements was another innovation that Bert Jansch wowed admirers with, both in his solo work and his years with jazz-folk- blues group Pentangle, who formed in 1967. 

The five-piece consisted of bassist Danny Thompson, drummer Terry Cox, vocalist Jacqui McShee and the twin guitars of Jansch and John Renbourn, with whom Bert had already recorded extensively. 

“Davey [Graham] to some extent had started the idea of infusing jazz guitar into acoustic folk guitar, but Bert took it a step further,” explains Jones. “He used to spend hours and hours working out amazingly complex arrangements of a song using inverted chords that he’d discover and invent himself. 

2. Richard Thompson

Fingerstyle guidance from a true great

“If you just strum chords, there’s a whole world that you’re missing. Fingerpicking is a great way to develop your fingers. I think one of the best places to start is with what’s called ‘clawhammer’ style. A good basic example is Peter, Paul and Mary playing Puff The Magic Dragon. 

“The guitar part is a clawhammer guitar part, so you’re playing the bass strings in a kind of alternating pattern and putting a melody over the top, and there’s a certain syncopation between the two. It’s like many things that you learn that sound hard at first, but you just slow it way down and slowly build it up to speed. In a few months, you’ve expanded your horizons and you’ve got a whole new set of possibilities.”

3. Joni Mitchell

Interested in open tunings? Check out Joni Mitchell...

Few guitarists have made open tunings such an integral part of their playing style as the Alberta, Canada-born singer-songwriter. Joni is reported to have used over 50 different tunings over the course of her career. 

Coupled with regular use of a capo, Joni always manages to make her guitar parts sound creative and, well, difficult. Not necessarily difficult to play, but by ditching the well-known chord shapes and stock phrases of standard tuning it's tough to get your ear around those magical sounds. 

Try out these tunings from some of Joni's biggest songs.

1. Open E (E B E G# B E)

Open E with a capo on the 2nd fret will give you the tuning for Joni’s big hits, Big Yellow Taxi and Both Sides Now.

2. B F# B E A E

The strings are tuned to a B7sus4 chord here. It’s also the tuning Joni uses to play The Magdalene Laundries.

3. C G D F G C

Another unusual tuning outlining a sus chord, this time Csus2sus4. Dial this one in to play Joni’s Hejira.

4. Nick Drake

Critics praise Drake for his somber and beautiful lyrics, influenced by his love of poets like William Blake and W.B. Yeats. But according to his friend and collaborator Robert Kirby, these lyrics were crafted to fit the moods dictated by his music. 

It wasn’t that Drake found the perfect musical accompaniments for his feelings; those haunting and heartbreaking sounds were his feelings. 

He wrote guitar parts that sounded like loneliness, and they speak directly to his listeners. His unique sounds came from tunings he discovered himself, allowing chord voicings with multiple adjacent notes, impossible in most common tunings.

Also in the running…

Paul Simon

Crafting Fingerstyle parts that propelled his songs with Art Garfunkel to greatness, Paul Simon has since become a magpie to folk music of all cultures.

John Renbourn

Collaborating with Bert Jansch and Pentangle, the UK solo acoustic guitar pioneer opened up new tunings alongside medieval and jazz influences.

Ed Sheeran

Boosting acoustic guitar sales everywhere, Sheeran has made loopers an essential accessory and confirmed the guitar’s continuing relevance.

Ben Howard

With his unusual pick-and-go technique, eclectic tunings and partial capo, Howard has a distinctive sound that is deservedly acclaimed.

Michael Hedges

Enormously inventive musician whose two-handed, percussive approach transformed modern acoustic technique. His star fans include Pete Townshend and Steve Vai.

The best jazz and fusion guitarists of all time

1. Django Reinhardt

Countless players of all styles have cited Django as an influence, from Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Beck, though it’s among the Gypsy communities of Europe that Django truly lives on. Exactly how he managed, with a badly injured fretting-hand, to play such incredible lead lines is still the subject of debate. 

Frankly, it’s mind-boggling - and his intensely swinging single-string solos, near impossible chromatic runs encompassing the entire range of the guitar neck, incredible arpeggio leaps across the fretboard and fearsome rhythmic drive have had musicians’ jaws on the floor ever since. 

Mere hyperbole? Certainly not! Together with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Django was instrumental in developing the vocabulary of the entire gypsy jazz genre. 

Django almost exclusively used a 1930s Selmer-Maccaferri guitar, set up with light gauge ‘silk ’n’ steel’ strings (0.010-0.046) and featuring an internal sound chamber to enhance projection. 

His own Selmer, serial number 503, is on display at the Museum Of Music in Paris. Only a few dozen other examples survive and today fetch astronomical sums! 

2. Allan Holdsworth

Playing tips from the fusion genius who influenced the likes of Satriani and Zappa

The power of four… 

“When I practise scales I will play four notes on one string. If I’m playing a C major scale, starting on F, I’ll play the F, G, A, and B on one string and the C will be on the A string, and so on. Because I found not only was it good for my hands but it was really good for interconnecting things. 

“I didn’t want to end up playing in positions like you’d see guys playing, and every time it was a different chord their hand would be in a completely different position, and I wanted to eliminate that completely. 

“So I always practised playing scales in every position and I looked at four notes per string as a way of connecting positions together.” 

Achieving pure legato... 

“I never use pull-offs because I don’t like the sort of ‘meow’ sound they make with the string being deflected sideways. So I kind of tap the finger on and lift it directly off the string. I practise trying to make all the notes play the same volume or even some of the notes I’ve hammered, louder than the notes I’ve picked. 

“So you can place an accent anywhere you normally would if you were using a pick. I’ve got better at it now and when I listen to it I can pick up what’s going on and I think it’s harder to tell now what’s picked and what isn’t. But basically I wanted to make a note I’d hammered louder than a note I’d picked.”

3. Wes Montgomery

Thumbs Up! Putting a finger on Montgomery’s amazing playing technique

The most significant part of Montgomery’s playing style was his preference for using his thumb instead of a pick. And it gives a tone far thicker and warmer than any plectrum can produce – though you’ll be sacrificing speed for tone. 

Montgomery elaborated on this by explaining that it was quieter when practising at night; that he kept dropping picks, and felt that he was more ‘in touch’ with the guitar without one. Regardless, it’s amazing how agile Wes could be with the thumb. 

Although he played mainly with a legato style – with lots of slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs – he was able to play upstrokes for fast, single-note lines as well as fast tremolo passages on octave and chord runs. He’d also execute swift arpeggio runs in a ‘sweeping’ style. 

Some of this can be explained by the fact that he was double-jointed. Even so, it remains impressive that he was able to create a classic, distinctive tone with just a guitar, a lead, an amp and his thumb!

4. John McLaughlin

Back in 2016, the fusion pioneer talked gear with Guitarist. Here’s the lowdown on the tone

“I’m using three kinds of tube preamp, depending on what sort of mood I’m in. The old one is a Mesa/Boogie V Twin, which I really like because I used to play Mesa/Boogie amps back in the '70s and '80s. Then I have a [Hermida Audio] Zendrive2; this has one valve in it. 

“The last one is a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic and this album [2015’s Black Light] has been recorded with the Seymour Duncan from start to finish. I use a Line 6 wireless system [Relay G30], which is the best one I know. 

“I go straight into the tuner and from the tuner into the preamp, whichever one I’m using, and from there it goes into an MXR [Carbon Copy] Delay – I really like MXR for quality – and from that into an MXR Stereo Chorus, and that’s it. Then the output goes to the monitors and to the front of house.”

5. Larry Carlton

The session ace and Steely Dan regular gives his tips for developing your musical ear

Learn jazz standards...

“For me, it started by learning standards. I remember that when I would learn a four-bar phrase from a Joe Pass record, I’d then go back and learn the chords that were happening underneath it, not just the solo. Then I had the opportunity to analyse it: why could he play those notes against that chord? I think it’s important that once you learn the solo, learn the chords, then think about why that could happen.” 

Use simple clusters of notes...  

“That’s the motif approach of making a small statement and then developing that statement. It always shows up in my solos. I haven’t abandoned it but I am not really aware of it. To me, that is just the musicality that comes out of me. Play something and wait a second. If nothing else comes, imitate what you just did. It is a patience thing.”

Also in the running…

Pat Metheny

Since deciding it was rude to copy Wes Montgomery, this giant has continually expanded jazz vocabulary in harmony and instrumentation.

George Benson

Watch Benson sing his guitar lines while he improvises: this is an outrageous musical ear and unfailing sense of melody.

Shawn Lane

He could play faster than anyone, but wisely remembered to include rhythm and tunes. Guthrie Govan and Paul Gilbert were awed.

Frank Gambale

Sweep-pickers the world over owe a debt to Gambale’s videos. His prolific output includes six albums with Chick Corea.

Apparently, Brian May isn’t the only British guitar legend spending his quarantine time demonstrating how to play his famous songs.

Recently, former Smiths electric guitar player Johnny Marr jumped into the riff-teaching game as well, posting an Instagram video in which he implored fans to “leave your questions or requests in the comments section and I’ll respond via my stories over the coming weeks.”

As Marr says in the video, “If you’ve got any questions that maybe haven’t been asked before, or you want to know where I’m at or what books I’m reading or anything like that, I can’t promise it’ll be earth-shatteringly fascinating, but I’ll do my best.” 

“Hopefully we’ll have a little bit of fun, maybe play a couple of riffs here or there.”

And play a couple of riffs Marr has.

So far, fans have requested, and Marr and his Fender Jaguar have demonstrated, three Smiths songs: Girl Afraid, Nowhere Fast and the classic Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others.

And Marr plans on keeping them coming.

“Don’t be shy,” he says, “and I’ll try my best to be entertaining.”

Recently, Kiss’ Paul Stanley began demonstrating Kiss riffs, including Love Gun and Got to Choose, from his LA home.

Johnny Marr said he wanted the intro to the Smiths’ How Soon Is Now? to be as potent and recognizable as Layla. But instead of writing a catchy melody or bombastic riff, he took an entirely different approach by crafting a hypnotic, pulsating groove by running his rhythm electric guitar track through four amps to generate a lush, complex stereo tremolo effect. 

That trippy tremolo rhythm track along with several inventive guitar parts throughout helped make How Soon Is Now? one of the most memorable and enduring alternative music recordings of the '80s.

Marr’s performance can be broken down into five distinct parts: the tremolo-heavy rhythm, a howling doppler effect slide, a melodic line during the chorus, random lead noodling and a marimba-style line played with harmonics.

For the main rhythm track, Marr recorded a simple rhythm part using his 1963 Epiphone Casino tuned up a whole step to F# with a blackface Fender Twin Reverb with the tremolo effect off.

Next, he and producer John Porter re-amped the rhythm guitar track into four Twin Reverb amps, all with the tremolo effect engaged. The key to the pulsating rhythm is to set the first amp’s tremolo speed to about 125 bpm then run it into a second amp with the tremolo speed set to about 375 bpm to generate a bouncing triplet pattern that pulsates in a somewhat random manner.

Those same tremolo settings are duplicated with amps three and four, with amps one and two panned to the left and amps three and four panned right to create a stereo spread. The amps’ reverb provides sustain that accentuates the pulsing tremolo effects.

For the doppler effect train horn, Marr tuned the Casino’s second string down a half step to C and used a slide on the second and third strings. Then Porter had Marr record overdubs of Marr playing the same part on single strings through an AMS-DMX 15-80 set to pitch-shift settings that replicated the same intervals, raising the pitch a third on the G string and dropping the pitch a third on the B string. These three tracks were then blended together, with the AMS processing giving the tone an otherworldly texture.

The melodic single-string line during the chorus was recorded in a straightforward fashion with the Casino going into the Twin with generous reverb (and possibly additional digital reverb added) and a hint of overdrive to enhance midrange, body and sustain. The random noodling lead is a sample recorded into the AMS unit with the pitch transposed up an octave that was triggered at strategic points. 

The crowning touch was the marimba-like melody that Marr created by tuning each open string to the desired notes for the melody and playing harmonics at the 12th fret. He plucked the strings near the bridge to create a percussive attack and recorded several unison layers. 

Individually, each part is not particularly complicated (with the exception of the meticulously crafted tremolo rhythm) but together they add up to a distinctive symphony of sumptuous sounds.

TONE TIP: Set the Mustang amp’s tremolo to a fast speed (about 375 bpm) while the TR-2’s speed is set to about 125 bpm to create a bouncing, pulsating triplet effect. The TR-2 should also be set to a smooth triangle wave rather than choppy square wave tremolo so the individual effects blend more hypnotically.

Producer John Porter chimes in

After the online publication of this article, producer John Porter wrote in to Guitar World to add further info on the recording of How Soon Is Now?…

"The article makes for interesting reading; however, having produced, largely arranged and mixed the track I’d like to correct a few inaccuracies.

"I played the slide guitar part, which to be a little more precise was a ’54 Tele (in open A tuning) through an MXR Dynacomp into an old tweed Fender Deluxe (volume 4, tone on full) then into two outboard UA 1176s.

"The main rhythm guitar track (which I believe was initially recorded through a stereo Roland Jazz Chorus as well as a DI, which I always recorded with Johnny Marr) had no tremolo at first, but after the track was put down I fed it through a Drawmer noise gate triggered by a 16th note cowbell coming from my LinnDrum.

"There were a number of other tweaks and additions to this initial guitar track, including (as Marr recalls) feeding the DI through three Twins, one of which I recall was a Blackface, and I think the other two may have been those models with the red knobs [Fender “The Twin” from the early '80s].

"On the final mix, the initial guitar DI was also fed into two separate hard-panned AMS delays - a combination of whole notes, quarter notes and triplets feeding into each other. i set them at what I thought was the appropriate level then flicked them on and off throughout the mix in a random Bo Diddley kind of pattern (the old New Orleans “shave & a haircut” groove). I then trimmed the levels of the returns and, although it’s not obvious in the mix, it did make a noticeable difference to the groove.

"Anyway, I just thought I might try to clarify matters somewhat, as I’ve been reading misinformation about this track ever since I did it. Also, anybody notice the 'Leslie' guitar in there on the B sections?"

Get the sound, cheap!

• Epiphone Casino 
• Fender Mustang GT100
• Boss TR-2 Tremolo

Original gear

GUITAR: 1963 Epiphone Casino (both pickups for rhythm track and slide overdubs, bridge pickup for other tracks), Neck Volume: 10, Bridge Volume: 10, Neck Tone: 10, Bridge Tone: 10
AMP: (rhythm track) Four c. 1965 Fender Twin Reverbs with two 12-inch Jensen C12N speakers (Vibrato channel, Input 1, Bright: On, Volume: 6, Treble: 7, Middle: 7, Bass: 4, Reverb: 5.5, Speed amps 1 and 3: 1, Speed amps 2 and 4: 6, Intensity: 10); For slide, lead and harmonics parts turn up reverb control to 7 and turn vibrato effect off
EFFECTS : AMS-DMX 15-80 (pitch shift function on slide overdubs: +third on G string track, -third on B string track, +1 octave for lead fills); Boss OD-1 Overdrive (for melodic lines, Level: 7, Overdrive: 5)
STRINGS/TUNING: Ernie Ball Regular Slinky .010-.046/F#, B, E, A, C#, F# (rhythm part), F#, B, E, A, C, F# (slide part), F#, E, F#, G#, A, C# (harmonics)
PICK/SLIDE: Ernie Ball Medium/chrome-plated brass

Noel Gallagher keeps rather busy releasing new music with his band, the High Flying Birds, and, on occasion, shooting down continual asks about an Oasis reunion.

But in a recent interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, the electric guitar player and frontman did acknowledge that there’s one other musical endeavor he’d make time for, should the planets align – being part of a reunion of legendary Manchester band the Smiths, headed by singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr.

“I would love, and it’s never gonna happen, it’s a thing in a parallel universe, if the Smiths got back together," he said. "I’m [one time Smiths guitarist and bassist] Craig Gannon and I’d go to Johnny [Marr] and say don’t get another guitarist mate – I’m your man.”

Marr, for his part, has dismissed suggestions of a Smiths reunion. But Gallagher also hinted he’d be okay with filling the guitar role in another band.

“I would love to be in a band and just be a guitarist for a while,” Gallagher said, adding about Oasis, “not that band.”