What is it?

Is it a hot take to suggest the Mustang is Fender’s most underrated guitar? Often overlooked in the release schedule over its larger-bodied offset siblings, the Jazzmaster and Jaguar, the Mustang is nevetheless a crucial design for Fender. Like the Jaguar, it’s a short scale, but a smaller-bodied single-cut.

Designed as a student guitar by Leo Fender and introduced in 1964, its potential for younger beginner players is still significant as a result of the compact dimensions and easier bends from the shorter 24" scale compared to the Strat, Tele and Jazzmaster's 25.5". The Squier Bullet and now Sonic series Mustang models have been a testament to that continuing appeal, but for me, the Mustang isn’t just an excellent 'beginner guitar' option; it’s my favourite Fender.

Both my main guitars are hardtail Fender Player Mustang models, and the dimensions of Leo's design just feel right for me. To be honest, I wish I'd come around to it sooner.

I’ve modded my own guitars’ specs to my own taste around that core appeal – the modular nature of Fenders is always good for that. But when I saw the Vintera III Mustang update on the review slate it was a great chance to get back to a real Mustang that echoes a golden era ‘60s spec. A time long before Kurt Cobain's patronage gave the Mustang a much-deserved reappraisal.

Still, the model remains strangely under the radar even within Fender's own walls – I'm somewhat surprised to report at the time of writing this review that with Performer models phased out, the company doesn't currently have a US-made Mustang in its production model catalogue. Isn't that odd?

So the pressure is on for the Vintera III to deliver, but what’s notable about this iteration that the previous iterations didn’t quite grasp?

In short, it’s truer to the inspiration. Vintera III models are now honing in on specific eras within the decade they take inspiration from – and that means specs reflective of that. And for a mid-‘60s slant on the Mustang, we’re at the very genesis of the model that was launched in August 1964… mostly.

We’re moving beyond just the standard Mustang 24-inch scale and vintage 7.25” radius and vintage-tall frets here with ‘mid-’60s’ pickups and neck profile, and even true-to-era Fender decals added on top of the headstock lacquer. The rosewood fingerboard gains the unmistakable vintage vibe of clay fret dots too. This being a Mustang, there’s much more going on elsewhere too.

Specs

• Launch price: $1,249.99 | £1,029 | €1,199
• Made: Ensenada, Mexico
• Type: Six-string solid-body single-cut electric guitar
• Body: Alder
• Neck: Maple, Mid '60s C-shape, gloss urethane
• Fingerboard: Laminated rosewood
• Scale length: 24" / 610mm
• Nut/width: 42mm / bone
• Frets: 22, Vintage Tall
• Hardware: Vintage-style tuners with vintage white buttons, six-saddle vintage-style Mustang tremolo, four-ply tortoisehell pickguard
• Electrics: Vintage-Style Mid '60s Single-Coil Mustang bridge and neck single-coil pickups, master tone and volume controls, two on/off slide switches (one for each pickup)
• Weight of test model: 7lb/3.17kg
• Left-handed options: N/A
• Finishes: Dakota Red, Sonic Blue, Olympic White (as reviewed)
• Cases: Padded gig bag
• Contact: Fender

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

I personally think we have the choice finish of the three here. The options reflect the initial trio available at the Mustang's original launch with Sonic Blue now replacing the 1964 Daphne Blue, alongside Dakota Red and Olympic White. While purists may argue the pickguard should be a lighter, brighter red for vintage authenticity, I really like the darker burgundy tortoiseshell shades here. If anything, it looks a little more lived-in and well… vintage.

While the originals were first offered by Fender in two scale length options with 22.5" (like the existing Duo Sonic and Musicmaster student models) and the Jaguar's 24" – with the latter soon winning out as the popular choice. The Fender logo here is the transitional type from that time, in the gold with black outline style. And while the decal being stuck over the finish may look jarring to some, it is vintage correct. As are the off-white plastic tuner buttons.

The bridge cover from 1964 is absent here, a '60s idiosyncracy with Fender models there's little demand for now, but aftermarket spares can cater for. The nut is bone – a step up from the Vintera II's synthetic example. Again, true to the vintage era.

The fingerboard is round-laminated rosewood rather than slab here. This allows for the radius to be followed at the top and bottom, rather than just the slab's top. There's less mass of rosewood with laminate, which means – in theory – that this Mustang might sound brighter than a Vintera II equivalent. But you know the score with electric guitars – there are so many variables at play elsewhere, it's difficult to prove in this kind of testing situation.

I am immediately drawn to the dark rosewood and clay dots – it has all the vintage vibe I'd hope for, but it really needs a feed of lemon oil. While this isn't uncommon for guitars coming out of storage and varying conditions of humidity before they reach us for testing, the frets looking like they need a polish is less forgivable. It's taking the closet classic fantasy a bit far.

Still, that coffee dark fretboard really does make my Player II Mustang's rosewood look disappointingly caramel by comparison. Lovely stuff.

The dot placement draws from the '64 pre-CBS era but, more noticeably, the headstock does not – it's the larger late '65 shape . So the 'mid '60s' period is very much reflected here, rather than a specific year. This may not to everyone's taste, but Fender certainly isn't misleading anyone with the name.

At 7lbs, this test model is definitely bang on an ideal alder Mustang weight for me – my own Player II is half a pound lighter but that's without a floating tremolo system. However, looking at the stock Sweetwater has at the time of writing, this example is one of the lightest, though there's not much in it.

Apart from the frets and a tremolo issue I'll talk about next, fit and finish are sound. Would I have liked to see a nitro finish for a truer vintage reflection and much more desirable aging over time? Absolutely, and it would have bumped the price up a bit for sure, but I'm a little frustrated that nitrocellulose is only being rolled out on relic'd Road Worn Mexican-made models right now. However, this is Olympic White is very well delivered and is in the right territory of some vintage examples I've spotted.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★☆

There are a lot of opinions about what a 7.25" radius neck is good, and not good for when it comes to guitar playing. John Mayer entered the chat recently to stir the pot with some sound reasoning, but the fact is, our tastes, styles and hand sizes are all so different. So, I personally don't go in for sweeping statements when it comes to radius and suitability for certain styles of playing.

I do, however, have a period of adjustment whenever I go from my usual 9.5" Mustang modern C necks to this kind of vintage spec. The last time was for the Mike McCready Strat review for our sister site MusicRadar, and I really came around to the charms of a rounder radius. I certainly didn't find bending an issue with it.

The action is higher than I'd like on this test guitar at 1.8mm clearance from the low E and, more surprisingly, 1.85mm from the high E. After checking the truss rod relief and finding all is well (thankfully too, as this is vintage spec with the truss nut at the bass of the neck requiring neck removal), I decide to tweak the string action more to my liking.

Unlike my own Player Mustangs with block steel saddles, the six-barrel examples here aren't individually adjustable in height. It's a case of bass and treble bridge height adjustment with one of the three included allen/hex keys and a quick process even with a cautious approach of small changes. Because of the rounder 7.25" radius I'm careful not to go as low as I would with my 9.5" Fender necks and soon find a pleasing compromise.

Unsurprisingly, those frets feel a little scratchy at first but soon play in, and there's no getting around the fact that a short scale and this radius will be too cramped for some players. But equally, it will be a great fit for many, and a Goldilocks scenario for some smaller-statured players with smaller hands. At the end of the day, this is a vintage spec and of course, other options are available.

I prefer bending on a 9.5" radius, but I found myself coming up with more arpeggiated parts with this Mustang because of the ease of more complicated shapes. It feels like a deeper, more rounded C than modern Mustang necks I've played (at the first and 12th fret I measure the depth at 21.3mm and 23.4mm on the Vinter III vs 20.8 and 22.4mm with my calipers on my Player II's Modern C carve), but the lighter 9-gauge strings it ships with definitely help it feel friendly. Most experienced players will want to move to 10s on a short scale like this, or even 11s.

My testing with Vintera III Mustang covered a really strange period of weather in the United Kingdom – from 15 degrees up to the hottest June day on record here at 36 degrees. While my Player Mustangs with their hardtail bridges and fairly springy tensions with 10-gauge strings were surprisingly solid through it all, this Vintera was a challenge. And that's with light tremolo use - though that kind of more subtle wobble is what this type of tremolo is really meant for unless you want to be tuning every between every song, or even solo .

A safe bet would be that the floating tremolo needs calibrating. Not uncommon and often part of the deal with this design – and the 'cigar bar' for the tremolo leaning back, as you can see in the pic above, suggests that is the case. The strings tremolo plate needs to be removed for access to do this. But it has to be done to fully enjoy the sensitivity and thrills of the tremolo here without gritting your teeth in tuning anxiety every time.

It's worth mentioning that the floating design here requires a hex key to fit, adjust and remove the tremolo arm from the cigar bar every time – so keep a spare handy!

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

The obligatory Mustang controls recap is needed here – the pickups are selected and turned off with a pair of three-way switches above them. In the middle the pickups are turned off (no sound), when either is switched left or right they are activated. Switch them both to the left or right together and they're in phase, switch one to the left and one to the right (it doesn't matter which as long as they're both opposites) and they're out of phase.

This out-of-phase position is the least desirable of the options for me. But it's not undesirable either. The low-end drop and reduced output does have some lo-fi charm and useful application for strumming. Especially when contrasted with the other positions.

The Mustang is not a short-scale Strat in tone, it's distinct – in a good way too. And it's just as much an iconic Fender sound for me as its more popular siblings. I'm going to go all-out and say the in-phase position is my favourite 'middle' position on any Fender, and my experience here only highlights that further.

Mustang single-coil pickup polepieces are usually flat, not the staggered heights of a Strats and the Tele's bridge. The result is a finer balance between the strings, certainly to my ears, and it brings detail to chords I find immensely satisfying. I've also found it makes for a great pairing with the addition of a P-90-sized Firebird bridge pickup in one of my Mexican Player models. However, I should note for all you potential modders out there that unlike the Player models, this Vintera III is only routed for single-coil-sized pickups.

For a change, I start on the neck pickup and soon start sighing - there's an added dimension here that my own Player II's neck pickup doesn't have. And I really like that pickup. The round, focused response I love is there, but it's sharper and livelier. I'm an instant fan, the strings ring out for chords so fully, and throwing a touch of plate reverb and some light harmonic tremolo is such an inspiring sound, I think it could convert Mustang newcomers.

It's not the instantly identifiable strat spank, but a very interesting alternative that's more adaptable to my ears. It bodes well for further investigation.

I've found bridge pickups on some Mustangs to be quite gnarly affairs, requiring bespoke dialling on the tone control, and sometimes the amp, to get the best out of them. While I chose to swap out the bridge pickups on both by own Player Mustangs for Sunbear Soapbird P-90-size Firebird humbuckers, what I find with the Vintera III gives me some pause.

The twang and snap I expect has that fullness again and yes, I do reach for the tone control to dial the top off things a little, but I find a voice that's meatier under overdrive than I expected through a clean Princeton and then a Neural Plexi model with my trusty little Wampler Tumnus. The volume control proves super responsive with these setups, revealing a guitar that would be a vibrant tool in a power trio, or a dynamic foil alongside a second, humbucker guitar player.

It's not really a surprise to find the highlight is the 'middle' in-phase position here. A shimmering sound for strumming chords that really laps up light modulation – a Boss CE-2 and Crowded House's Don't Dream It's Over intro and Johnny Marr's Smith arpeggios are addictive stuff here! It's a sublime and expressive experience for Knopfler-esque fingerstyle too, responding sensitively.

As I mentioned earlier, the out-of-phase option is a wiry, lo-fi and lower-output voice in comparison. Though hanging back in a mix or as a contrast in an intro or passages before kicking back into one of the other three voices, it could find useful favor.

Verdict

There's a lot to like about the latest addition to Fender's more affordable vintage-spec'd range, a reminder of why it remains my favourite Fender model. The third-generation additions make it distinct and perhaps the most focused Vintera Mustang we'll see unless the company decides to hone in on specific years for the next iteration.

A couple of setup issues with this test model notwithstanding, this is a persuasive showcase of Fender's dark horse model if you want vintage spec without the eyewatering price tag.

GuitarWorld verdict: This is a great place to go for an authentically full-fat Mustang experience – and the new Mid '60s pickups are a big part of the appeal here, alongside the evocative looks and feel of Fender's golden era.

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Kiss have announced that their upcoming Kiss Kruise: Land-locked in Vegas, taking place between November 13 and 15 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, will feature a historic Ace Frehley All-Star Tribute.

The one-night-only celebration will see Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Tommy Thayer, and Eric Singer come together with special guests to honor the memory and legacy of the late Frehley, their founding lead guitarist.

These guitarists and artists – whose names have not been announced yet – were personally handpicked by the band and will be supported by the Ace Frehley Band. Furthermore, each current member of Kiss has personally selected and will individually perform a song from the Spaceman’s vast repertoire as part of the tribute.

“Another year of the Kiss Kruise experience and the best one yet is on the way. Everything we’ve learned at sea and on land over the past years is going into making this the ultimate weekend with us,” comments Stanley.

“We can’t wait to be back together with the Kiss Army and Navy from around the world for more killer performances, incredible artists, events, and exclusive experiences you won’t find anywhere else.”

In addition to the Ace Frehley All-Star Tribute, fans can expect two unmasked Kiss sets – one acoustic and one electric – and ’80s nostalgia galore, with performances from the likes of Bruce Kulick, Slaughter, and Night Ranger.

Frehley had previously joined his former bandmates during the Kiss Kruises, most notably in 2018, when he performed four songs with the band – 2000 Man, New York Groove, Nothin' to Lose, and Rock and Roll All Nite, with Kulick also on guitar.

Following his death on October 16 last year, Kiss also paid tribute to their late guitarist during an “unmasked” show at last year’s Kiss Kruise. It also happened to be their first live performance in nearly two years, following the final show of their 2023 farewell tour.

For more information about this year’s Kiss Kruise, head to its official website.

In late January, outside Detroit’s Third Man Records, it’s zero degrees and falling. Inside, Vermonter Greg Freeman is supporting his sophomore album, Burnover. On stage, wearing jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, he wrestles notes out of his guitar, a pick wrapped around his right thumb.

“I grew up learning how to play guitar from finger-pickers. When I was a kid, that was all I did,” Freeman says. “I’ve always kind of done a hybrid style.”

Freeman sings through gritted teeth, his crackled tenor echoing Stephen Malkmus. Speaking to the crowd, his voice carries the fragility of Neil Young or Elliott Smith.

“I like your haircut!” shouts one audience member.

“Thanks. I did it myself,” he quips.

Freeman makes what is widely considered to be “alt-country” music. But on the road and on record, clarinets and baritone saxophones weave weeping harmonies into his songs, pushing his music beyond the genre’s conventions.

“I’m so bored of the whole rhythm guitar player/songwriter thing,” he says. “Having one guitar in a band really allows you to do whatever you want, and that can be liberating because you don’t have to worry about conflicting with other instruments.”

Freeman’s main guitar is a Japanese copy, and as the lone guitar player on this tour, he seems to relish the freedom to move around its fretboard.

“The Tokai is just a Japanese knockoff of a Tele, but it’s just as good, if not better,” he says. “It has a breezy sound. It’s simple and sounds better [when] recorded, in my experience. It cuts through. I know what I like when it comes to guitars. I’ve never owned a Strat. There are some guitars where you’ll own them for five years and never write a single thing on them. It doesn’t really have to do with how expensive it is or how it feels. It’s just kind of a relationship.”

As Freeman plays, fretting roots with his thumb, his left hand wrapped around the neck of his Tokai T-style, it’s almost as if he’s sparring with an old opponent. His playing suggests someone uninterested in rehearsal for rehearsal’s sake.

“For many years, I’ve been trying to unlearn or break out of whatever routines you internalize when you were taught to play,” he says. “You get locked in playing the same chords and same scales and stuff, and it’s like you can just forget all that. There are no rules.”

• Burnover is out now.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Kiesel is back with an all-new guitar shape, which is set to serve as the spiritual sibling to its flagship Aries range.

The Kiesel Antares takes its name from Ancient Greek, and essentially means “rival to Ares”, the god of war. That, then, should tell you what you need to know about this guitar: it’s a weaponized metal guitar ready to step into battle.

It continues the ongoing movement to keep the electric guitar fresh, which in recent years has been spearheaded by brands such as Eastman, Abasi Concepts, Ernie Ball Music Man, Powers Electric and more.

The push to release new body shapes seems to be gathering serious momentum. More variety in metal guitars, especially when it comes to the S-type-dominated extended range market, is always welcome.

Visually, the Antares has a chiseled offset body akin to other popular modern metal guitars, while its scythe-like headstock is taken from the Kiesel Kyber.

This being a Keisel, its specs are extremely customizable, with seven different body woods on offer including alder, mahogany, walnut, and regular or roasted swamp ash. There are also 15 top and fingerboard woods to choose from.

It’s available in 25.5” and 26.5” scale lengths for six-string variants, 25.5” and 27” for seven-string, and 27” for eight-string, with multi-scale options available for all three string counts.

As standard, there are 24 frets, but Kiesel is also debuting its first-ever 27 fret fingerboards here, because more is most certainly more.

There are four bridge options: an Ever-Tune, Floyd Rose, Hipshot trem, and Hipshot fixed. For electronics, choose from active Fishman Fluence humbuckers or passive Kiesel Lithium, Thorium, and Vantium ‘buckers.

Kiesel also believes the new body shape, via a purposeful bevel, is as comfy as it gets, which isn’t always something that guitars with such wild silhouettes can say.

“In 2015, the Aries marked a notable turning point for the Kiesel brand, shifting from classic, soft shapes to an aggressive, metal-leaning design,” says Kiesel. “Now, with over a decade cemented in the scene and partnerships with industry legends, Kiesel Guitars takes the next step.”

“It’s got a more aggressive, totally ground-up styling,” adds founder Jeff Kiesel. “It’s more angular, and I’m excited about this guitar”

The Antares’ wildly varying specs mean prices vary, but the starting price is $1,699 with a deposit of $340 deposit.

See Kiesel for more.

Phoebe Bridgers just gave a surprise performance of her new song Lost Boys on The Tonight Show – and her band was made up of viral kid musicians.

Armed with a custom Gibson acoustic guitar, Bridgers performed the lead single from her forthcoming album, Lost Weekend, with help from her unexpected backing band.

That ensemble included a number of rising child music stars, including 11-year-old Bay Melnick Virgolino on 12-string guitar. The pocket-sized shredder has been mentored by ex-Megadeth virtuoso Kiko Loureiro, starred on America’s Got Talent, and stole the show when he performed with Slash and Joe Bonamassa.

Also spotted on the studio stage was YouTuber EllenPlaysBass, who has over 700,000 subscribers, and 10-year-old drummer Ryder B, who has more than 270,000 followers on Instagram.

14-year-old Saxon Weiss, who has been championed by Norman Harris and Joe Bonamassa, completed the three-strong guitar lineup.

Commenting on the YouTube video, EllenPlaysBass wrote, “It was an honor to be a part of this amazing show, thank you all.”

Rolling Stone reports that Bridgers’ bandmates are aged between eight and 14.

There’s no official word on what prompted the move, but considering the song is about lost boys “who never grow up, never go home, and never spend their lunch money”, it seems to be a pertinent reminder of the fleetingness of youth.

The song is Bridgers’ first new slice of music since The Record, her sophomore release with supergroup boygenius, for which Bridgers teamed up with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus.

The band released a signature Gretsch for under $700 in 2024, but it’s Bridgers’ use of metal guitars like the B.C. Rich Warbeast that has arguably turned the most heads.

Lost Weekend releases on August 14 and will be supported with a tour of the US.

Gibson is revived a totem of 1970s rock with the limited edition 1971 Flying V Medallion Reissue.

The '71 Flying V Medallion has been described by its maker as "one of the most sought-after and historically significant guitars ever produced by Gibson" – and for good reason.

It was a standout in the early hard rock era. Michael Schenker, with his black and white Medallion, quickly became the guitar’s poster boy. Kirk Hammett also has close ties to the model.

The reissues’s recipe is, of course, an echo of the past, with a two-piece mahogany body, three-piece mahogany neck with volute, and a 22 medium jumbo fret rosewood fingerboard and corian nut.

But there’s a touch of premium exclusivity to boot: the guitars each feature individually numbered 1.5” gold medallions.

Tonally, it has a pair of authentic unpotted 1968 T-Top humbuckers with Alnico 5 magnets. They’re flanked with two Volume and one Tone knob, and a three-way selector.

Hardware specs, meanwhile, include an ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge with Stop Bar, Kluson Deluxe tuners, and Black Witch Hat control knobs. Its pickup covers are chrome.

Handcrafted in Nashville, the body features a thinner two-piece mahogany design to mirror the original. The guitar is said to simultaneously deliver reduced weight and premium resonance and sustain.

The Flying V Medallion was originally created to commemorate the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, with an estimated run of 350 models produced. That makes it one of the rarest Gibsons around town, which only added to the mythos of Schenker’s monochrome companion.

“The 1971 Flying V Medallion holds a special place in Gibson history,” says Mat Koehler, Vice President of Product at Gibson.

“As one of Gibson’s earliest limited-edition instruments, it helped establish a lasting legacy within hard rock guitar culture. This reissue brings back the details, feel, and sound of the original, giving players the opportunity to experience an iconic instrument.”

Speaking to Gibson Gazette, Kirk Hammett, who now owns Schenker’s #56 V, likened it to a “religious relic.”

“I spent so much time as a teenager just staring at this guitar on the back of UFO’s Force It album,” he says. “There’s a picture of Michael Schenker playing this very guitar – it’s red, you can see the medallion – and I used to stare at the guitar and go, ‘I need to get a Flying V.’ Little did I know that, decades later, I would have the very Flying V that I was staring at.”

The Gibson Custom 1971 Flying V Medallion Reissue is priced at $4,999/£4,399.

See Gibson for more.

Giving stupid answers to smart questions, it’s our weekly snarky pseudo-interview… Fret Buzz. This week: Bob Dylan’s guitarists keep going on garden leave. But what makes The Bard a tough gig, and who are rock’s most notorious paymasters?

Dylan’s guitarists are walking out? You just can’t get the staff…

They’re dropping like flies. Last month, long-term sideman Doug Lancio quit the road band, followed a fortnight later by Bob Britt. We wouldn’t like to speculate, but Britt’s farewell post – “Sayanora Bobby” – seemed flippant (at best) or a man bursting with bottled-up venom (at worst).

Yes, I’ve always gone with ‘thanks for the opportunity’. What’s Britt going to do now?

Gardening, apparently. He wrapped up his next post by announcing he was off to weed his flowerbeds.

He’d rather do that than play with Dylan? Next you’ll be telling me Stevie Van Zandt has quit the E Street Band to creosote his fence.

Well, tell that to the 35-plus guitarists who’ve blown through Dylan’s lineup [indeed, Dylan debuted his third new guitarist in three weeks, Jad Tariq just this past weekend – Ed]. The guy gets through sidemen like kamikaze pilots.

But Dylan is the era-defining poet of the rock ’n’ roll epoque. A seminal visionary who…

Yeah, yeah, we know all that. But being his guitarist isn’t necessarily easy.

Isn’t it just G, A minor, C, and A?

In theory (although what you just said is slightly reductive). But Dylan’s freewheeling onstage tendencies can apparently feel like one long hazing ritual.

“I was great friends with the Heartbreakers,” Dave Stewart of Eurythmics once recalled. “They were on tour with him and said he’d suddenly play the song in a different key, or he decides to miss out a verse.”

Heh. What a jokerman. I bet he’s a riot in the studio?

Not according to Robben Ford, who recalled one ’90s session where Dylan arrived in the studio only to slump wordlessly on a stool – “[he] doesn’t say anything, head down, nothing”. Then there’s the relentless death march of his touring schedule.

Don’t people nickname it the Never Ending Tour?

Yep. By the time you finally get home, the babies whose births you missed are arthritic old gargoyles hobbling around looking for their dentures.

Is Dylan the toughest rock icon to work for?

Not by any means. Rock ’n’ roll is full of borderline despots. Take James Brown, who reportedly fined his players for missing a note, or even just wearing the wrong shoes.

Wow. So by the end of Sex Machine, you could owe him $50? Maybe I would be better off as a dog-walker.

That’s nothing. Prince demanded a ‘purple’ lifestyle of his band members.

What does that even mean?

Search me. Lots of beets on the backstage rider?

Maybe he should have just hired Barney the dinosaur.

Then there’s Frank Zappa, whose standards were so absurdly high that you literally had to be Steve Vai.

And what about that poor sessioner that Axl Rose humiliated by making him wear a KFC bucket every night…

No, that was his choice. I mean, the guy’s called Buckethead. He’s kind of painted himself into a corner on that one.

So how do I apply for the Dylan gig?

Just hang around the stage door for the next sessioner to storm out. We’ll have your gardening gloves waiting for you…

Robbie McIntosh has reflected on his trial by fire when officially joined the Pretenders in the 1980s.

McIntosh big shoes to fill when he helped the Pretenders reform for 1984’s Learning to Crawl, two years after their cofounding guitarist James Honeyman-Scott died from a drug overdose.

Chrissie Hynde led their revival, with McIntosh – who had already been in talks with Honeyman-Scott about bolstering the band’s line-up – as their new lead guitarist. It was a vital hire for Hynde, but the press weren’t too kind about his first record with the band.

“Some people called me ‘the guy who ruined the Pretenders,’” McIntosh tells Guitar World. “But you can’t take reviews seriously, good or bad ones. The album did extremely well; it went double platinum in America. I was young and confident, so I just plowed on.”

Although Honeyman-Scott is rightfully remembered as a talisman of the British new wave movement, the band continued to have great success in the wake of his passing.

Part of that was thanks to McIntosh and the immediate impact he made. Fans might have taken a while to warm to him, but the influence his own style had on the band is undeniable.

“I’m extremely proud of the album,” McIntosh adds. “It was a big jump for me, working with a famous band and with Chris Thomas, an established producer.

His audition process had been no frills. He says they “just jammed” for around 20 minutes. He thought he’d lost the gig.

“Martin [Chambers] was playing drums. Chrissie and Dave Hill, the manager, sat in front of the stage,” he recalls. “A few days later, I got the call from Chrissie. I didn’t have a clue that I’d passed the audition.”

He feels the fact that he, like Honeyman-Scott, wasn’t a punk guitarist perhaps made him the ideal counterweight to Hynde’s angst and attitude. There was a contrast to their musical personalities.

“I remember she played quite loud,” he notes. “But that didn’t worry me. I was more concerned with how I could complement her and play off what she did.”

McIntosh would also feature on 1986’s Get Close, before departing a year later. He would go on to work with the Who’s enigmatic vocalist, Roger Daltrey, and Paul McCartney, among others across a glittering session career.

Hynde, meanwhile, has paid tribute to Honeyman-Scott, calling him the sound of the Pretenders.

McIntosh’s full interview features in the latest issue of Guitar World, which includes new interviews with David Bowie’s guitarists, Alice Cooper’s new hire, and Stray Cats' great, Brian Setzer.

Copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

Yamaha has been confirmed as one of the companies to have been targeted by a cease-and-desist letter from Fender as the copyright dispute surrounding the Stratocaster continues.

Since scoring a default copyright ruling in German courts in March, Fender has sought to police its legal rights to protect the Strat body shape by issuing a wave of cease-and-desists to US and EU guitar builders.

LsL Instruments and PRS Guitars were among the first to be publicly confirmed as recipients of such orders. Now, Yamaha has confirmed to Reuters that it’s also been hit.

Yamaha says it received the letter in May. No specific model names were named in the comment, but Yamaha said it was “reviewing the notice and weighing how to respond”.

Despite no confirmation from Yamaha, there can be no doubt that the letter formally drags the Pacifica S-type into the dispute. Alongside John Mayer’s PRS Silver Sky, it becomes the most significant guitar to be targeted by Fender’s ongoing legal campaign.

First launched for LA session players in 1991, the Pacifica was pitched as Yamaha’s entry into the Superstrat world and a direct response to the heavy metal and hard rock scene.

“That was a big thing around that time,” Yamaha’s Electric Guitar Product Manager Yusuke Ota told Guitar World earlier this year. “We wanted to create something that was ultra-versatile and able to cover just about any kind of sound and genre.”

35 years on from its launch, the Pacifica is widely recognized as one of the most popular, best and beloved beginner guitars on the market. The 112V variant has become a household name. In 2024, the Pacifica received a premium update in the form of the Yamaha Pacifica Pro – again, one of the best guitars in its price range.

In taking on Yamaha, Fender is going up against the largest music instrument maker in the world. Pair that with the fact Fender has also been sued by the largest music instrument retailer in the world, it raises the stakes of the Big F’s legal strategy considerably.

Fender has maintained it wants to work “work directly with companies to find practical paths forward”, and CEO, Bud Cole, has downplayed some of the more draconian measures referenced in the letters.

That said, the company has attracted widespread backlash from the guitar community, receiving criticism from Guitar World readers and prominent YouTubers.

Yamaha has been approached for comment.

The shred generation is hitting retirement age and beyond, and arthritis diagnoses are becoming increasingly common – but the good news is that the condition doesn’t have to be the death knell for anyone’s playing days.

Our aging guitar heroes have shown the impact a life of playing can have on our bodies. Jake E. Lee’s right hand has “basically no cartilage.” A sports doctor laughed in amazement when Steve Morse showed him his hands, ground down by years of shredding – and relayed his ambition to continue touring.

Keith Richards recently revealed that arthritis has cast uncertainty on his continued ability to play for longer periods, while Alex Lifeson, Joe Perry, and Joe Satriani have all suffered their own struggles.

According to Nuffield Health, 50 percent of adults aged 65 and over have been diagnosed with arthritis, and Jimmy Page isn’t immune just because he’s a guitar god. Wear and tear over time is a major factor, but there are measures we can take to prevent and alleviate symptoms.

Dan Turnell, Clinical Director at Elite Performance Physio, has worked in the performing arts sector for over a decade. He wants players to look at their hands a little differently.

“One of the biggest mindset shifts is that playing an instrument is a skilled muscular action,” he says. “They should think of themselves as an athlete, instead of as a musician.”

There are over 100 types of arthritis; but for guitarists the most common is osteoarthritis: the cartilage at the end of a bone gets damaged or worn down, resulting in bone-on-bone contact. It currently affects over 32.5 million Americans including Lee, Morse, and Richards.

Repetitive motion has slowly ground down cartilage, causing pain, inflammation and, in extreme cases, a loss of hand mobility. “Playing guitar is small repetitive movements continuously happening,” Turnell notes. “It runs the risk of potential cartilage changes and microtraumas.”

He adds: “When you’re young you think of arthritis as something that affects your granddad,” warning that the approach is to our detriment. He regularly works with young musicians to help establish “good practice routines that protect the body and minimize the risk of injury.”

Prevention will always outweigh any cure. “I encourage people not to sit and play for six hours at a time, and to understand that a warm-up is important before you even touch the guitar,” he says.

Warm-ups help release synovial fluid, which lubricates joints and keeps muscles warm and responsive. Turnell recommends hand exercises such as stretches and grip and squeeze movements, or using strengthening bands for individual fingers.

Joe Satriani benefited from hand massages after a tour of particularly challenging music. The shows put extra strain on his hands and he suffered the consequences of malpractice to his digits. I’ve used a D’Addario Varigrip for years as part of my pre-show routine – it’s worked wonders.

It might be helpful to think of arthritis as the last domino in a line. The best way to prevent it is to ensure that you’re always working with, rather than against, your body.

“Prevention comes down to making sure that all the muscles around the fingers, hands and wrists are as strong as they need to be to minimize the pressure and over-aggravating our joints,” Turnell says.

“It comes down to load management within the body. For example, if you’re not setting your practice environment up in the appropriate way, then playing for six hours in a suboptimal position, you’re potentially going to suffer microtrauma injuries through the joints.

“Posture is likely to be a secondary or tertiary cause of arthritis, but by being hunched over a guitar, the body isn’t able to move with freedom. Guitar straps help offload the weight; otherwise, all that weight is going to come into the hands and impact shoulder mobility.”

Likewise, diet and lifestyle choices represent another domino. “Certain food combinations can be inflammatory for the body; and if we’re not hydrated, our joints aren’t hydrated either.

Sugar and processed foods are the biggest culprits. “From a socializing perspective, alcohol can act as an inflammatory substance, and it can affect our sleep – which impacts our body’s ability to recover and prepare to play the next day.”

Turnell emphasizes the importance of semi-regular check-ins with a physio, just as you’d take your car to the garage for maintenance. But he says there’s another issue at play too. “Once musicians get to a certain standard, they often stop taking lessons,” he says.

“But lessons are really useful – not necessarily from a technical perspective, but to make sure you’re not falling into bad habits, which can be a potential trigger for an arthritic change.”

After that, it’s time to look at your instrument and setup – should you ditch that heavy, fat-necked Les Paul for something that’s kinder to the body?

Morse has accepted his gigging days are now numbered, as his arthritis worsens, but a key modification to his Music Man signature guitar is helping relieve unnecessary stress. Perry confessed to recording the band’s recent One More Time EP exclusively with his Fender/Warmoth “Burned Strat,” as it’s been set up to be kinder to his hands.

The more our guitar heroes face arthritis struggles and talk about what it means for them, the better it is for the wider guitar-playing community.

“Seeing people doing things with an arthritic condition improves our understanding that it’s more of a self-limiting condition rather than a death knell,” Turnell concludes. “You just modify your activity around it.”

• For help and advice around arthritis and related issues, head to Arthritis Foundation.

In this lesson, I’d like to share a cool way to add harmonic color to a melody played over a dominant 7 chord, and that is to play a minor 7 arpeggio that’s rooted a 5th higher. To demonstrate, I’ll use Dm7 arpeggios over a G7 chord.

D is the fifth note, or degree, of the G major scale. When playing in the key of G, a D major chord is the V (five) chord, and a D minor chord (Dm) is the Vm (five minor, alternatively indicated by a lowercase v).

Figure 1 shows a 3rd-position G7 barre chord, as well as the individual notes that make up the chord – G, B, D and F. G is the root, B is the major 3rd, D is the 5th and F is the minor, of “flatted,” 7th (m7, or b7).

Figure 2 illustrates a Dm7 arpeggio, built from the notes D, F, A and C. Relative to a D tonal center, D is the root, F is the minor, or “flatted,” 3rd (m3, or b3), A is the 5th and C is the minor, or “flatted,” 7th (m7, or b7). But when you play these four notes over a G chord or G bass note, D is heard as the 5th, F becomes the minor, or “flatted,” 7th, A is the 2nd, or 9th and C is the 4th, or 11th.

Figure 3 begins with a descending riff built from these notes that sounds great over G7. In bar 2, I initially ascend a Dm7 arpeggio and then end the phrase with a descending line that’s based on the G minor pentatonic scale (G, Bb, C, D, F) with the inclusion of the major 3rd, B.

To me, it always sounds pleasing to resolve the Vm7 (or v7) arpeggio to a bluesy line based on the tonic or home key. For example, in Figure 4, the Dm7 arpeggio is moved down to 2nd position and begins on the 5th string, and is followed by a G minor pentatonic line.

A good way to practice incorporating Dm7 arpeggios over a G7 chord is to set up a G7 vamp with a looper. Figure 5 illustrates a simple, funky vamp based on a repeating G7 voicing, with a hammer-on from Bb, the minor 3rd, to B, the major 3rd, each time.

A typical tried and true approach is to play straight blues over this vamp, like the riff in Figure 6, which is based on G minor pentatonic.

Now, let’s kick off the line with a Dm7 arpeggio and then hand off to G minor pentatonic. In Figure 7, I begin with the straight Dm7 arpeggio then end the phrase with a lick based on G minor pentatonic.

Next, we’ll try moving the concept to different areas of the fretboard. In Figure 8, I begin in bars 1 and 2 with a Dm7 arpeggio in 10th position.

In bar 3, I move down to 7th/8th position for the arpeggio and then wrap up the line with G minor pentatonic in 3rd position. Bar 5 starts with Dm7 in 2nd position then gradually shifts up to 6th position, before once again resolving the line to G minor pentatonic in 3rd position.

As you can see, starting on a Vm7 arpeggio and then resolving to the tonic with a more conventional blues phrase sounds really cool and satisfying and offers a great way to add harmonic depth to your solo improvisations. Try doing this in different keys.

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

Pedals Week 2026: Looper pedals are undoubtedly one of the best writing tools a guitar player can have in their arsenal, but they’re also invaluable for anyone looking to sharpen their skills as a soloist, both technically and theoretically.

You could take the chord progression from one of your favorite songs, for example, and start testing out new ideas – which will help you find your voice and identity on your instrument.

As any Guitar World reader already knows, it can be highly rewarding to learn your favorite solos note for note, but studying the chord progression underneath them will help you put your own spin on things. And this is precisely where a looper will come in handy.

Some of the world’s greatest solos were written over movements that allowed the players to create something truly astounding and unique. The more attention you pay to chords and rhythms, the more impactful your solo might end up sounding.

Play the chords into your looper and start experimenting with different sounds and feels. You might notice how some tracks stay in one key and allow you to build your story a scene at a time without any radical harmonic departures.

In other situations, you might notice that some of the chords you’re playing over allow you to add in other tonalities and venture outside of the key, with options for more ear-catching notes from a different scale – from the introduction of Dorian, Aeolian or Mixolydian flavors to more dramatic-sounding harmonic and melodic minor scales.

So, even if you feel like music theory isn’t a strong point, just a little bit of due diligence can go a long way to impress listeners and help you learn how to deliver a solo that truly soars and sings. Your ear is the most important thing here.

Here are 10 tracks that are great for looping, with repetitive progressions that give you plenty of opportunities to conjure up something extra special.

1. Eagles – Hotel California

It’s one of those songs that’s always in the running for the greatest guitar solo(s) of all-time, with Don Felder and Joe Walsh going head to head before joining forces for some lavish harmonized arpeggios at the end.

The minor chord progression underneath is what gives ample opportunity to create something dramatic, with the V chord being changed to dominant (F#7 instead of F#min) and the IV chord alternating between major and minor instead of staying minor.

This is what allows soloists to switch between B pentatonic and Aeolian to harmonic minor, especially on the substituted chords Ultimately, the goal here is to not stick with one scale – make your solo more fluid and unpredictable to catch listeners off-guard.

2. John Mayer – Slow Dancing In A Burning Room

If you’re looking for the perfect song to master your C# minor pentatonic chops, as well as its E major relative, this could very well be it. Unlike Hotel California, the progression is completely diatonic and therefore feels like it’s all in one key, so it’s more about phrasing and delivery than note choices when targeting chords.

With a laid-back tempo and slinky feel, it’s the kind of musical scenario that calls for big pentatonic bends, and therefore works as a practice tool for pitch accuracy. It’s worth asking yourself what note are you trying to bend up to and how close are you getting.

3. Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

Often cited as one of David Gilmour’s greatest moments, this final single from Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera The Wall is an absolute masterclass in how to speak B minor pentatonic.

Pay attention to your vibrato and note choice, because these are two areas where Gilmour is known to excel, and see if you can find your own lines that feel natural and avoid over-complication.

The bar where the chords drop from G to F#min and Emin calls for something extra special – think about what you can play to emphasize the movement underneath you and have some fun with it.

4. B.B. King – The Thrill Is Gone

Anyone trying to master the art of 12-bar blues will undoubtedly come across this Grammy-winning hit from 1969. This is another B minor progression that’s all about the bends – know exactly what you’re aiming for and see what happens when you undershoot or overshoot to unlock “the in-between notes” on the fretboard, like the original blues masters.

The minor pentatonic will be your friend here, but if you’re looking to spice things up, try introducing B melodic minor or A# half-whole diminished scales over the dominant chord (F#7) to create tension before the progression returns to root. This resolution from the V chord to the I is often referred to as a perfect cadence.

5. Metallica – Wherever I May Roam

Arguably one of the most famous heavy metal tracks written using the Phrygian scale, the fourth single from Metallica’s self-titled landmark album of 1991 is a great way of introducing yourself to more outside ideas.

For his solo, Kirk Hammett chose to use a mixture of E minor pentatonic and E Phrygian Dominant – which is the fifth mode of A harmonic minor – to great effect. The big jump from a minor second to a major third is a surefire way of capturing people’s attention.

Use it too much, however, and it loses its effect. So try switching between Phrygian, which has a minor third, and its dominant sibling to mix things up – essentially swapping a G for a G# wherever you think it feels right. Follow your ears and have fun.

6. Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven

Maybe don’t try this one while testing looper pedals in your local guitar shop, but if you’re hoping to explore the world of natural minor, this hit provides a perfect backdrop.

The A minor pentatonic scale will do the trick for most of the chords, but highlighting the F chord with an F note will add a sense of sophistication to what you play, showing everyone how you understand the song’s inner workings by targeting the sound of a minor 6th at exactly the right time.

If you listen to the last note of Jimmy Page’s opening line, you’ll hear how it creates an atmosphere of tension after the familiarity of more bluesy sounds.

7. Free – All Right Now

Some of the world’s greatest guitar solos aren’t strictly major or minor, with the player blending ideas from both worlds into one seamless package. This 1970 hit is one of those, thanks to Paul Kossoff’s iconic fretwork halfway into the song.

Maybe start off in A major pentatonic and work your way into A minor pentatonic as your solo builds towards its grand crescendo, or try using both in a ‘call and answer’ fashion. Kossoff’s vibrato also played a huge part in his solo’s overall feel, so experiment with how you shake the notes you’re choosing to let ring – there’s plenty of space to get creative and express yourself here.

8. Joe Bonamassa – Sloe Gin

The New York blues maverick is one of the undisputed titans of the long-form solo, and the title track from his 2007 album is the perfect example of why that is. Once you’ve recorded the chords into your looping pedal, begin with some simple phrases in D minor and slowly build your ideas in terms of intensity and dynamics.

The original solo is almost three minutes long and never outstays its welcome. Holding back is an art form in itself – and playing along to a progression like this is a great way of learning how to flow naturally through control and discipline, keeping the listener on the edge of their seats every step of the way.

The chords to Purple Rain by Prince would also work very well for this – look at it as telling a story with a beginning, middle and end, rather than going in all guns blazing.

9. Joe Satriani – Flying In A Blue Dream

If you’re mainly used to pentatonic scales, Lydian – which is the fourth mode of the major scale – can present some serious challenges when it comes to phrasing.

Jamming along to the chords from this title track on Joe Satriani’s third full-length, released in 1989, is a great way of familiarizing yourself with these shapes and sounds. You can look at C Lydian from a G major perspective, which is its parent scale, or think of it as C major with a sharpened fourth, or even C major pentatonic with the inclusion of a B and an F.

Ultimately, different ways of visualizing a scale can help you explore new sonic horizons. Experiment with every possibility, even the ones that feel more confusing and less natural, because they might push you in a completely new direction.

10. Gary Moore – Parisienne Walkways

Much like Moore’s most famous track Still Got The Blues, this late ’70s hit is a great way of getting used to cycle-of-fifth progressions, also typified by songs like Autumn Leaves and I Will Survive.

Parisienne Walkways is in the key of A natural minor but at the end of the main progression, the perfect cadence of a V chord (E7) into the I chord (Amin) provides an opportunity to use the A harmonic minor scale for extra tension, which is then released by resolving back to the root.

Like Stairway To Heaven, it’s a great way of learning how to change just one note over the right chord and provide more depth for the listener to appreciate, taking them on a journey that travels further and therefore exceeds expectation.

Pedals Week 2026: The guitar pedal is an ever-evolving format, but also an ever-present one. The first guitar pedals were introduced only in the early 1960s, but in the intervening years they’ve been a source of change in sounds, tastes and techniques in guitar music.

As technology has advanced, so has the debate between the two core types of guitar pedal: analog and digital. Each one elicits different opinions, preconceived notions, and even prejudices: analog and digital. Analog warmth; digital artifacts. Analog mojo; digital harshness. Alternately, noisy analog; pristine digital. Vintage analog; sleek digital.

In this article, we break down the real difference between analog and digital – and what that means for the pedals of today.

What’s in a signal?

To understand the difference between analog and digital pedals, you first need to understand what those pedals are working with. The audio from your electric guitar is a small, variable AC voltage generated by the movement of its strings across its electromagnetic pickups and is directly equivalent to the sound of the strings.

It’s this voltage that amplifiers, well, amplify – and it’s this voltage that pedals make changes to. The method by which those changes are made is what we’re looking at today.

Anatomy of analog

Analog pedals make changes to your guitar’s signal by passing it through discrete electronic components, each of which has different properties. The signal that leaves an analog pedal, though altered, is the exact same signal that came in.

Distortion pedals were among the first analog pedals made, using the limitations of transistors – the small-scale, solid-state replacement for the vacuum tube – to artificially clip the peaks and troughs of incoming signals.

Successive transistor stages continue to amplify the signal, eventually reaching saturation; soft clipping from saturation creates a warmer, more musical sound, while hard clipping creates the buzz-saw (or Velcro-esque) sound of harsher fuzz. Diodes can also hard-clip signals and are often deployed after gain stages for a little extra bite.

Resistors and capacitors, when placed in the right configurations, can make frequency-sensitive alterations to sound. They constitute filter circuits, which can be used to shape your guitar’s tone or the character of an effect. These, in tandem with cascading transistor-based distortion circuits, are the make-up of practically every dirt pedal you’ve ever touched.

Time-based pedal effects came next, as manufacturers sought to replicate the magic of tape delays and spring reverbs in circuit form. Success came through Moore’s Law – the exponential increase in transistor counts in ICs (integrated circuits).

Early analog delay and reverb effects were created with “bucket brigade” ICs, or BBDs, that used arrays of capacitors and transistors to sample, slow, or smear the shifting voltages of the guitar’s signal against itself. Such circuits are also responsible for chorus and phase effects, which come from minuscule time divisions between dry and affected signals.

Iconic analog pedals

There are a great many iconic analog pedals, being that so many were responsible for so many idiosyncratic – and wildly popular – sounds. For instance, pretty much every well-regarded distortion pedal is an analog classic.

The Dunlop Fuzz Face was an early fuzz pedal, championed by the likes of Jimi Hendrix. Electro-Harmonix’s Big Muff spawned a thousand variants, clones and successors, as well as the fulsome tones of David Gilmour’s guitar on Pink Floyd’s Animals, and Billy Corgan’s riffs on Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. Time-based analog effects are no different, of course.

Electro-Harmonix’s Memory Man was among the first analog delay pedals to market and was responsible for, amongst other sounds, The Edge’s early tone in U2.

Dissecting digital

Digital pedals, meanwhile, use the power of computation to alter sounds. The signal from your guitar is converted from voltages into ones and zeros, typically using something called an ADC (Analog-Digital Converter) that feeds into a microcontroller or small computer chip. From there, the character of the sound can be changed algorithmically, using code.

The first digital pedals were, effectively, miniaturisations of larger rack effects units, made possible again by the ever-shrinking, ever-duplicating transistor. As smaller and more complex pedal-friendly microchips were made possible, so too did it become possible to generate effects otherwise impossible with discrete components: reverb emulations, crystal-clear digital delays and complex pitch-shifting.

Dazzling digital devices (and how they got better)

In 1983, the Boss DD-2 was the first digital delay to enter the stompbox format, marking the effective birth of a new approach to guitar effects. The better chips got, the more digital time-based pedals were capable of; by 1999, the Line6 DL4 was on the market, with its extensive looping and time-stretching capabilities (and with some compelling analog delay emulations too). Why, then, did digital get a bad rap?

In the ’90s, a host of digital multi-effects pedals would launch with the beginner guitarist in mind – the most (in)famous being DigiTech’s RP-1 and Zoom’s 505. Nestled between some semi-capable delay and chorus patches were some of the least inspiring digital-emulation distortions and amp tones a guitarist could ask for.

In certain guitar circles, the preconceived notions that ‘digital=bad’ endure today, despite digital audio technology having come on leaps and bounds – and despite digital delays, reverbs and the DigiTech Whammy (a classic pitch-shifter, used handily by Tom Morello, Jack White and Dimebag Darrell to name but three) having been excellent the whole time.

Today’s digital effects are a world away from those of the ’80s and ’90s, as contemporary digital devices contain entire microcomputers capable of ever more complex algorithms and ever higher audio fidelity – hence the explosion of amp modelers in the past decade.

Hybrid theory

As such, today, it’s not so much a matter of analog vs digital in the pedal world. Digital audio technology is reliably emulating analog tones and technologies to the point of indistinguishability. For another, analog and digital have already been sharing chassis for some time now.

One of the pioneers in this new, harmonious world of analog-digital hybridity is Chase Bliss, the boutique pedal outfit responsible for the Warped Vinyl, Condor HiFi, the recent Automatone series and countless others. Chase Bliss’ slogan is ‘digital brain, analog heart’, speaking to the design smarts behind most of its pedal: all-analog signal paths, with digital control for finer, more accurate and more extensive tweakability.

This is a lesson well-learned by other pedal brands, who are embracing the melding of analog and digital circuits – and embracing the fact that digital effects no longer amount to pale imitations. Boss’ DM-101 is proof positive of this concept hitting the mainstream, being an extensively-featured analog delay with precise digital control. More pedal makers are embracing the possibilities of MIDI and CV too – a topic for another time.

With this whistlestop tour of pedals, their innards and their variably-earned reputations, maybe your pedalboard’s gained a little more luster – and maybe that digital delay you’ve got at the back of your pedal shelf deserves a little more love. Even the Zoom 505 is welcome. Just about.

The Stranglers helped usher in the UK’s late ‘70s punk/new-wave/post-punk movement. The band’s songs and albums remain memorable – even if former lead singer and guitarist Hugh Cornwell doesn’t think much of his playing from the time.

“I’ve never been sure of what kind of guitar player I am,” he says. “Guitar has always been a struggle because I really wanted to be a singer. I picked up guitar because I wanted to accompany myself.”

But Stranglers albums like 1977’s No More Heroes, 1979’s The Raven, and 1981’s La folie – containing their biggest hit, Golden Brown – tell the story of an inventive player. “It was a means to an end,” Cornwell shrugs.

“I’ve never felt particularly capable. I can make it do what I need it to do, but I’m no innovator. The guitar and the voice are slaves to the song, and the song is the keynote to everything else.” But he’s aware that he and The Stranglers helped change the musical landscape.

“You don’t think of it like that when you’re doing it,” he says. “You don’t think it’s going to endure.”

“I’m very proud – and even though pride is a vice, it’s becoming more and more clear how important that period of music was. I feel very happy that I was a part of it, and maybe helped shape it.”

Since leaving The Stranglers in 1990 he’s released nine solo records, with another, Succubus, primed for 2027. “I still want to write the perfect song,” he says. “I still want to make the perfect album. I’m getting closer, and the next one will be better than the last. I’m happy about that.”

What got you started on guitar?

One of my brothers had renovated a Spanish guitar. I don’t know where he got it – probably a junk shop – but he stripped it down, polished it, and repaired it. He left when he was 18 and I was 14; the first thing I did was rush up to his room to see if he’d taken the guitar. He hadn’t!

Did you take to it immediately?

Well, I got my grubby little fingers on it, and for over a year I’d be in his room playing and teaching myself. By the time he came back, I could find my way around it. I asked him, “Do you want your guitar?” He said, “You can have it.” I guess he’d grown out of it.

Later on you became friends with Richard Thompson.

We happened to be in the same class at school. He lived very close to my parents, and we realized we both loved music. At 15 he had a rock group and needed a bass player, so I volunteered. I didn’t mind that it had four strings – who cares?!

Did you know how to play bass?

Richard taught me. My first electric instrument was actually a homemade bass I’d bought from some kid for £5. It was terrible to play, but I managed to make a sound come out of it.

When did you get into electric guitar proper?

Not until I got my Telecaster – and I’ve never played anything else on stage since, really. I’ve picked up the odd Epiphone, Gibson Melody Maker, or Höfner Razor; but mostly, the Tele is my go-to guitar. I felt the Les Pauls were too heavy. Once I picked up a Tele, I said, “This is it.” It had a sign from God that said, ‘Play me.’ So I did!

I lost my way with my sound at the beginning, since I was mostly a rhythm player. I whacked on an overdrive to give it extra body so I could play a lead line, and I was happy with that. Then Dave Greenfield’s keyboards became more to the fore, and the guitar got lost a bit.

I got a bit lost in a lot of the mid-Stranglers catalog – it’s hard to hear what the guitar is doing. The bass and keyboards were up loud, so there wasn’t much room left.

What gear did you rely on back then?

I had the Telecaster and I started with a Vox AC30, but on advice I got sidetracked into Fender Twin Reverbs, which are horrible. I never got on with them; when I left The Stranglers I went back to Vox AC30s because I love the warmth. The Telecaster and the AC30 work so well together.

But the AC30s are very sensitive and fragile. They don’t last long on the road, so you always have to take a spare. So I moved over to the Fender Hot Rod Deville, which is great because it’s roadworthy and I could get the Vox sound.

In the early ‘80s, The Stranglers had their biggest hit, Golden Brown.

It’s the biggest song we ever did! If you look at its popularity then – and now with Gen Z using it in films – it’s become the go-to song, you know?

Did you use your Telecaster for the lead on that track?

I played the lead on a prototype from Höfner. They came to a gig and offered me this weird-shaped guitar, and I said, “What the fuck is that?!” They said, “It hasn’t got a name yet, but we’d like you to try it.” I picked it up and it was amazing. You could go up two octaves on the neck, and it was perfectly in tune!

I thought, ‘I’ve never had a guitar that could do that.’ Then I said, “I’ve got a name for it – you should call it the Razor.” The shape of it reminded me of that with the sharp edges; it looked like a broken piece of glass.

How did you put together Golden Brown’s lead?

The guitar had three pickups and loads of knobs and switches, which I didn’t like too much. But I got around that and was fascinated by it, so I used it on the whole La folie album. That’s why I was able to get up there and do that intricate solo for Golden Brown.

It was very easy because the frets were very close. In order to squeeze in that extra octave, the space between the frets and the action were low. It would have been a lot more difficult for me to do on a Telecaster.

Your record label didn’t want to release Golden Brown as a single, so it must have been satisfying for it to be a hit.

We always thought it was a hit! [Guitarist] John Ellis hated it, but Dave was tickled pink because it was his music. John and I monopolized part of the writing, and Dave was very much an embellisher. He’d come up with this weird piece of music, and at first we couldn’t do anything with it – although we knew it was good.

One day I came in and he was playing it in rehearsal. I said, “You know what? Keep that. It’s bloody good!” Suddenly we got the song written. Within 10 minutes, [drummer] Jet Black arrived, and I said, “Listen to this, Jet.” He said, “That’s a smash hit.” But John said, “I think it’s shit!”

So we had mixed opinions – but John realized that Jet and I were really into it and that it was Dave’s music, so he acquiesced. But he didn’t play on it because he couldn’t think of anything to play; it didn’t inspire him, which was fair enough.

In 1988 you released your solo album Wolf, which wasn’t a hit per se but was warmly received in America. Two years later, you left The Stranglers.

It was a big move to do that. I was encouraged by Wolf, even though it’s a bit dated now. I realized I could make a record by myself, which I’d never been aware of. But I didn’t really plan on leaving The Stranglers.

So why did you?

I could feel something brewing inside of me – I wasn’t happy. We’d spent most of our career living together and out of each other’s pockets. We knew what was going on in each others’ lives and hung out together… we were a gang. When we went onstage to make music, it was just an extension of that.

We’d pretty much got along, and even lived in a house together early on. But then, suddenly, you found yourself on the sidelines of people’s lives, and their lives became self-contained. I’m not talking musically; just day-to-day. You didn’t know what people were doing anymore.

In the years leading up to 1990, we’d meet up to tour and do music, but I felt like I had less and less in common with the people I was playing with. It was weird. It wasn’t a shared experience anymore. It wasn’t really being truthful anymore, and I suddenly felt uncomfortable.

Was there a big fallout, or did you leave quietly?

I got very despondent. I suddenly realized that the show coming up was going to be my last. Like, two hours before, I said to myself, “I can’t really see a future, so this might as well be it.” It was the last show scheduled for a while, so it was the best time.

I called the others. John, whom I was emotionally close to, said, “I can tell you haven’t been very happy over the last couple of years.” He understood, and we spent around 15 minutes on the phone. Then I phoned Jet. He said, “OK.” He didn’t even want to talk about it. It was very odd. So, that was the end of that phone call.

Then I said, “I’d better call Dave.” When I told him, he said, “Does this mean we’re gonna have a meeting? Thanks for letting me know.”

In the years since, you’ve carried on solo. Are you working on new music now?

Yes – I’ve managed to sell enough records and generate enough ticket sales to justify still doing it. If any of those things change, I’ll stop. What I’m working on now will be called Succubus, and it’ll be coming out in 2027, 50 years after The Stranglers’ first album, Rattus Norvegicus.

Do you have any regrets?

I think The Stranglers were probably a bit too big for our boots. All of us were a bit too overconfident with hubris, and that didn’t help. I’m sure people realized and noticed it, so that’s a regret. But really, I don’t regret anything, because you define who you are by the things you’ve done. You can’t change them. There’s always positives and negatives to each decision.

I’m proud that I was part of a great musical experience – not just The Stranglers, but that whole period. I bumped into The Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock at an exhibition of art from punk records. He said, “It’s true, isn’t it: neither you nor I had any idea what we were doing, or that it was going to create this.”

And it’s ridiculous! We were just doing it because it felt right and it was fun. You don’t think about it becoming a legacy – what you leave behind.

• Cornwell returns to the road in July.

22-year-old guitar ace Anna Cara has looked back on how she landed the gig of a lifetime in Alice Cooper's band.

When Cara was hand-picked by shred veteran Nita Strauss to fill in during her maternity leave from her long-standing tenure with Cooper, the young guitarist wasn't just stepping into Strauss' shoes – she was also carrying forward a guitar legacy that included Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter, Kane Roberts, Vinnie Moore, and Orianthi.

“You’ve got to be adept at learning a whole spectrum of music,” longtime Cooper guitarist Ryan Roxie says of the gig in the latest issue of Guitar World.

“When I heard Anna play, I knew right from the get-go that she’s cut from a different cloth. She can play mechanical shredder stuff with ease but also can slip into classic rock mode at the drop of a hat.”

It was Tommy Henriksen, Cooper’s other guitarist, who discovered Cara, likening her tone and style to the late Gary Moore as soon as he spotted her on social media.

Henrikson tells Guitar World, “I kept telling Ryan, ‘You’ve got to see this kid play, man.’ She’s got that thing. I can’t explain it. There’s not many people who have it, but she’s got it.”

Henrikson initially scouted Cara for his own band, Crossbow Skully, after scouring YouTube and Instagram for promising musicians.

“She never showed her face, just her playing guitar,” he remembers. “She wasn’t doing all that stupid stuff – not posing or anything. I sent her a message and said, ‘I love what you’re doing. You’ve got great vibrato and feel. Can I call you and your parents?’

“I didn’t know how old she was,” Henrikson adds. “I FaceTimed with them and said, ‘I like your daughter’s playing. She’s a natural. She plays like Gary Moore. She’s got the vibrato of a 55-year-old man.’”

“I said, ‘I’m putting together a band. I’m going to call you. Be show-ready. You’re going to be going on a plane to L.A.’”

As soon as she landed at LAX, Henriksen (casually) drove her to a Hollywood star's home studio.

He continues, “This kid has never been out of Newcastle, and now she’s at Johnny Depp’s house. Johnny goes, ‘Let her play any guitar she wants,’ so I handed her Johnny’s guitar. That’s how she wound up working with me.”

Cara explains that she was discovered when she was just 19, and, as she herself puts it, “There have been years of development, and I’ve become a better musician and live player.”

Therefore, when Strauss announced that she needed a maternity cover, Henrikson knew who to put forward for the gig.

“Alice was looking for a guitar player, and I said, ‘Do you want a girl or a guy? I’ve got either/or,’” says Henriksen. “But the first thing I did was send Anna’s stuff to Ryan because I wanted him to see her. Ryan heard her play and said, ‘I see it. I hear it.’

“Next thing you know, he’s [Cooper] like, “Let’s bring her to Vegas to watch the show and get her familiar with everything.”

Strauss has not yet announced a specific return date to the band, so those hoping to catch a glimpse of Cara’s talent can do so during Alice Cooper’s upcoming fall run.

Head to Alice Cooper for a full list of dates.

For more from the Alice Cooper guitar triumvirate, plus new interviews with Ziggy Marley and Brian Setzer, pick up issue 607 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

Teenage blues prodigy Rhys John Stygal has been reunited with his electric guitar after it was stolen in Austin, Texas, last month.

Stygal, who has been hailed as the next Stevie Ray Vaughan for his uncanny ability to channel the late blues legend, reported the theft of his guitar and pedalboard in an Instagram post. It was also confirmed his bandmate Nico Little had also had a guitar stolen.

He received support from Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Gary Clark Jr. and Jared James Nichols, with Joe Bonamassa issuing a public plea for the gear to be found and returned.

Now, a follow-up post from Texas Rebels, a band based in Austin, has confirmed the safe return of Stygal’s prized Fender Stevia Ray Vaughan Stratocaster.

“Shoutout to the community, we got them back,” the band’s guitarist, Jacob West, said. “Especially shout out to James Levin with Elmore Pedals. None of this would have been able to be done without you.”

Details surrounding the guitar’s recovery have not been shared, but West did add in the caption: “We’re not gonna put the person who returned them on blast.

“Whether the long story he gave was real or not, doesn’t matter, the instruments are returned to their homes where they belong.”

“I cannot believe I am so lucky, to be surrounded by the best community in Austin,” Stygal wrote in the comments. “Thank you so much to everyone who helped bring our treasures home. You’re the best ever.”

It’s not been confirmed whether Stygal’s pedalboard has also been recovered.

Stygal burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old prodigy, winning over a legion of fans thanks to his beastly blues chops that pay homage to his hero, SRV.

He has previously credited music and the guitar with saving his life, using the blues to help cope with extreme anxiety that was brought about by his autism. The return of his Number One guitar, which has been by his side for the whole time, is fantastic news indeed.

Visit Stygal's Instagram page to keep up to date with his playing journey.

Welcome to the world of Manuel Gardner Fernandes, the guitar virtuoso from German metalcore masters Unprocessed. In this band, Manuel is a stunning representative of the new wave of chops-heavy guitarists (think Tim Henson, Plini and Tosin Abasi) impressing guitar fans around the world with their new music and social media content.

These players combine elements of '80s rock virtuosity (legato, tapping, speed picking) with newer math/prog elements such as slap bass articulations, extended use of legato/selective picking phrasing and application of harmonics. It makes for a heavy and impressive brew of sonic wizardy, be it with crisp clean tones or thick saturated distortion.

While his five chosen techniques here are advanced, especially when performed at fast tempos, Manuel has been considerate enough to demonstrate and explain them clearly. Certainly, a key tip is to start slowly when initially tackling each example yourself.

The first technique is fast strumming. This involves using a lot of dead notes (percussive muted notes). To achieve these, simply lay your fretting hand fingers lightly across the strings without pushing them down on the frets. Manuel demonstrates the strumming directions and we have written these in the tab for reference.

The second technique is hybrid picking (pick and fingers). Manuel likes to use the pick for downstrokes and then adds in the picking hand's second finger (shown as m under the tab) and third finger (shown as a under the tab). This makes playing adjacent strings and wider string skips a lot easier. Using the fingers to pluck the strings also helps the notes to sound percussive, like the sound of a slapped bass. Again, Manuel walks you through the order of picking.

The third technique is tapped harmonics, created by tapping the string directly above the fretwire. This works especially well when tapping 12 frets above the fretting hand's note. So if you are fretting a note on the 1st fret, it's the 13th fret that needs to be tapped.

We recommend starting with just one finger of the tapping hand to get dialed into the technique (the second finger - m - makes most sense so you can still hold the pick conventionally). Then it’ll be possible to add in other fingers of the tapping hand to increase the facility.

Manuel's fourth technique choice is his James Hetfield-inspired downpicking. For the fast flourishes, he advises a snap of the wrist as opposed to using the whole of the strumming arm.

The final technique is inspired by players like Tosin Abasi from Animals As Leaders. Manuel refers to this as 'selective picking' and involves picking a note and then tapping/hammering-on other notes with the fretting hand. If these techniques are combined with light palm muting, stunning percussive guitar parts can be created.

Many thanks to Manuel for his time and creativity and be sure to check out the latest Unprocessed album, Angel.

Example 1. Percussive strumming

This example uses percussive strumming to create a fast and impressive latin/flamenco-esque performance. The picking pattern for the fastest rhythm is down, down, down, up, down, down.

Manuel strums some great-sounding chord fingerings that make effective use of the open strings. Start slowly and then build up speed, as you emulate the pattern and feel it dialing in.

Example 2a. Hybrid picking riff

This example is inspired by the sound of slap bass players and uses hybrid picking. The pick is used to play the notes on the sixth string with a key part of the sound being the muted notes.

These are produced by laying the fingers of the fretting hand lightly on the string and then picking it. The notes on the fourth string are plucked with the second finger (m), and the harder these are plucked, the more it will sound like a slap bass.

Example 2b. Hybrid picked lick

Here, Manuel elaborates on the benefits of hybrid picking by playing a fast lick that uses natural harmonics.

To produce the harmonics, lightly rest your fretting hand finger directly above the fret (wire) indicated in the tab. As the note is plucked, the fretting hand finger can be lifted to release the harmonic.

Example 2c. Hybrid picked chord

Here is another exciting way to exploit the benefits of hybrid picking. The picking pattern here is three down picks followed by a second finger (m) pluck.

Example 3. Tapped harmonics

This next example is tricky and may take a little experimentation to get right. The harmonics are created by tapping the string directly above the fret. This works especially well when tapping 12 frets above the fretted note.

We have notated the fretting hand positions in the tab (diamond encased fret numbers) and then the tapping positions above the tab (eg TH15 = tap a harmonic at the 15th fret).

For this example, the tapping positions can always be found 12 frets above the fretted hand. We recommend using just one finger of the tapping hand at first to get used to the technique. Add other fingers of the tapping hand when you're more comfortable.

Example 4. Down picking

This next example is inspired by Manuel’s love of James Hetfield's playing. All the notes are down-picked or hammered onto. This makes the example relatively easy to play at slow tempos. As with all the other examples, add the speed in once the technique is perfected at the slow tempo.

Example 5a. Selective picking and hammer-ons

This final technique is inspired by guitarists like Tosin Abasi from Animals As Leaders. Manuel refers to this as “selective picking”, which involves picking a note and then tapping notes with the fretting hand.

We recommend using a light palm mute for the open B note on the second string. Once you get this dialed in, vibrant percussive guitar parts can be created.

Example 5b. Selective picking with chords

To finish off, Manuel adds in more tapping positions all over the fretboard to create a pleasing chord progression.

Hear it here

Unprocessed - Deadrose

This contextualizes a couple of the techniques covered in this article. The introduction and verse sections feature a part created with fast arpeggios played with the tapping harmonics technique. This is followed by some of that fast snappy strumming. Towards the end the down-picking technique is used to play a percussive, heavy riff.

Unprocessed - Perfume

This is taken from the latest Unprocessed album, Angel. The introduction uses fast chord arpeggios played with the hybrid picking technique featured in Example 2c. The second finger and third fingers of the picking hand can get involved. This makes playing adjacent strings at speed more economical and also provides some variety in the tone.

Periphery’s Jake Bowen has left Ibanez after signing as a Strandberg signature artist.

The prog heavyweight becomes the latest high-profile player to join the headless guitar specialist, following the likes of Plini, Jacob Collier, Jordan Rudess, Sarah Longfield, Liso Lee and more.

Bowen has already incorporated a number of Strandbergs into his live setup – something that had been noticed by Periphery fans – and a potential signature model has already been teased.

It marks a significant move in the metal guitar world. Prior to the switch, Bowen had worked with Ibanez since 2014, releasing a handful of signature guitars over the years – most recently the JBM9999 in 2022.

However, Periphery fans have been speculating about a switch for some time, after Bowen was spotted playing a Strandberg on tour last year.

That switch has now been made official and, while we’ve seen artists adopt multi-brand partnerships in the past, it looks like Bowen will be exclusively Team Strandberg going forward. His Ibanez artist page is still live at the time of writing, but Bowen’s Instagram account only makes reference to Strandberg.

It paves the way for a potential signature Strandberg for Bowen. Here’s hoping for an extended scale headless guitar in the near future.

“A great guitar should be inspiring the moment you pick it up - they almost beckon you from across the room to play them, and when I picked up a Strandberg for the first time I knew it was going to be special,” Bowen says.

“As a guitarist for 34 years, I’ve had a lot of time to discover what works in the studio and on the road. Strandberg guitars offer a lightweight, ergonomic solution without giving up tone, playability, and most importantly that instant source of inspiration.”

Keep your eyes peeled on Strandberg for more info.

L7 bassist Jennifer Finch has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

The news was shared publicly by her bandmates on social media yesterday (July 13), only two months after the band announced The Last Hurrah Tour – their farewell tour – which will be kicking off on October 6 in San Diego, California.

“Following multiple surgeries and serious complications, Jennifer now requires extensive medical care, rehabilitation and professional in-home support,” reads the statement.

“The Last Hurrah Tour was planned along with Jennifer when all four of us were in good health and spirits.” The band confirmed that, as per Finch’s wishes, the tour will continue as planned “while making her care and well-being our immediate priority.”

They also announced that her friends and family, along with the L7 members, have launched a GoFundMe to cover urgent medical expenses, professional in-home nursing care, physical and speech therapy, medical equipment, and legal fees.

As the GoFundMe page explains, “The cancer and everything that comes with it have left her with significant physical limitations, so she’s handling this the only way she knows how: one day at a time.”

The money raised will also help preserve Finch’s legacy by creating an archive of her artistic and creative work, as well as completing a “significant creative project” originally scheduled for release next year.

As of the time of writing, around $220,400 has been raised toward the fundraising goal of $350,000.

Garbage and R.E.M‘s Michael Stipe are among the fellow musicians supporting the GoFundMe effort, with Stipe posting on Bluesky, “Punk rock and alternative music would not be what it is or where it is without Jennifer Finch. We send loving energy to her. Please – if you can – every contribution helps.”

In an interview with Bass Player last year, Finch spoke about her and the pioneering band’s legacy, and insisted that “L7 ain’t over yet”.

“I’m in my 50s now, and we still get to be examples,” she said. “But also we get to fail publicly in a way that we couldn’t do in our 20s. I’ve never felt directly responsible for anyone picking up a guitar – pick up your own fucking guitar! It’s a thing you gotta do or do not.

“I’m very heart-warmed when particularly women say, ‘Because of you, I got into politics’ or ‘I got my medical degree because of you.’ You know, fighting for housing rights – that’s awesome.”

Head to GoFundMe to donate.

Brian Setzer has looked back on the time he went on tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan – and got the rare opportunity to play the blues legend’s electric guitar.

In one of the more oft-overlooked footnotes in Stray Cats history, Setzer and his rockabilly group hit the road with SRV back in 1989. It was a tricky time, to say the least, blighted with tough crowds.

There was one highlight experience for Setzer, though: on one date, he got the chance to play Vaughan’s Strat.

“I recall that the crowds hated us. [Laughs] They hated us! They were only there to see Stevie Ray, and they didn’t give us a chance,” Setzer says of the tour. “It wasn’t an easy tour for us, I can tell you that.”

Nonetheless, being on the road with SRV had its perks.

“I loved listening to him,” he says. “I remember thinking, ‘How does he get that sound?’ Only he could get a Strat to sound like that.

“One night he called me on stage, and he handed me a Strat and put it over me. I thought, ‘Oh, great! I’m finally going to see what this is all about.’”

SRV’s Strats are up there as some of blues guitar’s most iconic instruments, famously strung with ultra-heavy 13-58 strings. The thought of playing such a heavy-strung Strat, especially one that belonged to Vaughan, is intimidating.

However, Setzer wasn’t all that surprised. If anything, he notes, it felt rather familiar. And it cemented an important lesson: tone is in the hands.

“There were rumors that he had amps underneath the stage and he had them miked up in the basement – all sorts of stuff,” Setzer adds. “So I played it… and it sounded like me. I didn’t sound like Stevie Ray. I mean, his guitar even felt like mine.

“The action was the same, the volume he played at, the amp he played through. I was like, ‘Well, this is interesting. Stevie sounds like he does because it’s all in his hands.’ He was phenomenal.

“He was so fluid, and he played the blues differently every night. Besides us getting booed off the stage, it was a great show.”

To read the full interview with Brian Setzer, in which he gives an update on his ongoing health issues, pick up the new issue of Guitar World at Magazines Direct.

In the late ’70s and into the ’80s, Triumph proved to be a mighty force as a power trio. The Canadian band, which featured Gil Moore on drums and vocals, Mike Levine on bass and Rik Emmett on guitar and vocals, reeled off a string of memorable songs, including Lay It on the Line, Fight the Good Fight, Magic Power and World of Fantasy.

But, despite their sublime blend of hard rock, prog and fantasy-inspired vibes, they never quite reached the heights of Canada’s other beloved power trio, a little band called Rush.

For those reasons, combined with age and health, Emmett thought that – when it came to Triumph – that proverbial ship had sailed.

He was wrong. When Triumph announced their 2026 reunion tour last December, Emmett was shocked by the wave of love and adoration that came his way.

“I had no idea there would be this kind of hunger,” Emmett says. “There really is an appetite for nostalgia.”

But this version of Emmett’s band isn’t your father’s Triumph. The group is dropping the power-trio format and adding Toronto-born Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X – who played and recorded with Triumph in the early ’90s (becoming the only guitarist besides Emmett to do so) – to the mix.

Along for the ride are Slash solo-band veterans Brent Fitz (drums) and Todd Kerns (bass/vocals). What’s more, word is that while Emmett and Moore will be full participants in the reunion, due to health issues, Levine’s participation will be extremely limited.

“I think a lot of people are thinking, ‘Oh, my God, they’re defying reality,’” Emmett says. “They’re probably thinking, ‘Will Emmett make it to the end of the tour?’ I’m curious too! I’m kind of going, ‘We’ll see!’”

It’s fair to wonder about such things, given Emmett’s 2024 cancer diagnosis (a cancer he says he is free and clear of), not to mention arthritis in his hands.

“It might prove to be too much for a 72-year-old guy,” he says. “I feel like if I get myself in shape over the next few months and we get the script together the way I really like it, we’ll be fine. It’s a marriage of a rock band and technology now. We’ve got screens, lights, pyro, lasers and all this stuff. It takes a lot of coordination, and I think it’s going to be fun.”

Modern tech and light shows aside, Emmett also needs to grapple with adding three new musicians into the mix.

“The more you get involved with this stuff, the more it’s like getting a shot of whoop-de-doo juice every day,” he says with a laugh. “You go, ‘Maybe this is the secret – having a daily goal of having to sing, perform and play.’ But we’re gonna find out. I like the level of talent and experience these guys bring. I think it’s going to be something that rejuvenates me in a huge way.”

In the past, you’ve said you wouldn’t tour with Triumph again, but here we are.

I know I’ve said this would never happen, so I’m sitting around laughing at the fact that I’ve turned myself into a liar. [Laughs] I didn’t imagine it would happen, but it’s been kind of a circumstance of serendipity. They started playing Lay It On the Line at NHL events, and Gil Moore started making noise, saying, “I wanna put out a big tour, but it’s gonna be virtual…”

Virtual?

Yeah. He said, “Don’t worry, all you’ll have to do is show up for a day of filming on a green-screen set,” So there was that stuff, and we were asked, “Do you guys wanna come out and play in Edmonton?” So we played with the three guys – Phil X on guitar, Todd Kerns on bass and Brent Fitz on drums – and Gil played drums, too.

Did that spark the idea for this tour?

We played three songs to a plaza of hockey fans, and it was fun. We kind of went, “This could work, you know?” And then Live Nation is saying, “We think we could make this work. Do you wanna put some shows up for sale?” One thing led to another, and then we got into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and sat in with Phil X again [October 2025], and it was a riot.

Now you’ll be sharing guitar duties with Phil – who, in a sense, replaced you in the early Nineties.

Phil is unbelievable. I love the guy and his energy. I can’t wait to get on the road and get my ass kicked by these guys. [Laughs] It’ll be fun. But will it be fun for just the first week, and then I’ll go, “I’ve had enough! I wish I hadn’t agreed to 24 dates in 60 days.” [Laughs]

You’ve been dealing with a cancer diagnosis as well as arthritis. Are you feeling strong as far as your playing is concerned, all things considered?

I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out! I’m cancer-free, which is lovely. And the medication I take for my arthritis seems to be holding it in check. But arthritis is a weird thing. If you know anybody who has had it, you’ll know you have good days and bad.

What’s the trick to keep yourself in playing shape?

On a bad day, if you force yourself to work out, do your routines and push yourself, it actually makes it better. It seems counterintuitive when you feel like your hands aren’t doing well, and you’d like to take a day off, but that’s the day you try and play more.

You play through the pain.

Yes! That seems to be working. But here’s the test; I’m sitting here in December, and the tour doesn’t start until April. So how disciplined is Rik Emmett going to be in January, February and March? [Laughs] Then, when we get to March and April, how disciplined is Rik going to be?

Since Phil, Brent and Todd are part of the line-up, a lot of people are wondering if Mike and Gil will be participating.

I don’t count on Mike necessarily being there much. He might show up on some of the dates that are within driving distance, but I don’t expect him to get up and play much of the set.

He might play a song or two, and we’re definitely gonna get him to play some keyboards and have him show up on the screens because he’s part of the history of the band. But we’ve got these three other guys, so we’ve got every base covered.

Have you worked out exactly how Phil, Brent and Todd will fit into the line-up with you and Gil, who will presumably be playing?

An excellent question – and I don’t have the full answer. [Laughs] I can only tell you we’ve been sitting around working on things, like which songs, running order and special effects. And with what songs, like Gil said, “I wanna do No Surrender,” and I’m like, “Fuck, I can’t sing it in that key anymore.” [Laughs]

We used to use E minor concert pitch, but now the guitars are gonna be down a full step, and we’ll do that in B minor. And then there’s Magic Power, which used to be in concert D, but now it’s going to be in concert A, which works great.

You can really “Pete Townshend” it up in that key. So I’ve been on the phone with my D’Addario guy, saying, “I think I’m gonna have to move my string gauges up, like, two or three; send me some sets for drop D.” [Laughs]

Is the plan to have Todd and Phil sing some songs as well?

We’re figuring it out. I think there will be songs where I might sing the first verse and then look over at Todd or Phil and go, “Take it from here.”

I can still play the guitar parts, so that won’t be an issue. And with the guitars detuned, it’s great, and the bending is so much easier. I think, “Why didn’t I do this a long time ago?” But singing? Who knows? There might be songs assigned to Todd, Phil or Gil.

In Triumph’s heyday, you were the only guitarist. It must be a load off to have Phil around.

It’s pretty great to contemplate, isn’t it? The sky is the limit. There are things that exist from youth, like Wishbone Ash and Judas Priest, who had harmony guitars, and with Phil, there’s unlimited potential. But he’s a different kind of player; I’m from a different era – more of a prog guy, you know, Steve Howe, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.

Phil is more from the Eddie Van Halen school. He can do the tapping, sweep picking and all those things that aren’t really my bag. Imagine the luxury, if you will, of the guy who recorded Rock & Roll Machine being able to start a solo and then go, “Ladies and gentlemen, here’s Phil X.” It’s interstellar.

What gear will you be bringing on tour?

I just tried my double-neck the other day for more than 10 minutes, and I went, “It’s too heavy.” I said, “What’s plan B?” But I’ve just got a new electric acoustic from Godin, and it’s phenomenal. So I’ll maybe use that 12-string for the intro of Magic Power, Fight the Good Fight and maybe Never Surrender. And I tend to be very old-school, so I’m happy with my Line 6 Pod Go; I don’t run it with a giant rig.

I used to use a backline where the backline company would provide me with a Fender combo, like a Deluxe, but it could be anything because I was gonna set it up and run it flat, clean. And then I’d let my pedalboard be the thing that gave me different [sounds].

But in the Pod, you’ve got Marshalls – you can do anything! I tend to like that sound because in the old days, I used a Marshall plexi, a 50-watt head that didn’t even have a master. But it was souped up and had power tubes.

Will you be using Godin guitars across the board?

I have a relationship with Godin, and they’re making a Rik Emmett model, which is gonna be called the 24/7. It looks like the Godin Stadium ’59, so I’m sort of using that body design, which is like a Fender Telecaster that has Gibson SG sculpting around the edges, and with a belly cut.

Mine is going to have 24.75 scaling, so it’s like a Les Paul scale length with a higher bridge. It’s taking a Tele and a Les Paul and creating a hybrid between the two. They’re also making me – from their Montreal Premiere Supreme – one that I call Soupy, which is the first incarnation of that guitar.

Will that be a one-off or a signature production model?

They’re making me a custom one, so it’s a one-off. They’re not gonna introduce it as a retail line item. It’s gonna be white, but semi-acoustic, so it’s very much like a Gibson ES-335, except the Godin folks are good at coming up with their own ideas. It’s got a block in the middle, but it’s arched so it’s very acoustic and can give jazz-guitar sounds.

I like those guitars because when you turn them up, it’s like the old days when Ted Nugent used to use a [Gibson] Byrdland or Steve Howe would have a [Gibson ES-5] Switchmaster or ES-175. Back in the day, I had the Ackerman and a Framus, which had blocks in them, but they looked like a Les Paul with a thyroid condition or an ES-175 that had been in the dryer for too long.

Do you see yourself breaking out a Les Paul?

I like the idea of hybrid, semi-acoustic guitars. I have a feeling I’ll be using the Godin quite a lot. They’re only 6.5 lbs. With that and the 12-string, I think I’ve covered the spectrum. But there’s bound to be a Les Paul or two. I have two Gibsons with ’60s necks, and they’re chambered.

I think they’re from 2006 or 2009; Gibson gave me a couple of those back in the day. I’ve bought three or four of those, so there will probably be a Les Paul, like when we play Rock & Roll Machine. I think I’ve gotta play that on a Les Paul!

Are you open to more dates, or do you see this as Triumph’s last hurrah?

I’m kind of philosophical right now. I’m bemused by all of this. I never imagined the reaction would be as positive as it’s been. Live Nation is so happy with the ticket sales, and I’m going, “They’re gonna wanna add more shows.”

We’re playing a 4,000-seat venue in Chicago, and it sold out in one day. They added another day, and I think by the time we finish this call, that’ll be sold out, too.

The metaphor I’ve been using is it’s like a game of golf. I’m just gonna hit the thing and then go find it and play it where it lies. Whatever happens next is what happens next. It’s a philosophical thing. From this vantage point, I’m just gonna enjoy it. I think it’s gonna be fun, and playing with these younger musicians is gonna be a challenging kick in the ass. You know, a can of whoop-ass kinda fun.

But I don’t know; I could get out there and think, “I think I hate this guy,” you know? Or I could get out there and go, “I think these guys should just do it, and I should just stay home because my arthritis is flaring up, and this isn’t fun anymore.” I don’t know!

The outpouring of love has to be energizing, considering the underrated nature of Triumph.

I used to think of myself as a glass-half-empty kind of guy when it came to projecting into the future. And a huge surprise to me is, apparently, no – at 72, my glass is half-full.

I didn’t think this would happen. I didn’t think I'd enjoy all the tour prep, working out every day and doing interviews every half hour, but I am. I’m recapturing some of the energy of my younger days. The answer to it all is, I don’t know. But I think I’m going to like it.

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

Pedals Week 2026: Shoegaze is well and truly back. The return of legendary figures to the touring circuit – My Bloody Valentine chief amongst them – has been a heartening thing, demonstrating the continued, vibrant and powerful relevance of the blissed-out guitar as a mode of unreal expression.

These new upwellings of legacy acts are also a reflection of shoegaze’s long and aptly slow second act – newer artists like Glixen, Mo Dotti and They Are Gutting A Body Of Water woozily picking up the mantle left by the likes of Cocteau Twins, The Jesus And Mary Chain and Slowdive, spurred on by the runaway successes of their era.

Even outside of the nu-gaze scene, shoegaze tones have caught on with more mainstream indie and rock torch-bearers, from Wet Leg to Turnstile. But what makes the shoegaze tone? Well, in a nutshell: distortion, modulation, reverb – lots of each, and not quite in that order.

Shoegaze pedalboards are famously well-populated things, Kevin Shields’ small village of floor- and rack-based effects king amongst them. The typical shoegaze sound is heavily distorted guitars, pitch-modulated in some form or another, and smeared by large reverbs placed before them in the chain.

That placement is the defining aspect of a shoegaze tone, in that the huge trails from the reverb compound saturate and swell around the playing at its core – making for a febrile wall of untamed sound. Though the shoegaze tone is broadly easy to recognize, there are countless iterations of it and even more ways to achieve it.

Below you'll find 5 pedals that'll get you into the right spacey ballpark, from do-it-all multi-effects to lush reverbs, glitchy delays, and a must-have My Bloody Valentine signature pedal.

Keeley Loomer

Keeley Electronics’ Loomer is a dual-footswitch multi-effects pedal that combines fuzz, reverb, delay, and modulation into an extremely transparent love letter to everything that jangles, saturates, and otherwise overwhelms.

There are three core reverbs to choose from, each of which has a corresponding amuse-bouche of an effect: hall with shimmer; reverse with vibrato; soft-focus with parallel delays. The fuzz circuit is a Big Muff-of-sorts; big, beefy op-amp distortion with a powerful filter sweep for tone control. A push-button switch on the back lets you switch the order of fuzz and reverb, but for shoegaze, you want reverb first, always.

Fender Shields Blender

What pedal could be better-equipped for shoegaze than one co-designed by Kevin Shields? The Fender Shields Blender is a contemporary remake of the gold-dust ‘70s fuzz-octaver, viewed through a My Bloody Valentine-y lens and tinkered with accordingly. It keeps the same core circuitry as traced from Shields’ own OG Blender but also adds some equally incredible and oblique modes of control.

The Fender Shields Blender contains multitudes, figuratively and literally – what with the two flavors of octave fuzz that run in parallel, the now-optional octave-up, and a whole new control surface just for voltage sag. With so many tonal differentiations at your feet, this is a real Swiss army knife for shoegazery.

Walrus Audio Melee

Walrus Audio’s Melee pedal is another exceedingly swanky dual-effect distortion-and-reverb device, and another immensely handy shortcut to shoegaze. It’s a fuzz and a three-mode reverb, the three modes being Ambient, Octave Down and Reverse With Feedback (all, in one way or another, shoegaze in a box). The fuzz and verb can have their order swapped by a toggle switch, and a Sustain footswitch allows you to both latch reverb pads and swell your trails.

Even accounting for all of that goodness, the Melee’s key USP is something else entirely: that massive joystick on the top-right. It’s an XY controller that gives you precise and expressive control over the blend of fuzz and ‘verb. All the better for dialing in just the right volume of inscrutable trails….

Read more: Full Walrus Audio Melee review

Catalinbread FX40 Soft Focus Reverb

Catalinbread’s FX40 Soft Focus reverb quite literally captures the sound of shoegaze history for pedalboard-friendly delivery to a new generation of ‘gazers. It’s a replication of the ‘Soft Focus’ reverb patch found on the Yamaha FX500 – a ‘90s studio rack processor used heavily on Slowdive’s Souvlaki, amongst other quintessentially dreamy ‘90s records.

The Soft Focus is a big plate-style reverb with some lush modulatory goodness stashed within. The plate reverb meets three parallel channels – one clean, one with an octave-up, and one with a multi-voice chorus – for a blended tone that shimmers and moves in highly idiosyncratic fashion.

Old Blood Noise Endeavors Parting

Shoegaze has always been about tonal experimentation. And the second wave of shoegaze has coincided quite handily with what might be described as the second wave of glitch pedals, as evidenced by Old Blood Noise Endeavours’ pedal collab with harpist Emily Hopkins, Parting.

To make a long story short, Parting is glitchy, random ambiance via a delay/verb and Fun With Samples. It’s an inscrutable box of chance, incorporating downsampling, LFO-based modulation, delay, and reverb. It’s capable of everything from zippy reverse-sample soundscapes to smeared (there is literally a knob labeled ‘Smear’) verby beds. Three-dimensional lushness abounds.

The whole world was watching when Courtney Love's husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, was found dead on April 8, 1994.

Two months later, Kristen Pfaff, bassist for Love’s band Hole, died from a heroin overdose. The group were forced to put a tour on hold and pull out of an appearance at Lollapalooza.

But Love refused to let these tragedies define Hole's 1998 album, Celebrity Skin. The last thing she wanted was to write “a grieving widow’s memoir,” as she called it in a 1999 Guitar World interview.

“I think that’s the kind of satisfaction some people would really want. But I’m not in the mood for that. That’s not what I’m about. This isn’t Lucinda Williams. I’m not some confessional singer/songwriter. My whole history in this business has been to find the hook.”

A media circus. The aftermath of two major deaths. A new bass player. An intense touring schedule. Hiatus. Relocation to New Orleans, New York, Nashville, and Memphis. All contributed to Celebrity Skin.

But Love also used Los Angeles, fame, and celebrity culture as her muse. The result was a record that captured the zeitgeist.

And although she didn't want to dwell on her departed partner in the album's lyrics, her guitar work paid subtle homage through her gear choices.

The most poignant of these was a big-bodied Gretsch that few would associate with Cobain – but for the Nirvana frontman, it was the one that got away.

“Kurt would always say, ‘I’m gonna get a Chet Atkins.’ But he never did. I don’t think he could find a left-handed one. It wasn’t until he died that I went and looked at one, and it was really beautiful.”

Love's other primary guitar during this era was her signature Fender Vista Venus – a part Mercury, part Stratocaster, and part Rickenbacker hybrid – which broke new ground as only the second signature guitar ever released for a female guitarist, following Bonnie Raitt.

“I didn’t want it all teched out,” she said of its H/S pickup configuration. “I wanted it real simple, with just one pickup switch. Because I think that cultural revolutions are in the hands of guitar players.”

Another key piece of gear was a solid-state 1976 Randall Commander that formerly belonged to Cobain (“He did like his Randall Commander”).

Meanwhile, the Boss DS-1 Distortion, a firm favorite of Cobain's, was a mainstay, as was the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzz. Love was such a fan of the latter, she reckoned she beat her husband and Celebrity Skin co-writer Billy Corgan to the punch.

“I contend that I was the first person to actually have a Super Fuzz Big Muff, before the rest of the boys. It was when I was in this purist ’60s garage band called the Venerays, with Kat Bjelland.

“And just recently, I started using a box called the Mystic Blue. I like a good box, and I’ll try any one – if it has a good-sounding name. Especially if they made a box with some kind of girly name,” she quips. “If they made one called Cherry Apple Blossom, I’d run with it every night!”

Released on September 8, 1998, Celebrity Skin turned out to be the last album – and most commercially successful – before Hole parted ways in 2002, and featured contributions from Corgan, The Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey, and frequent Love collaborator Jordon Zadorozny.

“I genuinely did feel antisocial, and the first two albums reflect that,” she says of Celebrity Skin’s more “palatable” sound.

“But now I’m into mainstreaming. I’m just doing mainstreaming correctly… During grunge and during metal, they couldn’t sell shit to us because we were too cynical.

“There’s a way to mainstream things with integrity.”

Your dream guitar can show up in your life in a myriad of ways, and for virtuoso Sophie Burrell, an early presence on social media – coupled with a Facebook group of PRS aficionados – led her to hers: a 2014 PRS Custom 24 Wood Library, which has since become her go-to instrument.

“The back story as to how I acquired this guitar is actually very special and quite unique,” Burrell tells Guitar World.

“I've been playing guitar for a very long time, since I was like nine years old, and I started creating content when I was about 14. I was a member of this group on Facebook called PRS Guitar Owners Worldwide, and I used to post little videos of me playing in there.”

Turns out, someone had spotted her videos and instantly saw her potential. “I was just playing an SE and [he] said, ‘I want to support you. You're great. I think you deserve to be playing on a USA model, not just an SE.’”

The guitarist-turned-patron, Al, gave her the choice of several models from his own collection before ultimately deciding to give her the very guitar she still owns today.

“I was like, ‘Whatever you want, I'll take it. It sounds good.’ I could not believe my eyes when it actually showed up. I'm endlessly grateful to Al, who gifted this guitar to me, and I believe I would not be the player I am today without that.”

Burrell notes that the PRS now feels like an “extension” of her – as soon as she picked it up for the first time, she “immediately clicked with it.

“I come up with my best ideas on this guitar,” she explains. “At this point, it kind of feels like it's part of my soul.”

“If [and] when I get a signature guitar, it would be this [one] in a different color.”

Controversially – or perhaps not so controversially – Burrell refuses to name her guitars. “I've never done that, and I probably never will. I'm just not much of a name-your-guitars type of person,” she admits.

“I name motorbikes, but not guitars.”

Mastodon will release their next album, Marrow Deep, on August 28, and have dropped a new single, Snakes for Dinner, which features Josh Homme.

Marrow Deep is the band’s ninth album, and first without former guitarist Brent Hinds, who left the group in March last year, and was killed in a motorcycle accident last August.

It will also be the first with new guitarist Nick Johnston and keyboardist João Nogueira, who has been added as an official member of the band. It makes for a new-look Mastodon.

The band has already released Your Ghost Again, which saw them face Hinds’ loss head-on, and last week released a short film that celebrated his life and legacy.

Homme, who previously featured on Colony of Birchmen, returns to the fore with some harmonized vocals, while Bill Kelliher and Johnston's riffs propel the track forward. Some fierce fretboard runs nod to the band’s Leviathan and Blood Mountain eras.

Marrow Deep is inspired by the Three Fates of Greek mythology. Life, loss, and destiny are three interconnected themes throughout, as the band prepares to release yet another album dominated by grieving.

Emperor of Sand found Bill Kelliher writing by his dying mother’s bedside, while its follow-up, Hushed & Grim, was underscored by the death of their manager, Nick John.

The album was recorded at West End Sound in Atlanta with Patrik Berger, who has worked with Lana Del Rey, and Kurt Ballou (High On Fire, Converge). The album is said to feature “a staggering roster of guests”, which will be revealed in due course.

Having wrapped summer dates with Loathe, Mastodon will embark on the Poisonous Weapons Tour, which starts in Orlando on September 16 and concludes on October 24 at Sick New World Dallas.

Marrow Deep is available to pre-order now.

Bob Dylan has hired yet another new guitarist as the folk great's ever-rotating cast of guest players gets its third name in as many weeks.

Jad Tariq follows Joel Patterson and Julian Lage into Dylan's band, which has been operating with a flexible assortment of guitarists over the past month.

Lage was a surprise addition to the band in late June, replacing the outgoing Doug Lancio. And, after Bob Britt abruptly left the tour, Joel Patterson was also hired.

But Lage has been in and out of the tour as he juggles other commitments, seemingly leading to Tariq's appointment.

Tariq debuted at the PNC Pavilion in Cincinnati on July 10, forming a tandem with Patterson. Given Lage’s absences, which have now been attributed to his busy solo schedule, it’s unclear if Tariq is deputizing in the short term or will become a more permanent appointment.

Often found playing Gibson hollow-body guitars, the Memphis-based guitarist blends swinging jazz with traditional 1950s-era rhythm and blues.

With Lage set for a string of North American shows in October, when Dylan is in Europe, Tariq may become a recurring figure in Dylan’s ever-changing live band throughout the rest of 2026.

Dylan is set to play Philadelphia’s Leader Bank Pavilion on July 14, before hitting Gilford, New Hampshire, two days later, and the Hartford HealthCare Ampitheater in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on July 19. Who will join him on those dates remains to be seen.

The folk musician, who famously stunned the music world when he went electric with Mike Bloomfield at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, has never been afraid to keep his fans on their toes. His latest guitarist shake-up is just another example of that.

From sideman to solo artist, Philip Sayce has carved his own lane, with his explosive blues-rock guitar playing and a soulful singing voice that follows close behind.

With more than two decades of touring under his belt, an electrifying live show, and a string of critically acclaimed albums, one enduring feature of Sayce’s playing is his affinity to the Fender Stratocaster, a tool that helps him continue his journey as an artist guided by heart, soul and authenticity.

He breaks down his essential Strats – and the secret to his electrifying tone.

What is it about your ’63 Stratocasters that makes them so special to you?

There’s just something about the ’63s from that era. I always felt like Fender hit the sweet spot with those guitars. You’d pick one up and go, ‘Oh, that’s a pretty good one… here’s another pretty good one.’ There was a consistency in the neck shape, the way they felt physically and how they sat when you played them.

The two that I have are from August and September ’63, and even though they’re different, they both just feel right. The pickups in both guitars are also outstanding.

There’s one that I call ‘Big Daddy’ and it’s just the biggest, widest, meanest-sounding Strat I’ve ever heard. It just spanks. The other one, that I call ‘Mother’, has a slightly different thing going on. It’s got ’58 pickups in it now, so it’s a little more airy and sparkly but still has that ’63 chunk.

Have you done much to them in terms of modifications or maintenance?

Yes, a little bit. I refretted them several times with pretty much the widest, tallest fretwire I could find. Because most of my vocabulary is around bending, it’s better for the feel and it holds up longer.

I tried to keep the original pots in there as long as possible, even to the detriment of the tone, but at some point they got so bad that I had to replace them. Some of the saddles also got to a point where they just wouldn’t move any more, so I had to replace a few of those, too.

How did you first get turned on to vintage Strats?

It was always a dream. All my heroes – Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Knopfler, Buddy Guy – they were playing those guitars. I had been hearing from players and collectors over and over again that the ’62s and ’63s were the sweet spot for vintage Strats. A friend of mine helped me find my first one.

The second one, the ‘Big Daddy’ Strat, was actually a guitar I missed out on years earlier. Then 10 or 15 years later, a buddy called me and said, ‘Hey, I just saw this guitar and it made me think of you.’ He sent a picture and it was the exact same guitar. So I sold a bunch of stuff and bought it. That one felt like it was meant to be.

Why do you think modern guitars still haven’t quite captured the tone and feel of vintage guitars?

I don’t think modern builders are getting it wrong or missing anything. The wood on a vintage guitar that’s 60-plus years old is dry and settled. When those guitars were made, that wood might’ve already been 100 years old. You can get really close now, but there’s maybe that last five or 10 per cent where it comes down to the resonance and the age of the wood.

The pickups make a huge difference, too. Some people have this idea that overwinding a pickup is better, and that’s not always true. The pickups in ‘Mother’ are from ’58. They’re slightly underwound and sound great.

We also did a project with Seymour Duncan, recreating the pickups from ‘Mother’, and it was fascinating, just really getting into the details of what made them sound that way. The Seymour Duncan team did a fabulous job and the Duncan Mother pickups sound fantastic.

How does your PRS Silver Sky fit in with your vintage Strats?

It’s really its own thing. It’s not competing with the ’63s; it’s got its own lane. It’s incredibly comfortable, it stays in tune and it just goes where you want it to go. I always say that vintage guitars are like muscle cars. You hear that rumble, and you just know what it is.

The Silver Sky is like a modern performance car. It’s got all the bells and whistles and it handles the corners really well. It doesn’t fight you at all. It’s like the wind is at your back when you’re playing it.

Do you play differently depending on the guitar?

Not really in a big way. I mean, the feel is a little different, but it’s more about what the guitar gives you and how it responds. With the old guitars, once you get them dialled in with a good luthier, they just feel like an old pair of jeans or an old baseball glove. Nothing feels quite like that. The Silver Sky is really comfortable, too, and I actually like to warm up on it.

Which guitars do you take out on the road these days?

Most of the time I’ll bring ‘Big Daddy’ and the Silver Sky, so just two guitars. Sometimes I’ll bring another guitar, but those two cover a lot of ground. In a perfect world, I’d bring 10 guitars, but you gotta make it work with what you can carry.

When did you start seriously exploring tone beyond just guitars?

Playing beside Jeff Healey kind of forced it. His Marshalls sounded huge on stage, and I needed something that could keep up. Not just in volume but in the way it responded. While I was out on the road with Jeff, I contacted Cesar Diaz [legendary amp tech], who had worked on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s amps.

I sent him a late-’60s 100-watt Fender Dual Showman head, and when I got it back it was insane. The best amp I’d ever heard with unbelievable punch, sustain and clarity.

Later he invited me to stay at his place for a few days, so I brought a Super Reverb and a Bassman for him to work on. I got to spend time in his ’shop while he built some pedals for me as well. It was very hands-on where I would play, give him feedback and he would mess with the amp. He dialled in my Super Reverb in about 20 minutes [laughs]. He was amazing.

We worked on getting my guitars and Fuzz Face to interact with the amp the right way. I was also looking for clarity with almost a hi-fi sound but not harsh or shrill. Cesar approached amps the way a tailor fits a suit. Watching him work was like seeing magic happen before my eyes [smiles].

Did that experience also influence your choice of speakers from there on out?

Absolutely. When I brought the Super Reverb to Cesar’s shop it had 40-watt Naylor 10-inch speakers in it. Cesar thought they sounded good but knew I would need something better. That’s when he turned me on to Electro-Voice speakers.

I eventually started using EVM12Ls in most of my touring cabinets with Jeff Healey and later with Melissa Etheridge because they were so strong and reliable. Once you feel a 4x12 with EVs, it’s hard to go back.

For the past 15 years or so I’ve also worked closely with amp designer Tommy Cougar [of Custom by Cougar] in Sweden. He’s incredible and, in my opinion, the best living amp guy in the world right now. Tommy studied Cesar’s work as well as Alexander Dumble’s.

He also turned me on to JBL speakers, which I use today in my Super Reverb. That approach really comes from the lineage of players like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmie Vaughan, Albert Collins and Freddie King.

Those guys were all using big JBL speakers to get that sound. To get my sound, I typically go for high-headroom Fender or Marshall style amps. I keep them clean and push the front-end with a pedal, rather than relying on heavy preamp gain.

Did that experience shift how you think about tone?

Yeah, it taught me that tone is really about response. The amp has to react to your hands. If you play softly it opens up, and if you dig in it pushes back. When that relationship works, you stop fighting the instrument and start communicating through it.

• Scorched Earth, Vol. 2 (Live from LA and London) is out now via Atomic Gemini.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

This feature was originally published in the June 2016 issue of Guitar World.

By the fall of 1985, David Lee Roth had seemingly put the breakup of Van Halen in his rearview mirror.

Hoping to capitalize on his MTV-driven video stardom, Diamond Dave now set his sights on the big screen.

Along with his creative partner and manager Pete Angelus and writer Jerry Perzigian, Roth wrote a screenplay entitled Crazy from the Heat. Angelus and Roth then sold it to CBS Theatrical Films, secured a 10 million dollar budget, and camped out on the CBS movie lot in Burbank to do pre-production for the musical comedy. Angelus recalls, “I was going to direct it and Dave was going to star in it.” If all went according to plan, Crazy would hit theaters in the summer of 1986.

But in early November, just days before they would begin shooting, the phone rang in their studio offices. It was Roth’s attorneys calling to deliver some terrible news. CBS, facing serious financial woes, had shuttered its film division, leaving Angelus and Roth without a means to make their movie.

Angelus says, “When we put the phone down, I remember we were both kind of speechless for a moment. We’d spent the better part of a year preparing for that film. We’d done the casting. We’d done the location scouting. We’d been working with the set designers and the wardrobe people. We were fully into it and fully prepared.” At that moment, it appeared all their work had been for naught.

This setback seemed tailor-made to trigger a crisis of confidence for Roth. He’d trumpeted his movie plans in the press throughout the summer past, previewing a bikini-packed plot that would see rock star Roth squaring off against his greedy manager while on an island vacation.

He’d minimize the challenges inherent in filmmaking, declaring on the David Brenner Live show that both starring in and making a film was the “next logical step” after his success with video. “It’s the same thing… except our movies have been three minutes and twenty-eight seconds. So now it’s time to just bump it up to 90 minutes.” But now it seemed unlikely that his movie would ever arrive in theaters.

Meanwhile, Roth’s former bandmates in Van Halen had seemingly suffered no ill effects from his summer 1985 departure. They had a new blond-maned, leather-lunged lead singer, Sammy Hagar, and had begun work on the follow-up to their multi-platinum smash, 1984.

Roth also had to live with the fact that Eddie Van Halen, who’d told Roth in the spring of 1985 that he had no interest in scoring Crazy because the guitarist expected the film would “probably stink,” seemed to have made the right decision after Roth’s deal disappeared.

But as the months that followed would demonstrate, Roth was nothing if not resilient.

In the summer of 1986, the rock superstar would re-emerge with a hot new band comprised of virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai, bassist extraordinaire Billy Sheehan, and monster drummer Gregg Bissonette. He’d release a million-selling new album, Eat ’Em and Smile, and two new MTV-hit videos, Yankee Rose and Goin’ Crazy, all built upon the creative foundation he’d laid down for the aborted Crazy from the Heat. He’d follow that up with a barnstorming six-month tour of North America.

Despite stepping out from Van Halen, the massively popular act that had been the vehicle for his stardom, and the unexpected loss of his hard-won movie deal, Roth proved that he could weather adversity and still come out on top, smiling from ear to ear.

In early June 1985, nimble-fingered bassist Billy Sheehan, then a member of the heavy metal band Talas, got an unexpected phone call at his Buffalo home. “It’s from David Lee Roth’s office. He wants me to be in his movie. Can I come out to L.A. right away and talk to him?” Sheehan immediately said yes, passing the word to Roth’s representative that the timing for this meeting was ideal, since the upcoming Talas and Yngwie Malmsteen tour would commence at the Hollywood Palladium on June 7.

Sheehan, who’d gotten to know Roth back in 1980 when Talas had toured with Van Halen, made plans to arrive in L.A. a couple of days early. But prior to leaving home, Sheehan rang up a friend. He says, “I called Ed Van Halen to see if he wanted to come down to the Palladium show. At the time, I didn’t know anything about Van Halen breaking up. Ed said he was busy and couldn’t come, but said, ‘Have a good show!’” Before Sheehan got off the phone, he mentioned that he’d recently received a call from Roth.

“Wait. What! Why’d he call you?”

“Oh, he wants to have a meeting with me at his house.”

“Really? You’re kidding! You’ve got to call me back as soon as you have the meeting, because I think he’s going to pull an Ozzy Osbourne on us.”

In other words, Van Halen’s guitarist suspected that Roth’s next move was to become a solo artist, much like Ozzy had done in 1979 after leaving Black Sabbath.

Sheehan says that he now realized that he’d stumbled onto a minefield of inter-band politics. “I thought, ‘Jeez, now I’m in the middle of something,’ but I went ahead with the meeting with Dave.”

A few days later, Roth detailed his movie plans and laid out his vision for his new group to Sheehan. “We had the talk,” Sheehan recalls, “and decided to start the band. He said, ‘It will be you and me. We’ll find a guitar player and a drummer.’”

Sheehan agreed to join forces with Roth as soon as his two-month tour with Talas ended, but after the singer swore him to secrecy, Sheehan realized he couldn’t return an important call. “So now my head’s about to explode, and I said to myself, ‘Well, I better not call Ed back.’ I felt terrible, because I was friends with Ed.”

As it turned out, Eddie wouldn’t need an update from Sheehan. Around the same time, he and Roth had a climactic meeting of their own at Roth’s place, with the longtime musical partners deciding that it was time for them to go their separate ways.

“When I shook Edward’s hand goodbye,” Roth explained later, “we hugged each other and cried and said, ‘Hey, it’s musical differences and career differences, like all bands.’”

For his part, Roth left that meeting with the impression that their parting was mutual and amicable. But once the star guitarist bitterly denounced Roth for leaving the band to become a movie star in the August 15, 1985, edition of Rolling Stone, an occurrence that Angelus says shocked both him and Roth, the rock world knew that Van Halen had broken up.

Roth shook off this unpleasant episode by searching for a guitar player to pair with Sheehan. After consulting with Ted Templeman, who’d be producing the forthcoming soundtrack album for Crazy from the Heat, Roth offered the gig to Billy Idol axman Steve Stevens. But Stevens told Roth that because of his musical commitments to Idol, he couldn’t work with Diamond Dave sooner than the following summer, a schedule that was unworkable in light of Roth’s movie timetable.

Roth then circled back to Sheehan and Templeman for advice. Sheehan recalls that after Stevens passed, “I mentioned Steve Vai to Dave, and I may have mentioned him to Ted as well.”

Templeman, who’d gotten turned onto Vai’s astounding playing some time earlier, remembers endorsing the former Zappa and current Alcatrazz guitarist for Roth’s new band during an impromptu listening session.

“Dave had a beat-up, noisy cassette of Steve Vai, and we listened together in some garage with the tape player on the fender of a car. I said to Dave, ‘Yes, that’s the guy.’”

Roth then placed a call to the guitarist. Vai said at the time, “I pick up the phone and hear, ‘Hey man, this is David Lee Roth. How ya doin’, Steve? I’m making a movie and I’m looking for some music.’” Vai, who’d just finished working on the soundtrack for the blues-themed movie Crossroads, agreed to get together with Roth and Sheehan once he finished a short summer tour with Alcatrazz.

By August, Vai, along with his drummer Chris Frazier, would appear at the Roth mansion to jam with Sheehan and Roth. Sheehan recalls, “Steve came down to Dave’s basement, and he brought his drummer with him. Chris had worked with Steve on a couple of records.”

Once they plugged in and tuned up, the first signs of the remarkable musical chemistry that made the original Roth band so powerful made themselves manifest, according to Vai. “The moment we started jamming,” he told journalist John Stix, “it sounded great.”

By the end of that day, Vai had the gig, which made perfect sense to Sheehan, and not just because of his remarkable fretwork. “I love Steve Stevens, but Steve Vai had that Zappa-esque, tongue-in-cheek, comedic, entertainment vibe that was really important for the Eat ’Em and Smile band, because we’d be involved in a lot of comedy in our live show.”

Over the next few weeks, Sheehan and Roth, with Frazier on drums, worked up approximately 15 song ideas. In late September, however, Roth abruptly decided to audition other drummers rather than giving Frazier the gig. Sheehan comments, “Chris is an awesome drummer, but for whatever reason, Dave wanted to get somebody else.”

After placing want ads in the local trade papers, Vai and Sheehan set up shop at Hollywood’s S.I.R. Studios. Even though the listings didn’t mention David Lee Roth, word traveled fast in the Hollywood rock community that a coveted spot in Roth’s band was up for grabs. On the morning of the audition, scores of drummers flocked to S.I.R.

One of them was Detroit native Gregg Bissonette. The drummer, who’d gotten an invite call from Vai thanks to a referral from former Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent, had a résumé that at first glance seemed ill-suited for a hard rock outfit like the David Lee Roth Band. After graduating with a degree in music from North Texas State, he’d been the drummer for The Merv Griffin Show, soft-rocker Gino Vannelli, and jazz legend Maynard Ferguson. Still, he’d grown up a big rock fan.

Bissonette was thrilled about the opportunity, but when he arrived, his heart sank. “I just remember this huge line, just down the block.”

As he waited, he questioned friends who emerged from the audition room. Bissonette recalls, “I asked Matt Sorum, who later played with the Cult and Guns N’ Roses, and he said, ‘Oh they wanted me to play double bass, but I don’t really play much double bass.’ I did know Hot for Teacher really well, because I was a huge Van Halen fan. So I’m in line, and now I’m getting my feet warmed up, thinking, ‘Here we go – it’s double bass!’”

Soon it was Bissonette’s turn. “So I walk in the room, and it’s Steve and Billy and this funky old drum set. I sat right down and they said, ‘Hey, could you play a solo for us?’” After Bissonette finished, Vai showed him a guitar part that would later be enshrined on Roth’s 1988 album, Skyscraper.

“This piece would end up being Hot Dog and a Shake. Steve wanted me to hit these breaks with him and Billy, and during all that, he would solo. So as Steve was talking I reached into my backpack and took out a Sharpie. I’d brought my own snare, so I started writing out these figures on my snare head. Steve goes, ‘Woah! So you can read and write music? This is amazing!’”

The next day, Bissonette’s phone rang. It was Vai, who told him, “Hey, you’re a great guy and we love the way you play. We’re all going to meet at Dave’s place today, and we’re going to have you play for Dave.”

As Bissonette explained to Modern Drummer, this jam session couldn’t have gone better. “I went in the next day, met Dave, and we played… It was just like magic.” Soon after, he’d audition for Templeman, who, like Roth, came away impressed by Bissonette’s big-band experience and killer chops.

But before Roth told Bissonette he had the gig, he attended to some pressing film-related business.

On October 27, the Fabulous Picasso Brothers, as Angelus and Roth had dubbed their creative partnership, held an old-time cattle call audition at the Hollywood Palace in order to cast new talent for Crazy. With Sheehan, Vai, and Bissonette looking on, Roth marveled at the droves of the wildly attired actors and scantily dressed actresses, telling the Los Angeles Times, “This is a hell of a way to spend a Sunday, isn’t it?”

Bissonette, who like Vai and Sheehan, had never experienced this kind of rock pandemonium, says, “There were just lines of girls in bikinis.”

Bissonette’s week only would get better.

On a night that underscored just how high Diamond Dave’s star had risen in 1985, Roth informed Bissonette that he’d gotten the gig on the same night the singer would be appearing live on national TV. “It was Halloween,” the drummer recalls, “and Dave said, ‘I’m going to be on The Tonight Show tonight!’ Joan Rivers was the guest host, and we all went down to the set. It was like a dream when they told me.”

Bissonette now went to work with the others as they rehearsed and worked up new material. During these sessions, the three sequestered themselves in Roth’s basement while Roth and Angelus worked upstairs on pre-production for Crazy from the Heat. Vai says, “Once we’d all gotten into the basement and started jamming, writing, and playing, it was a very open, free, creative environment.”

Sheehan stresses that much of this creativity flowed from the fact that he and Vai shared many of the same musical influences. He says, “Steve and I were into a lot of the same bands, like early Bowie and Hendrix. When we came up with musical ideas we’d say, ‘That’s kind of a Hendrix-y thing’ or ‘That’s kind of a Bowie-thing.’ The ZZ Top shuffle and the ZZ Top feel were a big part of the influence too.”

Roth, listening through the floor, would regularly join them to review the new material. Sheehan says, “Dave would come downstairs and tell us what he liked, and what he didn’t like. We threw away what he disliked, and then he’d say, ‘Okay, now come up with a chorus.’ We eventually came up with all of these pieces of music.”

Roth also helped inspire Vai and Sheehan’s manic and sophisticated solo parts. As Sheehan explained in Guitar World, when he’d ask Roth, “Hey, Dave, is this bass part too busy?” Roth would shoot back, “No, do it twice as fast and Steve, you double it.” Likewise, Vai told Guitar Player that when he’d ask Roth if he was “overplaying,” Roth would reply, “No, keep going.”

Along with original material, the band considered a number of cover songs for their upcoming release.

Sheehan recalls, “I was in the Kim Mitchell band briefly. He’d sent me a demo with four songs. Kids in Action was one of them, and I just loved it. I played it for Dave and he really dug it. He also dug a Rory Gallagher song I played for him. It was from one of his mindblowing Rockpalast concert performances. I think it was called Secret Agent.”

Roth had plenty of song suggestions too, one of them being Speak of the Devil by the early Seventies Texas power-trio Stray Dog. “He played it for us,” Sheehan says, “and we all said, ‘It’s perfect.’”

At the same time, Roth and Angelus worked to prepare everyone for filming. Vai, who recalls the zany plot included parts for all of the band members, says, “We had a lot of fun preparing for the movie. We got together with [choreographer] Toni Basil and started working out choreography for the songs. It was going to be really great.”

Sheehan says that Roth and Angelus even arranged for a private showing of a cult film that had inspired them as they worked on Crazy. Sheehan continues, “We went to a screening of a 1940s movie called Hellzapoppin’. It’s just a wild, amazing movie, with a bunch of skits and vignettes and craziness. That was one of the templates Dave and Pete were using.”

Sheehan likewise remembers that as filming drew closer, the tunes they wrote soon made their way into the script. “I know songs like Goin’ Crazy were going to be integrated into the movie somehow. I remember reading the dialogue in the movie, and there were a lot of scenes with the band.” These musical scenes included a concert performance of Shy Boy and a nightclub scene that featured Roth crooning his way through Sinatra’s That’s Life.

All of this planning and scheming, however, came to a standstill on that fateful November day when CBS pulled the plug.

Angelus says that after the initial shock dissipated, they began discussing their options, asking each other: Apart from litigation against CBS for breach of contract, what’s our next step? Sheehan recalls telling Roth that day, “‘The hell with it. We’ve got a band. We’ve got songs. Let’s go out and tour!’ Not that he already didn’t think that, and not that he needed any encouragement from me, but I just remember thinking, ‘I’m ready to play.’”

Roth would get clarity about the next moves to make once he, like Sheehan, considered the full breadth of the creative endeavors they all had underway.

“The movie was just one part of a whole program,” he explained to Creem. “Obviously, when the movie fell out, we just continued with the rest of the program.” Angelus observes that what Roth termed “the program” had included “a coordinated release of the film, the [soundtrack] record, and, of course, the tour to accompany it.”

With his film in limbo, Roth and Templeman held pre-production meetings for what would now be a stand-alone rock record rather than a soundtrack album. They decided that the forthcoming Eat ’Em and Smile would include covers and originals, ones that represented a middle ground between the pop flavored, big-band sound of Roth’s Crazy from the Heat EP and the guitar-oriented pop metal showcased on his albums with Van Halen.

As Diamond Dave would later say, even though he’d put together a band capable of playing the most technically sophisticated heavy metal, he didn’t want fans of California Girls wondering “what happened to the brass on this record? Where’s the saxophone? Where’s the shoobee-doobee-doo-bop?”

In late November, just days after the movie was put on hold, the four musicians entered Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios with Templeman and engineer Jeff Hendrickson.

Hendrickson, who’d already worked with Templeman on Hagar’s V.O.A., Aerosmith’s Mirrors, and Roth’s Crazy EP, recalls that the producer had a particular way he liked to begin recording sessions. “Ted and I usually tracked everything in the first couple of days, so the band could just get a feel for things. Sometimes we would keep those as our master takes because they’d turn out so well.”

Templeman believed that this cut-live approach helped musicians avoid the dreaded red light fright and allowed him to determine which songs would ultimately work best on the album.

“We got a lot of keepers that way,” Hendrickson observes, “because when the band members don’t feel like they are on the spot, they play like they do when they’re out on the road, and so you get a lot better feel. But then again, sometimes you’d hear that a certain track would need a lot of work, or even that a track isn’t going to work at all.”

Templeman and Roth then listened back. They’d initially settle on 11 tracks for the album. These included six Vai/Roth compositions and five covers, including the Sheehan-penned headbanger Shy Boy, which dated from his Talas days.

While Roth was well accustomed to Templeman’s ways of working, it took a bit of getting used to for Vai, who had a very different mindset when it came to studio work.

“At times I didn’t know if I liked [Ted’s approach],” he explained to Guitar Player. “But then I realized, boy, it’s really fun. Get in there and do it. We kept about 50 percent of what Dave sang on the basic tracks. I’m used to sitting in the studio and tweaking and playing and punching and tweaking some more and EQ’ing and punching again. With this, it’s get in there and kill the guy with the ball.”

Templeman’s method, as it had done for him and Roth during their Van Halen days, paid dividends at Fantasy. The four musicians produced high-energy, minimal-overdub takes of Roth classics like Tobacco Road, Goin’ Crazy, and even the frenetic Shy Boy.

In the weeks that followed, the band would reconvene in New York to track at the hottest studio in America, the Power Station. Roth, in particular, loved working there because he felt inspired by Manhattan’s energetic street vibe.

“The Power Station is in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, which is more dangerous than New Guinea,” he proclaimed to a reporter. “When you’re there for more than a month recording, you’re bound to soak up a lot of the anxiety from the surrounding streets, and that comes out on the album.”

One track that generated some New York anxiety for Vai was the languid Ladies Nite in Buffalo.

Vai recalled that his original demo “had tons of keyboards and all sorts of guitar overdubs.” But when Templeman had asked the band to first run through Buffalo, Vai gamely collapsed all of his guitar parts into one so they could cut the song live, fully intending to replace this basic track and overdub multiple guitar lines in the coming days.

Templeman, however, had a different take. When he played the track back for everyone, he thought the guitarist had pretty much nailed the song on his first pass. Vai, in turn, thought Templeman had lost his mind. As Vai told Guitar Player, “Of course, being an artist, I hemmed and hawed: ‘I want to do it again.’”

Hendrickson recalls, “Vai kept fighting us because he felt his rough track was terrible. He was so meticulous. But he’d played this basic track that just blew everybody away. We couldn’t believe he wanted to change it.”

Ultimately, Vai says, Templeman and the others got him to see that his guitar part “was beautiful the way it was.”

Despite Templeman’s aversion to overdubbing, a persistent Vai did convince the producer to let him add additional guitar parts to the album. For example, he says, “I remember we were doing Elephant Gun and I said I wanted to double the guitar part. Because the part is all over the place, Ted goes, ‘What do you mean, double it?’

“I can double every single little thing, perfectly.”

After first saying no, Templeman did give the go-ahead. Vai started to double the part, but before he finished, he broke a string. Templeman said, “Well, probably we should just leave it with the one guitar.” Soon after, the producer departed the studio for the day.

Vai immediately went to work. He says, “I finished it. And when Ted heard it the next day, he liked it, so that’s why it made the record.”

Vai also layered some of his patented guitar eccentricity on what would be the album’s first single, Yankee Rose.

As he explained to Guitar Player, “The half-time section in the middle had this nice little arpeggioed chordal thing that was kind of open and bare. So I said, ‘Let me try putting a solo on it. Let me try something weird.’ I hooked up a couple of delays set to some long delay… and they rolled the tape.”

Roth also had some ideas for the guitar parts for Yankee Rose. While Vai overdubbed, Roth got him focused on constructing an outro solo that might be visually arresting for MTV audiences. Roth coached Vai, saying, “Here in the video I want you to do something where you can take the guitar and ram it between your legs.” Vai then came up with the whipsawing whammy bar licks for the song’s conclusion.

Despite Roth’s MTV-driven mindset, the New York sessions also produced a song seemingly more suited for the Thirties than the Eighties.

I’m Easy, a spirited big-band song originally recorded by Australian singer Billy Field, came into Roth’s orbit thanks to Templeman, who thought it fit perfectly with Roth’s “Gigolo” persona. Bissonette recalls that, weeks earlier, when the producer had played it for the band during pre-production, he said, “Gregg, this is going to be right up your alley, because you’re used to kicking five trumpets, five trombones, five saxes.”

At this point, Bissonette got to draw on his musical connections from his Maynard Ferguson days as Templeman worked to recruit session players for the track. He recalls, “Ted said, ‘Hey Gregg, you seem to know everybody. So can you help us put together a killer big band in New York?’ I said, ‘Man, I sure can.’” On the day of the New York session, Ted pulled Bissonette aside to thank him, saying, “Wow, you got all the A-list guys.”

Vai also played a vital role in making the horn parts on I’m Easy sound great. He explained, “I wrote the score and directed the horn section. You should have seen it. I had snakeskin pants on, my hair was flipped out, and I was sitting in this director’s chair with a baton in one hand and a big score in another. Twelve of New York’s best studio blowers were there, and I’m going, ‘Okay, now, can you make this a little more staccato over here?’”

Bissonette says everyone was amazed as they watched the Berklee-trained Vai, nominally a guitarist, do this work for the track. “He just sat down with pen and manuscript paper and wrote out the big band arrangements. The session guys then played along with our track and overdubbed. It was phenomenal.”

As the final overdubbing sessions wrapped up in the spring, Templeman and Roth looked to trim their song list down to 10 songs from the 11 they’d completed.

Ultimately, Kids in Action didn’t make the cut, to the dismay of both songwriter Kim Mitchell and ace session keyboardist Jeff Bova, who’d added synths to the track while the band worked at the Power Station. Bova observes, “I know they were toying with keeping either Kids in Action or Tobacco Road. I remember when the album came out being a bit disappointed because I did a lot of cool keyboard stuff on Kids.” To this day, the track remains unreleased.

With the album in the can, the Fabulous Picasso Brothers turned to scripting and filming promo videos for two of Eat ’Em and Smile’s forthcoming singles: Yankee Rose and Goin’ Crazy! Determined to make good use of their months of effort on Crazy, Roth and Angelus scripted two mini-movies as preludes to the band performance footage that would be the centerpieces of the videos.

Along with casting many of the performers who’d been slated to appear in the movie, they also drew upon their months of work on wardrobes and makeup. As Sheehan explains, “Most of the clothes we had in the Eat ’Em and Smile videos, and the fat suit that Dave wore in Goin’ Crazy, those were all meant for the movie, initially.”

Bissonette adds, “Goin’ Crazy and Yankee Rose were a big part of the proposed look of that movie. Even though Crazy didn’t happen, the videos sure did, and they were amazing. To this day, nobody makes videos like that.”

In June, Roth unleashed an all-out promotional campaign. He talked about his new band, album, and upcoming tour to the press with enthusiasm, telling a reporter, “If you love Van Halen, if you like rock and rolling, you’re going to be blown away. We’ve got all kinds of new tricks to show you.”

He was much less sanguine, however, when it came to the current incarnation of his former band. Responding to the salvos fired at him over the prior months by Hagar and company, Roth stated, “Whenever you have a big ugly divorce, there’s hurt feelings. On the other hand, Sammy’s only angry because he knows I’m better than he is.”

On July 7, Eat ’Em and Smile finally dropped. Driven by the success of Yankee Rose at radio and on MTV, the album would peak at Number 4 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. In the weeks that followed, Warner Bros. Records would also release the Van Halen–esque Goin’ Crazy, and the Sinatra standard That’s Life as singles, pushing sales of the LP over one million copies by the fall.

The Eat ’Em and Smile tour, which began in August, likewise did big business, from the first date onward. Vai, who’d never played arenas before, says that in fact the tour’s sold-out opening night provided him with one of the most vivid memories of his career.

“It was just amazing to be on that tour, but being on the stage that first night was a shock. You realize you’re now a rock star performer. There are 20,000 people out there, and you’ve got to deliver. At one point, Dave did this thing where he just stops and puts the mic out to the crowd. The screaming went on for like 10 minutes. It was so loud that Billy and I were looking at each other because we were scared. It was louder than our amps. I just thought, ‘What’s happened? Because this is wild.’”

Every night the four musicians, along with tour keyboardist Brett Tuggle, would blast through a setlist packed with new Roth favorites and classic Van Halen tunes, interspersed by flashy solo segments by Bissonette, Vai, and Sheehan. But as Sheehan explained to Guitar World, the solo performances of the two guitar players became more engaging as the tour progressed, thanks to the input of Angelus and Roth.

“We needed to come up with something to entertain everyone. At the start of the tour, I did my solo the same way I always did it, and Steve did his own solo, too. Although the musicians in the crowd may have loved it, I’m sure a lot of the other people were yawning… So Pete Angelus suggested that we do a guitar duel – and it’s a riot.”

Sheehan says with a smile that Roth’s advice was to “make it like a contest, like a tractor pull. That was the phrase he used. So Steve would come out there and start playing, I’d come up behind him and stop him and push him out of the way and play a while, then he’d push me out of the way. Then we’d push each other, and chase each other around until we’d get to the end when we’d have this big grand finale.”

Over the course of the next six months, Sheehan, Vai, and the rest of the band would play over 100 dates, entertaining arena audiences all across the continent.

Today, members of the group are both nostalgic about and proud of their accomplishments during these years. Sheehan, who’d leave the group in early 1988, says, “My experience with Eat ’Em and Smile and Dave was just amazing and incredible. On tour, places were packed, there were gorgeous girls, and everybody was at the top of their game.”

Vai adds, “Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect, and all the elements came together. You could put on the biggest stage show, and you could wear anything you wanted, and boy did we ever. But what was most exciting to me is the rawness, intensity, and attitude of the music.”

Bissonette remarks that since “the David Lee Roth band was my first big rock gig,” these years will always have a special place in his heart. “Dave,” the drummer says, gave “me my platinum musical passport, good over the world. It’s been the coolest.”

Today, both fans and band members are hopeful for a reunion of the classic Eat ’Em lineup. This is especially true after the Hollywood fire marshal blocked Roth, Vai, Sheehan, Bissonette, and Tuggle from performing at an oversold Lucky Strike Live on November 25, 2015, in what would have been their first performance together in decades.

Vai says ruefully, “The Lucky Strike thing was almost like rock star interruptus. People say the fire marshal stopped us minutes before we went on, but it was seconds. I was standing behind the curtain with a hot guitar in my hands and I was ready to start. I did everything I could to get us to play, but we just couldn’t. Afterward I thought we’ve got to do something together, because there’s just too much cool energy here.”

While everyone’s schedules are packed, there’s a shared desire among the principals that they should all reconvene at some point soon, assuming Roth will light the fuse again.

Sheehan observes, “It’s all up to Dave. This is his game. If he wants to do it, I’m so into it. Ideally, it would be great to record a song or two and then go out and do a bunch of shows: Europe, USA, maybe South America, Japan. It would be great, to get everybody together again, to do it all again, just for the hell of it.”

Vai says, “I think that would be really nice to honor the legacy of the Eat ’Em and Smile album and band. There doesn’t have to be any big commitment. It would just be about getting out there and bringing it home, the way we used to do it, while we still have the juice, which we do.”

Last November, Roth appeared to leave the door open to a reunion, suggesting to fans on his way out of Lucky Strike Live that one day the group might have to book the Hollywood Palladium and give it another go.

Pedals Week 2026: The stompbox does not belong in these times. A crude metal brick studded with switches and dials, its scuffed footswitch still bearing your bootprint from last night’s gig, its innards a tangle of wires and solder globs – the format is a far cry from the intangible, unknowable sleekness of modeling software.

But perhaps that’s why stompboxes have endured – even flourished – on the modern scene. “People still love turning knobs,” shrugs Reverb’s Senior Director of Analytics, Cyril Nigg, as he prepares to mine the data for GW’s week-long celebration of pedals. “There's just something very satisfying about looking down and seeing your chain of effects and dialling it in. With stompboxes, it's cause and effect, right? I love it. And I'm guessing you love it too.”

What’s the overall health of the pedal market in 2026?

“First of all, people still love pedals. Y’know, we’re selling thousands a day on Reverb. There’s been 100 new pedals released so far this year, so it’s still a thriving market. It’s hard to find a brand-new pedal that hasn’t got more expensive over the last five years. Cost of materials, tariffs, labor costs, all of those things have gone up.

“But then, if you look at the used market, prices have actually been pretty steady. And we know this because we built the Reverb price index, which shows millions of transactions since 2018, just to help us understand how the whole market is moving.”

What pedal categories are selling best in 2026?

“Prices on vintage and rare pedals – y’know, things primarily made in the ’70s through the ’90s, like a Moogerfooger or a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz – are up about 20% year over year, and 50% higher than pre-pandemic. And then, if you look at effects categories: overdrive, distortion, fuzz, that group is all up about 25% since 2019.

“Delays have done well, they’re up about 15% in that period. Of the four main modulation categories, flange has always been the least popular and chorus is still number one by far. But tremolo used to be number two until, like, 2020, when the phaser overtook it.”

Which specific pedals do people want in 2026?

“One that’s definitely come up, especially recently, is the Analog Man King Of Tone. They’re still a boutique builder and they’ve kept that supply limited. To get a new one, you have to email Mike Piera, and I’ve been on the waiting list for a while now. So prices have gone [up sharply]. He sells them for, like, $350 direct, but they regularly sell for over $750 now, and they’ll go up even more if he stops producing them.

“That’s certainly one of the iconic pedals to have. Then there’s the Klons: the KTR and the Horsie/Centaur, those are always in high demand. The Nobels ODR-1, especially the ’90s version, which became the Nashville session pedal – those are selling for, like, $1,000.

“Other things like a Shin-ei Uni-Vibe: you’ll get about $2,500 to $3,000 for those. Of course, there’s the original Roland Space Echo, and the Dallas Arbiter Germanium Fuzz Face will go for around $3,000.”

How expensive can a pedal get on Reverb?

“We regularly sell pedals for thousands of dollars. We’ve certainly sold some original Klons for over 10 grand. And pedals with provenance or a story behind it, something that’s been owned by an artist, or really early serial numbers, those command an even higher price. Recently, Denmark Guitars in London sold Kurt Cobain’s original ’80s BOSS DS-1, used both live and in the studio during Nirvana’s Nevermind era [for $9,748].”

What are the hottest eras of production?

“I think there’s two primary periods. There’s the early days, from the late-’60s into the late-’70s. So y’know, the original Fuzz Face, Uni-Vibe, Space Echo, Mu-Tron, the early wahs, Tone Benders, all that stuff that the Stones, Hendrix, Pete Townshend and these guys used.

“Then it kinda leapfrogs into the ’90s, when you get brands like Nobels, Lovetone, some of the early Way Huge pedals. That ’90s era that has gotten very popular, almost in line with the classic ’60s and ’70s stuff.”

How about the big losers in the pedal market?

“One category that has certainly gone down is multi-effects, which are down about 15% since 2019 and 5% year over year. There’s probably two things driving that. One is the rise of amp modelers. If you’re looking at a Neural DSP, Axe-FX or Fractal, they operate not only as an amp in a box, but also a multi-effects.

“Also, with multi-effects pedals, the technology kinda goes out of out of favor. Like, the newest version of a multi-effects usually has better engines, the sounds are better, they’ve evolved the interface.

“But if you go back a few years, those multi-effects units just don’t sound as good. Whereas, with an individual stompbox, a lot of the good ones are analog, and even the digital ones, they’ve really honed in the sound, and it does its job really well.

“I haven’t really seen that amp modelers have impacted the popularity of individual pedals. Based on the data we see, a lot of people are buying both individual pedals and amp modeling units. Also, people will often have two or three rigs: maybe a traditional setup, and then, if they’re playing gigs, they might recreate that on an Axe-FX or Neural DSP Quad Cortex.”

Have any companies bucked the trend?

“Hologram Electronics are interesting, because they’ve really kept their catalog pretty limited, and one of their best-selling pedals is the Chroma Console, which is actually a multi-effects unit. It’s usually in our top 20 best-selling pedals, but it’s going against the grain. Whereas most other multi-effects are trying to hang on, that one has actually done really well.”

Have any iconic pedals cooled in popularity?

“I’ll put this one out there. The Klon Horsie: they’re still, like, $5,000, so it’s not like there’s not a lot of demand. But at the peak of the pandemic, they were closer to $6,000 or $7,000. So they’ve certainly come down from their peak. They’re still legendary, but people aren’t willing to pay quite as much as they once were. But there’s not many examples of legendary pedals falling off.”

What’s your advice for buying and selling pedals on Reverb?

“Pedals are one of the easiest things to sell. They retain their value well, they’re pretty indestructible, they’re easy to ship. Make sure you price it correctly, using Reverb’s price guide. That’s the most important thing. And then, taking good pictures, being honest about the condition, saving the box and accessories – those things always help.

“On the buyer side, if you have a specific pedal you’re looking for – say, a Lovetone Big Cheese – set up a save search to get notified when anyone lists one or it gets a price drop. You often have to act quickly. And don’t be afraid to make offers. On Reverb, most of the sellers are open to that.

“I’d also say that pedals are one of the best ways to get a different sound without spending a lot of money. Particularly if you buy used. You could spend, like, 50 to 100 bucks, buy a chorus pedal and a DS-1, and get Kurt Cobain’s sound. Or plug in a Phase 90 and sound like Waylon Jennings or Eddie Van Halen – with the right touch.”

Finally, if you could invest in any pedal, what would you choose?

“Right now, maybe an Analog Man King Of Tone. But of course, an original Fuzz Face. It’s so iconic. I grew up wanting to sound like Hendrix, and you see that big red pedal and it conjures up that sound in your mind…”

• Check out to Reverb’s price guide for more insight on pedal price trends.

Marshall has partnered with Billie Joe Armstrong for the 1959BJA – a baby-blue signature head that pays tribute to the Green Day leader’s first guitar.

The amp received a soft launch at the 2026 Super Bowl five months ago, when the punk icons performed at the opening ceremony on February 8.

Eagle-eyed viewers were drawn to what Armstrong had plugged his Gibson Les Paul Junior into. A signature amp was speculated. Now it’s been confirmed.

The 1959BJA, “Marshall’s first signature amp in 14 years”, is inspired by one of punk rock’s most recognizable guitar tones, serving up a 100-watt head that features three ECC83 pre-amp valves and EL34 power amps.

Specifically, the amp draws from Armstrong’s 1959HW head, which boasts a custom “Dookie Mod” in a bid to recreate the sound of the record of the same name. The 1994 album introduced hits like Welcome to Paradise and Basket Case, and proved a breakthrough moment for the now-stadium-filling power trio.

The amp features a three-band EQ, Presence, Master Volume, and Gain, while there are High- and Low-gain inputs and two speaker outs for 16Ω, 8Ω and 4Ω impedences.

As for the color, which strays from Marshall’s usual black-and-gold chic, it's a nod to Armstrong’s first-ever electric guitar, a Fernandes S-type nicknamed “Blue”. Vitally, the amp ramps up the gain, and injects extra body and more low-end punch to its character.

“I’m so overjoyed to have my own signature Marshall amp,” Armstrong delights. “These amps have been a part of my musical life, from my heroes down to little old me. Turn it the f**k up!”

“From the moment you hear those opening chords on Dookie, you know exactly who it is,” adds Steph Carter, Culture Marketing Director at Marshall. “Working with Billie to create an amp that captures that punch, aggression, and clarity was an incredible project for our team.”

The Marshall 1959BJA Billie Joe Armstrong Artist Signature is priced at $3,999.99 / £3,099.99 / €3,699.

The amp is also tied to Marshall’s new Amplify loyalty program, which commits 1% of member purchases to support grassroots music, starting with independent music venues.

See Marshall for more.

Dave Davies has spoken out against a new Kinks book, saying he cannot endorse it because it contains “misinformation”.

All Day and All of the Night: The Day-By-Day Story Pt 1: 1940-1971, written by Andrew Sandoval and Doug Hinman, was published earlier this year. It’s blurbed as an exhaustive, chronological account of the British band’s history.

But Davies, who co-founded the band with his brother, Ray, has taken issue with some of its content – namely, the rumored involvement of Jimmy Page.

Writing on X, Davies said: “I cannot endorse the new Kinks book by Doug Hinman and Andrew Sandoval because there’s misinformation in it about our early recording sessions. I signed some copies for charity before I had read the errors.”

He later added that he was “optimistic that a correction or two will be issued in due course,” while flagging concerns over the book’s mentions of Page.

In two other tweets, Davies fact-checked the book, saying: “Jimmy Page did not play rhythm guitar on All Day and All the Night.” He also states that Page did not “put distortion on I Need You either.”

He did, however, respond to someone else’s tweet that confirmed Page’s actual involvement on early Kinks records, including playing 12-string acoustic guitar on I’m a Lover Not a Fighter, and I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain.

Davies called it a “beautiful book,” but bemoans not being given the chance to proofread it before its publication.

The rumors over Jimmy Page's supposed involvement in early Kinks material has been debunked many times over the years, by Davies and others.

In the past, both the Kinks producer Shel Talmy and Jimmy Page have dismissed rumors that Page appeared on the sessions for All Day and All the Night. Rumors that he played on You Really Got Me have also been shot down.

Indeed, Davies has previously called the rumors of Page playing on You Really Got Me as “ridiculous.” At the time of writing, Sandoval has not made a public response to Davies’ tweets.

What is it?

With no end to limited editions and artist models costing more than many of us are able to spend, it’s easy to forget that Gibson’s start-up maple-topped Les Paul is still the Studio, which – as you can see here – is far from overpriced.

For many, its reputation as almost a proper Les Paul has relegated it to outside of the Premiership, but it’s arguably one of the best-value and potentially super-sounding ’Pauls, especially if you don’t need ‘fancy’.

But even Gibson sometimes seems to overlook this gem. For example, the Studio Modern ushered in the returning level, and no sooner had the actual good ol’ standard Les Paul Studio returned to the USA line-up in late 2024 than an up-spec’d option, the Studio Session, appeared and grabbed the headlines. But at least this new Double Trouble release (technically a limited edition, we’re told) shines a spotlight on what might well be an overlooked gem.

The Double Trouble name, of course, refers to the ‘Double Classic White’ uncovered pickups (which are actually the same cream hue as the pickup mounting rings and fingerboard binding, slightly darker than the single-ply pickguard).

Cover and bobbin colour aside, they’re the same Burstbucker Pro humbuckers we find on the regular Studio and, in all honesty, that really is the only change here: as we said, you get the vibe of the full-fat Standard Double Trouble but with a saving of $/£900. So, what else are we missing?

The most obvious visual change is the lack of binding around the top edge of the plain maple top. Technically, the body depth is around 3mm slimmer here, but you probably wouldn’t notice that. What you do notice is the weight.

This Studio, like the original we evaluated from 2024, is very far from a boat anchor. It uses Gibson’s most hollow Ultra Modern weight relief, and while plenty of die-hards will be saying, ‘That’s not a Les Paul!’, well, plenty of others find the trimmer bulk quite engaging. To be honest, that includes us.

But with those exceptions the Studio is pretty much identical to the upper-market Standard DT, not least the fingerboard binding, which wasn’t always a part of the Studio’s recipe but here is pretty nicely done – as ever, the binding forms the fret-ends, the so-called ‘nibs’.

Hardware is typical for the Modern guitars, too: a wider-travel Nashville tune-o-matic and lightweight aluminium stud tailpiece, Gibson Deluxe tuners with keystone buttons, and the well-cut nut is by Graph Tech.

Specs

• PRICE: $1,599 | £1,599 | €1,539 (inc soft case)
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric
• BODY: 2-piece mahogany with centre-joined carved maple plain top and Ultra-Modern weight relief
• NECK: 1-piece mahogany, SlimTaper profile, glued-in
• SCALE LENGTH: 629mm (24.75”) (NB: measured scale length is shorter)
• NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech/43.6mm
• FINGERBOARD: Cream bound Indian rosewood, acrylic trapezoid inlays, 305mm (12”) radius
• FRETS: 22, medium jumbo
• HARDWARE: Nashville tune-o-matic bridge, aluminium stopbar tailpiece, Gibson Deluxe tuners w/ keystone buttons – chrome/nickel plated
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 50.5mm
• ELECTRICS: Uncovered ‘Double Classic White’ Gibson Burstbucker Pro humbuckers (neck and bridge), 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, volume and tone for each pickup (each volume with pull-switch ‘coil-tap’)
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.45/7.59
• OPTIONS: The standard non-limited Les Paul Studio ($/£1,599) uses nickel-covered Burstbucker Pros
• LEFT-HANDERS: Not this model
• FINISHES: Dirty Lemon Burst (as reviewed) Cherry Sunburst – gloss nitrocellulose
• CONTACT: Gibson

Build quality, usability and sounds

There’s very little here to moan about. The crisp finishing and fretwork suggests it’s a higher ticket model than it is; the SlimTaper neck profile feels familiar, a shallow ‘C’ with a hint of a flat back.

The 3.45kg (7.59lb) weight is a game-changer if your experience tells you all Les Pauls have to be a lot heavier. String height and setup is good; there’s no need to tweak the neck and tuning stability is spot on.

It would be a huge disappointment if what we hear didn’t reflect what we see and feel. But, again, we’re smiling. There’s beautiful depth at the neck, and clarity, too. Meanwhile, the bridge isn’t over-sharp and has good bite that begins to earn its stripes with a little crunch, and the pickup outputs are nicely matched with no adjustment necessary.

Above all, it’s not overly thick-sounding. Yes, there’s some smooth cream, but that’s balanced with clarity. In this lower gain setting you can clearly hear the ‘coil-tap’ effect, too: slightly rounder in terms of attack, marginally (if anything) quieter and, in reality, it’s a subtler option, rather than the more distinct full humbucker to single-coil switching that’s used by so many makers (and also erroneously called a ‘coil-tap’ by some).

It’s certainly fun with both pickups on, and applying the coil-tap to the bridge pickup, for example, just helps pull back the crisp highs that are no doubt enhanced as there are no covers on these pickups.

It sounds a lot more ‘vintage’, if we’re honest – a little played in. Very dynamic and expressive. Also, the Burstbuckers don’t sound potted, which adds to the old‑school appeal.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Guitar World verdict: This is a hard-to-put-down Les Paul with bags of character, not least if your tastes lie with those earlier ’Burst-like tones.

Then there’s the weight, which you simply won’t find outside of the real vintage deal or the higher end of the Gibson Custom range. We’re not saying the weight relief doesn’t change the response, but playing and living with a ’Paul of this weight is simply a pleasure.

Granted, not everyone will accept the lack of body binding, and we’re not spoiled for choice in terms of finish options, but when a guitar plays and sounds this good, we’re not sure we care.

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• "A traditionally spec'd, workhorse machine that sounds like a Les Paul should while offering some limited-edition aesthetics": Gibson Les Paul 60s Double Trouble review
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Pedals Week 2026: If you’ve ever wondered what MIDI can do for your guitar rig, this is the guide you’ve been looking for. MIDI isn’t just for synth nerds. It can add incredible flexibility to your setup, particularly for live players looking to cut down on tap dancing. It can also get you the kind of seamless tone changes normally reserved for pro touring players.

In this guide, I’ll take you through everything you need to know about MIDI, the hardware and connectivity you’ll need, and some examples of how to get it set up on your own rig. It might take an afternoon to get your head around, but once that’s done, you’ll unlock some seriously cool functionality from your pedals.

What is MIDI?

Let’s get one thing straight: MIDI isn’t audio. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and at its core, it is a communication protocol for sending signals from one piece of hardware to another. For guitarists, this means you can send a signal that changes a preset on your multi-effects pedal, or even just changes a single setting, like turning up the gain on an overdrive pedal, or adjusting individual EQ knobs.

Back in the ’80s, synth players were growing frustrated at having loads of gear that couldn’t talk to each other. If you bought a synth from Roland, it wouldn’t work with one from Oberheim or Sequential. Ikutaro Kakehashi, then president of Roland, recognized that this issue was limiting the growth of the electronic musical instrument industry, and together with Dave Smith from Sequential, came up with a standard protocol that would allow universal communication. Thus, MIDI was born.

MIDI sequencing enabled musicians with no formal training to create complex arrangements, making music creation far more accessible to the masses. It also allowed a smaller group of musicians to sound like a much bigger group, revolutionizing live performances.

MIDI also coincided with another significant tech development: the personal computer. The combination of MIDI and PCs meant that home recording became far more accessible for your average Joe, without having to use expensive studio equipment.

MIDI & guitars

MIDI had two large effects on the world of guitar. The first camp was those who wanted to turn the guitar into a synthesizer. Suddenly, you could make your guitar sound like a violin or a lush pad on a synthesizer. Players like Allan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny, and Jerry Garcia utilized these to varying degrees, producing some pretty wild effects and some absolutely crazy-looking guitars.

Using pitch to MIDI, you could now send the dynamic signal of an electric guitar, convert it to 1s and 0s, and send it on to a synthesizer to completely transform the sound. This required a hexaphonic pickup, which tracked each string individually in order to prevent the computer from getting confused by so many incoming signals.

The other camp, and the one that is more relevant to today's guitarist, is the rig controllers. Players like The Edge needed a way to manage their ginormous setups with multiple amps, pedals, and rackmount gear more easily, and MIDI systems provided a way to do that.

MIDI foot controllers allowed them to change multiple parameters at once, switching amp tones and multiple patch settings on their rack gear seamlessly, without having to bend down and turn knobs or have someone backstage do the changes manually. It completely revolutionized what guitarists were able to do onstage when it came to controlling masses of effects.

MIDI protocol

How does MIDI actually work? Let’s break it down. There are two main types of MIDI communication:

• Control Change (CC): This is typically used for parameter changes within a preset. For example, turning up the delay time on a delay pedal.
• Program Change (PC): This is used for wider changes like switching to a completely different preset on a multi-effects pedal.

When you send a MIDI CC signal from a foot controller to your hardware, you’ll be sending what’s called a three-byte package. For MIDI PC signals, it only uses the first two bytes to send a signal.

For guitarists, the three-byte package will look something like this:

• Byte 1: The type of message it is and what channel it’s on. For example, “this is a Control Change (CC) message, sending on channel 4.” This means anything not on channel 4 will ignore the message. With a MIDI controller, you get a total of 16 channels to send signals over.
• Byte 2: Each knob, switch, or function on a guitar pedal will have a MIDI CC number assigned, from 0 to 127. Byte 2 will send a MIDI CC number from the foot controller to engage that particular knob, switch, or function. In this example, we want to change the mix knob of our delay pedal, which might be CC number 15.
• Byte 3: This is the value you want to change the parameter to. This also operates the MIDI CC from 0 to 127, so sticking with our delay pedal example, 0 would be the mix knob all the way down, and 127 would be the mix knob all the way up. You can then set this to whatever level you like, adding in more of your delayed sound for a particular section of your song.

As you’re able to send 16 channels with a potential 128 parameters, that totals to 2,048 individual parameters. It means there’s basically no chance of running out of room to send signals in a MIDI system. If you’ve got that many knobs or switches on your pedalboard, please send me a picture!

MIDI hardware

Now you understand how MIDI works and what it does, let’s look at which hardware you can use with MIDI as a guitar player.

MIDI foot controller

The most common use of MIDI by guitar players is the MIDI foot controller. These are pedals with a variety of footswitches, and they usually have a screen so you can see what bank/patch you’re on or which function you’re triggering.

Multi-effects pedal

Many multi-effects pedals also have MIDI already built into them. Units like the Quad Cortex or Helix Stadium can be configured to send MIDI data via their footswitches, so you can control external pedals or hardware whilst using them for your main amp tone.

MIDI receivers

You also need somewhere to send your MIDI data, and there are a few common bits of hardware that you can control with MIDI.

Digital pedals

The most common for guitar players would be a digital effects pedal. Things like reverbs, delays, and modulation pedals are the most typical recipients of MIDI signals.

Guitar amps

Modern guitar amps also often have MIDI ports, which allow you to use a MIDI controller to change the channels. So you could use your multi-effects pedal with a guitar amp, and get that to change the amp channel from clean to dirty at the same time as engaging your delay pedal, and upping the mix knob to 50%.

Laptops

A more modern way to use MIDI is by sending the data to a laptop. This might be to use a guitar plugin live, with the MIDI controller to change presets or parameters. More often, though, especially for big touring bands, they’re using MIDI automation via backing tracks.

In this example, there’s a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) running on a laptop, and all the changes to the amp and pedals are preprogrammed via MIDI. The backing tracks play, and when the band moves to a new section, for example, going from a big chorus to a clean middle eight, the MIDI track sends the changes to their gear, resulting in a seamless switching of tone.

This is what allows big bands like Muse to put on an amazing live show, running around the stage without having to worry about getting back in time to stomp on their pedals to change their settings for a chorus section or a guitar solo. Obviously, this can go wrong, so most pro bands use two laptops running in unison in case the first one fails.

MIDI connections

You might already have some MIDI-enabled gear, so what should you look for to start setting up your own MIDI rig?

5-pin DIN

This is the classic MIDI connection that’s been in use since the ’80s. It’s a round connector with 5 pins, and these are universal, allowing any gear with the same connections to interact with one another.

TRS MIDI

5-pin DIN connections are quite large, which means you’re only likely to find them on bigger pedals like multi-effects or Strymon workstation pedals. So, TRS (Tip Ring Sleeve) MIDI was born, enabling MIDI functionality using a 1/4-inch or 1/8-inch jack, which it makes it much more usable on compact pedals.

Unfortunately, unlike in the ’80s when companies all agreed on a single format, TRS MIDI varies in its functionality depending on which cable you use. The cables look identical on the outside, but are wired differently on the inside depending on what the manufacturer wants them to do.

• TRS MIDI Type A: This is the most common type of TRS MIDI cable, used by Strymon, Boss, Line 6, Meris, and many others. These are wired so that the Tip sends the data and the Ring sends the power. Note that the power isn’t to power pedals, but rather a small voltage required to send the MIDI data.
• TRS MIDI Type B: It’s unlikely you’ll encounter this as a guitarist, but it’s worth knowing about. Type-B cables are often used by synths and MIDI controllers, and here the data is sent down the Ring with the power down the Tip, so if you tried to use this cable with a modern pedal, it won’t work. It just means you need to be careful when buying TRS MIDI cables that you’re getting a Type A rather than a Type B.
• Chase Bliss: On Chase Bliss pedals, neither Type A nor Type B MIDI cables will work. CB uses a specific wiring where the MIDI data is sent down the Ring, but the Tip is disconnected. This is because Chase Bliss MIDI ports need to act as both MIDI inputs and expression pedal inputs. If you have a Chase Bliss pedal, then you need to buy their specific cable or use a MIDI utility/splitter box that translates the signal for you.

MIDI In/Out/Thru

Confused yet? Just wait, there’s more. Many pedals using the 5-pin DIN system will have a separate MIDI In connector, as well as a MIDI Out and/or Thru. Your MIDI footcontroller might only have a single MIDI Out, so if you want to chain multiple MIDI pedals together, you’ll need to go out from your controller, to the In of your pedal, then use the Out or Thru to go to the next pedal’s MIDI In, and so on and so forth.

The hole goes even deeper as we start to get into TRS MIDI. On some pedals, manufacturers use two 1/8-inch jacks side by side to act as the In and Out/Thru. You might need to dive into your pedal settings to get this to work properly, as by default the Out will need to be reconfigured as a Thru.

You might notice that some of your pedals only feature a single TRS MIDI connector. In this instance, you can’t daisy chain them and instead need to buy an additional MIDI splitter box, which acts as the main hub for all your MIDI pedals. A typical setup would be to run a master 5-pin DIN from your MIDI foot controller to your MIDI splitter box, then send out from here to each individual pedal with a single TRS MIDI connector.

Other MIDI uses

MIDI can do more than just change pedal settings, so here’s some extra functionality you can unlock.

MIDI clock

Syncing your delay and modulation effects with the song’s tempo will make your songs sound a lot more professional, and a MIDI controller can do this automatically. A MIDI clock can be sent by a controller or a DAW and will automatically synchronize all of the pedals in the MIDI ecosystem to the same tempo. This means your delay repeats or tremolo pedals will be exactly in time with the beat.

Don’t worry if you don’t play with a DAW; most MIDI foot controllers also allow you to set a global tap tempo. That way, when your drummer inevitably speeds up the song, you can still make sure all of your pedals are synchronized to the tempo of the track when playing without a click.

MIDI expression

A lot of MIDI foot controllers have a dedicated expression pedal input. Traditionally, an expression pedal controls a single or two functions, so you’d need to get two pedals to control more than one or two pieces of gear. With a MIDI controller, however, you can digitally alter which parameter you want the expression pedal to control.

For example, on the first song of your set list, it can be set to do a traditional wah effect, on the second song it will seamlessly control the time knob on your delay pedal, and so on. You can even program it to change multiple parameters at once, which can unlock some wild sounds you wouldn’t be able to achieve without a MIDI controller.

Common issues

If you’re setting a MIDI rig up for the first time, here’s a few cautionary tales from other players so you can learn from their mistakes.

Omni Mode

Many pedals come set to Omni mode by default, which means they’re listening to all 16 MIDI channels at once. If you chain a couple of pedals together without specifying a channel for them to communicate, you’ll likely find that both pedals change presets at the same time.

To counter this, make sure to find the MIDI channel settings for each pedal and give them their own channel number to communicate over.

MIDI loops

Connecting the MIDI Out of the foot controller to the MIDI In of the pedal is the right way to use MIDI functionality. Many beginners, however, then end up going back from the MIDI Out of the pedal to the MIDI In of the foot controller. This is logical to a guitarist because we’re used to plugging in guitar pedals in this way.

This doesn’t work with MIDI because when communicating with MIDI, we want a one-way stream. If you connect them in this way, you’ll get a feedback loop where the foot controller sends messages to the pedal, which sends back to the controller, which then passes it back on to the pedal, resulting in crashes or freezes.

The only time you would be likely to use both the MIDI ports on your controller is when integrating a rack processor like the Kemper or Axe-Fx. Here you might want to send data like the tuner from the rack unit to make it visible on your controller, or to align preset names so you know which song setting you’re on. This requires a more advanced setup to enable bi-directional communication between the two without getting the feedback loop.

Cable compatibility

I mentioned it earlier, but cable compatibility is one of the biggest issues guitarists run into. When you type ‘TRS MIDI cable’ into Amazon, it’s not always clear which one you’re getting. Make sure you check the specifications or title so that you’re getting a Type-A cable, as Type-B cables typically don’t work with guitar gear.

MIDI 2.0

You may have heard of MIDI 2.0, and for now it’s primarily within the realm of synthesizers and DAWs. It’s worth mentioning here however as eventually it will become the norm for guitarists with pedalboards.

As I mentioned before, MIDI communication typically works as a one-way street. With MIDI 2.0, bidirectional communication becomes much easier. This means that in the future, you can plug a MIDI controller into a guitar pedal, and it will automatically know things like CC maps and preset names, so you won’t have to program them in manually.

MIDI currently works with the 0 to 127 parameters, so for some effects with really fine control, you might notice small ‘steps’ as it ramps up. This is sometimes called ‘zipper noise’. MIDI 2.0 has 32-bit resolution, so zipper noise disappears as there are billions of steps in MIDI 2.0.

MIDI 2.0 also features up to 256 channels, which, while it isn’t that useful for guitar players, can open up more options for big bands running super-complex MIDI setups. If you’ve got a single laptop running a huge group of musicians, you won’t be limited by MIDI channels any longer.

Finally, MIDI 2.0 is backwards compatible, so it will recognize MIDI 1.0 devices automatically. It means all the MIDI gear we have now won’t suddenly become obsolete when the music industry moves to MIDI 2.0 at a larger scale.

Conclusion

Still with me and excited by the possibilities of MIDI now? Well, my advice would be to start small first. Use one controller for one pedal, changing one parameter. MIDI can be a real minefield when you start introducing multiple components, so starting small will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Once you’ve got one thing working, you can build on top of this to create an automated rig that will up your live playing to the level of the pros. It’s one of those things that takes a while to set up, but you will absolutely reap the benefits once you get your head around it.

Pedals Week 2026: Before the late 1990s, your options for guitar pedals were pretty limited. You either bought a mass-produced, assembly-line stompbox, or you spent a fortune hunting down old vintage gear that might just die on you mid-gig. If you wanted a truly unique sound, you basically had to burn your fingers with a soldering iron and mod it yourself.

Then, everything changed when a quiet revolution started bubbling up from basement workbenches. A small group of circuit tweakers and tone chasers began pulling apart classic designs, swapping in premium components, and focusing entirely on touch-sensitive dynamics.

What started as a niche DIY hobby quickly exploded into a massive industry that completely changed how we sculpt electric guitar tone.

Here are 12 of the definitive stompboxes that built the boutique pedal boom.

1. Pete Cornish P-2 / Precision Fuzz

Hand-built in the UK since 1983, Pete Cornish originally created the Precision Fuzz (later named the P-2) specifically for Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. It delivers a massive, violin-like sustain and rich, creamy distortion that completely eliminates the sputtering harshness of traditional vintage fuzzes.

Players love this pedal because its proprietary, studio-grade active buffer preserves total signal integrity, keeping the massive wall of sound entirely noise-free. Combining classic-rock history with serious engineering, the P-2 cuts through a dense band mix with a tight low-end and a singing note bloom that responds naturally to your pick attack.

2. Klon Centaur

The mythical Klon Centaur is the most talked-about pedal of the boutique gear movement. Hand-built by Bill Finnegan, this transparent overdrive is famous for being incredibly rare, very expensive, and – outside of perhaps the Tube Screamer – the most cloned circuit in guitar history.

Sonically, it blends an 18-volt clean boost with overdrive to add massive headroom, a harmonically rich mid-range push, and a singing, touch-sensitive crunch. Using an internal voltage trick to unleash massive headroom and a sweet midrange push, its known for making a tube amp sound and feel alive while preserving its natural tone.

3. Menatone Red Snapper

Before "transparent overdrive" became a marketing buzzword, Brian Mena helped invent the concept from scratch. Launching Menatone in 1996, his flagship Red Snapper circuit debuted as a direct alternative to mid-heavy, tone-coloring overdrive pedals.

Engineered to preserve the natural chime and character of a player’s guitar and amplifier, it delivers an incredibly organic breakup. Its highly responsive "Bite" and "Cut" controls allowed guitarists to sculpt high-end dynamics without adding unwanted compression.

As one of the earliest point-to-point hand-wired pedals of the 1990s, it laid down the blueprint for the transparent dirt pedal movement.

4. Analogman King of Tone

The King of Tone is a legendary forefather of the boutique pedal boom. Inspired by the vintage Marshall Bluesbreaker circuit, this dual-channel pedal acts as a transparent extension of your rig.

It doesn't compress your signal or add a harsh mid-hump; instead, it stacks harmonic grit onto your existing tone while keeping your low-end intact and pick attack crisp.

It became iconic for this touch-sensitive clarity, but also for a multi-year waitlist so absurdly long it’s a running industry joke, proving that this benchmark handmade circuit is truly worth the decade-long wait.

5. Fulltone Full-Drive 2

Inspired by the thick, mid-forward crunch of a classic Tube Screamer, this heavy-duty blue box was hand-built in the mid 1990s as a rugged, premium alternative for touring players.

It featured clean true bypass switching and an independent "Boost" footswitch that pushed the circuit into a thick, singing lead tone for solos.

By delivering great dynamic touch-sensitivity without squashing your guitar's natural voice, this workhorse became a mandatory pedalboard staple and one of the forefathers of the early boutique boom.

6. Keeley Electronics Compressor

The Keeley Compressor completely changed how guitarists looked at utility pedals, proving that studio-grade compression could actually work on a pedalboard.

Prior to its release, most guitar compressors were just tone-suckers that added tons of noise and flattened your playing dynamics. Robert Keeley solved this by using high-fidelity, ultra-quiet components that smooth out your dynamics while keeping a snappy, musical feel.

It gives you great, singing sustain without coloring your core tone, making it an "always-on" essential for touring pros.

7. Paul Cochrane Timmy

Released in the early 2000s, this legendary overdrive completely rewrote the rules for the transparent dirt market.

Frustrated by pedals that aggressively chopped off a guitarist's low-end, Paul Cochrane designed a circuit featuring a post-gain clipping structure and subtractive bass and treble cuts. Instead of adding tons of mids, the Timmy pushes a tube amp into natural breakup while keeping its core tone completely intact.

It became legendary because it gave players total control over their frequencies, making it a permanent staple that helped define the early boutique pedal movement.

8. Way Huge Red Llama

Jeorge Tripps was an absolute trailblazer of the early 1990s boutique scene. Operating out of his garage, Tripps built the Red Llama using a digital CMOS inverter chip uniquely configured as a raw audio amplifier.

The resulting tone was a ferocious, touch-sensitive overdrive that effortlessly crossed the line into fuzzy, speaker-tearing saturation when pushed hard.

With just volume and drive controls, this quirky, high-output monster proved that handmade boutique designs didn't need to be overly complicated or sterile to be brilliantly effective rock and roll tools.

9. Hermida Audio Zendrive

While early pedal builders experimented with capturing Howard Dumble’s mythical amplifier tone, Alfonso Hermida’s 2004 Zendrive perfected it.

Hand-soldering the initial units straight out of his garage, the aerospace engineer built a touch-sensitive masterpiece designed to replicate the ultra-smooth overdrive of fusion guitarist Robben Ford.

Its brilliance lies in a raw, hand-wired clipping circuit paired with a "Voice" control that sculpts precise mid-range frequencies.

By offering a flawless, dynamically responsive "Dumble-in-a-box" experience built on a home workbench, this handmade masterpiece defined an entirely new genre of boutique tone-shaping history.

10. JHS Pedals Morning Glory

Josh Scott started JHS by repairing and modifying pedals by hand at a small kitchen table. That backyard grit led straight to the Morning Glory, a gold box that perfected the art of the transparent overdrive.

Acting as a transparent low-gain drive, it adds a musical layer of chime, top-end clarity, and grit without altering your amplifier's natural voice. It swaps out the muddy mid-hump of old-school overdrives for a crisp, high-fidelity response that lets your pick attack shine.

Highly responsive and incredibly touch-sensitive, this workhorse quickly became a permanent pedalboard staple and a definitive modern classic.

11. B.K. Butler / Chandler Tube Driver

Frustrated by the artificial, thin clipping of early 1980s solid-state dirt boxes, engineer B.K. Butler took matters into his own hands. Hand-soldering real vacuum tubes directly into an instrument-level stompbox circuit, Butler developed the Tube Driver.

Originally distributed via Chandler Industries in the mid-1980s, this discrete, hand-wired unit supplied authentic, high-voltage tube saturation, sag and rich low-end focus to conventional clean amplifiers.

Famously adopted by Eric Johnson for his legendary violin-like lead tone and David Gilmour for Pink Floyd’s late-era stadium runs, it pioneered the modern, premium "amp-in-a-box" boutique pedal genre.

12. Z.Vex Effects Fuzz Factory

Released in 1995, Zachary Vex’s Fuzz Factory turned the guitar world upside down by proving that boutique pedals didn’t have to just recreate the past.

Built around a pair of New Old Stock germanium transistors, this wild five-knob circuit completely abandoned traditional tone-shaping.

By giving players direct control over transistor bias and stability, it unlocked everything from Velcro-like sputter and gating to infinite, self-oscillating theremin shrieks.

It became an instant icon for players looking to push sonic boundaries, cementing Z.Vex as a brilliant, mad-scientist pioneer of the early handmade pedal movement.

Fender has issued a cease and desist letter to an Australian guitar store over alleged trademark infringements.

On Instagram, vintage and used guitar store Cool Old Guitars revealed it had received a cease-and-desist letter over its apparent use of Fender terminology across its website and product descriptions.

As a store, Cool Old Guitars specializes in 1970s and 1980s “lawsuit era” guitars, stocking brands such as Fernandes, Greco, ESP and Tokai, all of which built their own Strat and Tele clones.

In its site taxonomy and product descriptions, Cool Old Guitar employed terms such as “Stratocaster” and “Telecaster” to collectively describe such instruments – for instance, using the phrase ‘Fernandes Stratocaster’.

It’s a practice that has drawn the ire of Fender’s legal team, which has issued Cool Old Guitars a cease-and-desist (excerpts of which were shared by KDH) that calls out the store for infringing on Fender’s trademarks.

“Fender is concerned that the manner in which COG is presenting and offering for sale its second-hand stock infringes Fender’s trade mark rights and is likely to mislead, deceive or otherwise confuse Australian guitarists into thinking they are buying Fender instruments when in fact they are purchasing instruments manufactured by unauthorised third parties,” the letter reads.

“This seems to be because of how COG presents Fender instruments alongside third parties instruments that mimic our client’s distinctive guitars and parts thereof including but not limited to body shapes, headstocks, and other distinctive attributes.”

Fender’s efforts to enforce its long-standing trademarks here are not part of the same legal campaign that has attempted to police a default copyright ruling concerning the Stratocaster body shape.

In May, Fender sent cease-and-desist letters to a number of EU and US-based guitar makers, as part of a high-profile Stratocaster copyright dispute that targeted PRS, LsL Instruments and Harley Benton, among others. Thomann, the world's largest music retailer, is now suing Fender in response.

That case is a separate legal matter, concerned with trademark infringement rather than copyright protection. Fender owns the trademarks for "Stratocaster" and "Telecaster", and as per the cease-and-desist issued to Cool Old Guitars, has taken issue with them being incorrectly applied.

The letter adds, “Given COG is not an Authorised Fender Distributor and our client does not have a relationship with and has never authorised or licensed COG’s use or sale of goods under or by reference to Fender’s trade marks, one can only conclude that COG have deliberately and wilfully engaged in the above action with a view to leveraging Fender’s significant reputation and valuable intellectual property rights.”

Cool Old Guitars has been approached for comment. Fender declined to comment.

Kirk Hammett’s wiry, wah‑scorched lead tones have been a core component of Metallica’s sound since the band reshaped the landscape of metal in the early ’80s. Now 63 years of age, Kirk’s youthful looks mask the fact that he’s been recording at the sharp end one of the world’s biggest acts for 40 years, after he replaced Dave Mustaine in the band in the spring of 1983.

And though Metallica’s juggernaut touring and recording schedule has clearly made extraordinary demands on the band’s members, four decades of music-making has also left Hammett with enough room to reflect on and evolve his sound far more than some might credit.

You might think, for example, that he still builds his sound primarily around active pickups. But, as our free-ranging conversation with the guitarist reveals, he’s more likely to get his gain sounds with much older tech these days – P.A.F.s mounted in a certain storied Les Paul formerly owned by Peter Green, of which he is the current owner and steward.

“There’s so much Greeny on the new album,” Hammett says. “I mean, when you hear a whammy bar, it’s not Greeny [laughs]. But I really only played two guitars on this album. Some albums I played, like, 16 guitars on. But on this album, it’s only two guitars: Greeny and my [ESP] Mummy guitar, that’s all I needed.

“When I put Greeny on the rhythm pickup, and I hear that neck tone, it’s just so much the neck tone that you want to hear,” he says.

“I mean, it just takes me… And the bridge pickup has so much bite and so much presence without being too trebly. It’s amazing because when I jam with other people and listen to the recordings afterwards, Greeny just stands out, you know? Put three different guitars together and Greeny will just have more presence than any other guitar.”

Kirk’s conversion to a sound based on (an admittedly remarkable) vintage Les Paul has been a long road, however, and it began long before he took ownership of Greeny, as he explored how to evolve his playing and make it as fearless, direct and honest as possible.

We join him to talk about that journey, learn more about his feeling of connection to Green’s music, and the burgeoning range of guitars inspired by Greeny that is now being built by Gibson.

How does Peter Green’s music connect to your own musical world?

Well, Peter Green’s guitar style, even when he was improvising, every note was so perfectly played. He was a very, very thoughtful player… Every note counted with him – there were no throwaway notes and I love that about him. There’s any number of guitar players out there who just kind of throw away notes. I have a whole fucking condominium full of throwaway notes, you know, but with him, there were hardly any.

I love the way he wrote. Oh Well – Oh Well I & II… Ever listen to Part II? Fucking darker than the first part. I mean, Part II sounds like a funeral dirge, it sounds like the end of the fucking world. Green Manalishi… He wrote that sitting in his flat somewhere in London, right? It sounds like it was written in Mississippi in a shack on the edge of a swamp at two o’clock in the morning. That song is so dark without relying on elements to make sure it’s dark, like heaviness or distorted guitar.

Literally from the first E minor chord, ‘Oh my God!’ You’re put in this place and when I hear that kind of playing, that kind of composition, instantly I go, ‘Wow, his mental makeup must have been really something for this kind of music to come out.’

Then I go to what he might have been experiencing and there’s a darkness. And I can relate to that because there’s some darkness in me, there’s some darkness in how I compose music. I totally relate to Peter in those terms, absolutely.

Greeny was obviously a pillar of Green’s sound – and now it’s become a pillar of yours. How does that feel?

It’s never lost on me that it was Gary Moore’s guitar and Peter Green’s guitar – the guitar will not let me forget that. And so in the midst of playing it, I’ll just get that impression and, all of a sudden, I’m playing a Peter Green lick or a Gary Moore lick… It’s kind of spontaneous, you know.

The thing with Greeny, it’s a unique guitar. It’s a blessed piece of wood, that’s all I can really say – somehow it’s blessed with an energy or vibration that’s super-unique. I’ve never really felt it in any other guitar.

You’re often thought of as a player who’s built their sound around active electric guitar pickups. What’s driven your move towards using Greeny with its P.A.F.s?

Well, old P.A.F.s are so much more touch-sensitive and I’ve been trying to figure out for the last 10 years whether or not active pickups age well. Because it’s a bunch of circuitry – but your traditional pickups, with [just] coils and magnets and wire, they have a tendency to age.

That ageing factor really makes P.A.F. pickups individual. Even the newer type of pickups, with traditional coils, magnets and wires, even those age [eventually] – like DiMarzio pickups. I put an old pair of DiMarzio pickups in a KH [Series S-style guitar], maybe it was an LTD, and I was amazed at how good it sounded to my amp setup. I thought to myself, ‘Maybe the age of active pickups is over.’

I’ll tell you what attracted me to active pickups in the ’80s, it was the fact that they had a higher output – a battery-assisted higher output. They’re basically less microphonic, higher output, which means lower noise. And that’s what I needed back then for Metallica: we were all about distortion, being loud, high-gain… just a fucking wall of sound.

But as I grew as a guitar player during the ’90s, I started noticing P.A.F. pickups. Man, that’s the sound that I grew up hearing with all these British guitar players that I loved. Even Michael Schenker’s Flying V had just stock Gibson pickups in it. Sometime in the ’90s, I just realised that you can push a P.A.F. pickup; you can take an amp and fully just gain it out.

That P.A.F. will just take it and take it. You really can’t do that with a high-output active pickup: you turn up the gain and then you’re lost and it’s noisy. Then the [tonal] distinction’s gone, the harmonic distortion changes, it’s not as touch-sensitive – and you can get away with a lie, it covers up a lot of your mistakes.

What I love about P.A.F. pickups is the clarity of it: clarity of note, clarity in a succession of notes… the [nature of the] harmonic distortion protects sensitivity. And you can’t really get away with a lot. You have to play well and you have to play with clarity, you have to hit every note. Something like legato, it’s easier with active pickups, not so much with P.A.F.s. But when you do legato [licks] with P.A.F.s, it sounds so much better to me.

I still like that EMG active-pickup wall of sound and it works for our older material. But there was a shift in me about 15 or 20 years ago where I realised that P.A.F. pickups, and stock pickups in general… I think you can push them way more than you can push EMGs and you could almost say I had it backwards. I should have started with just a regular pickup, pushing that and going, ‘Okay, EMGs are the next level.’

But no, I was, like, next-level first and then went to the more subtle thing – and I’ve discovered that the more subtle thing works for me. James [Hetfield] is the same way, he has the same opinion. He loves P.A.F. pickups and thinks P.A.F.s are great for lead – but, for him, the EMG active pickup sound is great for his rhythm sound and he really, really likes that rhythm sound.

You’re often associated with ‘SuperStrat’ style electrics. How did your path to becoming a Les Paul player begin?

When I first started playing guitar, I was listening a lot to Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton. So I got a Strat. But when I got the Strat, plugged it in, it was clean; it wasn’t full, it was that single-coil sound and it’s like, ‘Why doesn’t this sound like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix?’ I realised it was the amp: the amp-pickup combination.

Once I figured that out then I just needed a different type of guitar. I got a Flying V, and then I was good. But I always wanted a Les Paul. I’m looking at pictures of Jimmy Page where the Les Paul looks so amazing, and I would just stare at him. I’d look at Gary Moore’s Les Paul – what a great guitar.

I always wanted a Les Paul, but it didn’t seem at the time to be the heavy metal [instrument] that I needed, which was a really fast guitar that was Strat-style, 24 frets, two humbuckers but with a whammy bar, active pickups… You weren’t going to find a Les Paul like that. And that’s what I wanted at the time to play all those early Metallica songs.

But around, I would say, …And Justice For All [1988] was when I actually started getting some disposable income and I bought a tiger-stripe Les Paul. I started playing it on stage and just loved it. I was in friggin’ heaven… I broke the neck on that, got it back and all of a sudden, it sounded better. Then I was even more attached to it!

And from then, not long after that I bought my first ’59 Les Paul Standard in about 1990, it just all kicked in for me. I love Les Pauls. I love Strats. I love ‘SuperStrats’. I love Teles, I love 335s, I love Flying Vs. And that’s about it.

What do you plug Greeny into when you’re at home? Hard to believe it’s a high-gain stack…

I have two of these Fenders [Kirk points to two Tweed Deluxe combos]. These Voxes are also amazing [he holds up what appears to be two small Nutube-based combos in front of his computer], and a new Carr amp. I’m basically plugging Greeny into anything that’s around me because Greeny likes amps, and amps like Greeny.

Greeny will make a shitty-sounding amp decent. It’s just one of those guitars. There are amps out there that like guitars… I have an amp where you plug in just about any guitar and it sounds wonderful. Just like certain mics love voices – have you heard that phrase? Greeny is the guitar that loves amps and amps love Greeny.

No matter what the combination, Greeny always sounds interesting. Because it’s in the wood, it’s in the pickups – it’s a complete package. All you need to do is a little tweak here and there on the amp and then you’re good to go.

Like I said, it’s an amazing piece of wood and it’s been played to hell. I mean, Peter Green played it a lot, Gary Moore really fucking played it to hell, and I play it to hell. And other people played it, too: Jimi Hendrix has played it, Rory Gallagher’s played it, Jeff Beck, George Harrison. I mean, the list goes on and on and on…

How does the feeling of playing the real Greeny translate to the various Custom Shop and now Gibson USA replicas of the guitar?

I’ve realised the power that guitar has in terms of influence and inspiration. I am not elitist with that guitar and I’m not as protective as I should be. Because I think it really is the people’s instrument and so I’ll let anyone play that guitar – and when they play it, oh my God, their hands are shaking or they’re just playing differently. So I thought, ‘How can I share this with more people, outside of what I’m already doing?’

That’s what these Gibson reissues are doing now: it’s to try to spread that inspiration, spread that influence, spread that mojo. I mean, you’ll never have an exact Greeny copy because guitars are like human beings – so individualistic – but you can make a Greeny copy that looks like Greeny, feels like Greeny and 80 per cent sounds like Greeny.

And when I say ‘80 per cent’, the bridge pickup has to have that bark, that neck pickup has to have that beautiful tone that just draws you in. And then it has to have that out‑of‑phase sound in the centre, which I call the ‘Dragon Tone’. To me, it sounds like a Strat through a 100-watt Marshall – and Les Pauls are not supposed to sound like that! But Greeny has that and I just love it.

The first thing I check when I get these prototypes is the middle position to make sure it has that out‑of-phase sound [correct]. I have to tell you, man, I’ve tried the Gibson Custom Shops. Those Greenys are great. Tom Murphy Greenys are really great.

The Gibson USAs are great, but my favourite version of Greeny is probably the Epiphone… the Epiphone Greenys, just by themselves, sound great and play great, and I was amazed at how I was playing an Epiphone and I didn’t want to put it down and it was delivering for me. It’s just on all levels. This was two or three weeks ago. That Epiphone Greeny is now my couch guitar and I reach for it when I’m watching TV, like most guitar players are apt to do.

I guess I’m most excited about that Epiphone because it makes the Greeny mythology, the Greeny influence, the Greeny inspiration available to everyone around the world who was motivated to get it. For me, it’s a super-powerful thing because I might be helping some young musician get a Greeny in their hands to play heavy blues like Peter Green or Gary Moore or come up with a song like Oh Well or Albatross or something.

Or maybe they’re just a Metallica fan, but then they come up with some weird, crazy, heavy metal/blues hybrid that no-one else has ever heard before. Maybe it’s because of Greeny. I don’t know.

The main thing is the power of influence and power of inspiration. To me, it leads to the music of 20 years from now. So maybe it’s just an investment – in the hope that someone will take [a Greeny replica] and make great music that we can all enjoy in the end.

Those are my intentions. It’s not fucking status. It’s not finances. It’s not to see my name out there. My motivation is mainly musical and to go out there and put guitars in the hands of musicians who will make music that hopefully I will like in 10 or 15 years’ time.

• This 2023 interview first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

What happens when you mash up punk, funk and hard rock? The Red Hot Chili Peppers. The centrepiece of the band has always been Flea (aka Michael Balzary), whose early bass parts were high-powered slap explosions, influenced by the groove of Larry Graham and all-out aggression of the Ramones.

“My position in the Chili Peppers goes beyond that of just a bass player,” said Flea in the February ’92 issue of Bass Player. “I also consider myself an entertainer. As a bassist, my job is to kick ass!”

By the time the Chilis hit big with 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, funk had become the main ingredient in their genre-spanning mix. Of course, Flea's simple, song-serving basslines were pretty mind-blowing as well.

“I used to play too many damn notes, but I think we're releasing tension on Blood Sugar. The songs are all simple, but it's the intangibles that make them happen: like paying attention and getting inside the groove.

“Don't get me wrong – I love bass players such as Jaco, but the simple stuff is what I was listening to when we did this record.”

For the first time, Flea was able to demonstrate his taste and restraint on ballads such as Under The Bridge, and his deep groove on Give It Away.

“For Give It Away, I had written something and told the guys, ‘Aah, it's just another bassline – I don't really like it. But they said, ‘No, no, it's really good – we gotta do it.’ It ended up being the album's first single.

“I wrote a lot on my 4-track at home. I came up with the core riffs on If You Have to Ask, Suck My Kiss, Naked in the Rain, and Apache Rose Peacock.

“I wrote the Mellowship Slinky groove one night while I was sitting around feeling pretty good; I wanted to write something light and airy and spacious, with that jumpy, swinging James Brown feel.

“Another time, I was watching the movie Taxi Driver; a 5-string was sitting on my lap, and I was just hitting the strings – not even listening to what I was doing.

“A commercial came on, and I realized I had written an entire song – all the parts for The Righteous & the Wicked – without even thinking about it. It was nutty – that song came from Jodie Foster!”

Dedicated to boundary-pushing US jazz-punk bassist Mike Watt (of The Minutemen, fIREHOSE and Porno for Pyros amongst others), Blood Sugar Sex Magic mined a rich seam of bass guitar chaos.

The team assembled to produce the album was also unmatchable. Producer Rick Rubin, engineer Brendan O'Brien and the band's lineup at its peak.

“Our producer, Rick Rubin, encouraged me to play simply, and the more I did it, the more I liked it. Part of it was the sound I got this time; on previous albums, I didn't have a nice, big tone that sounded good with simple parts.

“Another big factor was that we toured so hard after Mother’s Milk, and every night I was up there jumping around, sweating my ass off, playing as hard as I could, beating the shit out of my bass. When I got home, I wanted to relax.

“I didn't play one note on Blood Sugar to prove I was ‘Mr. Bitchin’ Bass Player’. I'm sure there will be a time when I'll want to be a big bassopotomous again, but right now, I just want to be part of the band and make it happen correctly.

“It's important to remember that anyone who has good technique can, with just one note, imply a billion more. Louis Armstrong never needed to play fast.”

Keith Richards has reflected on the Rolling Stones' latest collaboration with Paul McCartney, revealing why he thinks it meant so much to the legendary Beatle.

Macca guested on the Stones’ rip-roaring 2023 track, Bite My Head Off, from Hackney Diamonds. And, on their latest album, Foreign Tongues, which releases today (July 10), McCartney guested on Covered In You.

Richards thinks he knows why McCartney, who has largely gone solo since the end of the Beatles, was so willing to get his hands dirty with the Stones.

“I’ve realized that Paul really misses being in a band,” he tells Zane Lowe for Apple Music. “His joy of just being in that context is great. So if there’s any more songs to do, I’ll let you know, Paul.

“I’ve known Paul for well, basically, since The Beatles started, since we started, but only on the periphery,” Richards continues. “John [Lennon] and Paul did a couple of backup vocals for us way back when on We Love You and Dandelion, I think way back in 1967.

“But otherwise, it’s also great to have somebody from your own era, from way back when. He’s a lovely player, and I’d like to do more with him.”

McCartney himself has spoken about the fun he had in the studio with Richards and the Stones for Foreign Tongues.

Speaking to the BBC for the release of his own latest solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, McCartney confirms that recording with the Rolling Stones was the chance of a lifetime. And he loved every second of it.

“I showed up as a session player,” Macca said. “It was a really good feeling, because I wasn’t a star, I was just the bass player. I’m standing there playing, and I’m thinking, ‘I’m playing with the Stones!’ I should be blasé and say, ‘I’ve known them for years,’ but it was special.

“You better believe when I got home that evening, I said, ‘I’ve just played with the Stones. I loved it!’”

Though McCartney jumped at the opportunity, not all artists approached by the Stones were as forthcoming. Jeff Beck famously turned the band down, for instance.

But other music icons have readily accepted, and Foreign Tongues is proof. It's credits list includes the Cure’s Robert Smith and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Bruno Mars, and more. It’s quite the cast list.

Foreign Tongues is out today via Polydor Records.

Ireland, with a combined population – North and South – of only seven million, has punched way above its weight when it comes to delivering bona fide guitar heroes, whether they be from the blues, rock or alt fields.

Thankfully, Ireland’s troubled history and sectarian divide has never crossed over into music; bands from the North and South have always enjoyed equal success and respect on their respective opposite sides of the border, and religious differences have rarely played any part in the makeup of the most successful bands from the Emerald Isle.

The guitarists on this list hail from all corners of the musical spectrum, but, inevitably perhaps, there is one towering name that crops up, time and time again – Rory Gallagher.

Although he seems somewhat overlooked these days, his influence is everywhere; the caliber of guests at the annual Rory Gallagher festival, in his hometown of Cork, is testament to the enduring respect his name commands. Fittingly, he opens up our celebration of Irish greats, past and present.

1. Rory Gallagher

Without doubt the single most influential Irish guitarist or in fact musician, period, must be Rory Gallagher. In a long career, from his first, self-titled, album as a member of Taste in 1969, through to his final album, Fresh Evidence (1990), Gallagher maintained a level of quality control that meant every album was a treasure trove of inventive and uniquely expressive playing.

Whilst Gallagher was a superb acoustic stylist, often reintroducing lost Delta blues classics to a new audience – the electric guitar was what he used to build his unrivaled reputation.

Brandishing the most battered Strat in rock, Gallagher was a true master of everything the instrument had to offer, utilizing every option at his disposal to create the broadest of tonal palettes with which to convey his unique vision.

A typical Gallagher solo could include wah-simulating tone knob swells, violin-like volume swells, pinched harmonics, simulated whammy bar dive bombs, bent harmonics and even occasional bouts of right-hand tapping – long before Eddie unleashed the technique on the world.

Gallagher’s influence was immense – from Slash to Johnny Marr, to Alex Lifeson to Brian May and all points in between.

Gallagher started out playing at nine, and quickly improved to the point where he was winning local talent shows by the age of twelve. When he was 15, he’d managed to save enough money to buy the Strat which he used for the rest of his career, a 1961 sunburst model, which he bought for £100 ($125) in 1963.

That was the year he joined the Fontana Showband, playing hits of the era. Gallagher was a huge blues and rock ’n’ roll fan – his biggest inspirations being Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran. Knowing there was no future for him playing the music he loved, he left the Showband to front a number of beat and R’n’B combos before forming Taste in 1966.

Finally able to realize his dream to play the music that he lived and breathed, without compromise, Gallagher’s ambitions rapidly outgrew the limitations of the Irish music scene.

He moved to London in 1968, where his skills finally found the audience they deserved. Gallagher’s rapid ascent through the ranks of London clubland bands saw him score a record deal with Polydor, release three albums and appear at the Isle Of Wight Festival within the space of two years.

Taste reached the end of their life in 1970, and Gallagher embarked on his solo career, releasing fourteen albums before his untimely death in 1995 at only 47, due to complications associated with liver failure.

Amongst one of the richest of back catalogs, one album crops up constantly whenever artists discuss Gallagher – Irish Tour ’74, which serves as the perfect introduction for anyone looking for a point of entry into the Irish wizard’s work.

2. Gary Moore

The other Irish colossus of blues guitar. Gary Moore started out as a left-hander who taught himself to play right-handed and served a short apprenticeship in a number of bands on the burgeoning beat scene in Belfast in the mid ‘60s. Moore actually knew Rory Gallagher, striking up a friendship before Gallagher moved to London in 1968.

That same year, Moore moved to Dublin to join Skid Row, a blues/rock band fronted by Phil Lynott, who left soon after Moore joined. Moore made two albums with Skid Row, Skid (1970) and 34 Hours (1971), before he left, frustrated with their musical direction. Moore made his first solo album, Grinding Stone, in 1973.

Lynott had formed Thin Lizzy in 1969 after his departure from Skid Row, scoring a run of hit singles and albums, until guitarist Eric Bell departed in 1974. Casting around for someone to fill the gap, Moore was the obvious choice, though he only stayed with Lizzy for a few months.

Moore’s next step was to join jazz-rock band, Colosseum II, putting in a spell of three years. Again, dissatisfied with where his career was going - a common theme through Moore’s life – he returned to Thin Lizzy in 1978 for another couple of years, before finally deciding to commit to a solo career.

Moore’s metal-oriented albums, kicking off with Back On The Streets (1978), through to After The War, (1989), saw him achieve notable successes both in Europe and America. His incendiary, balls-to-the-wall technique, was a perfect match for the bombastic rock he was playing; every song was awash with jaw dropping, explosive soloing.

Moore was apparently feeling disillusioned with his career, and had frequently expressed a yearning to get back to the blues that had inspired him when he first started to play. Having voiced this dissatisfaction to bandmates, it was suggested to him that he should just go ahead and make a blues album. Still Got The Blues (1990) saw Moore fully embrace his first love.

He had long cited the legendary Bluesbreakers album, featuring Eric Clapton, as one of his major influences. Moore took Clapton’s blueprint of Les Paul and Marshall fueled blues grit and ramped it up to a whole new level of intensity. The fire and venom in Moore’s soloing was the perfect way to pull rock fans into the world of blues, with Moore channeling both sides of the line.

Later Moore albums saw him tone down the rampant, blazing solos, for a more traditional blues approved tone, but with no less ferocity in the playing.

Moore was often seen to be wielding Greeny, the famed Les Paul that he bought off one of his other heroes – Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac. Moore was still recording and touring, and enjoying great success when he died suddenly of a heart attack at only 58 years old in 2011.

3. The Edge

Born David Evans in England, in 1961, The Edge moved to Dublin one year later and is included in this overview as an honorary Irishman, given his contribution to Irish music alongside his bandmates in U2, all of whom he met at school in 1976.

Stylistically, The Edge is poles apart from the raw, bare-knuckled blues approach of Gallagher and Moore, instead opting to explore and exploit the world of signal processing to the max. His ingeniously creative use of delay pedals in particular, marked him out as a unique sonic stylist, all the more unusual given that U2 were coming from much the same creative hotbed as the Irish punk movement.

Near contemporaries of The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers and The Boomtown Rats, U2 eschewed their ragged, aggressive vibe for a more mainstream approach that rapidly saw them blast through the restraints and limitations of the new wave audience to become global, stadium-filling superstars, and the biggest Irish band of all time.

Stylistically, the Edge utilizes a technically simple and direct approach, using minimal voicings, harmonics and droning open strings to leave room in the aural spectrum for his chained signal processors to work their magic.

One of those guitarists whose entire modus operandum is to serve the song, The Edge never wastes a note – everything he plays is delivered with precision and deft economy. The influence of those who inspired him, guitarists on the artier side of the new wave movement such as Tom Verlaine and John McGeogh is apparent – less so that of fellow countryman Rory Gallagher, for whom the Edge has often stated his admiration.

4. Vivian Campbell

Vivian Campbell has been a member of Def Leppard for over 30 years now, but prior to that he built a name as a guitarist to watch out for in his band Sweet Savage from 1979 to 1983, parlaying that rising profile into the opportunity to carve out a stellar rep as the new shredder on the block, thanks to his work in Dio.

Citing the twin giants of Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore as primary influences, alongside the likes of Marc Bolan and Mick Ronson, Campbell’s work with Dio seemed to be informed more by the era of excess and virtuosity that was the signature of the ‘80s hair metal age.

Joining Dio in 1983, Campbell recorded three albums before jumping ship under an acrimonious cloud. Campbell has often aired his dissatisfaction with his time in Dio, though according to Campbell, that was more about business decisions than musical differences.

“I was forced into signing over publishing rights when I first joined, so I never saw any of that money. I did get my dues for Last In Line (1984) though, as I had signed a separate publishing deal by then. I enjoyed the musical side of things, though at times I’d be a little jealous of the likes of Van Halen and Ratt, who always looked like they were having fun – everything in Dio was just way too serious.”

After Dio, Campbell spent a year with Whitesnake before parting due to the time honored ‘musical differences.’ Campbell spent a few years working with other artists and had started to enjoy some success with his band, Riverdogs, when the opportunity to join Leppard arose in 1992, due to the untimely death of Steve Clark the year before.

For Campbell, this was everything he was looking for in a band. “It was amazing to be in a band with a bunch of guys I really liked, playing these fantastic, anthemic rockers and actually getting paid properly.”

5. Bernie Tormé

Inspired by Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore (sound familiar?) plus the classic rock stylings of Hendrix and Beck, Bernie Tormé spent his early years gaining valuable experience in a number of minor bands in Ireland before following the well-trodden path across the Irish sea, as had his heroes before him, to London.

Arriving in England in 1974, it took a couple of years for Tormé to find his feet before forming The Bernie Tormé Band. With the punk explosion in full flight, Tormé adapted to the prevailing trend, aligning his band with the new wave acts of the era.

In truth, they always seemed an unlikely fit for the scene, and Tormé’s next move, joining former Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan’s band, Gillan, in 1979, seemed like a far happier alliance. Gillan was riding high at that time, enjoying a string of hit singles and albums.

Tormé’s playing was strongly to the fore, demonstrating killer chops, matched to a flamboyant visual style which saw him become a key figure on the UK rock scene in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. If proof were needed of Tormé’s rising stock, shortly after departing Gillan (citing frustration with financial arrangements), he spent a short period of time as Randy Rhoads’ replacement with Ozzy, completing a run of tour dates.

After a few months with Osbourne, Tormé went on to form various solo bands, most notably, Tormé, featuring L.A. Guns’ singer, Phil Lewis, on vocals. Sadly, his career seemed to be on a downward trajectory for the latter period of his life, for reasons that seem hard to fathom, as he clearly had the chops to fill the guitar seat in any band of the day.

Like so many of the entrants on this list, he passed away before his time in 2019, at 66, after a bout of illness.

6. Eric Bell

Eric Bell grew up in the same scene as Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore – no surprise there – and was actually a member of Van Morrison’s band, Them, for a short period in 1966. Bell formed Thin Lizzy with Phil Lynott in 1969 – though the band had to move to London to get a deal with Decca Records at the start of the ’70s.

They became a huge live draw, released three albums and a string of Lizzy classic singles, including The Rocker which was co-written by Bell, and, of course, their take on the traditional Irish song, Whisky In The Jar, of which they took ownership, due to Bell’s work on the intro and the solos.

According to Bell, it took countless hours and approaches before he finally settled on what to play for the distinctive introduction. Bell was forced to leave Lizzy in 1973, due to frustrations with his reliability. According to Bell, the pressure of the workload the band was enduring, and the variety of temptations that life in a successful rock band offered, were too much to cope with.

He maintained a low profile for many decades but did release The Acoustic Sessions, an acoustic reworking of early Thin Lizzy music, retaining Phil Lynott’s vocals, in 2024.

7. Kevin Shields

Kevin Shields’ work with My Bloody Valentine, who formed in 1983, releasing their first EP, Geek!, in 1985, saw him explore a strongly avant-garde, explorative approach to the guitar. His use of radically altered tunings and extreme sonic processing, torturing his Jazzmaster through endless chains of stompboxes, saw him carve out his own niche in the world of alt-guitar heroes.

His unique right hand technique, using the long whammy bar on the Jazzmaster to subtly manipulate his strumming, causing the pitch of his chords to constantly shift, only added to the disorienting wall of sound that he created.

In contrast, the vocal melodies that rode above Shield’s massed banks of delay and distortion were conventionally melodic enough to score the band prolonged success.

8/9. Carlos O’Connell & Conor Curley

The forerunners of the current crop of Irish bands, Fontaines D.C., features the twin guitar tag team of Carlos O’Connell and Conor Curley. Ironically, vocalist Grian Chatten is also a skilled guitarist.

Though Chatten doesn’t play much guitar live, he actually contributed the best solo on the band’s last album, Romance, (2024) as O’Connell recalls, “Conor and I were wondering what to do for Death Kink when Grian said he had an idea, and he fucking nailed it in one take.”

O’Connell and Curley favor textured, layered interweaving guitar lines in place of obvious guitar heroics, but their love of the traditional tools of the trade is obvious from the breadth of warm tones they deliver. Amongst O’Connell’s go-to guitars is a signature Rory Gallagher Strat.

“I wasn’t a fan of Rory when I bought the guitar – I didn’t really listen to much blues – I just thought it looked cool. Since then I checked him out and I can see he was a genius.”

10. Josh Jenkinson

Inhaler, like Fontaines D.C., are forerunners of the new generation of Irish rock bands, enjoying huge commercial success with their indie/pop flavored rock with a hint of classic U2, perhaps unsurprisingly, as vocalist Eli Hewson is Bono’s son.

Josh Jenkinson favors a textured, arpeggio-driven approach to his guitar lines, prioritizing taut, economical hooks over showboating. Jenkinson took inspiration from one of Irish rock’s immortal figures, Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott.

“Just to see someone there who was mixed race, like me, was inspirational in itself. It helped give me the belief that I could achieve something in music.”

11. Dom Martin

Amongst the new era of Irish blues guitarists, Dom Martin has marked himself out as the one most likely to assume the mantle of Rory Gallagher. A fantastically adept acoustic and electric stylist, Martin is quick to acknowledge the giant footsteps he’s following in.

“My main influence would be Rory Gallagher. Unfortunately, I was only 4 years old when he passed but his music and the way in which he played left a lifelong impression on me. I spent all my young years in my bedroom listening and playing along to his records.

“He definitely played from the heart and soul and that’s all that really matters when it comes to self-expression. I have been decorating my silence with Rory for as long as I can remember, and I owe him a lot.”

12. Simon McBride

Simon McBride took on the unenviable task of following the legacies of Ritchie Blackmore and Steve Morse as the latest guitarist in all-time rock legends, Deep Purple, becoming a full-time member in 2022. He has a connection with fellow Irishman, Viv Campbell, as he was a member of the reformed line-up of Sweet Savage, Campbell’s first band of note.

McBride caused heads to turn when he won Guitarist magazine’s Young Guitarist of The Year competition in 1993 at the age of 15.

As you would expect, given his achievements at such a young age, McBride has chops to spare, not only can he replicate the classic solos of the band’s history, but he also carves out his own unique signature statements on the band’s newer material. He also continues to front his own band between Purple commitments.

13. Muireann Bradley

Muireann Bradley came to prominence in the UK in 2021, at 15 years old, having posted videos on YouTube, showcasing her ability to recreate, to the finest detail, the work of the great American acoustic blues stylists of the early 20th century.

On top of her fantastic technical ability, she possesses a convincing, warm vocal tone that saw her achieve exposure on UK TV and become a surprise entrant on the British album charts with I Kept These Old Blues in 2023 – achieving an unlikely success in the era of homogenized, digitized and processed artificial pseudo music.

She is planning to play shows in America later this year, hoping to build on her European success.

14. Jake Burns

Jake Burns continues to front Stiff Little Fingers, who emerged from the hotbed of dynamism that was the Irish punk scene in 1977/78. Unafraid to touch on raw subject matter at a time when there was tremendous religious conflict in Northern Ireland, their song titles spoke volumes – Wasted Life, Suspect Device and Alternative Ulster, which featured one of the most iconic guitar intros in punk history.

Burns brought as much fire to his playing as to his excoriating vocals. His primary influence is a familiar name on this list. “I saw Taste on TV when I was 11 – this noise just transfixed me. I decided there and then that I wanted to be Rory Gallagher.”

15. Damian O’Neill

The Undertones emerged from the same scene in Northern Ireland as Stiff Little Fingers, bringing a keen pop sensibility to their take on the prevailing punk winds. Damian O’Neill’s simple, effective guitar breaks are an integral part of the band’s songs, never more than on their seminal hit of 1978, Teenage Kicks.

One of O’Neill’s primary influences is the work of Billy Harrison, the lead guitarist in Them.

“Just listen to his slick, choppy and jagged blues licks on Baby Please Don’t Go, his strange and unnerving slide guitar playing on One, Two, Brown Eyes and his simple, but oh so effective solo on the anthemic Gloria, and you can see why his playing made such an impression on a 15-year-old novice guitarist such as myself. It sounds like Billy was improvising as the tape was rolling and the feel and attitude in his playing is so exciting.”

16. Billy Harrison

Billy Harrison was a member of Them – Ireland’s answer to the Rolling Stones in the mid-’60’s UK R’n’B explosion, which saw the Chess songbook liberally raided by beat combos across the UK.

Fronted by Van Morrison, besides the usual covers, Them had a couple of aces up their sleeves in Here Comes The Night and Gloria – two proto-punk/garage classics.

Harrison is often overlooked in the annals of Irish music, but he contributed some of the most interesting guitar work at a time when many of his contemporaries were happy to endlessly recycle Chuck Berry licks.

17. Andy Cairns 

Andy Cairns is the singer and guitarist in Therapy?, who combine classic rock sensibilities with an ear for a commercial tune mixed with a dash of post-punk urgency to create a unique sound, described by Andy Cairns as ‘The Undertones meets Metallica.’

Troublegum (1994), and Infernal Love (1995), saw the band score big around the world, although America remained resistant to their charms.

Influenced by the bands of the punk explosion, particularly The Clash and the Buzzcocks, as well as Irish punk legends Stiff Little Fingers and The Undertones, Cairns’ playing remains laser-focused on taking the band’s anthemic rockers to another level - rarely indulging in the standard pyrotechnics of the rock arena.

18. Henry McCullough

Henry McCullough cut his teeth in Eire Apparent, moving to London in 1967 and sharing a manager with a certain Jimi Hendrix, namely Chas Chandler. By 1970, he’d become a member of Joe Cocker’s Grease Band, played on a Spooky Tooth album, The Last Puff, and had appeared at Woodstock with Cocker.

Moving onwards and upwards, he spent eighteen months in Wings, hooking up with them in 1972. Although he played on Red Rose Speedway and a bunch of singles, differences with Paul McCartney saw him leave in 1973, just before they recorded Band On The Run. McCullough’s career seemed to go into freefall after that, with only intermittent session work keeping things going up to the end of the ‘70s.

Perhaps the most surprising move in his career was when he substituted for the recently departed Wilko Johnson at a handful of Dr Feelgood shows in 1977 – a highly unlikely combination. McCullough died in 2016 after a period of illness.

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

The following interview with the late Danny Gatton was originally published in the May 1982 issue of Guitar World.

Big question at the Robert Gordon concert these days: Who's that guitarist accompanying the pompadoured neo-rockabilly cult figure?

Gordon has featured impressive pickers in his former groups, but the emotion and technique of current Gordon guitarist Danny Gatton makes his predecessors' hot licks sound like doodlings.

After hearing him, the late Lowell George of Little Feat was moved to say that Gatton “is the best player in any style that I've ever heard.” Watch this guy play a blistering solo and then use a beer bottle for a slide and I'm sure you'll agree.

The 36-year-old Gatton currently hails from Accokeek, Maryland, and has been a household name for years in the Washington, D.C. music circuit.

Enamored of the sound of the western swing, big band, and, especially, Les Paul 45s that his parents spun on the family turntable, and with the sound of his father's guitar, the young Gatton was soon adeptly picking banjo and guitar. By age twelve, he was making multi-track tapes a lá Les Paul with his blond Gibson ES-350, just about eating Scotty Moore licks for breakfast and practicing day and night (that is, until he got his first car).

He soon became a fixture on the local bar scene, finally leading his own bands; a trio called the Fat Boys, and various incarnations of the Danny Gatton Band.

Gatton soon became a legendary figure in Washington, as unknowing listeners would become stunned by the ease of his virtuosity in playing a style that represents a fascinating synthesis of American electric guitar since its inception.

The guitarist explains his influences: “I don't like to categorize what I do. It can't be put into any bag or any corner. I like it all and I want to do it all.”

“I got into stages of liking various guys and I would just copy them as much as I could and learn as much as I wanted to learn of what they did, then move on to somebody else.

“I was into Howard Roberts for awhile, then Wes Montgomery, and lots of guys that played on old timey rockabilly records. All those guys, Carl Perkins and Scotty Moore, anybody that ever played guitar in the ‘50s that was any good, I listened to them. Then Lenny Breau, I got turned on to him about ten years ago. He's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. My God, is he awesome. It's like pianists Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner on guitar.”

The highlight of Gatton's musical career, before teaming up with Gordon, came during 1978 and 1979, when he led his own quartet, the Redneck Jazz Explosion, a historical pairing of Gatton and pedal steel guitarist Buddy Emmons, backed by Shannon Ford (currently Gordon's drummer) on drums and Steve Wolf (D.C.'s top bassman) on bass.

The Explosion successfully blended an instrumental jazz sound with red hot country influences and the improvisational license to throw in anything from Zorba the Greek to the Mickey Mouse Theme.

But just as the musical tremors of the Explosion were beginning to be felt, drummer Ford left the band and Gatton accidentally put his right hand through a window, seriously cutting himself. This, in his words, “just about pulled the rug out from under me.”

It wasn't long before Gatton bounced back, dividing his time between picking guitar in Roger “King of the Road” Miller's band, repairing vintage cars and guitars, and, once again, returning to the local playing circuit. That's where Gordon witnessed Gatton's 1953 Telecaster at work, and persuaded him to join the band and work on his latest album, Are You Gonna Be the One, which, unfortunately, could feature more Gatton than it does.

“Working with Robert has been the best commercial thing for me that's happened so far,” Gatton says. “This is like playing with Elvis Jr. or something.

“It's nice to do four encores, you know, seeing people get excited about what you do. Especially since I get to play so much with him. And I'll tell you, when I play with Robert, my chops are happening.”

Hopefully, Gatton's association with Gordon will finally bring him the recognition he deserves and Gatton, as a leader, may someday attain the freedom to exhibit the many styles he's assimilated. Danny Gatton deserves a cult of his own.

Given the sub-genre’s name, death metal pioneer Chuck Schuldiner would have been forgiven for thinking the manic metal spin-off he helped galvanize had its limits.

The reality, however, was completely the opposite: he knew death metal was destined to succeed.

In the mid-1980s, Schuldiner merged his love for NWOBHM, progressive metal, and thrash into a proverbial melting pot, thus giving birth to death metal in the process.

His belief in its potential was unflinching, despite the overwhelmingly negative reception it received at the start. In the April 1995 issue of Guitar World, Schuldiner made clear how much faith he'd had in his ambitious style – and the sub-genre as a whole.

“I never doubted it,” noted Schuldiner, who brought death metal to unlikely – and unexpected – heights before his passing in 2001. “But I probably should have, because everyone was telling us that we sucked.

“We were the outcast band from Orlando, and every other high school band at that time talked shit about us. We were known as a hideous band, and at the time, we probably were pretty hideous, but we were hideously sincere. And that makes a big difference.”

Schuldiner’s musicality – very much a virtuoso in his own right, able to take the heaviest elements of the music he loved without compromising its (relative) wider appeal – helped make death metal more than just a gross gimmick.

Today, albums like Human, Individual Thought Patterns, and The Sound of Perseverance, are considered seminal. Bands like Machine Head and The Black Dahlia Murder cite Death as a major influence. Schuldiner left the world too soon, but he left behind an against-the-odds legacy.

By 1995, death metal had gained traction, and major metal labels were moving to sign bands in that style to push for mainstream success. Yet Schuldiner believes the labels were to blame for the movement’s (at that time) struggles. The tides of their fortunes, though, were turning.

“A lot of labels signed the wrong bands,” he added in his Guitar World interview. “And I don’t mean that in a jerky way. I always gave 100 percent on each record that we made for our former label, Relativity, and to see those albums put on the back burner, to see someone throw your life off to the side, really made me angry.

“When we were starting to work on Symbolic [sixth album, 1995], we were still on Relativity, and I remember thinking that it was gonna kill me to give this record to them because I knew they didn’t care. It would have shattered me to see this record get thrown away.

“I don’t go around complaining, but I will say that we still haven’t gotten the chance that so many other bands that signed to major labels have gotten,” he developed.

“We’re on Roadrunner [label] now, and I believe we’re finally going to get that chance because they’re really behind us. I hope from my heart that we get our chance. And if we blow it, then I’ll be the first to say that we fucked up. I just want that chance.”

Working with Roadrunner proved a shrewd move. Their final album, The Sound of Perseverance, was especially successful. It shifted around 30,000 copies and stands as a flawless, if still cult-ish, classic.

A decade after Schuldiner’s passing, Death drummer Richard Christy said the guitarists’s “style is unmatched,” describing it as “the perfect mix of melody, technicality, and brutality.”

Death might have never met wider mainstream appeal. But for those who love angular and ambitious metal guitar playing, Schuldiner felt like an extraterrestrial superpower.

As an original member of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, bassist Ron Blair supplied distinctive basslines for the band’s classic first four albums – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, You’re Gonna Get It!, Damn the Torpedoes, and Hard Promises.

But global success came at a cost: Blair learned quickly that rock-star life was anything but glamorous, being earmarked by a mind-numbing succession of one night stands, and exhaustive recording and touring commitments.

Burnt out from the grind of an unrelenting schedule and disillusioned by the record business, Blair split from the group in 1982 and was replaced by Howie Epstein. Two decades later, he came full circle and rejoined, as Epstein’s long battles with substance abuse tragically claimed his life.

Throughout his tenure, Blair powered such quintessential Petty tracks as Breakdown, American Girl, I Need to Know, Listen to Her Heart, Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, Shadow of a Doubt, Even the Losers, and many others.

Asked to revisit his beginnings as a bass player and, like so many others before him, Blair revealed that he switched from six strings to four out of necessity rather than choice.

Speaking to Bass Player in 2013, he explained: “When I was in high school in Jacksonville, my dad went on a tour of Japan with the Navy, and because I wanted to be a drummer, he was going to bring me back a set of drums.

“But he ran out of money buying everything from lamps to rosewood furniture, so he came back with a Guyatone guitar and a little amp. I figured I was going to be a guitar player, and learned all the surf music.

“I had some friends in a band, two brothers who didn’t get along, and one of the brothers had to go. So my friend asked me, ‘Would you be into playing bass?’

“I went down to Lipham’s Music Store – where we used to hang out – and I borrowed a bass guitar. Then I got a hold of a little psychedelic substance and tripped out all night. By morning, I said, ‘I’m a bass player!’

“Back in those days the bass wasn’t a romantic instrument. You really had to talk someone into playing bass.”

Pressed about his early years as a musician, Blair reveals an unusual starting point: “I was a military brat; my dad worked for the Navy. I lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and surf music was the big thing – this was pre-Beatles. Then my dad got stationed overseas. Next thing I knew, we were on a boat headed for Japan.

“When I got there it was like going back in time; it took a long time for music to get over to Japan, so they were somewhat behind.

“Around 1968, my dad got stationed in Hong Kong, but I needed to go to university, so I chose the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. There was such a good music scene there.”

Were you familiar at that time with Tom Petty’s band, Mudcrutch?

No, not then. A couple years later, I got into a band that did gigs at places where Mudcrutch would play. Around that time I met a great girl who turned out to be Tom’s wife’s best friend. We used to go over to his little apartment above a laundromat, so I became acquainted with Tom then.

How did you reconnect?

Sometime in 1974, drummer Stan Lynch called me and said, ‘I’ve got a session with the remnants of the Mudcrutch guys, but it’s for a songwriting demo.’ I said, ‘Sure I’ll come.’

It was going really well, and at some point Tom showed up in the control room and never left. Shortly after, we were asked to do some sessions for Tom.

At A&M Studio we were cutting the song Mystery Man, which appears on our first album. We ran through it, and producer Denny Cordell went, ‘Fucking ace!’ – we had cut a track before we even knew what we were doing.

I felt really home at home playing with the band. It must have something to do with our Florida roots. Maybe it’s the lifestyle, but if you grew up playing there with so many good bands, you were soulful whether you tried or not.

When did you realize the band had broken through?

We had our breakthrough first in England, and then America came a little later. Before we were in the position of being a headliner, we opened up for a lot of groups back then, everyone from the J. Geils Band to Kiss.

Breakdown did well in the U.S., but it was our second album, You’re Gonna Get It!, that pushed us over the top. It’s the first album of ours that went gold. When that happened, I was like, ‘Holy crap, I’m in a real band!’

Is there a Petty song that was particularly challenging for you to nail?

On Mojo, I Should Have Known It was really trippy. The demo had a bunch of stops in it and wasn’t to an exact meter. I was like, ‘Shit, I’m gonna have to take some notes.’ Somehow we deciphered that tune, but it was tricky just to make it through and nail one good take.

Another signature bassline of yours is the melodic figure introducing American Girl.

I don’t remember exactly how I came up with that part, but it’s a good one. Every time I pick up a bass and start noodling around, I always go to some kind of an open A string with a high 3rd or an open D string. I’m proud of that bass figure – it’s super-cool. We started off our halftime show at Super Bowl XLII with that.

How would you define your approach to playing bass?

I’ve always loved melody. In the early days of the band, I was consumed with jumping out with those melodies whenever I could. On one of our anthologies, there’s a live version of The Best of Everything, and every time it’s going to a transition I’m playing way up high, and then I come back down. You really need to be prudent with that kind of stuff.

A song of ours that conveys that sparseness is Fooled Again, from our first album. It’s got a pretty neat groove. Same goes for Mystery Man, which has this slow Bo Diddley beat that we hit before we even knew it.

When we started headlining and doing shows on our own, we had to be reminded: ‘Everybody’s paid their money to see you, so just slow down and give them what they want. Don’t overplay.’

A lot of bass players have a certain sound that’s great by itself, but that doesn’t mean much. How it blends with the song, how it’s sitting against the rhythm guitar, is more important.

How do you approach bass parts so you don’t step on the guitars’ frequencies?

A lot of times, you overplay a riff and execute the attack with more intensity than you need. If you’re playing high up the neck, you’ve already got it going on, so play a little easier and lay back, and those notes will ring a little better.

Can you offer any guidance in terms of sounding better as a player?

A lot of the gadgets you see on amps, the graphic EQs and strange boosts that sound really good when you push them in or crank them up – ditch all of that stuff, and just dial up your sound.

You’ve got three ways to dial it up: bass, mid, and treble. Keep it way simple. Try, with all the power you can muster up, to blend with all your bandmates and not get in the way of the frequencies.

What’s the most useful tip you ever received as a bass player?

There’s a great Phil Lesh quote that goes, ‘You’ve gotta have a damn good reason to play an open string on a bass.’ That’s good advice. I have one of my own: remain in contact with the neck at all times! Do not drop your left arm down to your side or point or do anything – don’t showboat.

What is it?

The first signature plugin for pedal-loving math rock guitarist Yvette Young sees MixWave promising to deliver her live rig in digital form. For the uninitiated, Young’s tonal shtick centers on spangly clean guitar tones and oodles of weird and ethereal stompboxes as heard in her band, Covet, as well as her growing solo catalog. So, this plugin is aimed, predominantly, at the math rock crowd.

At its heart, MixWave: Yvette Young is a digitized version of a Vox AC30 combo amp that stays faithful to its control panel, but one that treats the cabinet side like most plugins do – as a separate entity with tweakable speaker cones, with Alnico Blue and Greenback options, 15 different microphones, and mic placements.

Beyond that, there are nine different pedals, ranging from typical stompbox choices like reverb, analog delay, and a classic-voiced chorus, through to grit pedals like overdrive, fuzz, and octaver. More surreal soundscapes can be beckoned with the unique lo-fi modulator, and a compressor in place to produce “infinite sustain,” should it be needed.

Coming from a player who likes to do freaky things to her signal chain 90% of the time, all those additions are not overly surprising. But Young’s MixWave collaboration has also seen a slew of quality-of-life and workflow features added in. From a completely customizable signal chain to an onboard EQ and compressor, a transpose feature, a Focus dial for smoothing out harsh frequencies, a Vibe control for enhancing the top end, and a Contour for the finishing touch of EQ, the kitchen sink has certainly been thrown at MixWave’s latest signature tie-in.

Following on from work with Unprocessed’s Manuel Gardner Fernandes, JHS, and Spiritbox guitarist Mike Stringer, this is arguably the mathiest and most fully-loaded offering in its plugin stable. So, is it a treasure trove of tone, or style over substance?

Specs

• Price: $139 (approx. £105 / €122 – MixWave charges in USD)
• Type: Amp sim plugin - 64-bit VST3 / AU / AAX / Standalone
• Formats: macOS 10.13 to macOS 15 (Intel & Silicon Native), Windows 10 to 11 (64-bit)
• System requirements (minimum): macOS 10.13, Intel Core i3 Processor (4th Gen), 4 GB of RAM minimum, VST3, or Audio Units compatible host/DAW Pro Tools 11 or later for AAX format. Windows 7 (64-bit) AMD Quad-Core Processor / Intel Core i3 Processor, 4 GB of RAM minimum
• Contact: MixWave

Usability ★★★★½

For anyone familiar with amp sim plugins, everything from the format to the intuitiveness of its interface should require little to no adjustment period here, even if I feel the tuner is a little too tucked away for my liking.

One of its biggest draws in this regard is the sandbox-style signal chain, with every aspect fully customizable. A rummage through the built-in presets, including contributions from Holy Fawn, acclaimed producer Taylor Larson, and Ryan Fluff Bruce, shows just what a difference it makes to have pedals on either side of the amp, for instance, and inspires me to get experimenting. Left-clicking a block brings it up full-screen; right-clicking engages/disengages the effect; and I can click and drag to my heart’s content, making the plugin 10x more viable for several uses.

I also really enjoy the tuner (once found) for its clear, aesthetically pleasing display. Being colorblind, busier, strobe-style tuners wreak havoc on my eyes; this was very easy to use.

One of my only gripes here is its quartet of inputs, which can be confusing to anyone not accustomed to an AC30. The virtual cables often get in the way of the text beside each input, and the font size is brutally small to begin with. I understand that MixWave and Yvette Young have gone for authenticity here – the entire amp face layout mirrors a Vox. Still, here, a better display format would have been a smart way to digitize the original’s design.

The same goes for its control: the lack of a middle dial, while faithful to the OG, feels like an oversight to me. Neural DSP often adds extra features that the real amps its plugins are inspired by don’t have, and for me, this was the perfect way to do that, as it would make it a lot easier to dial in tones with the amp alone. The cab section strays from the AC30’s path, so why can’t the amp’s interface?

Speaking of which, the cab section is highly usable if I want to get really granular about microphone choices and placement details, with the axis, distance, angle, and delay all tweakable. As are the panning and levels of each of the cab’s four speakers, which can be assigned to be Greenback or Alnico cones. The polarity can be inverted on each mic, and the Vibe is a subtle but handy addition for getting a little more top end, especially if the OD is set quite woolly. Fine-tuning is plentiful.

But if all of that means nothing to you, or you find yourself out of your depth, the button to match mic levels across the four setups makes this incredibly granular part of the plugin pretty much idiotproof.

My biggest takeaway is how user-friendly this plugin is. If I want to get anal with every single detail, I absolutely can. If I want something plug-and-play, where I don’t have to concern myself with those kinds of intricacies, all I need to do is take a quick scroll through the provided presets, which just about cover all bases, to find what I need in a pinch.

Sounds ★★★★½

As soon as this plugin was announced, and given the weight of Yvette Young’s reputation as a master craftswoman when it comes to sparkly math rock and ethereal tones, I felt it could dislodge Neural DSP’s Tim Henson X as my go-to ethereal amp. During my time with the plugin, that theory has been mostly proven true (they coexist really well), but actually, putting it in such a limited box is doing it a disservice. Yes, this plugin is absolutely killer at creating atmosphere for what I predominantly use as foley and background tracks in a mix, but it does so much more.

Guitarist and content creator Drewsif has shown that, by placing the compressor, octaver, fuzz, and drive in front of the amp, along with some minor EQ notches in the upper mids, it can djent too.

It’s seriously impressive tone sculpting (check the video below), but I wouldn’t be in a rush to use this in a rhythm metal tone context. It can handle everything from scuzzed-up hard rock through to biting indie and smoky, edge-of-breakup blues, but there are plenty more metal-minded amp sims in my collection that outgun it in that area.

From my experience, at least, the amp itself is better serving as a platform for the effects. It’s got oodles of clarity and a really shiny clean sound, on top of which its feast of pedals can be stacked at will, especially tones where the reverb and delay come into their own.

There’s a real touch-sensitive, amp-in-a-room feel to it; it feels as unforgiving as an analog amp should be. As good as Neural DSP plugins are, it’s a skill to make a bad tone, and they do often polish your playing in a way that hides blemishes and mistakes. Here, I feel very exposed, and I think that’s something that actually works in its favor. It makes me play better, cleaner, and more dynamically.

But, as I say, it’s the litany of effects that steal the show. With the overdrive pedal dialed moderately and placed in front of the amp, I only need the reverb and delay to create heavenly magic, and there’s a slew of controls to get the most out of both pedals.

The Pitch feature on the reverb is ideal for making things a little weird, while the high- and low-cut dials are ideal for getting the track to sit better in a wider mix. Meanwhile, the sync feature on the delay, also found on the tremolo and lo-fi modulator, has quickly become a dream feature for me. So much so that it’s become my go-to delay across a multitude of tracks, helping tidy up all the respective tails and give everything a nice sense of uniformity.

The tremolo can go from slow drama to head-spinning wackiness, the chorus is an effortless hack for bringing more color and character to a tone, and the lag feature is a great addition for injecting a sense of oddity into the effect. And the fuzz, while not the lairiest, always retains plenty of note clarity, no matter how much you crank it. On full whack, it handles chords really well. It is incredibly annoying that, for whatever reason, its default sees everything maxed out, so when I turn it on without loading it up on screen beforehand, it can be quite shocking.

The octaver has dials for -1, -2, and +1 octaves and is pleasingly versatile, aided by the direct dial, which lets it add as much or as little grit and/or top-end as needed. It’s a very nice ‘season to taste’ option, and the drive benefits from an optional boost and tweakable silicon/mosfet/open-diode modes to reshape its chic. It’s options aplenty.

I was pretty excited by the lo-fi modulator coming into this review, but it’s actually the pedal that let me down the most. Maybe it’s because I’ve not found a need for sounds as warbly and off-kilter as it produces, but it’s just too weird, not applicable enough for my needs.

But as Young says in her demo video for the plugin, her music so often features one riff repeating for a long time, with subtle nuances pushing it along with each loop. It’s times like that when this pedal will shine, as it just takes the tone out of a pleasant-to-listen-to zone and into something purposefully messed up and out of tune. I’m certainly glad it exists in the plugin, it’s just not one I found myself using all that much. It’s like the evil twin of the chorus.

The plugin has a gluttonous feast of sounds lurking behind its digital grille, but what I did find is that the amp sounds much better with single coil pickups. I’m not sure exactly why, but be it a fat, fuzz-mangled tone or a cosmic clean, the bite of single coils is far more satisfying to me. That’s not to say it sounds bad with humbucker guitars – quite the contrary, even handled my eight-string Strandberg with aplomb – but there’s a more cutting magic to be found here that I can’t get enough of.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Given Yvette Young’s standing in the modern guitar landscape, it’s no surprise that her signature MixWave plugin so successfully carries her trick-filled live rig into the digital realm. The analog-like feel of the amp, to me, is arguably its greatest asset, as it really helps me connect with the myriad effects on offer and makes me play a lot tighter.

Every detail and control bestowed upon each effect pedal has been well thought out, creating one hell of a canvas for everything from luscious ambiance to house-of-mirrors madness, and the fully customizable signal chain really seals the deal.

For players wanting a user-friendly plugin that does the heavy lifting for you, chances are that its presets will have you covered, with only minor tweaking needed most of the time. But if you want to get really specific, this plugin has your back.

There’s enough within its ecosystem to give me all I need in most scenarios, and with the freedom of the signal chain, I’ve actually found myself using a slew of its pedals alongside other amp plugins, helping me get more use out of them, too.

In my opinion, the plugin is best used as intended. It can get heavy, and there’s something particularly thrilling about getting stank face tones with the fuzz and octaver engaged. Still, for cleans, ambient, and sparkly math rock tones alike, it’s an absolute humdinger, and that’s where it’s been getting most employment with my projects.

Guitar World Verdict: For fans of Yvette Young’s luxurious, so often ethereal, so often otherworldly guitar tones, her first signature plugin is a homerun. There’s a huge amount of colors in its palette, and the amp is a fantastic platform for all of its pedals, with a rich array of subtle tweaking options to hand. Be it a main rhythm/lead amp for rock, blues, and indie players, or used for pads and swells in settings from jazz and pop to metal, it feels like a must-have producer’s plugin for just how much ground it covers. It’s a lot of fun to play with.

Hands-on videos

Yvette Young

John Nathan Cordy

Nick Broomhall

• Best guitar plugins 2026: my top plugins to level up your recorded guitar tones

“I like to plug straight into the amp,” says Parlor Greens guitarist Jimmy James. “When I first started playing, I didn’t have effects, so I got used to hearing my guitar right into the amp. It makes my ears feel happy. It’s like I can make the music flow from my soul into my fingers.”

James’ clean, unadulterated tones, along with his astute, deceptively simple playing style – economical, soulful lead lines and tight, drop-dead funk rhythms – are indispensable elements of Parlor Greens.

Drawing inspiration from the Meters and Booker T. and the MGs, the trio, which also includes organist Adam Scone and drummer Tim Carman, made waves with their 2024 debut, In Green We Dream, an irresistible set of psychedelic funk-soul instrumentals highlighted by the stirring original West Memphis and a delightfully inventive take on George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord.

The group came together from various outfits; the Seattle-based James plays with the funk-soul band True Loves (and you might remember him from the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio), Scone is known for his work with Miami’s Scone Cash Players and the Sugarman 3, while Carman is the former drummer for Boston blues stars GA-20 – but with Parlor Greens they’re a musical dream team.

They don’t burden their songs with unnecessary bouts of instrumental excess. They jam, but they don’t noodle. This is an intuitive, sophisticated bunch that knows when to leave space between the notes. With Scone’s righteous melodies leading the way, James and Carman provide groove-filled fuel, and the music takes flight.

“For me, it all comes from James Jamerson, the great Motown bass legend,” James says. “I watched the movie Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and Jamerson’s son quoted his father as saying, ‘If you don’t feel it, don’t play it.’ That stuck with me. I think that’s how the band approaches our music. When we first got together, we played what we felt, and if we didn’t feel it, we didn’t play it. We didn’t even have to discuss it.”

Touring tightened them to a dangerous degree, and they came off the road ready to track their new album with gusto. Produced by their Colemine label owner, Terry Cole, Emeralds sees Parlor Greens working their way through 11 impeccable jams that take no time at all to get going. Lion’s Mane is slinky and sensual, while Letter to Brother Ben is a fun and frisky shuffle update.

James gets into a frenzied, single-string situation on the upbeat dance gem Eat Your Dreams, and cool as can be, he tucks a snaky new riff inside their perky cover of Dolly Parton’s Jolene.

“On the first record, we were getting to know one another,” James says. “Now we have all this experience together, so we made this record with a different perspective. We took more chances – ‘Let’s try this’ or ‘Let’s try that.’ We got experimental, but we always had the song in mind. When you can get to that place where things are loose but tight, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s like we can shoot out into the stratosphere and go to the cosmos.”

One doesn’t have to think too hard to hear a lot of Steve Cropper in your playing.

Oh, I'm a huge Steve Cropper fan, of course – rest in peace. I actually got to talk to him on a podcast. I didn't get to meet him in person, but we talked on the podcast. I was really excited. I started playing some of his riffs to him and told him how much Soul Man influenced our song West Memphis.

He giggled and was very tickled by that. He was such a big influence on me – not only the stuff he did with Booker T., but also Walking the Dog with Rufus Thomas or Who’s Making Love with Johnny Taylor.

I was really grateful to talk to him because I consider him to be the last of that bunch. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Jimmy Johnson from Muscle Shoals. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Joe Messina or Eddie Willis from the Funk Brothers. They all passed before I could talk to them, but I did speak with Steve Cropper, and I’ll forever hold that dear.

Was he encouraging about what you were doing?

He was very encouraging. I sat there listening to what he had to say, because you know, he was in the thick of it. He was like, “You keep doing what you’re doing.” I said, “Thank you, Mr. Cropper. I'll take that and I'll savor that.”

The band is already distinguishing itself for its creative way with covers. First came My Sweet Lord, and now you’re having your way with Jolene. Have you tried any covers that you couldn’t get anywhere with?

No, that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, we got into the country roots, which I don’t get to play very often. It was great to do Jolene by Miss Dolly Parton. The whole thing was crazy. We put it out before the album, and I said, “I wonder if anybody will recognize this.” When we were doing it, it started out with a gospel intro, and then we hit that groove and I was like, ‘Wait, what song is this?’

When the melody hit, I was going, ‘Whoa, whoa, this is Jolene!’ The band was like, “It is Jolene!” We didn’t know it could be done like that. But like I said, I wanted to visit the country roots and do a groove take on it. My mother listened to country records when I was growing up – Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline.

Are you still playing your ’64 Silvertone?

Yep. I had a Harmony Rocket awhile back. I’m not really big on hollow bodies, but the Rockets have this raw, jagged sound that I liked. You always want to find something that fits who you are on the inside. I was a teenager and something happened with that guitar – something went haywire – and I could never find a guitar that sounded like it.

I called around to vintage guitar shops, and shouted out to Mike Hitt and Chris Lomba at Georgetown Music. They had this guitar sitting there that they’d worked on. They said, “We’ve got a Silvertone here. Maybe you can check it out.”

I picked it up and fell in love with it instantly. It was like I was 15 years old all over again. It had that thing, you know? I was like, “Okay, this is meant to be.” I didn’t know if I could afford it, but then I said to myself, “You only live once.”

You made the right call.

Yeah, and the funny thing is, that guitar was on its way to the dump. They rescued it.

How about your amps? Are you still using a Sixties Ampeg Gemini II G-15?

Only for the recording sessions. The Gemini belongs to Terry Cole and his studio. I’d like to take it on the road, but you can’t find any replacements. For my own amps, I have a Peavey Delta Blues 115 and a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I take the Hot Rod on the road; the Delta stays in the studio.

And, of course, no pedals.

I don’t use pedals. I mean, sometimes if there's a certain amp I have to use and I need to boost the signal, I might put something in front of it. Most of the time, though, everything is straight in.

How long did it take to record the new album?

We didn’t take long, maybe two or three days. We didn’t really have distractions; it was cold and snowy outside. There was nothing much to do other than keep warm, so we just decided to stay in the studio. We probably could have taken longer to work on things, but we kept it live and fresh. There were no overdubs.

Was every song born out of a jam?

Not everything. There’s one song called Parlor Change that started when we were in Austin. The melody came about because we saw a barbecue joint with this sign: “You don’t need no teeth to eat my beef.” [Ed. note: The establishment is Sam’s Bar-B-Que]

Somehow a melody rang out. We were in the car singing, and I sang it into my phone. We recorded the melody and it became a groove.

Let’s talk about a few more songs on the new record. Your guitar takes somewhat of a backseat to the organ on Eat Your Greens, but there’s a section where it jumps out and you do a wicked single-string workout. It’s not really a solo; it’s more like a percussive thing.

Honestly, I never even think about what I’m playing. I just play what I hear. Whatever I’m doing there was just the first thing I did, and it felt right at the moment. It’s like this flow happens.

You get a little abstract in Lion’s Mane. There’s this passage where you play these way-out bends that border on the atonal. I’m assuming that’s spontaneous?

Everything is spontaneous. I don't ever work it out. It is just what I feel at the moment for the content of the song. I hear things as I hear them.

Your playing on Letter to Brother Ben is so energetic. You sound like you really enjoy playing a shuffle.

Oh yeah! Tim is playing a mean shuffle on that one. I don't get to play shuffles very often, so I had a lot of fun playing that groove. It was a total dream.

You dedicated the album closer, Queen of My Heart, to your late mother. It’s such a gorgeous ballad.

Thank you. That’s actually my mother’s voice you hear at the end of the track.

That’s right. It’s so touching.

That was one of the hardest songs I ever wrote. I brought my guitar to her grave, and I just started playing. I recorded what I played and kept it in my back pocket. I didn’t think we’d ever record it. Then one night I had a dream about my mother, and she kind of gave me a wink like, “Go for it.”

We went into the studio, learned the song in about 15 minutes and recorded it in two takes. The first time was a bit of a false start, but the second take flowed smoothly. I couldn’t listen to it once we’d laid it down. I had to go outside and let it all out.

I’m sure. What a powerful moment – writing a song at your mother’s grave.

Absolutely. I brought my little battery powered amp, and it just flowed. [Pauses] It’s still the hardest song to listen to on this record.

I have to ask – are you going to play it live?

I don’t know. I don’t know if I could make it through. If we played it, I’d be spent. It’s the most emotional tune I’ve ever had to do. Without my mother, I wouldn't be who I am. I miss her every day. It's going on four years in April, and it’s still hard. It’s good to hear her voice, and I want the world to hear it. It’s beautiful.

• Emeralds is out now via Colemine Records
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

John 5 has paid tribute to one of his favorite Squier Telecasters, which he says comfortably rivals a more premium Fender version.

As the budget-friendly branch of the Fender family tree, Squier guitars are sometimes viewed as inferior to more expensive US-made models. That is not always the case, though, and several players have proved their quality over the years.

John 5, a Telecaster fanatic like no other, is top of that list. The Mötley Crüe guitarist owns over 100 Teles. He launched his own signature model in 2023, and loved it so much that he wrote a song about it.

But there’s a Squier within his triple-figure collection of Teles, and he reckons it goes toe-to-toe with the best of them. It’s modeled after his 2003 Custom Shop J5.

“I had this black Tele with a chrome pickguard for so long, 13 or 14 years. I used it forever,” he says, speaking in the new issue of Guitar World. “It was just that amazing connection you have with an instrument. I really enjoyed playing that guitar, and it’s when I knew I wanted a beefed-up Telecaster.

“I was thinking of a beautiful Harley-Davidson motorcycle that’d shine up strong. I would see chrome and black and think they look just gorgeous together. This was before the kill switch, so it was an early Tele for me. I played it on everything, a lot with Marilyn Mason and Rob Zombie.”

Given the guitar’s ability to nail both sides of his juxtaposing sound, Fender turned to him for a special reissue.

“It was a monster guitar that could also do jazz and country [as well as metal],” he beams. “Squier did a version of that guitar and Goldie [the model he played so much that doctors feared for his health].

The Squier-ified Harley-Davidson model had a bolt-on maple neck, laurel fingerboard, and Artist Series humbuckers, complete with a chrome pickguard. Despite its affordable price, John 5 couldn’t believe how good the Squier version was. And it got an extended release.

“They were closing their doors, and I’m proud of the fact that they kept open for another year because they had so many orders for those two guitars,” he recalls.

“You couldn’t tell the difference between the Squier and the Fender. I played the Squiers live, and I couldn’t tell because they were so well done. If you find one, grab it!”

John 5’s full interview features in the latest issue of Guitar World, which celebrates the Tele’s 75th birthday. Print and digital copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

Welcome to Guitar World’s weekly 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 in the loop with every new launch.

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.

Below you'll find my personal highlights from the week, along with plenty of honorable mentions for the new gear you might have missed. Agree with my picks? Have a highlight of your own? Let us know in the comments.

Strymon TimeLine MX Multi Delay

I am not going to sit here and pretend to be too precious about delays. I have an always-on short repeat tape for texture, a longer digital ping-pong for space, and that’s about it. I do not need anything else. So why can’t I stop thinking about the $679 TimeLine MX Multi Delay?

It’s probably the price – that’s more expensive than most multi-effects pedals – but you’ve also got to give credit for Strymon’s ambition here. It could quite possibly be the most advanced and powerful delay pedal currently on the planet.

Sure, it’s also the most expensive by quite some margin, but those who love delay pedals – and we mean really love them – this could be the only work station they’ll ever need, and then some. Too advanced for many players, but in the right hands this would be very special indeed.

Gotoh / Babicz FCH510G

What? A tremolo bridge as a highlight? Has it really been that quiet this week? Well, not quite. See, this isn’t any ol’ bridge. This was designed by the brains behind both Gotoh and Babicz, two of the biggest names in guitar hardware, to put a new spin on the humble tremolo.

Simply, it pools together two of the respective firm’s standout innovations. You’ve got the foundation of the Gotoh 510 with Babicz’s Contact Hardware saddles. Put them together and you get a bridge that optimizes tuning stability, tonal enhancement, and unmatched playability. You see? Not just a bridge. Looks pretty cool.

ALSO LAUNCHED THIS WEEK...

Walrus Audio Lüm Texture Engine

Walrus Audio has made the Lüm Texture Engine a permanent part of its Core Series for the first time. That’s right, the ambient granular reverb powerhouse is here to stay.

For more: Walrus Audio

Seymour Duncan Dave Mustaine Thrash Factor

Some new-look versions of the Megadeth leader’s signature pickup set, now available in matte black, gold, black nickel and more.

For more: Seymour Duncan

Fender Jim Root Shoreline Gold Telecaster

A new look version of Jim Root’s much-loved Telecaster, which put a heavy metal spin on the classic design. John Mayer loves it. So do we. Especially this new Shoreline Gold model.

For more: Fender

Epiphone Eric Church Dark Hummingbird

A new acoustic signature for Eric Church, which comes with the perfect chaser: whiskey made using offcuts from Gibson guitar production.

For more: Epiphone

Martin x Shawn Mendes 000-28 and Road Series 000-10E

The latest collaboration between Martin and Shawn Mendes. This time, the two have recreated a vintage 1920s gem that the pop superstar has been playing. Two guitars have been launched: 000-28 Shawn Mendes and Road Series 000-10E Shawn Mendes.

For more: Martin

Kiesel Antares

An all-new line from Kiesel, which debuts a daring offset double-cut body shape that feels in keeping with metal guitar trends we’ve seen in recent years.

For more: Kiesel

Dame Relic stickers

Don’t want to wait around for your guitar to get the used-and-abused look? These stickers, which started out as a joke from Chibson USA, will do the trick.

For more: Dame

Bourgeois Hogtop 0014 and Soloist OMCE

Bourgeois has introduced two stand-out models to players in North America, bringing the Hogtop 0014 and Soloist OMCE to more players than ever before.

For more: Bourgeois Guitars

• What's your favorite new gear release of the week? Let us know in the comments below.

The musical worlds of Joe Satriani and Coldplay couldn’t be further removed. Yet there are two songs that bind the guitar virtuoso and stadium-conquering pop-rockers together.

In May 2008, Coldplay dropped Viva La Vida. The title track from their fourth studio record, it has since become the UK band’s defining anthem, underpinned by a catchy verse melody that helped the track on its way to two Grammy nominations.

But when Joe Satriani heard the song, he did a double-take. To his ear, the verse melody from Viva La Vida sounded a lot like his guitar hook in 2004 track If I Could Fly. In fact, it was a bit too close for comfort.

Satriani soon took Coldplay to court in a high-profile legal tangle that lasted almost a year. According to Satch, Chris Martin and co had plagiarized the hook from If I Could Fly, cribbing his instrumental lead line for their verse.

Coldplay denied the allegations, insisting that any similarities between the two songs were purely coincidental. Satriani wasn’t convinced, though, and during an interview with MusicRadar in 2008, said the situation “hurt so much”.

“I felt like a dagger went right through my heart,” Satriani said. "The second I heard it, I knew it was [my own] If I Could Fly.

“Almost immediately, from the minute their song came out, my email box flooded with people going, 'Have you heard this song by Coldplay? They ripped you off man.' I mean, I couldn't tell you how many emails I received.

“Everybody noticed the similarities between the songs. It's pretty obvious. It's as simple as that – when you listen to a song and you say, 'Wow, that's a real rip-off.'”

Satriani sued the band, demanding damages and “any profits attributable to the alleged copyright infringement”. His lawyers then claimed the band had been avoiding the plagiarism lawsuit, and threatened to use a fleet of servers to follow Coldplay and serve them the papers at the Grammys.

For Satriani, the plagiarism was blatant. Martin, however, was just as surprised by the similarities between Viva La Vida and If I Could Fly. And as heat around the allegations began to intensify, Coldplay were forced to address the case publicly.

“With the greatest possible respect to Joe Satriani, we have now unfortunately found it necessary to respond publicly to his allegations,” a statement on their website read.

“If there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental and just as surprising to us as to him.

“Joe Satriani is a great musician but he did not write or have any influence on the song Viva La Vida. We respectfully ask him to accept our assurances of this and wish him well with all future endeavours.”

Coldplay drummer Will Champion also waded in on the matter, telling Australian outlet Confidential (via The Guardian) “It's so far-fetched and ridiculous, but that's about all we can say at the moment. We're waiting to see what's happening but it's frustrating and annoying… and totally unfounded.”

Coldplay asked for the case to be heard in a jury trial, but in a filing posted September 14 2009, judge Dean D Pregerson dismissed the case. He ruled that the two would “bear [their] own cost” for the litigation, with the stipulation suggesting an out-of-court settlement was reached.

After the dust settled, neither Satriani nor Coldplay addressed the case. But Martin had been adamant that there had been no wrongdoing – the similarities were coincidental.

“When these things happen it’s a coincidence and we’re as surprised by it as anybody else,” he told NME Radio. “I do feel a bit upset about it because I wrote the song. But, you know, these things happen. Whatever will be will be.”

Viva La Vida continues to be one of Coldplay's most popular hits. At the time of writing, it has amassed more than three billion streams on Spotify, and the music video on YouTube has well over one billion views.

If I Could Fly, meanwhile, ranks among Joe Satriani's most popular tracks, with 12 million streams on Spotify, and makes regular appearances in his setlists to this day.

Song copyright disputes can often be hotly contested and drawn out. Last year, Jimmy Page and Jake Holmes settled their decades-long lawsuit of Dazed and Confused.

I've been writing and editing news stories for guitarworld.com for nine years now. If I had a dollar for every one I've written or seen about one band, artist or another who's had their guitar or another part of their rig smashed, lost, or otherwise mishandled while in air transit, I'd be able to comfortably retire (I'm 31).

Ask GA-20 what happened to one of their guitar cases in a TSA inspection, or Vernon Reid about what TSA did to his pedalboard. Ask Emily Wolfe about what happened to one of her Epiphone signature models on a flight to Las Vegas, or Madi Diaz about the fate of her beloved Martin (that was in a heavy-duty case with a “Fragile” sticker) while on a Delta flight. And just a few months ago, there was that viral video of a baggage handler carelessly throwing guitars on the ground at LAX.

As we all know, unless you exclusively fly by private jet (cheers to you, I guess), airport baggage and security rules and procedures change seemingly by day, and are enforced on a depends-on-which-side-of-the-bed-someone-woke-up-on basis. So, touring musicians, has your gear ever fallen victim to the pitfalls of air transit?

We want to hear about the gear that went on the wrong connecting flight and was halfway across the world when you need it (or disappeared entirely en route, never to be seen again), broken guitars, upturned pedalboards... and anything and everything in between.

Let us know your stories in the comments below.

Moving on from the ‘little’, these days Barrie Cadogan is a towering presence on the scene. A first-call collaborator for his impeccable tone and touch, and spotted on the stages of giants from John Squire to The Black Keys, our Zoom call finds him rattling around a New York hotel on a day off from his alt-blues trio’s US tour.

Indeed, the 51-year-old’s work rate and visibility is such that you might not have noticed the near-decade silence from the band that made his name. Now, though, Little Barrie are back with Gravity Freeze: a sixth album whose joyous soul-rock grooves sound like a band feeling its way back to the light after a period of deep personal trauma.

Gravity Freeze has been a long time coming. How have you evolved as a player?

This is the first Little Barrie album since 2017’s Death Express – Virgil [Howe, drummer] passed away the day before the tour, so we never toured it. I’m still infatuated with the guitar. I guess it’s just honing it, seeing where your interests go. I wanted to make this album personal, try to make music that had spirit to it.

What subjects did you write about?

I wrote the title track about sleep paralysis. When I first got it, I thought I was having a fit – it was scary. But I guess this album was documenting the things we were coming out of and processing losing Virgil.

I try not to force it, but I had a conversation with my friend Jim Jones and he said songwriting is like showing up for work. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, but you have to actually show up and be ready to receive things from the universe.

How did these songs come to you?

Some were written coming out of Covid. A friend of mine, who’s an artist and musician, let me use his studio in East London. He had a music setup – some drums and amps, a laptop and microphones – and I’d go in and make demos. I was surrounded by all his art equipment: brushes, glue, bits of wood, plastic and metal.

He was making sculptures, developing photographic film, it was an inspiring place. I’d close the door and just kick ideas around. Sometimes I’d start off playing a terrible bit of drums to make a loop.

Do you have favourite guitar moments?

Coralisa is kind of a groove, but the outro guitar was something different for me. Luggin’ Hurt came out good; we just carried on jamming after we’d finished the arrangement and it became this kind of cool, funky boogie. More Bad Miles Of Road had a good spirit: it’s a very rhythm-section-driven song, keeping the guitar super minimal. I wanted to make a guitar-heavy record but not a stereotypical rock record.

Where did you make the album?

We recorded it all in a tiny mixing room in Hornsey [North London]. We tipped the sofa on its side to fit the drum kit in there, and when we were getting the drums down, because we wanted a live feel, me and Lewis [Wharton, bass] played into amp simulators, so we didn’t have any spill. Then we reamped Lewis’s bass and my guitar, and then I’d do overdubs.

What amps did you use?

One we used a lot was a custom 212 combo built for me by Frank Cooke of JPF Amps. I wanted something that was voiced more British, like the mid-’60s Marshalls that ran on KT66 tubes. They have a beautiful kind of hi-fi tone, and the way they feed back is like that ‘Beano’ sound.

Then I used my ’62 brown Fender Super, a [black-panel] Bandmaster and an old copper-panel AC30. We ran all Lewis’s bass through the JPF as well, and used the AC30 on More Bad Miles Of Road because we wanted the bass to sound blown out.

You’ve never been a massive pedal fan, have you?

There’s a couple of fuzz boxes. I used the germanium Fuzz Face, the Dennis Cornell one. That’s on Luggin’ Hurt. I used a MkIV Tone Bender. But the song Wire, that’s just the trem on the Super. We threw up a bunch of mics in this small room. So sometimes we were using closer mics, and sometimes we were opening up the more ambient mics, just to see how much air we wanted in the sound.

What were the key guitars?

It varied. On More Bad Miles Of Road, I used the white custom-built guitar I had put together a while ago [made by Philippe Dubreuille]; it’s a bit like a Jazzmaster, with P-90s and a Bigsby. I used my old Casino on Coralisa and Wire.

Luggin’ Hurt was my Black Beauty Custom with that Cornell fuzz. For December, I used my ’60s Kay Red Devil – it’s got those Speed Bump pickups. On It Isn’t Soul, it’s an Esquire into a fuzzbox as I wanted it to be kind of wiry.

What do you like about the trio format?

There’s something exciting about the minimalism. Working with the space – there’s something liberating about it. I’ve always been as much inspired by rhythm and drums as by guitar.

So I try not to approach playing rhythmically in a rock way, y’know, I don’t really fill out songs with tracks of rhythm guitar. I tend to hold out and play around the vocal. Like More Bad Miles Of Road, I’m just singing off the bass and drums.

With a trio, you learn how to pull things back because if you go out on your first song playing at full velocity, you’ve got nowhere to go. You have to learn how to leave space.

With a lot of modern production, it feels like people just fill everything out with hundreds of tracks. The confidence in the space is something that takes a while to learn. It can feel vulnerable at first, but there’s so much dynamic scope in a trio just by holding back and not always playing at full velocity or volume.

How does your approach vary when you play with other musicians?

One key thing you have to be conscious of is that not everyone wants to play at the same volume. If I work more as a sideman with other people, the volume tends to be lower. But with bands like The The, I’m playing louder than with Little Barrie.

Probably the loudest band I’ve ever played with was Primal Scream. We were using Super Leads and cranking them. Or you might need a certain effect, like when I worked with Edwyn Collins and he used the Mu-Tron, so I had to have that in the chain.

You’re a lifelong Stone Roses fan. What was it like being in John Squire’s band with Liam Gallagher?

I never could have imagined it as a kid, with Stone Roses posters Blu-Tack’d to my wall. When I played bass on that Gallagher/Squire tour, it was a lot of fun switching hats. The parts were quite riffy and melodic.

Y’know, John said he wanted that movement from the bass because it was a single-guitar band. And the way John plays, he doesn’t need a second guitarist. He’s one of those guys – he can cover it all.

• Gravity Freeze is out now via Easy Eye Sound.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Nili Brosh – known for her work with Dethklok, Danny Elfman and Cirque du Soleil – is beyond excited about her new solo record, Eventide. And it’s not too tough to figure out why.

“This album reflects more of who I am than any record that I’ve made before,” she tells Guitar World. “A lot of these ideas have been in my head for a long time,” she says. “Actually, I should say they’ve been in my iPhone voice memos for a long time. It was just a matter of fleshing them out.”

Beside the names we conveniently dropped in this story’s first sentence, Brosh’s brand of hyper-melodic-meets-tasteful-shred has landed her gigs with Jennifer Batten, Tony MacAlpine, and the Iron Maidens, and opened doors to soundtrack work for Marvel’s 2024 animated series, X-Men ’97.

But it’s her solo work that’s most fulfilling, so it goes without saying that Brosh is stoked about taking Eventide and her new signature Ibanez RG on the road in 2026. She’s got more work with Elfman on tap, too. Beyond that, the sky’s the limit.

“One of the things I love is not knowing what’s going to happen next or what will be the next part of my musical voice,” she says. “Your guess is as good as mine. We’ll see.”

Bring us up to date on where you’re at, playing-wise. It’s been a few years since your last solo album.

I try to go where what I hear in my head takes me. That affects the playing, the ideas that come out and what needs to be done to convey them; that’s where I end up. But certainly, it’s been a few years, and I’m overdue for a new album.

This is the first time since the pandemic that I’ve had a moment to sit down and flesh it out. I’ve been blessed with a lot of live shows since touring came back. Spinning plates and juggling all that stuff has definitely kept me busy.

What gear are we hearing?

I used my custom Ibanez RG and Ibanez 550 quite a bit, plus the AS93 for some of the jazzier things and a nylon-string Cordoba GK Studio Negra. Amp-wise, it’s mainly the Mesa/Boogie Triple Crown and a bit of the Peavey Joe Satriani Signature JSX.

The Mesa has been my main amp for years, and before that it was the JSX. And I like to have an Xotic California EP Booster in the front, just to kind of thicken the tone. But I tend to record old-school by mic’ing the amps and getting a raw, basic tone, then shaping it after that.

Melody is present throughout your music and playing – along with plenty of shred. What’s the key to that marriage?

The thing that’s always helped bridge the gap between the melodic and the shred stuff is to focus on a fairly traditional song form, regardless of how complicated the music is.

I think in verse-chorus terms – bridge and that kind of stuff. That helps me zero in on the exact ideas, not overplay and focus on the hooks being hooks and the song feeling like a song.

Then, whatever the solo section ends up being, that’s time to play more notes, if that feels like the right approach. I’ve always been a big believer in not shredding for the sake of shredding. If you do shred, I believe in having something to say. Without a tune there, it’s kind of pointless. That’s helped me maintain structure.

You worked on the X-Men ’97 theme. What was that like?

I was on the road at the time, so I did the session remotely. I just used my HeadRush MX5 effects processor. I got them a DI as well, so between those two sources, they were able to mix the thing nicely. My approach was pretty straightforward.

They sent me a mockup of how they had the melody in the new version, and they asked me to do one version that sticks to that, played verbatim and articulated. Then they asked me to do one with a little more freedom.

For one of them, I used a lot of bends, which was part of my own interpretation. To my surprise, that was the part that was kept. I thought they’d keep the thing that was played straightforward.

What’s the latest on your work with Danny Elfman?

He has a new album and quite a bit of live stuff coming up. It’s a testament to Danny being very loyal to his musicians. He’s always seen this as a band from day one and treated us like family. I work very hard to be as reliable as I can to whoever the band leader is.

I make sure I’m prepared and that they can trust that the foundation will be there, so they can feel comfortable soaring on top of it and not have to worry about anything. I’d like to think that’s something that keeps me around.

How long was your new signature Ibanez RG it in development, and what was the process like?

It’s been in development for quite a while; close to five years. We started the conversation during the pandemic, and it was very clear that – because of the way production chains were going – it was going to take several years to actually get it out there. In a way, that was good because it gave us plenty of time to figure out what we wanted to do.

I created the Custom RG as a prototype for myself to see if that’s what I wanted from a guitar. There were a few things about it – like the burst color – that I wanted to change. We went from prototype to prototype until I felt like we nailed it.

Also, making it affordable was definitely important to me. So, keeping it in the premium line, and understanding what that factory is able to do, and where our limitations were – and the middle ground between all those things – took a little while.

Looking at your older guitars, what do you want to improve upon, and where did you pull inspiration from?

My favorite Ibanez was always the 550. That’s not to say I felt I needed to improve on it, but I wanted to make one RG that had all my favorite variables. The humbucker-single-single configuration was really important to me.

I basically wanted to make it a Fat Strat RG and add to the versatility. So I did keep a lot of the variables of a standard RG – that’s pretty obvious there. But I wanted to put my favorite aspects into it, like the Edge bridge, for example.

Is the body and neck construction pretty traditional?

A lot of those aspects were taken from a standard RG; it has a basswood body and a Super Wizard maple neck. Those are two things I’ve always felt very strongly about, especially the type of neck that has contributed to the playability of the music that I play.

How about the hardware and pickups?

Same with those. But the original Edge bridge was important to me. That’s something Ibanez does very well. It’s a really stable floating bridge. It’s been reliable for a very long time.

With the pickups, we talked about the humbucker-single-single configuration, and even though they’re EMGs, they’re passive, which is something that not everybody is aware that EMG even does. It’s something I’ve been using for several years, and it’s a nice combination of variables.

Your new RG and Eventide’s cover art definitely share a similar aesthetic. Was that intentional?

Absolutely. It all reflects back to how I see the music in my mind. I don’t know if I have actual synesthesia, but I have some sort of connection between sounds and colors. A lot of the music on this record went in that direction in my mind. So I wanted to reflect it in the visuals and give people a sense of what I see in my head when I hear this.

How do Eventide and your new RG reflect who you are as a player now, and where do you see yourself going in the future?

I really feel like it was very much primarily my voice on this record, and me conveying what I hear. It’s a good reflection of me and how I hear melodies and vocabulary. But I can’t tell you about the future. I definitely like to explore new sonic directions every time.

Who’s to say? Maybe I’ll latch onto that. I’m enjoying that direction, but a lot of people say the inspiration comes back around full circle. I hear different kinds of music all the time, so you never really know where that’s going to take you or how that’s going to reflect back.

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