2024 Year in Review: It’s no secret that the Who guitarist Pete Townshend tends to stick with the more old-school guitar designs – from Strats to Les Pauls and SGs, not to mention Rickenbackers.
What he’s not known for is playing heavy metal speed machines made by companies like Jackson.
But that all changed at the beginning of the year. In an interview with Guitarist, he explained how he’d been impressed by the light-gauge strings, double-locking tremolo system and whammy bar on his latest acquisition.
“I was playing faster, no question,” he said. “I was playing at three times the speed I normally play at… because these guitars are built for a particular kind of thing. So I’m still learning and I’m still having fun with guitars.”
“He was 16 or 17, and he was already jumping on people’s tables with cocktails on them, flipping the guitar backwards while playing it”: Pantera’s road crew share their memories of Dimebag Darrell – and why he was a guitar hero from the very beginning
“He said, ‘Put it away and get a proper guitar!’ So it went by the wayside”: Andy Fairweather Low had a guitar specially bought for him in America, then brought back across the Atlantic – but Eric Clapton wouldn't let him use it onstage
