Latest articles by Joel McIver
Slipknot’s V-Man: “At first the mask was a bit weird, but the LEDs make the sides of the bass neck easier to see!"
Slipknot’s Alex ‘V-Man’ Venturella reveals how he got the (literally) hottest gig in metal
Les Claypool: “The Pachyderm bass has one knob on it, a volume knob: I don’t want any tone”
Primus’ bass wizard tells us all about his Pachyderm bass and exactly what naugahyde is
Metallica’s Robert Trujillo: “Cliff’s approach was, ‘I’m gonna play what I feel, and if you don’t like it, screw you!’”
Trujillo remembers bass guitar’s ultimate metal maverick, Cliff Burton
Krist Novoselic: “The bass got caught in the TV lights – and then boom!”
At the 1992 MTV Awards, Nirvana bassman Krist Novoselic threw his Gibson 25 feet in the air, forgetting it would come down again shortly afterwards
Charlie Jones: “I always wanted a plastic bass guitar, but people never took the idea seriously”
The Cult’s bassist Charlie Jones gives us the first look at his plastic P-Bass, a Custom Shop one-off made by Fender Master Builder Scott Buehl
Lady Gaga bassist Jonny Goood: “Being a young Black brother and playing dirty with a pick is unique to me...”
Bassist to one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Jonny Goood on coming from nothing and making it big: "I didn't have sh*t!"
From the vaults: former Machine Head bassist Adam Duce on the tone secrets of Cliff Burton
“He had a Stratocaster pickup hidden under the bridge of his Rickenbacker”
Frank Bello: 5 bass players who influenced me
Anthrax bassist Frank Bello on Geezer Butler, Steve Harris, Paul McCartney and more
The truth behind Lee Sklar's custom 'producer's switch'
A living legend of the bass guitar, Lee Sklar makes a strong case for his non-functioning toggle switch
Watch Yves Carbonne play Teen Town on a custom 2-string bass
Yup: TWO-string. French sensation Yves Carbonne demonstrates the mastery of multi-string basses that's wowed the likes of Marcus Miller and Michael Manring
Kings X leader Dug Pinnick: “My ADD meant that practising was useless...”
The golden-voiced 12-string bass master discusses unlikely brass influences, his eternal search for tone and how ADD impacted his bass playing
Metal bassist and YouTube hero Kello Gonzalez: “How I went from zero to 75k subscribers...”
Mexico’s Kello Gonzalez reveals his “Holy Trinity” of bass players and how to get his monstrous tone
MonoNeon: “I’m still not over Prince’s death – I was still getting to know him”
We talk to MonoNeon, touted by Flea as the ‘greatest f**king electric bass player’, about his funk roots, playing with Prince and his new Fender 5-string Jazz Bass
How Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan recorded a bass classic with Sweet Child O’ Mine
McKagan reveals how a trip to Guitar Center and the search for a sound to complement Izzy and Slash helped him find his Appetite for Destruction bass tone
Sleep’s Al Cisneros: “For my lifespan, I’ll be playing Rickenbackers. When I hear the sound of Rush’s Permanent Waves, there’s nothing else like that’”
The OM and Sleep bassist on gathering his solo singles into a collection, Sinai Dub Box, flow states and the universal groove, and which bass is so heavy he needs pain relief to play it...
Kramer Disciple D-1 Bass review
The unashamedly extrovert K-Bass continues its purple reign
Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas PJ V review
Loaded with DiMarzio pickups and tone-shaping power, the new five-string from Charvel is a hot-rodded bass ace with a strong '80s vibe
Nashville session ace Dave Roe: “The night I played bass with Jaco Pastorius on drums”
Dave Roe on how a lie got him the gig with Johnny Cash, plus the genius of Marshall Grant and John Paul Jones
Scott Reeder: “I got a call: ‘Can you come over and jam with Tool?’”
Oh, OK. Scott Reeder, of Kyuss, Goatsnake and Fireball Ministry, on auditioning for Tool and playing with Metallica
Lemmy: "I always wanted to be John Entwistle, but since that place was taken, I became a lesser version"
In this classic interview from 2003, the late, great Motörhead frontman shares his thoughts on five-strings, Jaco Pastorius and soloing - and he doesn't hold back...
Watch Guns N' Roses' Duff McKagan and Nirvana's Krist Novoselic perform ‘Sweet Child O' Mine’
That time Duff and Novoselic buried the feud between their bands with an instrumental rendition of the Appetite for Destruction anthem
Les Claypool: the 5 basslines that changed my life
"Chris Squire was an early hero to me": Primus bass hero Les Claypool on the five tracks that helped shape his bass career
Is this the best known bassline of all time?
How Michael Jackson influenced Queen's biggest selling single
Jack Bruce: “Jimi Hendrix regarded the guitar as an extension of himself. But in an instrumental sense, I would argue that Eric Clapton was probably better”
In this classic 2003 interview, the pioneering bass guitarist and rock legend talks Cream, explains why Clapton was better than Hendrix and confesses his love for gangsta rap
The Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine: “When I was asked if I could play the bass, I didn’t even hesitate. I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’”
Valentine reveals high times and low points in her memoir, All I Ever Wanted – a deep dive into abuse, addiction, and redemption, as well as blazing a trail for a generation of bass players
