Features archive
January 2025
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56 articles
- January 21
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- “Friends texted me saying, ‘I wish Taylor Swift would dance to my music.’ I’m like, ‘Put a good song out and she actually might!’” Justin Hawkins on the Darkness going viral, the return of virtuosic playing – and why he finally switched from Les Pauls
- “Dime was taken from us too soon, and I’ve yet to see that next ‘it’ guitar guy. I’m sure there are some out there, but none that stormed the scene like Dime did”: Star players from Kerry King to Chad Kroeger on what made Dimebag Darrell a true original
- “When I was a teenager, I had a dream about a guitar with a dragon inlaid down the neck. That dream has since become an important part of our history”: How Paul Reed Smith created the ultimate Dragon for PRS Guitars’ 40th Anniversary
- January 20
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- “The first thing I said to Jordan Rudess was, ’You’ve got a pretty sick guitar player in your band. What are you asking me for?’” How Spiro Dussias became shred’s next great hope – and ended up giving Dream Theater guitar lessons
- “I have a fingerprint of the way I play – a mix of Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Gary Moore – but I’m constantly evolving”: Orianthi on why she loves old gear – and recording her new Band of Gypsys-inspired supergroup with Jimi Hendrix’s producer
- “I was wrestling with whether I was going to keep doing music… and then I got the call from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss”: JD McPherson nearly abandoned his surf noir opus. But playing Zeppelin with Plant and Marc Ribot gave him a shot in the arm
- January 19
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- “I rediscovered the glorious bottom-end of the Fender… I feel far more fluid playing the Jazz Bass than I ever did on the Rickenbacker”: Geddy Lee went on a tonal quest and broke all the bass rules to make Rush sound huge
- “I only used the back pickup. Ozzy hates the sound of the front pickup. He calls it the ‘cow tone’”: Bursting with ideas but deferential to Ozzy Osbourne, a young Zakk Wylde had interesting guitar instructions upon joining the legendary frontman's band
- January 18
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- “When I got into Miles Davis' band, playing like my idols – Jaco, Stanley and Larry Graham – wasn't going to work. I had to dig and find something else”: How Marcus Miller found his voice – and became one of the most-imitated bassists in the biz
- “Cliff always wanted to play more than he should have, but we didn’t try to control him – we couldn’t”: How Cliff Burton’s bass masterpiece earned its place in the pantheon of great rock solos
- January 17
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- “The goal was to shake up B.B. King’s music and make it chart-friendly”: B.B. King had his breakthrough blues guitar moment with The Thrill Is Gone – but it was Jerry Jemmott’s bass that made it groove
- “Tina Turner signed it with a flick knife after he recorded for her in London. Then they all went out to dinner”: What the auction of Jeff Beck’s best-loved electrics tells us about the late guitar icon
- “I never get to discuss guitar in most interviews!” Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos reveals his obscure vintage gear obsessions, how Peter Green was a huge influence on his playing, and why the thrill of guitar is undeniable
- “I had to have a spare liver and pancreas on ice… Then I missed my flight, and that’s when the comedy really began”: Zakk Wylde tells the story behind his infamous Guitar World cover with Dimebag Darrell
- January 16
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- “To have it sitting at home, then see it on Good Morning America in Ed’s hands was a pinch-yourself moment”: Teddy McDonald pointed out Ed Sheeran was using a fake version of Eric Clapton’s Crashocaster. So they asked him to replace it
- “I got a knock on my door. When I opened it, I couldn’t believe my eyes – it was a Gibson. I was overwhelmed and cried for hours”: How Aryan King escaped the war in Ukraine to find a new home in Nashville – and rekindle his love affair with Gibson guitars
- “Someone once said to me, ‘Why do you make solo records?’ And it’s like, ‘So I can play solos!’” Myles Kennedy on the blues-rock hero who shaped the way he plays, why he’s an accidental frontman, and what the power of the riff made him do
- January 15
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- “You heard a lot of musicians, but nobody played guitar like him”: In 1965, Jimi Hendrix appeared on TV backing an obscure soul duo – and you can already feel his brilliance
- “My phone rang – Nuno told me to get to Sao Paulo right away. I arrived 30 minutes before guesting on Get the Funk Out”: Mateus Asato on landing the Bruno Mars gig, playing with his heroes and how his pink Suhr went from reject to best-selling signature
- “All the labels said, ‘You’re dated.’ If we weren’t doing so well, it would have been crushing, but we were playing to sold-out crowds”: How forgotten ’80s heroes Zebra earned their stripes as the people’s power-trio
- “The tone fattens up as the amp is pushed into overdrive, and fully cranked up it pumps out deliciously gritty crunch”: In praise of the Champ, Bronco and Vibro Champ – how Fender’s compact tube amps became MVPs in the studio
- January 14
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- “When I joined, Ozzy told me I'd often hear people scream out Randy's name during a show”: Zakk Wylde discusses Ozzy Osbourne's hard-and-fast guitar rules, and the friendly shadows of Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee, in his first Guitar World interview
- “It’s been an incredibly intense year – even my closest friends didn’t know what we were doing. I can’t believe we were able to keep it a secret”: Brad Delson on Linkin Park’s miraculous comeback, why he quit touring, and how he trained his replacement
- “The amp’s fast, punchy response immediately inspired me to butcher all the Dime riffs I know, and I had an absolute blast”: We’ve played the Dimebag Warhead amp – and it is 100% crushing
- “He showed me the Rickenbacker he used with the Beatles at Shea Stadium. It still had the song list taped to the side”: Released weeks before his murder, John Lennon’s final album paired him with some of the era’s finest session guitarists
- January 13
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- “Eruption was my phone alarm for a while – we have a love-hate relationship because it woke me up every morning”: Sophie Lloyd names 10 guitarists who shaped her sound
- “Deserves status as one of rock ’n’ roll’s most iconic electric guitars solely from its association with three of the four Beatles”: From the Beatles to the Stones, Johnny Marr and Radiohead, why everyone loves the Epiphone Casino
- “Loads of guitarists could knock spots off Neil Young, but he’s aware of his limitations and hasn’t spent his energy perfecting his technique. I’ve carried that forward”: Meet Steve Logan, the singer-songwriter putting a distinctly Welsh spin on Americana
- January 12
- January 11
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- “I was playing a lot of jazz when we did Longview. I’d sit in at jazz clubs and read off the Real Book”: If you think Mike Dirnt is another clueless punk, think again
- “Jim Morrison was carried out. Jimi Hendrix was there. We were all getting drunk”: Ritchie Blackmore recalls the first time he saw two-hand tapping – at a wild show in 1968
- January 10
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- “I was playing with the Scorpions, and I broke a string and had a solo coming up. My brother and I swapped guitars really quickly”: Michael Schenker talks Vs, his early flirtations with offsets, and how he joined one of hard rock's biggest juggernauts
- “You might want to play on the cleaner side of the tracks, but try cranking it up a little – it damn-near takes off”: Why Gibson’s B.B. King ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ 1974 ES-355 is a technical knockout
- “My job was to add feel and groove to Brian’s written bass parts. I tried to keep it cooking for him”: Carol Kaye on how she made Pet Sounds with the Beach Boys – and why good basslines don't come from scales
- January 9
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- “This epic is Page’s crowning achievement in guitar orchestration”: Led Zeppelin's 50 greatest songs
- “Paul Simon told me what key the song was in, turned off the vocal track and counted me in”: He’s been sampled by Kanye West, and played with Paul Simon, The Black Keys and Tame Impala – yet Delicate Steve is still the best-kept secret in indie guitar
- “There’s an unpredictability that I really appreciate with him. He doesn’t think like other guitar players”: Myles Kennedy reveals what he learned as a guitar player from working with Slash and Mark Tremonti
- January 8
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- “I’ve seen firsthand how technology and innovation have reshaped the six-string landscape”: 5 reasons why new guitar players have never had it so good
- “The Uni-Vibe was an excellent alternative to a Leslie and became a mainstay for Jimi Hendrix”: Everything you need to know about modulation, from Leslie emulators and chorus pedals to bucket-brigade chips and phasers
- “For me, it’s not how many are watching, it’s who is watching – Tosin engaging made me feel like I was doing something right”: Dante Swan is blurring the lines between djent and trap music – and he wants you to steal his riffs
- January 7
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- “For me to be so appreciated, I think I can start to feel guilty and pressured. But I guess it’s a good problem to have”: From playing Steve Vai's guitars to playing with him onstage, Tosin Abasi's rapid ascent made him one of the biggest names in guitar
- “I bumped into Eric in a club and I thought we were going to get into a fight! But he went, ‘Hello, man!’ and gave me a big hug”: Jeff Beck took the Yardbirds in a new direction, but the constant Eric Clapton comparisons took years to shake
- “We knew listeners usually wanted a memorable song rather than an insane guitar solo or riff, but we wanted to be extreme”: Jason Becker and Marty Friedman on their wild ride making Cacophony’s Go Off! – one of the Eighties’ most in-your-face shred albums
- “Like Gretsch’s Duo Jet, it was surely spurred by Gibson’s success with the Les Paul”: The mysterious history of the Guild M-75 Aristocrat, the blue-blooded hollowbody played by John Lee Hooker, John Mayer, St. Vincent and Dan Auerbach
- January 6
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- “Top money buys forensically aged details and incredible craft, but you won’t necessarily hear £5k’s worth of difference in the sonic performance”: How close are Gibson's ’59 Burst replicas and their boutique rivals?
- “Chris Shiflett has this great AC30 from the ’60s – that’s the main amp on the album. That and a Princeton Reverb – until I blew it up”: How one-man blues-rock band Steve Hill cheated death – then found redemption at Foo Fighters’ Studio 606
- “This is a guy who worked for Frank Zappa. Frank said to him, ‘Whatever you do, don’t learn how to read music.’ He's all-creative – he's a miracle, really”: Steve Vai on BEAT, being a virtuoso in his 60s – and the Fripp riff he just couldn’t master
- January 4
- January 3
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- “Roxy insisted I have a white Strat – I bought that guitar off Brian Eno, who bought it off his milkman for 30 quid!” Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera on how he found his bargain Firebird and why he has no regrets about rendering a ’51 Tele “valueless”
- “The days of flagship guitars sporting ostentatious tech are long gone”: Why today’s guitars are performing better than ever – not that you’d notice from looking at them
- “I discovered open tunings on the electric because of The Rolling Stones and Keith Richards. It opened up a whole new palette”: Meet Julian Taylor, the Canadian musical encyclopedia who plays a custom Tele called the ‘Barncaster’
- January 2
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- “The top-selling artist acoustics were Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and my guitar, which is insane”: How Orianthi shook up the industry with her signature gear, what she learned from Santana and Joe Bonamassa, and why she’s returning to Alice Cooper’s band
- “Vintage Gretsches can be hit and miss. A former Gretsch employee told me they would go out and have five-Martini lunches and then try to put guitars together in the afternoon”: When Gretsch took on Gibson with the 6130 Round-Up and 6121
- “Samsung wanted to buy my Les Paul. I didn’t want to sell it, so I threw out a stupid price and they said yes. I wish I hadn’t”: Billy Morrison tells the tale of two Les Pauls – one the bargain of the century, the other the one that got away
- January 1
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- "People said I was just jerking off on guitar. There was a point when I thought, ‘Oh, God, they’re right’”: Chris Impellitteri is one of the fastest guitarists of all time – but he realized there was more to life than shredding
- “Bach was one of the only guys who really understood the range of the bass. All his cello pieces are right in the 5-string bass range”: John Myung plays for one of rock’s most ambitious bands, and he’s tackling the challenge with extraordinary discipline
