Features archive
November 2024
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49 articles
- November 18
- November 17
- November 16
- November 15
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- “I had some friends make fun of me – they would call me the ‘Crazy Tube Guy,’ although in Greek”: Crazy Tube Circuits' Christos Ntaifotis on how his passion for collecting tube amps has inspired one of the most exciting stompbox brands in the world
- “I got a call from Glenn Frey. I just said. ‘Where do I sign?’ Here they were asking me to join The Eagles without playing one lick of music with them”: Timothy B. Schmidt joined The Eagles at the height of Hotel California – and didn't even audition
- “Slash came to the studio, and told Axl that he was on his way to do this with me – Axl was keen to sing a few songs”: Michael Schenker on celebrating UFO with Axl Rose, Slash, and Dee Snider, and why he's come full circle with Gibson
- “At the end of a tour Bert said to his roadie, ‘Do you want a guitar? Take your pick.’ And the guy said, ‘Well, I’d like that Fylde...” Gordon Giltrap on why Bert Jansch changed his life – and how he ended up with the folk icon’s ’70s acoustic
- November 14
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- “You should know the music so well that you could still play it perfectly while someone is screaming in your ear”: 15 pro guitarists share their tips for memorizing music
- “The Who, Van Halen – the whole thing where there’s a separate singer from the lead guitar player. That started with Hubert Sumlin and Howlin’ Wolf”: Vernon Reid on the 7 riffs that inspired him, from Hendrix to Chic, Cream, and more
- “People warned me, ‘If you work with Ritchie Blackmore, you could last 5 minutes. He could chew you up, spit you out. You could end up with nothing.’ So I did have to think about it”: Bob Daisley on Rainbow, Ozzy – and pairing-up with Randy Rhoads
- November 13
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- “We were opening for ZZ Top at Madison Square Garden. I told the guys, ‘I’ll go out there and blow for 60 seconds, then we’ll go into the first tune.’ I hit the first chord and my Marshall blew up”: Richie Sambora on Bon Jovi's nightmare arena debut
- “My first real gig with The Band was in front of 25,000 people and we had no real rehearsal… We just flew out to Dallas and opened for Crosby, Stills & Nash”: Jim Weider on replacing Robbie Robertson – and the ’52 Tele he got while working at a car wash
- “$499 is incredibly high value for a guitar you can go and buy, and go and gig it. And that’s what I want: it’s not a toy”: PRS’ Jack Higginbotham reflects on the history of the SE line
- “Tom Morello ended up flying to Seattle and doing the vocals with Layne Staley. Tom came back and was like, ‘He’s in really bad shape. It’s scary’”: Martyn LeNoble on a career spent working with alt rock icons – and the kindness of John Entwistle
- November 12
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- “I was a Brian May obsessive. I had the Star Licks video and had learned it all by the time I was 14”: Hooked on “bombastic lead rock guitar” before catching the songwriting bug, Seb Wesson is on a search for songs with meaning
- “My friend talked to Joe Walsh and gave him my number. Awhile later, I got a message: ‘Adam Jones, this is the Talk Box fairy. Give me a call’”: Tool's Adam Jones on taking cues from Meshuggah, unorthodox pedals, and the trick he learned from Robert Fripp
- “Verböten played right across the street from Wrigley Field. Dave Grohl came with his sister when he was 13 and saw us play”: Jason Narducy on inspiring Dave Grohl, getting R.E.M. cover tips from Peter Buck – and being Bob Mould’s bassist
- “I love driving people crazy. They come and say, ‘How did you do that? I’ve been working for months trying to get that.’ And I say, ‘It’s just a pedal!’” A guide to the untapped guitar playing of David Gilmour’s solo albums
- “My custom-made classical guitar with the synth module was stolen while we were on tour. I got it back thanks to some people who worked with Joe Bonamassa”: Steve Morse on gear-buying, his ‘FrankenTele’ and why he needs four pickups – no more, no less
- “Was that open-string a mistake or pure brilliance? Who cares? It’s a masterpiece”: Did bass maestro Willie Weeks miss a note on this Donny Hathaway classic?
- November 11
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- “Jimi Hendrix was my superhero, and so I threw a bit of his style into the bassline”: How a young Bootsy Collins took the James Brown bass chair to its busiest level on this Bootsy-fied recut from 1970’s Sex Machine
- “Lots of what I play, I wouldn't know how to describe it… I’m following my nose all the time. It’s a process of instinct and desire”: Meet Lazy Day’s Tilly Scantlebury – the UK guitarist-producer summoning sparkling indie tones from secondhand setups
- “Aqualung was Ian’s riff. The solo was all done on the fly. If I hadn’t got it in two takes then it would have been a flute solo. That’s when Jimmy Page came up to say hello”: Martin Barre on Jethro Tull, the Aqualung sessions – and supporting Hendrix
- November 9
- November 8
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- “Wolfgang knows more Intervals songs at any given moment than I do – on guitar and drums”: Intervals' Aaron Marshall on making the impossible possible, and jamming with Wolfgang Van Halen
- “The Janie’s Got a Gun solo had a ratty sound. I had a Chet Atkins signature guitar plugged into a 15-watt Marshall practice amp... the producer said, ‘It sounds terrible’”: Joe Perry on 50 years of Aerosmith, and what it takes to nail his “working tone”
- 7 stocking filler gift ideas under $20 that guitar players actually need
- November 7
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- “It sold for $937,000 to an anonymous buyer who, we assume, doesn't play punk rock for a living”: From Joe Strummer’s Tele to Johnny Ramone's Mosrite, here are the iconic guitars behind the sound of punk – and the modern-day equivalents you can buy today
- “I might have done better in the Bluesbreakers than in the Yardbirds, but I certainly wouldn't have had the same kind of free rein to experiment”: Jeff Beck on his relationship with Eric Clapton, jamming with Hendrix, and turning down John Mayall
- “It took me a while to learn that guitarists can’t play bass. It’s about more than just getting the notes right”: How Mike Rutherford’s ‘lead bass’ approach helped demystify the low-end for prog rock cornerstone Genesis
- “There were nine other bass players. I got the job. Then I was told they were picking me up in three hours for a tour – I had to take it or leave it”: Tony Stevens on his rocky ride with Savoy Brown, Foghat and Midnight Flyer
- “I took over where Billy Gibbons left off and did my half of the solo, and it was a very rare thing. My wife loves it. She doesn’t love anything I do...” Brian May, Billy Gibbons and Steve Cropper on how the three guitar icons learned to play together
- November 6
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- “I remember trying to do pinch harmonics on a 30” Dunable in the studio… it was close to impossible. My fingers were all torn up trying!” Meet Gore. guitarist Alex Reyes – the modeler-melting Texan metal player summoning djent riffs from six-strings
- “You can only imagine the effect this had on the young Keith Richards and Eric Clapton”: 9 must-hear albums that fueled the British blues guitar boom
- “Starting out as a singer, I realized the guitar was the closest instrument to the human voice in terms of expression”: Judith Hill on her journey from backing singer for Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder to picking up guitar in her own band
- November 5
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- “This album’s the only one where I’ve sat down and planned out a solo. Otherwise, the record button’s pressed, and I just go, ‘Pentatonic scale!’”: Orange Goblin’s Joe Hoare on life’s simple pleasures – Les Pauls, Marshall amps and signature beer
- “I've not got a huge history with Gibson, but this one I bought to have a different tone”: From a forensic Black Strat replica to a Gibson that caught his ear and a ‘90s Zoom unit, here's everything David Gilmour used on his new solo album, Luck & Strange
- “Beat It was interesting. Of course, Eddie Van Halen did the solo. But the rest of the guitars were Steve Lukather and myself...” Session ace Paul Jackson Jr. on how he became Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones’ go-to guitarist
- November 4
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- “I said to him, ‘It needs to be valve. It needs to have that sag, that compression, that you can’t necessarily get from a solid-state design’”: Adrian Thorpe on how he made Chris Buck’s awesome, tube-equipped signature pedal, Electric Lightning
- “I haven't used the Big Muff since 1993. I don’t use that many pedals anymore, but I use them live”: Billy Corgan shares his pedalboard secrets, including the $1,000 pedal he stole from his dad
- “I bought it off a druggie – which I feel terrible about”: From his beloved '59 Strat to his stable of ultra-delicate steampunk guitars, Rick Springfield discusses his guitar journey, and his mission to buy up every instrument he had to part with
- November 3
- November 2
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- “Frank asked me to transcribe St Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast after I told him I’d learned Inca Roads by ear. Maybe it was a challenge to see if I was bluffing!” When bassist Arthur Barrow survived an audition for guitar genius Frank Zappa
- “We did Yellow Brick Road in 16 days! That’s the magic you get with a band like that”: Dee Murray was the centerpiece of the early Elton John band – and the last bassist to play onstage with John Lennon
- November 1
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- “You just heard how responsive these pickups up are… I love the mojo this guitar has”: The PRS S2 line is now packing USA-made pickups – and you can hear the difference
- “It was fun checking out Steve Howe’s gear. He really made the case to me for the guitar stand. You know… the one where your guitar is actually standing!” Hannah Wicklund on opening for Yes and Deep Purple – and her undying love of Anderson Guitars
- Get the most out of Spotify with DistroKid
- “I’ve never played a barre chord in my life. I hate them. You don’t need more than two or three notes to express a chord”: Andy Summers on his “abstracted instrumental” collabs with Robert Fripp, his dream pedalboard, and what he learned from Béla Bartók
- “Nobody ever came to a gig to watch me play guitar. They came to hear me sing. We didn’t have a rhythm guitar player, so I had to cover everything”: Justin Hayward on the life, times and tones of the Moody Blues, and the undisputed power of a dimed AC30
