Features archive

June 2021

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86 articles

June 30
- Brian May and Arielle detail the evolution of the Brian May Guitars Arielle
- Matt Berry: “I’m more interested in the songwriter-guitarists than the gymnasts. If you're sensitive enough as a guitarist then you'll be into songwriting“
- 6 reasons you should consider upgrading to a wireless guitar system
- Alestorm's Mate Bodor reveals what life is really like for a pirate metal band on the touring high seas
June 29
- Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo: “Like a lot of the other bands around that time, we were a little uncomfortable with the sound of our first album...”
- Aziya: “It's not that there aren't female guitarists, it's that they're not being represented enough”
- What makes a great gigging guitar, and should you upgrade?
- Rivers Cuomo: “We suppressed these impulses for many years... It was a real joy to open up that Pandora’s box of evil guitar tools and go crazy“
- Iceage‘s Johan Wieth: “You should be very careful listening to too much music when you're writing an album. It has a tendency to become a little too explicit“
- Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr on his greatest gear buys, regrets and why he's an enabler of impulse purchases
June 28
- Dropkick Murphys’ Ken Casey: “I’m having a blast being able to connect more with the audience”
- Alex Winter takes us behind the scenes of his extensive Frank Zappa documentary, Zappa
- The wild times, final days and last recordings of Alexi Laiho
- Shez Raja: “The harmony in Indian music is super-simple – where it gets mind-bogglingly, face-meltingly interesting is the rhythm and the melody“
- Toby Lee: “My amp always has the reverb on 10, and if it could go any further it would!“
June 27
- Spotlight: Aston Valladares of Towns
June 25
- Nels Cline: "I had no desire to gyrate and hump my amplifier and set my guitar on fire – I wanted to take a modest path"
- Guitar Acquisition Syndrome: what it is, how you already have it, and why that’s no bad thing
- 16 pro guitarists name the live shows that changed their lives
June 24
- Gojira’s Joe Duplantier: “I think humans are pretty shitty sometimes, but we’re as horrible as we are incredible”
- Faye Webster: "When I first got a guitar that really felt like it was a part of me, that's when I started to realize I was the player I wanted to be"
- 6 guitar pros on how to prepare your playing for tour
June 23
- Amenra: “We try to limit how much we play. That's the essence of the band: when you’re playing the right notes, your impact is bigger”
- What happened to Jimi Hendrix's Monterey Stratocaster?
- How Paul Gilbert, Vince Gill and Gretchen Menn powered through the pandemic – and what it means to return to the road
June 22
- Peter Frampton: “I’ve never wished to be a shredder of speed, because the notes go by so quickly you don’t enjoy them“
- Blues powerhouse Christone “Kingfish” Ingram shares his top tips for touring as he returns to the road
June 21
- Rag’N’Bone Man: “It feels like we really concentrated on the songs before anything else was done”
- Kathleen Hanna: “I love that really sparse guitar sound so much – that’s how I write and that’s what I want to hear”
- Isaiah Sharkey: "I never chased being a celebrity guitarist, because I'm too busy liking what I do"
- Myles Kennedy talks soloing strategies, vintage guitars, and 'fesses up to a sacrilegious mod on a Fender Deluxe
June 20
- Beabadoobee - Our Extended Play EP review
June 18
- Paul McCartney: “I figured out my own way of doing fingerstyle – that’s really how I learned every instrument I play”
- Steve Howe: "There has to be a certain accuracy in the live sounds. It was possible because I was using Line 6 – I was fascinated with the Variax"
- Top tweed: the evolution of Fender’s earliest guitar amps
- Tony Choy: "I’m a groove-oriented bass player – I love to stay in the pocket. I love the groove. We call it a kick drum with notes"
June 17
- Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis on being inspired by Thin Lizzy and working with Kurt Vile
- Tracking down Steve Vai's elusive "Crossroads" Jackson – the most famous guitar that was never heard
- Jim Ward: “I've always written on an unplugged electric guitar. That's why I play a lot of bombastic stuff with open strings – it fills up the room”
- BIG|BRAVE's Mathieu Ball: “Whenever we play something too musical, I feel it’s almost a cop out. We have to get rid of any traditional guitar playing!”
June 16
- Slash's best guitar solos ranked
- Steve Hackett: "My first professional gig with Genesis was a complete disaster. I forgot every single note I was supposed to play"
- Danny Elfman: “I’m not a shredder. My guitar on this album was the feedback and the messiness!”
June 15
- Paper Citizen - Wandering Ghost EP review
- Lucy Dacus: "One piece of advice I would give to anybody: get a bad guitar. It's almost like a blank slate and creates a sense of freedom"
- Marty Friedman: “Much of the Japanese music that is currently very popular has a melodic structure that echoes a lot of '70s Western rock and pop“
June 14
- Liz Stringer: “I didn’t have any design for the outcome, which was very different to other records I’ve made”
- Hatebreed‘s Chris Beattie: ”No matter what you do in life, but especially as a bass player, you’ve got to keep learning”
- Status Quo's Francis Rossi: "I put a Tune-o-Matic bridge on my Tele like the old Gibsons. I think all that stuff, and taking off the lacquer, added to the tone"
June 13
- Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake: “If we share the load, it should mean that we can come up with a stronger album”
June 11
- Steve Lukather: “I used to learn George Harrison s**t and everyone thought I was a badass! Now little kids on YouTube play like Stevie Ray Vaughan“
- The history of the Fender Telecaster, the world's first mass-produced solidbody electric guitar
- Trapped in Purgatory's Jon Hoare: “I don’t go for expensive gear. If I can make it from the car to the rehearsal room in one trip, then it’s mission accomplished”
- The secrets behind Billy Zoom's guitar tone on X's Los Angeles
- A quick Q&A with Brad Cox
June 10
- The Offspring’s Dexter Holland and Noodles: “Everything from Smash ’til now seems like it’s all part of the same era”
- Dhani Harrison: “If you've got time and the will to do it, you can make a guitar sound like anything”
- Voodoo Glow Skulls' Eddie Casillas: “This record is the most ska we've ever been – we've never had clean guitar tones on any of our albums before this”
- Lee Rocker: ”Elvis was like Batman or Superman when I was a little kid – even before I was aware of his music. It’s so raw”
June 9
- Garbage’s Steve Marker: “It was important to keep the initial spirit that we had when we wrote these songs”
- The Tragically Hip's Rob Baker on how the Canadian rock icons unearthed their long-lost sophomore sessions for surprise new EP, Saskadelphia
- William DuVall: "That conception of basic musical competence as punk… I wasn’t one of those people. I was on a quest for the truth and jamming to everything"
- Tash Sultana: “I always think there is never enough guitar on records. I’m all for the guitar layering and layering and layering...“
June 8
- Renforshort: "I get surges of creativity at 3 in the morning – I'll be up in bed, trying different tunings and seeing if I come up with anything cool"
- Wolfgang Van Halen: "Dad would rather people not try and sound like him but sound like themselves. I’m being myself – I’m not sitting there doing covers of Panama"
- Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready looks back on 30 years of Ten: “It was the first time I was in a situation where everybody was firing on all cylinders“
June 7
- Spotlight: Rosie Tucker
- Cleopatrick's Luke Gruntz: “We want to try and give kids something enticing to belong to in guitar music”
- Alter Bridge‘s Brian Marshall: “Bass is a different skill set and a different mindset. I think we’re just born that way“
- Phil Collen: “I put a DiMarzio Super Distortion T in my Teles and got the sound we’d been trying to get for years“
June 6
- Sly Withers - Gardens album review
June 4
- Chris Robertson: "For me, 'self-medicating' always meant sitting down with a guitar, but it got to where that didn't do it for me anymore"
- Gibson ES-175: the hollowbody electric archtop that was a Gibson first
June 3
- An interview with Fender Custom Shop Master Builder Kyle McMillin
- Session great Yolanda Charles on her best (and worst) bass albums
- Gojira's Joe Duplantier: "My approach to guitar is very physical… but not sexual!"
- Tetrarch’s Diamond Rowe and Josh Fore on building a second wave of nu-metal with freak tones, high-gain amps and songs you can relate to
June 2
- Australian Guitar's Fresh Frets: Vol. 8
- Greta Van Fleet's Jake Kiszka: “I work very hard to articulate chords and notes. All of that sensitivity and technicality gets lost when you have too much overdrive“
- Harakiri for the Sky's Matthias Sollak talks amplifier worship, pandemic blues and picking up the black metal torch from Bathory
- Andrew Watt: “I’m making music with no deadlines – It’s a lot freer. Because of that, cooler choices are being taken”
June 1
- Amends - Tales Of Love, Loss, And Outlaws album review
- How the guitar talents behind Jay Som and Palehound joined forces for one of 2021's essential indie-rock albums
- Wolf Alice: "A lot of times, it's the ideas you feel more embarrassed to try that are your best ones”
- Dino Cazares: “I built up my picking hand speed by hanging weights off my wrist”
- Starr Cullars: "Prince used to come out to P-Funk shows – he was tripping that I was playing with them"