Features archive
October 2023
Filter
99 articles
- October 31
-
- “I was inspired to get away from the standard chordal structure we’ve all heard a thousand times”: Producer, luthier, songwriter like no other – Jonathan Wilson will take you on a strange trip
- “We fit the definition of a one-hit wonder, but I look at it as being lucky enough to have written a song that’ll be remembered forever”: Brian Vander Ark on how The Freshmen changed lives, including his own
- “In my mind, we could be like the Yardbirds in those rare times when you had Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck together. That’s what we wanted Aerosmith to be”: Joe Perry reflects on 50 years of America’s greatest rock band
- “Go into your local shop and pick one up… just try not to kill anyone with it”: How Five Finger Death Punch’s Andy James made one of the most dangerous signature guitars of all time
- I’ve been fitting locking tuners to all my electric guitars for 20 years – and I just found out I’ve been using them wrong the whole time
- “I’ve been wanting to do this solo thing for a very long time. I had to do stuff with Mötley… now it’s my time”: Mick Mars opens up about his surprisingly heavy solo debut and life after the Crüe
- October 30
-
- “We wanted to make something that was atmospheric and not mimicking anything else. But, really, this record is about coming out of grief”: Emma Tricca is finding redemption in vintage Martins and fingerstyle folk
- “I had a Fender Super Twin that was completely melted down – sparks were shooting out of the amp. I’m shocked we didn’t burn the place down”: Everclear’s Art Alexakis on the tenacity and dangerous amps that won him platinum-level success
- “There’s big brands making stuff that’s no better than the $200 Chinese knockoffs you see online. I wanted to make something that could deliver the quality”: Steve Brown wants to shake up the budget guitar market with SBS Guitars’ $379 shred machines
- October 29
- October 28
-
- “It’s Roger’s bass riff. He came in with the verses and the lyrics for Money”: Listen to the isolated bassline on Pink Floyd’s 1973 masterpiece
- “Robbie’s music seemed to come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys”: Remembering Robbie Robertson, 1943-2023
- October 27
-
- “When I'm not playing online, I love to blend with the band. I'm not the one who wants to stand out. But online, that's what it's all about”: April Kae is on a quest to inspire new bass players – and it starts with making bass sound good on phone speakers
- 11 ways to get more from your pitch-shifter and octave pedals
- They have a guitarist named Joe Perry, bought a Fender Telecaster from a KFC and their MO is to “scream, thrash guitars and put the heaviest overdrive on” – meet Coach Party, the UK’s next great indie-rock hope
- October 26
-
- “We want to give fans one last chance to see a really kickass show before we wind it up”: George Lynch on why he's retiring his long-running band, his unlikely Gibson studio favorite, and that Peavey business...
- “Bernie had completely forgotten he had this. He said, ‘Oh, I looked in one of my old storage spaces today and I found another four guitars’”: Up close and personal with some of late guitar hero Bernie Marsden’s rarest vintage instruments
- “My Foo Fighters setup is the kind of beast you have when somebody carries your s**t around for you!” Chris Shiflett on his double-life as a jobbing solo artist and lead guitarist in the world’s biggest rock band
- October 25
-
- “Unlike Jimi Hendrix, we never deliberately tuned down”: Listen to Jack Bruce’s bassline on Cream’s Politician
- “Playing scales up and down is dumb… this isn’t a f**king recital!” We meet the outspoken cartoon shredder who teamed up with Gary Holt, Alex Skolnick and George Lynch for one of this year’s biggest shred guitar albums
- “What people tend to do is learn licks and then try to stick them into the solos – and that’s not really the way to do it”: Iron Maiden’s Janick Gers shares his tips for better guitar solos
- “Sometimes bad gear can give you a good idea! I’ll go with whatever’s around. There are no rules”: Code Orange’s Reba Meyers on writing “pure evil” riffs and why she’d rather play a guitar that “sounds a little sh**tier” than a studio classic
- “I never have to think about strumming patterns – it’s all taken care of because the motor is always going”: Cory Wong is the modern king of funk guitar – he shares his tips for tightening up your rhythm playing
- “The guitars have a vagueness and messiness – there’s a certain cloudiness that creates our perfect environment. That's our sound”: Blonde Redhead might not be the best of friends, but their otherworldly guitar textures are a match made in heaven
- October 24
-
- “People forget that great rhythm guitar will help make your solo sound better”: YouTube guitar guru Marty Schwartz on the biggest mistakes aspiring guitarists make – and how to fix them
- “That long-haired hippie’s got the word ‘f**k’ on his guitar!” Tommy Bolin’s 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard has one of the most checkered histories of any ’Burst – watch the late guitar hero play it live on TV with his pre-Deep Purple band, Zephyr
- “I like the rawness and the vulnerability you get from a cleaner sound... I like having to work for it a little bit”: Gina Gleason explains why Baroness made the switch from humbuckers to single coils – and sounded all the heavier for it
- “I wanted to put a great band together like Rainbow, Deep Purple or Humble Pie. Nikki Sixx simply was not capable. So I told Tommy, ‘If this is the guy you want, I’m leaving’”: Before Mick Mars, Greg Leon was Mötley Crüe’s original guitarist
- October 23
-
- “We’re trying to do the AC/DC version of a two-pronged attack, especially when we play live”: The Darkness’ Justin and Dan Hawkins on the high-volume twin-guitar secrets behind Permission To Land
- “I think Leo Fender reinvented the universe when he made the Telecaster because it’s just so simple and perfect”: Jesse Dayton on his greatest gear hits and misses
- “I dig playing that bassline, and I love the beats”: Tina Weymouth on the Tom Tom Club’s The Good The Bad And The Funky
- October 20
-
- 11 ways to get more from your delay and reverb pedals
- “If you can make a record that feels like you have invented rock ’n’ roll, that’s a great feeling”: The Hives on how a need for speed – and the mystery of the elusive Randy Fitzsimmons – helped inspire them to make a comeback record for the ages
- “If you sound really good when you’re practicing, that means you’re practicing things you can already do, which isn’t really benefiting you fully”: Guthrie Govan shares his top tips for soloing
- “I bought it from this bloke our drummer knew. I think it was the first fretless electric bass ever”: Bill Wyman on the origins of his famous “homemade” fretless bass
- “Don’t pick up your bass and act like you’re in Guitar Center”: Legendary studio bassist Randy Jackson shares his session secrets
- “A humbucker is a lot more controlled, and a single coil is twangy and misses frequencies. The P-90s have the best of the two worlds”: Meet Graveyard, the Swedish classic rockers with tone and vibrato worthy of the ‘60s psychedelic blues explosion
- October 19
-
- Using Dumble-modded Fender Twins and the "Stay With Me" Zemaitis, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood grace The Rolling Stones' comeback album with some of their finest fretwork in decades
- “Wendy Melvoin is a highly influential guitarist for me. Her feel is unmatched”: Madison Cunningham is the new face of the Fender Jazzmaster – and she has some seriously A-list collaborations in the pipeline
- “People come up to me and say, ‘Man, you’re keeping the blues alive!’ I’m like, ‘You don’t even know that’s the worst thing you could say to me’”: Mixing Blind Willie Johnson covers with Slayer-inspired shred, Buffalo Nichols is no blues traditionalist
- “Martin Barre had a Strat and it was on the stage one day – I picked it up and plugged it into my amp. Immediately, I thought, ‘I like the voicing of that…’”: Robin Trower looks back on making some of guitar’s most influential recordings
- October 18
-
- “I’d like to remind all the perfectionist guitar nerds to listen to Jimmy Page’s solo on In the Evening. It sounds like the guitar is falling down the stairs… It’s brilliant”: Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil dissects his “dangerous” approach to guitar playing
- “When I played Here I Go Again to Jon Lord he had a certain look in his eye. He said, ‘You’re a clever little sod, aren’t you?’”: Remembering Bernie Marsden, 1951-2023
- “It’s got nothing to do with the rest of the song!” Listen to the octave-heavy outro on Gettin’ Betta by Pat Travers Band
- The Rolling Stone 250 greatest guitarists list gets a lot of things right – but some of its exclusions are just plain wrong
- October 17
-
- How Gibson leaned into the ‘50s modernist zeitgeist and created the Explorer – and changed the shape of electric guitars to come
- “I got into ES-style guitars because of that scene in Back to the Future!”: How Chris Stapleton, the humble capo and Marty McFly shaped Ashley Sherlock’s breakthrough debut album
- “I love the sound of the Rickenbacker, but I didn’t sound like Chris Squire on it!” Geddy Lee on his Rick-O-Sound tone and ‘crossing the floor’ to Fender
- “The emotion of Clapton, the feel of Joe Perry, and the dexterity of Eddie Van Halen”: Criss Oliva was one of heavy music’s most electrifying guitar players – and then a drunk driver took his life
- October 16
-
- “My Gibson is still the coolest looking bass guitar ever!” Frankie Poullain remains a committed Thunderbird player – just don’t ask him about beer-throwing fans
- “The substance issues and drama negatively impacted Velvet Revolver. But there was the ‘dangerous band’ element. That came across in a song like Slither”: Dave Kushner looks back on his guitar partnership with Slash – and writing the Sons of Anarchy theme
- “I sort of flippantly say: ‘All guitars sound the same and go for whatever looks good.’ But that’s not really true”: Kavus Torabi on his greatest gear hits and misses
- October 14
- October 13
-
- Download and stream the audio from Guitar Techniques 354
- “I hadn’t played bass to any great degree before I tried out for Oasis. When I was invited to come out and got on the plane, I didn’t have a bass”: Andy Bell looks back on crafting Ride’s mind-expanding shoegaze sound and playing in Britpop’s biggest band
- Used by everyone from Kurt Cobain to Ace Frehley, the DiMarzio Super Distortion pickup changed the sound of rock – and the future of electric guitar tone
- “The SD-1 was my first important Boss pedal. I’ve always called it the $50 Marshall upgrade”: Tracii Guns reveals what’s on his pedalboard
- 8 ways to get more from your modulation and filter pedals
- October 12
-
- “I wish I knew more about what the hell I was doing when I’m playing”: Dave Mason has recorded with Jimi Hendrix and Wings, and inspired George Harrison to play slide guitar – and he’s done it all without “a lot of technique”
- How torrefied wood affects acoustic guitars: demystifying the process that is said to give new instruments vintage tones from the get-go
- “Doug really knew his way around that bass. Billy built the band around him”: How Paul Simon's advice and Doug Stegmeyer’s swinging bassline transformed Billy Joel’s Only The Good Die Young
- “Sunshine of Your Love should be in the dictionary under the best-known bassline of all time”: Chris Squire on the five bass players that shaped his sound
- “Practicing a solo puts you in a position of being unable to reach it later. I don't subscribe to that theory. My solos have to come straight out of me in the moment”: Robert Cray on his return to the road and why the blues must evolve to survive
- October 11
-
- “There was a lot of dissent from the workforce – there was a mindset of Epiphone not being as important or as easy to work on as Gibson”: The history of Epiphone and Gibson’s rollercoaster relationship – and what’s next for the brands
- “We were fed up with 90% of rock playlists being stuff where you don’t even know if you can hear a guitar”: James and the Cold Gun are bringing the “early noughties guitar rock revival” back – with a little help from Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard
- “I was very influenced by Prince’s bass playing – he had a high-end to his sound, and I incorporated that into Appetite for Destruction”: Duff McKagan names 7 bassists who shaped his sound
- October 10
-
- I lived with the Fender Tone Master Pro for two weeks, and forget the tones – the way it feels is the real game-changer
- “As soon as we heard Chris’ name, I knew we were good. Nobody works harder or learns songs quicker. It was like I had my teacher with me every day”: How ex-Megadeth shredder Chris Broderick lit the fuse under In Flames’ fierce return
- “For me, Gibson and Epiphone are one and the same. But there is a richness within the Epiphone – you can get it and not be afraid to take it on the road”: Meet Abraham Alexander, Gibson’s first-ever Marquee Artist
- “The opportunities that AI presents for guitar education are immense”: Why one of the world’s top guitar tutors is embracing AI – even if he’s out of a job
- October 9
-
- “Whenever I think I have my tone dialed in, I find something that makes me want to improve. I doubt I’ll ever quit chasing the dragon”: Kill Devil Hill are back – Mark Zavon explains why Rex Brown’s departure lit a fire under the hard-rock supergroup
- “There’s a similarity between metal and bluegrass. The intensity is a common thread”: Bluegrass guitar playing has stepped up a gear – here are 6 blazing guitarists you need to hear (besides Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle)
- “I had an operation and the doctor told me, ‘No more heavy guitars.’ He rattled off a ton I couldn't play – I said, ‘Doc, what can I play?!’” Mark Farner on what led him to the Parker Fly – and what’s preventing a Grand Funk Railroad reunion
- “So much metal is gridded and sterile. We call it ‘CGI metal’. It isn’t real, and it just doesn’t sound heavy”: Simon Neil and Mike Vennart are making metal heavy again with Empire State Bastard
- October 8
- October 7
- October 6
-
- “On Longview I used a Gibson bass. Then I broke the neck in half”: Mike Dirnt on the making of Green Day’s breakthrough single
- “Daft Punk was dancing in the booth while we cut it!” Listen to James Genus stretch out on Giorgio by Moroder from Random Access Memories
- “We love the sound of DI guitars. We don’t make our lives easier with technology – it’s a tool to be abused”: Industrial riffers Saint Agnes break all the gear rules and embrace wrong notes in the name of intensity and aggression
- 9 ways to get more from your amp modeler and multi-effects pedals
- “I bought my first solidbody electric from Ed King. It was a Gibson SG he’d used as his main guitar in Strawberry Alarm Clock”: Steve Bartek was Danny Elfman’s right-hand man for Oingo Boingo and countless movie scores – now he’s playing Coachella
- “A song like Eruption is about the guitar itself, but Machine Gun is about the nation at a specific point in time. Jimi Hendrix plugged into that at an unprecedented level”: Vernon Reid names 10 guitarists who shaped his sound
- October 5
-
- “There was a time when I didn’t want to make punk music because my dad makes that type of stuff”: Meet Jakob Armstrong, the Jazzmaster-toting son of Green Day’s Billie Joe who’s blazing his own trail with Ultra Q
- “I didn’t want to become a cover band playing Purple Haze or Hey Joe – I took the deeper cuts and put my own spin on it”: He organized Jimi Hendrix’s 80th birthday party, now Marcus Machado is taking rock, funk and soul guitar into new territory
- “Dad showed me three chords and then he was like, ‘There’s a million songs in those three chords, so knock yourself out.’ He wanted me to find my own connection”: Tommy Prine shares how music helped him cope with the loss of his father
- October 4
-
- “If I had joined Guns N’ Roses, that would have basically been me filling the role of someone having to back up Slash”: Marc Ford on the highs, lows and musical triumphs of The Black Crowes
- “I played a Japanese Les Paul copy on Teenage Kicks but, ironically, I still think it’s the best sound I ever got on record”: The Undertones’ Damian O’Neill looks back on the making of the band’s defining anthem – and the lost classic that followed
- “All of Ace Frehley’s leads are memorable. Even though he’s not a shredder, he’s catchy, filled with melody, and exactly what a lead guitarist should be”: Type O Negative’s Kenny Hickey on how Kiss inspired his gothic metal masterpieces
- How rubber bridge guitars became the hottest trend for the next generation of players: 10 songs that tell the story of its unstoppable rise
- October 3
-
- “We mic’d one of Steve Howe’s old Gibson guitars and mixed it with the bass. That’s what gave it such a bright sound”: Listen to Chris Squire’s isolated bassline on Roundabout
- “Dave Cobb’s ’40s Martin is one of my favorite guitars I have ever touched in my life – I really wanted to steal that guitar!” Grace Potter went on the mother of all road trips… then embarked on the mother of all recording sessions
- “I can’t build a guitar, I can’t wire an amp. Woodworking? That’s not my role here. My role is to push guitar culture forward”: Gibson’s Mark Agnesi is on a mission to create more guitar players
- “I always get compliments on my tone. It’s become a running joke: ‘Aren’t they gonna say I’m awesome? Is it all about my tone?!’”: Dirty Honey’s John Notto is back in the studio – and he’s still in search of “that great, elusive riff”
- October 2
-
- 10 recording mistakes every guitarist makes
- Gibson SG vs Gibson Les Paul: what's the difference between these Gibson heavyweights?
- “Epiphone will always be Gibson’s older brother, and its history is perhaps the most interesting of any guitar brand”: Celebrating 150 years of Epiphone – from luxury archtop maker to budget builder and rock icon
- “Buckethead made me want to explore the idea of using a kill switch. I love how creative you can get”: How John 5 revolutionized one of Fender’s oldest guitar designs with the Ghost Telecaster
- “When people say ‘jazz’, they get locked into ‘It's not this; it's this.’ I never looked at music that way”: Grammy-nominated virtuoso David Becker is nurturing the future of jazz guitar – and he’s encouraging them to break the rules
- October 1
