Features archive
April 2024
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111 articles
- April 30
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- “I remember feeling happy in my heart when I first heard a pedal steel”: Meet Pedal Steel Noah, the teenager going viral with country-fied covers of everything from Judas Priest to Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine
- “The pedals I’ve collected take me on a trip through all sorts of beautiful spaceship sounds”: Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless reveals what’s on his pedalboard
- April 29
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- “I had a Gibson deal at one point where I could get Les Pauls at factory prices. I would sell them at pawn shops and put the money towards older Les Pauls”: Mike Ness on fighting cancer and the roots influences behind Social Distortion’s self-titled LP
- “I was extremely hungover. The producer called me into the studio and had me sit at the desk and do the solo. I was really in pain, but I pulled it off”: Adrian Smith on how Iron Maiden went beyond epic with Powerslave
- “I played my guitar in every imaginable way to convey the depth of the game”: 20 of the greatest guitar moments in video games – from Guitar Hero to surprise Joe Satriani soundtracks
- “I was very appreciative to be there. But when he transitioned to Let’s Dance, I wasn’t called back. I eventually squared with it, but it was painful”: George Murray on his bittersweet ride with David Bowie
- “At that tempo it was like playing a brand-new song. I had to watch Bernard Purdie’s foot!” How Jerry Jemmott stayed on top of Aretha Franklin’s Respect – and recovered from his mistakes – at the Fillmore West in 1971
- April 28
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- “There isn’t much guitar at all for the first three tracks. Nobody gave me the memo about what a record should sound like”: How Steve Vai revolutionized guitar with his debut album, Flex-Able
- “Rick Nielsen would come into my dressing room with a guitar and say, ‘Joe, you really should buy this one’”: Joe Perry on the ’57 Gretsch Duo Jet that recorded Dude (Looks Like a Lady)
- April 27
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- “When I recorded with Jason Becker, he was still able to speak… he articulated exactly what he wanted, down to every pinch harmonic, vibrato and out-of-tune note”: Shrapnel veteran Michael Lee Firkins reflects on the final days of shred
- “In the ’80s, I was very much into playing fast and wanting to be the best. Later on I realized it was just a waste of time”: Europe’s John Norum on the one guitar he kept from the Final Countdown era, and what he learned from Don Dokken
- “Sometimes I make the bassline too complex and too noodly, but Thom is good at putting the brakes on that”: How Colin Greenwood came up with his deceptive stop-start bassline on Radiohead’s Airbag
- Download and stream the audio from Total Guitar 384
- April 26
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- “The whole audience’s heads snap and look at the stage, and I go, ‘Oh my God, I can't forget this riff’”: Randy Bachman on how a broken string inspired his iconic American Woman guitar riff
- “It made me realize how grateful I am to have the guitar in my life”: I applied to be the new Smashing Pumpkins guitarist – I didn’t get the gig, but it was one of the most life-affirming experiences of my musical career
- “When I first played Jump for the guys nobody wanted anything to do with it. Dave said I was a guitar hero and I shouldn’t be playing keyboards”: The story of Van Halen’s 1984 – the Flying V, the synths and the end of the David Lee Roth era
- “I try to score Tommy Shelby’s inner voice with my guitar. I’d play with a bow or hit the strings with the guitar on the ground, all sorts of weird stuff”: How Anna Calvi threw out the guitar rulebook to write the Peaky Blinders score
- “I was all about Eddie Van Halen and George Lynch. But John Sykes really got me – he changed my world through his tone and vibrato”: How Fozzy’s Rich Ward took a shred attitude and funk-metal mindset to invent Stuck Mojo
- 10 legendary blues guitars, from Lucille to Lucy and the ‘Loch Ness Monster of Les Pauls’ – a priceless Gibson that has been missing for more than 50 years
- April 25
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- Flatwound vs roundwound bass strings: What’s the difference?
- “Ace Frehley is very good at creating a song within a song when it comes to solos, and I've always thought along those lines”: Rock City Machine Co. went from KISS Army to KISS collaborators. Now they're going it alone.
- “Metal guitars have more bite, but they lose some of the meat on the attack. Les Pauls are very meaty – there’s a big chunk of tonal range there”: Why a baritone Les Paul is proving the perfect prog metal weapon for Wheel’s James Lascelles
- “I use pedals for timbral changes on guitar – it’s like a horn where your breath affects the tone”: Meet Ava Mendoza the punk-reared jazz guitar maverick turning breath work to fretwork
- “Dad would never touch the gunk that had built up on the fingerboard. He told me, ‘The dirt keeps the funk’”: Inside the sound and style of Motown master James Jamerson
- “I instinctively dislike ‘try hard’ musicians. I pretty much learned my bass rudiments from Led Zeppelin II”: Why Squarepusher is an artist in a vast left-field league of his own
- April 24
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- “We had to come up with the songs pretty quickly – Stevie wasn’t a fluent songwriter”: Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton on the making of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather
- “People have always gravitated to guitars by Fender Japan because you get so much more choice… The build quality is the best Fender makes outside the Custom Shop”: How the Japanese Fender offset conquered the world
- “Marvel said, ‘Whatever you’re playing has been floating around in the universe for a while…’ I said, ‘Well, why don’t you just mess this guitar up?’” Kevin and Michael Bacon on trashing Taylors for Guardians of the Galaxy and love of Fender Acoustasonics
- Download and stream the audio from Guitar Techniques 361
- I’ve played IK Multimedia’s nano modeling amp, the TONEX One – and it could be the ultimate pocket-sized pedal platform
- April 23
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- “I’ve had years of listening to that Goldtop and now, I own it”: Sum 41's Deryck Whibley and Dave Baksh talk perfect guitars, going from amp stacks to profilers – and the difficult decision to say goodbye
- “Nobody said, ‘You need to play five-string,’ but for stadium gigs there’s nothing cooler than hitting a low B and feeling it in your core”: Kenny Chesney bassist Harmoni Kelley on why five-strings rule for modern country players
- “I was standing in line at the bank when Dickey called: ‘Hey, listen – my guitar player just quit and the tour starts in a week. Do you want to do it?’” How I went from guitar journalist to Dickey Betts’ right-hand man
- 5 signs your guitar cable needs replacing (and 6 ways to make it last longer)
- “Most stakeholders in the blues world are killing it instead of keeping it alive”: Athlete turned guitarist Emanuel Casablanca approaches guitar with a competitive mindset – and he’s on a mission to stop the blues all sounding the same
- “When I’m in the studio I’m playing most of the instruments. Onstage, it’s a different thing”: Alt-country guitarist du jour MJ Lenderman shares his tone secrets and explains why there’s life in the live album yet
- “We played a bunch of really awkward shows with both of us staring at our tuners the whole time and then we broke up for 15 years”: Math-rock pioneer Mike Kinsella on his unlikely journey to cult guitar hero status with American Football
- April 22
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- “A lot of people don’t know cheap guitars require the same energy, and resources to make as an expensive guitar”: How this Danish guitar company is turning factory rejects into some of its finest builds
- “No-one had brought an electric guitar in the church before… it caused a bit of a stir”: Patti Smith on her controversial first gig – and why rock belongs to the people
- “I began playing on the simplest old guitar, which was nearly impossible to tune – some of the tuning pegs even fell off!” Meet Tasha S, the Ukrainian guitar phenom whose nonchalant covers have won her millions of followers
- “It’s kind of sad that sax or trumpet players can get up there and play like Miles and people appreciate it. But if a guitar player does that, some people think, ‘Oh, that guy has no chops’”: Scott Henderson on virtuosity and musical journeys
- “Carlos Santana said, ‘I’ll play bass – you play guitar.’ I said I couldn’t, but he told me whatever I played belonged to me. I could own it”: Super-producer Raphael Saadiq on how he switched to guitar and earned his signature Fender Telecaster
- “Beck wanted something distinctive and driving. Like the bass was coming unhinged at every turn”: Listen to Justin Meldal-Johnsen’s bassline on Beck’s Sexx Laws
- April 21
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- “It’s Chuck Rainey’s concept of ‘what you don’t play is as important as what you do play’”: After decades of studio sessions with artists ranging from Eric Clapton to Usher, Nathan East reflects on the business of bass
- How to add warmth to digital amp modelers: 5 must-try tricks for introducing presence, thickness and sparkle to your signal chain
- April 20
- April 19
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- “I liked to go to this old abandoned graveyard by the river to write songs. The gravestone next to where I was sitting said, ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’, so that became the song’s title”: The 25 greatest Allman Brothers Band songs
- “We thought Ramblin’ Man was too country to record. We put it on the album, and it became a hit. Then it more and more became Dickey’s band”: Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman tell the full story of the Allman Brothers Band, one of rock’s greatest groups
- “I grow the nails on my right hand as long as I can, so I can get that trebly sound”: Steve Harris delivered one of the coolest bass guitar intros in the history of metal on Iron Maiden’s Wrathchild
- “With a bit of spit ’n’ polish you might have a ‘gateway’ guitar on your hands”: Classical guitar setup – how to get the most out of your nylon-string
- I played the Tom DeLonge Starcaster and expected to feel nostalgic – but this smartly designed signature has given one of Fender’s most unpopular guitars a new lease of life
- “The Bigsby Standard actually made by Paul Bigsby is one of the most special – there’s only 25 or so known to still exist”: Meet Amy Rose Mills, the accidental luthier who sets up some of the rarest guitars on the planet
- April 18
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- “When I play the trill with my finger, my hand is not on the neck at all. It all comes from the wrist”: The story of B.B. King, the greatest blues guitar player of all time
- "This American institution has not only changed the face of the guitar forever but has shaped the course of popular music": 5 Fender innovations that changed the world of guitar
- “Once in a while, we would start playing a Beatles song, and John would go, ‘Cut that out!’” Session guitar legend Earl Slick on fast times with John Lennon and David Bowie – and saying no to Whitesnake
- “John Paul Jones is one of the only musicians I’ve been around where I was starstruck. I asked him some stupid questions about Achilles Last Stand… but he was very kind!” Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament names 11 bassists who shaped his sound
- April 17
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- Fender's guitar models explained: we break down the entire Fender line-up from Player to Custom Shop, to help find the right one for you
- “So well-versed in the art of blues that B.B. King said ‘he was like another one of my sons’”: 12 blues guitar albums that chart the genre – and the instrument’s – evolution
- “B.C. Rich guitars were God back then. They weren’t like a Strat or a Les Paul – they were something different. They had so much power”: Lita Ford on her trailblazing guitar journey – and that time she nearly joined Led Zeppelin
- April 16
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- “I strongly believe that if you give a guitar to five different players – same guitar, same amp – each one of them is going to sound different”: Alex Lifeson takes us behind the scenes at Lerxst to talk gear, tone and the possibility of new music
- “A lot of kids are getting millions of hits because they can play Eruption. If you want to impress me, write Eruption”: Jesse Dayton is glad he didn’t have a hit years ago – it might have taken away his freedom
- “When companies have success, or they have iconic models, we can tend to get lazy... Consumers and artists deserve better – they need to feel like we’re working hard”: How Martin made its groundbreaking Inception acoustic
- “As guitarists, we’re used to looking at wood on our guitars, but its role in shaping the cabinet’s sound is as important”: How does guitar cabinet material affect the sound?
- “He’d pull off bass riffs that were just amazing – he doesn’t just follow the roots”: Listen to Geddy Lee’s “flamenco” strumming technique on Rush’s Snakes & Arrows
- April 15
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- “Clyde McCoy was duly paid $500 to endorse a pedal he probably never used”: The wah pedal changed the sound of electric guitar – but was originally intended for the trumpet
- “I send two delays out to an amp each and pan them. You get this glorious wash that makes you feel like you’re on drugs”: With Oceansize, Mike Vennart influenced a generation of progressive guitarists – and he’s not ruling out a reunion
- April 14
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- “As a guitarist you can come in after the one without the house falling apart. But as a bass player, you always have to be there”: How Jonas Reingold switched from classical guitar and became Steve Hackett’s go-to bassist
- “We started at a slow tempo, but as the session wore on, people were heading to the bathroom and sniffing stuff, and the tempo got to be almost twice as fast!” Klaus Voormann’s bassline on John Lennon’s Whatever Gets You Thru The Night is a must-listen
- April 13
- April 12
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- “When I look back, The Strokes were like this tentpole. They led me to learn how to accompany myself and made me want to start my own band”: Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield found her country voice via indie and riot grrrl
- “I know what it’s like to wake up and not having anything to eat… My blues comes out differently than somebody who just plays the blues because they like it”: Cedric Burnside on living the blues – and why he plays guitars built by a brain surgeon
- “Like so many of Leo Fender’s products, these instruments ended up being wildly successful at producing sounds that ran contrary to his intentions”: The history of Fender offset guitars
- “Plant let us know he usually hated people’s covers of Stairway, but he liked that one. Jimmy Page goes, ‘You nailed the guitar part!’” That time Heart performed Stairway to Heaven in front of Led Zeppelin – and reduced Robert Plant to tears
- “When my dad passed, I didn’t know what happened to his ’55 Tele. I got a call: ‘I need you to check something out.’ When I walked in, there’s a guitar case on the floor…” Nashville session master Rob McNelley on Lady A, Buddy Guy and an emotional reunion
- “When I was a kid, I thought bass playing was about throwing up and cutting yourself – I blame Gene Simmons and Sid Vicious”: Bad Religion’s Jay Bentley on his bass-playing influences and the “best-sounding P-Bass he’s ever heard”
- “When I go onstage and have a guitar, I feel like no-one can touch me”: Why Amy Winehouse's passion for guitar was key to her distinctive songwriting style
- April 11
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- “I’ve always loved Fenders. I’m almost working against a design that has been around since the ‘50s – I don’t know if it’s going to cooperate with me”: Pissed Jeans’ Bradley Fry on why he loves awkward offsets and solid-state Peavey amps
- “What makes a great blues player is taking on influences that aren’t blues-based”: Joe Bonamassa explains why the best guitarists always look beyond the blues
- “I know some guitarists that will work on a 30-second soundbite for days before filming it in a way that looks off the cuff”: How social media is affecting our perception of guitar playing
- “It’s one of my favorite basslines. I don’t know how I came up with it – doing the session was like floating in space”: Verdine White picks his top 5 Earth, Wind & Fire basslines
- April 10
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- “I heard Eruption by Van Halen and I was like, ‘What is that?!’ I love to push the boundaries, and I love when it sounds crazy”: Meet Emi Grace, the Trashy Tone Thursday pioneer tearing up the shred rulebook and taking on the haters
- “Noel Gallagher gave me one of Peter Green’s Gibson Les Pauls. Johnny Marr had given Noel a guitar, and maybe he felt it was customary that he do the same”: Bill Ryder-Jones on his ascent to UK indie rock royalty
- “Playing at the Super Bowl is the easy part. It’s the musical director responsibilities leading up that’s stressful”: Adam Blackstone heads up the biggest gigs on the planet – now with a 5-string Jackson bass named after his grandmother
- “I could have headed towards blues or shred. I chose blues… Fast-forward to 2020, I decided to become a 12 year-old learning guitar again – I went the other way and got an Ibanez with a Floyd Rose!” Gary Clark Jr. is finally unleashing his inner shredder
- April 9
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- “I have Marshall, Orange and Victory amps, but they just don’t have the bark I need for this project. The 5150 is what metal sounds like to me”: Meet Jaguar Throne, the UK metal big beasts following in the hoofprints of Mastodon
- “Some people use one guitar, one amp, and then, ‘This is what I am going to use for the rest of my life’... We change it up as much as we can”: The Gaslight Anthem are on an eternal tonal quest
- April 8
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- “I just need one good sound and I’m set. A lot of players forget that”: Gus G’s tone and soloing philosophy is always evolving – and right now, it’s full of Floyd Rose divebombs
- I used Fender Play for 8 weeks to learn the guitar from scratch – here’s how I got on
- “Those virtuoso guys can do anything. But sometimes it’s more fun to hit one note and see if it can mean as much. Sometimes it can mean even more”: Rich Robinson on earning AC/DC’s approval, losing guitars to a hurricane, and The Black Crowes’ return
- Wrestling with noisy pedals? One simple trick made my pedalboard whisper-quiet – and it didn’t cost me a thing
- “If you’re not reaching as deep as possible when you’re playing, you’re not fully being yourself. Finding your voice is not being afraid to let out exactly what you’re feeling”: Ariel Posen on telling the truth through music
- April 7
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- “It was always magical playing bass with Tony Iommi. To me, he's the greatest guitarist ever”: Geezer Butler’s 10 best basslines with Black Sabbath
- “He already had his signature tone and touch, and a few of his signature licks, too”: A year before he was discovered, Jaco Pastorius laid down this classic R&B bassline on Little Beaver’s 1974 hit, I Can Dig It Baby
- April 5
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- “I’d be there with bass pedals, a triple-neck guitar and keyboards, and Robert Plant would ask, ‘Can you sing, as well?’” How John Paul Jones became Led Zeppelin’s ultimate wingman
- “The initial thought was, ‘What the hell am I gonna play?’ There are so many players on this track, and so much is going on, but they just let me be me”: Steve Lukather takes you behind the scenes of Mark Knopfler’s Guitar Heroes
- “Steve Vai is always evolving… he continues to achieve what others thought impossible, and he finds new things to try every day”: How Philip Bynoe keeps up with the world-leading virtuoso
- April 4
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- “It was Clarkin alone who fed the band, writing the entirety of Magnum’s catalog and admitting in 2002 that he thought of little else”: Remembering Tony Clarkin, the driving force behind a British rock institution
- “I’ve always favoured humbuckers. They’re what my heroes used – Clapton, BB King and Paul Kossoff”: Connor Selby on his greatest gear hits and misses, and the Gibson ES-125 that was the bargain of the century
- “There does seem to be something of an obsession with lighter guitars”: Do lighter electric guitars sound better?
- “I bought a right-handed Hofner, re-strung it and learned to play like a lefty, which was a nightmare”: How The Bootleg Beatles’ Steve White became a carbon-copy Paul McCartney
- “I asked Ibanez for a Telecaster-style guitar with a single neck pickup. I was expecting them to make fun of me and say no!” Standards’ Marcos Mena is bringing joy to virtuoso playing with his custom mint green tapping machine
- April 3
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- “When I struggle with live sound, I think, ‘Oh God, I can play so much better when I’m just in a room and I can hear myself…’ But that’s when I dig in and try harder”: Tommy Emmanuel and Molly Tuttle give a tone, technique and touring masterclass
- “I was tired of not being able to hear my guitar when I played. I got a Gretsch Country Gentleman, and that changed the game for me”: Vincent Neil Emerson’s star is rising fast – whether he’s playing a Chet Atkins electric or rare George Harrison acoustic
- “If you don’t have good tone with just your amp and your guitar, ain’t no pedal gonna help you”: Sue Foley is dropping truth bombs and nylon-string blues in her tribute to the pioneering women of guitar
- April 2
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- "I was ill and when I picked the guitar up again, I wasn't playing Joe Satriani stuff – I was struggling to play Oasis!" Jack J. Hutchinson on how illness changed his playing style and his Black Crowes-inspired pedalboard
- “We’re trying to avoid sounding like a conventional guitar band… Our goal has always been to expand what guitars can do”: Idles’ radical guitar duo dissect their “violent, dark tones” and explain why modeling is “wack”
- “John was constantly seeking better solutions, which manifested as astonishing woodwork and innovative electronics”: Remembering John Diggins – the luthier who built guitars for Tony Iommi and the first Red Special replica
- “The quality of bands is much higher than it used to be… There’s something going on here that we cannot describe”: Why is Australia turning out some of the most amazing prog metal guitarists on the planet?
- April 1
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- “With Marvin Gaye, we could feel we were onto something extraordinary. We could feel the magic of Let’s Get It On from the beginning”: Meet Motown mainstay David T. Walker, the session guitarist behind some of music’s all-time classic albums
- “I’m constantly going back to Davey Graham… He is massively neglected as an insanely creative player. For me, he’s like Jimi Hendrix – his stuff should be analyzed in forensic detail”: Henry Parker on his journey from metal to virtuoso folk
