Features archive
October 2024
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96 articles
- October 31
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- “The good news is there’s not much between you and Joni Mitchell – besides thousands of hours of practice, a little music industry luck, and, of course, these first few furtive steps…”: Where to start with learning acoustic guitar
- “I'm continuing in directions I established in the Grateful Dead, but I was never satisfied with my studio work – this band has surpassed my wildest dreams”: When bass icon Phil Lesh went in search of a new sound
- “I started writing two-and-a-half years ago. So it’s not a reflection of Kiko leaving Megadeth, but of Kiko thinking about leaving Megadeth”: Kiko Loureiro on making his first new solo material since quitting one of metal’s biggest bands
- Best acoustic guitar picks 2024: our choice of picks for acoustic playing from Dunlop, D'Addario, and more
- “I planned to go out with Ministry. But then Madonna said, ‘I want Monte here – even if he’s just standing and holding a guitar’”: Monte Pittman on his crazy journey from Guitar Center to Ministry via Prong and Madonna – and his band with Adam Lambert
- “Mick Fleetwood asked me to join the band, but I don’t think Stevie voted against me… I don’t play like Lindsey, but I was able to do the songs justice”: Mike Campbell on the challenge of joining Fleetwood Mac and what he learned from Tom Petty
- “Some people think its gloss black top was a response to Gibson’s Les Paul Custom – but that didn’t launch officially until ’54”: The Duo Jet took Gretsch’s ’50s innovation to new heights – and was loved by George Harrison, Jeff Beck and Malcolm Young
- October 30
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- “I spent 10 hours a day for a month making that guitar… If it didn’t work out, it could have been a white Strat in Purple Rain”: Prince’s Cloud guitar builder Dave Rusan on how he made the iconic instrument – and the legal battles over his replicas
- “The Robert Cray gigs had me shaking so badly that I thought I’d faint… It was one of the pools I had to dive into or drown”: A non-shredder among metal guitarists, Katie Knipp took years to go electric – then scored a hit blues album
- “The tone EC achieved on that record has become one of the classic archetypes for how an electric guitar should sound”: How Eric Clapton got his tone on John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers’ ‘Beano’ album
- “I started playing $150 Ibanez guitars because onstage I would take damage… Clown used to use metal bars. We were very unsafe”: Mick Thomson reflects on 25 years of Slipknot’s incendiary debut – and what it was like to see his solos erased
- October 29
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- “A lot of players don’t bother to learn how to fix their guitars – but it’s a necessary part of technique”: Cradle of Filth’s Donny Burbage hated guitar until he got bored of playing video games – and became a tech’ing shredder
- “It was the best Fender-style neck I’d seen outside of the Custom Shop. This was the neck I’d been trying to get made all these years”: How Chapman Guitars reinvented itself with a new factory, fresh ideas and the help of industry guru Trevor Wilkinson
- “The Stratocaster is a clearer signal… the person who’s playing it is more recognizable on a Strat than on a Les Paul”: David Gilmour on breaking free from his past, the guitars he couldn’t face selling and why one Black Strat is as good as another
- “Dickey called me: ‘Hey, Les, come by for a steak, and bring your guitar.’ He already had the verse of Jessica, but he needed a bridge…” Meet Les Dudek, the ghost guitarist on Allman Brothers classics who dated Cher and joined Journey for two hours
- October 28
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- “Carol Kaye taught me real hard, telling me, ‘No, no, you’re playing the notes but you’re not playing the feel’”: Gene Simmons names 6 bass players who shaped his sound
- “These musicians, like Blind Blake, are so amazing – we should keep their memory alive”: Meet Muireann Bradley, the 17-year-old fingerpicker on a quest to bring turn-of-the-century folk-blues to Gen Z
- “The greatest advice I ever heard was from James Jamerson: ‘If you don’t feel it, don’t play it.’ I have that written on my guitar case as a reminder”: Parlor Greens’ Jimmy James on his biggest musical lessons, and why, like Hendrix, he's all about rhythm
- October 27
- October 26
- October 25
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- “My riff writing started to do well after I changed my perspective… I don’t listen to a bunch of heavy music anymore”: Meet Clayton King, the riff machine using EDM and nature shows to wring fresh savagery from his custom Ibanez monstrosity
- “There are long winding passages, it’s almost womb-like… That’s something that would have really spoken to a guy like Jimi”: How Jimi Hendrix masterminded the ultimate sonic playground where Led Zeppelin and The Clash came to record
- “I needed a guitar player. I kind of needed someone who would be the Sid Vicious to my Johnny Rotten”: Yungblud on the relatable genius of his head-turning guitarist Adam Warrington (who is more likely to buy you a beer than teach you scales)
- October 24
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- “I’d been playing it at the 7th fret, but then I saw a video of Bernard Edwards, and I was determined to play it right – Nile picked up on that instantly”: Jerry Barnes gives an insider’s view of Chic’s seven-minute bass anthem
- “Bob Dylan asked me almost every day: ‘Hey, when are you going to sell me that ’64 Jazzmaster?’” Jason & the Scorchers’ Warner E. Hodges toured with Dylan, borrowed the Ramones’ gear – and played a Tele that survived a tractor
- “I was so into that moment, it was like being stoned… not separated from the guitar and what I was playing. It was joyful”: From unexpected ES-335 solos to jams in a barn, here is your guitar guide to David Gilmour’s breathtaking Luck and Strange
- “I got really obsessed with fuzz when I got into stoner rock. I’d never heard a sound like it before”: He’s jammed with Tony Iommi, recorded at Abbey Road, now he’s cooking up hairy stoner riffs with Torus – and Alfie Glass is just getting started
- October 23
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- “I bought eight small solid-state amps with tiny little speakers. We had no pedals on the record, just guitars, straight into the amp, turned up loud enough that it sounds nasty:” How King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard made a left turn – into blues rock
- “I had a three-string nylon guitar from my stepfather. When he gave me that, he carved my future out. If I’d had a traditional guitar, I’d have had a whole different outlook”: Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx on fate, Thunderbirds and Smoke on the Water
- “I went to Jimmy Page’s hometown. I’d walk the streets he walked and breathe the air he breathed… I even noticed the smell when it rained”: Akio Sakurai aka Mr. Jimmy has studied the Led Zeppelin icon for 43 years – and elevated tribute artist to high art
- October 22
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- “The Yardbirds had no need to worry about Clapton’s departure – they had Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page onboard”: The history of the ’60s British blues boom – the movement that carried a tidal wave of guitar heroes across the Atlantic
- “Shredding is an amazing thing to be able to do, but when you can really write a feeling with a melody, like Johnny Marr did so well, that’s the goal”: Conor Curley of Fontaines D.C. on his love of Deftones and why he’s writing riffs like a beginner
- “You’re hearing a shredder struggling on 11 flatwound strings trying to solo – I tried to mimic Thin Lizzy and Jurassic Park”: Amyl and the Sniffers are one of the hottest rock bands on the planet – and they got there by breaking punk’s no-solos rule
- October 21
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- “Our new power supplies are about as state-of-the-art as you can get”: How Truetone’s game-changing 1 Spot Pro series is continuing to provide pro pedalboard power to the masses with the new CS11 and XP5
- “You can feel embarrassed when you play a bum note, but I played bum notes on Strangers In The Night. Today those are the right notes!” Michael Schenker on rerecording UFO with Axl Rose, triangle guitars – and why there are no bad playing habits
- “James Brown kept saying, ‘We’re gonna take it to the bridge.’ Finally, he whipped around and said, ‘Hit me!’ Unfortunately, I did not hit him at all”: Carlos Alomar was fined by the Godfather of Soul, scolded by Chuck Berry – and adored by David Bowie
- “Daron’s the guitarist, I’m the vocalist, and yet he was using my Strat… Then somebody stole it after breaking our car window”: Serj Tankian reflects on his guitar journey with System of a Down, Tony Iommi, Buckethead and beyond
- October 20
- October 19
- October 18
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- “We were surrounded by bands like Animals As Leaders, Meshuggah, Plini… and the crowd could clap in time over a 7/8 time signature, too!” From a virtuoso Tool support to Rabea Massaad’s new supergroup, meet the next generation of progressive guitar heroes
- “I’m an approachable guitar player. I’m not Slash or Jimi Hendrix. I write songs and play with energy. My signature model had to be accessible to everyone”: How Yungblud became punk’s next guitar hero, bringing high-volume rock to Gen Z
- “Trent Reznor asked, ‘Who wants Justin in the band?’ And they all raised their hands. A few days later, I was digging into the setlist for a world tour”: How Beck’s longtime bassist scored his spot in Nine Inch Nails
- October 17
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- “I was like, ‘The dummy pickup in Frankenstein? You really think that’s sacrilege?’ I thought replacing it with something that worked was a good idea”: Joe Satriani on what it takes to play Van Halen live – custom amps, power tools, and, above all, guts
- “In Guitar Center, people would think I was playing for the first time – but I promise you, my band makes better music than 80% of them”: Meet Chat Pile, the sludge metallers shouting down the “tone lords” and “goobers” ruining guitar culture
- “I’ve probably had an equal number of guitars stolen as what I’ve sold”: Joe Perry names the desert-island pickup that nobody talks about, explains why there are no bad tones, and makes an appeal for the cheap guitar he foolishly sold and wants back
- October 16
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- “I see people my own age in the audience, and their minds are blown. I’m making this stuff sound new to them”: Grace Bowers on her dizzying rise as the world’s next guitar hero, breaking the law to hone her chops, and why she’s “not a natural”
- “Pete Townshend said, ‘I wish I could play like you.’ I thought, ‘I wish I could come up with the three chords you take to the bank!’” How Caleb Quaye became Elton John’s go-to guitarist – and took over Jimmy Page’s session work
- “We drove to a Guitar Center, ran in just before closing and bought a Fender P-Bass… we re-tracked almost every song on Enema of the State with it”: Mark Hoppus charts his bass origin story, embracing amp modelers and switching from Ernie Ball to Fender
- “Slash’s wife grabbed hold of the steering wheel because he was heading toward a canyon. We were in the back seat going, ‘Nooo!’” Jamie Moses on the wild ride of playing with Brian May, hanging with Slash and his time as Queen’s second guitarist
- “Jeff Beck gave me his gold J Rockett Archer, based on the Klon. That can never leave”: Featuring a Joe Bonamassa wah and an overdrive gifted by Beck himself, Carmen Vandenberg’s pedalboard is a tour de force of tone
- “I felt connected to my Strat in a way I hadn’t in a long time”: I’ve spent years searching for the perfect Stratocaster strings – and after playing John Mayer’s Silver Slinky set for three months, I think I’ve finally found them
- October 15
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- “It’s probably impossible to prove, but it’s likely that the Martin dreadnought is the most recorded guitar in history”: How the Martin D-18 and D-28 changed the world – and became the definitive acoustic guitars
- “They had a fantastic ’64 Strat that we would fight over. The first one in would get to use it”: Wunderhorse turned up to the birthplace of Nirvana's In Utero, borrowed some guitars – and made one of the year’s best alt rock records
- October 14
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- “The British Invasion brought awareness to the music, but not the culture. They were great guitarists, but they weren’t as good as Robert Johnson”: Jontavious Willis has become one of acoustic blues’ most exciting voices – just don’t say he’s the future
- Fender Mustang Micro vs Mustang Micro Plus: is it worth upgrading?
- “When you follow this path, all roads lead to one man: Alexander Dumble”: Ian Moore on Dumble's inspiring legacy, the “snake oil” around the iconic amp-maker – and his own quest to design the perfect amp
- October 13
- October 12
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- “The only person to get a good sound out of that bass was Berry Oakley. It's got so many pickups!” Berry Oakley set the template for the Allman Brothers Band with a modified ’72 Jazz Bass, known as ‘The Tractor’
- “I tried it fingerstyle, and that didn't work. As a joke, somebody said, ‘Why don't you try slap bass?’ Everyone was laughing. Then we went back and listened to it…” Chris Wolstenholme switched up his tone and technique on Muse’s The Resistance
- “When you played with John Lennon, you could feel him listening to you. He didn't bother or bug you at all”: Unsung ’70s session bass ace Gordon Edwards recalls his time with John Lennon on his fourth post-Beatles album
- October 11
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- Download and stream the audio from Total Guitar 390
- “I couldn’t do all the licks and Jimmy Page stuff. By not being able to play properly and discovering echo units, I came upon some monstrous sounds, purely by accident”: Robin Guthrie on how he conjured the haunting tones of Cocteau Twins
- “I spent a whole year without being able to do anything on the guitar, which was really scary. I thought, ‘OK, maybe I’ve lost it for good’”: How Neige’s ascent from the creative abyss led to Alcest’s most ethereal and life-affirming album
- With Bob Rock and Rick Rubin at the helm, he recorded some of rock’s most iconic riffs, and launched side-projects with Jerry Cantrell, John Corabi and The Alarm’s Mike Peters – how Billy Duffy’s guitar playing built a Cult following
- October 10
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- “I quit teaching art to go tour and be a musician. I didn’t sign up for the drama, or the stalkers, or the business side”: Yvette Young almost left music before taking a radical solo turn – but she’s not done with Covet
- “I wasn’t interested in learning the ‘correct’ style of playing bass. I was going back to guitar”: Larry Graham explains how his unorthodox six-string style invented slap bass
- “I saw this video of a 10-year-old Japanese girl shredding Paul Gilbert solos. I figured, ‘This can’t be about brute physicality. It’s about touching the guitar the right way’”: Karl Sanders on technical epiphanies – and why Nile needs three guitarists
- “There’s even a button I can press where it turns into a Leslie”: Richie Kotzen explains why he ditched a regular pedalboard for an all-in-one pedal from the creator of the SansAmp
- October 9
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- Download and stream the audio from Guitar Techniques 367
- “Not many bands of Tetrarch’s nature play guitar solos – I've had to learn how to fit our style and not just play some dad-rock solo”: Diamond Rowe is bringing lead guitar to nu-metal – complete with a history-making signature model from Jackson
- “The decline of America’s biggest guitar companies during the ’70s was essentially a hangover from the over-ambitious reaction to the Beatlemania-inspired guitar boom of the ’60s”: Why the ’70s was a time of innovation and folly for guitar gear
- They pioneered ‘Heavy Melody’, spearheaded grunge and blazed the trail for drop D tuning – King’s X are one of rock’s most singular bands, and Ty Tabor is a master guitarist who fuses the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix in his supernova style
- “The project was meant to present a lot of interplay between us”: Meet Asymmetric Universe, the Italian brothers who graduated from theme park music and video game scores to world-beating jazz-djent
- October 8
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- “The first night I was in London, I met Gary Moore. Scott Gorham said, ‘We’re going down to this pub. It’s a jam night.’ When I saw him play I was knocked out”: Pat Travers on Thin Lizzy, Gary Moore – and what guitarists got wrong about Eddie Van Halen
- “David Bowie asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner with John Lennon! I had a big ‘dilemma’ moment; I was hearing certain musical things in my head. I didn’t wanna go out and lose myself”: Carlos Alomar on making Fame, Heroes – and Bowie’s Berlin era
- “When we finished playing, Bill Clinton came up and introduced himself – with the Secret Service all around. A couple of weeks later, I got this envelope in the mail from the White House”: Jimmy D. Lane was raised among blues greats, but found his own way
- “In the past five years, I’ve seen a revival of my Kiss era… I’m always flattered that it’s not just the music that moved them – the guitars I played also matter”: Bruce Kulick is launching a custom ’80s-style guitar line that pays homage to his Kiss days
- October 7
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- “When we started in 1966, Eric and Jack had one Marshall each. Then it became a stack, then a double stack, and finally a triple stack”: Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker recount the wild story of Cream, rock's pioneering power trio
- “You have to be secure in yourself. I'm not intimidated to tell you to buy a Keeley pedal. If that tears my business apart, then my business sucks”: How Josh Scott built one of the world’s leading pedal firms by recommending his rivals
- “Jeff would sound like Jeff no matter what you put him through. That was his test for me, too. I was 23. I was so scared, but I passed the test”: Carmen Vandenberg and Rosie Bones explain the joy and challenge of playing with the late, great Jeff Beck
- “The band had come on, but no Rory: most unusual. He was in a state of shock and couldn’t bring himself to step on stage”: The night Rory Gallagher was spooked by his childhood hero – as the Royal Albert Hall waited in anticipation
- October 6
- October 5
- October 4
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- “I played poker with Freddie King during one of the tours he did with Eric Clapton. I lost half my tour money!” Session legend George Terry on eating Whoppers with Diana Ross and high times as Eric Clapton’s go-to ’70s six-string lieutenant
- “On my 18th birthday, my brother bought me my first Stratocaster. I thought it was a copy, as I didn’t see the Fender logo. One day, I took the neck off and saw ‘9-58’ inside…” Blackbyrd McKnight on his mysterious Strat and the ’70s jazz-funk explosion
- He released his first album at 18 and rose above the Stevie Ray Vaughan comparisons to become one of the blues’ most respected guitarists – here’s how Kenny Wayne Shepherd became a modern-day master of the Stratocaster
- “Everyone I've ever met that I worshipped has been a disappointment, so I want to keep him as my hero”: Geezer Butler names his favorite bassist of all time
- October 3
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- “John Mayer had Paul build a guitar for him for the Dead & Company. He wanted one guitar all night. I thought, ‘Let’s see if I can get back to that’”: Keith Urban on working with PRS on a ‘do-it-all’ guitar build – and why SRV is still number one
- “There were these preposterous rumors that had to do with me going to the hospital and being visited by the spirit of Jimi Hendrix. It was ridiculous. I went to hospital in 1968, Hendrix died in 1970”: Frank Marino on Mahogany Rush’s ‘70s awakening
- “That beautiful thick Irish accent could melt anyone’s heart. And the lady ended up selling the guitar to Rory for $50!” How Rory Gallagher’s sweet talk secured him his bargain ’61 Kay Value Leader – with a little help from Eric Clapton
- “It's scary when you haven't played for quite a while and can't remember the riff to Seek & Destroy”: James Hetfield reflects on the anxieties he experienced after stepping away from the guitar for too long
- October 2
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- “The Allman Brothers were unbelievable. When Duane came to the studio to play on Layla, I was so taken with him that I started ignoring my own band”: How the 1970s became the greatest decade for rock guitar
- “John Mayall’s ability to nurture blues guitar prodigies is comparable to Yoda’s knack for training hot Jedi prospects”: From Eric Clapton to Peter Green, Mick Taylor and more – a guide to blues legend John Mayall’s ’60s Bluesbreakers guitarists
- “My Reverend feels sturdy. I don’t like when it feels like the guitar I’m playing is gonna break. Vintage guitars scare me!” Meet Hello Mary’s Helena Straight, the ’90s-inspired, time signature-twisting player whose guitar caught the Cure’s attention
- October 1
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- “I was in the studio, and the phone rang. It was Lou Reed. I’d never met him. He called me, saying, ‘I saw a picture of you with this guitar…’” Joe Perry on Aerosmith’s roaring ’70s, writing Dream On – and being a B.C. Rich early adopter
- “The Black Crowes got thrown off the ZZ Top tour. We picked up where they left off… Every night the tour manager warned us when the explosions were going to go off”: Michelle Malone gave up sax for guitar – and had John Mayer “begging” to join her shows
