Features archive
February 2025
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57 articles
- February 22
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- “lan spotted that the relationship between high bass and low guitar was really interesting and unusual. My style of playing came from that”: Peter Hook’s ‘lead bass’ approach spawned a catalog of hits with Joy Division and New Order
- “Play like you don’t know how to play the guitar”: That time Miles Davis stopped his entire band to give John McLaughlin some unlikely advice
- February 21
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- “They had to fight to get the bass that high in the mix. I thought it was too much”: How do you anchor a band like Pleasure? If you’re Nate Philips, you do it with a formidable slap technique
- “I remember it being very uncomfortable. My body would just vibrate with anxious energy listening back”: When their lead guitarist was fired, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy had to step up to the plate. The result was an iconic record with a “panic attack” solo
- “Growing up, Kiss was always ‘Dad’s work’… I knew something was up when I moved to New York at 18, and I was seeing his face on billboards all the time”: These rockstar sons all grew up with guitar legends as fathers. Now they’re forging their own careers
- February 20
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- “I walk in and Hans has me sit down. And he goes, ‘Let’s just get down to business. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately’”: After his spiritual awakening, Tim Henson is ready for anything – heavy Polyphia, trippy solo records and A-list film collabs
- “Kurt launched into that track and totally went off. In the middle of the song, he smashed his guitar to bits”: The making of the album that virtually invented a new genre, sold 30 million copies, and changed rock forever
- “I’m a death-to-genres guy. I’m not like, ‘Let’s do country now, let’s do rock.’ It’s like, ‘Let’s do music’”: Is it country, bluegrass, folk, rock? The Rose City Band don’t play within a genre, but they do play with them
- “We were touring as an Americana string band and we couldn’t pay our bills. Out of necessity, we did pivot”: Larkin Poe switched to blues-rock to cover their rent. Now the bluegrass revival has them revisiting their first love
- “Don’t be one of those people that goes, ‘Oh, my pinkie’s weak, I ain’t gonna use it.’ It’s there, so why not use the #$%*er?” When Dimebag Darrell answered Guitar World readers’ questions, he didn’t hold back – and revealed some ingenious playing secrets
- February 19
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- “I wrote loads of the Smiths stuff on my first Martin. It was from some hire company – I just refused to give it back!” Johnny Marr on creating his 7-string Martin acoustic, his disdain for satin necks, and why the Smiths were really a folk band
- “It was hands down the nicest D-18 I’ve ever played – and that’s when he told us it was the guitar Johnny Cash bequeathed to his son-in-law”: The essential guide to New York City guitar stores – a bucket-list destination for vintage gear enthusiasts
- February 18
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- “A guitar Eddie Van Halen gave me went missing for 18 years. So many really important guitars are stolen or disappear. We rarely get them back”: Jerry Cantrell opens up on his missing guitar fears, pushing beyond his limits – and why AI could never do AIC
- “When you switch something on that’s made with valves, it sounds fine to start with, but after 20 or 25 minutes you suddenly notice it sounding better”: How to get the best from your tube amp
- February 17
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- The Line 6 HX Stomp just got a $100 discount at Guitar Center – here's 5 reasons it's been on my 'board for the past two years
- “I was impressed how the DNAfx stood up against my bandmate’s Kemper”: Can a budget Harley Benton prog metal rig rival a Strandberg and Kemper? I took both to a rehearsal room to find out
- “Arguably the most convenient, immersive Spark product to date”: I've been using Positive Grid's Spark Neo guitar amp headphones for weeks – and while it's not the full Spark experience, it's got me playing guitar a lot more regularly
- “We were given 10 to 15 dates, but we ended up playing only four or five because of conflicting member schedules… I knew I needed a change”: My band has 35 members in five countries – and it’s actually made my musical life easier
- “I wanted to capture that destruction and endurance”: A devastating tornado threatened to tear apart Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ beloved studio. Now they’ve documented the natural disaster – and their Nashville rebirth – on a new album
- “Malcolm said, ‘I've got this riff, it's driving me nuts.’ It's three o'clock in the morning and I'm trying to sleep. I said, ‘It sounds fine to me.’ That was Back in Black”: Through 50 years of triumph and tragedy, they remain hard rock's greatest titans
- February 16
- February 15
- February 14
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- “They told Gibson four days before the performance. I know they were working on the guitar nonstop”: Chappell Roan’s guitarist reveals the story behind the Grammys’ show-stopping – and last-minute – mirrorball Gibson Les Paul
- “I have two sources of sound: the guitar pickups and the one in my hand. The less effects there are, the better I feel”: Thurston Moore hailed Nina Garcia as noise guitar’s secret weapon – and an unusual pickup is key to her otherworldly explorations
- “I’ve brought that chef mentality to whatever I do. There’s not a lot of standing around and admiring my work. It’s, ‘Right, this needs to get done’”: Meet JWJ’s Rich Jones, the chef who turned luthier – and is serving up some mighty fine acoustics
- February 13
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- “Metal suffers without dynamics. DADGAD can help without having to think about it. You can play chords that aren’t possible in standard tuning”: John Browne hasn’t played in standard tuning for 20 years. He explains why DADGAD is perfect for modern metal
- “I’ve worked on pop sessions with artists who have a squeaky-clean image, but what’s behind the scenes is a lot darker than people’s perception of the hip-hop world”: How bassist Mike Elizondo brought low-end and soul to Dr. Dre’s superstar productions
- “Technically, it’s for sale – I’ve priced it at a point where I hope nobody will ever buy it because I know I’ll never see another”: Why the 1960s Fender Bass VI is a tone machine that (almost) defies categorization
- “Someone once gave me an old Danelectro guitar they bought at a garage sale for $10. I still have it and used it on a bunch of my records”: Shred hero Vinnie Moore reveals his greatest gear hits and misses – and why the best guitars are free
- February 12
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- “My ethos is, ‘Choose any guitar you want.’ It doesn’t matter at the end of the day. I’d rather spend the money on pedals”: Introducing Ditz, the UK post-punks who don’t mind fighting their equipment to achieve their vicious six-string bite
- “If you just want to see a YouTuber, then fine. But the people who know me, and have watched me for years, know I’m a little bit more than that”: Mary Spender on the tones, tunes and heartache behind her debut breakup album
- February 11
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- “Loosening your strings before flying is kind of nonsense”: The do’s, don’ts and myths of flying with your guitar, busted by a hard-touring pro musician
- “I stand directly in front of a giant Marshall stack and play so loud. You let it get a little out of control… That’s how we get it super-big and gnarly”: Meet mercury, the wall-of-sound indie-rockers teetering on the edge of chaos
- February 10
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- “I was also able to purchase boards that were cut from a Honduras mahogany so legendary it’s known as ‘The Tree’”: Meet Don Musser, the ‘Dumble of acoustic guitar’ who has made custom builds for Dylan, Eddie Van Halen and Neil Young
- “There’s a lot of power to our band name… we weren’t part of any scene, so it was like, ‘Who are we? We are The Damn Truth’”: Meet the Canadian quartet bringing their raucous sound to the masses – with a little help from Bob Rock
- “It threw me off completely. Here I am in front of 16,000 people, on the stage where Jeff Beck stood, where The Beatles stood, and where Jimi Hendrix stood”: Steve Lukather on wielding Beck’s Strat, jams with George Harrison – and his best solo slip-up
- February 9
- February 8
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- “It’s one of our best tunes and one of my best basslines”: When Duran Duran fused Chic and Sex Pistols for one of bassist John Taylor’s standout performances
- “I'm like the Pablo Escobar of bass. If a dude works on my pedalboard, it's almost like I have to kill him after he's done!” With Rage Against the Machine, Tim Commerford pioneered an all-time iconic bass tone. No wonder he's cagey about his setup
- February 7
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- I tested the Boss Katana Mini and Katana Mini X side-by-side to find out which is best and whether it's worth upgrading from the original portable amp
- “It puts into context just how far removed digital models are from the real thing”: I played the last Overdrive Special that Dumble worked on – and it completely changed my perspective on the amp of my dreams
- “If you’re on stage with Steve Vai, you have to find a way through all the emotions to enjoy the moment”: How Lari Basilio became one of today’s foremost instrumental virtuosos – sharing stages with Joe Satriani, John Petrucci and Lee Sklar along the way
- “It was 5:30am when the phone rang – it was Dime. ‘We’re mastering the album, and I need to re-cut a part this morning. Can you get a Les Paul and a Korg G3 to me by 9am?’” How Dimebag Darrell’s Floods outro was re-recorded at (literally) the last minute
- “I wanted the design to feel familiar, especially to Fender players, but I also wanted to make a guitar that felt a little more feminine than a lot of guitars do”: Meet West Valley Guitars, the UK brand making offsets like you’ve never seen before
- February 6
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- LD Systems ANNY 8 Compact Bluetooth PA System
- “I said to Paul Hamer, ‘The best I can do is just play your guitar.’ I didn't want any money for it, because when I like a guitar, I just like it”: On Gary Moore's full-length tribute to Phil Lynott, Greeny took a backseat to Superstrats
- “For someone like Hendrix, who had known poverty, it had to be exhilarating to think, ‘I’m on the cusp of this unimaginable place’”: The remarkable untold story of Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios – from the man who helped him build it
- “I was completely blown away... He’d only just joined the band! He was the same age as me but he totally left me choking in his dust”: Remembering John Sykes, the powerhouse rock journeyman who breathed new life into Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy
- February 5
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- “We’ve been controlled by the idea that Fender is for Mexico and US models. We’re allowing ourselves to break our own rules”: Why Fender is building its $599 Standard Series in Indonesia – and how its ideological shift delivers better value for players
- “Do I still enjoy touring? The emphatic answer is ‘mostly, no’. I enjoy travelling and I enjoy playing. It’s a question of having done it intensely for decades”: Eric Bibb never planned to be a roots troubadour, but the blues took hold of his career
- February 4
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- “I’d hear it on the radio as a kid, and now I’m standing beside Don Henley playing it – I had to do both solos, Joe Walsh’s and Steve Lukather’s”: The SatchVai Band is just the latest of many high-profile stops for Pete Thorn
- “I grew up playing bluegrass… it’s taken me years to lighten up my right hand to where I’m not breaking strings every 30 seconds!” Larkin Poe have worked on music together since they were toddlers – and their guitar sisterhood has never been stronger
- February 3
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- “I don’t really listen to Primus. It amazes me that we wrote like that”: Les Claypool looks back on the stomach-churning grooves of Sailing the Seas of Cheese, Primus’ major-label debut and the moment he became a bass superstar
- “He’d lay down 17 tracks and edit them down to one. I was like, ‘Just give me a guitar – I could do it in one take. Come on!’” Devo’s Josh Hager on the most frustrating album sessions of his life – and his wild custom Fender model
- “He was 16 or 17, and he was already jumping on people’s tables with cocktails on them, flipping the guitar backwards while playing it”: Pantera’s road crew share their memories of Dimebag Darrell – and why he was a guitar hero from the very beginning
- February 2
- February 1
