General Interest

Belew was discovered and handpicked by Zappa in 1977 after the latter saw him playing at a bar in Nashville

Having taken on the crowded playing-field of social media, it’s been quite a year for infamous YouTuber Danny Sapko

The Brazilian instrumental phenom is on fire on Redemption, embracing her rock side and finding a new equilibrium as she plays for her biggest – and smallest –fan

This is the story of a band who blew up, broke up, and got back up again with an appetite to record the album of their lives. And Justin Hawkins admits, he's lucky to be be alive to tell the tale

You wouldn’t think it, but even Grammy-winning guitarists have been fired from studio sessions. Just ask Eric Johnson.

Speaking in a new interview with Guitar World, the Cliffs of Dover icon looks back on some of his earliest and most humbling experiences as a session player, and the one time he got sacked mid-session by a country singer because he simply couldn’t come up with the goods.

• READ MORE: Eric Johnson says “there’s so much option anxiety” when buying new gear in today’s market

“He was a pretty famous guy,” Johnson recalls. “But the piano player had played almost every fill in-between the vocals. Like, he was doing a thing between every vocal, you know?

“So, the producer wanted me to put something in there besides chords, but I couldn’t find any room to put anything in there or play it.”

In order to contribute meaningfully, he says, he would’ve had to learn “every single lick the piano player did” to “either harmonise, or double it, or come up with a continual part” – a task that proved impossible at the time.

“It was taking me forever,” Johnson says. “And I just got fired from the session because I couldn’t get it.”

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last time Johnson found himself struggling in the studio.

“I was working on a session for Donald Fagan, and that didn’t work out too well, either,” the guitarist recalls. “Not because of him, he was just looking for a certain thing, and I don’t think that I came up with it immediately.”

“Like, sometimes, I guess you want to go with that first impulse. But I guess the first thing that I came up with wasn’t good enough. So, those two things were learning experiences, or some examples of times that it just didn’t work out.”

Not that any of that had slowed him down. If anything, those tough sessions were just part of the long road toward the tone and artistry he’s now celebrated for – a reminder that even guitar heroes have bad days at the office.

The post “I got fired because I couldn’t get it!”: Eric Johnson relives his most disastrous studio session appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Paul Weller has said that he won’t be watching Oasis’ reunion shows – not because he’s not a fan, but because he hates “big gigs”.

Much as the ongoing Oasis tour will go down in history as a “big cultural moment,” the ex-Jam frontman says that even his friendship with Noel Gallagher isn’t enough to get him through the gates of a massive arena.

• READ MORE: Here’s how to build your own version of Noel Gallagher’s touring pedalboard – without rock star money

The Gallagher brothers launched their long-anticipated Live ‘25 tour with two shows at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium last month, before returning to their hometown of Manchester for five nights at Heaton Park, then playing five (of their seven) planned dates at London’s Wembley Stadium.

But despite being one of Noel’s closest mates, Weller is giving the whole thing a pass.

In an interview with Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2, he explains, “I’ve not been to see them, no… I’m not a big fan of big gigs, I said to Noel, a few weeks or months ago: ‘Are you going to do any warm-ups?’ which he wasn’t, but, I’d go and see something like that in a smaller venue, but I just don’t like big gigs. It doesn’t matter who it was, really.”

For Weller, anything beyond the front row just isn’t worth it.

“Inevitably, it doesn’t matter too much where you’re sitting unless you’re right in the front row, you just end up watching the screens,” he says. “It kind of spoils a bit for me because I want to see whoever is playing or singing, and I want to be able to see them.”

That said, the musician insists he’s thrilled the band is back, and sees the reunion as more than just nostalgia.

“You know how it’s going to go for him, it’s going to be mad,” says Weller. “I said to him that it’s going to be a cultural moment because the amount of people I speak to just out on the street, not necessarily who you’d think would be an Oasis fan, but they are all going to it, and it’s a big cultural moment, I think that will be remembered forever.”

“There’s probably not too many bands like them [Oasis] at the moment, y’know, kind of guitar music,” he adds. “I can’t think of any, not from the UK anyway, maybe Fontaines DC is different and people like that. So, I think it’s definitely a younger audience who missed out on that ’90s thing.”

And while that younger crowd is getting a crash course in what made Oasis so iconic, gearheads are being treated to something special, too.

Gibson recently revealed the story behind Noel’s Oasis reunion Les Paul. Lee Bartram, Head of Commercial, Marketing & Cultural Influence at Gibson EMEA said that the guitar took “at least 18 months” to come together and that it wasn’t even designed specifically for the Live ‘25 tour at first.

“It really came from a conversation around creating a Les Paul that would accommodate P-90s (which Noel was playing a lot with NGHFB at the time, favouring Epiphone USA Casinos) at high volumes, without compromising on the sound and tone of the pickup,” Bartram said.

The post The bizarre reason Paul Weller is refusing to watch Oasis’ reunion shows – despite being good friends with Noel Gallagher appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$1,049/£949, fender.com

Let’s face it, most of us have at some point modded one of our electric guitars, indeed for many of us, part of the fun in a journey with a guitar is modding it to make it our own, whether it’s a total re-finish, parts swap, or the quest to expand the tonal palette of a particular instrument with some choice pickup substitution.

• READ MORE: Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster HSS Floyd Rose review: “you may have just found your soul mate”

In today’s frenzied world of binge-watch TV boxsets, instant food deliveries, and endlessly scrolling social media, lots of us think we need everything yesterday. Scouring forums, reading reviews, sourcing parts, waiting months for work or refinishing, whilst fun for many, can be a time-consuming and costly process. What if we could buy the guitar with the mods already done right out of the box?

Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com

Well that’s just what Fender has done in this expansion of its already impressive Player II series, adding a bunch of modern amenities to the classic recipe in the shape of the new Player II Modified Stratocaster.

Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster – what is it?

The Player II range represents some of the finest guitars to come out of Fender’s Ensenada, Mexico factory to date – the reviews of the various Strats, Teles and Jazzmasters that launched last year were suitably effusive in that regard. But they were unquestionably guitars spec’d with the classic accoutrements of Leo Fender’s legendary masterpieces at heart.

The impressive fundamentals of the Player II guitars have already made them popular modding platforms for more experienced and partial players, who know that a quick swap of hardware or pickups could elevate an already impressive instrument into something that was very much pro-ready.

Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com

The Player II Modified range basically takes the strain of all that for you. So in the case of the Strat we have here, it means we get a set of Fender’s all-new Noiseless single-coil pickups, short-post locking tuners, a Tusq nut, and two-point floating trem with block steel saddles, plus a chamfered trem block for increased travel. Under the hood there’s also an enhanced wiring package that lets you add the neck pickup into positions one and two with the pull up of the volume pot, and like the Mike McCready signature Strat, there’s also a treble bleed circuit. In essence, it’s a lot closer in spec and intention to Fender’s American Professional II range, which will cost you an awful lot more.

Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster – build and playability

The first thing I notice upon picking up the guitar is its nice weight out of the box, and a gorgeous feeling one-piece maple neck. The modern C profile and factory-rolled fingerboard edges are retained from the impressive vanilla Player II, and combined with the beautiful smooth satin finish, slick action and jumbo frets, it’s a remarkably easy and fluid guitar to play.

Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com

The presence of locking tuners and a Graph Tech Tusq nut should enhance the solid tuning stability of any Strat, and so it is here – combining with that two-point Tremolo to offer a smooth and expressive performance that always returns to pitch.

The Sunshine Yellow finish here might not be to everyone’s taste, but I think it pairs rather nicely with the black pickguard to give a modern Strat twist on the classic ‘blackguard’ Tele colour scheme. If it’s not your bag, then I’m sure one of the Olympic Pearl, Harvest Green Metallic, Dusk or Electric Blue options will take your fancy… or there’s always the more ubiquitous 3-Colour Sunburst option.

Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster – sounds

The best description of the sounds this guitar produces is to think of a traditional Strat, but in higher definition. Bigger, crisper, cleaner, no hum – almost a ready-produced tone that players who use digital modellers or record direct will appreciate.

The Player II Fender Noiseless Strat pickups here read a touch hotter than standard Strat pickups, all seem to be in the 10-12K range on my meter. But when combined with rolling off the volume control, the tremendously useful treble bleed cap brilliantly retains top-end clarity. The Player II Modified dishes up a superb and broad palette of classic Strat sounds.

Most revelatory compared to my usual reference maple-necked Strat, even with higher-gain settings, is the almost unnerving absence of 60-cycle hum from the Noiseless pickups – a bonus not to be discounted for playing loud stages or working in front of computer monitors in a studio.

Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com

The bridge pickup is punchy without being abrasive, offering powerful classic twang snarl with gain and plenty of snap to low notes with cleaner sounds. The oft underused, but my personal favourite, middle position is perfect for singing sweet melody lines and strumming chords. The neck position gives us the classic flutey lead tones that Gilmour and Hendrix revelled in, but there’s more here. These pickups can handle more gain than a classic Strat set without extraneous noise becoming an issue – giving it a broader palette to work with across the board.

There is a modern hi-fi sheen to the top-end voice of the guitar that I’d put down to these Noiseless pickups, and it sits perfectly for indie jangle and pop and retains clarity under serious gain even into digital modellers and pedal-laden boards. Stepping on my favourite high-gain fuzz pedal with a splash of chorus sets us firmly in shoegaze heaven.

Plugging into a high-gain modern rock setup, the Player II Modified Strat retains impressive clarity and note definition. Rolling down the volume control retains top-end detail thanks to the well-tuned treble bleed circuit, and adds greater breadth to an already versatile guitar.

Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com

Setting your amp or drive pedal gain a touch higher for lead sounds and then playing most of the time at 6-8 on the volume control before jumping to 10 for leads and riffs to cut through in a band mix is a super way to get so much more from your setup.

It shouldn’t be underestimated how useful a mod the push-pull switching is here. Having the ability to add the neck pickup to the bridge in position one takes us squarely to Tele land, albeit with the Strat’s calling card of tactile top-end sweetness. It’s the kind of mod I wish I had on all my Strats – and it’s going to be a huge selling point for these guitars in a guitar shop playtest setting, no doubt.

Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster – should I buy one?

Many Strat fans will prefer the characterful idiosyncrasies of a classic set-up, and Fender caters very well to those players with the Vintera II and American Original lines. Nobody’s going to take your microphonic pickups and bent steel saddles away from you just because this thing exists.

But for more contemporary spec-inclined players who work in noisy venues or record regularly with screens and other sources of audio interference as challenges, the range of classic and modern tones on offer here is hugely compelling.

It’s also nice to see a gigbag included (Fender ditched them from the base Player II range) but the basic Fender bag remains a somewhat non-reassuring thing – it would have been better to see that get a bit of modification love too. But that aside, Fender has created what is a superbly professionally-spec’d guitar that gives its US instruments a run for their money – and the biggest winner when that happens is us players.

Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster – alternatives

If you want some genuine Leo Fender pedigree, then G&L’s Tribute Legacy ($649/£545) could be classed as the man himself’s final word on the S-type, with a similarly modded feel. PRS also has taken a stab at bringing the Strat into the 21st century with the SE Silver Sky ($849/£849) – its sounds are very much rooted in the classics, however.

The post Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster review: “it gives Fender’s US instruments a run for their money” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

TONEX ONE Pedal & software collection celebrates Eddie Van Halen

On May 24, 2025, the steel guitar community lost the legendary Calvin Cooke. Calvin was a husband, father, and grandfather, a man of deep faith, and a musician who made a profound impact on the sacred steel movement.

Calvin was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944. His uncles were ministers in the House of God Church, founded in 1903 by Mary Magdalena Lewis Tate, known as Mother Tate. Musicians such as Willie Eason, Henry Nelson, and Lorenzo Harrison had introduced the lap steel guitar (at that time a very popular instrument in the United States) into House of God churches starting in the early 1930s, and it caught on. Many of the church’s early congregations were made up of migrant workers, and the steel guitar was an affordable and portable option for bringing music into the revival meetings. It could be used as a melodic instrument or to back up a singer, and early steel players developed a rhythmic technique known as framing, which proved an effective replacement for washboards and other percussion instruments. This was the spiritual and musical environment in which Calvin was born.

As a child, Calvin wanted to be a lead guitarist but found his hands were too small, so he put the guitar on his lap and played it slide-style with a knife. Eventually, he came into possession of a black and chrome Bakelite Rickenbacker and became the steel player in a band with his cousins. Bishop Mary Francis Keith, (head of the Keith Dominion at that time) took Calvin under her wing and, during his school vacations, she began to take him and his band with her as she traveled to different churches around the US, primarily in the Southeast.

One night, Calvin had a dream, which he considered a vision from God, of a new tuning for the 8-string steel guitar. He told Bishop Mary Francis Keith he wanted to pursue his vision, and, according to Grace Cooke, Calvin’s wife, the Bishop said, “Tonight, try it out, and if it goes over well, you know it came from God…and it’s yours.”

This bluesy, funky tuning (E D B G# E B E E) would become Calvin’s signature sound and would result in the Bishop anointing Calvin’s hands as instruments of faith. As Grace explains, “Her blessing influenced the church at large to embrace the sound…the older generation was more used to the slow, country western, mellow kind of sound, and Calvin brought speed and more of a funky, bluesy twist to the gospel way of playing the steel guitar. That’s what made him stand out. That’s what made him unique.”

Chuck Campbell, now an elder statesman of sacred steel who grew up on Calvin’s tuning, explains that the order of the top three strings allowed Calvin to play pentatonic licks with a clarity and speed that no one in the church had ever heard before, “and he was doing this stuff back in the 1960s.”

After high school, Calvin moved to Detroit and worked for Chrysler, but was constantly touring and playing at church services on weekends. During this time, he also acquired an MSA 10-string pedal steel (found by his mother in a pawnshop), which he set up with the help of Chuck Campbell.

As with his 8-string tuning, Calvin created a unique tuning and pedal setup that allowed him to continue to develop his style. Calvin’s ten-string setup is an expanded version of his 8-string tuning, but with the addition of foot pedals, which would allow him to turn the open string E chords into an A or E7 chord. But he didn’t stop there. “Calvin was such an innovator,” Chuck recollects, “he actually started using the pedals for doing lead licks like a whammy bar, that was pretty exciting and that was way back in 1975.”

As he toured, his influence over younger players became more and more evident. “He was a little guy, but he had a large imprint,” says Del Grace, founder of Sacred Strings, the sacred steel museum in Toledo, Ohio. “He wasn’t just a musician, he was a movement. He was a trendsetter…he set the pace for a lot of aspiring musicians of his day and beyond.” This influence would start to transcend the church in the mid-90s, when folklorist Bob Stone and the Arhoolie label produced several CDs and a documentary film featuring Calvin and other sacred steel players such as Ted Beard, Aubrey Ghent, and the Campbell Brothers.

As Calvin was retiring from Chrysler after almost 30 years, he found himself with the opportunity to take his music to a new audience outside the church. Historically, this was frowned upon by the church, since the origins of the style date back to the Jim Crow era, because “the less that was outside of the control of the church, the better chance we have of holding on to it, and not getting it taken from us,” according to Del Grace. But Calvin, who had always been interested in music outside the church (his favorite band was Yes) took the plunge, hitting the folk festival circuit with his band of Jay Caver, rhythm guitar and arranger, Ivan Shaw on drums, and Grace Cooke on background vocals, who reflects: “Calvin always pushed it to the limit. He always told people: Don’t just listen to gospel, it will open up your horizons.” Sacred steel performers like Calvin would become regular features on festival stages in the USA and Europe, “bridging sacred and secular…from church services to international stages,” in the words of Del Grace.

Thanks to Calvin’s boldness and willingness to take his music into a wider world, sacred steel surged in popularity. Groups such as the Campbell Brothers and the Lee Boys started touring nationally and internationally and Robert Randolph, who grew up in the church and considers Calvin one of his mentors, has become a global star. Robert produced two CDs of Calvin’s music in the early 2000s, Heaven and The Slide Brothers. Right up until his passing, Calvin was a part of the Experience Hendrix tour, where he shared the stage with legends like Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Ernie Isley, Kingfish Ingram, and Buddy Guy. Chuck Campbell, also a part of the tour, remembers these incredible musicians coming up to him and Calvin and saying, “I can’t believe how you guys play that thing! But Calvin was such a courageous player, he never let us be intimidated.”

As the years went by, Calvin retained his primacy in the sacred steel movement. “You can hear his influence in everybody’s playing,” says Kashiah Hunter, an Atlanta-based steel guitarist who performed with Calvin regularly in recent years. “You can hear a lot of the young guys implementing–or trying to implement–his sound.”

Calvin’s influence is most obvious in the repertoire of licks and phrases which his singular tuning (adopted by many steel players since) allowed him to do. Calvin could rake a pristine arpeggio at speed across the high strings and create precisely intonated pentatonic licks. He could effortlessly spin out single-string runs that sounded uncannily like a human voice. When singing, he used his guitar to respond to his vocals with crisp, rhythmically impeccable phrases. But his influence can be discerned in subtler ways as well. “He always played between and inside the melody,” says Chuck Campbell, “the rest of us were pushers, he was just serenading the crowd.” Chuck also notes that Calvin’s vibrato was unique: “He always made sure that I learned to play without vibrato, and to bring in the vibrato at the end of the note to give it that vocal sound.” He was a genius at building a solo break, as Kashiah observes: “He would start off real soft and subtle to make everyone pay attention to what he was doing, then he gently brought it back up…he worked it, he just completely worked the crowd. It amazed me every time.”

Even though many elements of Calvin’s style have become standard vocabulary for sacred steel players, he had a style that was uniquely his own. For example, he frequently employed a lower drone note when playing high single-string licks, adding a timbral quality reminiscent of fingerstyle blues guitar or Appalachian fiddle. This pedal tone lent his playing a more “guitaristic” sound than the melismatic style favored by players like Aubrey Ghent, though Calvin could make the guitar weep and wail with the best of them. Calvin also loved a major seventh and exploited its delicate emotional quality to great effect, another striking choice in a genre heavily imbued with pentatonic runs and blues-inspired bends. He didn’t rely on attention-grabbing fireworks to build intensity during his solo breaks; subtle changes in pitch, articulation, and phrasing were enough to communicate to the rest of the band that it was time to turn up the heat.

In recognition of his remarkable musical abilities and his contribution to the church over the years, Calvin was awarded with the Sacred Steel Legends Award in 2009. He was also a member of the first class of inductees to the Sacred Steel Hall of Fame a year later. He was the recipient of the Michigan Heritage Award in 2011. In 2024, he was able to attend the grand opening of the sacred steel museum, of which he had been a major supporter. Calvin, teary-eyed, toured the exhibits with his children and grandchildren. “When I see this museum,” Del Grace remembers him saying, “this is my thank you for the hard work.”

Calvin’s work may be over, but his legacy continues to live on in ways both large and small. “He added an element of personality to his position of being one of the greatest steel players…it was a thing which brought unity to all of us. That was on full display at his funeral. Where we would normally be rivals, we were family.” And at the time of his death, Calvin was mentoring his wife Grace’s nephew, who at six years old was deeply inspired by Calvin’s playing and already showing signs of promise. As Calvin put it, “He’s got a good hand.”

There are a number of musicians who could play the same notes as Calvin, but very few who had an impact that transcended generations and boundaries. Calvin always attributed this to his faith in a higher power. When he played music, he said, “I want them to feel what He gives us through our music. No matter if it’s secular or gospel music, I want them to know that I didn’t get this on my own, I was blessed to learn how to play this, and we’ll try to give them something they’ll never forget and play from our heart….I want you to feel what I’m doing, and if He touches me to do it, I want him to take it from these strings and make that SOUND penetrate from here to the heart to the rest of the body and make them say…I never felt nothing like this before.”

Thank you for your music, Calvin. You will be greatly missed.

Sources:

Interview with Calvin Cooke, conducted by Bob Stone, various dates

Interview with Calvin Cooke and Kashiah Hunter, conducted by Natalie Jordan, 7/7/2023

Interview with Grace Cooke, conducted by Raphael McGregor, 6/20/2025

Interview with Del Grace, conducted by Raphael McGregor, 6/21/2025

Interview with Chuck Campbell, conducted by Raphael McGregor, 6/24/2025

The post Tribute: Sacred Steel’s Calvin Cooke first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Dave Hill is a comedian, actor, author, musician and podcaster. He’s also a guitar fanatic. In fact, at the 2025 Fretboard Summit, he’ll be performing an entire stand-up set on guitar (!) and doing some crowd work on your pedal boards.

On this week’s podcast, we talk to Dave about his love for guitar, why teenage gear obsessions are so hard to kick, his plans for his Summit set and how he balances so many different facets to his career. It’s a great chat with a brilliant and funny artist.

https://www.davehillonline.com

Register for the Summit here: https://fretboardsummit.org/

The Fretboard Summit is our three-day festival celebrating great guitars and great guitar people. We have nearly 80 luthiers, amp builders, and pedal makers exhibiting, hourly workshops and master classes, and some mind-bogglingly great evening performances.

The fun takes place August 21-23, 2025 at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music.
Our Podcast Sponsors

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(Use the code FRETBOARD to save 10% off your first order)

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The post Podcast 510: Dave Hill first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Long before boutique pedals took over the world, Robert Keeley was there. Growing up in a musical family with a long line of electrical engineers sparked a circuit-bending obsession with tone. It wasn’t long before young Keeley was modding existing pedals, adding switching options inspired by high-end car audio equipment. This unique approach laid the groundwork for what would become one of the most respected brands in guitar effects: Keeley Electronics.

Starting with celebrated platforms like the Boss Blues Driver and Ross Compressor, Keeley’s early mods—namely, the Super Phat Mod overdrive and his flagship Keeley Compressor—became icons. Nearly 25 years ago, his overdrive and compressor were seemingly everywhere, overnight. Even guitar royalty got in on the action.

“It didn’t take very long,” Keeley admits, explaining the ignition of his initial overdrive box. “One time, Dave Weiner [former Steve Vai rhythm guitarist] said, ‘Steve has some DS-1s he wants you to mod.’ I said, ‘Send them my way!’ I called it the Ultra Mod after his album, Alive in an Ultra World."

Unfortunately, success also brought challenges. For Keeley, the early years of the boutique boom were clouded by addiction, loss, and hard lessons that would sink most small builders. While competition was springing up everywhere, he was losing his marriage, his health, and his company’s momentum.

Yet if there’s one thing this story makes clear, it’s that Keeley refuses to go quietly. What emerged from the darkness wasn’t just a revitalized company; it was a new era. Today, Keeley Electronics, which employs 35 people, is an industry leader. And through it all, Robert Keeley’s joyful and passionate outlook still permeates everything he says and does.

In this conversation, Keeley opens up about surviving life’s boom and bust cycles, the freedom of keeping everything in-house, and how Phish’s Trey Anastasio inspired both his first compressor and most recent Manis overdrive.

Your compressor seemed like an overnight success. What was it like rocketing from “I want to try modding pedals” to suddenly being the Compressor Guy?

It was a whirlwind. I was working at a stereo store repairing high-end audio gear when I found out Trey Anastasio used a thing called a Ross Compressor. I looked on eBay, and they were $400 each. There was no way I could afford that, so I bought the parts and made it myself.

“I think pedals will be around for a very long time. They’re the quickest, cheapest way to get inspiration between your guitar and amp.”

I was following [guitar electronics guru] R.G. Keen’s articles about the Ross Compressor. He’d explain circuits and offer little tips, like when Ross improved the power supply with an extra capacitor and resistor. I’d think, “What if I make it even better? If I use stronger transistors and tweak the circuit, I’d get a better compression sound.” Once I heard it, I thought, “This is amazing.” I put one up on eBay to sell and used that sale to buy more parts.

Your pedal mods, like those on the Blues Driver, were also massive hits. What got you into working with pre-existing pedals?
Well, I also wanted to capture the sounds of the Tube Screamer Trey was using. And for me, it’s always been, “What if I [swap components], combine them, and solve some tone problems at the same time?” So I looked at all the complaints on Harmony Central—“not enough bass, tone control doesn’t work, needs more gain, needs less gain”—and made mods that solved most of those complaints.

I was also like, “Man, I could do some mods like I see on car stereos, where they have a little switch for a bass boost.” And that’s how I did it in the beginning.

Those Blues Driver and Tube Screamer mods eventually became the Keeley Super Phat Mod and Red Dirt, but why did it take so long to release them as your own pedals?

I didn’t want to just copy something to make my own drives. I still had an ego. I didn’t want to just say, “Here’s my modded Tube Screamer.” But when you get in trouble with the IRS and have to pay $13,000 a month in alimony, you’ll do a lot for money, including putting out a pedal called the Red Dirt. [laughs]

I had to punch like a businessman. Besides, I couldn’t start a business with just one pedal, and people got tired of “the Compressor Guy.”

“Everyone told me, ‘Just declare bankruptcy.’ That was the last thing I was going to do.”

You’ve been very open about a lot of your early struggles. But while that can derail a lot of small businesses, you’ve always found a way to overcome. Why do you think that is?
I developed that during my divorce. I was so high on pills that I wasn’t paying taxes. My wife was embezzling $170,000 a year and not reporting it. Then she hired attorneys for an alimony case, so I had to pay back a quarter million to the IRS, and owed a million in alimony and child support.

Everyone told me, “Just declare bankruptcy.” That was the last thing I was going to do. When you’re dealt that kind of news—and won’t give up—you think, “I need to sell pedals by Friday to make payroll!” It was survival.

You definitely survived—and thrived. The 2000s through 2020 were huge years for pedal companies, and it seemed like every release you put out was a hit. What was that period like for you?

It was really fascinating because in those early years my sales doubled. It seemed like anything I made would sell itself. I was also bringing all the processes back in-house. My shop had burned in 2009, so all my cases were being drilled and powder-coated elsewhere, and then printed by another firm. I was bringing things back in-house and having to learn how to do everything again. But I get endless lucky breaks. [Keeley signature artist] Andy Timmons came on at the right time; that guy can move gear like nobody’s business. And we just got to the next level in our DSP.

“Trey Anastasio’s tech texted me and said, ‘It’s the perfect time to send Trey a bunch of your Klon ideas.’”

Speaking of DSP [digital signal processing], you’ve grown far beyond compressors. What led you down the digital path?
It’s the people around me. My wife’s son, Craighton [Hale, Keeley Electronics engineer], was going to school for electrical engineering, so we had an electronics-minded person working with me. And our longest-running employee, Aaron Tackett, got tired of CNC work. I said, “How would you like to learn programming and help me with DSP?” He said, “Yeah, okay, I’ll do that.” And my god, did he take after it!

I love setting people up for things. I’ve been fortunate to have enough business coming in to pay these people well while they learn. Then they become superstars.

You share the spotlight with your team, have someone cooking for them, and give them a four-day workweek while still paying for 40 hours. That’s not something many employers offer.

I just like being nice. They thought free lunch was fine, so I went, “What if we make Thursdays the greatest day ever?” Also, I can't stand seeing my son-in-law paying over a grand monthly for health care, or employees being afraid of creating families because they can’t afford insurance. So I’m paying 60 percent of their health insurance. And I know how important it is to have three days off to feel human, get business done, and relax. I try to kill them with kindness. One day out of the year I might be demanding and yell, “Get that shit done!” Then I go back to being Santa Claus.

You’ve been through a lot over the years. How do you continue to take such pride in your team and the work you do together?
It seems like the only right way to do it. I’m always trying to say, “Why are you worrying? Let’s solve the problem so we don’t have to think about bad possibilities.” Besides, no one buys a downer story. But if you say, “I’m so proud of this pedal I designed,” people get interested.

Keeley Electronics seems to be entering a new era—your pedals have a fresh, more modern look, and you’re combining digital and analog in innovative ways. What’s inspiring this approach?

What started this wave was the freedom to expand our ideas and get out of the silly Chinese, prefab enclosures. Around 2020, I thought, “What machine can I buy to make them here?”

Now, having our own cases lets us design how we want. We developed this thing where I can put two circuit boards in there. The Noble Screamer was our first pedal like that. We could never have fit that in a standard box. Now I’ve got a prototype for next year—the Stereo Caverns—with delay, reverb, MIDI, expression pedal, stereo in and out, and presets. It’s all in there. That freedom started this wave.

“If I hadn’t had the success of the Octa Psi, I would be darn-near crying in my beer. But that’s the story of my life! I’m very fortunate.”

You do much more than just build enclosures. How did you evolve into a vertically integrated operation, managing so many parts of the production process in-house?
Every time the court system or the IRS would say I had to pay something else, I couldn’t get any credit with my suppliers. So, I would bring the whole procedure back in. I’d get a loan-shark-type loan for a powder coating thing or a CNC machine, and just sit down with my guys and ask them to figure it out.

It’d take, sometimes, a couple of years to figure out how to do a process, but eventually I built everything. Now we have four UV LED printers. We have four CNCs. I have a 3-kilowatt fiber laser. I have a CNC press brake. I have two powder coating booths, ovens, and spray booths. You just take it one piece at a time. You buy this equipment, and you know, “In about two years, I’ll pay it off, and I won’t be dependent on anyone anymore.”

Doing so much in-house probably insulates you to some extent, but how are tariffs and the changing market affecting the company?

I have to admit that last year things really slowed down for me during the summer. And if I hadn’t had the success of the Rotary pedal and our Zoma reverb, it would have been very, very scary. And then, as we rolled into this new year, the tariffs have been very expensive. If I hadn’t had the success of the Octa Psi, I would be darn near crying in my beer. But that’s the story of my life! I’m very fortunate.

Also, I put all my eggs into the DSP basket. It really paid off, because it’s very hard to do that stuff. I’ve got my spectrum analyzer looking at the smallest minutia of noise and frequency response details. By the time you get back to analog drive pedals, you’re dialed in.

Is that what happened with the new Manis overdrive?
I can actually tell you how the Manis happened. Justin Stabler, Trey Anastasio’s tech, texted me and said, “It’s the perfect time to send Trey a bunch of your Klon ideas. He wants to audition them.” I said, “I’ll have something in a couple days.”

I walked out of my office, went to Craighton, and said, “I want to try Russian germanium transistors and see if they have a different forward voltage than [Klon creator] Bill Finnegan’s germanium diodes.” Craighton had also been working on a bass boost that lets more bass into the clipping section. I said, “Great! Design it up.”

We sent two to Trey, and he messaged me saying, “Dang, I tried to go back to a Tube Screamer and I kept wanting the Manis.” Now he's saying, “I want my first custom signature pedal. I want Keeley to make me a new Boomerang [a popular looper pedal]. I don’t like the new Boomerangs, and the old ones are always breaking on me.” So I’ll spend the next couple years working on that. It’s fun.

A couple years means you’re pretty confident in the pedal market, even with everything going on currently. Where do you think things are headed?

It’s still the golden age of pedals, but you’ll only have true success if you bring something new to the market. If you're just saying, “I’m doing the best Tube Screamer,” that ship has sailed.

I think pedals will be around for a very long time. They’re the quickest, cheapest way to get inspiration between your guitar and amp. And they’re malleable. You can put this one here, that one there, give it to your friend, get it back, find a video, and try something new.

What’s a pedal you've always wanted to make, but haven’t yet?
Number one is a MIDI “Klon” with digi-pots. It’d be an analog drive pedal with presets and MIDI control. Nobody’s doing that. I’d get to create a new category.

I also want to work on Trey’s projects. The Boomerang is nearly 30 years old, and they had to work a metric ton harder than I have to in 2025 to design it, so it’s a complete honor to even be considered for a task like that. Still, someone needs to push Boomerang aside. [laughs] That’s me.

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Looking back on some of his fondest gig memories from his storied six-decade career, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has detailed one unfortunate incident during a show in London in the late ‘60s.

Specifically, the show took place at Royal Festival Hall on 14 April, 1969, and during rehearsal, Gilmour suffered an electric shock due to a “wiring error” with some of the equipment.

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In the afternoon rehearsal there had been a wiring error, and I got electrocuted,” he recalls in the new issue of Record Collector. “I flew over the drum kit and landed on the floor on the other side, missing Nick’s head by inches.”

As he explains, “The shock stays in you for a long time, and my fingers were still shaking all through the concert.”

Gilmour doesn’t pinpoint exactly what piece of equipment was responsible for the electric shock, but notes that the band had a “reputation for using new electronics”.

“In Pompeii, we were asked, ‘Do you control them, or do they control you?’ Well, let them control you and see what happens. There was a moment when there was a lot of that electronic gear coming at us, partly because we were friends with Peter Zinovieff, who owned Electronic Music Systems [EMS] in Putney.

“I would go round his house and into his big shed where he would be looking to miniaturise electronics into a briefcase. The VCS3 was a big wooden thing and the Synthi AKS was pretty much the same, with extra electronics.

Elsewhere in the interview, Gilmour reflects on his latest solo album. “I love Luck and Strange,” he says. “I would venture to suggest it’s my best solo album. Maybe it’s my best album. I’m really satisfied with the way it came out with the team of people that came together to make it.”

Mentioning, specifically, vocalist and collaborator Polly Samson, he continues: “My main ally in all this is Polly, who is a brilliant lyricist and has ideas about every part of it.”

The post “I flew over the drum kit and missed Nick’s head by inches”: David Gilmour on the time he suffered an electric shock during a 1969 Pink Floyd rehearsal due to a “wiring error” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Somewhere around 3 am, a young guitarist awoke wide-eyed and elated from a cannabis-fueled dream. It was the summer of love—a time when anything seemed possible—and his dream-state adventure had led to a powerful revelation he was sure would shake belief systems into dust. Instinctively, he grabbed a pencil and paper from the nightstand, jotted down his epiphany, then rolled over and fell into the most satisfying and peaceful sleep of his life. The next morning he awoke with excitement, certain that his world was about to change forever. He reached for the note he’d left for himself, unfolded it, and read the words: “I feel funny.”

I think of this story when I see guitar designs that attempt to push the envelope of what is considered mainstream. Sometimes they work, other times not so much. Was the builder high? No doubt there have been groundbreaking changes in the electric guitar world. The humbucking pickup, the Flying V, the Stratocaster, wireless, the Floyd Rose tremolo, and DSP come easily to mind. For the most part the guitar marketplace was pretty staid up until those times, but Fender had fired the first shot in a space-race to capture a brave new guitar market that didn’t yet exist.

That isn’t to say that there hadn’t been advances in construction or presentation—there obviously had. Although the Telecaster presaged what was soon to come and had the attention of guitar manufacturers, it really wasn’t taken all too seriously. It’s arguable that the P-bass in 1951 may have been a wakeup call. Gibson and the old guard responded with 6-string solidbody variants of their own, but they were mostly scaled-down versions of their previous products in the classic “violin” mold. With the arrival of the Strat, things got real. And so, the first electric guitars of the modern era were born and fledged out into the world. It was a lukewarm reception at first.

“Valeno, Kramer, and Travis Bean married wood and aluminum, while Bunker and Steinberger broke the mold completely.”

This is a tale that has been told almost as many times as builders have cloned the Stratocaster. Yet as more and more people became interested in electric guitar, boosted no doubt by the arrival of the Beach Boys and the Beatles, the more experimental the design world became. It was clear that fashion was the ticket as much as mechanical or electrical innovation. The emphasis on the shape of a headstock and body as well as color became the new design canvas. Who could be the far-out grooviest? It hasn’t slowed down since.

As always, things settled into routine again. Paul Reed Smith wanted to morph two or more of the most popular shapes in electric guitar history. To his credit, he split the difference almost perfectly. Others, like John Suhr and Tom Anderson, sought to refine the Fullerton blueprint with admirable success, while Bernie Rico created a fever dream of wild shapes, string arrangement, and electronics. Many others gave it their best shot: Valeno, Kramer, and Travis Bean married wood and aluminum, while Bunker and Steinberger broke the mold completely. At Hamer, we looked to the vintage past for our future. Then things got stale again and everything seemed to be a rehash. It seems like we’ve been in a holding pattern of mix and match for a while now. Sure, playability has never been better, and choices are abundant beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Things are good.

As the guitar world becomes all the more deep and wide, with almost every neighborhood hosting a custom guitar maker, it becomes harder and harder to come up with something new. So, like every fashion house on earth, the name of the game is to dig into the past and blend parts and materials in the hope of catching a little lightning in a bottle. Once you realize that as long as the nut, fretboard, and bridge stay in the correct and same relationship, anything else can be changed. Like Legos, you can build your dream guitar by swapping influences—mixing and matching until you have that earth-shaking, world-beating gumbo that puts you on the map. Or not.

I’m not complaining, and neither should you. I constantly see new takes on old ideas and think, “Why didn’t I think of that?” You can now buy a $300 guitar that can make it through a stadium gig—at least once or twice. The old guitars have the romance and the new guitars have the muscle. I still look at Reverb and wish I had more money and space. Occasionally, I build out of my comfort zone but don’t worry about finding that life-changing thunderbolt. I also suggest avoiding ideas that are funny in the moment. And that brings us right back to that piece of paper on the nightstand.

Guitarist Zakk Wylde believes that an artist should never forget where they came from – and one of the easiest ways to do that is to hang on to your early gear.

Despite making a name for himself as Ozzy Osbourne’s chief axeman and fronting Black Label Society, the guitarist has never forgotten the instrument that started it all – a 1981 Gibson Firebrand SG in Pelham Blue. “I still have it,” he reveals in the latest issue of Guitar World. “I sold it but managed to buy it back, which was an amazing feeling”

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“I think it’s important to keep your early gear if you can; there’s something special about picking up a guitar years later and thinking about the hours you put in,” he explains. “Those first guitars are what set you off on the path. I have friends who say they wish they still have some old toy or something, and I always say just go and hunt one down on the internet! Reconnect yourself, you know?”

What was so special about Wylde’s Firebrand SG in particular? Well, as the guitarist explains, it was the “first real ‘quality’ guitar” he ever got his hands on. “I did so much of my learning on it,” he reflects. “I bought it at Red Bank Music [in New Jersey] back in the day. There was a lot of publicity for these models at the time; I remember the Gibson ads saying, ‘A Firebrand for under a grand’. It was a fantastic guitar, though, and a major step up for me.”

“Before I got it, I had a bunch of guitars that weren’t anywhere close to the SG,” he continues. “There was a copy of a Gibson L6 with action that was about 10 feet off the neck. I had a Fernandes and a couple of Electras in crazy shapes and some other stuff that was pretty crappy. The ones I didn’t hang on to, I tried to pick up in later years on eBay or Reverb; some I managed to buy back from the guys I’d sold them to, so I have all my childhood memory guitars one way or another.”

As Wylde explains the history behind his first ‘quality’ guitar, it’s clear why it’s so important to him. It not only symbolises his novice years, but it also reminds him of the people and shows that helped him progress along the way. “My guitar teacher at the time, Leroy, recommended the guitar to me,” he says. “He was a fan of SGs; he thought the double cutaways and access to the top frets would suit the stuff I wanted to play. I wasn’t really playing shows when I got it, more parties and jamming in the basement. I spent a ton of time woodshedding…”

“I never changed a single thing on it – it’s completely stock,” he insists. “I still pull it out from time to time at home; it’s a bit of a lost classic in the Gibson range. Another thing about it was the colour, which I liked so much that I’ve used it on a few guitars since then as well as on some of my own Wylde Audio fiddles.”

Wylde has spoken out about never selling your first guitar in the past. During an interview with the Musicians Institute back in 2019, he said: “It doesn’t matter if the guitar is the biggest pile of garbage on the planet, it’s the connection that you have with that guitar… It has a life of its own.”

While Wylde is precious about his Firebrand SG, he has happily sold other guitars that hold less emotional significance to him over the years. Back in 2023, Wylde was flogging signed, road-used guitars while filling in for Dimebag Darrell on the Pantera celebration tour. Fans who opted for a VIP package were entitled to a Wylde Audio Barbarian guitar in Orange Buzzsaw, Genesis Bullseye or Purple Blizzard finishes, as well as a meet and greet with the guitarist.

The post “There’s something special about picking up a guitar years later and thinking about the hours you put in”: Zakk Wylde says you should never sell the gear you started with appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Josh Smith opens up about finding his voice in the blues (and beyond), crafting his signature tone, and why authenticity—not imitation—is the heart of his playing. The engaging exchange is a prime example in developing musical identity through introspective intention and detailed execution.

Being a contemporary bluesman has its pitfalls, dead ends, and challenges. Josh Smith reflects deeply on his relationship with the blues, acknowledging the cultural origins of the music and his position as modern ambassador (and interpreter) for the artform. He then discusses how switching from Strats to Teles shaped his own sound and playing style more than any other gear choice.

As the interview continues, Smith delves into the art of live performance and improvisation, valuing intent, rhythm, and connection with both the audience and bandmates. Smith talks honestly about the current challenges younger musicians face—namely the lack of live-gig opportunities—and contrasts that with his own development through hundreds of early gigs (even before the age of 18). The conversation ends with Smith detailing his ongoing experience as a producer, what he enjoys about helping artists realize their vision through his own expertise & instincts. Whether working with artists like Andy Timmons or playing in Joe Bonamassa's live band, Smith prioritizes rhythmic precision with present spontaneity and trying to be musical in every moment.

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