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Guitar World
All the latest content from the Guitar World team
Updated: 43 min 20 sec ago
“I was all over the place. But when I first heard Randy play, it was poetry in motion. I thought, ‘Wow, I’m onto a good thing here’”: Ozzy Osbourne couldn’t play guitar. Yet he changed the guitar world by introducing some of its greatest heroes
The late heavy-metal icon did not, could not, play guitar. Yet his contribution to the scene – whether giving a platform to fledgling gunslingers or igniting their talents – was inestimable
Categories: General Interest
“All that we accomplished after that first fistfight in the van 25 years ago. I didn’t think you’d be taken from us like this”: Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher issues first public statement following Brent Hinds' death
Hinds, Mastodon's co-founder and co-leader for a quarter century, died last week following a tragic motorcycle accident
Categories: General Interest
“My guitar was slightly out.Steve Vai walked past and said,‘Your low E was four cents flat.’And he’d been in the green room!” Meet Derek Day, the swaggering virtuoso who went from busking on the streets to touring with his hero
The 24-year-old explains how he merges prog and glam, and escapes the “originality ordeal” of an ancient instrument by hopping between Fender, Gibson, PRS and Ibanez (even if he prefers to write on cheap knock-offs)
Categories: General Interest
“Learned the solo the other day – it’s not perfect, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t fun to play”: Grace Bowers channels her inner shredder with a searing tribute to Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads
The guitarist’s solo was flawless, and she says she only just picked it up recently
Categories: General Interest
“Brian asked me if I wanted to do a lead. I got excited and was ready to shred”: The Lost Beach Boy on the classic song he overdubbed on
Brian Wilson typically turned to his brother, Carl, for leads, but David Marks got a rare chance to buck that trend in 1964
Categories: General Interest
“A lot of the music stores didn’t want to touch used instruments back then. They would laugh at me and say, ‘You’re paying more for this old guitar than I am for this new guitar’”: Norman Harris on the nascent days of the vintage guitar market
Harris turned the used guitar market on its head, despite the skepticism of many industry peers
Categories: General Interest
“We were brothers to the end. We really loved each other, and we made a lot of very beautiful music together”: Mastodon honor Brent Hinds onstage at their first live performance since the guitarist's death
Drummer Brann Dailor led the tributes after an emotionally charged set dedicated to the guitar hero
Categories: General Interest
“To surprise me, they put my name on the headstock in gold lettering – but they spelled it wrong”: The Cars’ Elliot Easton on the Flying V that Tim Shaw built him – a “gorgeous” guitar (even if Gibson slipped up on his name)
Easton’s 1982 Gibson Custom Shop left-handed Flying V was a much-loved guitar, but when someone offered "stupid money" for it he couldn’t turn it down. Still, it looked cool on the cover of GW
Categories: General Interest
“Men love to come along to our shows and say, ‘They’re miming!’ but the sounds we make are all live”: Why Nova Twins love the challenge of playing everything live with pedals
The alt-rock stars have been on the receiving end of sexism and miming accusations – but what they produce live is the real deal
Categories: General Interest
“It’s all about the patterns that smoothly and musically ‘walk’ you from onechord to the next”: Sue Foley shows you how to nail blues turnarounds
Turnarounds come around within the last four bars of a 12-bar blues progression and getting them right puts the cherry on top of the sundae
Categories: General Interest
“When you strip it down tothe essentials, I believe it mostly comes down to the wood and the strings”: Why do some guitars sustain better than others? It’s complicated
With some help from Banker Guitars’ Matt Hughes and SonoTone Strings’ PK Pandy, we unpack the mysteries of sustain – and why it differs from resonance and volume
Categories: General Interest
“Learning to play with a pick was like dancing with two left feet. I had to entirely relearn the bass”: Having played in the Pixies, Zwan, and A Perfect Circle, Paz Lenchantin knows a thing or two about the bass guitar and its role in rock
Former Pixies bassist Paz Lenchantin still has a few tricks up her sleeve, including a debut solo album
Categories: General Interest
“The thing is, Jake doesn't appreciate how spectacularly special that is”: When Chris Turpin started playing with Jake Kiszka, the Greta Van Fleet guitarist's live rig surprised him
Turpin's new Mirador bandmate doesn’t like relying on pedals for his sound
Categories: General Interest
“He handed me that famous pink Strat. That riff is the first thing I played – it had that riff in it. I’m lucky to be the guy it came out for”: Mark Morton on his all-star solo album feat. Grace Bowers, Tyler Bryant and a perfect solo from Jason Isbell
The Lamb of God guitarist reveals how he enlisted some of Southern rock’s finest for Without the Pain
Categories: General Interest
“We went to Waffle House and I saw a sugar packet. Those songs went from being the third Bob Mould solo album to being by a band called Sugar”: Bob Mould on Hüsker Dü's rise and fall, and what changed when he swapped his Ibanez Rocket Roll for a Strat
In a rare interview, the Hüsker Dü and Sugar mastermind walks us through his entire career, right on up to his brand-new “give the people what they want” record, Here We Go Crazy
Categories: General Interest
“Originally retailed for around $250, they can now fetch up to 2,500 times that”: 1959 Gibson 'Burst Les Pauls sell for a king's ransom, and have been played and cherished by everyone from Jimmy Page to Billy Gibbons – but what exactly makes them special?
Widely considered to be the Holy Grail for guitar enthusiasts and collectors, 'Bursts feature on many of the most important rock albums ever made. So what exactly went into the secret sauce?
Categories: General Interest
“I said, ‘What about Keith Richards?’ I was just joking... He came with about 600 guitars in a semi-truck. And a butler”: How Tom Waits began a decades-long creative partnership with the Rolling Stones legend
Though their string of collaborations sprung from an offhand joke made to record executives, the singer/songwriter best known for his singular, gravelly, time-weathered vocals clicked immediately with the wizened rhythm guitar master who's lived a thousand lives
Categories: General Interest
“His voice was staggering, but the bass playing had to be on a par with someone like Jack Bruce. And Phil wasn’t there yet”: How Phil Lynott narrowly missed the chance to form a supergroup alongside Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore
The name Baby Face would end up being used as a song title on Thin Lizzy’s next album
Categories: General Interest
“That’s one of the things that made us sound so heavy”: Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song, Kashmir, and The Song Remains the Same are wildly different classic rock staples, but one key element ties them all together, says John Paul Jones
Zeppelin’s power lay in their timing, the low-end giant explains, but there was more in the method to the band's madness
Categories: General Interest
“Create wide-ranging, piano-style chord voicings that aren’t available in regular tuning”: Loved by Joni Mitchell and Keith Richards alike, essential to slide players, here’s how you can explore chords in open D
These 5 shapes showcase the range of acoustic sounds and textures this open tuning grants access to
Categories: General Interest