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“It’s not always perfect, but we were brothers till the end”: Mastodon pay tribute to Brent Hinds at first concert since guitarist’s death
Mastodon honoured Brent Hinds during their first show since his death, describing the guitarist as “one of the most creative, beautiful people that we’ve ever come across in this world.”
Hinds was killed in a motorcycle crash in Atlanta last Wednesday, 20 August, at the age of 51. His death was confirmed to Atlanta News First by the Fulton County medical examiner’s office, after police reported that a man riding a Harley Davidson was killed in a collision with a BMW SUV.
On Friday (22 August), the band took stage at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, Alaska, marking their first performance since Hinds’ passing.
Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor delivered a moving tribute at the end of their set, reflecting on Hinds’ impact both on the band and their fans: “We lost somebody very special to us yesterday,” he said. “Brent Hinds, 25 years with us as our guitar player, one of the most creative, beautiful people that we’ve ever come across in this world, tragically left us. Very, very unfortunate.”
“We loved him so, so, so very much. And we had the ups and downs of a 25-year relationship, you know what I mean? It’s not always perfect, it’s not always amazing, but we were brothers to the end,” he continued.
“And we really loved each other and we made a lot, a lot of very beautiful music together. And I think that that’s gonna stand the test of time, evidenced by you people here tonight.”
“So we will continue to play Brent’s beautiful, beautiful music that he helped us make, that we formed this band together and traveled the world together, slept in a van together, laid our heads down on beds of fucking kitty litter, got way too drunk to remember anything the next day about a thousand, million times over and over again with the love that we shared and the beauty, all the audiences that we played for, all the stages we stepped on.”
“I don’t know. We’re just at a loss for words. We’re absolutely devastated and crushed to lose him and to be able to never have him back again,” Dailor said. “But you guys made it OK for us to come on stage and do this tonight. So that was for fucking Brent, OK? Thank you guys so much.”
He concluded, “Thank you for helping us get through that one, it was fucking tough for us. But you guys are fucking amazing, so thank you.”
Brent Hinds co-founded Mastodon in 2000 with Bill Kelliher, Troy Sanders, and Brann Dailor, a lineup that stayed intact until his departure earlier this year. While the band initially described the split as amicable, Hinds later claimed he had been forced out for “embarrassing” the group.
On Thursday, Mastodon shared a statement on social media expressing their “unfathomable sadness and grief” over Hinds’ passing: “We are heartbroken, shocked, and still trying to process the loss of this creative force with whom we’ve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many,” said the band.
The post “It’s not always perfect, but we were brothers till the end”: Mastodon pay tribute to Brent Hinds at first concert since guitarist’s death appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Walter Trout: “I’m like a cat. I’m on my 4th or 5th chance here”
Walter Trout has lived through enough close calls to fill a biography: drug addiction in his twenties, liver failure in his sixties, and now the daily grind of making music at 74. Somehow, like the nine lives he jokes about, he keeps landing on his feet.
As the blues legend tells Classic Rock magazine, “I never expected to make it this far. I’m like a cat. I’m on my 4th or 5th chance here. And with each one I get more involved in wanting to be an artist, wanting to say something that means something to somebody.”
For Trout, that drive is rooted in the stage. Touring remains his lifeblood, though it comes with discipline: “It’s incredibly important to rest, to eat well, to pace yourself,” he says.
“I drink a lot of water and do vocal exercises to warm up my voice. The weird thing is that I’m finding the older I get, the more power I have in my voice. I even have more of a range. I don’t understand it.”
That vitality carries straight into his performances: “I want people to come and see us and feel the energy. I want to give them everything I have, and at the end of that two hours be completely drained. I’ve had many people come and see my band and they go: ‘you guys play like you’re twenty.’ I don’t want them to say it’s a bunch of old men up there doddering around.”
When it comes to his guitar playing, Trout has little interest in mindless flashiness. “Great guitar players now, they’re dime a dozen,” he says. “I want to play less but have it mean more. Melody, feeling, expression – that’s what I’m going for.” It’s a philosophy that carries into his upcoming record, Sign Of The Times, which arrives on 5 September.
And in a world where technology is creeping further into music, Trout makes it clear he’s not about to hand any part of his craft over to a machine.
“It used to be if they had a video of somebody murdering somebody, they showed that in the courtroom and the guy was obviously guilty as hell. None of that works [any more] because of these deep fakes,” says the musician.
“I’m not gonna ask a computer to help me do what I do. If it’s not coming from me, I’m not putting it out there.”
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With the FullerTone, Eastman Guitars stands at the new frontier of quality affordable electrics
Eastman Guitars is one of the true upstart success stories of the last decade: its high-quality instruments have challenged outdated preconceptions about Chinese guitar-making, and earned fans among musicians big and small across the globe.
Now, the brand is disrupting the entry-level end of the market with the FullerTone – an instrument that takes everything the brand has learned over the last decade and applies it to its most affordable guitars yet. The results are spectacular.
The Eastman Guitars FullerTone on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com
But Eastman’s CEO & founder Qian Ni never planned to be a guitar maker. A classically trained flautist, Qian started Eastman Strings in 1992, thinking he’d make quality violins, cellos and strings more affordably in China.
“I had no goals,” Qian admits. “I just wanted to see where it would go. I loved music and felt lucky to be able to potentially build something within an area that I enjoyed.”
“Eastman started the way all the old guitar companies did: the hard way, not the easy way” – Pepijn ‘t Hart
In the ensuing years, Eastman would expand rapidly, moving into making mandolins and archtop guitars before its first decade was up. Quite by accident, the company was charting a path that many iconic American electric guitar brands did almost a hundred years previously.
“Eastman really started the way all the old guitar companies started,” notes Eastman’s director of fretted instruments and product development, Pepijn ‘t Hart. “The hard way, not the easy way – with carved tops and dovetail neck joints.”
Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com
The Hard Way
Doing it the hard way involved challenging the status quo. Traditionally, Chinese guitars were a means for US brands to produce their designs more affordably.
“Most people use China as cheap manufacturing, but China has a really high level of skill and craftsmanship,” asserts Qian. “A lot of people see China’s cheap labour, but cheap doesn’t mean low quality.”
When Eastman started out building violins, the aim wasn’t to reinvent how they were made – it was to do it using time-honoured methods in a place where training such skilled artisans was much lower. Given the similarities in their construction, it wasn’t long before Eastman started making archtop guitars, and it was through these early efforts that Qian crossed paths with American luthier Otto D’Ambrosio. Shortly after, Qian rang him “out of the blue”, D’Ambrosio remembers with a smile, and peppered him with an “overwhelming” number of questions about guitar building.
“We have to do some things differently and take the risks associated with that” – Qian Ni
It didn’t take long for D’Ambrosio to realise that the brand’s focus on doing things the hard way would reap benefits for guitar-making. As evidenced by seeing the brand’s Beijing workshop – which now produces all of Eastman’s electrics and archtops.
“The shop already had this knowledge base of working with their hands,” D’Ambrosio remembers. “That was always the part that fascinated me: seeing that level of skill there at that time when nobody else was doing it.”
Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com
All In Our Hands
That grounding enabled Eastman to move into the big leagues of solidbody electric guitars in 2016. Their instruments clearly took inspiration from the classic designs, but with a level of craftsmanship, finesse and consistency that led this very publication to describe them as “giant killers”. But it wasn’t the overnight success it seemed to many.
“I’ve heard it many times over the years, ‘Oh, there’s a new workshop, and they’re going to be a real competitor for you’,” ‘t Hart explains. “Not to be cocky, but we know that’s not possible. Because we started in 1992 building violins, cellos and double basses by hand. You can’t just get 200 people and get them hand-building instruments to that level of expertise overnight – it’s impossible!”
“That’s what we do best: the hardworking culture of our craftspeople,” Qian agrees. “It’s about consistent craftsmanship. Our instruments are made by a team of specialists, all masters in their specific field of expertise. In a way it’s like what Stradivari did in Cremona – learning from the best.”
Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com
The Shape Of Things To Come
The success of the first wave of Eastman solidbodies shook up the electric guitar world, but their next step – unique original designs – is one that has confounded many brands. But D’Ambrosio, now Eastman’s chief designer of fretted instruments, had something special cooking.
In 2019 Eastman launched the Romeo, a thinline semi-hollow that would be its first truly unique design. Fittingly, it was a guitar that was percolating in the background as an archtop project for D’Ambrosio before Qian intervened.
“I had not given Romeo the attention it deserved,” ‘t Hart explains. “[Qian] saw the prototype in the workshop and said, ‘Oh, this is the future of our electric guitars. This is the thinline that we should start building.’ And it shifted my view on Otto’s design, because suddenly I didn’t see it as an archtop. Now, it’s my most used Eastman guitar.”
Romeo got the ball rolling for a bold new phase of the Eastman electric guitars project: establishing a distinct visual style. Next came the Juliet, the brand’s first original solidbody, which won Eastman fans in a variety of artists, most notably James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers, who fittingly described it as “a design for life”. But these milestones were setting the stage for something even more significant.
Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com
Bolt From The Blue
By the start of the 2020s, Eastman was an established electric guitar brand with a growing presence thanks to its original designs. But it still wasn’t doing everything its founder wanted it to do.
“Qian is a no nonsense guy,” ‘t Hart explains. “He said to me, ‘We’re still an acoustic company at heart’ – kind of disappointed! Because do you know how hard it is to break into the electric market?! We were so proud of our accomplishments. But then, I realised what he meant: you can only be an electric company if you can supply all guitar players, with the FullerTone series, we have accomplished that.”
The challenges of making a great entry-level guitar were, for Eastman, worth facing. “We want to invest in making better instruments,” Qian explains. “In order to do so, we have to do some things differently and take the risks associated with that.”
“We have a blank slate to do whatever we feel is the right thing to do” – Pepijn ‘t Hart
So Eastman did the entirely unexpected: they started making guitars in the USA under D’Ambrosio’s supervision, and for the first time ever, they made a bolt-on – as opposed to the set-neck instruments the brand had been known for.
“We always said we could never do a bolt-on neck!” ‘t Hart laughs. “But Qian gives us so much trust and freedom… so I said to Otto, ‘Hey, what about a bolt-on? Is there anything we can do to improve Mr Fender’s brilliant design from the 50s? And Otto started doing what he does best.”
A bolt-on neck is a much simpler and thus more affordable instrument to produce than a set-neck, but one with its own eccentricities. “The Fender neck design, it’s been around for 70 years,” D’Ambrosio explains. “And while there are workarounds, the inherent flaws in terms of the screws loosening and the neck shifting are still there. So we just looked at it with a different kind of lens to figure out how we could really lock in the neck and body.”
The result was the FullerTone neck: a revolutionary new way of bonding guitar and neck together in a way that only requires a single bolt, but has the fit and stability of a set neck instrument. The resulting guitar, christened D’Ambrosio in honour of its designer, turned heads upon its launch in 2024. But it was just the start.
Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com
The Fuller Picture
In 2025 Eastman launched a new range of guitars, named FullerTone after the neck that makes them possible, which at under £800 are also the most affordable electric guitars the brand has ever produced.
To get there, Eastman leaned on modern CNC production techniques, armed with the lessons learned in the US. “I don’t think the FullerTones would be as good as they are without the D’Ambrosio series,” ‘t Hart insists. “Otto made these guitars in his workshop to enable our shop to catch up. That’s the thing that Leo Fender did so brilliantly: he created this guitar that could be built in large quantities, without the quality ever dipping. That’s what we also needed to do with FullerTone.”
Not only do the FullerTone guitars feel like a culmination of 30 years of learning, creativity and expression for Eastman, they’re also a fitting tribute to the passion of the people who have collaborated to create it.
“We always said we could never do a bolt-on neck! But Qian gives us so much trust and freedom” – Pepijn ‘t Hart
“Otto and I, it’s like we both have Eastman tattooed across our hearts,” ‘t Hart says. “I could not imagine myself working for any other company, because we have a blank slate to do whatever we feel is the right thing to do.”
Qian Ni, whose colleagues credit with the trust necessary to experiment and innovate, remains self-deprecating. “We believe that we are building instruments that will help musicians to perform at a higher level, all the way down to the student,” he says, mission-based as ever. “You have to learn from the best. I won’t take any credit. We have been inspired by so many great companies, and if our work has done the same for others, we feel honoured to be a part of that history.”
For Pepijn ’t Hart, the only way for Eastman is up – but he’s still relishing being the upstart challenging the status quo while he can.
“I really try to cherish the place where we’re at now. Because there’s going to be a time when we are on top – then you have to stay there. This is the best part!”
Words: Josh Gardner
Photography: Joseph Bishop
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“Getting it back feels like being reunited with a piece of myself I thought was gone forever”: Deryck Whibley has been reunited with his Fender Telecaster that spent 20 years on display
Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley has been reunited with his beloved Fender Telecaster, which had spent 20 years on display at the Hard Rock Cafe in Florida.
Back in February, Whibley wrote a post on Instagram about his love for the guitar, in which he asked if he could “work something out” with the cafe in order to have it back. He owned the guitar for a few short years during the band’s Does This Look Infected? era before he gave it away.
In his original post shared earlier this year, Whibley spoke of the guitar’s origin story and how it accompanied him for most performances the band did alongside Iggy Pop, including an MTV Awards performance of their collaborative track, Little Know It All, which features on Pop’s 2003 album, Skull Ring.
“Back in 2003, I had just started playing Fender and only had one black Telecaster, but needed a backup. We were on the road in the US when I asked them if they could send me out something quick,” Whibley wrote. “I never specified any particular colour or style, I just said I needed something fast.
“A few weeks later, this pewter grey Telecaster showed up. I fell in love with it immediately. I went to town decorating it in my own style. I tried lighting it on fire the same way I did with my Les Pauls, but the finish just didn’t burn up the same way so I just threw some stickers on it instead,” he said.
Having missed the guitar so much, the cafe has happily to return the guitar to his ownership once again. In a new Instagram post featuring the Tele, Whibley writes, “After 20 years on display at the Hard Rock Cafe, this guitar is finally back in my hands — and it feels amazing to plug it in again.”
He continues, “I was happy to have it on display at the Hard Rock for so long – it felt like part of my history belonged in their collection. But getting it back now, after all these years, feels like being reunited with a piece of myself I thought was gone forever. Thank you Hard Rock Cafe.”
Whibley also notes that the guitar is now fitted with a Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB humbucker, and in his new Instagram video, he’s running it through a Wizard MC II 50-watt. Take a look below:
The post “Getting it back feels like being reunited with a piece of myself I thought was gone forever”: Deryck Whibley has been reunited with his Fender Telecaster that spent 20 years on display appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Is Master of Puppets about to have ANOTHER ‘resurgence’? Metal fans rejoice: Metallica’s 1986 mega-hit features in new Call of Duty trailer
When Master of Puppets featured in Stranger Things back in 2022, it brought Metallica and metal music back into the eye of the mainstream once again.
Yep, when the band’s 1986 thrash metal mega-hit featured in the hit Netflix show’s Season 4 finale, people went wild, with many guitarists clamouring to test their downpicking mettle and learn its now-legendary riffs.
And now that Master of Puppets – or an industrial-flavoured remix of it, at least – has featured in the latest trailer for Black Ops 7, the upcoming installment of Call of Duty, are we about to see a similar revival?
The Call of Duty franchise reportedly has over 100 million active monthly players across all its titles – with many regularly tuning into Warzone, the battle royale behemoth whose popularity was massively propelled during Covid.
So it stands to reason that a large subsection of this enormous player base will have checked out the trailer for the upcoming Black Ops 7, and not all of those will be familiar with Metallica and the thrash classic that is Master of Puppets.
In my mind, two things stand in the way of the track having a revival similar to that ignited by Stranger Things, though.
One: the track is quite significantly chopped up, edited and remixed, with a futuristic industrial sound which more closely aligns with Black Ops 7’s future-tinged aesthetic and gameplay. Thus, the frantic 200bpm-plus downpicked riffs are slightly harder to make out, and will likely cause fewer ears to perk up as a result.
And two: the track’s inclusion in Stranger Things saw protagonist Eddie Munson literally playing the song mid-episode on his electric guitar in order to scare away a flock of demonic bats. Yep, MoP will tend to do that.
The fact that this scene appeared during the season finale, when the audience had built up a strong affinity for one of the main characters who played the riffs, would have no doubt contributed to many picking up a guitar and giving it a go themselves.
Therefore, it’s unlikely Master of Puppets will have quite the same resurgence – pardon the pun, for the very select few of you that will understand that reference – as it did in 2022. But ultimately, we’re always happy to see metal represented in the mainstream. So props, Call of Duty.
At the time of writing, the new trailer has received nearly 35 million views on YouTube in just two days. Check it out below:
That said, the Call of Duty franchise is no stranger to collaborating with metal artists on its titles. Huntington Beach metal juggernaut Avenged Sevenfold – who have supported Metallica on numerous occasions – have worked with CoD developers many times, contributing tracks including Not Ready to Die and Carry On to the series’ soundtracks.
Watch the video for Carry On below, in which members M. Shadows, Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance and Johnny Christ are transformed into in-game characters.
The post Is Master of Puppets about to have ANOTHER ‘resurgence’? Metal fans rejoice: Metallica’s 1986 mega-hit features in new Call of Duty trailer appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Men love to come along to our shows and say, ‘They’re miming!”: Nova Twins on why they get a buzz from proving sexist people wrong
Rock duo Nova Twins, known for their secretive pedalboard wizardry, say they sometimes get accused of miming and not playing their instruments live by sexist audience members at their shows.
Anyone familiar with Amy Love and Georgia South’s guitar chops and passion for gear know that miming along to a backing track is certainly not their bag – back in their first interview with Guitar.com in 2020 they revealed they have two massive pedalboards, and are still yet to disclose how they get their signature crunchy and fuzzy tone.
- READ MORE: The best electric guitars for metal – our top-rated Jacksons, Gibsons, Strandbergs & more
Ahead of their new album, Parasites & Butterflies, which arrives on 29 August, the duo have spoken to Metal Hammer for its latest print edition about their guitar and bass tone, and how they love to prove the naysayers wrong.
“We love the challenge of playing everything live off pedals,” Love says. “There’s no synths on track or guitars on track. Men love to come along to our shows and say, ‘They’re miming! They’re not playing live!’, but the sounds we make are all live.”
South adds, “We were setting up our gear, and someone asked our guitar tech, ‘What guitars do you have?’ Our tech said, ‘Oh, no, those are the girls’ guitars…’ And the guy just ignored it. It was like he thought our tech was joking – the idea that the guitars genuinely belonged to us completely went over his head.”
Not only that, but they also faced wolf-whistling and other misogynistic behaviour from the crowd at that same show, which took place in Vienna a few years ago. And yet, they of course played a great set that had won over the whole room by the end of the show.
“The guy who had asked about our guitars was so embarrassed,” Love adds. “The rest of his band were telling us how much they loved the set, but he stood quietly in the corner.”
For a taste of Nova Twins’ live show, check out the video below:
Parasites & Butterflies is available to pre-order now. They kick off a record store tour on 23 August, before beginning their headline shows on 17 September – find out more via their official website.
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Blackstar ID:X 50 review: “stands out by knowing exactly what it is, and who it’s for”
£289, blackstaramps.com
Blackstar has been on an impressive hot streak over the last few years. From the impressive St James valve combos to the entry-level Debut amps, through to the content creator playground that is the ID:Core series, the brand has really hit the sweet spot between affordability, features and sound.
Now however, the brand is setting its sights firmly on the fertile ground occupied by the likes of Boss’s Katana range and Fender’s Mustangs – the no-nonsense gig-ready modelling combo. Watch out, the ID:X is coming for you…
Image: Adam Gasson
Blackstar ID:X 50 – what is it?
There are two flavours of the new ID:X combo arriving out of the gate – a 100-watt beast and this more bedroom-friendly 50-watter. The “ID” bit of the name does suggest some shared DNA with the hugely popular ID:Core series of course, and you can perhaps see this as the logical stepping stone for someone who bought one of those as their first amp.
So visually and in terms of the control panel things are pretty familiar on that front. For example, you have the same six onboard amp voicings as the ID:Core V3 – ranging from chiming cleans through to searing high gain. You also get a full three-band tone-stack here, in addition to Blackstar’s almost ubiquitous mid-mithering ISF control – a notable tone-shaping enhancement over its little brother.
You can’t very well take on the Katana without a bevvy of onboard effects, and you get plenty to get to grips with here. There are 34 distinct pre- and post-effects listed in the manual – everything from flavours of dirt to tremolo, phasers and even a shimmer delay – and Blackstar stresses this is a moveable feast, with more effects coming in the future.
Navigating all this comes courtesy of an onboard OLED screen – top marks for Blackstar not burying all this in a companion app as many would do in this era of smart amps. What you see is very much what you get.
In addition to the amps and effects you can also tweak the valve response options of each amp sound (between EL34, EL84 and 6L6 recreations), and this thing comes primed to gig with the ability to store up to 12 presets on board to ensure you don’t have to fiddle with that screen mid-song.
The player convenience features don’t end there either. You can drop the power down to 10 or even 1 watt for pure bedroom playing, while if you need to record things direct you have the convenience of Blackstar’s impressive CabRig technology, as well as a USB-C port for going digital direct.
There’s also a headphone output up top, and a line-in for putting your own songs or backing tracks through it, a built-in tuner and an effects loop. One thing that you won’t find however, is bluetooth audio – it’s strictly analogue here unfortunately.
Another slightly mystifying omission in the case of the 50 is a lack of a balanced XLR out – the 100-watt version has one, but if anything the 50 is more likely to need it in a gigging situation. It’s a little bit like forgetting to put wheels on a suitcase – you can live without it, sure, but it’s a hell of a lot easier if you have them.
Image: Adam Gasson
Blackstar ID:X 50 – usability and sounds
The reason that the Katanas of this world are so popular with ordinary guitarists is that they do a great job of getting out of the way. Blackstar has clearly been paying attention in that regard because getting to grips with the ID:X is as intuitive and simple as you could ever want it to be – with barely a glance at the manual I’m off to the races navigating the various sounds and effects, with the onboard controls being super easy to use and understand.
Plugging in and it’s immediately apparent that this is not the place to come if your stock in trade is whisper-thin jangly. The ID:X is a chin out, Saturday night rock machine. Regardless of what guitar I put it through, everything sounds thick, chewy, meaty… it’s an amp that begs to be played loudly and proudly.
That’s not to say it’s untamed or unruly however – the valve-like nature of these sounds had me feeling fully in control of how gnarly I wanted to get, breaking up naturally when I wanted it to, or providing a nice clean pedal platform if I needed it.
You can get a lot out of this amp without ever plugging it into a laptop, but it’s also worth noting that the real deep editing stuff is done via Blackstar’s excellent Architect software – and what an enjoyable experience that is. Despite the abundant options to tweak and refine here, you never feel like you need a PhD in music production to dial things in – it’s sleek, user-friendly and gets out of the way.
As I said, most of the parameters you’ll be tweaking day to day can be done easily on the amp itself, so the Architect is more of an occasional trip than a daily driver. That said, it would be nice to not have to plug into a laptop to do it. The lack of Bluetooth rears its ugly head again here I feel, but an iOS/Android app option would encourage you to get deep into the weeds more often.
That said, if I had to choose between one or the other, I’m glad they’ve gone down the wired connection route – the guitar world is littered with ill-conceived companion apps that barely work outside of laboratory conditions, and there’s something reassuring about just plugging a thing into another thing.
Image: Adam Gasson
Blackstar ID:X 50 – should I buy one?
There’s no shortage of impressive budget modelling amps out there, but too often these amps can end up falling down by trying too hard to be everything to everyone. The ID:X stands out by knowing exactly what it is, and who it’s for.
This is an excellent all-round rock machine that offers everything you’ll need to craft a wide variety of quality tones – but with the fundamental punch and girth of Blackstar at the forefront.
It’s not perfect, and if your stock in trade is exclusively jangly clean tones there are probably better options for you sonically. But for those chasing punchy high-gain tones with studio-ready flexibility and an interface that simply gets out of the way, this is a serious contender.
Image: Adam Gasson
Blackstar ID:X 50 – alternatives
If simplicity and sheer volume are your goals for a solid-state amp, then the no-messing and comically loud Orange O-Tone 40 ($399) is pretty hard to beat – it’s not versatile, but it’s as close to a ‘real’ amp as digital gets. The Fender Mustang LTX50 ($349) is another modelling amp that’s trying to keep the menu-diving to a minimum – and it does a nice job of it too. The king at this price point is of course the Boss Katana-50 Gen 3 ($349) – it also has the option of adding Bluetooth via an option dongle.
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Former Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds dies in Atlanta motorcycle crash
Brent Hinds, the former guitarist of Atlanta metal band Mastodon, has died aged 51 in a motorcycle crash.
A police report details how the driver of an SUV failed to yield while making a turn at an Atlanta intersection. Hinds’ death was confirmed to Atlanta News First by the Fulton County medical examiner’s office.
Brent Hinds founded Mastodon alongside Bill Kelliher, Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor in 2000, and this lineup remained unchanged until his exit this year.
With Hinds, Mastodon have released eight studio albums, and been nominated for several Grammy awards, winning one for Best Metal Performance in 2018 for Sultan’s Curse.
Hinds was also a member of several other bands, including the surfabilly band Fiend Without A Face and the supergroup Giraffe Tongue Orchestra.
Hinds’ relationship with Mastodon has been heavily strained in the past year, following his exit from the band in March.
While the split initially looked amicable – with his former bandmates wishing him “nothing but the best” – Hinds would later make disparaging comments about the other members of the band three months after his departure, and claim that he had been kicked out rather than the split
More recently, this month, Hinds claimed he was “kicked out” for “embarrassing the band”, accusing its members of being “incapable of singing in key”, and adding: “I’ve never met three people that were so full of themselves.”
This is a developing story.
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How Martin’s Oʻahu HG-28 sheds light on the hidden history of the Dreadnought
Ad feature with Martin Guitar
The dreadnought acoustic guitar has long been associated with country and folk music. But did you know that the first dreadnoughts made by Martin under the Ditson brand name were originally intended for music from Hawaii?
In fact, there is a strong argument that modern society owes a significant cultural debt to this tiny group of islands, and should be celebrated. This is certainly a position held by C.F. Martin IV – former Martin guitar CEO, current Executive Chairman of the iconic guitar brand, and the man with a name that should indicate that he very much knows what he’s talking about.
Chris Martin has been heavily involved in the new Martin Oʻahu sub-brand – and its debut instrument, the HG-28. The HG-28 is the sort of guitar to make dreadnought fans sit up and take notice – a 14-fret instrument with a shorter 24.9-inch scale length, a Sitka spruce top, and Hawaiian koa on the back and sides.
You can see a fair bit of of Dread DNA in here, and that’s by design – as Chris himself explained in the latest Martin Journal, that is by design. Modern guitar in general would be a very different place without the impact of Hawaiian music.
After all, how many times have we read that resonators, lap steels, and electric guitars were originally invented for Hawaiian music? It’s a fact that many players tend to gloss over, but it remains a fact.
Unconventional Origins
The specs listed above are rather unusual for a Martin guitar, but that’s because the whole concept for this instrument actually came from a vintage Gibson – and one that you’ve almost certainly never heard of.
The HG-20 is a superbly improbable guitar – it sports both an internal resonating chamber and no less than two sets of f-holes in its top. The guitar was, like the original Ditson Dreadnought, designed for Hawaiian music.
When browsing an auction one day, Chris Martin IV spotted the guitar and instantly recognised that this bizarre guitar’s outline was remarkably similar to a slope-shouldered dreadnought.
This revelation led to an intense period of research in the company’s archives and ultimately led to the creation of the HG-28 – a guitar that imagines itself as the Hawaiian ‘missing link’ in the evolution of the Dreadnought between the commercial failure of the Ditson Dread to the all-conquering 14-fret Martin-branded beast that would come along 17 years later.
Uke Can Do It
Another instrument that had a massive influence on the Martin Company is the ukulele. In fact, during the dark financial times of the 1920s, the Martin Company survived thanks to the thousands of ukuleles they were able to make and sell.
Koa was a common wood choice for the ukulele – an instrument which saw a huge spike in popularity following the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915. This was arguably the point at which the world fell in love with Hawaiian culture and it would not be the last time that the tiny ukulele would have a significant effect on popular music around the world.
Martin pioneered the use of koa for steel string guitars in the 1920s and the wood, which only grows on the Hawaiian islands. In recent years, koa has again become very popular with players looking for something different to mahogany or rosewood – but the HG-28 is another way to demonstrate the brand’s early engagement with what feels like a very modern concept.
The gently slope-shouldered body of the Oʻahu HG-28 is slightly slimmer than a regulation dreadnought. In fact, it’s the same depth as a Martin 000, making it very comfortable indeed for the seated player. The neck features Martin’s low oval High Performance taper with 14 frets to the body, while the 13/4-inch nut width means there’s plenty of space for the fingerstyle player, too
There are plenty of other nice little touches on the HG-28 that make it feel a little different to the regular line Martin – the herringbone purfling, the colourful palm-adorned internal label, and of course the word ʻOʻahu’ – note the correctly oriented apostrophe! – sitting proudly on the headstock beneath the iconic Martin logo.
Because the HG-28 is not just one guitar – it’s the start of a range. Already, the Oʻahu sub-brand has absorbed an existing Martin tribute to the huge impact of Hawaiian guitar culture – the Custom K-1 Major Kealakai
Kealakai was a giant of Hawaiian music, who was the conductor for the Royal Hawaiian Band. The custom guitar made for him by Martin in 1916 – recreated in the K-1 – was itself a direct forebear of what became the dreadnought we now know and love.
The Oʻahu HG-28 is a fitting tribute to the influence of Hawaiian culture on modern music, and a great and interesting addition to the Martin line. If you’ve ever been tempted by the sound of a classic dread but have been put off by the size, this could very well be the perfect guitar for you.
Find out more about the Oʻahu range at martinguitar.com.
The post How Martin’s Oʻahu HG-28 sheds light on the hidden history of the Dreadnought appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
How Martin’s Oʻahu HG-28 sheds light on the hidden history of the Dreadnought
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The dreadnought acoustic guitar has long been associated with country and folk music. But did you know that the first dreadnoughts made by Martin under the Ditson brand name were originally intended for music from Hawaii?
In fact, there is a strong argument that modern society owes a significant cultural debt to this tiny group of islands, and should be celebrated. This is certainly a position held by C.F. Martin IV – former Martin guitar CEO, current Executive Chairman of the iconic guitar brand, and the man with a name that should indicate that he very much knows what he’s talking about.
Chris Martin has been heavily involved in the new Martin Oʻahu sub-brand – and its debut instrument, the HG-28. The HG-28 is the sort of guitar to make dreadnought fans sit up and take notice – a 14-fret instrument with a shorter 24.9-inch scale length, a Sitka spruce top, and Hawaiian koa on the back and sides.
You can see a fair bit of of Dread DNA in here, and that’s by design – as Chris himself explained in the latest Martin Journal, that is by design. Modern guitar in general would be a very different place without the impact of Hawaiian music.
After all, how many times have we read that resonators, lap steels, and electric guitars were originally invented for Hawaiian music? It’s a fact that many players tend to gloss over, but it remains a fact.
Unconventional Origins
The specs listed above are rather unusual for a Martin guitar, but that’s because the whole concept for this instrument actually came from a vintage Gibson – and one that you’ve almost certainly never heard of.
The HG-20 is a superbly improbable guitar – it sports both an internal resonating chamber and no less than two sets of f-holes in its top. The guitar was, like the original Ditson Dreadnought, designed for Hawaiian music.
When browsing an auction one day, Chris Martin IV spotted the guitar and instantly recognised that this bizarre guitar’s outline was remarkably similar to a slope-shouldered dreadnought.
This revelation led to an intense period of research in the company’s archives and ultimately led to the creation of the HG-28 – a guitar that imagines itself as the Hawaiian ‘missing link’ in the evolution of the Dreadnought between the commercial failure of the Ditson Dread to the all-conquering 14-fret Martin-branded beast that would come along 17 years later.
Uke Can Do It
Another instrument that had a massive influence on the Martin Company is the ukulele. In fact, during the dark financial times of the 1920s, the Martin Company survived thanks to the thousands of ukuleles they were able to make and sell.
Koa was a common wood choice for the ukulele – an instrument which saw a huge spike in popularity following the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915. This was arguably the point at which the world fell in love with Hawaiian culture and it would not be the last time that the tiny ukulele would have a significant effect on popular music around the world.
Martin pioneered the use of koa for steel string guitars in the 1920s and the wood, which only grows on the Hawaiian islands. In recent years, koa has again become very popular with players looking for something different to mahogany or rosewood – but the HG-28 is another way to demonstrate the brand’s early engagement with what feels like a very modern concept.
The gently slope-shouldered body of the Oʻahu HG-28 is slightly slimmer than a regulation dreadnought. In fact, it’s the same depth as a Martin 000, making it very comfortable indeed for the seated player. The neck features Martin’s low oval High Performance taper with 14 frets to the body, while the 13/4-inch nut width means there’s plenty of space for the fingerstyle player, too
There are plenty of other nice little touches on the HG-28 that make it feel a little different to the regular line Martin – the herringbone purfling, the colourful palm-adorned internal label, and of course the word ʻOʻahu’ – note the correctly oriented apostrophe! – sitting proudly on the headstock beneath the iconic Martin logo.
Because the HG-28 is not just one guitar – it’s the start of a range. Already, the Oʻahu sub-brand has absorbed an existing Martin tribute to the huge impact of Hawaiian guitar culture – the Custom K-1 Major Kealakai
Kealakai was a giant of Hawaiian music, who was the conductor for the Royal Hawaiian Band. The custom guitar made for him by Martin in 1916 – recreated in the K-1 – was itself a direct forebear of what became the dreadnought we now know and love.
The Oʻahu HG-28 is a fitting tribute to the influence of Hawaiian culture on modern music, and a great and interesting addition to the Martin line. If you’ve ever been tempted by the sound of a classic dread but have been put off by the size, this could very well be the perfect guitar for you.
Find out more about the Oʻahu range at martinguitar.com.
The post How Martin’s Oʻahu HG-28 sheds light on the hidden history of the Dreadnought appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“If he does have an answer, it’d be great if one day he would share it”: Chino Moreno doesn’t know why Stephen Carpenter isn’t touring internationally with Deftones
Deftones’ Chino Moreno has shared his sadness regarding guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s decision to step down from international touring, though he’s still not sure as to his reasons why.
Deftones are due to release a brand new record, titled Private Music, this Friday 22 August. They’re due to kick off a tour in support of the new record that same day in Vancouver, with dates across Europe, the UK, and Ireland set for early 2026. Guitarist Lance Jackman has been known to fill in for Carpenter overseas.
Back in 2022, Carpenter announced his decision to step away from playing shows with the band outside of North America. Many believed this was down to his anti-vax views, which he shared via the Tin Foil Hat podcast back in 2020, surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Carpenter has also spoken openly about mental health struggles with anxiety. In a 2024 Rock Feed interview, he insisted that he’d already made the decision to step down from international tours prior to the pandemic, but said that it had worsened his anxiety.
Now, speaking to Metal Hammer, Moreno has shared support for Carpenter and says the band accept his decision to do things his own way: “I don’t want to speak for him. And even if I could, I still don’t have an answer,” he says.
“Really I don’t. It’s still something that I think he is figuring out. And if he does have an answer, I think it’d be great if one day he would share it. But yeah, we support him. We have to. He’s our friend. And his health, be it physically or mentally, always takes the forefront of anything.
“It’s sad, I want him onstage with us at every show. If you ask me what I prefer, I want him there every day, every time we do anything, with the band. But it literally comes down to: there’s two ways to deal with it. We accept what he can and will do, or we just don’t play. And we want to play,” concludes Moreno.
Deftones’ new album Private Music is available to pre-order now. View their full list of tour dates via the band’s official website.
The post “If he does have an answer, it’d be great if one day he would share it”: Chino Moreno doesn’t know why Stephen Carpenter isn’t touring internationally with Deftones appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
RATs and RAT-alikes explained – our guide to the best affordable, classic and boutique RAT-style pedals
They say that in New York, you’re never more than six feet away from a rat. This isn’t true. What is true, is that on guitar pedal forums, you’re never more than six seconds away from being told to buy a ProCo RAT, potentially by me personally. Have you thought about buying a RAT today?
But why? What makes the RAT so bloody good? Why does everyone – including yours truly – go on about the virtues of this unassuming, affordable distortion pedal? And how can you sift through the many versions of the circuit, boutique or otherwise, to find the right one for you? Today we’re unpacking the many different versions of the circuit, from the classic ProCo models to boutique oddities to affordable alternatives.
What makes a RAT a RAT?
I won’t be doing a full deep-dive into the history of the original here – you can see my review of the modern RAT for that – but I do want to establish what’s going on in the circuit, and what boutique versions might be giving you more control over.
This schematic shows the essentials of a stock RAT circuit
In the above schematic, you can see that the RAT is a relatively simple circuit. Let’s go over it in stages – first, the power supply up in the top right. This part of the circuit has a few purposes – the diode here is a polarity protection diode, which will try to block current if you accidentally connect the wrong polarity power supply. There’s also a few resistors and capacitors here – these form a filter that gets rid of high-frequency power supply noise.
The power supply stage also has something called a voltage divider. Here, two resistors of the same value are connected between the 9V supply and ground. In the middle of these two resistors, the voltage is halved from 9V to 4.5V for use in the circuit. The final thing to note in terms of power is that pins 7 and 4 of the opamp are connected straight to power and ground respectively.
The reason for all of these relatively complex power connections, at least when compared to a more basic circuit like a Fuzz Face, is that the RAT’s main gain stage uses an opamp – an 8-pin chip that’s represented here by a triangle. The opamp’s internal circuit needs a reference voltage of where to swing your audio signal up and down from – with the most headroom on either side being provided by a point slap-bang in the middle of the available nine volts. Hence, the 4.5V part of the supply.
How much the opamp, er, operationally amplifies your signal, is controlled by the gain pot. This goes all the way from “not very much at all” to “far more than the opamp can technically handle” – and so while the RAT also introduces distortion with some clipping diodes, on higher gain settings your signal is also hitting the opamp’s headroom.
Moving onto those clipping diodes, this is where variations of the RAT – official or otherwise – make a lot of their changes. On the stock RAT, these are basic silicon 1N1418 diodes or similar, connected in a hard-clipping configuration. Hard-clipping means that the diodes chop off the top and bottom of your signal and bleed it to ground, creating a sharper edge in the waveform. Soft-clipping, on the other hand, uses a feedback loop to create a gentler curve between the unclipped and clipped parts of the signal.
What diodes are used here is massively important to the final sound – different diodes mean different frequency responses, and different amounts of clipping, and so swapping them out is a great way to modify the sound.
From here we hit the RAT’s tone control – this is a basic low-pass filter that goes from letting basically all of the audio signals through to rolling off a whole load of high-end. This is what lets the sound go from sharp and cutting to smooth and fuzzy, although it does mean limited control over the low-end. The final stage is just a simple unity-gain buffer that sets the output impedance, with the volume control just cleanly lowering the level of the whole pedal’s signal.
What RAT should I buy?
So, that’s the basics of a RAT structure – but there are many variations thereof, complex and subtle. ProCo’s own lineup includes some modified versions, most notably You Dirty RAT! And the Turbo RAT. These replace the clipping diodes with Germanium and red LEDs respectively. In the case of germanium diodes, these clip a lot earlier, and have a much more compressed, squishy sound. Red LEDs, on the other hand, clip later – and therefore a good deal louder, open and uncompressed.
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Affordable alternatives
Arguably the RAT itself is already pretty affordable, however there are some more budget takes on the circuit out there for the distortion-inclined who want to save a bit of cash.
Mooer Black Secret
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This is an ultra-affordable mini-pedal from Mooer that’s a pretty faithful take on the standard RAT circuit. There’s also a clipping switch to boot, going between a standard vintage mode and the LED-driven Turbo mode. Its small size and affordable price make it pretty appealing if you’re on a budget in terms of either cash or space, but keep in mind that two of the three knobs are rather fiddly mini affairs.
TC Electronic Magus Pro
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The TC Electronic Magus Pro is another faithful, affordable take on the RAT. As well as changing the clipping diodes, the toggle switch here also affords access to a Fat mode, which is bassier and punchier in the mids – good for bassists or down-tuning!
Boutique options
There are many, many boutique takes on this circuit, doing everything from totally reshaping the sound, adding many weird and wonderful clipping options to integrating boosts and extra fuzzes. Let’s take a look at a few.
Black Mass Electronics 1312
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My personal favourite RAT-inspired distortion, the Black Mass 1312 does three main things to stand out. Firstly, it packs a voltage doubler for extra headroom and oomph. Secondly, it features the mother of all clipping selectors, allowing for a load of different levels of grit and compression. And thirdly it looks cool as hell. It all leads to a great sound for everything from lower-gain overdrive to ultra-bright, piercing distortion to dark, doomy sludge.
JHS Packrat
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Option pa-rat-asis? That doesn’t work at all, but what does work is the JHS Packrat. Rather than just a clipping selector, this nine-mode pedal also adjusts various circuit values on each mode with some clever switching trickery. This meticulously recreates different versions of the pedal in full, all within one circuit. Would you expect any less from such a vintage pedal historian as Josh Scott?
1981 Inventions DRV
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The 1981 Inventions DRV is one of the more drastically modified circuits in the world of boutique RAT-alikes. Like the 1312, it features a voltage doubler for extra headroom, but has a bit more of a subtle tonal approach. Some extra input and output gain stages give it a bit more control than a regular RAT when it comes to the gain and volume sweeps, and there’s a bit more focus on clarity rather than fuzz when you crank the distortion up.
Walrus Iron Horse V3
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The Walrus Audio Iron Horse doesn’t reinvent the wheel, however V3 does add a pretty cool blend knob to go between silicon and LED clipping. While the LED clipping somewhat dominates the dial thanks to the extra volume if offers, the rest of the circuit adds some clarifying tonal tweaks – making the Iron Horse a good option if you like the texture of a RAT, but the harmonic practicality of something a little more transparent.
EarthQuaker Devices x Sunn O))) Life Pedal V3
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No list of cool boutique RATs would be complete without one. The EarthQuaker Devices Life Pedal is inspired by the crushing tones conjured on the Sunn O))) albums Life Metal and Pyroclasts – achieved by running vintage Shin Ei fuzzes into RATs for massive walls of fuzzy sustain, essential to the band’s sound. A vintage-style analogue octave-up can be blended into the RAT portion of the pedal, and for version three is also footswitchable on or off. After this your signal hits a switchable clean boost, making sure your amp’s front end also brings something to the party
In terms of the RAT portion of the circuit, the voicing can get surprisingly bright for such a doom-inspired pedal – there are three clipping modes, too – either no clipping at all other than the opamp distortion, asymmetrical LED/Silicon clipping or the classic silicon diode pair.
The post RATs and RAT-alikes explained – our guide to the best affordable, classic and boutique RAT-style pedals appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Is MONO’s M80 Classic Ultra the ultimate guitar case? Expanded storage, superior protection – and even attachable wheels
[Editor’s note: MONO is part of Vista Musical Instruments, which like Guitar.com, is part of the Caldecott Music Group.]
Instrument accessory brand MONO has unveiled the M80 Classic Ultra, a new evolution of its classic M80 gig bag.
Now with greater emphasis on smarter storage, effortless mobility and more robust protection, the M80 Classic Ultra might just be the perfect solution to keep your guitar safe as houses.
- READ MORE: MONO’s new minimalist M80 Sleeve 2.0 is a guitar case “perfectly suited for urban travel”
Chief among the features of the M80 Classic Ultra is its patented Freeride Wheel System, which enables musicians to attach wheels – perfect for moving around airports, venues, or anywhere else that carrying your guitar for long periods of time might prove inconvenient.
Credit: MONO
The M80 Classic Ultra comes both as a standard single-instrument case, or as a Dual case able to carry two guitars or basses, so the Freeride Wheel System makes carrying two instruments easier than ever.
Elsewhere, the M80 Classic Ultra features a “supercharged” approach to storage, with a newly designed expandable front pocket offering more room for tools, accessories and other gigging essentials, and a series of built-in compartments.
Additionally, the M80 Classic Ultra is “Tick-ready”, and compatible with MONO’s Tick 2.0 and Tick+ 2.0 accessory cases.
Credit: MONO
Obviously, protection is one of the key selling points of the M80 Classic Ultra, and your instrument is kept safe via its Headlock neck suspension system, which keeps it securely in place and shielded from impact. The case’s exterior is built using water-resistant 1680D ballistic nylon, with a waterproof zipper tape and reflective strips for added safety.
The case also features a discreet pouch designed to hold a tracker tag, so you can have that piece of mind in case it ever goes missing.
Price-wise, the M80 Classic Ultra is available now at $359.99 for a single guitar/bass case, and $459.99 for a dual guitar/bass case.
For more information, you can head to MONO.
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Birmingham University economists say Black Sabbath’s final show made £33.8 million from physical ticket sales
After Sharon Osbourne recently called out the “ridiculous” £140 million figure some media outlets claimed Black Sabbath’s final show brought in, a group of economists at the University of Birmingham reckon they’ve got a better estimate of the actual numbers – from actual ticket sales, that is.
According to BBC News, approximately 42,000 physical tickets were sold for the concert itself, with 20% bought by international fans, and with prices ranging from £197.50 to £834.
According to Dr. Matt Lyons of the University of Birmingham – who conducted the new research – tickets for the monumental Villa Park show brought in a total of £33.8 million, with £27.6 million being retained in the West Midlands region, which consists of seven boroughs, one being the city of Birmingham, Sabbath’s hometown.
“As regional economists from the University of Birmingham, we thought we would do our bit to honour Ozzy’s legacy by estimating the economic impact of his last gig,” says Lyons.
“The impact of the Prince of Darkness obviously goes far beyond the financial impact his gigs and TV shows have netted.
“Ozzy is a global legend, and his gift of incredible music, and now his final economic impact, will go on to benefit his home city far into the future.”
No mention is made in the BBC News article, though, of the revenue accrued from pay-per-view stream sales.
According to a Billboard article published last month, “5.8 million individuals online” paid to watch the livestream of the concert as it happened. And priced at £24.99, we work that out to be over £140 million (24.99 x 5.8 million) in additional revenue, if Billboard’s numbers are accurate.
While we don’t have official numbers from the event yet, it is true that with an event of this magnitude and with this many moving parts, overheads including band fees, logistics, crew wages and online processing fees were likely substantial, and would have made a hefty dent into the final figure that was ultimately donated to charity.
Proceeds from the event were pledged to Cure Parkinson’s, the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Acorns Children’s Hospice.
Ozzy Obsourne sadly died at the age of 76 just two weeks after Black Sabbath’s final show, prompting a widespread outpouring of grief and tributes from the rock world, and indeed the wider music world, too.
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“This is the first real olive-branch moment Dave and I have had in 100 years”: Sammy Hagar insists that David Lee Roth wasn’t mocking him about being visited by Eddie Van Halen’s ghost
Sammy Hagar has taken a stand against a social media frenzy claiming that David Lee Roth recently mocked him during a concert over his spiritual visitation from the late Eddie Van Halen.
Former Van Halen frontman Hagar claimed that Eddie had visited him in a dream and that they’d written a song together, which he went on to release as Encore, Thank You, Goodnight back in April. However, in a recent video of Roth – who served as vocalist in Van Halen until Hagar replaced his position in 1985 – he seemingly poked fun at Hagar’s story, though Hagar himself begs to differ.
In the video, taken during his concert at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom last week, Roth said, “You all know Sammy Hagar, right? He’s got a great voice. Sammy described to the media about six weeks ago that the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited him and graced him with a song that he memorised and then went home and recorded.
“I don’t know what the odds are, but last night the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited me at the fucking hotel room,” he said. “I was watching the weather report and he came in and he was laughing. His fucking ghost was laughing.
“I said, ‘What did you do now?’ He said, ‘Dave, Dave… Dave, you know that song I gave Hagar?’ I said, ‘What now?’ He said, ‘It’s actually [1968 Iron Butterfly proto-metal hit] In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida backwards. Don’t fucking tell him.’”
The video of course went on to make headlines, which caught the attention of Hagar. Replying to a comment under an Instagram post on the matter from Metal Addicts, he responds: “I can’t believe social media is trying to make something out of this. This is the first compliment and real olive branch moment Dave and I have had in 100 years. Listen closely and you will see that this is not negative whatsoever.”
He adds, “I believe Dave had the dream as well. Dave’s a good storyteller, but there’s some truth in between the showmanship. All good with me – keep it up Dave. These songs we both wrote with Eddie need to be carried on forever.”
A live version of Sammy Hagar’s Encore, Thank You, Goodnight is out now, recorded with his Best Of All Worlds Band. David Lee Roth is touring until mid-September. You can get tickets via his website.
The post “This is the first real olive-branch moment Dave and I have had in 100 years”: Sammy Hagar insists that David Lee Roth wasn’t mocking him about being visited by Eddie Van Halen’s ghost appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“What’s the point of even being there, if you’re a band?”: Bruce Dickinson hates the idea of Iron Maiden playing the Las Vegas Sphere
Reports suggest Metallica are currently eyeing up a residency at the immersive Las Vegas Sphere, but it seems not every legendary metal band is keen.
To clue you in, the MSG Sphere is a spherical $2.3 billion venue that opened in Las Vegas in 2023, and features around 1.2 million LED lights covering the interior which can be configured to display any light or graphical show an artist wishes.
But according to Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden has no interest in joining the growing list of bands to perform at the venue, suggesting that he wants Maiden shows to remain performances with focus on the band members, rather than on a light show that might be going on around them.
“No. It’s not Maiden,” Dickinson tells Eddie Trunk in a new interview. “Maiden’s about the relationship between the band and the audience, and the show, whilst it’s a show, is an enhancement to what we do.
“The Sphere, as far as I can gather… I mean, I appreciate what you’re saying about it – it’s all encompassing, it’s this and that, it’s the other – but I think the band would be very uncomfortable with the idea.”
He continues: “I mean, we just do a lot of stuff: we run around, we go around, and at the Sphere, what’s the point? What’s the point? In fact, what’s the point of even being there, if you’re a band?”
While Bruce Dickinson asserts that an Iron Maiden show should be about the performance from the band members, first and foremost, one can’t help but imagine how spectacular it would be to have Eddie (the band’s mascot) in various scenarios on the Sphere’s gigantic dome roof.
While he sounds pretty adamant that Maiden won’t sign up to play there any time soon, for what it’s worth, Bruce, we’d love to see it…
So far, the Sphere has hosted the likes of U2, Dead & Company and Eagles, as well as electronic artists including Anyma and Kaskade.
While the venue has generally attracted overwhelmingly positive reviews from those who have attended, it has, as Bruce Dickinson suggests, called into question whether the intensity of the experience detracts from the artists who play there.
Naturally, though, for bands and artists with a strongly defined visual theme, the Sphere perhaps presents the best opportunity yet to bring their artistic world to life.
View all of Iron Maiden’s upcoming tour dates via their official website.
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“I had a really famous guitar player tell me, ‘Don’t do it!’ The next day he phoned me and said, ‘What did you find?’”: Paul Reed Smith admits he takes razor blades to pickups to find out how they work
Paul Reed Smith is continuing to take fans behind the curtain at PRS Guitars, and in a new video he’s confessed to taking a razor blade to pickups to find out how they’re waxed.
Given his eccentric leadership – from intentionally pitching ideas he knows his team won’t like, to championing tonewood like no other CEO – it’s not all that surprising that Reed Smith will quite literally butcher a pickup to understand it better, even when a famous pro advises him not to.
In the latest episode of PRS’ Rules Of Tone YouTube series, Reed Smith chats with Chuck Lenderking, who works as part of the new products engineering team at PRS, and collaborates closely with the boss on all things pickups.
“How many experiments do you think we’re running a day?” Reed Smith asks him.
“Oh, five to 10 probably,” replies Lenderking. The pair stand before a dissected electric model with a large chunk missing from its body and empty pickup slots, which is used as the company’s test guitar.
“You can take the electronics out of it and snap on the pickups any way you want. And I know it looks ridiculous, but it has worked so well for us to be able to slide the treble pickup in and listen, slide the bass pickup in and listen,” explains Reed Smith.
“We keep using it. It gets the job done… It actually is not that great sounding, which makes the pickup have to do its job even more,” he adds.
“You have seen me take a razor blade to [pickups] to find out how they were waxed, right? I had a really famous guitar player say, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it!’ I said, ‘Why not? I need to know.’ He goes, ‘Don’t do it!’ The next day the phone rings. He goes, ‘What’d you find?’”
You can watch the full episode below:
In another Rules Of Tone episode, Reed Smith also explained why neck making is the most important part of building guitars. “Neck making in my mind is fundamental to guitar making. You’re a guitar maker, you’re a neck maker – there’s nothing more important on the guitar,” he said.
PRS celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. You can view the brand’s full product range over at PRS Guitars.
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Fleetwood Mac lyric sheet handwritten by Peter Green hits the auction block – and could fetch up to £15,000
A Fleetwood Mac lyric and chord sheet handwritten by guitarist Peter Green is set to hit the auction block, and could reportedly fetch up to £15,000.
The sheet depicts lyrics for 1969 single Man of the World, which hit Number 2 in the UK later that year. It subsequently stayed in the charts for 14 weeks.
The lyric sheet – written in blue ballpoint pen, with corrections made in black ink – shows Green changed three lyric lines, adding a complete line to the final verse, while finalising each finished line with a tick at the end.
Ewbank’s auction house in Woking, Surrey, is selling the sheet, and hopes it will reach a bid of up to £15,000. At present, there are no bids, and the starting bid is £6,000.
“Green himself said that he wrote the song when he was at his saddest,” says a spokesperson for Ewbank’s.
“The song is particularly significant as band member Mick Fleetwood said it reflected Green’s mental state at the time and helped explain why he quit the band and tragically descended into mental illness.”
“Few musicians can claim to have been as talented and as important to the development of rock music from the blues and folk movements as Peter Green,” adds John Silke, Ewbank’s music specialist.
Peter Green died in 2020 at the age of 73, after leaving an indelible mark on the blues and rock worlds. Once a member of John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers and the original founder and leader of Fleetwood Mac, Green’s unique guitar playing earned him nods from guitar legends Eric Clapton and BB King, as well as adoration from the wider guitar world.
Green – born Peter Allen Greenbaum in 1946 – suffered a series of issues with his mental health in the 1970s, and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in psychiatric hospitals in the mid ‘70s.
He later re-emerged professional at the end of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, and in the late ‘80s attributed his breakdown to his previous abuse of drugs including LSD.
Green’s name is also attached to one of the most famous and iconic guitars in the world, Greeny. The 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard was used by Peter Green throughout his time with John Mayall and Fleetwood Mac, and was later acquired by Gary Moore in the early ‘70s. Now, the guitar is under the custodianship of Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett.
Learn more at Ewbank’s.
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Meet Boko Yout: Sweden’s most interesting new band who approach guitar chaos with the mindset of a cinematographer
Boko Yout’s debut album needs all of three minutes to start falling apart in thrilling fashion. As the opener Volleyball Tournament strolls to its conclusion – one part Seal, another Ghostpoet, vocalist Paul Adamah’s melodies coiled and patient – there’s a sudden burst of noise, a blast of distortion and thudding, relentless percussion. Then it’s something else entirely. “When I first saw them they were very tight as a band, very in the pocket,” guitarist Lionel Turner says. “It felt like the right thing to do to add some chaos into that.”
Circling Adamah’s shapeshifting, concept-driven writing, Gusto makes good on this promise. Underpinned by a loose narrative that finds a fictionalised version of the vocalist in therapy sessions with the titular doctor, one moment it might be discussing identity or gig work, the next it might train its sights on perceptions of art from both inside and outside institutions or the push-pull between openness and self-destruction. It’s pointed and ambitious, reaching for what Adamah has described as “a sonic manifesto for living with love and intention.”
The accompanying sounds are a melange of motorik drums, needling bass and guitars that whirr and bite against verses with roots that run all the way back to lo-fi bedroom hip hop experiments and the joyous collaborative music that emanated from jams between local African musicians at Adamah’s childhood home in Örebro, where he was brought up by a Togolese father and Mozambican mother. Turner initially met Adamah through his day job as a cinematographer, but their parallel interests in music soon drew them closer together.
“He was rapping at the time,” Turner recalls. “One day he told me he was done with that and he wanted to start a band. He didn’t recruit me – we just had some sessions and we wrote some songs together, and that was that. We kept on living our lives. I thought he had this band, but it turns out that he had just created it in his head. It was something he was projecting towards the future.”
A musician since his teens, Turner grew up with a guitar in the house and his South American father’s love of 60s rock ‘n’ roll and cumbia ringing in his ears before stretching out into his own esoteric interests. Learning the ropes on bass first, he then tapped into the psychedelic wandering of Dungen’s Raine Fiske, the pedal manipulation of Stereolab’s Tim Gane and the searching ambient work of Tatsuhiko Asano.
Paul Adamah. Image: Mira & Thilda Berglind
From time to time Adamah would send demos his way, asking if he heard a guitar part. “I would try something out at home, and then maybe send him a video,” Turner says. In 2023, Adamah bit the bullet and asked him to be a part of Boko Yout. “He had already recruited some members but they just had one guitar player,” Turner says. “They were going to play in a big venue with Viagra Boys. That’s when I joined.”
Quickly, he fell into a collaborative process that put the songs at the heart of everything. There are multiple voices at play, with each of them bouncing back in a new form once they’ve reached someone else’s ear. Drummer Joel Kiviaho, who produced Gusto, plays some guitar on the record, including a section on 9-2-5 that was lifted straight from an iPhone note and dropped into the finished track, while Adamah’s writing has pushed Turner into spaces he might not have discovered on his own.
“Paul always has ideas,” he says. “He can come up with riffs that sound mad to me, at first, like they don’t make sense. I love that about his mind. We have a song called Teleprompter, which is a really strange riff to me. It doesn’t sit right in my hand, with the way I play. But it’s just fun. He’ll ask me, ‘Shit, should I study music theory?’ And I’m like, ‘Please don’t. Just keep doing what you’re doing.’”
In many ways, Gusto comes to life in the details. It’s about shifts in tempo and melody, with Turner particularly interested in how texture, noise and distortion might alter the way something is perceived by the listener. He’s a keen follower of Arto Lindsay, particularly the manner in which the no wave pioneer finds ways to thread something gnarly between elements that, outwardly at least, appear more conventional.
Here, that comes to the fore in moments such as the choppy, barbed accents on Boyfriend’s riff, or a string of outro solos that drag songs towards unexpected, feverish endings without losing a self-contained sense of directness.
“Texture is a key word to me,” he says. “That’s part of what makes music interesting, it’s tactile, you know? I’ve been going through so many different types of distortions and fuzzes – it’s like a never-ending exploration because there are so many combinations. I discovered so many things recording this album, from just changing cabs and guitars to changing the order things are in.
“I tried to have a clear idea of what I can contribute, and asked what the sound could benefit from. For me, it was texture, grit, and distortion. But it’s also a slippery slope. Once you start cranking up the volume, everyone wants to crank up the volume. I think that’s consumed us in a way. We let that consume us. I think this album has turned into a heavier sound than the first EP.”
Working largely at Kiviaho’s place, which has an “almost extended bedroom studio” feel, Boko Yout had time to delve deeper and deeper into this world. Completed on the album by bassist Kevin Stierne (Damien Kabran plays second guitar live) they spent time finding the right layers of grime to drive home Adamah’s messages. “As excited as I get, I think they all really like to experiment with distortion, too,” Turner says. “Especially Joel, he’s always asking me to put some fuzz on a song.”
Boko Yout. Image: Mira & Thilda Berglind
Turner started out with an interesting guitar in hand: a Victor SG-18, which was only manufactured for a short time by JVC in Japan during the 1960s. “But we started playing louder and more distorted, it started feeding back a lot live,” Turner laments. He turned instead to a Danelectro Dead-On ‘67. “That worked very well,” he adds. “It didn’t have a whammy bar, which I quite like to use, so I modded it and put one on. But I kept everything else original.”
Amps-wise, it was a case of adapting to their surroundings. When he needed to, while recording on tour or darting between studios away from home, Turner turned to sims such as the Universal Audio Dream ‘65, but the sound he hears in his head is often coming from another characterful piece of kit dating back to the time when the Beatles walked the Earth: a small-but-powerful Hagström 26. “That’s the sound that we prefer,” he says. “It’s like a typewriter, really portable.”
On his live board, he’s been racing through pedals, finding different things to love about equipment that forces him to learn on the fly. “I’ve been going through a lot of distortions but one keeper has been the Basic Audio Zippy,” he says. “That’s been great. Lately on tour I have been using a Fairfield Circuitry Roger That, which has been interesting, too. At times I’ve been trying out something called [Mattoverse] AirTrash – it’s very hard to control. I feel like my research is going towards those kinds of uncontrollable fuzzes. I love to be surprised by gear, to not always be on top of it, and sometimes have something that goes somewhere where I’m not ready for.”
Paul Adamah. Image: Mira & Thilda Berglind
In a project such as Boko Yout, where the music is largely propelled by the vision of one songwriter, the task for their bandmates is to find a way in. Turner takes that job seriously, almost leaning on the interpretive nature of his career in film to challenge and reconstitute concepts that carry great personal weight. That dynamic is one of Gusto’s greatest strengths. “When you get a script or a treatment, you need to find a way to tell that story in effective ways,” Turner says. “The fun part of cinematography is that you get to choose the texture, the media, the format.”
“It is pretty similar, playing guitar, because you have this palette of sounds,” he continues. “I don’t have a go-to way [of doing things]. I’m always thinking, ‘Okay, what should I use now?’
“I try to mix it up as well. I seldom use the same stuff on every song. We talk about the ideas that we want to bring to life to see if it makes us excited. That’s pretty much how you make films as well.”
Boko Yout’s Gusto is out on September 5 through Hoopdiggas Recordings.
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“I could put a record out right now”: John Mayer says he’s written enough songs to make a new album – but here’s why he’s not going to do it
Despite what the media would have you believe, it’s not easy being a rockstar. Years of effort go into a good album, and, when it comes out, there’s endless travelling, touring, and promotion junkets to endure. Rockstars are human too – and sometimes they need a break.
John Mayer is the latest rocker to admit that he needs a “breather”. While songs are easily “coming out of [Mayer]”, he’s yet to construct the follow up to his 2021’s Sob Rock. “I don’t know when it’s coming out,” he tells People. “But I’ve been going around making music, touring, making music, touring for a lot of years, and I think it would make sense at this stage in my life [to] just take a breather.”
Considering Dead & Company’s 30 date residency at Last Vegas’ Sphere only wrapped up last month, it makes sense that Mayer wants a break. Rather than running on empty, he’s taking the time to recoup, allowing himself to enjoy the songwriting process without the pressure of deadlines.
“I’m [figuring] out when I want to do it and how I want to do it,” he explains. “So I’m enjoying just taking it day-by-day and doing the projects I love.”
Of course, Mayer is still a songwriting machine, noting that he has “enough songs that [he] could put a record out right now”. However, he’s just not in the mood to tour right now. “If I put a record out right now, I would want to go on the road, and I just want to take a minute and practice this newfound ‘going with the flow’,” he explains.
He clarifies what this means, noting he has to learn to let life and inspiration “happen”, rather than forcing himself down a strict path. It is something he admits he is having to “relearn all the time”.
While Mayer is in no rush to release another record, he already has some festival performances booked in for September and October, including California’s Palm Tree Festival and Nevada’s Rise Festival.
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