Norse Guitar Feeds

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Rick Landers: Great concert last night at The Birchmere, and The Whitmore Sisters were terrific, and you guys were terrific. Your band, The Dukes, was spot on.

Steve Earle: Yeah.

Rick: What I liked was, you’ve got this growl to your voice, and I see that you’ve got a lot of shows, and you’re doing sometimes consecutive shows one night, one the next. I’m wondering, how do you manage to do that without ripping out your vocal chords? Do they get raw?

Steve Earle:  When I have trouble with my voice, I have some COPD, which is in pretty good shape these days. So I quit smoking, I guess 17, 16 years ago, something like that. But, the way I sing, I don’t know. It just doesn’t, my voice is like that. I don’t have much voice trouble. We do four, sometimes five shows in a row.

Rick: Do you? Wow.

Steve Earle: The way I sing. I guess it’s just not that demanding.

(Ed: Steve’s connection is glitchy, so he moves from his tour bus to his hotel room.)

Rick: Oh, while you’re walking, I should show you some guitars.

Steve Earle: Yeah, well, yeah. I don’t have much out here. I don’t carry vintage stuff on the road. I’ve got a lot of guitars.

Rick: Yeah. I’ve heard you’ve got more than a few. I’ve probably got 15.

Steve Earle: Yeah, I’ve got more like 215. I’m a pretty serious collector. It’s just where I put money, whenever I manage to make it, and I had to start all over again at one point, but it’s something I understand and I love them, so yeah, that’s what I do. I put money into that, instead of something that I don’t even quite understand.

Rick: Let’s go back to the idea of your voice and how do you keep it in shape night after night of playing? And I heard part of that, but I didn’t hear a lot of it.

Steve Earle: I don’t do anything. I don’t have a lot of trouble with my voice the way that I sing. Usually when I have trouble it’s because of, I don’t have allergies per se, but I have COPD, and when the pollen’s really heavy. I don’t make records in May anymore, for instance. I learned not to do that, because the pollen’s so heavy that it’s going to affect, my chest closes.

My voice is more chest voice than it sounds like. So, if I have any trouble, it’s because my chest is closed up due to what they call environmental allergies.  I’m not allergic to anything. It’s not really hay fever. I just am sensitive to some kinds of pollen and dust and stuff in the air. So that can affect my voice some, but I started practicing yoga about, I don’t know, seven years ago now, something like that. And it’s a daily Ashtanga practice, and it’s helped my breathing a lot. So I’m singing better, I think, than I ever have.

Rick: Yeah, you sounded great last night. Just terrific, as did everybody. I see you’re headed up to Winnipeg at the end of the U.S. leg of this tour to the Burton Cummings venue.

Steve Earle: Yeah, that’s been the gig. I played that theater before it was called Burton Cummings. Yeah, we’ve been across the border twice already. We’ve already played the Calgary Stampede, and then we went across, came back in the States for a few gigs and then we went back across and played a big casino called Rama. It’s in Orillia, Ontario, the closest town, which is actually where Gordon Lightfoot was born, but this next trip, we’ll go back across, and we’ll go from Winnipeg west, and then exit the country at Vancouver and come down to the west coast of the United States.

Rick: It’s pretty over there. So, do you find the audiences maybe distinctively different or any different than American audiences?

Steve Earle: I’ve always done better in Canada than I did any place else. So, they’re different in that respect. The only place I ever played arenas was Canada.

Rick: Oh, really?

Steve Earle: Yeah. In the ’80’s, but I think they’re very singer-songwriter oriented there. I think they’ve always have been. And I think that’s one of the reasons I did as well as I did there. They like songs. The part of it that’s not French is as much Scots and Irish as it is more than it is English, when it gets right down to it. And I think that oral tradition and that tradition of songs and storytelling is pretty intense in that culture, and it is on the French side too, but just in a different language, so that’s not really my audience there.

Rick: Yeah. As well as Appalachia, which was pretty Gaelic in a lot of places.

Steve Earle: Absolutely. Gaelic and then also Eastern European, which everybody forgets about, because it was all about mining. So, when they discovered coal in those mountains, they imported the coal industry over from England, which meant the skilled workers, the so-called skilled miners were English, the engineers and stuff, but the laborers were Cornish and Welsh and Irish. And that’s the first wave, and then other miners from other parts of Europe started coming.

There used to be a pretty good Kosher deli in Knoxville, Tennessee, and one in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, that were owned by brothers because of that, but yeah, that’s the reason that that Irish and Scottish thing is in the music and that part of the world, which I was exposed to to some extent growing up in Texas. My mom was born in Tennessee, and we used to go visit her grandmother. So I went to the Grand Ole Opry the first time when I was seven.

And I guess that’s what stuck with me the most out of that trip. And it’s always been in what I do. That’s why “Copperhead Road” started with that idea of the bagpipe at the front of “Copperhead Road” was, there’s always a groaning in almost always in what I do anyway, and I was just trying to come up with that.

It was just a way to set that story up that the idea was isolation, and bagpipes are an interesting sound, because the Irish say, the joke in Ireland is that the Irish gave the Scottish bagpipes as a joke and they took it seriously, because they’re the same people and they’re two migrations of Celts into that part of the world, one earlier and one later and the Irish came, the Celts, whoever they were, came to Ireland first and then over the top of that island and settled in Scotland. The Cornish and the Welsh came much later.

It’s a different language group and a different migration of Celts, and they don’t know who the Celts were or where they came from. The bloodlines are largely Scandinavian, because those people conquered everywhere in Ireland, except Galway in the west coast. It has a separate history mainly because of primitive sailing, that the boats took you where they could take you. So Galway’s a Norman town rather than a Viking town. The only city in Ireland that is, so it has a different history and different culture.

Rick: Did you do a lot of research on mining, because you did the song about mining and you learned about the Irish coming over? Is that where you got that?

Steve Earle: No. I’ve known that stuff for a long time, and I’ve written other stuff about mining. I made a record called, The Mountain, which was a bluegrass record years ago and it has two songs, “The Mountain” and “Harlan Man” that are just a little suite that are the same character years apart in his life talking to you in two different songs.

But, I just made a whole record that was largely about coal mining. My last record of original material was called, Ghosts of West Virginia, and that song that you’re probably talking about, that you heard, that happened 12 years ago, and that happened because of a play that some friends of mine wrote, and they asked me to do music for it. That’s how I found out about that situation.

Well, I heard about it when it happened, but that’s how I got connected to it. I do a lot of research on everything that I do, but I know a lot of that explosion in West Virginia. I have developed a relationship with some of those people. All of us involved, in there was a play called Coal Country that was up at the Public Theater. COVID closed it down. We went back up at Cherry Lane with the Public producing, and that closed right before this tour started.

Rick: Yeah. I wrote a song about two coal mining disasters. One in 1913, one in 1923 in Dawson, New Mexico, where about 400 men passed away. Some of the men in 1923 were the sons of the men who passed away in 1913. So, I’m going to perform it near Raton.

Steve Earle: That’s interesting.

Rick:  It’s called Dawson. It’s a ghost town now.

Steve Earle: I know where it is. I know exactly where it is.

Rick:  I’m going to play to 100 and then 500 people in September and I’m going to play at the grave of the only Scottish guy there. I wrote that song after I took a camp with John McCutcheon. About six months later, I wrote it, not thinking of John, other than I wanted to write a folk song. And then I found out the only Scottish guy who died was named McCutcheon.

Steve Earle: Huh. That’s interesting. Yeah.

Rick: Its kind of strange. So do you know Burton Cummings?

Steve Earle: No. Never met him.

Rick:  Neil Young or Joni Mitchell?

Steve Earle: I know Neil Young. I’ve met Joni Mitchell. I rode in a van with her once at a festival. That’s the only time I met Joni Mitchell. I’ve known Neil Young for a long time. I know Lightfoot really well.

Rick: My wife saw him last night. We had to split up. So, she went to see Gordon, and I went to see you.

Steve Earle: Oh, cool. Where was Lightfoot?

Rick: He was up in Frederick, Maryland.

Steve Earle: Oh, cool.

Rick: The Whitmore Sisters, how did you meet them?

Steve Earle: I’ve known them for a while. Eleanor has been the fiddle player in my band for 12 years. Her and her husband, Chris Masterson. They make records as The Mastersons, as well, and I’ve known Bonnie about the same amount of time, a little less time than I’ve known them, but they just happened to make a record.

This past year they decided that’s what they were going to do. Normally, The Mastersons open my shows, but the Whitmores had made a record, and so we gave up our junk bunk and Bonnie’s on the tour, and so the Whitmores are opening.

Rick: They were terrific. Their harmonies reminded me, the closeness, the tightness of their harmonies remind me of the Everly Brothers and some of the Beach Boys harmonies.

Steve Earle: Well, that’s what happens with people that are related sing together.

Rick: Yeah. Or the Bee Gees. Same thing.

Steve Earle: Yep, yep.

Rick: Well, let’s talk a little bit about guitars. So, you’re not an accumulator, because I’m sure you’ve heard that some people accumulate and some people collect, and it sounds like you’re a collector and you dig in, and you research, right?

Steve Earle: Yeah. One time I might have been bordering on being the accumulator. I didn’t really mean to be, but I bought some stuff that I probably wouldn’t buy now. I pick and choose it a little bit more. I learned a lot. The first several years I was in New York, first five years, I lived right behind Matt Umanov’s shop.

I’ve known George Gruhn since I was 19. So when I got to Nashville and I just learned a lot about it over the years, and I collect both acoustic and electric guitars, but more acoustics, more Martins than anything else. I’m pretty close to a complete collection of Gibson acoustics. There’s only a few things I don’t have.

And I’ve got an embarrassingly good collection of archtops for somebody that really doesn’t deserve to have them, because I’ve got the last New Yorker special that Jimmy D’Aquisto built.

Rick: Oh, do you?

Steve Earle: I’ve got a D’Angelico that Steve Gilchrist restored and it’s incredible. It’s an Excel, from the Thirties. Non-cutaways are the old man’s best guitars. I think pretty much everybody agrees with that, but I’ve got one of Gilchrist’s 16-inch archtops, and I’ve got an L-5. It’s a transitional L-5. Its got bar markers. Gibson has that order number thing and serial number thing. It’s probably a guitar that was built in ’35 and sold in ’36, because it’s a 16-inch L-5, which isn’t supposed to exist in ’36, but the serial number is a 1936 serial number. So, it’s one of those confusing Gibson things that happens.

Rick: Yeah. That’s not uncommon. I’ll show you a little guitar. You might have one, it’s a 1931 L-00? [Rick grabs his guitar and shows it too Steve.]

Steve Earle: I have an L-00. Mine’s a ’33, because I’ve got one of the ones, the only year they had the elevated fretboard.

Rick: Oh, yeah. This is a 12 frets to the body.

Steve Earle: Yeah. Mine’s a’33 with an elevated fret board. Yeah. Yeah. Elevated fret board only happens one year, and I think Tom Crandall figured out why. Tom Crandall, who has TR Crandall in New York.

He’s an archtop guy. He’s actually building some L-5’s right now, and I’m going to get one just to have another guitar that he built. I own one guitar he built, but he’s the best repair guy in the business, as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve had this L-00 for a while, and it has the raised fretboard, and they only happened that one year. And then he figured out that, we’re both fans of L-10s, which is supposed to be the poor man’s L-5. I have a really good one that used to belong to Tom.

The best one I’ve ever played belonged to George Gruhn. He’s had it for since the ’70’s, and he’s never turned loose of it. And Steve Gilchrist bases his archtops on that L-10. That’s what made him want to build it, and he won’t build anything, but the 16-inch archtop. He won’t build the 17-inch guitar, because he doesn’t like them.

But, jazz guys want 17-inch guitars for the most part now. The elevated fretboard probably came about, and this holds up, I think, because they’re L-10 necks that they were lying around. They had partial L-10s and no orders for L-10s, and so they just re-purposed a bunch of necks or studied L-10s that were being built and built L-00s, and used those necks and adapted them for them. That makes sense, because it’s the way Gibson did things. No doubt about it.

Rick: Yeah. Even the early 1952 Les Pauls, they used really good archtop wood on the tops. I had one, and somebody had taken the finish off, and the top wood was gorgeous, rippled.

Steve Earle: Yeah. And later, the Bursts had that kind of wood later, and they didn’t last very long. That’s the reason they’re so valuable. I’ve got a ’50, as early as a Humbucking Les Paul gets. I’ve got a ’57, no stickers, no Patent Applied For, but no stickers on either pickup. Double white…

Rick: Yeah. My ’52’s P-90s were probably the most monstrous pickups I’d ever had on a guitar. But, it had that weird bridge and I was like, “Eh, can’t play this.” But here’s here’s one more. [Rick shows Steve an old Gibson] It was built in 1949. It’s a 1950 CF-100, but it was made in 1949.

Steve Earle: I’ve got a ’51 that’s probably, it’s the best one I’ve ever played. It’s really good.

Rick:  This belonged to a family until I bought it about six or seven months ago. And it’s from a Emmett Lundy. If you ever heard of Emmett Lundy, who won of the first gold coin at Galax for fiddling. His family won some gold medals. On the back of the neck it’s etched From: Dad to Joy Lundy (1949).

Steve Earle: Right. Cool.

Steve Earle: Yeah, they can be good. They usually fall apart. They sound great, when you find one that’s intact, but they quit making them because when they put the cutaway in, it weakened the design and the adaptation they made. So you get them a lot, and they’re pretty much basket cases, but I’ve got a good one.

Rick: So let’s move on a little bit to your albums with about Townes Van Zandt, and your new one, Jerry Jeff. What was it like for when you first met Townes? Was he playing somewhere, because I understand that you went to meet him when you were 14, but you didn’t meet him till later. So how did that…

Steve Earle: I met him at the Old Quarter in Houston. It’s a pretty famous story. He was heckling me, and you can find that on-line…I was stalking him around. I was following him around, and we finally met, and for some reason, didn’t run me off. Because I knew him when I got to Nashville, they gave me an automatic introduction to Guy Clark.

I was in the same room with Jerry Jeff [Walker], but never really met him before I left Texas. But, then once I knew Guy, when Jerry Jeff came through, that gave me an introduction to Jerry Jeff. So, they were my three original guys. So, that was Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker. And that’s why I made those three records.

Rick: What were your first impressions of them when you met those guys?

Steve Earle: I was following Townes around. The first time I saw Townes, other than on stage was at Jerry Jeff’s birthday party, which I crashed. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. And he walked in and started a dice game and lost a jacket that Jerry Jeff had given him for his birthday, because their birthdays are about a week apart. And he lost every time he had on that jacket, and I thought, “My hero.” and I followed him around for a couple years before I went to Nashville.

Rick: Yeah. So what are your lasting impressions of him? When you think about him, is there something that pops up in your mind, like a nice guy or just a great singer-songwriter?

Steve Earle: There’s been a lot of stuff written about Townes, and I don’t want to even want to get into it. I knew him pretty well, and I named my firstborn son after him. He could be his own worst enemy, but he was a great songwriter. He was one of the best songwriters that ever lived, and that’s the way I want to remember him, and that’s the way I want to talk about him.

Rick:  I understand. I guess there’s a lot of people who don’t know these stories and so…

Steve Earle: Well, I know, but somebody else will tell you those stories, whether they were there or not. There’s lots of people that tell those stories, and they weren’t even there. So, you can find one of those people.

Rick: Yeah. I just read a book about him, so I’m familiar, but a lot of readers may not be.

Steve Earle: Exactly.

Rick: Do you have any favorite songs that you like to sing of theirs? I know you did…

Steve Earle: Townes? I did a whole record of Townes’ records. I don’t know. I did “Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold”. One of the ones that I go back to, there’s a song called,”Lungs”. I’ve done a lot of Townes’. I do “Pancho and Lefty” still. As obvious as that is, they’re not the obvious. I just did it at Willie Nelson’s birthday party. Guy, there’s a lot of his songs that I like. Probably “LA Freeway”, “Old Time Feeling” and “The Last Gunfighter Ballad”. I’m one of the few people that covers that. And Jerry Jeff, there’s lots of stuff. I’m getting to sing “Mr. Bojangles” again, as obvious as that is, I played that song the first time when I was 14 years old in a play in high school. So, now I get to sing it again. That’s the best thing about this project.

Rick: Yeah. That’s cool. I’m recording an album with Les Thompson, if you know Les, he’s a co-founder of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. He lives not too far from here. Nice guy. So, I sent him a short video of you doing “Mr. Bojangles”, and so I guess I’ll hear back from him.

Steve Earle: Cool.

Rick: Last night you mentioned that you, it sounded like you’re going to get into music beyond albums and stuff, that you might be doing some stuff for maybe some media outlets. I didn’t know if you were talking TV commercials or TV series or something that…

Steve Earle: No. I’m doing music for, I’m writing a musical of Tender Mercies, which is a movie that was out in the ’80’s that, Robert Duvall was in. Horton Foote wrote the screenplay, and his daughter Daisy and I are writing a musical of Tender Mercies.

Rick: Yeah. I think Craig Bickhardt did some songs for that original movie. So there’s another one coming up?

Steve Earle: No, all the songs that were in the movie, Robert Duvall wrote.

Rick: Did he really? Huh? I didn’t know that.

Steve Earle: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Ed Note: Steve’s correct, two of Craig Bickhardt’s songs are on the soundtrack album, although not in the movie.]

Rick: If it’s okay to talk about Justin, an excellent songwriter, what did you learn from him, and what have you learned from your other kids that you wouldn’t have learned from if you hadn’t been a father?

Steve Earle: Oh, I think he was a better finger picker than I am, and I’m not bad, but he was really, really good at it. And he sorted me out on a couple of Mance Lipscomb songs that I’d been trying to play, and I’d been approaching them wrong. And he, for some reason, caught the wave on them, and so I learned how to play them correctly from him.

Rick: What about your other kids? What have you learned from them? I’m just thinking of you as a father, what have you learned not only in the music arena, but about life in general?

Steve Earle: Well, we were parents, like one of those things. When people have kids and they think it’s going to complete them, I’m like, “No, no, no, that’s not what it does. What it does is, it tears out a piece of your heart, and it releases it into the universe and it goes out there and it breaks it every chance it gets.” And that’s the best case scenario. That’s something, like what happened to Justin doesn’t happen. So, you learn everything. It’s pretty universal what you learn from being a parent, and I have learned that I can’t parent adults, and, that’s probably the most valuable thing I’ve learned from having kids and having them over a period of decades, because I’ve still got a 12-year-old, and he has autism. So, I’m a full-time single dad nine months of the year.

Rick: Okay. Let’s move into lyrics. As a songwriter, when you’re writing lyrics, you find that there’s the epiphany when you come up with a lyric that you would go, “That’s a great lyric,” and you know it’s a great lyric? How do you compare that to being on stage and actually singing those lyrics? There’s got to be some different emotional feelings while you’re doing either one.

Steve Earle: Oh, you just try not to check out and think about baseball or something like singing them when you sing songs. And if I catch myself not being present, I try to correct that, and I’ve gotten to be more into that since I started doing a little bit of acting, which didn’t happen until relatively recently, the last 15 years, 16 years. But no, it’s a little longer, it’s about 20 years, but I think I’m a way more present performer in my day job than I was since I did a little bit of acting. I just learned that from actors. I paint, and I’m really bad at it, but I do it. And I write. I’ve written a couple of books and I occasionally write nonfiction pieces.

I know what I was put here to do, which is write songs, and that all just informs that’s my home base thing that I do. So just writing, I write every day, pretty much. I try to write, when I wake up in the morning, I try to work on something, and I’ll have two or three things going.

I’ve got a book going right now. I’ve got songs for Tender Mercies going. I’ve got a lyric that I’ve been struggling to get finished, just because it’s a little harder. I’m beat, because I’m out here, I’m on the road, I’m playing six shows a week, but I do write as much as I can.

Rick: Yeah. Couple of songs that you did last night, I wasn’t really expecting. They were almost grunge, and I can’t remember the name of the songs, but it’s near the end of your performance. they were really heavy hitting songs that weren’t like country songs. What were those songs?

Steve Earle: You haven’t heard a lot of my records, obviously.

Rick: No, I have not. I have not.

Steve Earle: Yeah. So I was played on country radio for about 30 seconds in the ’80’s, and I had the number one country album, but my first two albums were marketed as country albums, but my third album, it was Copperhead Road, that was marketed as a rock record.

But, a lot of people thought it was too country, so it didn’t get universally played. Then I had to start all over again, because of my own stuff in the mid-’90’s. And from that point on, I essentially made what I thought were rock records for the most part, but they still turned out pretty country too.

I’ve never worried about those things, country and rock and folk. I see myself as a songwriter, and I made a bluegrass record and I made it with the Del McCoury Band. I made a blues record, because that’s always been in what I do because I’m from Texas, and I saw Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin’ Hopkins in the same room at the same time on more than one occasion.

I’ve known Billy Gibbons since I was a teenager. So, I just try to find a different way to write new songs, and sometimes that means getting outside of what I normally do, but I had a ridiculously loud four-piece adult rock band for a lot of the ’90’s, and I just drifted back towards having a steel player and having a fiddle player in the last 14 or 15…the steel player, I hadn’t had a steel player in the band since the ’80’s until a record called, “So You Want to be an Outlaw” that I made. I guess it’s six years ago, something like that now, and that’s when Ricky came along. Eleanor’s been in the band for 12 years, so fiddle’s been there that long, and it’s great because I can do this stuff. I can do the bluegrass stuff. This band [The Dukes] can do anything I’ve ever recorded.

Rick: Yeah. They’re like your own Wrecking Crew.

Steve Earle: Yeah. They can do anything. Literally.

Rick: They were pretty amazing. That’s pretty much what I got for our time here. I want thank you and Paige (publicist) and must say you’ve got a really good support group, as well as a great band, you’re a blessed man.

Steve Earle: Okay, cool. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

STEVE EARLE TOUR!

Disagreeing with bandmates when working on new material can be uncomfortable to say the least, but Lamb Of God’s Mark Morton has shared how he handles creative friction with those around him.

The band released their 10th album Into Oblivion on 13 March, which follows on from their 2022 release, Omens. Reflecting on their writing process in a new interview, Morton shares how he works with fellow guitarist Willie Adler, and how he knows when to step back and let others take the reins on a track.

• READ MORE: “It’s a flamethrower”: Mark Morton’s new Signature Les Paul Modern Quilt unites Les Paul heritage with metal-ready specs and aesthetics

“We sometimes disagree. But I’ve learned over the years that if you’ve got five guys and a producer in the room, and you’re trying to make everybody happy, you’re going to wind up diluting a piece of music to the point where it’s not going to have an identity. Somebody’s got to be willing to say, ‘I’m not directing this one,’” Morton tells Guitar World in its new print magazine.

“When that’s me, I fall back and let the people who are the most motivated and the most excited about that particular song steer it. When I stopped trying to be in control of everything, I realised the strongest opinion in the room is often the right opinion. If I disagree with Willie about something, but he’s so dead set on doing it his way because he thinks it’s way better, then I will defer to him, and vice versa.

“Conversely, if somebody’s clinging to something but everyone else thinks it’s the wrong thing, sometimes you’ve got to have that conversation and go, ‘You know what, man? The whole rest of the room disagrees with you so maybe you should just step away.’”

Adler goes on to add, “Mark and I have such a long history together that we’ve learned how to read each other and work together. We feed off each other to such an extent that I’d feel very lost going into a writing session or writing songs without Mark… I can fuck up around Mark. I can woodshed something and sound terrible, but it’s alright because I know I’m going to get there. And Mark knows I’m going to get there.”

Lamb Of God’s new album Into Oblivion is out now. The band are currently on tour, and you can view the full list of scheduled shows via the official Lamb Of God website.

The post “The strongest opinion in the room is often the right opinion”: How Mark Morton handles writing disagreements with his Lamb of God co-guitarist Willie Adler appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Being a music lover means listening widely and leaving any snobbery at the door, and that’s certainly the case for Gary Holt, who says he’s always liked pop music.

It’s highly unlikely that all metal artists only listen to metal, and listening widely has influenced his work without it even being conscious. The Exodus guitarist and former Slayer member says there is one artist he particularly loves, and that’s Adele and her soothing piano work.

• READ MORE: “It’s Kirk’s riff, it’s my lyrics”: Gary Holt jokes that he’s owed royalties for his part in writing this classic Metallica track

In an interview for the new print edition of Guitar World, Holt says, “All I listen to is Adele. If you ask me what my five favourite musicians are right now, they’re all Adele. She’s one of the greatest voices ever, and if you listen to her records, outside of the hits, there’s world-class piano playing. Most of it is just her and the piano, and I love listening to piano.”

Fellow guitarist Lee Altus adds: “Good music is good music. I’m not sitting around listening to metal all the time either. One of my all-time favorite bands is ABBA. I grew up on Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Iron Maiden. That stuff is still what I go back to, but I love lots of other things.”

Asked if they think the experimental nature in the band’s sound comes from their appreciation of genres outside metal, Holt says, “Maybe. I don’t sit there listening to Adele thinking, ‘I’m going to put pop music into thrash metal,’ but I’ve always liked pop. I was listening to Madonna on the Exodus tour in the eighties with Venom.

“Prince is my hero. There’s probably more Prince influence in Exodus than anyone would ever notice. Listen to Violence Works. Until the riff comes in, it sounds like we’ve lost our minds and have done a disco song. To me, Promise You [This] sounds like Blackfoot meets Discharge. There’s never a rhyme or reason to why it all happens. We just follow the riff.”

Exodus are touring across the UK and Europe right now. You can find out more via their official website. 

The post Gary Holt: “All I listen to is Adele” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Wolfgang Van Halen and his band Mammoth have been involved in some pretty huge gigs across their time together so far, but supporting Metallica on their whopping M72 world tour was monumental.

Often making headlines for their wholesomeness, be it embracing new and younger fans through the Stranger Things fanbase or their charity work with All Within My Hands, it seems Metallica also look after those around them pretty well too. According to Wolfgang, the thrash legends gifted him with a certificate for perfect attendance and even a signed photograph of Mammoth with the band backstage at their final show together in Mexico.

• READ MORE: Wolfgang Van Halen reveals he and his dad jammed a song on the new Mammoth album before he died: “I taught him how to play it on guitar, and I played drums”

In a Trunk Nation interview, Wolfgang shares his Mammoth highlights, and begins, “The couple gigs we did opening for Foo Fighters was a really big thing for me. Overall, just being a part of the 72 Seasons world tour with Metallica was probably one of the craziest things we’ve been a part of. That will forever go down as just… Wow.

“Being a part of that and being able to see how it operates, they’re basically a traveling city [with] the amount of people that it takes to build that stage and just to operate in a stadium to begin with. It was such a crazy level of stuff I’d never really been around. To be in that area and see how it works and figuring out how to play on such a crazy stage was a really fun challenge, and really shaped the live band that we are now because of that.”

He goes on to show a certificate to the camera, decorated with guitar picks in the striking yellow colour of Metallica’s 72 Seasons album: “We were the only band out of all the openers to play every single building with them,” he says. “If that doesn’t show you how much they care and how cool they are… They also sent it with [this],” he then shows the photo of them all together.

See it in the video below:

After a lot of speculation, Metallica have confirmed that a residency at the Las Vegas Sphere will take place later this year, with shows kicking off in October. The shows will continue their ‘no-repeat’ weekend tradition, which sees them perform two shows in each city with entirely unique setlists on each night.

The post Metallica gifted Wolfgang Van Halen a “perfect attendance during a world tour” certificate for not missing a support slot on his M72 tour run: “If that doesn’t show you how much they care…” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Keith Richards, like many huge artists, has a rather vast collection of guitars. In fact, he’s not even sure of the exact number he has, and some of them he’s never even seen.

Richards’ impact on guitar culture led to him earning his own Gibson ES-355 signature model earlier this year. Two super-limited Collector’s Edition models were released in January and were developed in close collaboration with Richards. Just 150 were made available in total, each based on his own treasured 1960 ES-355, which has accompanied him on every Rolling Stones tour since 1997.

• READ MORE: “He’s never playing the same thing once”: Eddie Vedder shares what he learned about Keith Richards “liquid” guitar playing by sharing a stage with him

These guitars were made using 3D scanning technology to replicate the true character of his original guitar, with 50 models signed both on the instrument and label, and 100 with only a signed label.

Speaking to Guitar World for the latest edition of its print magazine, he says, “What a surprise, and what a fuckin’ honour. I tell you, when they came at me with this one, I was like, ‘How can I refuse?’ It was a shock to me at first, because when I started, the idea of even owning a Gibson was pretty much out of the picture.

Richards was then asked how many of them he’ll get to keep: “Oh look, I have enough guitars already,” he says. Asked if 3000 guitars is an accurate figure for the number in his collection, he continues, “It’s something like that. You can call my guitar man, Pierre de Beauport, if you want the exact number, but it’s around there. But it’s not like I go around buying them or anything; a lot of these guitars have been given to me. I’ve never seen them all.

“I actually only use about… Well, the working number is about 15 guitars in the rack, for different sounds and whatever. But the other 2,900, I don’t know. They’re taken care of, though. I mean, this is a prime collection.”

The Collector’s Edition ES-355 models are now sold out online – view more at Gibson.

The post “Call my guitar man if you want the exact number”: Keith Richards reveals the astonishing number of guitars in his collection appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

You have your whole life to write your first record. But time goes by awfully fast when you have to follow it up, a pressure-cooker reality that Lindsey Jordan made work for her while assembling Snail Mail’s superb second LP Valentine. Released in 2021, its blend of barbed anti-romance and winsome indie-rock felt like someone getting something out that needed to come out.

• READ MORE: “Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me: I’m 19!” Grace Bowers is determined to forge her own path

It’s now been five years since it got its hooks in, though, and the intervening period increasingly feels like both a reset and a long exhale. “I love that record, I’m so proud of it,” Jordan says during a Zoom call from her home in Greensboro, North Carolina. “But I knew that, even if I was going through brutal heartbreak, I didn’t want to write about it anymore.”

Instead, Jordan compares the songs on Ricochet, her long-awaited third album, to her earliest bedroom-sculpted releases, believing the patient catch-and-release of the writing process has given them a similar sense of honesty and emotional clarity, no matter how thorny the philosophical subject matter.

“I spent probably four years trying to optimise my process,” she continues. “I worked super slowly, really trying to figure out what it was going to be. I was trying to write every day on tour, and I ended up putting together maybe nine of the 11 songs, including writing the vocal melodies before there was a single lyric.”

Image: Daria Kobayashi Ritch

Palette Cleansing

The record’s guitar sounds also formed part of that formulation, with Jordan and producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch, who also plays bass in Brooklyn indie-rock band Momma, building a collaborative playlist that pulled at disparate threads of 90s rock, from Ivy’s cultured power-pop to the brawny vulnerability of Third Eye Blind and Oasis, and pillowy early ‘00s pop in the form of Frou Frou and Dido. “Some of it was directly referenced: Agony Freak was so inspired by Pinback,” Jordan says. “We had our palette before we had anything else.”

“The way that Aron demos with people, and the way that Momma demos, which is really interesting because they’re collaborative [writers], is to really develop stuff before they even step foot into the studio,” she adds. “I’ve never been in a studio and not had a few weeks of adding flourishes or something. The way that they prepare for stuff is that they’re setting the tone and there’s not a second in the studio for writing, which actually I would recommend to pretty much everybody at this point. The references we decided on together were spot on. I feel like we combined tastes and made it happen in a way that was more intentional than I’ve ever done on a record with a producer before.”

But, when confronted with this rich, texturally detailed backdrop of sunny melancholy, Jordan pushed back lyrically by pondering the stuff that never gets any easier: cosmic insignificance, time’s hard-nosed disregard for how we feel. The result is an intriguing push-pull relationship between arrangements that feel entirely sure of themselves and words that are anything but. “I feel like a person who is very aware of that tension,” Jordan observes. “It’s something I love messing with.”

“One day we won’t be around,” she sings during Light on Our Feet, the sentiment swooping on a beautiful hook, strings darting between its drawn-out vowels. Towards the end of My Maker, the line, “Above us it’s just sky,” tumbles into a belted refrain, its lilting acoustics decorated with intricate solos. “The melodies were as confident as they could possibly be,” Jordan says. “I love, love, love the lyrics but I have revisions in my head for all of them.”

Uncertainty Principle

That admission also points to one of Ricochet’s greatest strengths — its ability to embrace uncertainty and constant re-evaluation. In posing a long list of questions, with comparatively few answers, Jordan suggests that if you need to change your mind, or admit that, maybe, you just don’t know, then that’s cool.

From the opening riffs of Tractor Beam on down, the record feels like one of those long summers when some things come into focus while others get muddied up. “On …Maker I wanted to say “Above us it’s just sky,” but it was like, ‘Who am I as the speaker here?’ I don’t feel like I have a particularly unique view of what’s going on, or of the human experience,” she says. “It’s definitely not coming from a sage.”

While some sessions took place at the Nightfly and Studio G in Brooklyn, Ricochet was chiefly tracked at North Carolina’s Fidelitorium Recordings, a space owned by Mitch Easter, whose production resume includes R.E.M.’s first two LPs, Pavement’s Brighten the Corners and his own work fronting the slept-on power-pop band Let’s Active.

“He’s so fucking nice and cool,” Jordan says, noting that she was able to drive up to the studio each day, dropping her dog at daycare en route. “He came to see us in Nashville not that long ago with Dinosaur Jr, and I punished him really hard after.”

At Fidelitorium, Kobayashi Ritch and engineer Hayden Ticehurst often had things humming along by the time Jordan arrived each day, underlining the shared understanding of what they were aiming for. The simpatico relationship even extended to how they’d chase loose threads.

“I would rather do anything than sit there and watch somebody fiddle with pedals — I hate that part of the process so much,” Jordan notes. So, instead, she played and played and played while Kobayashi Ritch popped his earplugs in and went to work in the live room. “She was a great sport for that,” the producer says. “The thing I like most is when an artist is okay being like, ‘Dude, if you want to take your time, I’ll just play.’”

Image: Daria Kobayashi Ritch

Bat The Cycle

Using a Radial switcher, Kobayashi Ritch would cycle through rigs, often running multiple amps in concert to build something texturally extravagant without much reliance on fixing things in post. On the song Hell, there were four of them in airy harmony, with a load of room mics up to create a sense of space.

Plucked from Easter’s collection and thrust into heavy rotation were a 70s tweed Princeton, a Twin Reverb and a Guild Thunder, which would often only have its reverb channel mic’d. “The Princeton, you put that thing on 10 and it sounds so good,” Kobayashi Ritch recalls. “He also had a Bad Cat and a Vox [doing] the AC30 thing, and then an Orange combo — something ‘70s, huge and heavy.”

The guitars on the record skew character actor rather than matinee idol, with personality and availability at the forefront of the conversation. Jordan’s Noventa Jazzmaster and Rickenbacker 360 were in the mix, along with a Martin acoustic with a really high action belonging to bassist Alex Bass. Kobayashi Ritch, meanwhile, threw his HSH Strat, a ‘90s Jazzmaster with Curtis Novak pickups and a double cutaway ‘68 Gibson Melody Maker into the fray, with their contributions orbiting Jordan’s prized ‘71 Gibson SG, which did a lot of work in the studio, a setting that it’ll be exclusively inhabiting from now on.

“I’m not bringing the SG on tour,” she says. “It’s not worth it to me. It was expensive and setting it up was a whole song and dance, like nothing I’ve ever been through with a guitar before. I love it so much. It’s also the only vintage guitar I’ve ever had. I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

Despite being a rich, adventurous record packed with strings, horns and tiered harmonies, Ricochet never loses sight of Jordan’s personality as a guitarist, from the swooning Goo Goo Dolls-esque melody of Cruise to the subtly knotty arpeggios of Dead End. Part of that can be traced back to the fact everything is in its right place.

Jordan observes that the tracking process was essentially free of distractions or extraneous info, allowing all attention to be focused on bringing the sound in her head to life. “In finding out what works for me, I feel like [I realised] I would like to work with my friend who is the same age in a studio that is intimate and chill and kind of bare bones,” she says. “My girlfriend did the art, me and my best friend did all the music videos together. It’s not DIY because we have label backing and stuff, but it feels like now I have the experience and the opportunities to do whatever I want.”

Snail Mail’s Ricochet is out on March 27 through Matador.

The post “I would rather do anything than sit there and watch somebody fiddle with pedals” Snail Mail on why she’s embraced the guitar on her terms on new record, Ricochet appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

In case you missed it: the Foo Fighters are back, and they’ve got a new album dropping this April. What better time to get your hands on Epiphone’s take on Dave Grohl’s beloved Pelham Blue DG-335 guitar?

The Epiphone Dave Grohl DG-335 arrived in 2024, offering a slightly more affordable version of Grohl’s signature Gibson DG-335. As part of a massive spring sale, Thomann has currently discounted the Epiphone model, and it’s now priced at £769, down from £869.

[deals ids=”5jyvglTqdGTualCIXFizHO”]

The guitar pairs elements of Gibson’s ES-335 and Trini Lopez models, and has a layered maple/poplar body, one-piece mahogany neck, Trini Lopez-style headstock and Indian laurel fretboard with mother-of-pearl split diamond inlays.

• READ MORE: Gibson Custom Shop recreated Michael Schenker’s 1971 Flying V – and it sold out in a day

Electronics include a pair of Gibson USA Burstbucker humbuckers, controlled by two volume and two tone pots. Other key specs include Grover Mini-Rotomatic tuners, a LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge and stopbar, a Switchcraft toggle and jack, CTS pots and Mallory capacitors.

The new record from the Foos will land on 24 April and is titled Your Favorite Toy. It follows on from 2023’s But Here We Are, and will mark the band’s 12th studio album. Its title track was released as the first single, with second single Caught In The Echo having landed last Friday (20 March).

In a statement about the title track, Grohl said: “Your Favorite Toy really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album. We stumbled upon it after experimenting with different sounds and dynamics for over a year, and the day it took shape I knew that we had to follow its lead. It was the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record. It feels new.”

Head over to Thomann to shop this deal and more in its spring sale.

The post Celebrate Foo Fighters’ new album and get Dave Grohl’s Pelham Blue Epiphone DG-335 at a discount at Thomann appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

After nearly four decades out of sight, Richie Sambora’s original 1976 Gibson Explorer – the very guitar behind some of Bon Jovi’s earliest riffs – has finally resurfaced and made its way back to him.

Sambora bought the guitar as a teenager, and like many young players, had to take his time making it his own. The guitarist reportedly spent around three years customising the instrument piece by piece, working within a tight budget and upgrading it as he could afford to. In 1985, while Bon Jovi were touring overseas, the Explorer was stolen from a warehouse and effectively disappeared.

For years, it was assumed to be gone for good – until it turned up in the hands of Paris-based vintage dealer Matthieu Lucas, who runs Matt’s Guitar Shop.

• READ MORE: Paul McCartney reveals his rift with John Lennon was mended, in part, because they both got into baking bread: “It was nice that we had that in common”

Speaking to Guitar World, Lucas reveals that he came across the instrument while going about his usual business, but something about this Explorer stood out straight away.

“I bought this guitar from somebody who said he was from Michigan and sold it as Richie’s original Explorer,” he says. “It’s the first time I have been offered such a Bon Jovi guitar as [typically], the early Bon Jovi guitars never come up for sale.”

After securing the deal, Lucas did his due diligence, sending photos to Sambora’s team to help verify the instrument.

“What I learned then was that it was stolen, and I immediately called Richie’s team to give Richie his sword back,” he says.

A few weeks later, Lucas and his team flew to New Jersey with the guitar, ready for the handover.

“We opened the case, and I gave [Sambora] the guitar. He grabbed the neck and said, ‘Oh yes, that’s mine!’ Lucas recalls. “I had to make it right and make sure Richie got this guitar back.”

Beyond the emotional moment, Lucas says the guitar is set to return to active duty.

“It will be the first guitar he will use on stage when he gets back to it,” he adds. “Richie played everything on this guitar and composed the majority of Bon Jovi’s hit songs on it, so I am so glad he got it back now.”

Meanwhile, Sambora has also spoken about how the Explorer had shaped his early years as a player. Influenced by artists like Eric Clapton – who also favoured the model – he set out to get one of his own.

“I just wanted to be like Eric Clapton. Eric Clapton was playing Explorers,” he says, recalling how he eventually spotted one in a music shop he was dealing with. “I didn’t have the money for it. Like I didn’t have the money for the Les Paul either.”

Instead, he worked out a payment plan – the guitar cost around $250 – and began using the axe while still paying it off.

“I was already working with this when I was in debt for the rest of the money,” Sambora explains.

And now that it’s back in his hands? He’s not exactly planning to stow it under glass.

“I’m keeping this forever. However long that is for me,” he adds. “I can’t wait to throw it through a Marshall.”

The post “I can’t wait to throw it through a Marshall”: Richie Sambora reunites with long-lost Gibson Explorer after 40 years appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It doesn’t look like David Ellefson will be getting an invite to perform on Megadeth’s final tour any time soon, but that’s not stopping him from celebrating his tenure in the band on his own.

And for your viewing pleasure, new footage has appeared online of Ellefson’s recent stop in Bochnia, Poland on his ongoing Bass Warrior tour, which sees him perform Megadeth’s landmark 1992 album Countdown to Extinction in its entirety, among solo material and other rock classics.

• READ MORE: “He says stuff off the top of his head, and I’m sure regrets it later”: Chris Poland says he “doesn’t hold a grudge” against Dave Mustaine over the “terrible s**t” he said about him after he left Megadeth

“Tonight in Bochnia, Poland – what a night! Bochnia, this was our third time with you and you were absolutely incredible,” Ellefson wrote on social media after the show. “Thank you for coming out and celebrating Countdown To Extinction with us for a high-energy, SOLD OUT show. 

“Every voice, every riff, every moment – unforgettable. It was also amazing to bring Angry Again and 99 Ways To Die back into the set – two killer tracks from that 1992–93 era that hit just as hard today.”

David Ellefson’s Bass Warrior tour is billed as an “annual celebration” of bass and metal, in which he’s accompanied by musical director and guitarist Andy Martongelli.

“Bass Warrior has become an annual celebration with my fans across Europe,” Ellefson says. “This year I’m really excited to be performing the Countdown to Extinction album in its entirety on the tour. It’s always been one of my favorite albums in my discography and I’m looking forward to celebrating those songs with my fans on the tour in March.”

It seems Dave Mustaine is concrete in his position that he doesn’t want to include former Megadeth members on the band’s ongoing final tour. But that hasn’t stopped David Ellefson from making his thoughts on the decision known.

Last month, Ellefson said Megadeth should “give the fans what they want” and offer him the chance to perform on the tour.

“I have always said that I am available for that,” he said. “And I would do it because I think any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded.”

The current 2026 Bass Warrior tour is yet to make stops in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. See the Bass Warrior webpage for tickets and more info.

The post Watch David Ellefson perform Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction in its entirety appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

A guitar with 64 pickups might sound like the product of some gearhead’s fever dream, but this one is as real as they come. Dreamed up by David Wieland of Dark Art Guitars as part of his master’s thesis in electrical engineering, the ‘Polymap’ system takes the idea of a pickup and pushes it to its absolute limit.

“I built a polyphonic guitar pickup system that can record 64 individual pickups simultaneously called Polymap,” Wieland explains.

The platform for all this experimentation is an eight-string, headless Alchemist model with a 26.5” scale length. The guitar pairs a swamp ash body with a striking maple burl top, though much of that wood has been carved out to make space for what Wieland describes as a “giant hole” of electronics.

And it’s what’s packed into that cavity that really sets this thing apart.

• READ MORE: “Pinnacle of the Electromatic collection”: Gretsch’s new Electromatic Premier Jet packs “premium appointments” and upgraded specs into a sub-$1k package

At its core, Polymap completely rethinks how a guitar signal is captured. Instead of blending string vibrations into a single output via two or three pickups, Wieland’s design captures each string – multiple times – as isolated data.

“The basic idea was to build a guitar that doesn’t record the kind of finished mixed output signal, but instead a lot of information about each one of the strings,” says the engineer. “Now, this is a very fancy way of saying that instead of two or three pickups, we have a few dozen that are only picking up one string each.”

The number didn’t land on 64 by accident either. Wieland opted for eight pickups per string across all eight strings, essentially creating multiple ‘listening points’ along each string’s length. Think of it as having a neck pickup, bridge pickup and everything in between… all at once, and all separately captured.

“Because we want to record all 64 pickups simultaneously without mixing them, the only real choice was to digitise them inside of the guitar,” he explains. “This means that we essentially built a 64-channel audio interface integrated into the guitar that then sends out one single digital signal to the computer.”

Those signals are handled via Cycfi Research pickup capsules, routed through a control board that buffers each signal before sending it to 64 individual analogue-to-digital converters. From there, everything lands in your DAW.

“Inside of the computer, we can take those 64 audio channels and get them into a DAW,” he continues. “In order to do anything useful with them, we wrote a VSSD plugin that allows you to mix all of these signals together, apply various effects, and then get a stereo output that you can listen to on just regular headphones.”

For guitarists, that’s where things start to get especially interesting. Instead of committing to pickup selection, tone and effects on the way in, you’re capturing raw string data, and deciding everything in post.

“Now, because we get the raw data into the DAW, this means we are actually recording the raw data and not the mixed output,” Wieland says. “So, all of the effects and the choice of which pickups are active can be made after it is recorded.”

In practice, that opens up a level of flexibility that conventional guitars simply don’t offer. You could track a part once, then audition different pickup positions after the fact, spread individual strings across the stereo field, or route low strings to a bass rig while sending the upper strings through a guitar amp. Multiple pickup positions per string can also be blended and delayed to create physically grounded spatial effects.

“This makes it a really powerful recording tool,” says Wieland.

And as the Polymap project puts it: “The guitar no longer has a single analogue output but becomes a spatially mapped instrument.”

Check out Wieland’s wild creation in action below.

Learn more at Dark Art Guitars.

The post This 64-pickup guitar records every string separately – and lets you decide the tone after you’ve played appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

1970 didn’t just see the end of the biggest band in the world – it also marked the fracture of one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of all time. As Beatles fans now know, the road to conciliation in the years that followed was a long one. Though as Paul McCartney now reveals, it didn’t hinge on music so much as something far more domestic.

In a new interview, McCartney shares how his rift with fellow Beatle John Lennon was mended in part by a shared love for – you guessed it – baking bread.

• READ MORE: “I sort of got off on that”: Ed O’Brien admits he was happy when Radiohead initially broke up – and didn’t expect the band to ever get back together

Speaking in the new Audible audiobook The Man on the Run, the bassist opens up about the messy aftermath of the Beatles’ split and the unraveling of his bond with Lennon.

“When we first broke up, good old John, he was like, slinging missiles at me,” says Macca. “He was just writing songs against me [like] How do you sleep at night?. You know, I was thinking ‘ok thanks.’”

“This is John, you know, if he doesn’t like someone, he’s going to sling arrows at you. And knowing that I can’t really effectively sling back stuff because I’m just not that good at that. It’s not my thing, you know?”

Beyond the musical back-and-forth, McCartney points to deeper tensions around business decisions as a key source of friction at the time.

“In the beginning, it was quite sort of hurtful, obviously. And it was the business thing. They were trying to stay with this guy who we knew was trying to rob the company. And it was like I was the only one who’d seen that the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes,” he explains.

“But then they started to realise I was right about Klein, and they went off him. So it was healing itself, as you said. And eventually we were actually able to talk to each other, instead of ‘Ah, you…’”

View this post on Instagram

With tensions cooling, the Lennon-McCartney pair gradually found their way back to each other – not through music, but through everyday life.

“John had had Sean, so he was now the father of a young baby. So, you know, I would bring him up and we’d talk about kids and domestic things,” says McCartney. “And I started making bread and it was getting pretty good, you know. And I started talking to him. He said ‘Oh yeah, I’m making bread’.”

As Macca explains, those small, ordinary connections proved surprisingly meaningful.

“The things we had in common were just ordinary little domestic things,” he says. “So somehow that was peaceful. And it was nice that we had that in common. And we weren’t fighting anymore.”

View this post on Instagram

The post Paul McCartney reveals his rift with John Lennon was mended, in part, because they both got into baking bread: “It was nice that we had that in common” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

€185/£185/$289, twilightpulseaudioworks.com / northernstomps.com

Guitar pedal makers are electronic engineers and therefore, by definition, nerds. So there’s a little clue to the inspiration behind the Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante in its name… but you’ll only get it if you’re a physics fan.

• READ MORE: DOD Badder Monkey review: much-memed pedal gets a bananas reissue

The most famous constant in science, as proposed by Einstein himself, is the speed of light (in a vacuum). This overdrive pedal from German indie maker Twilight Pulse, then, is a tribute to the Greer Amps Lightspeed. Not that it’s a mere clone, though – the presence of a second footswitch is enough to make it clear there’s something else going on inside this handsome blue box.

Image: Richard Purvis

Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante – what is it?

First of all, it’s not normally Pelham Blue: this is a limited-edition colourway for UK dealer Northern Stompboxes, the standard finish being white. On the inside, the Konstante is a two-in-one pedal, offering Lightspeed-style transparent overdrive – with the promise of more gain and more headroom than the original – alongside a separate Echoplex-style boost circuit.

Three of the controls are for the drive – output level, gain and tone – while the boost/preamp gets just a level knob. There’s a toggle switch in the middle for changing the order of the two circuits, and a pair of bypass switches that are about as far apart as they could be without falling off the edges of the enclosure. Mind you, this being a compact pedal, that’s still not very far – something to bear in mind if you don’t happen to have the feet of a ballerina.

Image: Richard Purvis

Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante – what does it sound like?

There’s a laid-back fluffiness to the overdrive side of the Konstante that reminds me of the Coggins Audio Dinosaural Hypoid Drive – and considering I gave that pedal 10/10, well, it’s safe to say we’re off to a decent start. But it’s slightly more tonally transparent than the Dinosaural, with only the merest hint of a sweetening effect in the mids, and it’s distinctly more fresh and zingy at the top end.

The gain range runs from virtually clean to moderately filthy, but the tone knob isn’t quite so transformative: it stays pretty crisp almost all the way round, with some extra upper-mids bite coming in as you push it past halfway. If you like your drive pedals on the dark side, you might find this one a bit too chimey. The key feature here, though, is that it has a truly organic sound and feel – which is exactly what the Lightspeed is famed for.

If anything, the boost side of the Konstante is even closer to transparency, giving a lift to the top and bottom ends of the spectrum that leaves the spiky mid frequencies fractionally softened by default. On its own it’s excellent, and teamed up with the other half of the pedal it offers two compelling options: an extra kick to the front end of the drive for added saturation, or a powerful loudness boost on the way out.

Image: Richard Purvis

Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante – should I buy it?

If you’re in Europe, this pedal is cheaper than the one that inspired it – and it has an added boost option that’s anything but an afterthought. That has to make it wildly tempting… as long as you’re not put off by the brightness of its core tone, or the potential for mishaps caused by having two footswitches barely an inch apart.

Either way, the Konstante is a superb little stompbox that marks out Twilight Pulse as a very classy boutique contender.

Image: Richard Purvis

Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante alternatives

For the sound of the Greer Amps Lightspeed, you might consider the Greer Amps Lightspeed ($249/£229). Other overdrive pedals with an independent boost circuit include the Keeley D&M Drive ($229/£229) and ThorpyFX The Dane MkII (£264.99/$319).

The post Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante review – a dual dirt pedal that’s faster than the speed of light appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

So, you say 4 notes was too many? How about 3 notes!

Seriously, I’m not joking, it’s a 3 note blues solo… and to make it even easier, there are no bends.

If you are more of a beginning blues guitar player, today’s your day:

The TAB is in the video, but I also have a PDF OF IT HERE.

 

March 20, 2026 John Prine was on my mind this week, and on my recent playlists at home. Re-listening to a lot of his stuff, and a request from a student, led to a lesson on his last recorded song, I Remember Everything. It is a great example of his basic approach to fingerpicking and […]

The post Totally Guitars Weekly Update March 20, 2026 appeared first on On The Beat with Totally Guitars.



Episode 162 of the Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast, where amp tech Skip Simmons tackles all of your questions about guitar tube amps! This week, we go deep on Canadian amps, tremolo tweaks, and tech tips. Plus: Rumors of a possible TAVA meetup at Skip’s and a (very short) poetry slam!

Thank our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars; and Amplified Parts / Mod Electronics. Use the discount code TAVA10MOD for a one-time, 10% discount on Mod Electronics orders at https://www.modelectronics.com. Usable on speakers, amp kits, pedal kits, reverb tanks, etc. Offer ends April 11, 2026.

Some of the topics discussed this week:

:00 Skip has a cold

2:04 SF’s The Fab Mab (Wikipedia), 1971 Guitar Player magazine advice; changing the vibrato speed on a Fender Super Reverb

8:42 The answer to last episode’s baffler: The Canadian Standards Association; TAVA merch?

11:30 Caveat emptor: A UTC output transformer; why is my reverb not working?

26:12 Lead dress 101

31:40 An amp sale/TAVA gathering at Skip’s? (Follow our Instagram for updates/polls)

40:01 Harmony H410 and speaker impedance

44:10 Why is the tremolo on my 1969 Traynor YSR-1 Custom Reverb head not working and how can I slow it down?

50:38 Can you put variable capacitors in a guitar circuit?

53:11 Series filaments and a Berlant Concertone MCM-2; the Epiphone Rivoli EA-65 schematic

1:00:27 Gibson Falcon mods; whatever happened to the reissue Falcon?

1:07:24 Tech tip: Hammond 154M chokes (Amplified Parts link)

1:12:10 Guitarist Chuck Wayne

1:14:05 Spaghetti sauce with meat; getting Skip an iPhone; tremolo using bias modulation on the power tubes; the Ampeg Supereverb

1:22:21 Garnet amps and Kale; the Garnet Herzog

1:24:43 A listening room for Dynaco amps and Acoustic Research turntables

Above: Listener Bruce’s Berlant Concertone MCM-2, which he definitely shouldn’t mod

Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Want to support the show? Join our Patreon page to get to the front of the advice line, see exclusive pics, the occasional video and more.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 162 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Warren Haynes has reflected on the musicianship of late Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, who died in January this year.

The Gov’t Mule guitarist and Weir shared the stage on many, many occasions over the last few decades, with their first show together taking place at New York’s Wetlands Preserve in 2001. Since then and prior to Weir’s death, the pair shared a deep musical bond, regularly performing together.

Following the death of the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia in 1995, surviving members – including Bob Weir – formed The Other Ones in 1998, later changing their name to The Dead in 2003. Warren Haynes joined The Dead’s lineup a year later in 2004, performing many shows alongside Bob Weir and co.

• READ MORE: “That was just a Tuesday and a lunch tab for Kirk Hammett”: Butch Walker reveals he had the opportunity to buy the legendary “Greeny” Les Paul – but couldn’t afford it

And in a new interview with All Alabama, Haynes reflects on the enduring impact Weir’s approach to music had on his own playing.

“Bob approached every performance and every song from a new, fresh perspective every time,” he says.

“He never wanted to repeat what he had done in the past. And he was just, after all those decades of playing music, still excited to play every time. It was. He had this childlike love for music that we all do in varying degrees. 

“But to see someone like him hold on to that for that long a time and still be open to where the music might go at any given moment and encouraging of what could happen moment by moment, you know, he just was a real joy to play with and a sweet human being.”

Bob Weir’s death on 10 January, 2026 prompted a widespread outpouring of tributes from the guitar and wider music community.

“This guy was such a hero,” wrote Heart’s Nancy Wilson. “The world is a sadder place without him in it. He spread a lifetime of magic around and always had that twinkle of good nature in his eyes. His good vibrations will never end. He gave such a gift to us all.”

Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio paid his own heartfelt tribute: “Bobby was completely allergic to compliments in the most endearing way. I’d say, ‘Man, that guitar riff you were doing on that song sounded really killer’ and he’d respond, ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll fuck it up next time.’ I loved that about him.”

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The post Warren Haynes on Bob Weir’s “childlike love” of music: “He was a real joy to play with” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“Honolulu March,” recorded by guitarists Pale K. Lua and David K. Kaili around 1914–15, reflects the early steel-guitar style that captivated mainland audiences during the first Hawaiian-music craze. Lua was one of the early lap-steel players to record commercially and tour the mainland with Hawaiian troupes at a time when the instrument’s sliding, vocal-like sound was still new to […]

Stevie Young – rhythm guitarist of rock titans AC/DC – has been admitted to hospital in Argentina ahead of the band’s upcoming show in Buenos Aires on Monday, 23 March.

According to a statement issued to Reuters, the 69-year-old guitarist still plans to perform with the band on Monday, and that his admission to hospital was “out of an abundance of caution”.

• READ MORE: Yamaha Chris Buck RS02CB review: one of the most compelling P-90-loaded electrics on the market

“Out of an abundance of caution, he [Stevie Young] was admitted to a local hospital where he is undergoing ​a full battery of tests,” reads the statement. 

“Stevie is doing well and ​is in good spirits. He is looking forward to getting on stage on Monday.”

Stevie Young joined AC/DC in 2014, after his uncle Malcolm Young stepped back from his duties due to health issues. Malcolm sadly passed away in 2017. Stevie had performed with AC/DC before, notably during 1988’s Blow Up Your Video World Tour. His first recordings with the band came on 2014’s Rock or Bust.

AC/DC are currently in the midst of a South America tour, having already played shows in São Paulo, Brazil and Santiago, Chile. After three shows in Buenos Aires on 23, 27 and 31 March, the band will head to Mexico, before commencing a string of shows in the US from July through September 2026.

View AC/DC’s official website for tickets and a full list of dates.

The post AC/DC rhythm guitarist Stevie Young admitted to hospital in Argentina appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Mateus Asato has long had a choppy relationship with social media. As someone who could be regarded as the quintessential Instagram guitarist (though he’s currently enjoying a successful career as an artist, too), he made waves in 2021 when he announced he was leaving social media, citing burnout and a lack of inspiration.

Though he’s now back on socials, he still appears to harbour some resentment towards the way platforms end up making us behave, as shown in a new Instagram Story.

• READ MORE: Guitar.com cover feature: “I know now that it’s not about competition” Mateus Asato is ready to be an artist

In the Story, Asato complains about the current state of the Instagram algorithm, which sees posts from accounts you actually follow enjoying less and less real estate on your feed. Essentially, just because you follow an account, it doesn’t mean you’ll see their posts, and your home page is mostly full of accounts you don’t even follow anyway.

“I miss the old IG,” Asato says. “I really do. At this point, my following section is close to ‘useless’. Everything I see is based on what I searched or spoke previously with someone or myself. Or where I am.”

Asato also complains about the need to post at specific times of the day to maximise audience engagement.

“If you’re overseas, forget it,” he continues. “Or wait until 4am to post it so your content can get the ‘highest’ amount of reach because this is the RIGHT timing where your audience is ALIVE. BS.”

And finally, the guitarist laments the “nonsense urge” social media users now have to add music and a soundtrack to their content.

“I miss just seeing pictures and reading things here without a miserable soundtrack,” he says. “Music is becoming a stupid and wrong source of distraction because of this nonsense urge to add a freaking noise over ANYTHING right now. “I really miss the old ‘meaning’ of the ordinary.”

Credit: Mateus Asato/Instagram

In other news, Mateus Asato recently ended his decade-long partnership with Suhr Guitars, prompting fans to speculate as to where he was planning to go next. He was quick to dispel rumours that he was joining Fender, saying he was “single and happy where I am at this point”.

The post Mateus Asato blasts the “nonsense urge” to add music to our social media posts: “Music is becoming a wrong source of distraction” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$1,299/£1,199, yamaha.com

When you’re a young guitar player trying to forge their own path, sometimes the weight of 60-plus years of history and baggage tied into classic instruments can weigh you down a little bit.

• READ MORE: Yamaha Pacifica SC Professional review – the ultimate in solidbody sophistication?

It was partly for this reason that Welsh guitar phenom and Cardinal Black member Chris Buck decided to swerve the usual suspects and opt for Yamaha’s Revstar guitar when he first burst onto the scene. “I feel like I’m stepping out of their shadows just by virtue of picking up a different guitar,” was Buck’s reasoning at the time.

It’s easy to forget that the Revstar itself is barely a decade old. Despite having carved itself out a niche as something of an underground modern classic thanks to its blend of high quality, affordability and timeless but unique looks, it’s still very much a new kid on the block compared to much of its competition.

It’s high time, then, for the first true Revstar signature model. And with Buck having established himself as the Revstar’s most consistent and beloved champion – having picked his first one up not long after they launched in 2015, and having since graduated to a premium guitar made by the Yamaha Artist Services (YASLA) custom shop in California – what better choice to be the debut honoree?

Image: Adam Gasson

Yamaha Chris Buck Revstar RS02CB – what is it?

The launch of Buck’s signature Revstar was one of the biggest announcements of this year’s NAMM Show – and also one of the most intriguing new electrics of the year. This is because the RS02CB is a pretty faithful recreation of the YASLA guitar he’s been playing since 2020.

Ever since, this pro-ready instrument has accompanied Buck all around the world, playing countless shows, sessions, clinics and everything in between – this is a workhorse guitar for one of the hardest-working and most respected young players in the business. And if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for you… in theory.

Over the last year or two we’ve become used to seeing Yamaha electric guitars pushing the envelope price-wise. While traditionally Yamaha electrics have been priced at the beginner end of the market, there’s little doubt that the brand has some of the finest brains in the business, and are more than capable of turning that skill to making pro-spec guitars for higher-level musicians.

We saw this first with the reimagined Pacifica range that launched at NAMM – guitars that brought every bit of the company’s innovation and know-how to the party but with a four-figure price tag to match.

Image: Adam Gasson

Given that the similarly ballpark Revstar Professional guitars are made in Yamaha’s Japan HQ, you might expect that the Buck version would do likewise, but instead it’s made in Indonesia, just like the Pacifica Standard Plus guitars are.

A little disappointing? Maybe, but we should all know by now that the flag flying over the shop where a guitar is made doesn’t really matter if the craftspeople inside know what they’re doing and are working with great designs and quality materials.

And that’s certainly what you’ll find with the RS02CB. The guitar is built around a set of brand new custom-designed P-90 pickups with Alnico III magnets, which replicate the sound of that YASLA guitar he’s come to rely on so much. These pickups are wired for slightly lower output, meaning greater clarity when played at lower volumes – something that Chris requested himself.

The guitar also features a new one for a production Yamaha guitar, in the shape of an intonatable wrapover tailpiece – as opposed to the various tune-o-matics you usually see on Revstar guitars.

Otherwise it’s very much a case of sticking with the familiar mojo of a Revstar guitar – a chambered mahogany body and neck with carbon reinforcement. The maple top is finished in a classic goldtop shade, and it’s given an extra touch of the classic with a pair of retro-style witch-hat knobs, and split block inlays.

Image: Adam Gasson

Yamaha Chris Buck Revstar RS02CB – build quality and playability

It’s no secret that Yamaha makes some of the most reliable guitars in the business, and the RS02CB is no exception to that rule. Removing the guitar from its gigbag and giving it a very thorough going over, it’s hard to find fault anywhere, to be honest; every seam, every surface is entirely free of marks or other cosmetic quality control issues.

A goldtop with a dark back is a classic for a reason, and in Revstar clothes here it remains utterly stunning in the flesh – striking just the right balance between flair and restrained, classic refinement.

The worst thing about a signature guitar is when it won’t stop shouting about it, thus negating the potential market outside of that artist’s fanbase. The Buck has no such worries on the cosmetic front – the only hint that this is anyone’s signature guitar is a tiny ‘CB’ signature on the back of the headstock.

And that’s very good news, because there’s plenty for any guitarist to enjoy here, even if you’ve never heard a note of Chris Buck’s music. A big part of this is down to the impressively luxurious playing experience that invites you in from the very first strum.

The satin-finished neck feels truly effortless from the bottom of the fingerboard all the way up to the top, while the TonePros AVT2 wraparound bridge sets the strings up for a gloriously low action throughout. The fretwork also deserves special mention here – each of the frets is wonderfully set, beautifully polished and butter smooth. Not something that you can say for every manufacturer at this price point and beyond.

Add to this a relatively flat 12” fretboard radius, and you’ve got a real playground for your fingers – especially if like Buck you’re someone who doesn’t mind busting out a searing lead or two. Unlike a lot of mahogany-maple guitars, the chambering of the body means that this Revstar isn’t too heavy either – around 7lbs – meaning practice sessions are comfortable. Even long ones.

The combination of that wraparound bridge and the silky smooth tuning machines (with Kluson-style green buttons) mean that this guitar stays in tune very well, and any adjustments can be made easily and precisely.

This is a very well-sorted guitar that bypasses any of the adjustment period you normally expect when picking up a new instrument. It’s effortless to pick up, play and slide into the zone with.

Image: Adam Gasson

Yamaha Chris Buck Revstar RS02CB – sounds

As you’d expect from any guitar with a pair of P-90s, the RS02CB comes with all the midrange bite you’ll need for blues and rock riffs. But flip to the neck pickup and your amp’s clean channel and softer styles like jazz are a real treat to play, too.

Part of the reason that Buck and scores of players before him have been drawn to the P-90 is their ability to remain impressively versatile within a seemingly limited framework.

Like other Revstars, the Buck signature has a three-way selector switch, with singular volume and tone knobs, with no push-pull functionality for series wiring, for example. This puts a lot of pressure on the controls here to offer that versatility, and the tone pot especially has an impressive spread that allows you to dial in a broad range of sounds.

But as you’d expect from a player like Buck, the guitar really feels like it’s been designed to ensure that the tonal possibilities come primarily from the player and their picking dynamics. As a result, the pickups are highly responsive to dynamic passages feel truly expressive.

That doesn’t mean this thing isn’t ready to rock, and piling on the gain doesn’t seem to phase these pickups in the slightest.

Image: Adam Gasson

Yamaha Chris Buck Revstar RS02CB – should I buy one?

There’s no escaping the fact that $1,200 is a lot of money for a Revstar – it’s a curse of Yamaha’s own making that you can get a guitar that on first glance looks very similar to this for less than half the price, and that mental leap is something the company is clearly also grappling with in the Pacifica realm too.

But the magic is in the details, and while there’s undoubtedly a lot of competition for this guitar in this price bracket, you’re still getting an awful lot of guitar for the money here. It plays superbly, sounds fantastic and has killer looks that aren’t, as Buck points out, burdened by 70-odd years of history. A fitting milestone for a modern classic.

[products ids=”SC8JztJ5X8lk7WSuXvp20″]

Yamaha Chris Buck Revstar RS02CB – alternatives

A lot of the competition for the RE02CB comes from Yamaha’s own line, and if you’re not too wedded to the unique features of the Buck model, you can save yourself over $300 and grab a P-90-loaded Revstar Standard RSS02T ($829.99 / £649). If you’ve got a little more room in your budget, the Gibson SG Special ($1,599 / £1,399) is a tried and true twin P-90 classic, while the Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Double Cut Special ($999 / £999) is another timelessly cool option.

The post Yamaha Chris Buck RS02CB review: one of the most compelling P-90-loaded electrics on the market appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.