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Acorn Amplifiers Solid State Preamplifier review – the ‘Peavey in a box’ you didn’t know you needed?
$179/£169, acornamps.com, joespedals.com
The clip is easy to find on YouTube – just search for “Josh Homme’s secret weapon”. The Queens of the Stone Age frontman goes off to find the amplifier, a crappy little 1980 Peavey Decade practice combo, then pops it up on his lap and tells the interviewer: “This thing is incredible.”
That was enough to prompt Peavey to create a signature reissue of the amp itself, as well as including a Decade model in the line of pedals it put out last year. And it also prompted Atlanta builder Acorn Amplifiers to give this 10W titan the proper boutique stompbox treatment – in the shape of the Solid State Preamplifier.
Image: Richard Purvis
Acorn Amplifiers Solid State Preamplifier – what is it?
Strictly speaking, this isn’t a Peavey in a box – it’s a Peavey in a box in a box. Because the SSP is a compact version of the Acorn Solid State, a bigger pedal that includes a recreation of the Decade’s output stage and can be plugged straight into a speaker cab. The preamp-only model might not be able to do that but it keeps all the core features – three-band EQ, footswitchable ‘normal’ and ‘saturated’ channels, pre and post gain controls – and adds a toggle switch marked ‘thick’ for a chunkier tone option.
The main drawback of the downsizing process seems to have been in reducing the gap between the two footswitches. Hitting one and not the other on an empty floor can be tricky; in the middle of a packed pedalboard, it’ll surely be like trying to perform brain surgery with barbecue tongs.
One design feature I do like is the light-up Acorn logo, which turns from cheery green to fiendish red when you engage the saturated channel (and is extra-bright when running off 18 volts). Pity there’s no way of telling which channel is selected when the pedal’s in bypass, though – you just have to remember how you left it.
Image: Richard Purvis
Acorn Amplifiers Solid State Preamplifier – what does it sound like?
Deliberate spoiler for anyone who just wants to know if it sounds like Songs For The Deaf: yes, in the right setup, it absolutely does. But between the channel footswitch and the toggle, there are four very different sound zones to explore here and that’s just one of them.
The normal channel goes from clean to medium-scuzzy, adding a crisp edge to the top end and some decidedly solid-state firmness to the bottom. This could certainly serve as an always-on tone improver for some players. The firmness doesn’t last long when you flip the switch down, however: now you get a more wiry kind of crunch that flirts with horribleness at times but mostly keeps things nicely clear and ultra-sparkly.
Switch to the saturated channel and the first thing you might notice is a fractional difference in output level – up or down, depending on where the pre gain is set and whether you’re using 9v or 18v. Sadly, there are no individual volume controls to correct that; happily, this channel is a monster. The effects of the toggle seem to be magnified here: the thin mode is beautifully abrasive, in stark contrast to the chunky richness – albeit still edgy – of the thick setting.
In both cases it really does sound just like the dirty channel of a small transistor amp from the 80s: raw and insolent in the best way imaginable. It’ll even do the old doomy scoop if you kill the thickness, set the mids to zero and max out the gain.
Image: Richard Purvis
Acorn Amplifiers Solid State Preamplifier – should I buy it?
The sound of this pedal is hard, dry, unrefined – all the things that some of us longed to escape from when a little practice amp was all we had. But that stuff has a vibe of its own, and a usefulness beyond mere nostalgia, especially when it’s presented in such a smart and multifaceted package.
Practical issues might limit its appeal for live work, but maybe it’s fitting that the SSP’s real strength should lie behind the scenes as a recording tool – just like Josh’s old Peavey.
Image: Richard Purvis
Acorn Amplifiers Solid State Preamplifier alternatives
It’s made in Taiwan, but the Peavey Decade Preamp ($199/£179) does have the right name – in the classic spiky font – on the front. More interested in the Josh Homme connection? The Stone Deaf PDF-2 (£160) is the latest version of a drive and EQ pedal he actually uses, while the Funny Little Boxes Skeleton Key (£99) is a ‘dirty boost’ inspired by the sounds of QOTSA.
PS. Thanks to Joe’s Pedals, Acorn’s UK dealer, for the loan of the SSP.
The post Acorn Amplifiers Solid State Preamplifier review – the ‘Peavey in a box’ you didn’t know you needed? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Totally Guitars Weekly Update March 13, 2026
March 13, 2026 A random improv started today’s Update, followed by some discussion on time signatures and strumming techniques. The time signature thoughts cited Nights In White Satin, Lucky Man and Stormy Monday. The technique primer was on using rest strokes to hit bass notes cleanly. The progression to Mr. Bojangles was used as an […]
The post Totally Guitars Weekly Update March 13, 2026 appeared first on On The Beat with Totally Guitars.
“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
![[L-R] Eddie Vedder and Keith Richards](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Vedder-Richards@2000x1500.jpg)
Back in November 1997, Pearl Jam had the opportunity to open for the Rolling Stones across four shows at California’s Oakland Stadium. And on the final gig of the run, frontman Eddie Vedder was invited to actually play with the Stones for one song only.
And in a new interview with Howard Stern, Vedder recalls choosing which song he wanted to play with the band. After initially being sceptical about performing Let’s Spend the Night Together for fear he wouldn’t be able to “keep up” with frontman Mick Jagger, he opted for the band’s 1981 ballad, Waiting on a Friend.
Describing the “interesting experience” of performing with the rock legends, Vedder recounts the daunting experience of playing on a stage so big, and performing the song with minimal prior rehearsal.
“There was no introduction or anything,” Vedder says [via American Songwriter] , adding that when he asked whether he should go out on stage when the band started performing the song, “everyone turned their head, like, ‘I have nothing to do with this.’”
“Mick looked like a football field away … and he’s singing it already, and I’m coming in for the second verse. So I just kind of tucked my head down… and then just walked to the middle and started singing. It was okay.”
Vedder recalls later telling guitarist Keith Richards: “Hey, sorry, man – your man [Mick] left me hanging a bit there,” to which Richards replied: “Don’t you worry about it, me boy. He’s been doing that to me for 35 years.”
Vedder also remembers being struck by the “liquidity” of Keef’s playing: “You’re standing on the side of the stage, and it’s a big stage. It’s a stadium in Oakland, and Mick’s in the middle and then Keith, and you’re standing right next to Keith’s amp, like behind it. And then you’re listening to the liquidity of what he plays. It’s like he’s never playing the same thing once.”
You can listen to audio from the performance below:
The post “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 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Former Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent has released an album – but you’ll have to pay $2 million to hear it
Vinnie Vincent hastens to call his new album Guitarmaggedon “one of the greatest rock albums of all time”. In fact, the former Kiss guitarist is so confident in his latest body of work that he’s placed upon it a $2 million barrier, which one wealthy rock fan must pay him in order to hear it.
It’s pretty common for a creative person to play down their talent and creative output in a bid to stay humble. It would appear Vincent suffers from no such concerns…
Bearing a $2 million price tag, Guitarmaggedon is a fully completed album comprising 10 tracks in total. That’s $200,000 per track, for the mathematically challenged…
Essentially, Vinnie Vincent’s marketing strategy for the album is as follows: one wealthy fan must pay him $2 million, after which point they are free to release it and share it with the wider world, should they choose to do so.
The fee includes a selection of artwork accompanying the album, including per-song artwork – you know, in case you were worried you weren’t getting your money’s worth.
“I am very proud of this very special album,” Vincent explains [via Guitar World]. “The entire album will be offered in master format only for $2,000,000. This includes 10 songs mixed in master, final product format, all the master files of the artwork, related posters, and 10 separate vinyl and CD packaging art for each individual song, should the buyer choose to release the album on a per-song basis.
“The buyer can choose to release the entire album in any format they desire; vinyl, CD, or any other configuration, in whole or in part, at their discretion. All marketing plans and ideas require approval by Vinnie Vincent. The price does not include any right, title, or interest in the copyrights and/or trademarks related to Vinnie Vincent or the product itself.
He goes on: “If the buyer wishes to purchase any associated rights in the compositions, a separate agreement can be arranged and negotiated. The price will also include a perpetual license to use the brand name, ‘Vinnie Vincent Invasion’ and ‘Vinnie Vincent’ for the life of the album.”
It’s easy to brand such prices as slightly ridiculous, but there are enough wealthy music fans out there to make it worth having a shot in the eyes of the seller. Just take the recent Jim Irsay auction, for example, which saw David Gilmour’s legendary black Fender Stratocaster sell for a gargantuan $14,550,000.
The post Former Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent has released an album – but you’ll have to pay $2 million to hear it appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Paul Gilbert: WROC-ing in the Free World
Guitar virtuoso/singer-songwriter Paul Gilbert’s latest release, WROC, a homophone of “rock,” is based on George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation. Yes, the George Washington you learned about in middle school—Gilbert’s one of the few people on the planet that can make a history lesson fun!
While Gilbert’s peers in his early metal days were more inclined to doodle pentagrams and flip through the Satanic Bible, Gilbert had vastly different interests. “I read a bunch of Founding Father writings decades ago,” he explains to PG. “I was curious, so I bought the full, thick compendium of everything written by Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. There are no stories there; instead it’s almost like finding somebody’s emails from hundreds of years ago. That was the first time I came across Washington’s Rules of Civility, and the idea of being more civil, of having better manners, somehow that was appealing to me.”
In February of last year, Gilbert had just wrapped up the final concert of Mr. Big’s “The Big Finale” tour at Tokyo’s storied Budokan, and on the flight home, both inspiration and Rules of Civility struck. “I was thinking, ‘Okay, it’s a new start for me,’ and I was excited about what to do next. I had an internet connection on the plane, and that excitement turned into this conversation with AI,” he recalls. “I couldn’t remember what they were called, I just sort of remembered there were these rules that Washington tried to follow when he was a kid. So I Googled around and asked AI, and refreshed my memory.”
Gilbert and his chatbot then worked in tandem to dissect lyrics out of Washington’s rules. “I said, ‘Take a random Washington rule and turn it into a blues lyric.’ And in three seconds, I got this Washington rule turned into a blues lyric,” he says. Gilbert then proceeded to ask AI to do additional things: Make the chorus repeat more. Find a different Washington rule for the bridge. “I was sort of telling AI what to do. That was my initial process,” he says. “As I went on, I realized it was better if I did it myself, because I know what I want. So then my conversation with AI changed. Instead of having AI do it, I said, ‘AI, give me the list of rules.’ There’s 110 of them, so I said, ‘Put them in order according to length—the short ones first and the longest last.’ That way, when I’m searching around, if I just need a short line, I don’t have to hunt through the whole book.”
Washington’s rules were the perfect springboard for Gilbert. “I love writing from a lyric—it’s so much easier than any other way of songwriting,” he says. “It was maybe the most fun I’ve ever had writing songs in my life. It’s almost escapism—I can get out of myself and enter some other world. I would take [Washington’s] lines and try to make it into a melody. Then once I had that, all the jobs that follow are my favorite jobs. I love finding chords for a melody, I love the balance of repetition—but not too much. You get to that point where it’s like, ‘Okay, that’s too many repeats, I’ve got to pull it back and find, like, a weird note that I haven’t used yet.’ And that will inspire a chord I didn’t think of. That whole craft is something I really have fun with.”
Paul Gilbert’s Gear
Guitars (live)
Ibanez FRM350 Paul Gilbert signature
Ibanez PGM50 Paul Gilbert Signature
1970s Ibanez IC200
Ibanez RS530
Ibanez Custom Shop PGM Paul Gilbert Signature (pink)
1970s Ibanez double neck (set neck version)
Guitars (studio)
Ibanez AS7312
1970s Ibanez 751 acoustic
Amps
1990s Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb into a Randall isolation cabinet
1960s Fender Vibrolux Reverb as a wedge monitor
Victoria Club Deluxe (turned on for solos as a volume boost)
Effects
Distortion pedals for main amp:
Xotic AC Booster (always on)
JHS Overdrive Preamp
Mojo Hand Colossus
Distortion pedals for solo boost amp:
MXR Distortion+
Xotic AC Booster
Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus
Boss LS-2 Line Selector (Gilbert has two: one to switch between distortion and clean, the other to switch on solo boost amp)
“Clean” pedals:
Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer
Catalinbread Callisto
“Modulation” pedals:
JAM Pedals RetroVibe
MXR Stereo Chorus
Home Brew Electronics THC Three Hound Chorus
Sabbadius Tiny-Vibe
Strings, Picks, Slides & Cables
Ernie Ball Mighty Slinky (.0085–.040; Gilbert replaces the .040 with a .046)
Dunlop Tortex III .73 mm picks
Dunlop 318 Chromed Steel slide
Divine Noise coiled cable
DiMarzio straight cables, patch cables, and speaker cables
In a perfect world, Gilbert would have loved to use Washington’s rules exactly as they were written, but each song went a different way. To turn the rules into songs and make them singable, Gilbert had to resort to some basic rules of songwriting. “The first trick is just to repeat things. Or repeat an ending,” he explains. “Like, ‘If you soak bread in the sauce, let it be no more, let it be no more.’ You sing the last line twice, it becomes more like a song. So a lot of that is, you sing a line and then take the end of it and repeat it. And then once I had the verse, I might grab the book and flip through to find the bridge. Some of the songs are really simple in that I just sort of repeat the same part, but the second verse will have a harmony to it, so that’ll take it to a different direction.”
The chord progressions on some WROC songs like “Orderly and Distinctly” reveal a harmonic palette that stands out among today’s songwriters. When I covered Gilbert’s Great Guitar Escape camp in 2013, the nightly jams featured harmonically rich songs like the Bee Gees’ “How Deep is Your Love,” and ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” These types of compositions inform Gilbert’s writing style, and their influences can be heard on many of the chord progressions on WROC.
“The idea of being more civil, of having better manners, somehow that was appealing to me.”
“That comes from growing up in the ’60s and ’70s and hearing a lot of piano-composed songs,” he says. “I was listening to Elton John, the Carpenters, Todd Rundgren, Queen, the Beatles, the Beach Boys. And you know, there’s some chords in there. That was the hard thing for me as a kid—and it was really helpful for me to go to school [in 1984 Gilbert enrolled at GIT, now called Musician’s Institute] to learn that stuff, because I was essentially an ear player. I’ve learned by ear mostly. I never had a deep knowledge of harmony until I went to school, and then I started filling in the missing puzzle pieces.”
Gilbert continues, “I remember learning ‘God Only Knows.’ I’m ruminating about the half-diminished chord in that song because it was so important to me. Or another one is, ‘When I Grow Up to Be a Man.’ The opening vocal harmony, I don’t even know what it’s called—I know what it looks like. It’s like a sharp 11 or something. It’s really a crazy chord and it starts the song off. And I don’t necessarily have to know what it’s called—whenever I hear one of those things I know it’s the ‘When I Grow up to Be a Man’ chord. My wife [Emi Gilbert] is amazing at jazz piano, but she began as a classical piano player. So some of the jazz chords are new to her and she’ll be like, ‘What is that?’ Well, there’s that Beach Boys chord. I can spot it. And I think the Beatles were like that. They weren’t trained in the vocabulary of the terminology. But they were really well trained with songs.”
As the songs for WROC started coming together, Gilbert made an interesting, and unfortunate, discovery about AI, his writing partner. “I learned that AI doesn’t always tell you the exact truth. It’ll make stuff up,” he says. He found this out when he did a Google search for a rule he used for a song title—and nothing came up. Gilbert recalls, “I then asked AI, ‘Which Washington rule is this?’ And AI was like, ‘That’s not any Washington rule.’ I said, ‘Well, you gave it to me. You were the one that told me.’ And the response was, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I must have hallucinated.’ So I was searching through this list, and now I know it was about 80 percent correct and 20 percent hallucinated. And that was a good learning experience.”
The lesson? “Always double check your AI, because it’ll just make stuff up,” he says. Nevertheless, one song on the album, “Conscience is the Most Certain Judge” features some of these AI hallucinations—Gilbert kept them because he felt they were still in the correct spirit. He also took poetic license and composed variations with his own words on “Show Yourself Not Glad at the Misfortune of Another.”
WROC, of course, is more than a mere (AI-assisted) history lesson. Since his Racer X days, Gilbert’s fanbase has been heavily populated by guitar geeks that salivate at every 16th-note run he unleashes. As is to be expected, WROC showcases Gilbert’s fiery six-string work. The opener, “Keep Your Feet Firm and Even,” kicks off with characteristic neoclassical licks and harmonized melodic lines. “Maintain a Sweet and Cheerful Countenance,” meanwhile, is built on an incendiary harmonized jazz/fusion and prog-influenced riff in the intro, which leads to a solo that sees Gilbert tearing it up on the slide—a texture he’s been exploring over the past decade.
“I learned that AI doesn’t always tell you the exact truth.”
Gilbert’s slightly unusual guitar setup accommodates both his newfound slide inclinations and his legacy speed-demon licks. While Gilbert’s strings are very light—he uses .0085 for his high-E string (at this year’s NAMM convention, while performing with Steve Morse at the Ernie Ball booth, he even admitted to using .007s on that day)—the guitar’s action is set fairly high. “It’s funny, I did a guitar clinic in Italy where I didn’t bring my own guitar,” he says. “All the students let me use their guitars, so there were, like, ten guitars on a stand. They said, ‘Use any guitar you want,’ and I picked this one up and I hurt myself. Everybody had .010s and low action and, man, I can’t play .010s with low action. I can’t get a grip on the string, and I bend all the time.”
Even though he’s been most often identified throughout his career as a guitar hero, Gilbert’s focus hasn’t been strictly on the guitar. Since King of Clubs, his 1997 debut solo album, his abilities as a lead vocalist have come to the forefront. Gilbert is a charismatic frontman who can belt out songs in a multitude of styles. He readily admits, however, that guitar is still more natural for him. “As a lead singer—which, really, if you want to be a pop musician, singing is very important—my voice always had limitations that my hands didn’t have,” he says. “If I sat down and practiced, you know, I could play this Van Halen thing. Whereas if I practice singing, I still couldn’t sing ‘Oh! Darling’ by the Beatles, no matter how much I practiced.”
Currently, Gilbert’s guitar practice goals are less about mechanics and more about melody. The days of endlessly repeating outside picking exercises with an ever-increasing-in-tempo metronome have taken a backseat to his new obsession with mastering the ability to instantaneously play the melodies he hears in his head on the guitar. Being able to produce a melody on the guitar with the proper inflections is an art that isn’t nearly as easy as it might sound (especially doing it on the spot in real time), even if you can shred scales and arpeggios at supersonic speeds. “It’s funny, right before this interview I was practicing improvising over Gary Moore’s ‘Still Got the Blues,’” he says. “Which has challenging changes, almost like ‘Autumn Leaves.’ To me, that’s a rough, rolling rapid of rocky river to navigate, but I’m getting better at it. Step one is I found all the shapes—the shape for the B half-diminished and for the E7. But then I’m using my eyes to navigate, like, ‘This shape goes into this shape.’ That’s useful to some extent, but it’s not coming from my singer’s voice. So now I sit down and go, ‘Don’t play it if you can’t sing it.’ And I force myself to sing and solo at the same time.
“I’m not great at it yet,” Gilbert continues, “so it’s risky to do it because it does slow everything down. But the more I do it, the better it gets, and there’s a real payoff at the end. But it feels like I’m telling the truth when I really play what was in there. Suddenly everything’s connected and it tells a story.”
This Line 6 Helix Floor has been used onstage with Ed Sheeran – and it’s listed on Reverb for a totally reasonable price
Reverb is a great place to find unusual gear gems, and occasionally, you might just come across something that’s been used on stage with a huge celeb.
Right now, one seller has listed their used Line 6 Helix Floor, and says it’s been used on stage with Ed Sheeran, of all people. The seller, based in London, has owned the Helix Floor since 2019, and says it has been used on tour with not only Ed Sheeran, but also R&B singer Jorja Smith.
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They say it is in great condition minus one small screw missing from the IEC power socket, but the unit itself works perfectly fine. They’re also including an original Helix backpack case for transport. The seller doesn’t have much information on their profile, but has provided a YouTube link of them using it for a performance of Bad Habits with Sheeran in 2021 (though it is difficult to see the unit in shot).
They also say it was used for a recorded performance of Smith’s Falling or Flying on Later… With Jools Holland, and one of the provided pictures shows the unit displaying “She Feels” on its screen, the title of a Jorja Smith song. Most gear used alongside well-known artists is often sold at higher prices, but this Helix Floor is listed at £660. Most brand-new Helix Floors still sell for around £999.
The Helix Floor first launched back in 2015, and has undergone several updates over the years that have expanded its offerings of amps, cabs, mics, and effects. The Helix utilises Line 6’s HX modelling engine, and captures the sonic nuance and dynamic response of vintage and modern gear.
Line 6 has recently upped the ante for its offering of floorboard modellers with its new Helix Stadium line. At its huge announcement last year, the company teased the pair of new modellers, with the flagship Helix Stadium XL Floor earning an earlier release and shipping out at the end of 2025. Now, the standard Helix Stadium Floor has just begun shipping.
While the XL model offers the most “comprehensive and integrated guitar processor ever created by Line 6”, according to the brand, the smaller Helix Stadium Floor offers a cheaper, more streamlined alternative. It scraps the built-in expression pedal, and halves the amount of effects loops, external expression pedals, and drum trigger inputs it can support to just two each.
To check out the Line 6 Helix used on stage with Ed Sheeran and Jorja Smith, head to Reverb.
The post This Line 6 Helix Floor has been used onstage with Ed Sheeran – and it’s listed on Reverb for a totally reasonable price appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Laney just launched its pocket-sized smart amp, the Prism-Mini – and you can already save $30 at Sweetwater
Laney launched a brand new compact smart amp last week, and you can already save your pennies on it over at Sweetwater.
The Prism-Mini is a new rival to Positive Grid’s Spark GO, offering a whole bunch of presets, Bluetooth connectivity, a full-colour LCD screen, and an accompanying Tone Wizard app for tweaking and fine-tuning your tone. This tiny blue amp is already on sale with $30 off.
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Small but mighty for a pint-sized desktop amplifier, it has a 14-hour rechargeable battery, a built-in tuner, and features 100 presets (50 factory, 50 user). You’ve also got 17 amps and 32 effects on board, and you can even use up to six effects simultaneously in stereo.
- READ MORE: Victory Amplification’s new PowerValve 200 brings “authentic valve response and tone to modern rigs”
Its 50 factory presets are not just your run-of-the-mill tones either, as they were inspired by Laney’s endorsed artists, including Tony Iommi, Billy Corgan, Devin Townsend, Lari Basillio, Tom Quayle, and Jack Gardiner.
These sounds are all delivered through a rather serious speaker setup for an amp this size – the Prism-Mini features dual 1.5” woofers and a true stereo 3W + 3W output, promising a “wider and more detailed soundstage” than the typical single-speaker mini amp.
The back panel also hosts a headphone jack for private listening, and the free Tone Wizard app enables players to not only control their effects and amps, but also stream music from a smartphone. Additionally, it even provides you with an app-based drum machine.
In other Laney news, the brand unveiled the Supergrace Loudpedal in January, a floor-based dual-amplifier platform that puts Billy Corgan’s live rig within reach. Developed in close collaboration with the Smashing Pumpkins frontman, Supergrace captures the core of his touring sound.
At its heart are two of Corgan’s essential amplifier voices: the high-gain Carstens Grace, and the famed Laney Supergroup, distilled into a single, compact 60-Watt floor unit.
The Laney Prism-Mini is reduced to $149.99 now at Sweetwater.
The post Laney just launched its pocket-sized smart amp, the Prism-Mini – and you can already save $30 at Sweetwater appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Sharon told him he was out of his f**king mind”: Jake E. Lee recalls when producer Ron Nevison tried to replace him on Ozzy Osbourne’s The Ultimate Sin
Recording an Ozzy Osbourne album should be a dream gig for any guitarist. For Jake E. Lee, however, making 1986’s The Ultimate Sin was a “terrible” experience – largely thanks to clashes with producer Ron Nevison.
In a new interview with Guitar World, the former Ozzy guitarist looks back on the making of the record, and how tensions with Nevison escalated to the point where the producer even suggested replacing him altogether.
Asked what it was like working with Nevison, Lee doesn’t mince words: “Terrible. [Laughs] It was butting heads from the beginning,” he says. “Ozzy gave us a list of producers, and it wasn’t my choice per se, but he asked me, and I thought Nevison was a guitar producer since he’d worked with UFO and Led Zeppelin, so he had my vote.”
The problems started almost immediately – beginning with something as simple as studio hours. Lee, who had recorded Bark at the Moon during late-night sessions, insisted that rock music was a “nighttime” affair.
“I’m a nighttime guy, right? To me, rock is nighttime music you play in clubs until closing time. It didn’t feel like a daytime thing to me,” says the guitarist. “I recorded at night, and that’s how we did Bark at the Moon. Max Norman, who produced that, was cool with that. Ron Nevison wasn’t. He told Sharon [Osbourne] that he wanted to start no later than noon.”
“Sharon told me that, and I said, ‘Noon? I’m not even thinking about waking up then. I won’t start any earlier than 6 p.m.’ So right off the bat, we had problems, and Nevison told Sharon, ‘I know a lot of guitar players… we don’t have to use him. We can use other people to come in and play the parts. I have all the demos.’”
The idea was shot down by Sharon immediately. As Lee recalls, “It was ridiculous. He obviously had no idea what Ozzy was. He’s not somebody who brings in fucking guitar players. But Sharon told me that, and I said, ‘Really? And what did you say?’ Sharon said, ‘I told him he was out of his fucking mind. You’re playing the guitar. How about we start at 3?’”
“That was a good compromise, so I said I’d come in at 3, but I never did,” Lee admits. “I’d get up, look at the clock and if I saw it was 3, I’d say, ‘Oh, shit, I better get ready…’ But I never showed up earlier than maybe 4. I just hated the idea of forcing myself to wake up and play during the day. It felt wrong to me to make an album that would last forever that way. It irked me.”
The friction didn’t stop there. Lee says he prefers recording in the live room with his amp cranked “because I like getting feedback”, but his first session brought about another dispute – this time about temperature.
“I went into the room, and it was fucking freezing,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘What the hell? Can you warm up the room?’ Nevison said, ‘No. I like my musicians to be awake. The cold keeps them awake and alert.’”
“I said, ‘Fuck you. You know what it also does? It makes my fingers fucking slow because they’re frozen. I can’t play like that.’ So we argued about the temperature in the room, which I won. I said, ‘I’m just not fucking playing when my fingers are fucking cold. Fuck you.’ [Laughs] He acquiesced.”
The post “Sharon told him he was out of his f**king mind”: Jake E. Lee recalls when producer Ron Nevison tried to replace him on Ozzy Osbourne’s The Ultimate Sin appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Derek Trucks played Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” guitar live just one day after it sold for $11.5 million – and broke a string
Jerry Garcia’s legendary “Tiger” guitar barely had time to settle into its new home before it was back in action. Just one day after selling for a staggering $11,560,000 at Christie’s, Derek Trucks put the instrument through its paces onstage with the Tedeschi Trucks Band at New York’s Beacon Theatre.
Trucks’ performance came during the band’s ongoing Beacon residency, immediately following the historic auction in New York City. Tiger was purchased as part of the Jim Irsay Collection, a multi-day sale featuring hundreds of the late Indianapolis Colts owner’s prized possessions, from rare instruments to pop culture memorabilia.
The guitar was purchased by Bobby Tseitlin of Family Guitars, who makes it clear that Tiger is part of a “living, breathing collection”, meant to be played rather than “locked away in a vault or hidden behind glass”.
Tseitlin is also owner of a number of other high-profile instruments, including items once belonging to the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia, as well as a Dave Davies-owned Flying V and a Telecaster belonging to blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield.
Derek Trucks must have been visualising his performance before the historic Christie’s sale, as it’s also been revealed he was sat next to Tseitlin when he placed his winning bid. Despite the instrument’s eight-figure value, Trucks wasn’t overly careful with his performance at the Beacon Theatre, and even ended up breaking a string mid-set…
“Every scratch, every worn fret, every vibration in the wood carries the fingerprints of the musicians who played them and the songs that defined generations,” Family Guitars notes on its website. “Our mission is simple: keep these guitars alive.”
On Friday night, Trucks put that philosophy into action, performing several songs on the instrument, including Blind Willie McTell’s Statesboro Blues, Frank Zappa’s Willie the Pimp, John Prine’s Angel From Montgomery, and Garcia’s own Sugaree.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Trucks describes the guitar’s unique feel: “It’s a really heavy guitar, but it’s really articulate when you play it. So there’s no hiding anywhere. You’re going to hear all of it, every note. It almost speaks like a piano in some ways, where everything’s clean and even. It’s not for the faint of heart. You need to know what you’re doing to play that guitar. I wasn’t worried about hurting that thing. It’s a big old heavy beast, and he can handle it.”
The Christie’s auction also made headlines beyond Tiger, with David Gilmour’s black Fender Stratocaster fetching $14,550,000, claiming the title of the most expensive guitar ever sold, a record previously held by Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E.
The post Derek Trucks played Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” guitar live just one day after it sold for $11.5 million – and broke a string appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me: I’m 19!” Grace Bowers is determined to forge her own path
The music industry isn’t very good at understanding artists who don’t want to sit in a box, particularly strong young women. This is the story of Grace Bowers, and even we don’t have her figured out like we thought.
Today she is happily “doing nothing”, and her uber-chilled manner is exactly the same as it is when she’s playing before thousands or walking red carpets. ‘Would you say you’re an old soul?’ Guitar.com asks, expecting a resounding yes. While in some respects she agrees, Bowers feels she’s in the right place at the right time. None of this ‘born in the wrong generation’ schtick.
Grace Bowers on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
The proof in the pudding? Her winning combination of utilising social media and playing as many live shows as possible to get where she wanted to be. Now 19 years old, she’s shared stages with artists like Slash and Dolly Parton, has played the US national anthem at an NFL game, and even performed at the 2024 Grammy awards with Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
But Bowers doesn’t want to be defined as a guitar prodigy, or as any one thing at all. We’re about to meet a completely different version of her, and in another five years we’ll likely meet another. She’s excited about this, and is working on new music that is a huge departure from her 2024 funk-laden debut, Wine On Venus.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“I’m leaning very heavily on rock and punk, while also combining some pop elements. It’s more me. The stuff I was doing before, I got really into funk and was in this jam band world. I realised very quickly, ‘Oh, I do not fuck with this,’” she laughs.
“I feel like there’s such a movement right now with hardcore and punk. Rock bands are coming back. You have Geese and Yungblud… it’s super inspiring to me. I’m like, ‘What can I add to this?’ What I have is not straight ahead rock, it’s very modern sounding.”
“Nothing came naturally at first. I f**king sucked when I first started. It was years and years of non-stop practice”
Diving in
This is a woman with a mission, and one that’s been in her back pocket from her early gigs in dingy dive bars. Originally from a small town in the East Bay of Northern California, Bowers and her family moved to Nashville in the middle of the pandemic, when guitar became her core focus.
Her relationship with the instrument began far before then, just not as smoothly as you may think: “Nothing came naturally at first. I fucking sucked when I first started,” she confesses. “I was trash. It was years and years of non-stop practice.”
Bowers began playing at age nine, and with no other musical members of her family, she had to figure things out on her own. She once had dreams of becoming a football player, but stumbling upon Guns N’ Roses’ Welcome To The Jungle music video made her instantly want to learn her way around a guitar.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“When I first started I had a teacher and he taught from a church. I would always come to him asking to play AC/DC’s Highway To Hell. He was like, ‘No, that’s not Christian. I can’t teach you that.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, whatever,’ and I go home and learn it by ear,” she remembers.
Moving to Nashville wasn’t an intentional way for Bowers to chase music. Her family wanted a change, and it’s almost as if by destiny the sweet sounds of Music City became inescapable and influential. “I was immediately surrounded by music 24/7, I didn’t have a choice!” she says gleefully. “It definitely inspired me. Being able to go to shows and be around other musicians was something I never would have gotten where I used to live, so that honestly changed my life.”
Meanwhile, Bowers’ social media presence was burgeoning, and opportunities to play in front of real people began to land in her lap. Summarising the vibe of these early dive bar shows, Bowers treads carefully. “It’s kind of dirty, honestly. But you know what? Some of the most fun I’ve ever had has been on a cramped stage with people I just met. You have a musical freedom knowing that half these people aren’t listening. On the other side, maybe the other 50 per cent are listening, and you never know who’s in the crowd.
“I get people in my DMs all the time like, ‘How do I start doing what you did?’ Dude, go to open mics! Go see local bands, get connected. At the same time, keep posting your stuff on social media,” she urges.
“I feel like there’s such a movement right now with hardcore and punk. Rock bands are coming back”
On another planet
Bowers recorded her Wine On Venus album when she was 16. Produced by John Osborne and made with the Hodge Podge band formed off the back of various jam sessions, its sound naturally became a funkadelic melting pot of soul and blues. Now, over a year on from its release, her connection to the album has certainly changed.
“I can’t go back and listen to it,” she admits. “I had never written a song before and my agent was like, ‘I’m having trouble booking you because you don’t have music out.’ I’m super glad that I did it. It was an incredible experience, and there are songs on it that will always be near and dear to my heart because of what they were written about.” Its title track was dedicated to her grandmother, who lived to be 100 years old.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“At the same time, it’s not the kind of music I want to make anymore. I didn’t even know what kind of music I wanted to make when I was 16. I also don’t tour with that band anymore, so it definitely stands as a phase of my life that is documented. But I don’t really associate myself with it anymore.”
In line with the punky spirit Bowers is channeling within her new music, she’s becoming more and more in tune with what she wants, and has less time to care about what others want from her.
“Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me,” she says ardently. “I’m 19! The music I play now versus the music I played when I was 16 or 17 is vastly different. People get upset about that. I’m like, think about when you were 16… You were probably a different person. That’s what kind of sucks about being on social media all the time; I’ve grown up in front of so many people.”
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
There is one thing that has remained consistent across her career so far that will likely never waver: Bowers’ connection to the Gibson SG. Though she may occasionally dabble with a Stratocaster when in need of a different sound, it’s the SG she is most drawn to.
“First of all, they look cool,” she states. “I feel like I can get most of the things that I need out of the SG because it has a lot of versatility that people don’t realise. They probably see an SG and associate it with Angus Young or Tony Iommi. Really, it can be used for everything.”
Bowers’ pedalboard is “pretty bare”, but she never goes without a wah pedal (typically a Vox or Dunlop Cry Baby), keeps a highly-coveted Analog Man King Of Tone on constant, and occasionally uses a chorus pedal on a low setting. She’s not opposed to the idea of embracing an amp modeller to save on space, but right now, Bowers bleeds tube amp supremacy: “Fender Deluxe Reverb all the way. It has never done me wrong.”
“Some of the most fun I’ve ever had has been on a cramped stage with people I just met”
Reaching for the stars
Before we get out of Bowers’ signature curly blonde hair, we take some time to look back on the bedlam and beauty of all she has conquered. “If you told me five years ago, ‘You’re gonna play the Grammys one day,’ I’d be like, ‘Get out!’ I never would have thought that posting videos from my bedroom could lead to something like that. It’s trippy,” she says.
The trick to performing with world-famous artists and nailing it? “Don’t overthink it,” she replies. “For me, it goes better when I just let things happen. They’re asking you to play with them because they like what you do. So you shouldn’t all of a sudden start to change or overthink. They’re asking you for you, and not to sound like someone else.”
While at the Grammys, Bowers also got to meet Taylor Swift, who reassured her she knew exactly how she felt as someone who was also once the only teenager in the room. Elsewhere on her bucket list of dream collabs is Olivia Rodrigo, and she’s a big fan of trailblazing women in modern punk.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“It would be a dream to open for her,” Bowers says dreamily. “There’s a lot of really awesome bands out right now. I just met The Linda Lindas – I’m a huge fan of them, and Amyl And The Sniffers, Lambrini Girls.”
With such a large and colourful career, she thankfully has outlets that allow her to switch off and stay in tune with herself outside of music. She works with a modelling agency and loves to experiment with style, “whether it’s high fashion or a really cool pair of blue jeans”. She skateboards, enjoys long drives in Tennessee, and has “an obsession” with exploring abandoned buildings – don’t say we didn’t tell you she’s full of surprises.
Bowers can put one word on her experience in music so far: “wild”.
“The hardest part about it is being away so much and missing out on normal teenager stuff. I stopped going to school midway through my sophomore year. The pros of it are that I get to travel the world and I’ve experienced so many things that I never would have experienced had I stayed in school, and I’m so glad I didn’t.”
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
Bowers’ new goal? Blow all preconceived notions of her career out of the water. She doesn’t want to be ‘Gen-Z’s answer to’ your favourite formative blues-rocker, she doesn’t want to be ‘the next’ anyone. She’s the first Grace Bowers.
“I’ve never tried to copy anyone else. I don’t want to do something that someone’s already done before, and I feel like that sets me apart,” she declares. “People are either gonna appreciate the growth, or not be cool with that. I don’t care either way. That’s always been my thing. I’m gonna do what I want to do, and I’m not doing it to impress anyone else.”
Words: Rachel Roberts
Photography: Alanna Taylor
Photo Assistance: Mallory Lowery
Glam/Styling: Lisa Bowers
The post “Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me: I’m 19!” Grace Bowers is determined to forge her own path appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Execute Hammer-Ons Better (or at all!)
One of the most critical skills on a guitar is executing “slurs,” which take the forms of “hammer-ons” or “pull-offs,” depending on which way you’re going (ascending or descending.)
So today let’s master the hammer-on and make sure it’s involved with your blues licks, and even your rhythm playing.
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