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GRAMMY® Award-nominated songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Wolfgang Van Halen has unveiled all the information for his upcoming third album, The End. The album – released by BMG – is slated for release on October 24. The 10-track album clocks in at 39-minuttes and showcases the evolution of Wolf and his songwriting since he launched his solo career in 2020. Recorded at the legendary 5150 studio, the album was produced by friend and collaborator Michael “Elvis” Baskette.

The End is available for pre-order in multiple configurations including limited edition vinyl colors, signed insert version and retailer exclusives here: https://Mammoth.lnk.to/TheEndAlbum.

Continuing the tradition of writing all the songs and performing all the instrumentation and vocals himself, Wolfgang Van Halen set out to challenge himself beyond what he did on his debut and sophomore release, Mammoth II. From the hypnotic opening of “One Of A Kind” to infectious closer “All In Good Time,” Wolfgang demonstrates his proficiency as a musician and songwriter. Songs like “Same Old Song,” “Happy,” and “Selfish” will fit perfectly alongside older songs that fans have already come to love from Mammoth. Mammoth released their first single in May, and it has shot up the charts currently in the Top 5 at Active Rock radio. The success of the single was propelled by the landmark music video – a remake of the classic film From Dusk ‘Til Dawn – directed by Robert Rodriguez and Greg Nicotero. The video is approaching 4-million views and contains cameos from Danny Trejo, Slash, Myles Kennedy, and of course his mother Valerie Bertinelli. To coincide with the album announcement, Mammoth is releasing the track “The Spell” for fans to check out.

The tracklisting for The End is:

1. One Of A Kind
2. The End
3. Same Old Song
4. The Spell
5. I Really Wanna
6. Happy
7. Better Off
8. Something New
9. Selfish
10. All In Good Time

Mammoth has become known for being road warriors, constantly taking to the road to play their music for the masses whenever they can. 2025 will continues that trend as the band will be heading out with longtime friends in CREED on the Return of the Summer of ’99 Tour this summer. Backed by his live band featuring Jon Jourdan, Frank Sidoris, Ronnie Ficarro, and Garrett Whitlock, Wolfgang and Mammoth hit the road July 9 in Lexington, KY through August 30 where the tour wraps in Halifax, NS. To celebrate the album being in stores this October, Mammoth will be heading out on a Fall headline run. The End Tour kicks off on October 31 and runs for 5 weeks before it wraps up on December 7. The tour will make stops in Las Vegas, NV (November 1), Atlanta, GA (November 8), Montclair, NJ (November 14), Chicago, IL (November 26) and Tempe, AZ (December 6) to name a few. Longtime friend Myles Kennedy will be the special guest on the run. More information on all tickets and VIP passes can be found at www.mammoth.band.

Today, Ernie Ball Music Man is proud to announce the release of the Pino Palladino StingRay Bass Collection, a tribute to the unmistakable tone and legacy of one of the most revered bassists in modern music. The collection includes two Pino Palladino Artist Series StingRay Basses—available in fretted and fretless models—as well as the highly exclusive Pino Palladino Icon Series StingRay Bass, a meticulous recreation of his original 1979 fretless StingRay. Only 15 Icon Series instruments will be made available worldwide.

The Artist Series: Signature Feel, Legendary Tone 

Inspired by Pino’s original fretless StingRay, the Artist Series models deliver the essence of his tone, feel, and style in both fretted and fretless options. Featuring a poplar body finished in ’79

Burst, a dark-tinted hard rock maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, and a custom asymmetrical neck carve, these basses offer a player-focused blend of comfort and authenticity.

A vintage-style Alnico pickup and hand-wired 2-band preamp (voiced with a 500k treble pot like Pino’s original) capture the warmth and detail that defined Pino’s sound on countless records. Additional features include:

• Brass saddles with a string-through-body bridge and adjustable mute pads
• Bullet truss rod and 3-bolt neck plate with micro-tilt adjustment
• GraphTech NuBone hand-shaped nut
• Fretted model strung with Pino Signature Flatwound Strings
• Fretless model strung with custom Slinky Nickel Wound Strings .036, .055, .065, .090
• Each bass ships in a MONO case with an Artist Series neck plate

The Icon Series: A Museum-Grade Replica of Pino’s Original 

Limited to just 15 pieces worldwide, the Pino Palladino Icon Series StingRay Bass is an exacting recreation of Pino’s beloved 1979 fretless model. Every detail has been scrutinized and faithfully reproduced—from the nitrocellulose lacquer finish and genuine late-‘70s bridge plates (with era-correct serial numbers) to the placement of the headstock decal and string tree.

Highlights include:

• Hand-selected poplar bodies and slab rosewood fretless fingerboards
• NOS bridge plates with brass saddles and spring mutes
• Custom-wound pickup with 5/8” Alnico V magnets and 42 gauge wire
• Period-correct active preamp with CTS pots and aged voicing
• Vintage waterslide decal, Wales Rugby sticker replica, and headstock hand-signed by Pino
• Ships in a G&G black/gold-lined case with a certificate of authenticity and vintage-inspired case candy

This is more than a signature instrument—it’s a faithful time capsule of an artist-defining tool that helped shape the course of modern bass playing.

Behind the Build: The Music Man Legacy 

From wood selection and relic distressing to preamp circuitry and final assembly, every step of the Icon Series build process reflects the same craftsmanship and attention to detail that defines Music Man’s legacy. Original tooling, hand-applied nitro lacquer, media tumbling, oxidation, and extensive handwork bring each bass to life—down to the last paint chip and softened edge.

Availability

The Pino Palladino Artist Series StingRay Basses are available now through authorized Ernie Ball Music Man dealers. The Icon Series is strictly limited to 15 pieces worldwide and will be available through select dealers as well as the Ernie Ball Music Man Vault.

To learn more, visit www.music-man.com.

As Bon Jovi were forming in 1983, glam metal was reaching its peak, and the way a band looked was almost as crucial to success as the music they played.

It was for this reason that Tim Pierce – credited as a guitarist on Runaway from Bon Jovi’s self-titled debut – didn’t end up joining the band as a full-time member… at least according to him.

• READ MORE: “I got away with murder!”: Is Mark Knopfler a ‘guitar hero’? He certainly doesn’t think so

In a new interview with Guitar World, Pierce recalls how he ended up recording “all the guitars” on Runaway, and why Richie Sambora ended up joining the band instead of him.

“That happened kind of by accident, as many great opportunities do,” he says of Runaway. “I was 23 and recording in New York. Jon Bon Jovi was living upstairs at the Power Station [recording studio]. Basically, his job was the janitor for his uncle, Tony Bongiovi.

“They put together a master demo and he asked me to play on it. I said, ‘Of course!’ I ended up doing all the guitars on Runaway, and Jon credited me on the back of the record. That was his first Top 40 hit, and I got full credit. It was great.”

Though his collaboration with Jon Bon Jovi saw them do “six or eight” master demos leading to Bon Jovi’s record deal with Mercury Records, he wasn’t asked to become a permanent member of the band Bon Jovi was putting together.

“Jon and I became friends,” Pierce recalls. “He came to LA when he was looking for musicians to join his band, but a couple of things happened. First, I didn’t have the image to be in the band. People forget that you couldn’t be in a rock band unless you looked a certain way. I didn’t have that image, so Jon never came out and asked.”

On whether he has any regrets about not joining Bon Jovi, the guitarist continues, “I missed out on being in one of the biggest rock bands in the world – but I don’t think I had the image!

“Richie was the perfect choice. The way he plays, looks and sings is great. They wrote some of the most amazing songs ever. Jon didn’t ask, and it probably had to do with the fact that I had another gig – and didn’t look like a rock star.”

After his work with Jon Bon Jovi, Pierce went on to join Rick Springfield’s band as Jessie’s Girl was picking up traction.

“It was a wonderful thing to jump into. I became Rick’s guitar player for five albums, and we’re friends to this day,” he remembers.

Tim Pierce also runs a comprehensive masterclass teaching guitarists of all skill levels, with over 1,800 videos and more than 150 hours of educational content.

Learn more at timpierce.com.

The post “You couldn’t be in a rock band unless you looked a certain way”: Why Tim Pierce didn’t join Bon Jovi – despite playing guitar on their first hit appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Khruangbin’s low-end chill merchant gets a signature instrument that plays like a Jazz Bass best-of.

Laura Lee Ochoa (you may know her by her alter ego, Leezy) is a founding member of the Grammy-nominated band Khruangbin, which is Thai for “airplane.” Khruangbin’s music is fresh and inspired, blurring genres including American soul, Iranian pop, surf, psychedelic, and dub, and creating infectious tunes within that stylistic range. The bass is a prominent part of the trio’s sound and groove. Laura Lee’s go-to 4-string for a number of years was an inexpensive SX-branded Jazz Bass copy. She admitted to playing the bass out of financial necessity. But like their namesake, Khruangbin and Laura Lee have been soaring in recent years. The same could be said of her new Fender signature Jazz Bass.

Prepare for Takeoff

When I laid eyes on the Laura Lee Jazz Bass, I was a bit wonderstruck. What’s special about it? At first glance, oh, just … everything. There is vintage drip, it feels comfortably familiar, and the instrument ticks a lot of boxes that many players would put on a perfect-Jazz Bass wish list. There’s a few surprises, too. If the bass had a “like” button, I would still be pressing it repeatedly.

Much like Laura Lee’s band, exploration within a framework sums up the Limited Edition Laura Lee Jazz bass beautifully. The recipe is so simple, really: start with a legendary, proven design and sweeten with a few unique-yet-familiar components. There is nothing on this bass you would label as new or revolutionary. Instead, it works like a time portal to different, probably more chill, and definitely hipper eras with modern refinements to smooth the ride—a little like a vintage sports car with a newer engine.

Vintage Vibes If You P(Leezy)

The Laura Lee Jazz Bass’ offset body is alder and finished in gloss polyester vintage white that looks like olympic white yellowed to a buttery aged hue. The neck is maple (skunk striped, for those scoring at home) with a rosewood fretboard and a synthetic bone nut. The neck’s gloss urethane finish is smooth and silky, and the custom “U” shape feels super comfortable, giving the sense that the bass is holding your hand and guiding you along rather than the other way around. The instrument is well built, and the Ensenada factory did a fantastic job on the rock-solid neck joint. There really isn’t a single flaw.

“The Jazz Bass/flatwound playing experience is like finding an available downtown parking spot for free—leaving me asking, “Why can’t every day be like this?”

Let’s talk about ashtrays for a moment. The chrome pickup covers got their nickname for their resemblance to cigarette-butt snuffers. Some players absolutely hate them, citing limitations to playing style and hand position. Aesthetically, I love them. Few features bring the vintage vibe like ashtrays. Laura Lee, however, enjoys a symbiotic relationship with the ashtrays, which shapes her tone significantly. Instead of looking at ashtrays as restricting, Leezy says the limited hand positions are inspiring, forcing her to think less about her picking hand and more on the melodic potential of her fretting hand. Playing between the covers delivers many cool tone variations, from pointed and percussive aft of the middle cover to Leezy’s signature “peanut butter” tone when you pick on the neck side of the cover.

The Laura Lee Jazz Bass comes with flatwound strings, and all I can say about that is “damn right.” Why should the Precision Basses and hollowbodies have all the fun? Flats on a Jazz bass are nothing new. But for me, the Jazz Bass/flatwound playing experience is like finding an available downtown parking spot for free—leaving me asking, “Why can’t every day be like this?” Flats bring a warm and welcome twist to the Jazz Bass formula.

 Amped and Airborne

When I plugged the Laura Lee into an Ampeg Micro stack. The first thing I noticed and appreciated was what I didn’t hear: hum. The quiet performance is thanks to the DiMarzio Ultra Jazz noiseless pickups (and, by the way, if you really want to take off those ashtrays, the pickups feature cool aged-white covers to match the finish). The concentric stacked volume/tone knobs are an added bonus.

It takes minimal effort to get great sounds from the Laura Lee Jazz Bass. With both pickups on full volume and the tone set to 50 percent on the neck and 100 percent on the bridge, I found my sweet spot. This sound was thick-yet-defined and pulsing with vibe. With the ashtrays dictating my hand position, that tone setup could be smooth and subtle on the neck side and more direct on the bridge side. If you don’t like the constraints of the ashtrays, though, you simply remove two screws to take them off, and playing right over the neck pickup yields lots of rich sounds.

Many of the Laura Lee’s other tone varieties are equally compelling. I really liked the murkiness of the neck pickup solo’d with tone at zero. Bump the tone up to 25 percent and the neck pickup output becomes studio-worthy. Adding the bridge pickup beautifully brightens the picture. I may not be a big fan of the bridge-pickup-only approach on this instrument, but plenty of players will find a place for its punch in their universe.

 The Verdict

If you asked me to build a vintage Jazz Bass from scratch before I played the Laura Lee, I might have gone a different route, then played this bass and been mad at my choices. From the oversized ’70s logo to the jumbo frets to the oh-so-comfortable neck, I think this bass is amazing. Yes, it’s a collection of parts from across decades, but they work in harmony. This bass took me to a place I didn’t know I needed. It’s an instrument that instantly inspires, and that is the mark of something special.

Self-proclaimed via his website as the “best blues guitarist in the world” – hey, we’re not exactly arguing that – Eric Gales has indisputably top-tier guitar chops. And the fact he does it all with an upside-down guitar is something else, but we digress…

As producer Raphael Saadiq reveals in a new interview with Tonya Mosley of NPR, Gales’ skills nearly got him the opportunity to play a solo on Beyonce’s 2024 album Cowboy Carter, but touring commitments meant he wasn’t able.

• READ MORE: “I got away with murder!”: Is Mark Knopfler a ‘guitar hero’? He certainly doesn’t think so

One of the guitar highlights of the album comes at the end of eighth track Bodyguard, where Saadiq lays down a bluesy solo underneath Beyonce’s outro vocals.

“Bey wanted a solo. And I did a solo,” Saadiq reflects. “And she was like, ‘Can we make it longer?’ But she knows her audience, and she knows that is rare. And she’s like, ‘I think we could do that. We can have a 16-bar solo on this record.’

“So that was a little bit of pressure, to go back in there and play, like, a 16-bar solo.”

While Saadiq played the solo himself, he originally intended to tap up Eric Gales for the job.

“I would’ve called my boy. I would’ve called Eric Gales,” he continues. “Eric Gales is one of the most amazing guitar players in the world today. He’s from Memphis, Delta blues. He was the guy that’s playing – he played a lot of guitar in [2025 film] Sinners. But I would’ve called him to play, but he was on tour, so I had to play it. And it came out good.”

Cowboy Carter saw Beyonce – like many other artists as of late – foray into country, leading to something of a country revival in recent years.

If you need proof of Eric Gales formidable guitar skills, he recently traded licks with blues legend Buddy Guy on an album dedicated to his late brother Little Jimmy King.

Listen to Somebody below:

The post Eric Gales nearly played a 16-bar solo on Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Mark Knopfler’s work on Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms landed him the label of ‘guitar hero’ in the eyes of many. And the six-string lines on its title track, Money For Nothing and So Far Away show you why.

But Knopfler doesn’t feel the adulation was entirely merited, as he explains in a new interview with Guitar World.

• READ MORE: Justin Hawkins refuses to use any other guitar tuning than E standard: “If you can’t put your ideas across with that, you’re in trouble”

“That was just awkward,” he reflects on the praise he received for his guitar skills after the release of the 1985 album.

“The world is bursting with fabulous players. Whether I’ve written a good song or not, that’s what counts to me.

“I gave up trying to be a great guitar player. I have enough to get by in the studio – that’s how I see myself as a guitar player. Not much more than that. But I can get away with it.

Knopfler adds that a band’s chief songwriter or songwriters should be allowed a certain degree of leeway regarding their technical skills.

“If you’re the one who wrote the songs,” he says, “you’re kind of allowed to be crap. Well, not to be crap, but you’re given some leeway because you wrote the thing. 

“The other guys are there, really standing by their instruments: ‘I play piano,’ ‘I play bass.’ Like, ‘I’m good at this and that’s why I’m here’ – and boy, they are.”

Though we feel he’s underselling his technical prowess a little, in Knopfler’s eyes, he says he “got away with murder”.

He reveals he was “still learning how to play in time” while recording Brothers In Arms – Dire Straits’ fifth album.

He says it came “after years of working in studios with engineers who would say, ‘You’re rushing there.’ And you’d say, ‘No I’m not.’ And they’d say, ‘Yes, you are.’ Because you didn’t recognise it. You didn’t know it yet. You think you’re playing in time – but you’re not. You have to learn that.”

He concludes: “It takes a long time, especially if you’re playing 8th and 16th notes with your thumb and fingers. That’s just part of the journey. Some of the very finest musicians have told me they had to learn the same thing. Glenn Worf [bassist] was just the same. There was a guy in his band who told him, ‘You’re not playing in time.’ And he said, ‘The hell I am!’”

In another recent revelation, Mark Knopfler recently told Classic Rock that the iconic guitar sound of the record’s second track Money For Nothing came as a result of a microphone mishap.

The post “I got away with murder!”: Is Mark Knopfler a ‘guitar hero’? He certainly doesn’t think so appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

King Crimson are recording their first studio album since 2003’s The Power to Believe, according to Jakko Jakszyk.

In a new interview with Goldmine Magazine, the guitarist is asked about his time with the 21st Century Schizoid Band, the Crimson alumnus group with whom he played before being asked to join King Crimson when they reunited in 2013.

• READ MORE: Justin Hawkins refuses to use any other guitar tuning than E standard: “If you can’t put your ideas across with that, you’re in trouble”

“It was an amazing thing to have done, and in a way, part of it’s still happening,” Jakszyk says. “As we speak, we’re doing a King Crimson album.

“When that will come out and what format or how – that’s beyond my brief. But yeah, we’ve been doing it piecemeal, and then a couple of months ago, the management said, ‘Can we?’ So, yeah. I’ve been recording that with a view to it coming out in some format at some point. But who knows when?”

As for what we can expect? The album will apparently feature the most recent King Crimson lineup: Jakszyk, Robert Fripp, Mel Collins, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison and Jeremy Stacey.

Jakszyk also says the album might include studio versions of new tracks from live releases recorded with this lineup.

“The studio versions of those pieces and some other bits and pieces will emerge from putting it together. I think so,” he says.

And that’s not the only new music we’re set to hear from the King Crimson universe.

Jakszyk says there’s a new version of The Scarcity of Miracles – the 2011 album recorded by Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins – “about to come out with loads and loads of extra stuff”.

“Because of the nature of how we made that record, there’s lots of improvisation and seriously alternate versions of things that we didn’t release.

The team here at Guitar.com will keep you in the loop on King Crimson’s new album as we know more.

The post King Crimson are recording their first studio album in over 20 years appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.