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“Robert Plant said I could have had all the women he had!”: Terry Reid reflects on his decision not to join the band that would later become Led Zeppelin
Those familiar with Led Zeppelin lore will know that the late Terry Reid was in the running to front the band – called the New Yardbirds, in its early stages – before Jimmy Page landed on Robert Plant.
In an interview with MOJO published after his death in August 2025, Reid reflected on his decision to pass up the opportunity, saying he didn’t necessarily turn Jimmy Page down, but rather had prior commitments with The Rolling Stones at the time.
And in a new feature, Record Collector recalls what Reid said in response to Robert Plant at a club gig in the 2000s, when he told Reid: “You could have had my life!”
“Robert also said I could have had all the women he had!” Reid replied. “Look, nobody is more glad of Robert having that success than me. I plugged him into it! Am I gonna say now, ‘I wish I’d never done that’? It’s like saying, ‘I could have owned HP Sauce… bought the whole company and really been something with my life.’ You know what I mean?”
Indeed, Terry Reid had a reputation for sticking to his guns on the gigs he decided to take. As the story goes, he also turned down an offer to play with Deep Purple in 1969. “It weren’t my thing,” he said. “Spandex gets up my arse.”
“I suppose I didn’t really want to be part of a band…” he said in his final MOJO interview. “I’ve lived my life the way I wanted,” Reid concludes. “Running around, chasing your tail, chasing after this, chasing after that, it’ll do one of two things: it’ll either drive you crazy, or it’ll get you in a whole load of trouble.”
“The only time I really considered it was with Jeff Beck. He had a sensitivity that was totally different [from] any other guitar player. But he was always going down his own path, too, so it never happened.”
The post “Robert Plant said I could have had all the women he had!”: Terry Reid reflects on his decision not to join the band that would later become Led Zeppelin appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“It would have been harder to nerd out like I did if I was constantly scrolling TikTok”: Jason Isbell doubts he’d have become a musician if he had the “distractions” kids have today
“Brain rot” – Oxford’s 2024 Word of the Year and now officially added to the OED – feels like a phrase made for the social media era.
Defined as “a perceived loss of intelligence or critical thinking skills… attributed to the overconsumption of unchallenging or inane content,” it’s a sign of the times. Even Jason Isbell admits that if TikTok and Instagram had been around when he was growing up, the constant “distractions” might have stopped him from becoming a musician altogether.
Speaking on Alabama Public Radio’s APR Notebook podcast, the six-time Grammy winner explains how the absence of those platforms gave him the focus to dig deep into his music.
“It might be harder to nerd out in the way that I did and go back and study this music, if I could just constantly be scrolling through TikTok or Instagram or something,” says Isbell. “But at the time when I started making music myself, I got obsessed with it, and I spent hours and hours researching. You know, I would find an artist, and then I would say, Well, who are their influences, and who are their influences? And I would work my way backwards.”
Growing up around the Muscle Shoals area [where the iconic FAME studios resides] in Alabama, Isbell had a unique advantage. The city’s rich musical legacy meant that the local legends weren’t just names in liner notes, but players he could actually watch onstage.
“I could go to a lot of the places and talk to a lot of the people who had worked on these albums,” Isbell recalls. “And you know, the musicians from here in town, Spooner (Oldham) and David (Hood) and Donny Fritz, they would be playing in restaurants and bars, you know, covering a lot of the songs that they’d played on originally.”
“I would order an appetizer and stay for four hours and watch people play these songs. I got very, very lucky,” says the guitarist.
Despite Isbell’s doubts though, apps like TikTok and Instagram have become powerful launchpads for a new generation of musicians. Guitarists like Matteo Mancuso and Sophie Lloyd have built international audiences from viral clips, while countless bedroom players reach millions with inventive riffs and covers. For all its potential for “distractions”, social media platforms continue to serve as important gateways for the next generation of guitar talent.
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“Maximum headroom, tight-tracking low end”: Mesa/Boogie revives the mighty Mark IIC+ HRG amplifier head
Mesa/Boogie has dipped back into its archives to revive two fan favourites: the Mark IIC+ HRG tube amp head and the 1×12 Vintage Thiele Cabinet. Long associated with Dream Theater’s John Petrucci and countless high-gain players, the HRG now gets its first reissue on the IIC+ platform, alongside the cabinet that became its perfect match.
The HRG (Hundred-Watt/Reverb/Graphic EQ) was born in the firm’s Lagunitas Shop days, where founder Randall Smith crafted custom rigs from an expanded menu, offering the ‘Super Sixty’ Boogie as the base model platform to build upon. The format quickly earned a reputation for immense clean headroom, ferocious lead tones and tight-tracking low end – qualities that also made it a go-to for ‘crunch’ rhythm work in heavy rock and metal.
Now back in production, the Mark IIC+ HRG brings 100 watts of power with onboard Reverb, Graphic EQ, and all the snarling bite players expect from the platform. Mesa/Boogie says the reissue can “play clean in Rhythm Mode at high volumes before clipping” while delivering “super-tight low end” and searing gain in Lead Mode.
Powered by four 6L6 tubes and a preamp section stacked with five 12AX7s, the head also features independent master controls, footswitchable Rhythm and Lead channels, and a half-power switch to tame the beast down to 60 watts.
Credit: Mesa/Boogie
Alongside the amp comes the return of the Vintage Thiele 1×12 Cabinet. Originally designed in the early ’80s for the Electro-Voice EVM12L speaker, the front-ported, compact cab became a secret weapon for players needing massive low-end punch from a portable rig.
This new edition comes loaded with Mesa’s proprietary Celestion C90 speaker, and is available in Black Vinyl or Wicker grille finishes.
Credit: Mesa/Boogie
Doug West, Director of Tone Lab at Gibson Amplifiers and MESA/Boogie, says: “This sealed and ported design became synonymous with huge tone in the ’80s, when players and artists alike discovered it was a secret weapon for delivering massive low end far beyond its physical footprint, along with a tight, punchy overall sound.”
The Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ HRG is priced at $3,599, while the Vintage Thiele 1×12 Cabinet lands at $799.
Learn more at Mesa/Boogie.
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Legendary luthier Ken Parker – creator of the Parker Fly – launches crowdfund to pay for cancer treatment
Ken Parker, legendary luthier, founder of Parker Guitars, and creator of the iconic Parker Fly, has launched a crowdfund to raise money for his cancer treatment.
In a heartfelt note on his GoFundMe page, Parker shares that he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in early 2023, and that the illness has steadily eroded his ability to work.
“It hasn’t been easy living with this nasty disease, having chemo treatments that zapped my energy and slowly took away my ability to earn a living,” he writes. “Now, I’m on a breathing machine 24/7 and I’ve started to lose the use of my left arm. I humbly ask for your support to reduce the medical and personal debt that I’ve incurred and to help with my family’s expenses.”
- READ MORE: The history of the Parker Fly
Reflecting on his career, Parker adds, “Throughout my life, I’ve done something that I love and am proud of – making guitars that advance the art, science and craft of building far beyond traditional methods. Most importantly, it has been a true joy and especially gratifying experience to see my guitars in the hands of all of you gifted and aspiring players, and I thank you for that opportunity.”
In a video released earlier this week, Parker – who in recent years focused on building custom archtops – also announces his retirement from day-to-day guitar building to focus on his health. Aided by a breathing machine, a visibly frail Parker explains that much of the past year has been dedicated to passing his knowledge and techniques on to his colleague Sam Krimmel.
“Sam has this gift which feels remarkably similar to the gift that I feel that I have that’s allowed me to do my work,” he says. “I’ve never had a deeper and more interesting work relationship on a daily basis than I have with Sam, and we work together very, very well.”
Krimmel, who has an engineering background, has been apprenticing under Parker full-time for the past year, “learning the intricate details of assembly while simultaneously developing new production techniques to improve part quality and consistency.”
He’s now tasked with carrying on the innovations that defined Parker’s five-decade career.
“Ken’s mission has been to pass on physical design ideas to Sam to empower a brilliant new set of hands,” the video description notes. “Sam’s mission is to continue to share the stories of innovation, creation, and industry altering ideas that define Ken’s work.”
“To honor Ken’s unfathomable contributions to the guitar industry, let’s keep the band together.”
The fundraiser is now live, with USD $95,298 raised out of its $450K target at the time of writing.
Contribute to Parker’s campaign at GoFundMe.
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Positive Grid BIAS X review – “it’s like having a virtual studio engineer doing the hard work”
$149, positivegrid.com
For the last few years Positive Grid has been busy redefining what we expect in terms of sound, usability and flexibility from our practice amps in the shape of the wildly popular Spark family of products.
However, before PG became the world’s foremost purveyor of tiny amps, there was BIAS – a powerful, great-sounding and hugely popular amp and effects plugin. BIAS has percolated away in the background for the last few years, getting regular updates and building a reputation as one of the best sounding and most user-friendly guitar plugins around. Now though, things are really getting interesting with the launch of BIAS X – a brand new platform that’s brings a lot more ahem, intelligence, to the party.
Image: Press
Positive Grid BIAS X – what is it?
BIAS X is an in-the-box (that’s on your computer, by the way) amp and effects suite – with a twist. Billing itself as the first AI-powered ‘tone creation platform’, BIAS X provides you with 30+ amps, 60+ effects, a whole bunch of cabs and the ability to combine those in any manner you desire. The twist is that you don’t have to do the tweaking – thanks to the AI Assistant built into BIAS X’s user interface, you can simply tell the AI what sort of sound you’re looking for (or even upload a snippet of a tone you want to emulate) and quick as a flash it’ll create a plugin catered to your requirements.
The idealised version of all this effectively casts you as a megalomaniacal 80s rock star at the height of their money-no-object studio excess. The concerns of regular guitarists who have to set up their own gear or tweak their setups to get the sound they’re after are, frankly beneath you – you have underlings for that.
In this scenario, the BIAS X AI Assistant effectively playing the role of an eager to please virtual studio engineer sat beside you doing all the hard work and catering to your every whim no matter how unreasonable. Except the AI doesn’t require constant cups of tea to keep functioning, and is unlikely to demand a writing credit on the album because they came up with a maraca part that’s buried so deep in the mix you’d need Jacques Cousteau to find it.
Taken at face value, that all sounds rather appealing doesn’t it? Especially if, like me, you’re someone for whom the world of in-the-box recording is approached with a mixture of reticence and outright disdain precisely because you find the thought of spending half an hour constructing a signal chain using a mouse and keyboard a special kind of torture.
Getting a LLM to do the lion’s share of the work for you seems like one of those ‘actually worthwhile applications of AI’ that I’ve been hearing about but seeing precious little evidence for. Let’s find out if it lives up to that expectation…
BIAS X GUI. Image: Press
Positive Grid BIAS X – who is it for?
Now, before we get into the testing part of all this, it’s probably worth having a quick sidebar here for existing BIAS users. If you’re expecting BIAS X to be BIAS FX 2 with a shiny AI helper in there, you’re going to be disappointed – at least at launch.
Because some of the important stuff that you might be expecting just isn’t there in BIAS X. For starters you get barely a third of the number of amps and effects as you do in BIAS FX, and you also won’t find the nerdy component-level tweakery that made it such a popular platform for guitar players.
Instead, this feels more like a bridge between the casual nature of the hugely popular Spark platform and its companion app, and the more involved world of ITB guitar playing – it’s probably not a coincidence that Spark also has 33 onboard amps, for example.
That doesn’t mean that BIAS is underpowered or lacking in features and usability, however – it’s every bit a modern high-end amp and effects plugin, just one that’s a little more streamlined with its sounds out of the gate.
That means you can still create the most long and unwieldy chain of effects your processor can handle – complete with dual amp and cabs if you so desire. I finally got bored having created a chain of over 40 amps and effects, with my M2 MacBook Pro’s chip still only showing 43% use (this handy DSP readout in the top right corner will come in handy if you’re using a less powerful machine however). You can also upload your own IRs in place of the inbuilt cab options, and of course adjust the mic placement accordingly.
Image: Press
Positive Grid BIAS X – in use
Now, as mentioned up top, I am one of those people for whom the whole amp and effects software thing has been firmly placed in the ‘not for me’ category. Despite being a very techy person generally, when it comes to guitar I prefer things to be as simple and analogue as possible. That said, I have in recent years had my head turned by the simplicity and usability of Positive Grid’s Spark products in a practice scenario… maybe BIAS X can turn my head similarly?
I might be somewhat ITB-sceptic, but I’ve used enough amp and effects plugins in my time to know that it’s useful to have a basic play around to get a clean tone you’re happy with before taking the leap into the agentic unknown. If nothing else, this is about setting your input levels and other boring stuff to give the fancy stuff a better chance to work – and so I quickly jack into BIAS X’s interpretation of a Deluxe Reverb and make sure my levels are where they need to be and everything sounds good.
This is one thing to very much be aware of in all this before we get the AI involved – the software can only create something it thinks will work, but a big part of actually sounding good is what you’re plugging into it. While I did experiment with trying to cajole the AI into creating presets specifically for guitar types, I didn’t have a huge amount of joy here – expect to have to refine your EQ to your specific guitar and its pickups.
There are a bunch of factory presets in BIAS X that offer the full gamut of tones from crystal cleans to the heaviest chugs – but that’s not why we’re here is it? Let’s click that little diamond-shaped button on the bottom left of the interface and get chatting.
There are two ways to interact with the assistant – either you can put in a text prompt and let the AI make its own mind up, or you can drag and drop an audio file and it’ll do its best to match the tone onboard.
We’ll start with the text-to-tone option, and out of the gate it’s worth noting that, if you’ve had any previous experience trying to get something useful out of an LLM, you’ll know that it helps to be quite specific in the way you prompt it.
While the Assistant’s Quick Tips encourage you to ‘describe a mood, idea or favourite artist’ to get a sound you want, I quickly realised that it helps to add as much detail as possible. “Give me an Oasis tone” is going to provide a much more complex set of variables for the AI to work with than if you ask it to, “Give me a guitar tone similar to Oasis’s Supersonic – the saturated distorted tone of a cranked amp with lots of bottom-end and slight slapback delay”.
In truth the AI does a pretty decent job even with more basic prompts, but you’ll have to accept a certain degree of refinement is necessary here. Thankfully, the Assistant is more than happy to help make minor tweaks and broadly does a nice job of it – ask it to ease back the gain or take some of the top-end out of a sound and it’ll quickly present you with an updated preset to try out.
One slightly weird eccentricity I noticed in this regard was its predilection for chucking an EQ pedal into the chain willy nilly. If you ask it to roll off some of the top end or boost the mids, it will usually respond by chucking a six-band graphic EQ into the chain, when all that really needed to happen was a roll off of the tone stack on the amp. Quite often this also sounds bad, and is easily remedied by being more specific with the prompt, but it’s a good reminder that as with any AI agent, you are not in fact talking to a living breathing virtual tea boy, and expecting it to show initiative or common sense is not always a guarantee.
Where it was more impressive was when things get weirder – asking it to craft Jack White’s glitchy octave-overloaded Blue Orchid guitar tone yielded a very solid result out of the gate and with a couple of gentle prompts I was working with a much more usable and convincing recreation than I’ve ever managed with a bunch of fuzz and pitch-shifting pedals myself.
It should also be noted that these amps and effects sound exceptionally good across the board. Positive Grid boasts about the component-level circuit modeling that goes into their sounds, and while you may not be able to tweak them to taste here, the results are still remarkably faithful to the originals. Too often ITB amp and effects plugins are judged purely on their heavy tones,but I was pleasantly surprised with the crunchy lower-gain offerings here – they sounded rich and authentic. With that in mind, it was quite frustrating that the Assistant consistently seemed to default to higher gain options than I had specified, occasionally choosing woefully inappropriate amps or pedals in the service of more distortion that I had never really asked for – a system is only as good as the data it’s trained on I suppose, and the bulk of BIAS users are going to be leaning more towards heavy tones.
BIAS X AI Assistant. Image: Press
Positive Grid BIAS X – should you buy it?
There are of course other issues to consider when you insert the word ‘AI’ into any product – both environmental and ethical. It’s very hard to quantify how much BIAS X is contributing to Generative AI’s boiling of the planet – though I’d wager it’s a drop in the literal oceans compared to all those chronically unfunny ‘me as an action figure’ posts that were everywhere a few months back.
Less clear-cut is the issue of exactly how BIAS X has become quite so clever at building guitar tones. Positive Grid says that in addition to “component-level circuit modeling” of the amps and effects the AI Assistant was trained using over 1 million “guitar tones spanning eras, genres, and techniques.” Now, the question you may well be asking is where exactly did that massive data set come from? I posed this question to PG, who told me that while they will use anonymised user data from BIAS X to continue to train the Assistant to improve it over time, they were unable to provide any concrete information as to where the original dataset was compiled from.
It’s an unsatisfactory answer, to be honest – especially when there is huge controversy across the world right now over what is acceptable data to use to train a generative AI product on, and what isn’t. But ultimately, the importance of these issues is very much in the eye of the beholder. It will be absolutely critical to some, and utterly inconsequential to others – with many sat in the middle mainly concerned with whether it works or not.
And work it absolutely does. Granted, if you’re already a whiz at crafting your own presets, tweaking things at the granular level and knowing exactly what you need to get to the sound in your head, the utility of the AI Assistant is somewhat limited, handy as it undoubtedly is.
But I don’t really think that’s who BIAS X is for – in many ways it feels like a way to graduate people from one of the Spark amps into a more professional and advanced world, without the massive difficulty spike that usually comes with it.
With a really simple and easy to use interface, great tones across the board and a good spread of all the classic amps and effects you might need, BIAS X is the perfect amp and effects sim for people who don’t want to make it their entire personality.
In my time with BIAS X, I genuinely found myself having fun with a guitar plugin in ways that I never had before, and that’s all down to the power and usefulness of the Assistant. It’s a shame there’s not a demo version or a free trial really – while BIAS X looks good on paper, it’s only really in practice that you appreciate its game-changing potential. The more people they can get trying it, the more impactful it’s likely to be.
Positive Grid BIAS X – alternatives
The most famous name in the guitar plugin scene is IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube 5 – it was one of the very first bespoke amp and effects platforms and has evolved and grown over the last decade or so to become a hugely varied and good sounding product. It’s starting to show its age in terms of usability now however. If you want quality and huge choice in one package, it’s hard to look past Line 6’s Helix Native – if you can think of it in terms of amps, effects and such, it’s in there. Another simple to use and well-stocked option that’s perhaps a little on the elderly side now is Native Instruments Guitar Rig 7.
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Kirk Hammett co-founded pedal brand KHDK Electronics is now making guitars
Kirk Hammett co-founded pedal brand KHDK Electronics has branched out into guitar building, with a range of new models debuted at the recent Guitar Summit 2025 in Mannheim, Germany.
While info is relatively sparse at this time, we do know that the guitars unveiled sport some unconventional shapes, which some commenters have picked up on…
That said, it looks like some of the shapes are inspired by classic designs, including a model reminiscent of a Les Paul with P-90 pickups and Bigsby vibrato, an Explorer-style model, and what looks to be an SG-inspired double cut.
In response to one user on its Instagram post unveiling the guitars, who wrote, “I’m so sick of copyrights, all it does is make companies release ugly guitar shapes,” KHDK simply replied: “We love ugly guitars.”
As we say, information surrounding spec sheets for these guitars or pricing is few and far between at this stage, but we’ll endeavour to keep you in the loop as we know more…
Founded in 2012 by Kirk Hammett and collaborator David Karon, KHDK has, until now, been a pedal brand, with signature stompboxes designed for the likes of Deftones’ Chino Moreno, Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Avenged Sevenfold’s Zacky Vengeance.
The brand’s foray into electric guitars is a bold one, and a move not often undertaken by pedal brands.
Visit KHDK Electronics for more information as it comes out.
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“I’ll never forget the sound of 82,000 people singing back at me”: Watch Sophie Lloyd open the Women’s Rugby World Cup Final with a 5-minute shred medley
Last weekend, Sophie Lloyd opened the Women’s Rugby World Cup Final with a stunning five-minute shred medley, before the game that would ultimately see England triumph over Canada.
In an Instagram post uploaded shortly following the event, the guitarist calls the occasion “one of the proudest moments of my life”, adding: “It felt like such an empowering day for women everywhere and I’m so honoured to have played a part in it.”
Now, speaking to Metal Hammer, Lloyd reveals that she was entrusted by organisers to “take their vision into my hands and create something new”. “I loved the song choices and had the best time composing the arrangement,” she says.
“Walking onto that pitch, I could really feel the support of everyone there, it was such a powerful moment of unity. Rock and roll has a way of bringing people together, and I’ll never forget the sound of 82,000 people singing Livin’ on a Prayer back at me.
“The whole day felt bigger than music or sport; it was about women showing strength, power and unity on a global stage. It was incredibly empowering, and I’m beyond honoured to have been part of it. Massive respect to every player who left it all out on the pitch, and huge congratulations to the Red Roses for making history and bringing the cup home.”
Sophie Lloyd rose to fame posting shred videos of classic songs to her YouTube channel. Her considerable following – 1.25 million on YouTube and 1.3 million on Instagram at the time of writing – even caught the attention of superstar Machine Gun Kelly, who drafted her into his backing band in 2022.
For her World Cup final performance, Lloyd wove together a medley of several tracks, combining her own track Battleground with Bon Jovi’s hit Livin’ On a Prayer and Black Eyed Peas Pump It
This performance was a pit stop before Lloyd hits the road this month with Deep Purple’s Glenn Hughes, whom she’ll be playing with as a special guest on his Chosen Years tour, with dates across the UK starting in October.
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“They were expecting him to say, ‘Can you turn the bass up?’ And he probably never did”: …And Justice For All producer says James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich “hated” that Jason Newsted was a Metallica fan
![[L-R] Jason Newsted and James Hetfield of Metallica](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Jason-Newsted-and-James-Hetfield-of-Metallica@2000x1500.jpg)
Though one of the iconic records in the history of thrash and prog metal, Metallica’s landmark 1988 album …And Justice For All has not been without its critics, mostly pointing to the lack of volume on Jason Newsted’s bass lines.
The album’s producer Flemming Rasmussen has put forth several theories as to why the band opted for a reduction in bass volume, including last year when he suggested they did so to “get a reaction out of” Newsted, as he had joined the band as a fan.
Now, in a new interview with Chile’s Futuro [via Blabbermouth], Rasmussen explains that the lack of bass on the album may have been due to James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich wanting to better hear their guitar and drum parts, respectively.
As the story goes, Rasmussen “had to say no to doing that album [at first]” because he was fully booked, and so the band worked with a series of “hotshot Los Angeles mixers”.
“They started it out with Mike Clink,” he says. “And then three weeks into January, after they’d been in the studio for three weeks, Lars called me up and said, ‘Oh, Flemming, when can you come?’ And I put all my sessions together and postponed some of them. And I went over there [on] 14 February and recorded for five months.
“And by the time I got there, they already got some hotshot Los Angeles mixers, Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero, to mix it.”
Rasmussen explains how the band listened to what those producers had done, and said: “no, no, no. Where’s my drum sound? Where’s my guitar sound?”
“And actually Lars said, ‘Now take the bass down so you can just hear it,’” he continues. “They did that… And then once [they’d] done that, he said, ‘Take it three dB more down.’ So, it’s Lars and James that decided, and why they did that, I’ve asked them a thousand times. I do not know.”
Flemming Rasmussen also doubles down on his assertion that the band didn’t like that Jason Newsted joined Metallica as a fan.
“I think the reason why they turned the bass down is, like 50 percent of it is because they were on tour with Van Halen, and they flew in and heard the mix,” he goes on. “And I think that’s the point where Lars and James realised that, ‘We don’t have Cliff anymore. It’s not his bass. It’s a totally different sound.’ And I just think they couldn’t relate to that at that point…
The other half is what they hated most about Jason was that he was such a Metallica fan, so every time they asked him anything, he just did it. So I think they took it down just to piss him off, ‘cause they were expecting him to say, ‘Can you turn the bass [up]?’ And he probably never did. That’s why the bass is so low. But I don’t know.”
Despite its lack of bass volume, …And Justice For All has cemented itself as one of the most classic metal albums of all time, hosting tracks like One, Harvester of Sorrow, Blackened and Dyers Eve.
The album’s mix has even prompted some savvy fans, though, to ‘fix’ the audio by ramping up Jason Newsted’s bass parts. Check out this fan-remastered version of Blackened below, and compare it to the original:
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Meet Man/Woman/Chainsaw, the London art-punks who love jamming with their dads and chasing the perfect BPM
For a while there, it seemed like solo stars were keeping the music industry afloat. Think Taylor Swift’s Eras tour or Beyoncé’s Renaissance. But if this summer’s festivals are anything to go by, then guitar bands are back — in a big way. Take the post-pandemic pop of Isle of Wight wonders Wet Leg, who amped up their two-piece into a full-blown fivesome. Or Fat Dog, dubbed “the wildest band in Britain,” pushing punk with skronking sax and onstage hi-jinks.
Now from the same South London scene comes Man/Woman/Chainsaw, a six-person art ensemble fusing virtuoso violin lines with the furious tempo of a Black Midi backline. For guitarist Billy Doyle, the shift towards these sizable setups was inevitable. “It’s turning away from that 2000s-2010s indie sound of four-piece, all-male bands. Like, how fucking wacky can we get? In five years, people will say, ‘What the fuck was going on in the 2020s with all the six-piece bands?’” “With saxophone and timpani,” quips frontman/guitarist Billy Ward.
Despite the band’s eclectic output, bandleaders Ward and bassist Vera Leppänen bonded at school over the classic riff catalogue. “My first riff was Smoke on the Water,” laughs Leppänen. “My dad made me learn a lot of KISS songs. We jam a lot together, and still do that whenever I see him.” Meanwhile, Ward was picking up Nirvana before stumbling upon their more angular counterparts. “When we started the band, it was a lot more chaotic. Sonic Youth was a big touch point for tunings,” he recalls. You can hear those nods in last year’s Ode To Clio single, which alternates four and five-bar phrasing as the track builds to a frenzied crescendo. But it’s how these cleverly mastered moments land with the crowd that spurs the sextet on.
“There are moments when we’re writing things,” explains Ward, “and we think, ‘Okay, that’s where the drama is, and then we do it live, and the audience responds to a totally different bit!” Doyle noticed the impact on stage, too. “When you see people responding to a song, it’s a big adrenaline kick. Trying to remain composed with your playing is tricky when you’re excited by watching people move around.” Leppänen insists there could be more of that, though. “At Boomtown, I tried to figure out the BPM that made people move — around 120. But people don’t wiggle enough at our shows.”
Stacked Up
Last year’s Eazy Peazy possesses a few possible crowd-swellers. Recorded in Eastbourne’s Echo Zoo Studio with Gilla Band’s Dan Fox, the five-track EP found the group digging into the playbox, feeding violinist Clio Harwood’s strings straight through full guitar stacks and a sub bass and cranking up the vintage Selmer amplifiers, despite the lack of master volume. “If you turn them up, they sound better!” admits Ward. “But the most fun thing was the Watkins Copicat tape echo. There’s a lot of that to drive the guitar and the violin by cranking the preamp.”
Ward’s obsession with bending sound extends to his instruments too. “My first proper guitar was a Fender Player Jaguar. I still think a Jaguar is the coolest-looking guitar, especially with the plates.” Not content with the off-the-rack model, though, Ward began experimenting. “I’m such a perfectionist that I very quickly started to mod that guitar. I stripped the finish off it, painted it white, changed all the pickups, and the trem.”
The Frankenstein fettling didn’t go unnoticed in their South London setting, however. “Some asshole stole it from The Windmill about a year and a half into us doing shows!” he exclaims. “They just grabbed the case! But that’s fine. I hope they can never get the action right. I hope they’re making shit music with it, and may your riffs always suck.”
For all the sonic explorations, it’s easy to forget that Man/Woman/Chainsaw are still just a bunch of pals having a good time. Too much in some cases when I quiz Leppänen about her memories of the studio. “I had to leave for talking when we were doing overdubs,” she admits bashfully. “Because there are six people, right? Six teenagers, and then one person in there doing takes, and five people on the outside, talking shit, backseat producing, having a little wine. Then Dan’s like, ‘Guys, I actually can’t work. You need to leave!’”
Image: Sophie Barloc
Shifting Perceptions
If Eazy Peazy saw the group capturing their lairy live energy, then this year’s double A-side ManDog/Adam&Steve sees the collective sharpening those chaotic compositions and leaning on a more traditional rock and roll bedrock. A notable shift from his early Thurston Moore-inspired soundscapes, as Ward explains. “I quickly realised that alternate tunings come with a big bag of problems, and you could just get a big swamp of notes. Now I always stay in standard, and it’s more classic guitar stuff like The Rolling Stones.”
That’s true of the players’ latest instrument choices, too. Ward’s handling a fresh-looking tomato red Stratocaster on our call while Doyle remains loyal to his Telecaster, inspired by players like King Krule and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. Leppänen began on a Wunjo Bass-bought Tanglewood, but after a few early Chainsaw shows, the then-sixteen-year-old musician needed an upgrade. “I said to my dad, ‘Look, I’m in this band. We should probably get me an instrument!’ We got the ESP LTD Surveyor in pearly white.”
Since then, and thanks to the band’s inclusion in this year’s Fender Next Class of 2025 series, she’s added a new number to her live set-up. No awkward pitching necessary. “I’ve always wanted a P-bass,” she beams. So, as studious members of the latest class, what would the Chainsaw string section say is their greatest learning from life on the road so far? Ward’s learnings come straight from the heart. “Don’t overcomplicate shit. You don’t need 10 million things to make your guitar sound clean or dirty. Your performance will be better if you simplify”.
While Doyle, the quieter of the trio, is more reflective. “Treat performances with a bad vibe like an actor would. Leave a shit day behind while you’re on stage.” And proving that Gen Z continues to transform the very premise of self-care, Leppänen adds deadpan. “It’s just self-care shit, and I don’t mean doing a face mask!”
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“After that came Black Sabbath, and after that came Deep Purple”: Donovan believes his track Hurdy Gurdy Man was the original inspiration for both metal and the formation of Led Zeppelin
Through the “similarities” between Glasgow and Liverpool – as well as his perceived connection to the divine, Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan developed a fraternity with The Beatles in the 1960s.
Donovan – full name Donovan Phillips Leitch – would later join the Fab Four on their visit to India in 1968 to practice transcendental meditation; both Donovan and George Harrison shared a fascination with Eastern spirituality, as the story goes.
Their respective experiences on the trip led to the Beatles landmark White Album, and Donovan’s The Hurdy Gurdy Man, which were released in November and October that year.
His album’s title track is a brooding yet groovy mid-tempo song, with counterplay between electric guitar and sitar. And in a new interview with The Telegraph, Donovan details how the track may have paved the way for heavy metal, and even inspired Led Zeppelin.
“Is it possible that this anticipated heavy metal? After that came Black Sabbath, and after that came Deep Purple,” he says.
As he explains, the track featured a performance by John Paul Jones, who would later go on to form Led Zeppelin with Jimmy Page.
“John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page were very strong session guys for me,” says 79-year-old Donovan. “At that period when Hurdy Gurdy Man was released, that’s when those two guys put the band together.
Donovan explains how he doesn’t “want to say I created Led Zeppelin,” but “Let’s say John Paul Jones saw the possibilities.
Whether Hurdy Gurdy Man was a precursor to heavy metal is debatable; its distorted guitar lines certainly suggest it may have had some influence, and it’s worth noting that it predates The Beatles’ Helter Skelter, often regarded as the track which paved the way for the metal genre.
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Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner works “three times a day” with a physio on the road to manage the damage caused by an aortic aneurysm and stroke in 2021
Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner has issued an update regarding his health and how he deals with it on the road, after suffering both an aortic aneurysm and a stroke in recent years.
In an interview with Albany, New York radio station Q105.7, Faulkner is asked about his routine to prepare for Priest shows these days, in the wake of his recent serious health issues.
“Fortunately, I don’t have to do anything too heavy,” he says [via Blabbermouth]. Luckily, I just have to remember to take my meds, which I’ve forgotten this morning. Thanks for reminding me! That’s sometimes the hardest thing.”
He goes on: “I’ve had a bit of collateral damage on my right side with stuff connected to what happened. So I have to work at that.
“We have a physio on the road, and I work with him three times a day: once in the morning – after these interviews, I’m gonna work with him on coordination – before the show and then after the show as well. We do that three times a day. So that sort of stuff I have to work on.
“But as far as the heart and everything’s concerned, it’s meds. I can’t eat too many leafy greens, which I’m not too bothered about. I got lucky, really. There’s a lot of people around the world with a lot more serious conditions than I have. So I consider myself lucky to be here talking to you.”
Richie Faulkner suffered an aortic aneurysm while performing onstage with Judas Priest at Louder Than Life festival in 2021. He was subsequently rushed to hospital and underwent a 10-hour heart surgery.
“My aorta ruptured and started to spill blood into my chest cavity,” he said at the time. “From what I’ve been told by my surgeon, people with this don’t usually make it to the hospital alive.”
Earlier this year, he revealed how he had also suffered a stroke shortly after the incident. “They found some damage on the left side of the brain, which affects the right side,” he explained. “Now, fortunately I don’t play guitar with my foot, so that’s fine, I can get away with that. But my hand, obviously, that’s our engine room. Everything started clicking into place in regards to what I was feeling on stage. There was something that was wrong.”
For the time being, though, Faulkner is determined not to step back from his duties in Judas Priest.
“I still play, we’re still writing records, we’re still playing as hard as we can – it doesn’t affect that – but there’s just little things I have to do,” he said. “But I go out every night thinking… Sometimes I come off stage and I call home and I say, ‘I can’t fucking do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.’”
View a list of Judas Priest’s upcoming tour dates via their official website.
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Loog is branching out to larger-sized instruments for adults and teens
After partnering with Fender and Gibson – the two biggest guitar makers in the world – on two lines of kid-friendly three-string guitars, Loog is branching out to fuller-sized instruments for both adults and teens.
The Pro 6 arrives after parents expressed a longing for such kid-friendly guitars when they were younger, according to Loog CEO Rafael Atijas.
- READ MORE: Fender expands its Hammertone pedal line with two new offerings: the Breakup Drive and Boost
Available as a six-string in both acoustic and electric configurations, the Loog Pro 6 sports an ergonomic body with a super-light build, and contours designed for “effortless handling”. There’s also an all-wood construction with a smooth maple neck for an authentic feel and resonant tone.
Credit: Loog
In terms of pricing and availability, the Loog Pro 6 nylon acoustic is priced at $169, and comes in black, natural, white, pink and green, while the electric version costs $249 and comes in red, black and green.
“As parents discovered Loog over the years, we often heard them say, ‘I wish this existed when I was a kid!’” says Rafael Atijas, CEO of Loog.
Credit: Loog
“With the new Pro 6 guitars, we did something about it. They keep the same beginner-friendly spirit Loog is known for, while also feeling perfectly at home in the hands of an adult picking up the instrument for the first time.”
The Loog Pro 6 is available now via Amazon and direct from the Loog website.
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“I’ll have Frankenstein and my wife, and we’re good”: Wolfgang Van Halen admits he kept his father’s most iconic guitar in the back of his car for three weeks in case they had to evacuate during the LA wildfires
Earlier this year, Los Angeles experienced one of the most destructive wildfire seasons in recent memory. Entire neighborhoods were threatened, parts of Sunset Boulevard were left in ruins, and musicians like Joe Bonamassa scrambled to protect prized collections of rare instruments.
For Wolfgang Van Halen, the danger hit just as close to home – so much so that he spent three weeks with his late father’s iconic Frankenstein guitar in the backseat, ready to grab at a moment’s notice if evacuation orders came down.
Speaking with Premier Guitar, Wolfgang shares how the natural disaster coincided with the making of The End, Mammoth’s third album set for release later this month. The looming threat of fire wasn’t just a source of anxiety, but a daily reminder of what could be lost – the irreplaceable gear housed at Eddie Van Halen’s famed 5150 studio.
To make sure nothing was left to chance, Wolfgang says Frankenstein never left his side, stashed safely in his car during the height of the fires.
“I thought, I’ll have Frankenstein and my wife, and we’re good,” he recalls. “And then we had a U-Haul filled with whatever else we felt was worth saving, which was very tough. Luckily, it didn’t come to that, but it was a traumatising time we’re still working through.”
That tension, understandably, seeped into The End.
“That’s where most of the anxious, doomsday energy in the lyrics comes from,” says Wolfgang. “I couldn’t focus on my things.”
Even so, the album marks a step forward for Wolfgang as a guitarist stepping further into his own identity.: “In comparison to how I was on the first album, which was very reserved, guitar-wise, I’m starting to worry less about what people think and what people say,” he explains. “[The End] has a rawer vibe, and I was happy to keep the rough edges for people to feel like they’re in the studio with me.”
“There are a lot of expectations around me — so many preconceived ideas that it feels impossible for anyone to have a neutral opinion,” Wolfang continues. “From the beginning, I’ve tried to stand out as my own person, without all of the bullshit that comes with the name and the controversies and everything that’s come before me. It’s just nice to be able to be judged for the music itself, rather than what people think or say about me.”
Arriving on 24 October, The End is now available for pre-order. Check out the latest single below.
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“I was in a dark place with Bruce leaving and me going through a divorce”: Steve Harris on why this underrated Iron Maiden album was so “powerful”
Personal upheaval may have been painful for Steve Harris, but it also gave rise to what he believes are Iron Maiden’s most “powerful” unsung albums.
Looking back on the band’ discography, the Maiden leader highlights 1995’s The X Factor and 1998’s Virtual XI – both made during the hiatus of their lead singer, Bruce Dickinson – as two records that fans are only now beginning to ‘realise they’re good’.
“I said it at the time and I still believe it – those two are really strong, powerful albums and people will appreciate them later,” he tells Metal Hammer. “And people are going back and discovering them and realising they’re good.”
“The X Factor in particular is really good,” says Harris, “but it’s a dark album.”
“Probably ‘cos I was in a bit of a dark place with Bruce leaving and me going through a divorce at the time, all this stuff going on. But what came out of that was a powerful album. You take negative stuff and you turn it into a positive and those emotions come out, and that’s what you can do with music. Music’s such a powerful thing.”
Even with multiple multimillion-selling records, Harris admits the band has never produced a “perfect album.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever made the perfect album. Number Of The Beast, people think that’s the perfect album, but there are two songs on there that are not as good as the others,” he says, referring to Invaders and Gangland. “Not everything’s going to be good, is it?”
Asked if he’d ever considered calling it quits, Harris laughs, “Only for a couple of hours. It’s like when West Ham lose – I sulk for two hours, but you have to pick yourself up, brush yourself down and get on with it. It’s the only way it’s going to work.”
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Fender expands its Hammertone pedal line with two new offerings: the Breakup Drive and Boost
Fender has expanded its Hammertone line of effects pedals with two new units: the Hammertone Breakup Drive and Hammertone Boost.
The Big F’s Hammertone line is positioned to offer guitarists “the essential building blocks of any pedalboard”, comprising – including the new Hammertone Breakup Drive and Hammertone Boost – 11 pedals in total.
Other pedals in the Hammertone range include the Delay, Metal (distortion), Space Delay, Flanger, Reverb, Fuzz, Overdrive, Distortion and Chorus.
But let’s take a look at what the new installments have to offer…
Hammertone Breakup Drive ($99.99 / £75.99 / €89.99)
Credit: Fender
Providing guitarists responsive, tube-like tones in a compact pedal format, the Hammertone Breakup Drive is built around a JFET-based circuit, and replicates the dynamic feel of hot tubes pushed to the edge of saturation.
There are two selectable clipping modes – which range from light breakup to low-gain overdrive – as well as an “expansive” tone control and switchable pre-gain mid boost for flexible frequency shaping.
“Whether adding character to a clean tone or delivering touch-sensitive overdrive, the Hammertone Breakup Drive offers versatile performance for players who crave feel and nuance,” says Fender.
Hammertone Boost ($99.99 / £75.99 / €89.99)
Credit: Fender
Meanwhile, the new Hammertone Boost offers two distinct boost circuits in a single enclosure, with a Type switch selecting between a clean, op amp-based boost, or a JFET-based boost that adds “warmth and harmonic richness, reminiscent of vintage tape unit preamps”.
There’s also an onboard EQ section, with Treble and Bass controls allowing easy tone shaping.
“Whether used to cleanly boost solos, push an amp into breakup, or add subtle sweetness to a core tone, the Hammertone Boost delivers exceptional flexibility and performance,” Fender says.
Learn more about the latest Hammertone additions at Fender.
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John Fogerty thought effects pedals were a “communist idea” and didn’t want to use them
John Fogerty has admitted to being skeptical about effects pedals during his Creedence Clearwater Revival days, even going so far as to call them a “communist idea.”
In a recent interview with Rick Beato, the CCR guitar legend says that back in the ’60s, he “didn’t know anything about pedals”, nor did he have any desire to use them.
“It’s one of those weird things in life,” says Fogerty. “You notice – especially culturally or politically – people will change their mind about some subject. At first they are one way and then with some education or whatever they are like ‘oh’. I was kind of that way about pedals. ‘Why do I need a pedal?’ It seemed like some communist idea or something.”
Instead, Fogerty gravitated to Kustom amps, which he describes as having “some hair on the notes”.
“The amp I used a lot almost exclusively in those days was the brand Kustom. Basically it was solid state but they had created this amp in such a way that it [has a] natural sound,” he explains. “If you turned it up pretty loud – it was a 100 Watter amp – it didn’t have that horrible, tight, too clean sound that so many of the solid state amps were into.”
Paired with his Rickenbacker, the Kustom amps gave Fogerty the exact tone he wanted.
“I always felt that a Blackface or the Silverface Fender – the Twin Reverb, the big amp, I thought was too harsh for me. I still do,” says the guitarist. “The Kustom amp kind of had some hair on the notes – and it was perfect for strumming an electric guitar, especially a Rickenbacker. The toaster pickups on that guitar weren’t real, real loud, so that the amp had some finesse to it.”
“That combination was perfect, the Rick with the Kustom amp,” he concludes.
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Nuno Bettencourt launches guitar brand, Nuno Guitars, ending 35-year run with Washburn
Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt has launched his own guitar company, Nuno Guitars, bringing an end to over three decades of partnership with Washburn.
Announcing the launch in a new Instagram video, Bettencourt says: “I’m super excited to announce that today, this second, right now as we speak in real-time, I’m launching my own guitar company.”
“Had a great run with Washburn, a good 35 years, I believe, which is pretty insane.”
The guitarist explains that the decision has been years in the works, motivated by a wish to engage more closely with the guitar-playing community.
“One of the main reasons is I wanted to be able to kind of deal directly with y’all, with guitar players and fans that purchase any of my guitars,” he says. “I wanted to kind of build this community now and be able to engage with you on a deeper and a closer level.”
Bettencourt’s first flagship models under the new brand, the Dark Horse and White Stallion, spearhead the launch. They are joined by the N4, his long-standing signature model with Washburn.
Credit: Nuno Guitars
The new venture lets players get their hands on the same instruments the guitarist himself uses, from stage performances at Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning benefit at Villa Park in Birmingham to his 2025 MTV VMA appearances.
“These are true workhorses built with the same passion I’ve put into every note I’ve ever played,” says Bettencourt. “What I’m most excited about as the founder and CEO of my new company is communicating directly with players and fans who will get to play the exact guitars that I play on stage and in the studio.”
He adds, “Together we’re forming a new community where I can personally engage with you about a mutual passion… our guitars. Once you own a Nuno guitar, you are forever a part of my family. Let’s Ride!”
Learn more at Nuno Guitars.
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Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble review – a compact Leslie sim that doesn’t compromise on features
$239/£229, boss.info
Different modulation effects seem to come in and out of fashion – it’s flanging this week, hadn’t you heard? – but the rotary speaker sound is different. The ‘Leslie effect’ is older than rock music itself, and it’s just too beautiful to worry about its position in the guitar stompbox pantheon.
- READ MORE: EarthQuaker Devices Easy Listening review – can an amp simulator this simple actually sound good?
Two things have changed in recent years, though: the power of digital processing has made it much easier to simulate the sound of a Leslie cabinet, and guitarists are demanding smaller pedals so they can fit more of them on their ‘boards. Toss all of that information into a cauldron, add the biggest brand name in pedaldom, and what comes out is the Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble.
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble – what is it?
If I say it’s a compact Leslie sim, you might be ready to move on to the next section already. But please don’t – it took me ages to write this bit. It’s a story that takes us all the way back to the 1930s: designed for organs rather than guitars, the original Leslie cab used spinning drivers (well, strictly speaking one spinning driver and one spinning baffle) to create an intense and distinctive kind of modulation based on the Doppler effect. It soon became a key component of the Hammond sound.
A number of guitarists started using Leslies in the 60s; but while compact phaser, flanger and chorus pedals were all over the stages of the 80s, it seems the rotary effect’s multi-dimensional wobble was just too complex to be miniaturised in the same way using analogue tech. The H&K Tube Rotosphere had a good go in the late 90s – and remains a hugely respected pedal to this day – but it was a whopper, as were early digital efforts like the Korg G4.
Then came Neo Instruments. This German company has been making Leslie sims since 2010, most notably the not-quite-compact Mini Vent (launched in 2013) and a pair of very-much-compact Micro Vent models (2019). All the Vents share one important design feature: they sound frickin’ fantastic. And that’s the bar that the RT-2 is aiming to clear.
This is not Boss’s first rotary pedal – there was a much bigger version, the RT-20, in the now-discontinued 20 series. But that unit had two footswitches, seven knobs and a four-way mode switch. How much of that has survived the transition to the classic single-stomp format? Well, as it turns out, pretty much all the important bits.
Ramping between fast and slow speeds is a major part of the Leslie recipe; in the absence of a second footswitch, it’s done here by holding the bypass switch down for a second. Those two speeds are set via concentric knobs on the right, while another pair on the left handle output level and overdrive. A couple of switches round the back let you choose your ramping time (fast or slow) and repurpose the drive knob to alter the balance between the two virtual drivers (a low-frequency drum and a high-frequency horn).
There’s just a three-way mode switch this time, and stereo ins and outs plus an expression pedal input for controlling the speed manually… oh, and a simplified version of the RT-20’s kerrr-azy light show for giving a visual representation of the two spinning speakers.
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble – is it easy to use?
As long as you’ve got at least one working ankle, getting started with the RT-2 is stupendously simple. Tap once to turn it on, tap once to turn it off, hold until the status LED changes colour to set it off a-ramping; as a system, it’s impossible to forget and (nearly) impossible to get wrong. The pedal even comes with a battery fitted, although – as ever with digital pedals – you’re better off with an external power supply.
The controls are self-explanatory, with no quirks or surprises. And while the red and blue lights don’t really do anything vitally important, they do provide a visual representation of the imaginary drivers’ rotation (blue for the drum, red for the horn) that’s weirdly compelling. You’d definitely miss them if they stopped working.
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble – what does it sound like?
If you stand in front of a speaker cabinet containing two drivers with their output spinning in opposite directions, you’re going to hear a lot of modulation – a combination of chorus, phasing and tremolo that’s somehow richer than any of them but in a way that isn’t overwhelming. That’s the unique sorcery of the Leslie sound, and the RT-2 does it… reasonably well.
There’s no mistaking that this is a rotary sim, and Boss has captured every element of the sound – including the way the two rotors accelerate and decelerate at different speeds in the transitions. It swirls around sinuously in slow mode, and wibbles delicately in fast mode. Run it through two amps and you get a decent stereo spread that adds a whole load of immersive realism. In short, it does the job.
What it doesn’t do is sound unconditionally gorgeous. It’s nice enough, but sometimes the voicing of the RT-2 seems a little overbearing in the midrange – maybe a blend control would have helped? – while the effect can get woozy at slower speeds, perhaps because of a tad too much emphasis on the tremolo element. Just to be clear, it’s good… but the competition is better.
The first two modes are strangely similar, but the third shakes things up tonally and also adds a big dollop of gain. This is really noticeable when you crank the drive control, which should in theory produce a wonderfully chewy grinding effect but, in the RT-2’s case, somehow doesn’t. It sounds ever so slightly fizzy and detached. Again, it’s not bad, it’s just not very likeable.
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble – should I buy it?
If you want a proper speed-ramping Leslie sim and it has to be compact, your choice is between this and one of the Neo Micro Vents – which sound better, but lose out on flexibility (mono outputs, no overdrive) and pricing. Prepared to give up a couple more square inches of pedalboard space for something with two footswitches? Now the Boss is going up against a much bigger field that includes the Mini Vent, the Strymon Lex and more… and it suddenly becomes a lot harder to recommend.
Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble alternatives
Those Neo Micro Vents (€359/£299) come in black and white flavours, representing the Leslie 122 and 16 respectively. The Strymon Lex ($349/£329) is great for overdriven sounds, but see also the Keeley Rotary ($229/£289) and Electro-Harmonix Lester K ($218/£163).
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Lowden’s AI-equipped guitars can now tell you how they’re feeling – or where they are
In an age where AI in music often sparks debate about creativity, Northern Irish maker Lowden Guitars is taking the technology in a more practical direction. Its latest instruments come fitted with built-in smart sensors designed not to write songs, but to help players better care for their guitars – and maybe even fend off thieves.
Lowden, whose roster of players includes Ed Sheeran, Eric Clapton, and Mark Knopfler, is the first major acoustic builder to embrace AI in this way. The smart sensor tracks a guitar’s “health information” in real time, monitoring temperature, humidity, vibration, and even location.
Owners can then keep tabs on their instrument via the companion app Mylowden. Built in collaboration with Storm Reply, ubloquity, and Amazon Web Services, the app doubles as a digital logbook. It stores data in the cloud, provides access to warranty and insurance services, and offers tips for keeping guitars in peak playing condition.
“I’m very excited to know that this program has been developed in conjunction with AWS in the hope that guitar players will always have the assurance of knowing where their guitar is, and what sort of condition it has been kept in,” says founder George Lowden.
The app also records GPS location, ownership history, and the materials used in each build. Players can even document key events in the life of their guitar – from songwriting sessions to gigs.
“Lowden is the first guitar maker to embrace this type of technology in a way that enables musicians to grow their understanding and connection with their instruments,” says Managing Director Aaron Lowden.
“From practical information about their instrument, including climate, any knocks it could potentially take during travel, and documenting key services or repairs, key moments in playing, songwriting, collaborating, and performing, this technology will enhance the Lowden ownership experience.”
He adds that the technology “is really limitless, and new features will be rolled out over time”.
Learn more at Lowden.
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Guitar.com Magazine: here’s how to get your copy of the September/October 2025 issue
A new issue of Guitar.com Magazine is out this week – and comes in a bundle with NME Magazine! Here’s how you can get a copy of the September/October 2025 issue.
In April, we announced the relaunch of the Guitar.com print edition after a four-year hiatus, and in May launched the first new issue with Mateus Asato on the cover. This Thursday, you’ll be able to get your hands on the second issue of Guitar.com Magazine, featuring unmissable features and reviews, which comes with a copy of the September/October 2025 issue of NME Magazine.
Mark your calendars for Thursday October 2 at 2pm BST – that’s when the cover stars of both magazines will be revealed and the mags go on sale exclusively via retailer Dawsons. The waiting room is open, so check it out now.
Besides Guitar.com, MusicTech has also returned to print. Guitar.com, MusicTech and NME are sister publications under NME Networks. The new Guitar.com and MusicTech print editions will alternate with every bi-monthly edition of NME Magazine – which itself was relaunched in 2023 – meaning three print editions per calendar year for each brand.
Subscribe here for more information about the Guitar.com Magazine and for the chance to receive an exclusive queue jump opportunity, where readers can get their hands on a copy before anyone else. Guitar.com will be sending out queue jump tickets shortly before the magazine goes on sale to randomly chosen subscribers.
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