Guitar.com

I recently had an argument with a friend who was remodeling their kitchen, and they decided to paint over their beautiful hickory cupboards. As a longtime woodworker, I love the look of woodgrains. Each piece is unique and has character – painting over it with a solid latex color seemed to me to be a real shame.

• READ MORE: This is how your guitar’s truss rod actually works – and here’s what you’re doing wrong with it

But then I had to catch myself – I don’t love the look of wood so much that I’ve stripped all my guitars back to the grain, have I? I love the look of a guitar with a stunning colourful finish on it, but should I? The whole argument brought to light one question I had never actually asked myself… what’s the point of painting guitars, anyway?

Wood is beautiful. A nicely figured slab of maple or a clean piece of swamp ash is arguably prettier than anything you could spray over it. So why do the overwhelming majority of guitars leaving factories today get finished in something that obscures this entirely, or at the very least buries it under a thick coat of clear lacquer?

The short answer is that a guitar finish does three jobs at once – protection, looks, and, arguably, tone – and the industry has been tweaking the balance between those three since long before most of us ever plucked a string.

The Boring Answer

Let’s start with the boring answer, which also happens to be the most important one. Wood moves. A guitar body is organic material, and left to its own devices it’ll absorb moisture from the air and from your hands, warp with humidity, and gradually soak up every drop of beer sweat that lands on it.

A finish seals it. Whether we’re talking about a thick coat of polyester on a modern Squier or a wafer-thin layer of nitrocellulose lacquer on a Custom Shop Strat, the coating is a barrier against moisture, dust, skin oils, UV light, and the general indignities of being played.

Guitar finishes as a category have evolved in roughly chronological order – from barely-there oils and shellacs that protected very little but preserved the wood’s feel; to French polish, which Martin used for more than a century; to nitrocellulose lacquers starting in the 1920s and ’30s; to polyurethane and polyester from the late 1960s onward. Each step up the chain trades something. Thinner finishes let the wood breathe and feel more organic under your hand but scratch easily and age quickly. Thicker ones form a glossy armor that shrugs off pretty much anything you throw at it.

Hiding Place

The second reason for painting a guitar is one the marketing department won’t put on the spec sheet. Paint hides things. Bodies, especially at the affordable end of the market, are often made from multi-piece blanks, woods with inconsistent grain, or cuts that wouldn’t look particularly impressive under a transparent finish.

An opaque color – Fiesta Red, Olympic White, Surf Green – does the double duty of looking fantastic and politely ignoring whatever’s happening underneath. This is why you’ll occasionally see an old refinished Fender stripped bare to reveal a body that was clearly never meant for the spotlight. A solid color lets a manufacturer use more of what comes in the door.

Standing Out

Which brings us to the third reason: identity. When Leo Fender started offering custom colors in the mid-1950s, he wasn’t being precious about tonewoods – he was looking at car dealerships. Detroit’s postwar boom had turned the automobile into a symbol of personal style, and the paint codes pouring out of DuPont’s catalog offered a shortcut to that same glamour.

Fender’s custom colors were, quite literally, car paints. Fiesta Red came from Ford. Lake Placid Blue from Cadillac. Daphne Blue, also Cadillac. Sonic Blue was lifted from a ’56 Cadillac color chart. In fact, Fender’s only truly in-house mixes during the 1950s and ’60s were sunburst, blond, and eventually Candy Apple Red – everything else was borrowed from the automotive world, mixed by DuPont under the Duco (nitrocellulose) and Lucite (acrylic) brand names, and sprayed onto guitar bodies at a five percent upcharge.

The Real Impact

Which leaves the question everyone wants answered: does paint actually affect the sound of a guitar? I would imagine that this is the section of the article that will inspire the most debate because for decades now, musicians have been divided on it.

The traditional claim – that nitrocellulose lets the wood “breathe” and therefore resonate better – is mostly myth, at least on solidbody electrics. What actually matters is thickness. A thin finish, whether it’s nitro or a carefully-applied poly, interferes less with the wood’s vibration than a thick one.

Early poly finishes on Fenders and other production guitars were laid on heavily because it was cheaper and more efficient, and those thick plastic coatings probably did dampen things a bit. According to most luthiers I’ve spoken to, modern polys, applied in properly thin layers, are largely indistinguishable from nitro in practice.

On an acoustic, where the top’s vibration is the whole engine of the sound, finish thickness matters a lot more – which is why Martin spent more than a hundred years using shellac and why boutique builders still obsess over the thinnest lacquer they can get away with.

On a solidbody, though, the finish’s effect is minor compared to the pickups, the wood itself, the strings, and your hands. That’s why the long-running “nitro sounds better” debate is mostly about feel and aesthetics. Nitrocellulose checks, yellows, and wears into the patina vintage buyers chase. Polyurethane and polyester stay looking brand new for decades. Both ideas are completely defensible.

Personal Preference

Personally, when I build necks out of roasted maple, I don’t finish them unless it’s requested. I use a combination of wax and oil to protect the neck – but that has to be re-applied a couple of times per year. I do like the feel of it, but the real reason I do that is that I customize the neck shape to the player, and if at any point the neck needs to be reshaped, I can do it without having to reapply a finish that needs to cure. So even the decision not to use poly or nitro has a practical purpose, not necessarily a tonal one.

So when someone asks what the point of painting a guitar is, the honest answer is all of it, at the same time. It keeps the wood alive. It hides what you don’t want to see. It signals the brand, the era, and the player you want to be associated with. And then, in some small percentage of cases, it might even nudge the tone – though far less than the folklore suggests. The next time you pick up a guitar and admire the finish, you’re not just looking at a coat of paint. You’re looking at a century of trade-offs between chemistry, craftsmanship, and the car industry.

The post What’s the point of painting a guitar anyway? And does it make any difference to the sound? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Chaos Audio – the innovative guitar gear brand behind the compact multi-FX Stratus pedal, which we gave a strong 8/10 in our review last year – has launched its new AI FX Builder, a platform which allows guitarists to describe the tone they want in a text prompt and bring it to life in seconds.

Text-to-tone audio platforms have been cropping up with greater frequency in the last year or so, with Positive Grid launching its AI-enabled BIAS X platform in September, as well as smaller projects like the FUKKAUDIO browser-based text-to-tone generator.

• READ MORE: I tried using an AI-powered amp and effects suite to create my guitar sound for me – here’s what happened

Now, Chaos Audio throws its hat into the ring, with a text-to-tone generator of its own, AI FX Builder.

Each text prompt yields a unique effect, enabling guitarists and musicians to build out their effects libraries with “unprecedented ease and speed”, the company says.

Additionally, users have full access to the FAUST code used by AI FX Builder, enabling them to edit, learn from or rewrite code if they wish. Chaos Audio reassures users that they retain “unlimited rights to the code” and are free to use it on their own hardware, in commercial products or as a starting point for their own designs.

“Vocalists, violinists, guitar players, trumpet players or others, prompt the AI FX Builder by typing in a description of their desired effect, and watch it come to life,” says Chaos Audio founder and CEO Landon McCoy. “Now, your gear listens to you, not the other way around.”

He goes on: “The platform is not an artist. It doesn’t generate music or artwork or replace a musician’s creativity. You describe what you want, evaluate the result, design the interface and decide whether it’s good enough.”

In terms of pricing, AI FX Builder is available on a monthly subscription of $9.99 per month for 20 AI builds per month, or $29.99/month for 80 AI builds per month. You can also buy packs of AI builds if you wish not to commit to a monthly subscription, with 10 builds for $9.99, 30 for $24.99 and 100 for $49.99.

Learn more at Chaos Audio.

The post This new AI FX Builder from Chaos Audio might just change the way you craft your tone appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

At just 15 years of age, Tom Morello’s son Roman has developed into quite the formidable guitar player. Back in 2023, the young musician borrowed the 1982 Fender ‘Sendero Luminoso’ Telecaster his father used on Killing in the Name to play the track during a Rage Against the Machine soundcheck.

Though stealing him away from Fortnite to play guitar was initially a difficult task, Roman Morello ultimately fell in love with the guitar, and his father last year admitted that he’s now the “rhythm guitar player in the household”: “I just play some chord progressions, and he shreds over it,” he said.

• READ MORE: Deep Purple guitarist says Smoke on the Water is a “challenging” song to play: “It is easy technically, but it’s not easy to play”

And in a new interview with Guitar World magazine, Tom Morello reveals his son has become a “collaborative partner” on a number of his recent projects.

“That’s something I’m most excited about, continuing the collaboration with my son, Roman, who has become quite a technical guitarist. He’s been a collaborative partner on a couple of songs, and that will continue. [laughs]

“One of my favourite parts about working with Roman is that if we have disagreements, I’m able to send him to his room!”

Elsewhere in the interview, the guitarist explains the sheer number of requests he gets from other artists looking for him to add his characteristic chops to their music, but says being a father often gets in the way.

“It happens all day,” he says. “I do a lot of it, too. I’ve donated guitar solos to younger bands. They’re fans of Rage Against the Machine of Audioslave, and they want me on their songs.”

As for why he can’t help out every band that comes across his desk, he goes on: “Hey, I’ve got a lot going on! These days, I’m driving my kids to a lot of high school baseball games.”

Recently, Tom Morello teamed up with metalcore stalwarts Beartooth to contribute music to the latest update of Final Fantasy XIV.

Listen to Everything Burns below:

The post “If we have disagreements, I’m able to send him to his room”: Tom Morello on working with his son, Roman appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Ad feature with Taylor Guitars

Throughout his long and illustrious musical career, it’s safe to say that Ben Harper has come to understand when he’s going to connect with an instrument. “It never takes me longer than three chords to know if I’m gonna spend a lifetime with a guitar or not,” the Grammy-winning musician explains.

For nearly a decade now, the acoustic guitars that have inspired Harper most of all have had Taylor inlaid in the headstock. Harper was also an early convert to the more vintage-accented charms of the Gold Label Collection, which launched last year. He was road-testing the GL Grand Pacific body shape before it even launched, and so it’s perhaps no surprise that Gold Label’s spirit of artist collaboration has now birthed Taylor’s first ever Ben Harper signature model.

What’s interesting even if you aren’t a fan of Harper, however, is that just like how Trey Hensley’s 2025 signature model paved the way for the first ever Gold Label dreadnought-sized guitar, this new instrument adds a familiar but different silhouette to the line, and it’s one that everyone should pay attention to.

Concert Pitch

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Grand Concert body shape changed everything for Taylor guitars. When Bob Taylor designed the shape in 1984, he did so to cater to the needs of a new generation of adventurous and dynamic acoustic fingerstyle players.

These players needed something that was not only a little smaller than traditional shapes to enable them to fully explore the guitar’s wider neck, but they also needed an instrument that reduced the boomy overtones, and offered a brighter, clearer overall sound.

The Grand Concert quickly became Taylor’s defining instrument and informed much of the boundary-pushing evolution that the brand embarked on over the following decades. For many players, the Grand Concert remains the defining example of what sets Taylor apart from more traditional guitar brands.

Gold Standard

The Grand Concert-sized Gold Label 512e, then, is a very interesting guitar to add to the range – especially given that Gold Label guitars have generally been focused on bigger-bodied instruments. For players who prefer a more compact instrument, like Harper, the 512e is a godsend – though it does reimagine Taylor’s smallest full-size guitar in some interesting ways.

Visually, the most notable thing about this guitar versus most of the Grand Concert guitars you’ll see is the lack of a cutaway – something that was virtually unheard of with GCs past, but ties the whole Gold Label Collection together.

That isn’t the only place the 512e adds some extra air inside, however – the Gold Label Grand Concert follows its Grand Pacific stablemate in adding a little extra depth to the body. Now, don’t worry – this is still a svelte and comfortable instrument. But it’s one that –  combined with the classic spruce/mahogany tonewood pairing and Fanned V-Class bracing – offers a warm and woody midrange voice that combines a strong fundamental focus with impressive articulation and no shortage of power across the frequency spectrum.

Common Goals

When you pair this mature and refined sonic voice with the Grand Concert’s more compact scale length, you get an instrument that is as effortless to play as any Taylor guitar on the market. And thanks to the inclusion of the revolutionary Action Control Neck, you can tailor your playing experience in seconds – without even having to retune.

The Action Control Neck has recently brought its impressive adjustability to the Next Generation Grand Auditorium guitars, and so it’s fitting that a piece of technology developed from that range has in turn found its way into the Ben Harper 512e. While standard-line 512e guitars spec the same impressive LR Baggs Element VTC pickup, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Harper has been charmed by the simplicity of the brand new Claria pickup system.

“Incredible guitarists have struggled with the bridge saddle pickup,” Harper explains. “This is the first pickup that sounds as good as my favorite acoustic guitar heroes without the dog and pony show. You plug it in, one input, a DI, house, and it blooms.”

For Harper, the 512e has clearly been a dream project – but it’s also one that further expands the design and tonal palette of the Gold Label range to cater to even more players. That’s something that’s great news for every acoustic guitarist. “If I could dream up a way to be in collaboration and communion with a guitar maker,” Harper enthuses. “This would be it”

Find out more about the 512e and the entire Gold Label Collection at Taylor Guitars

The post How Taylor reimagined the Grand Concert for its Gold Label line – with the help of Ben Harper appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Following on from its legal victory regarding the Stratocaster trademark in March, a law firm claiming to represent Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has reportedly sent cease and desist orders to a variety of guitar makers demanding they stop producing instruments that use the Stratocaster design.

In March 2026, Fender scored a default judgement against Chinese-based Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co in the Düsseldorf Regional Court in Germany, that set out that the Strat was no longer a simple trademark, but “a copyrighted work of applied art”.

While this default judgement was made because Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co failed to turn up for the trial in question, and only covers instruments sold or imported into the European Union, it seems Fender may have wasted no time in beginning to use this ruling to attempt to police the use of the Strat body shape more overtly.

Guitar.com understands that in recent weeks, multiple guitar makers have received letters from the law firm Bird & Bird, informing them of the EU ruling, and demanding that as a result, the brands in question cease producing guitars that use the Strat body shape, recall and destroy any existing unsold inventory, provide sales data on how many of these instruments have been sold, and provide financial restitution for damages and legal fees.

What’s been alleged to have been said?

Guitar.com has seen a redacted version of the letter seemingly sent by Bird & Bird on behalf of Fender to one anonymous guitar company, which has also been shared with other outlets and guitar influencers. The letter appears to lay out Fender’s position on the design of the Stratocaster being a unique, artistic creation developed by Leo Fender in the 1950s, and the various ways in which the guitar’s body shape was more than simply functional practical design.

The letter then appears to lay out Fender’s position thusly:

“It has come to our client’s attention that you are marketing electric guitars under the brand [REDACTED]… instanced by the model [REDACTED]… 

“The design of the body of these guitars is nearly identical to the design of the body our [sic] client’s ‘Stratocaster’ guitars. They are in particular not less similar to the Stratocaster guitars than the guitars which were subject of the Düsseldorf judgment. 

“You are therefore infringing our client’s copyright in the Stratocaster body shape. As a consequence, our client has claims against you to cease and desist from further marketing such guitars, disclosure of information about your sales and marketing, damages, destruction of the infringing products, recall of the infringing products, and reimbursement of our legal fees.”

The letter then appears to go on to set out Fender’s position on the Stratocaster body shape, and how it has changed in light of the EU ruling:

“We appreciate that copies of our client’s famous ‘Stratocaster’ have been in the market before. However, with the judgment of the Court of Düsseldorf, it is now clear that our client has a copyright to the shape of the ‘Stratocaster’ guitar body, and that copies of these guitar body [sic] constitute copyright infringement. 

“Our client is resolved to assert its rights and will enforce them consistently in order to keep the market free of infringing copies of the ‘Stratocaster’ body shape. Your company, as well as any other manufacturer of copies of the ‘Stratocaster’, will of course be able to continue to market electric guitars which are sufficiently distinct from the “Stratocaster”.

“Our client therefore insists that you immediately stop manufacturing, marketing, selling and producing the infringing products and confirm this to us [by] 25 May 2026. If you confirm that you will comply with our client’s claims, our client would in turn be prepared to make concessions in relation to their claims for e.g. damages, and also possibly in relation to phase-out and transition periods.

“However, should you fail to respond accordingly within the deadline, we will advise our client to commence the required further judicial steps against you without further hesitation.”

How is the guitar world reacting?

Notably, even though this is an EU judgement, at least one of the companies that has received these letters is based in the USA. LSL Instruments – a boutique, family-run guitar company based in California – is currently the only brand to have publicly revealed that they’ve received this cease and desist.

The brand launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for legal fees over the weekend, and has currently raised over $7,000. Guitar.com reached out directly to LSL about the situation, and they provided a short statement in response, as well as pointing us to a blog laying out the brand’s position.

“We appreciate all the support shown directly to us and to the entire boutique guitar world,” the statement read. “To every builder affected by this, we want them to know that we are thinking about them and support them in spirit.”

LSL’s blog explained the reason for their fundraising efforts, and the potential impact legal action would have on the brand.

“We received demands from Fender Musical Instruments to stop selling, recall and destroy all Saticoy guitars worldwide,” it read. “We make less than 500 guitars a year, while Fender makes 500,000. Our small business poses no threat to them in any way whatsoever yet here we are.”

“If we fight this solely on our own. There is a very good chance we could be bankrupted, out of business quickly, and we are not alone in this position.”

While there has been speculation across the online guitar space about other brands that may have been sent these letters, currently LSL is the only brand who have publicly claimed they have been sent one.

How does this affect the wider guitar industry?

Back in 2009, Fender lost a high-profile US case when the brand attempted to file trademarks for the Stratocaster, Telecaster and P-Bass body shapes. At the time the filing was protested by a group of other guitar makers, who ultimately succeeded in having the trademarks cancelled.

In the years since, it was widely assumed that this defeat – following on from Gibson’s 2005 loss in a lawsuit against PRS in 2005 – gave other builders the freedom to use classic body shapes, provided that they didn’t infringe on things like headstock shape.

However, Gibson’s protracted but ultimately successful battle against Dean Guitars over the Flying V body shape showed that the big brands still have the ability to win these cases in the right circumstances.

When the ruling was made, Fender put out a press statement, including quotes from Aarash Darroodi, General Counsel & Chief Administrative Officer Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, stating that the case: “reinforces our commitment to originality, supports fair competition, and helps ensure that when players encounter these iconic Fender guitar shapes, they can trust the craftsmanship, quality, and heritage behind them.”

The Fender ruling, crucially, was NOT a trademark dispute – Fender and Gibson have both lost trademark cases on their body shapes in the EU in years past – but sought to reframe the Strat’s body shape as an artistic work, subject to copyright, instead.

Furthermore, while the Dusseldorf ruling only impacts guitars sold in or imported into the European Union, the global nature of the industry means that Fender is using this ruling to try to enforce their claims on any brands that do business in the EU.

The bigger question is how robust the original ruling will turn out to be. As we explained in our initial analysis of the Dusseldorf case, it’s standard procedure for the court to side with the plaintiff when the defendant does not appear in court.

But the default nature of the judgement means that Fender’s claims – the language of which it is seemingly now using to pursue enforcement against other brands – have not yet faced any legal counterarguments in court. That said, Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co does not appear to have taken any steps to have the judgment set aside.

In that original statement, Fender was keen to stress that, “the ruling does not restrict innovation or healthy competition within the guitar industry but rather that it represents targeted enforcement against clear cases of infringement”.

These alleged legal letters appear to set out exactly what Fender believes is classed as “clear infringement” – it remains to be seen whether LSL or any of the other allegedly impacted brands will be able to test this in court.

Guitar.com has reached out to Fender for comment on the accuracy and authenticity of the legal documents that we’ve seen – but they had not replied by time of publication. 

The post Fender reportedly demands boutique builders stop making Stratocaster-style guitars: this is what it means for the industry appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The world’s first generative AI guitar is here, and lets users generate original songs, play any track, and learn through guided gameplay without any prior musical training.

Made by music technology company TemPolor, which is focused on making music creation “more accessible through AI-powered instruments and interactive design”, the Melo-D guitar is its flagship product, and combines generative AI and guided play with a patented foldable design for portability.

• READ MORE: Answered: more technical guitar questions you were too afraid to ask

Melo-D has a built-in 2.4-inch LCD touchscreen and functions alongside an external app. Using TemPolor’s proprietary TemPolor.AI engine, it can transform humming into guitar solos and generate complete original songs with lyrics from text inputs.

Users can also paste a song link or upload an audio file, and Melo-D will transcribe it into fingerstyle tabs or chord charts in under 60 seconds, with on-screen guidance and light-up strings to help beginners play with no music theory required. You can see how it works in the videos below:

“Our goal with Melo-D was to lower the barrier between inspiration and creation,” says Jason Jia, founder of TemPolor. “We wanted to build an instrument that feels approachable to beginners, useful to creators, and exciting from the very first interaction, whether someone is playing, learning, or generating a completely original song.”

The guitar is soon to launch on Kickstarter, and early backers will have access to a Super Early Bird price before full retail availability.

To find out more, head over to the TemPolor Kickstarter page.

The post The “world’s first generative AI guitar” is about to launch on Kickstarter appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Following the death of Neil Peart in 2020, drummers were in a bleak ‘Rush’ to pick up the phone and ask whether the band were looking for a replacement. While Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee have since recruited Anika Nilles to fill in on drums for their comeback tour, the pair stand by the fact the “bombardment” was inappropriate.

In a new chat with Guitar World, Lee reflects on how insulting it was to receive a wave of drumming applications while still mourning his late bandmate. “There were many other drummers who reached out to me in the aftermath of Neil’s passing that were pushing themselves, and that was so distasteful to me,” he says. “It was completely inappropriate timing.”

• READ MORE: “Twice a night we’ll pick a song to play for him”: Geddy Lee reveals how Rush will pay tribute to Neil Peart on reunion tour

Of course, not everyone was quick to reach out. Many amazing drummers held back, because they respected that Rush needed time to handle their grief. “People who are close to us – good friends that are successful drummers – would never [have tried to do] something like that,” Lee explains. “They have too much respect, not only for Neil and for the situation.”

“They were grieving as well, so they wouldn’t be so selfish as to say something inappropriate like that,” he adds.

Back in 2024, Lee also admitted on Strombo’s Lit that those “inappropriate” drummers got put in his “little black book” of people he didn’t want to work with in the future. “I was, like, ‘Whoa, that’s just so inappropriate right now,’” Lee said. “Dude, wait two months. At least two months.…”

Last year, the world was shocked to discover Rush would be reuniting for their massive Fifty Something tour, along with new drummer, Anika Nilles. Elsewhere in the Guitar World interview, Lee explains why Nilles was the perfect fit: “When Al and I finally said, “Okay, I guess we’re getting serious. Who’s going to sit in that impossible seat?” How do you ask someone to replace a guy who’s irreplaceable? It’s daunting… [but] she brought a lot to the table.”

“More than her chops, more than her guts and her willingness to sit in that hot seat, she brought an intelligence and a story,” he continues. “I love her story. This is someone who grew up in Germany in a family of musicians. Her dad was a drummer. She played drums her entire life. She doesn’t even remember the first time she picked up sticks. It’s who she is.”

While Peart’s family has given Nilles their blessing, Rush are also certain that she has more than proven her worth. “The fans love her right now, but they’re going to scrutinise her, and she’s up for it,” Lee says.

The post “That was distasteful to me”: Geddy Lee confirms “many” drummers contacted him following Neil Peart’s death offering to join Rush appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It’s bread and butter for Guitar Center goers, and the kryptonite of employees who work at those same stores. As far as all-time ubiquitous riffs go, Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water is right up there with Sweet Child O’ Mine, Seven Nation Army and Enter Sandman.

But while it may seem like one of the easier riffs you could bust out to impress – or infuriate – your fellow shoppers, Deep Purple guitarist Simon McBride says it’s actually deceptively difficult to get right.

• READ MORE: “The world doesn’t need another Tele or Strat clone – it just doesn’t”: Why Guitar Center is launching its own guitar brand that’s “meaningfully better and differentiated”

In a new interview with the dopeYEAH talk podcast, McBride – who joined the legendary rock outfit in 2022, replacing Steve Morse – explains why Smoke on the Water isn’t quite as simple as many deem it to be.

“Generally, the most challenging ones are the simple ones, like Smoke on the Water,” he says [via Blabbermouth].

“People always say, ‘Ah, it’s easy.’ It is easy technically, but it’s not easy to play. It’s like any of this stuff. It’s the delivery, it’s the force of how you play it, it’s your timing. It’s what not to play. A lot of guitar players, when they play the riff of Smoke on the Water, they play it like a guitarist. They wanna add stuff to it. They wanna vibrato it. They wanna do this.

“But the beauty of the riff of Smoke on the Water is its simplicity… So being disciplined enough just to – don’t play anything else, just what’s there. ‘Cause when you’re standing there, and I start the riff, and then Don joins me, then Roger joins me, this explosion of power comes out, which you would not get if I was fiddling around with it, or Don was. It’s the four of us just doing this riff, and it’s like, ‘Oh, God, here we go.’”

Elsewhere in the interview, McBride reflects on how the simplicity of a lot of Deep Purple’s most timeless songs has contributed to their success.

“The thing is with the Purple stuff, it’s not overly complicated, but that’s the beauty of it, and that’s why it was so successful,” he says. “Smoke on the Water is three chords, really. And all the great songs, even Perfect Strangers, it’s two or three chords. So it is quite simple.”

Smoke on the Water remains one of the top riffs heard in Guitar Center stores, as was recently revealed by CEO Gabe Dalporto in an interview with Rolling Stone. He revealed Metallica’s Master of Puppets also gets a large degree of sonic real estate, as does Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, and even Tool’s Schism.

The post Deep Purple guitarist says Smoke on the Water is a “challenging” song to play: “It is easy technically, but it’s not easy to play” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The Les Paul may as well be in Mark Morton’s DNA at this point. The guitarist is 52 years old as of 2026, and he’s spent almost 30 of those years on the frontlines of heavy metal music, first in his university band Burn the Priest and then in its Platinum-selling, five-times Grammy-nominated successor Lamb of God. And, before those outfits even kicked off, he was lugging Gibson’s flagship model around.

• READ MORE: “I play a lot harder than most” Kashus Culpepper’s guitar is a lightning rod for feeling, community and the sounds of the American South

“My first main guitar was a Les Paul Deluxe ’75,” Morton remembers, talking to Guitar over the phone from his home near Richmond, Virginia. “It was chopped up for PAFs and refinished – just a total beater! But I played it until the frets were flat. I was playing that guitar in punk bands all around town, just kind of dragging it around on the floorboard of my truck with no case. It was just like my security blanket.”

It was the simple things that made the model so appealing to him. It was comfortable to play, it was easy to access every part of the fretboard, and he was impressed with the sustain and reactivity. Beyond that, he didn’t overintellectualise it – and he still doesn’t.

“These are all very basic things that are still paramount for me, and I think for most players,” he says. “Some guitars are a little dull and flat. I think even then, despite having an unrefined understanding of instruments, I knew when something was jumping out, versus when something was dull and flat.”

Full Circle

Even though he’s long since traded Virginia punk rock gigs for arena-size metal shows all over the world, Morton’s come full circle. He’s endorsed by Gibson after years with Jackson, and he has a new signature in the form of the Gibson Mark Morton Les Paul Modern Quilt. It’s true to his love for traditional Les Pauls: its slim taper neck helps with speed and comfort and evokes designs from the 1960s, and it uses passive pickups, as opposed to the active pickups that are a dime a dozen in the metal scene.

“I’m just a big proponent of passive pickups,” he says. “I said in an interview a while back that [Black Label Society singer/guitarist and longtime Ozzy Osbourne collaborator] Zakk Wylde is one of my favourite guitarists, and he uses active pickups, but I find passive pickups to be far more dynamic. I feel like it just allows for a more fluid voicing of the guitar than an active pickup does. When I play an active pickup, it sounds like the pickup, which is very consistent. But I always say, you could put that on a skateboard and it’s still gonna sound like that pickup.”

It’s not all old-school, though. Morton’s model is customised to the preferences and demands of a constantly on-the-road metal player. For starters, its mahogany body uses Gibson’s Ultra Modern Weight Relief.

“I’m in my 50s now and bouncing around onstage for as long as we do, it’s nice to have a guitar that’s a little bit lighter,” he explains. “But I can’t really moan when we’ve got [vocalist] Randy Blythe, who’s a year older than me, and he’s running around the stage like a lunatic and jumping off the drum riser and jumping off of amplifiers.”

Other standout features include the model’s namesake AAA quilted maple top, plus the Translucent Ebony Burst Satin finish, which makes it look sleek and suitably ‘heavy metal’ without seeming ostentatious. It has 22 medium jumbo frets to make bending easier, as well as a Modern Contoured Heel to help with upper-fretboard access.

“I find it to be pretty practical and convenient for soloing,” he explains. “It gives you easier access to the higher registers there. I can accomplish that without a heel contour, but it does make it nice and comfy. So that’s definitely one thing I do enjoy about this guitar.”

Mashing Up

If it sounds as if this model is a mash-up of the traditional and the cutting-edge, then that’s good, because Mark’s playing is the same. Along with his Lamb of God cohort Willie Adler, he was one of 2000s metal’s freshest guitarists, laying down incredibly athletic leads that pushed mainstream heaviness forward. But, he’s said before that his greatest influences are actually in vintage blues.

“The cornerstone of my playing is classic rock and Southern rock and British blues and that kind of stuff,” he elaborates today. “When I’m playing for myself, that’s the kind of player I am, which is not a slight on heavy metal. I adore heavy metal, and I spend so much time playing it and writing it, and I just think it’s wonderfully expressive and dynamic and very technically challenging, but it’s not what I play when I’m in my living room. My first loves musically were the Allman Brothers and Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page.”

Morton was exposed to these artists – as well as Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Aerosmith and 70s country – through his family, hearing his parents and his older brothers play them on the radio while he was growing up in James City County, Virginia. He remembers discovering heavy metal “probably around the advent of MTV, which would have been when I was 11 or 12”. By the time he was 14, he had friends who brought Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer tapes along when they hung out at his house.

“Even in our little town, there were [metalheads],” he recalls. “MTV had much of the same effect that you’d see the internet have later, whereby it was streaming this culture into areas that maybe otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to it. It was right there on the TV! I found out about Motörhead in James City County, Virginia because of MTV.”

Then, Burn the Priest. Randy Blythe, who joined the band a few months after their ’94 founding and remained as they transformed into Lamb of God, has spoken before about how the band’s don’t-give-a-shit attitude is what inspired him to become their frontman. He tells a great story about seeing the police crash a house party they were playing, only for the members to refuse to put their instruments down. Was it as chaotic as it sounds like it was?

“It was more chaotic than it sounds like it was,” Morton answers. “We were, in every sense of the word, a punk band. Burn the Priest started in a mouldy basement. We really had no ambition to be some worldwide touring act. That would have been laughable to us, because it seemed impossible.”

Centre Stage

Nonetheless, they pulled it off. Lamb of God released some of the essential metal songs of the 2000s, with Laid to Rest and Redneck especially becoming MTV mainstays, and time has done nothing to dull the band’s jagged edges. Their new album – Into Oblivion, which features Mark’s signature guitar and its prototypes all over the place – is another stab to the jugular, laced with venomous lyrics and hellfire riffing.

“What we went to achieve with our records has largely stayed the same for us,” says Morton. “Lamb of God have established this long and in some cases very celebrated body of work over the decades we’ve been doing this. So to make a Lamb of God record, and call it a Lamb of God record and add it to that body of work, it has to feel to us like it’s worth doing, like we have something relevant to say. The process of making a record has to feel like it’s something we deem necessary to do for ourselves, for the five of us.”

He adds that whatever happens after an album’s release is out of the band’s hands, but one part of the process that Morton’s excited for is returning to the UK’s Bloodstock festival in Catton Park, Derbyshire in August. They’ll bring their new material, and Morton’s signature, for a headline set which will mark their third time at the top of the bill there. It seems like it’s become something of a home away from home for them.

“We’ve always enjoyed that audience,” Morton agrees. “It’s a very, very solid, through-and-through, metal-oriented festival. We haven’t really gotten into the production or the setlist or anything this far out, so we’ll have to see, but we will certainly give Bloodstock our best – and we expect the same from them!”

We finish by asking if Lamb of God have anything left to achieve, after the decades of dominance and now that Morton has his own version of the guitar he hauled during his underdog punk rock days. He doesn’t know. But, the band will continue for as long as it’s fun.

“We enjoy playing music together,” he says. “We’re all really close friends and we enjoy our time together. I feel like we don’t have a lot left to prove to ourselves or to anybody else, and at this point, we just do it because we enjoy it and because it’s fun, and because we feel like we’re good at it.”

Lamb Of God headline Bloodstock on 6-9 August. Find out more at bloodstock.uk.com

The post “It was just like my security blanket” Lamb Of God’s Mark Morton on his love affair with the Les Paul appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

By the power of Greyskull, Brian May has the power! Thanks to the Queen legend, the soundtrack for the new He-Man movie, Masters Of The Universe, is ridiculously epic – and it features one of May’s coolest Red Special guitar solos in years.

Working with composer Daniel Pemberton, May serves up riffs for the track Eternia, named after He-Man’s home planet. Talking to The Wrap, Pemberton promised that this project had his most “maximalist score” to date, notably being even more ambitious than his work on this year’s box-office hit Project Hail Mary. And we can safely say that Eternia is a grand, triumphant track that perfectly embodies the machismo and might of the titular hero.

• READ MORE: Steve Vai struggled to play Brian May’s Red Special guitar due to its strange neck: “I just remember thinking, ‘I can’t play this thing’”

And it seems like May is absolutely chuffed to be working on the project. He first announced the collaboration in March, sharing the news alongside a photo of him posing with director Travis Knight, sound designer Sam Okell, Pemberton and a plethora of vintage He-Man memorabilia. “I have the POWER!!!!” he wrote. “Great joy to work tonight on the scrumptious, brand new He-Man movie.”

This isn’t the first time May has helped soundtrack a movie, having famously worked on 1980 sci-fi flick Flash Gordon. However, posing with his son Jimmy May’s collection of action figures spanning back to as early as 1968, you could argue this is the most excited he’s been about film project yet. “What fun! “ he adds. “This movie will make a lot of people smile a lot!!!”

View this post on Instagram

Most notably, the collaboration sees May whipping out his iconic self-designed Red Special. “Yes – my ol’ Red Special is all over [Eternia]!!! Watch out!!!”

May’s iconic Red Special was a DIY project, pieced together between 1963 and 1965. Speaking to Premier Guitars in 2014, he noted that the project came about because he simply couldn’t afford a pricy axe from Fender or Gibson – and this homemade effort has served him very well. It boasts 27 basic tones, and features on essentially all of Queen’s discography.

View this post on Instagram

When the guitarist first teased Eternia last week, he joked on Instagram, saying “Just a bit of guitar in here…” We’d certainly argue it features more than ‘a bit’ of riffage!

The film itself has been in the works since 2009, with plenty of setbacks until this year’s release, spanning from numerous script edits to directors stepping down. However, it’s finally set to hit cinemas this June, and will see the likes of Thirty Seconds To Mars’ Jared Leto taking on the role of villain Skeletor, beloved actor Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms, and Nicholas Galitzine, an actor typically known for his roles in rom-coms, starring as He-Man himself.

Masters Of The Universe is set to have an exclusive premiere today in Hollywood, before hitting cinemas 5 June across the US.

The post “My ol’ Red Special is all over it!”: Brian May has added some epic guitar solos on the new Masters Of The Universe soundtrack – and he’s not holding back appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When news of Van Halen’s reformation dropped in 2006, nobody was more shocked than bassist Michael Anthony. Not only had he not been made aware of the reformation, but Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen had taken over his bass duties. However, Alex Van Halen insists that the band did try to reach out to their former bassist – but they got ignored.

Speaking to YouTuber KazaGastão, the Van Halen drummer explains that the band tried to recruit Anthony for the band’s revival. “Just to put the record straight, we did call Mike, because we owed him that,” Alex insists. “We did call him, he just didn’t answer.”

• READ MORE: “Makes me feel closer to Pop”: Watch Wolfgang Van Halen use Eddie’s Frankenstein guitar to record his new single

He goes on to add that he’s “not angry” at Anthony, despite any bitterness the miscommunication might have caused. “I love Mike,” he adds. “He was important for the band too, his backing vocals. And he was my drinking buddy!”

According to Alex, the band only began considering a replacement when they heard nothing back. Famously, that’s when they took a chance on Wolfgang, who was only 15 at the time. He explains that it wasn’t a simple case of handing Eddie’s son a job just because he was “family” – Wolfgang was just really goddamn talented.

After not hearing back from Anthony, Wolfgang decided to showcase some surprising bass skills to his father and uncle. “One day Ed and I were playing [in the studio] and this bass comes in… and behind the curtain it was Wolf,” he recalls.

Elsewhere in the interview, Alex explains how “proud” he is of his nephew for following his own path. “He doesn’t want to be Ed Jr,” he explains. “He could have just continued with the Van Halen stuff, but he decided he was his own man.”

Despite the murky circumstances of Wolfgang taking over Anthony’s role in Van Halen, the former bassist holds no ill will towards Wolfgang. Speaking to Sally Steele in 2024, Anthony said that “Wolf is a great guy, great musician, and his band [Mammoth] kicks ass”. But, yeah. So at least we were able to do that.”

“We’ve always been friends,” Anthony added. “Eddie, he wanted to play with his son. The way I kind of feel is that Wolfgang probably wasn’t excited, really, about being in Van Halen. That’s why in his band, he doesn’t play any Van Halen, ’cause he wants to carve out his own niche. But just to be able to get up and play with his father, I can totally understand that.”

The post “We did call, he just didn’t answer”: Alex Van Halen pushes back against the narrative that Michael Anthony wasn’t told he was being replaced in Van Halen appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Last month, Guitar Center announced plans to launch its own in-house guitar brand – but caught flak from the guitar community for what it deemed the crowdsourcing of ideas with limited rights for those who submitted successful ones.

At its core, it seems like a worthwhile idea. “Guitars haven’t changed that much in the last 50 years, and we’re about to change that,” said CEO Gabe Dalporto, as he rationalised Guitar Center joining the likes of Thomann (with Harley Benton) in developing its own guitar brand from the ground up.

But some community members took issue with the move, with one labelling a stipulated rule for contributors to waive “moral and similar rights” to their ideas as “peak corporate cringe”.

• READ MORE: Gibson launches new ‘50s and ‘60s ES-335s – including one that should get Keith Richards fans excited

Now, Dalporto has joined YouTuber Phillip McKnight to explain a little more about how the brand’s idea to create its own guitar brand came about.

“Our private brands team came to me and they said, ‘Hey, we’re going to launch a new guitar. It looks just like a Tele, and it’s a Tele, but it’s not called a Tele.’ I’m like, ‘Reject it. No, this is stupid,’” Dalporto recalls.

“There’s a great Tele out there. It’s made by Fender. It’s an amazing guitar. The world doesn’t need another Tele clone. And it doesn’t need another Stratocaster clone. It doesn’t need another Les Paul clone. It just doesn’t.”

Dalporto explains that while other large musical instrument retailers have their own in-house gear brands, his idea is to do something radically different with Guitar Center’s new one.

“All big companies like Guitar Center, like Thomann – they’ve got their own private brands. Sweetwater’s got a few private brands. It’s what you do, right. You create private brands. 

“But all those private brands are just knockoffs of something else. And I’m like, ‘The world just doesn’t need that. We don’t need another knockoff. Why don’t we guys try to do something exceptional? And why don’t we do it out loud, in public, and start with customer feedback.”

Addressing the community backlash that occurred when Guitar Center asked its customer base for ideas, Dalporto continues: “Now, [people say] you’ll get the Homer Simpson car if you take everybody’s [opinion]. 

“And fine, but would you rather you don’t listen at all? And actually, every opinion that’s out there is out there from here to here, so you’re going to have to make choices. You can’t please everybody.

“There’s been some really cool ideas, and some of it is novel, some of it is like, ‘This guy in the ‘80s designed this nut and it is so amazing, and you’re like, ‘Holy shit, that is pretty cool, let’s take a look at that.’ So we’re taking information from Reddit, from Instagram, we’re getting some really legendary guitarists to come in and consult with us, we’re going to focus groups.”

Ultimately, Dalporto isn’t interested in seeing the project through unless what comes of it is meaningfully different.

“I said to our team, ‘We’re not going to build something if it isn’t awesome, and I don’t want something that looks like or feels like anything else.”

In terms of where things are in the design process, the CEO reveals the team has developed a number of prototype guitars, and is trying out different builds and pickup configurations.

“Our goal is to come up with something that doesn’t look like a Tele and a Strat that actually is reasonably priced – in the $700 to $900 range – a good solid quality guitar, not some $200 knockoff, that is meaningfully better, and differentiated. That is your workhorse guitar that you can take to any gig and travel with and is versatile – that’s what we’re going for. 

And while the company is still in the relatively early design process, Dalporto reveals his team already have plans for subsequent instruments.

“We’ll probably also do a second model that is just radically out there on the technology front,” he says. “And so we’re gonna push the bounds of technology and we’re gonna push the bounds of analogue.”

You can stay up to date with the latest from Guitar Center’s project at the r/GuitarLab subreddit.

The post “The world doesn’t need another Tele or Strat clone – it just doesn’t”: Why Guitar Center is launching its own guitar brand that’s “meaningfully better and differentiated” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Sometimes, too many cooks can spoil the broth – and that’s exactly what Ritchie Blackmore felt when he left Deep Purple back in 1975. In the 51 years since his initial departure from the band, he’s thrived being the boss in his musical projects, rather than having to consult a “committee” of other musicians.

In a new interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Blackmore explains that leaving Deep Purple to pursue other projects like Rainbow and Blackmore’s Night was his way of escaping a musical “stalemate”. While Deep Purple were always busy deliberating over their art, Blackmore just wanted to get straight into the studio. “I just felt that the band wasn’t pulling [its weight] as a musical venture,” he says. “It became a committee.”

• READ MORE: “Jimmy Page is a magical guy… Always will be!”: Ritchie Blackmore sets the record straight on Led Zeppelin ‘feud‘

In the Deep Purple “committee”, Blackmore notes that “there were always five different answers” because “everybody was into different things”. It always delayed creativity, because the band couldn’t decide what to do. “I got a little bit tired of the committee meetings…” he explains. “I basically thought ‘I’m going to [leave], get four other musicians, [and make it so I can] just get on with playing the music.”

He goes on to explain that the band sometimes couldn’t agree on tour dates. “Our manager [would] turn around to the band and say, ‘Okay, guys, let’s work out the tour for the next year’… straight away, it was ‘Okay, what about January the 25th?’… And somebody would speak up, ‘Oh, I can’t make that, I have a wedding to attend.’”

“This went on, believe it or not, until about June or July,” he laughs. “And I’m thinking, ‘This is ridiculous…. Are we a band any more, or are we just people going on holiday and going to weddings?’”

Another key reason for leaving was to truly let his creativity shine. While the differing tastes and “committee meetings” were already a hurdle, there were some cases where Blackmore felt his talent was being muffled due to other members not believing in his work. In some cases, members even rejected his writing if it meant they wouldn’t get writing credit.

He points to a track that ended up being on Rainbow’s 1975 debut, Black Sheep of the Family. “I thought it was a great song that we should do, whereas one of the members of the band said, ‘I don’t want to do that song… We didn’t write it, so we won’t get writing credits,’” he says.

It’s a strange memory he also recalled in a chat with Guitar World last month: “A band member said, ‘If we didn’t write it there’s no point in doing it because we won’t get writing credits’. I was really disappointed in that statement.”

Eventually, Blackmore would enlist Ronnie James Dio to record the track instead – and working with Dio would change everything. “We [recorded the track] in an afternoon,” he tells Ultimate Classic Rock. “We worked so quickly together. There was no committee meetings. He wasn’t going on holiday or getting married or anything else. Finally, things seemed to be going along quite quickly… and that’s when I decided to leave Deep Purple.”

Last November, Blackmore was forced to postpone the second leg of his Blackmore’s Night tour due to medical reasons. The dates are yet to be re-scheduled, and you can find out more about the band via the Blackmore’s Night website.

The post “The band wasn’t pulling its weight as a venture – it became a committee”: Why Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Gibson has expanded its ES lineup with two new vintage-inspired takes on its legendary semi-hollow electric: the ES-335 50s and ES-335 60s.

Handcrafted in Nashville, Tennessee, the new models aim to give players a more era-specific ES-335 experience, much like Gibson’s existing Les Paul Standard ‘50s and ‘60s guitars. While both instruments feature the classic ES-335 semi-hollow construction with three-ply maple/poplar/maple and a solid maple center block, each model leans into distinct appointments and feel from its respective decade.

• READ MORE: Gretsch is metal now? Legendary guitar maker unveils two new baritone models begging for downtuned riffs

The ES-335 50s arrives with a thicker Rounded C neck profile, dot inlays, a longer pickguard and a pair of Custombucker humbuckers loaded with Alnico 3 magnets. Vintage Deluxe tuners with keystone buttons plus gold Top Hat knobs with dial pointers complete the ‘50s aesthetic.

Meanwhile, the ES-335 60s opts for a faster SlimTaper neck, small block inlays, Grover-style tuners, a shorter ’60s-style pickguard and calibrated T-Type humbuckers with Alnico 5 magnets.

That ’60s-inspired spec also arrives just months after Gibson partnered with Keith Richards on a pair of ultra-limited – and ultra-premium – ES-355 Collector’s Edition models based on the Rolling Stones guitarist’s own 1960 ES-355. Richards famously used ES-355s during the recording of Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St., as well as throughout the band’s live shows in later decades.

Elsewhere, both ES-335 models share the same core DNA including a 24.75” scale length, rosewood fingerboards with a 12” radius, ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridges and aluminium Stop Bars.

The finishes are split by era too: the ES-335 50s is available in Vintage Natural, Vintage Tobacco Burst and Ebony, while the ES-335 60s comes in Vintage Burst, Sixties Cherry and Dark Walnut.

“These new models are built for players who know exactly what they want, delivering a distinct decade-correct feel, look, and tone while preserving the unmistakable ES-335 voice that works in virtually any genre,” says Gibson.

Both guitars ship with Gibson hardshell cases and are available now for $3,499.

View this post on Instagram

For more information, head to Gibson.

The post Gibson launches new 50s and 60s ES-335s – including one that should get Keith Richards fans excited appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Jack Osbourne has shared a fresh update on the long-awaited biopic about his father, late Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne.

Speaking during a livestream on his YouTube channel last week, Jack – who serves as one of the movie’s producers – confirmed that the script is complete and the project is now actively moving forward.

• READ MORE: “Have Nuno Bettencourt and Tom Morello line up a bunch of bad motherf**kers”: Jason Newsted’s vision for an “appropriate” Eddie Van Halen tribute concert

“I can tell you this: we are moving ahead,” he says [via Blabbermouth]. “I was on calls today about it. The script is right there. We are good. This movie will absolutely happen.”

While no director has yet been attached, Jack says the team is preparing to begin that process soon, though fans may still have a long wait ahead of them.

“Realistically – I mean, look, we’re already halfway through ‘26 – it probably won’t come out until ‘28,” he explains. “But you never know. But, yeah, we’re full steam ahead. We’re about to start going out and getting a director attached. So, fingers crossed. I’m really excited. It’s, yeah, very much been a labor of love, of course. But, yeah, I’m excited – I’m excited for everyone to see this film.”

Plans for an Ozzy biopic first emerged back in 2021, years before the singer’s death last July at the age of 76.

Jack had previously shed light on the film’s direction during an appearance on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast earlier this year, revealing that the project had undergone a rewrite and narrowed its focus to Ozzy’s early solo years following his departure from Sabbath.

Asked if details of the biopic had been announced yet, Jack said: “Well, it was announced that we were doing it with Sony Pictures. We haven’t announced the cast yet, ‘cause we haven’t settled [on all of it].”

“Initially it was gonna go from kind of my dad as a young man to the kind of mid-’90s, but we’re shrinking it down,” he said. “We’re doing a rewrite right now. In my perfect vision of it, it would be kind of the tail end of Sabbath, him going solo. [Because] you gotta have the love story. And that’s kind of the main focus of the film, and all the craziness that happened in the early ‘80s and Randy’s [Rhoads, late Ozzy guitarist] tragic death. But, yeah, it’s an origin story.”

The post Jack Osborne says the planned Ozzy Osbourne biopic will feature the fallout from Randy Rhoads’ death appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien has been talking of his move to Wales, where he now spends his time close to the cottage where Led Zeppelin have written many of their songs, especially those for Led Zeppelin III.

Writing for the 1970 album took place in Bron-Yr-Aur cottage in Wales between Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, and its remote setting and lack of power made for the perfect, inspiring retreat. O’Brien feels his move to Wales has made his connection to the band even stronger, and he feels he now understands them in a “deeper” way.

• READ MORE: “Jimmy Page is a magical guy… Always will be!”: Ritchie Blackmore sets the record straight on Led Zeppelin ‘feud’

Speaking to Prog Magazine, O’Brien says, “When you go to this land, you understand Led Zeppelin in a way that goes deeper. When you hear The Battle Of Evermore – man, it’s like being on the top of fucking Plynlimon, the highest point in mid-Wales, and you feel it. And it’s so in this land, this land of poets, this land of mystery, this land of spirit.

“If you’re sensitive to this stuff – and, as musicians, we tend to be sensitive souls – you feel it. And that’s why I’ve been drawn to Wales. That’s why I love Wales. That’s why Wales is my home,” he explains.

Ed O’Brien has also been reflecting on Radiohead’s career. In a recent Uncut interview, he was asked about the moment in his career when he felt Radiohead had created something completely artistically new, “I think The Bends, really,” he replied.

“You could feel the influences on the sleeve of Pablo Honey, but The Bends was pretty diverse. If you think about the way that that album bookends, it starts with Planet Telex and ends with Street Spirit. Two quite different songs – the power and the sonic playfulness of one, and then the emotion of the other.

“We knew there were flaws with the first album, and it was propped up massively by Creep. If Creep hadn’t been as big as it was, there’s a very good chance we may never have made another record, because the record company would have dropped us,” he admitted.

Ed O’Brien is releasing his second solo album, Blue Morpho, on 22 May. 

The post “When you go to this land, you understand Led Zeppelin in a way that goes deeper”: Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on why moving to Wales reframed his love of the iconic rock band appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

£435, teachingmachines.co.uk

It’s easy to look at the world of guitar effects these days and wonder if we’ve reached a point where all the innovation has started to dry up. It feels like not that long ago every month seemingly saw a new and wildly inventive new pedal arrive, often out of nowhere, that instantly inspired people to make new music and approach their instrument differently.

• READ MORE: Line 6 Helix Stadium XL review – “bewilderingly ambitious… but it feels like the future”

Those ‘wow’ moments seem to come along less frequently nowadays, and that’s only natural. Like iPhones or the mechanical wristwatch, guitar pedals have reached a “mature technology” stage where most of the big breakthroughs have happened. We’re probably past ‘peak pedal’ now – as this very website opined a few years back – and while that doesn’t preclude people making interesting new pedals, they’re going to be mainly iterating on what already exists.

It does, however, make it all the more exciting and interesting when something comes along that does surprise you, and that does approach things in a way that you haven’t seen before. Allow me to introduce the Teaching Machines FuzzBillion.

Teaching Machines FuzzBillion: what is it?

Teaching Machines is the brainchild of Frank Naughton and Mat Wigley, two friends and musicians who decided to work together to craft unique musical devices from their home city of Cardiff, Wales. The brand’s first product, the Wellspring – a rackmount analogue stereo spring reverb with a huge amount of unconventional tweakability and functionality – showed that this two-man operation was not short of ambition or inventiveness.

The FuzzBillion is their first foray into floor-based guitar pedals, and while it looks like the sort of thing you’d use to input the nuclear codes or do some Cold War code-breaking (or in guitar terms, a Lovetone pedal from the 90s), it is in fact a totally unique and totally analogue dirt pedal.

On the top of the pedal you’ll find 11 rotary switches that are numbered from 0-9. Each of these rotaries controls various types of diodes and amplification devices from Germanium to Silicon and light-emitting diodes.

The numbers determine the intensity or type of the effect on offer, and each of these different stages then feeds into the next one using analogue technical wizardry. Effectively, it’s as if someone took apart a whole bucket load of fuzz pedals and reattached their components to a code generator wheel.

The result is, the brand claims, quite literally billions of possible permutations and combinations. I’ve not done the maths on this myself, but safe to say, there’s a lot going on here than your standard three-knob fuzz pedal…

Teaching Machines FuzzBillion: build quality and usability

I said that this thing looks like something you’d use to input the nuclear codes into, and that’s reflected in the overall build quality. With its rugged steel chassis, old-school plastic switches to control the rotaries, plus a big metal knob and footswitch, this certainly feels like something that’ll come through armageddon unscathed alongside Keith Richards and the cockroaches.

In case you were wondering, by the way, the ‘Wedi gwneud yng Nghymru’ you can see stamped on the case in our photographs isn’t more code that needs cracking, it’s simply Welsh for ‘Made in Wales’.

In terms of size, it’s not exactly pedalboard-friendly, and it’s not lightweight either. But given the way this pedal operates, you imagine it’s envisioned more as a studio tool anyway, so maybe that doesn’t matter.

The operation is both incredibly simple and deathly complicated. To make a sound, simply pick an 11-digit number, plug it into the rotary controls on the FuzzBillion and see what happens.

Now, if you’re feeling a little scared by all that open pasture ahead of you, don’t fret – Teaching Machines isn’t sending you into this blind. There’s a cheat sheet included in the box that explains exactly what each rotary control does, and the manual itself features a really in-depth but accessible guide to each one that features loads of example settings to try out – both for guitar, but also bass and synth too.

There’s also a good portion of the manual given over to providing space to log your favourite combinations – a handy little table that has space to put in 112 different presets with room for both the number and a brief description.

And you’ll need to get your pen and paper out, because this is an all-analogue thing, and that means no onboard presets, no MIDI and no way to save or recall anything other than the old-school method.

I do appreciate this commitment to the all-analogue form on some level, but it does definitely limit the FuzzBillion’s potential as a live tool to not have any way to quickly store and recall presets. I can’t imagine your bandmates having much sympathy for you stopping the gig between songs so you can input a credit card-length number into what is effectively an 11-barrel combination lock.

The act of putting those numbers in, however, is a big part of the FuzzBillion’s appeal – the tactile nature of it, the way the numbers thunk so satisfyingly as you input your chosen number… it’s a pedal that’s clearly designed to make you take a beat and enjoy the experience of tone exploration.

One slight drawback to this was the incongruous way the + and – controls are laid out – so that you have to press the switches on the bottom to increase the number, and the ones on top to go down.

No matter how long I spent with this pedal, I never once managed to adjust my brain to this upside-down configuration, and I hope future units turn them the other way. That doesn’t take away from the fact that using it is a hugely fun, unique experience that is unlike any other pedal.

Teaching Machines FuzzBillion: build quality and usability

A billion sounds then, but are they any good? Well, I decide the best thing to do is plug the FuzzBillion into a P-90 loaded Goldtop and clean Princeton Reverb, and have at it.

As you might well expect, all the main fuzzy food groups are covered here, and then some. From thick and sustaining Gilmour-esque leads, to Faces, Muffs, and Benders, and Velcro-ripping zonky splutters – I struggled to find a single fuzz sound it couldn’t do with absolute conviction.

But despite the name, this isn’t all about fuzz, and by delving deeper into the permutations and what they mean, you can quickly summon every other strand of the dirty dimension.

Awesome boosts and overdrive sounds? check! Distortion, yep tons of it. Hendrixian Octavia? Yes indeed! The best bass fuzz we’ve ever heard? Yep. Even when adding texture to synths or drum machines in the studio, the FuzzBillion, excels with gorgeous sonic authenticity and an innate ability to encourage further tweaking in search of new sonic horizons.

Personal sonic highlights include some simple op-amp boosts that offered gorgeous interactivity with the guitar’s volume control, a mismatched transistor fuzz, and hours of fun making spaceship noises with the theremin-ish Phase-locked Loop rotary (nope, I don’t know what that is either), desperately trying to follow the pitch of my notes. The sounds here are truly inspiring.

Teaching Machines FuzzBillion: should I buy one?

In a world of instant patch recall, deep-dive sub menus, amp capture and IR rig modelling, it’s refreshing and enlightening to realise your time investment experimenting with the FuzzBillion will not only be some of the most fun you’ve had with your instrument, but you’ll also develop a deeper understanding of how your dirt sounds are created and how components work together to shape that tone.

There’s no doubt that a lack of presets and MIDI control is going to limit its live utility, but studio musicians will rejoice at the transformer-isolated switchable line-level ins and outs, allowing the FuzzBillion to add its dirt to everything from synths to samples.

Teaching Machines describes the FuzzBillions as the “last distortion pedal you ever need” and while all us pedal obsessives know that’s a fanciful idea no matter how good something is, it’s rare to find one pedal that covers so many bases in such a comprehensive way – while also adding some new points on the map that you’ve never heard before. It’s not cheap, but the unique things rarely are.

Teaching Machines FuzzBillion: alternatives

It won’t surprise you to learn that there are not many all-analogue dirt pedals that promise a billion sonic combinations on the market – in that regard, and in the way you use it, it’s certainly unique. However, if gain experimentation and versatility is what you’re after, then Chase Bliss’s Preamp MKII covers a huge array of Boost, Drive and Fuzz textures – you’ll have to find one on the used market though as it’s out of production. At the fuzzy end of the spectrum, the Clusterfuzz ($219) by FunctionFX has a number of different clipping options and filters in a compact package.

The post Teaching Machines FuzzBillion review: is this the most ambitious and unique dirt pedal ever made? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Steve Hackett has revealed that Genesis were accompanied by a rather strange companion in the studio while recording their A Trick Of The Tail album – a lion cub.

Released in 1976, A Trick of the Tail marked the band’s seventh studio album, and was their first record featuring drummer Phil Collins as lead vocalist following the departure of Peter Gabriel. The album celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and early work began in a peculiar basement rehearsal studio in Acton, London.

• READ MORE: “A Beatle knows who I am? Ridiculous”: Peter Frampton’s response when George Harrison invited him to play on All Things Must Pass

Speaking to Prog Magazine, Hackett recalls of the studio, “I seem to remember at one point that there was a spare lion roaming around. Well, a lion cub: it was like a pussy cat, rolling over, being playful. It did have a very rough tongue, and a big head.

“It was like a cross between a large cat and a medium-sized dog. It had no teeth at that point, but you could feel the strength of the little thing. That said, growing up in the 1950s I went with my dad to a market in Peckham and you could buy baby alligators in fish tanks. I stuck my finger in a monkey’s cage and got it bitten. Of course, I now sympathise with the monkey.”

Speaking of the band’s shifted lineup at the time, he also adds: “I will always miss Pete, but I was very glad to work with the other guys and see that we were all coming up with extraordinary things that were not solely dependent on one guy. Songwriting was very much at the heart of Genesis, which is why people still listen. It can’t be for the hairstyles or the strides!”

Hackett discussed the “imperfections” in classic Genesis albums in an interview last year, and though he feels such flaws do come to sound “sweeter” over time, he’s not opposed to polishing them up when revisiting these records in the present day.

“I think old material sounds sweeter with the passing of time. I think you forgive its imperfections and try and change those things when you go to it again. So things that might have been recorded in haste with aspects of timing and tuning, there’s no excuse for that these days. If you’re going to do a revisit, you might as well straighten out those things,” he said.

The post “At one point that there was a spare lion roaming around”: Steve Hackett on the bizarre recording of Genesis’ A Trick Of The Tail album appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The idea of an Eddie Van Halen tribute concert is something that’s been discussed a lot since the guitarist tragically died in 2020, but has never come to pass. Now, former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted – who was once in the frame to take part – has made his feelings known about what the concert should entail, should it ever happen.

The idea of a tribute show was reportedly proposed in 2021, a year on from Eddie’s passing, by Alex Van Halen and former Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth. Joe Satriani said in an interview earlier this year that the idea “fell apart”, and felt uncomfortable with the idea of taking on guitar duties.

• READ MORE: Steve Vai recalls hearing unreleased material at Eddie Van Halen’s house: “Nobody plays like they do when they’re in their room alone… It was such great stuff”

During a chat with Eddie Trunk on TrunkNation, Newsted recalls also being contacted by Alex: “I remember having a phone call with Alex and then telling Joe [Satriani] that I didn’t think it was appropriate, and that was the last I ever heard of it. I think I’m in the same camp as most people [in thinking] that [it needs to] be done properly and concisely.

“It needs to be a special thing, two nights at some place and it’s just that, but it’s getting kind of late to do it correctly, I think. It’s got to be an honour show. It has to be that. It’s not just going to be some kind of rock show. It has to be a hybrid dedication kind of event, and I’m not sure those logistics could be worked out anymore,” he shares.

Trunk then discusses the idea of having a show with a similar format to the tribute concerts the Foo Fighters hosted after the passing of drummer Taylor Hawkins. Newsted then goes on to question if a supposed tribute event would be honouring the whole of the Van Halen band, or just Eddie, and shares opposing ideas for the two.

“How are you going to do that and still pay homage to Alex also and pay homage [to] the band? If you’re going to do an Eddie tribute, then have Nuno Bettencourt and Tom Morello line up a bunch of bad motherfuckers, and you do that thing and everybody takes their shot at one of Eddie’s songs. Something like that. That needs to be its own category and its own thing.

“If you’re going to have a Van Halen honour, then it needs to be for the band. That’s how I see it,” he says. “If somebody would be able to co-ordinate something that was timely and appropriate, like an anniversary of a passing, of the beginning of the band, an anniversary of the biggest album of the band – something that made sense to the fans – and they did it as an honour to the music that was made, not just certain guys that played it, that’s the way it has to be done in my opinion.”

While there are no plans at the moment for any tribute show, Alex Van Halen is putting together an album of unheard Van Halen material with help from Steve Lukather. The record will utilise material that was due to be come the next Van Halen record and re-work it. Lukather has confirmed he is not playing guitar on the record.

The post “Have Nuno Bettencourt and Tom Morello line up a bunch of bad motherf**kers”: Jason Newsted’s vision for an “appropriate” Eddie Van Halen tribute concert appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$122/£125, ehx.com

It doesn’t take much to get me excited about a new pedal – especially one with the words ‘Big Muff’ on the front. And when it’s a long-forgotten variant that never went into production, found by chance in a pile of old papers and now brought into existence after almost half a century… well, by the time the announcement video finished I was sitting in a pool of my own saliva.

• READ MORE: Strymon Fairfax review – an old-school drive pedal with plenty of rough edges

But then, after I changed my trousers, my inner cynic began to stir. Do we really need yet another Muff? If this circuit is so good, why did Electro-Harmonix choose not to build it in the late 70s? And doesn’t the involvement of JHS Pedals supremo Josh Scott – undisputed world champion of stompbox salesmanship – suggest the whole thing might be more about clever marketing than genuinely new tones?

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff 2 – what is it?

The story goes that Josh and archivist Daniel Danger were researching their book on the history of Electro-Harmonix when, during a visit to the old workshop of original Big Muff designer Bob Myer, they found the hand-drawn schematic of the fuzz that never was. And so, with Bob’s blessing, they made it real – first as an ‘EHX by JHS’ pedal in a large folded metal enclosure, and now also as a nano-sized version produced by EHX.

The technical angle is that it’s powered by dual op-amps rather than transistors. That’s also true of the model favoured by Billy Corgan and recently reissued as the Op Amp Big Muff Pi, but we’re told to expect a different sound here – something “slightly more dynamic, slightly more fuzzy”. It’s controlled by the classic three-knob array of volume, tone and sustain.

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff 2 – what does it sound like?

It sounds big and it sounds muffy, but that doesn’t mean it sounds Big Muffy… at least, not completely. This is a fuzz with no shortage of thickness, and when you hit strident power chords you can certainly hear the rich, gurgly roar that defines the type – while single notes sing out with that familiar boop-boopy smoothness.

It’s only when you crank the tone knob to open up the top end that… well, it doesn’t happen. You can sharpen up the treble for sure, but it never fizzles and sizzles with the freshness of its many siblings. What you get instead is a solid midrange – which is not exactly vintage, and can sound congested at times, but could be welcome if you’re not a fan of the old Big Muff mids-scoop.

Max out the sustain and it gets fuzzier, of course, but you might also notice a jittery gating effect when you stop playing, which is not pleasant. Luckily, there are two ways to avoid this: either keep the sustain down at around halfway, which is quite filthy enough for most use cases, or just carry on playing forever.

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff 2 – should I buy it?

Remember, this circuit wasn’t lost – it was rejected – and there’s nothing in the performance of the Big Muff 2 to suggest that was some sort of calamitous mistake. If you’re looking to buy your first Muff, this is not the one to go for – EHX has several other options that cover the basics better.

Having said that, once you strip away the backstory and judge the pedal on its own merits, it is really rather nice. This is a straightforward fuzz with a powerfully throaty sound that might even hit the spot more satisfactorily than a traditional Muff for some players.

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff 2 alternatives

For something tonally similar but a little more ‘correct’, your first port of call is probably the Electro-Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff Pi ($109/£85). But there are hundreds of refinements to the formula from other makers, including the EarthQuaker Devices Hoof ($179/£195) and ThorpyFX Fallout Cloud (£199.99/$299).

The post Electro-Harmonix Big Muff 2 review – a forgotten fuzz masterpiece, or just a marketing exercise? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.