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Lowden’s new Ed Sheeran signature model is an “exact replica” of the singer’s personal stage guitar used on his Mathematics tour

Guitar.com -

Sheeran by Lowden Stadium Edition

Boutique guitar manufacturer Lowden has unveiled the new Ed Sheeran signature guitar, the brand’s first-ever fully handmade guitar from the singer’s exclusive Sheeran By Lowden acoustic line.

Said to be an “exact replica of Ed’s personal stage guitar used on all of his stadium size gigs during the record breaking Mathematics Tour”, the new Stadium Edition model is limited to just 150 pieces worldwide, with each guitar bearing the hand-signed signatures of Ed Sheeran and George Lowden.

Standout features of the Stadium Edition include a “stage-ready” thin body which minimises feedback, and a hand-carved soundboard featuring Lowden’s newly developed ‘stadium voicing’ carve. The latter apparently ensures each chord and note is projected with clarity and resonance whilst minimising the risk of feedback.

The WL-shaped guitar also features Indian rosewood back and sides, a Sitka spruce top and brace, and a 5-piece mahogany and rosewood neck along with an ebony fingerboard. Additional appointments include a rosewood bridge, ‘Mathematics’ tour maple inlays, Gotoh 510 tuners, and LR Baggs Element VTC electronics — put together meticulously by the brand’s band of skilled luthiers.

Stadium Edition by Sheeran GuitarsImage: Sheeran by Lowden

Priced at a cool £4500, the Ed Sheeran Stadium Edition is certainly not your everyday acoustic guitar. Instead, it offers fans, collectors, and musicians a piece of musical history, says Lowden.

It adds that due to exceptional demand, it may take up to 6 weeks to dispatch your guitar from the point of order.

In other news, Ed Sheera, who’s currently on the Asia leg of his Mathematics world tour, will feature on the upcoming record of heavy metal icons Cradle Of Filth.

Speaking with Pelna Kulturka [via Kerrang! Radio], Filth shared that the collaboration will land as one of the “surprises” on the band’s new album: “Well, one of the surprises, obviously, but it’s not so much a surprise is that we’ve got a song that we have Ed Sheeran guesting on.”

Learn more at Sheeran Guitars.

The post Lowden’s new Ed Sheeran signature model is an “exact replica” of the singer’s personal stage guitar used on his Mathematics tour appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“I had to get pizza money for my girlfriend”: Why Zakk Wylde didn’t end up joining Guns N’ Roses

Guitar.com -

Zakk Wylde

Zakk Wylde has revealed why he did not end up joining Guns N’ Roses in the mid ’90s despite being one of the guitarists considered for the job.

Wylde, who famously auditioned for Guns N’ Roses in 1995, tells host Mark Strigl on SiriusXM’s Ozzy’s Boneyard that the entire thing took place while he was working on Ozzy Osbourne’s Ozzmosis album.

“Axl called me up and he was just like, ‘Hey Zakk, it’s Axl.’ I was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on man?’” Wylde recalls [via Bravewords]. “He just goes, ‘I was just wondering, you want to get together and jam with me and the fellas because I was asking, you know, Slash. I was like, well, who would you want to get to jam with? and you know, he goes, ‘Your name came up because we were all talking about why don’t we give Zakk a call,’ or whatever and I was like, ‘Yeah, of course man.’”

“You know, because obviously I love – the guys are great guys and an amazing band, so we were jamming stuff at this rehearsal place that they had.”

He adds, “We were jamming there for a while, just jamming ideas, and then we were gonna go do some stuff over at Duff’s house, and then, you know, nothing was kind of happening, like, are we gonna do this or what, because I need to save up for pizza money and a soda pop to take out my girlfriend. You know what mean?”

The guitarist also notes that he’d come up with a couple of riffs and ideas with the GNR members at the time, though he still didn’t get an answer as to whether or not he was officially in the band.

“We had all these riffs laying around and I was just like, nothing was happening,” Wylde explains, “Then Oz was like, ‘Zakk, I can’t be sitting around waiting.’ You know, because it was after we did Ozzmosis and everything like that, he was like, ‘I’m getting ready to tour,’ whatever and I mean, without Ozzy there, I wouldn’t even be in a conversation with Guns N’ Roses.”

“Because I owe everything to Oz, so the Guns thing was just lying dormant, you know, just nothing was happening and I was like, ‘I need to raise some pizza money and soda pop money for my girlfriend, Barbaranne,’ so that’s when Black Label Society was born.”

“So that’s the reason. I had to get pizza money for my girlfriend,” Wylde concludes.

Listen to the full podcast on SiriusXM.

The post “I had to get pizza money for my girlfriend”: Why Zakk Wylde didn’t end up joining Guns N’ Roses appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“I’m excited to infuse some nasty, dirty, effects-laden stuff into Gwar and make it sound disgusting sonically… And I think I’m gonna have a mullet”: Gwar’s new guitarist Tommy Meehan gets set to destroy

Guitar World -

The Squid Pisser and Cancer Christ guitarist will officially replace Brent Purgason, aka Pustulus Maximus, armed with his usual disgusting effects, a blood-spattered Electrical Guitar Company offset and a hot pink Star Destroyer. Will it help the band take over the Earth? Find out on tour

“We have this thing in us that we need to excavate and work on together” Mannequin Pussy on embracing positivity together in a bleak world

Guitar.com -

Mannequin Pussy, photo by Millicent Hailes

In late December, cutting through a swathe of new releases on US radio, a distorted, grungy guitar snarled out of the speakers with an undeniable ferocity of riffage. The track, I Don’t Know You, was an early indication of what to expect from Philadelphia band Mannequin Pussy’s fourth album, I Got Heaven. Together with veteran producer John Congleton, the band have crafted – arguably – their finest collection of roiling, grungy pop-rock to date.

I Got Heaven comes with no shortage of expectation – following up 2019’s Patience which released to rave reviews and spots in various year-end best ofs, but it more than lives up to the hype.

Over 10 relentlessly energetic, lush guitar-based tracks, the four-piece showcase a timeless, snarly punk attitude while remaining melodic and radio-friendly, and even weaving some 90s pop-punk nostalgia into their sound. In their choice of Grammy-winner Congleton as producer, they’ve succeeded in shining the spotlight on their guitar finesse like never before. Punk and snarling, distorted guitars are central to vocalist and guitarist Marisa “Missy” Dabice’s sonic DNA, instilled from childhood.

“I discovered the Stooges and MC5 on TV at three in the morning when I was a kid,” she recalls. “MTV and VH1 would have these late night documentaries on music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. So, the Stooges and MC5 were really formative for me, and later the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Strokes. Pixies were massive for me. I’m just so enamoured with that kind of really grungy, aggressive catharsis that has that little sprinkle of pop on top of it.”

Mannequin Pussy, photo by Millicent HailesMannequin Pussy. Image: Millicent Hailes

Heaven Sent

That description sums up I Got Heaven in a nutshell, with the pop being sprinkled far more liberally than previous Mannequin Pussy releases, but already the approach has won high profile fans. When Kristen Stewart told media in mid-February that she was “obsessed” with the band, she went on to describe why with such poeticism that it defies argument: “They’ve got a really sultry and positive growl that is just like shoving our faces in the bush of being a woman.”

The band’s first two albums were bursting with explosive, blistering punk rock, which surely went some way to explaining why they signed with iconic punk label Epitaph Records for the release of Patience. But, that third album peeled back a curtain on what the band were really capable of when they stretched their sound into poppier, more romantic territory.

Dabice wields a sweet, nostalgic croon that is heartbreakingly earnest (sounding not unlike Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval on tracks like I Don’t Know You and Nothing Like). She is joined by Maxine Steen on guitar and synths, Colins “Bear” Regisford on bass, and Kaleen Reading on drums.

For a song that sounds so signature Mannequin Pussy, I Don’t Know You required some tweaking.

Dabice explains, “That was my demo, which was originally written in a different tuning; in standard with the same chord progression. I was drawn to the chords, but it was feeling a little basic, not fitting in my register comfortably. During the writing session in December, I went ‘fuck it!’ and put my guitar into D standard, changed my tunings, played exactly the same chord progression and that’s how I Don’t Know You was born. Maxine immediately started the synths, Bear was on guitar, and Kayleen picked up her brushes.”

I Got Heaven lands at a time when the news is relentlessly bleak – but in its shameless beauty, unapologetic and lusty desire, and dreamy restlessness, it is a rebellious stance against hopelessness. Like Smashing Pumpkin’s buoyant teenage anthem 1979, Mannequin Pussy’s Sometimes rides some tidal power chords to slam home the pure, adrenal fury of being young, reckless and excited by freedom. Elsewhere, OK? OK! OK? OK! is a driving, headbanging two minutes of frenzied hardcore punk, riffing like a maniac with a chainsaw. It is chased up with a softly rocking contrast, the comparably tame Tell Me Softly.

Dabice says, “I think tracklisting is one of the most important aspects of making a record. I mean, obviously every single part of what goes into crafting an album has its importance, but to me a tracklisting and a sequence is really the journey that you bring people on. I’m not really thinking about the audience at all when we are writing and recording a record, which is something that is very intentionally for us [as a band].

“We have this thing in us that we need to excavate and work on together, but it’s in the listening experience when I really start to consider what it would be like to kind of dive in to a record from someone else’s perspective and see how that story needs to be crafted and delivered in a way that feels exciting, and where you don’t know exactly where it’s gonna go next.”

She adds, “What’s really important in sequencing is to consider what’s the first thing that’s going to be said on the record and what’s the last thing that’s going to be said on a record? What’s the last thing that you’re left with?”

Mannequin Pussy, photo by CJ HarveyMannequin Pussy. Image: CJ Harvey

New Terrain

Within 10 tracks, then, there is a whole world of genre-traipsing, exploratory terrain that the band wrote with Congleton in Los Angeles in a collaborative process that was new for the band, and Dabice in particular, who had been accustomed to writing in solitary nature at home. Also new for the band was Maxine Steen being an official member of Mannequin Pussy. Steen had been touring with the band since 2021 and making music with Dabice in their side project Rosie Thorne, but joining the writing process was a levelling up for the newly official Mannequin guitarist.

“Maxine is one of the few people in this world who I have this intense creative connection with,” explains Dabice. “I’m so inspired by her ideas and vice versa. She and I have been friends for 8 years and since the very first day we met we’ve been sitting around making music together. At first just for us, just for the fun creative practice of it and now it’s so lovely that our creative collaboration gets a real documentation.

“When the band experienced its switch up in 2020, Maxine was really the first person I thought of. The role of a lead guitar player is so vital in a band dynamic. It requires someone to also write songs with me, to share ideas and riffs and really pour their creative energy into the project alongside myself, Kaleen and Bear. Maxine is also a great hang, and someone who is easy to be on the road with for months at a time.”

The album is a study in contrasts; it resists building to a climax then coming down softly, which might be too predictable. Instead, it draws you in with a melodic air, then pummels you with a savage punk thrasher, before lulling you into another lush serenade and on and on in this switch-up style. That sense of complacency and numbness that becomes a thickened skin against the relentlessly grim news cycle demands a combination of high emotion, heavy riffs, and a heartbreakingly lovely voice to break through to the core of a modern listener. Mannequin Pussy can sing about the poison, while delivering the remedy.

“This was, by far, the fastest we’ve ever written a record,” Dabice says. “About this time last year, we were getting ready to record after we’d had two writing sessions.”

The band had begun writing in August 2022, but illness curtailed their efforts, so another was organised later that year in December.

“We got back together in the studio with John [Congleton] and it was the five of us in this little writing shack in Los Angeles where we just wrote every day for four days straight and we came out of that session with 17 songs.”

The band was sent off to decipher which of the songs they wanted to keep for the album.

“That was actually very easy for us. As individuals, we went over our favorite songs and we pulled out 12 that we felt the most strongly about. That was in January 2023. Because John is such an in-demand producer, his schedule was either to record in the first two weeks of March or the last two weeks of August. So, we were like, ‘oh, fuck, we just wrote these!’ And we gave ourselves basically two months to prepare, so we dug into it as much as we possibly could to figure it out.”

Mannequin Pussy, photo by CJ HarveyMannequin Pussy. Image: CJ Harvey

Dabice confesses, “I am not a lone wolf creator. It really took the effort of all of us to be so captivated by our own ideas and our own collaborations and that pressure felt lessened in a way because we were all putting in that creative work together. That’s why I just love being in a band so much, because it is this collaborative energetic exchange. I think inviting other people and other people’s talents and perspectives into something is how you really make something the best that it can be.”

That fierce energetic exchange lured Congleton. A fan of the band, he’d called Brett Gurewitz (owner of Epitaph Records) to offer his services for the next Mannequin Pussy album. Dabice had loved his production on Angel Olsen’s 2014 album Burn Your Fire for No Witness, and was keen to have him on board.

“John did not want us to ever do more than three or four takes of something. I found his immensely relaxed approach to music disarming, although it sometimes was like, ‘does this guy give a shit?’ But, really, he’s operating on the level that he trusts you as an artist to get out what you need in those takes. So, if you don’t get it in three or four, maybe it’s not there and you should be searching for a different idea or another mode to transport that idea.”

She adds, “I love his tones. I love his ear for things, but I also love that John’s not about the perfection. He’s about the raw energy and that’s definitely the philosophy from which I come from as well.”

Strat’s Entertainment

Dabice had been a solid fan of the Fender Strat until discovering the very different charms of a Reverend guitar while touring in 2020. Missy had broken a string on her Strat and with no spare guitar on hand, ended up borrowing the Reverend from the opening act. Inspired, Dabice bought a Jetstream 390, and it ended up being one of the few models she rocked out on for this album.

“I used my custom-made Nash Wayfarer that I had made for me in 2021 for this record, and I do still play a Fender Strat live but my favourite two guitars in the world right now are my Fender American Strat and my Reverend 390,” she explains. “Both of them scratch very different sonic itches for me, which is what I’m driven by. I love the cleanness of the Strat, but the Reverend feels like a beefier, musclier sound. I feel like the veins are popping in my arms when I use it! The tone of it sounds so good to me. But ultimately I have no allegiance, I’m just chasing the sound.”

On Steen’s side, she also turned to one of Bill Nash’s Fender-derived creations, in her case a JM63 – it’s clear there’s a lot of love for the boutique maker in the band.

“I absolutely adore Nash guitars in the studio,” Dabice explains. “There was also a 1950s Gibson SG floating around, and an American Stratocaster, plus a Tacoma Acoustic guitar that made a few appearances, but on every track we used our Nash guitars.”

The end result is, like the band itself, a creative fusion that should be chaotic with such varied elements but is instead, pure and raw in its powerful delivery. Perhaps, to wrangle Dabice’s lyrics, we know a lot of things about Mannequin Pussy, but we don’t truly know them. Maybe that’s their magic, and it makes I Got Heaven all the richer for its ability to let listeners work it out themselves.

I Got Heaven is out 1 March on Epitaph

The post “We have this thing in us that we need to excavate and work on together” Mannequin Pussy on embracing positivity together in a bleak world appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Podcast 452: Rasmus Zandvliet & Jeremy the Guitar Hunter

Fretboard Journal -



This week, we share two great interviews: First, we talk to Rasmus Zandvliet, a young (17-year-old!) aspiring luthier from the Netherlands teaching himself how to build acoustic guitars from scratch using YouTube videos for inspiration and a modest array of tools (and a curling iron to bend sides!).

Rasmus is already on to his third guitar and garnered a rave review from Jeremy Sheppard, aka Jeremy the Guitar Hunter (who owns an Alpine spruce/mahogany 000-18 built by Rasmus).

In the second half of this episode, we talk to Jeremy himself about his start as a YouTube content creator, his love for acoustic guitars, and why he began flipping guitars (he estimates he’s up to 5,000!). We also talk about why this digital content guru has decided to take a job at an old school brick & mortar guitar store, how he befriended Rasmus, and what he thinks of his 000-18 from the young builder.

Follow Rasmus here:
https://www.instagram.com/rasmus_zandvliet/

Follow Jeremy here:
https://www.jeremytheguitarhunter.com

and on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/JimmySheep

Registration is now open to attend our 2024 Fretboard Summit: https://fretboardsummit.org/

If you enjoy this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and consider joining the Fretboard Journal’s new Patreon page.

Thank you to our sponsors: Mike & Mike’s Guitar BarPeghead Nation (use the promo code FRETBOARD and get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription); and Stringjoy Strings (get 10% off your order with the FRETBOARD discount code). This episode is also sponsored by iZotope. Use the discount code FRET10 to save 10% off of your Izotope order.

All Rasmus Zandvliet photos by Diever Zandvliet.

The post Podcast 452: Rasmus Zandvliet & Jeremy the Guitar Hunter first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

PickupMusic.com Online Lesson Review: Hip, Modern, & Fun To Learn With

The Guitar Journal -

Pickupmusic.com is dedicated to online guitar lessons – admittedly, a crowded space on the internet right now. From fresh faced Youtubers to industry behemoths like Fender, there’s no shortage of guitar lesson providers to connect with. So what makes pickupmusic.com special? Let’s take a look. (Teaser: they know what you like.) Quick Backstory: What is […]

The post PickupMusic.com Online Lesson Review: Hip, Modern, & Fun To Learn With appeared first on The Guitar Journal.

Steel: Christine Bougie

Fretboard Journal -



For episode 6 of Steel, we travel to Toronto to meet Christine Bougie.

Christine is a guitarist and lap steel player who has shared the stage and studio with folks like Bahamas, Sarah Harmer, Amy Milan, the Queer Songbook Orchestra and Jeremy Dutcher. Christine just released ‘Soft Start,’ an album of gorgeous ambient music.

In our chat, Christine breaks down her musical journey, from learning to record as a teenager with the two cassette records, to how a few choice words from Bill Frisell inspired her to record her own music, how the lap steel became part of her life and how she used the steel to create lush textures on her ambient album.

To learn more about Christine and find her music, check out the following links:

https://www.christinebougie.ca/

https://christinebougie.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/christinebougie/?hl=en

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1SZin6f4Z3SLnRWp7Bhv4r?si=ab46bc4dc9934f05

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvvtMAAyfWue8AScjx7r6kWBHED7GDDHL

Steel is hosted by Matt Perpick for the Fretboard Journal network of podcasts.

Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal here:

https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription

The post Steel: Christine Bougie first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

“My jokes were funnier – I was suddenly better looking”: Duff McKagan recalls how sudden Guns N’ Roses fame felt “lonely”

Guitar.com -

Duff McKagan with his bass guitar on stage at Glastonbury.

Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan says the band’s sudden rise to fame felt “kind of lonely” to him, as he began noticing that people were responding to him differently.

Being a famous artist is a complex ordeal – while most people dream of such a life, there’s no denying that being in the public eye on such a huge scale has its challenges. Back in the band’s Appetite For Destruction era, McKagan remembers how “crazy” it was to “break through”.

Appearing on the Broken Record Podcast, he says (via Ultimate Guitar): “When we started to break through, it was so crazy. You start to break through, and then really break through. It was so crazy. People ask, ‘How has this changed you?’ Around ‘89, I remember getting asked questions I’d never been asked before. ‘How has this changed you?’; everybody asked me the same question. And I thought about it. I realised it didn’t change me; it changed how people responded to me.

“I noticed I had a lot more friends suddenly, and my jokes were funnier. I was suddenly better looking because I was getting hit on [by people] out of my league. [I realised], ‘Oh, it’s because I’m this band, we’re on MTV and all that stuff.’ It’s kind of lonely. When you realise that, you’re like, ‘Oh shit.’”

Despite the craziness of meteoric fame, McKagan assures that he still does not let it get to his head: “Not my style, to this day,” he says. “I went back to my best friends who I grew up with, and they’re still my best friends. When we have our text group. We’ve been through it.”

Check out the full podcast below:

You can stream Duff McKagan’s solo album, Lighthouse, now. Find out more over at his website.

The post “My jokes were funnier – I was suddenly better looking”: Duff McKagan recalls how sudden Guns N’ Roses fame felt “lonely” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“EVH’s tones are always the most sought-after”: Fender on getting EVH’s endorsement for the Tone Master Pro

Guitar.com -

Fender Tone Master Pro control knobs by Adam Gasson

Fender Executive Vice President Justin Norvell has been explaining just how significant the endorsement by the EVH brand of the Tone Master Pro was for the company in a new interview, describing it as a “very big thing.”

Until the Fender Tone Master Pro arrived last year, the EVH brand – operated by Wolfgang Van Halen and his partner in the brand, Matt Bruck – hadn’t endorsed any licensed models of its amps to use with software or modellers, and Justin emphasises that the endorsement was never a given.

Norvell tells Guitar World, “It was important to us. EVH’s tones are always the most sought-after on anything that approximates [that time]. Whether it’s the ‘brown sound’ or other, later sounds, like the 5150s. And that, we felt, would be something that as a benchmark, people could really go, ‘OK. They did the work.’”

And, Norvell hopes the endorsement will invite more to come on the digital side of things. He continues, “I think that that’s something that’s very interesting, but of course, the camp is very protective, and has extremely high standards. So it’s gotta be great. It’s not just like, ‘Hey, we’re friends. Put my name on this.’ That’s not how it works.”

As such, the EVH Gear team, which looks after the tonal legacy of Eddie Van Halen – Wolfgang’s father, of course – went to Fender’s base in Arizona to take a closer look at the model, A/B-ing it against an EVH 5150III 100S head. Evidently, the trip was successful, as the team signed off on it.

Reception for the Tone Master Pro has been positive so far, helping to get more guitarists into modelling. “I think that’s been an awesome thing,” Norvell says. “Whether it’s [Joe] Satriani on The Howard Stern Show or just seeing this pop up fast. It’s not having to do six months or a year in someone’s home environment till they feel confident with it.”

And last month, Fender unveiled the first big free firmware update to the Tone Master Pro.

The post “EVH’s tones are always the most sought-after”: Fender on getting EVH’s endorsement for the Tone Master Pro appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

KK Downing: “The guitar dynamic in Judas Priest was lopsided – but in KK’s Priest it’s the way I always envisaged it”

Guitar.com -

KK Downing and AJ Mills stood together playing guitar on stage

KK Downing says that his guitar dynamic with KK’s Priest’s AJ Mills is “split down the middle” and is “the way it was always meant to be”.

Downing is still proud of the trade-off guitar technique he developed alongside Glenn Tipton when he first joined Judas Priest, and now feels this is continuing to be played out “exactly” how he had “always envisaged” with Mills.

KK’s Priest released their most recent album, The Sinner Rides Again, back in September, and are continuing to play a string of live shows in the US.

Speaking on WBAB radio station, Downing says of his continual chemistry with Mills (via Blabbermouth), “I’ve known AJ since he was in [a band called Hostile]. Actually, the first time he saw [Priest] play was when Ripper [Tim Owens] was in the band, and AJ was 17.

“This is a story he tells me. He came to the concert and thought, ‘That’s it. I wanna be him up there,’ and he was pointing to me. And so, obviously, he knows the legacy and the credentials of the band, so he knows what’s expected. He knows me now; I’ve worked with him on a couple of his own records.”

He adds, “Needless to say, with myself and AJ, everything’s split down the middle. It’s the way it was always meant to be. Sometimes in Judas Priest it was a bit lopsided, but now we have… In all fairness, this trade-off guitar technique that, obviously, was created way, way back then in the early ‘70s, when Glenn [Tipton] eventually joined [Priest]… The way that it is now with KK’s Priest is the way that I always envisaged it.

“Not to take anything away that myself and Glenn did; I’m extremely, immensely proud of everything we did together and created together, of course. We created an image, a sound, just everything, that we etched in stone, I think, in respect of the history of the archetypal metal band. And that is continuing exactly the way that I always envisaged that it should with myself and AJ creating new music.”

View all KK’s Priest live dates via their official website.

The post KK Downing: “The guitar dynamic in Judas Priest was lopsided – but in KK’s Priest it’s the way I always envisaged it” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“Well, nobody else would f**king do it, would they?”: Ozzy Osbourne on taking matters into his own hands on Kanye West’s unauthorised sample use

Guitar.com -

[L-R] Ozzy Osbourne and Kanye West

After Ozzy Osbourne recently called out Kanye West when the rapper and erstwhile presidential candidate sampled an old recording without permission, he’s discussing it for the first time in an interview.

On 9 February, the metal legend shared on social media that he’d denied a request from West to use a sample of one of Ozzy’s festival performances of Black Sabbath‘s Iron Man from 1983, describing him an “antisemite” who has “caused untold heartache to many.”

READ MORE: Ozzy Osbourne nominated for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2024

However, he said that West “went ahead and used the sample anyway” at a listening event for his new collaborative album with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 1, which would be released a day later.

And now, Osbourne tells Rolling Stone of his decision to go after West, “Well, nobody else would fucking do it, did they?”

He says he wasn’t happy with some of West’s comments and actions, which he views as antisemitic, explaining, “With the current state of affairs, you don’t need anybody starting people on discrimination of any kind. It’s wrong. It’s just wrong.”

Osbourne adds, “There’s enough fucking aggravation, and he shouldn’t say anything [like what he has]. It’s wrong if you don’t say anything about him. I don’t want any of my work in any shape or form to be associated with anything like that.”

West had included the Iron Man sample in the track Carnival. But after Osbourne’s social media post and threats from him and Sharon, his wife and manager, to bring legal action against the rapper, West replaced the sample before the album went to streaming platforms.

And, at another listening party, West played his 2010 track Hell of a Life instead of Carnival, with the track featuring a legally cleared sample of Iron Man.

Meanwhile, Sharon – who is Jewish herself – told TMZ that West “fucked with the wrong Jew this time.”

The post “Well, nobody else would f**king do it, would they?”: Ozzy Osbourne on taking matters into his own hands on Kanye West’s unauthorised sample use appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

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