Music is the universal language
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” - Luke 2:14
General Interest
Fender celebrates 30 years of the Hot Rod Deluxe with limited-edition version – here’s how you can get one
Fender is celebrating 30 years of its hugely popular 40-watt Hot Rod Deluxe combo amp with a limited-edition 30th Anniversary version.
In keeping with the 30th Anniversary aesthetics also boasted by the company’s Blues Junior IV relaunch that arrived last year, the 30th Anniversary Hot Rod Deluxe features a Western-style covering, along with a vintage ‘50s brown and gold grille cloth.
Tweaks haven’t only been made in the aesthetics department, though; the 30th Anniversary version of the Hot Rod Deluxe swaps out the original’s 12-inch Celestion A-type speaker for another ceramic Celestion speaker, the 12-inch G12M-65 Creamback.
Credit: Fender
The amp’s circuitry has been modified on the original, too, with tweaks to the preamp section for “increased overdriven note definition”, plus a “smoother” spring reverb.
Elsewhere, the 30th Anniversary Hot Rod Deluxe sports a pine cabinet, polished stainless steel faceplate, black Chickenhead knobs and a leather handle, and comes with a two-button footswitch and cover.
Credit: Fender
Still 40 watts, the amp is fitted with three channels to choose from – Normal, Drive and More Drive – and is powered by a trio of 12AX7 tubes in the preamp section and two 6L6’s in the power section.
Often touted as a great pedal platform for its high headroom, the Hot Rod Deluxe also features an effects loop, in which you can place modulation, delay and reverb pedals after the preamp and prior to the power amp.
Price-wise, you can get your hands on the 30th Anniversary Hot Rod Deluxe for the princely sum of $1,299 / £1,269 / €1,489.
Learn more at Fender.
Credit: Fender
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Megadeth On Ice: Watch Teemu Mäntysaari play Let There be Shred while ice skating
Megadeth guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari has just shared a rather cool video of him playing Let There Be Shred while ice skating.
The Finnish guitarist, who joined the band in 2023 following Kiko Loureiro’s departure, says making the video was “so much fun” and combines his two favourite things: guitar and ice hockey. Let There Be Shred marked the third single to arrive from their final album, which landed in January.
Though the video doesn’t use the raw audio, Mäntysaari masters this ice cold shred-through smoothly, even when moving backwards, and close up shots show him tearing through the fretboard. Take a look in the video below:
The final, self-titled album from Megadeth marks their 17th studio record. It is also their first and only record featuring Mäntysaari since he joined the band. In 2024, Mustaine said having on board made them feel more united: “We are a band again,” he told Loudwire Nights. “It doesn’t feel like me and some side players or session guys… I feel like Kiko did us a really huge courtesy by helping us find Teemu.”
The band’s final record features their own rendition of Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, which frontman Dave Mustaine originally helped to craft during his time with Metallica. At first, people believed the track to be middle-finger to the band that fired Mustaine back in 1983, but their decision to record the track came with intentions much more wholesome.
Mustaine helped write a number of Metallica songs before his firing, including a selection from the band’s debut album, Kill ‘Em All, and decided to record Ride The Lightning as a mark of respect to his first real band. Though Megadeth are retiring, it does seem that Mustaine has his sights set on other projects, with one possibly being acting.
Megadeth are currently on their farewell tour. You can view the full list of scheduled shows via their official website.
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How Eddie Van Halen’s treasured Lamborghini Miura was restored and unveiled as a touching tribute to the guitar legend
Eddie Van Halen wasn’t just about music, he also had an impressive collection of classic cars and was passionate about all things automotive.
In 2023 after his passing, Lamborghini paid tribute to the guitar icon during a special 60th anniversary event for the luxury car brand, after restoring Eddie’s custom Miura. The model made its public debut in 1966, was the first to be coined a “supercar”.
The vehicle’s revving engine can also be heard on Van Halen’s Panama right after the guitar solo. According to a 2023 article from Van Halen Newsdesk, Eddie sold the car in 2019 to Curated Motors in Miami.
As newly shared by Ital Passion, John Temerian, founder of Curated Motors, sent the Miura to Italy to be restored by Lamborghini’s historical division. The restoration should have taken around two years and ended up taking almost four due to COVID-19.
Eddie’s Miura was originally gifted to him as a wedding present from his wife Valerie Bertinelli, and featured custom changes that made it a special model, including a custom number plate bearing their wedding date, “APR 11”, and a red finish instead of green.
It was decided they would not restore an idealised version, but would reinstate the car’s unique character, just as it was given to the musician. The refurbished car was officially unveiled at the anniversary event while Van Halen’s music played out, and then taken for a stunning drive around Northern Italy.
You can hear more about the story and check out the refurbished car in the videos below:
In other Van Halen news, a recently unearthed 1978 interview with rock journalist, author and Eddie’s close friend, Steve Rosen, shows the legendary guitarist recounting his experience stumbling across his famed tapping technique.
“I really don’t know how to explain it. I was sitting in my room at the pad at home, drinking a beer. I remember seeing people just stretching one note and hitting the note once… Anyway, it’s just one note like that, and they popped the finger on it real quick to hit one note and I said, ‘Well, fuck nobody is really capitalising on that.’ I mean nobody’s really doing more than just one stretch and one note real quick,” he said.
“So I started dicking around and said, ‘Fuck, this is a totally new technique that nobody really does.’ ‘Cause it is. I really haven’t seen anyone really get into that as far as they could because it is a totally different sound. A lot of people listen to that, and they don’t even think it’s a guitar.”
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Play Sierra Hull’s Lyrical New Ballad “Spitfire”
“It took a while for James and I to open up”: Lars Ulrich admits not being receptive to Cliff Burton’s musical ideas when he first joined Metallica
Metallica’s third album, Master Of Puppets, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and bassist Cliff Burton helped it soar to success.
During the making of the record, which would be Burton’s last before his tragic death during its supporting tour, the other band members began to embrace Burton’s more melodic ideas, opening them up to new ways to experiment.
In an archival interview republished in Classic Rock magazine, drummer Lars Ulrich says, “Most of the record was written in May and June of 1985, from the best ideas that were kicking around on our riff tapes.
“Cliff had been in the band for a few years and he brought in a lot of harmonies and melodies. It took a little while for James [Hetfield] and I to open up to some of Cliff’s ideas about harmony and melody, because we’d never played stuff like that before. But after a while we got it and that’s when we started experimenting more.”
Guitarist Kirk Hammett adds, “James would show Cliff and me the riffs, and we’d build the songs from there. Some I’d already be familiar with. The main riff in Battery, for instance. The first time I heard James play that was in England, on his acoustic guitar. We were watching The Young Ones, and all of a sudden he started messing around with this sort of galloping rhythm. I said: ‘Wow, that’s cool.’”
Ulrich describes this young iteration of the band as “snot-nosed punks trying to do something different from everyone else,” before Hetfield then adds, “I remember writing the chorus to Master Of Puppets in our living room and thinking it was too commercial, too obvious. ‘If it’s too easy, something’s wrong’ was kind of the Metallica mantra.”
In other huge Metallica news, the band are due to take up residency at the Las Vegas Sphere across October and November of 2026, and into January 2027. The residency will continue their ‘no-repeat’ weekend tradition, with unique set lists for each night.
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“I didn’t break it, but it was pretty close”: Suzi Quatro recalls the time she nearly broke Alice Cooper’s nose on tour
Tour antics can sometimes get out of hand, and that was nearly the case for Suzi Quatro, when she very nearly broke Alice Cooper’s nose.
Quatro supported Cooper on his 1975 Welcome To My Nightmare tour, which was a colossal run that saw the shock rocker kick things off in March that year and wrap in December. The tour was turned into a concert film, and took place in a multitude of venues across the USA, as well as Canada and parts of Europe.
- READ MORE: The Genius Of… Quatro by Suzi Quatro
Speaking to Classic Rock for the new edition of its print magazine, Quatro recalls, “I was friends with so many acts from Michigan – MC5, Amboy Dukes, Grand Funk Railroad – and I’ve known Alice for years and we always had a connection. I supported him on the Welcome To My Nightmare tour in 1975, 85 dates. We called him Vinnie The Boss.
“We were on a turboprop and making at least one flight a day, if not two. Back then I was a terrible flyer, so it was white-knuckle time. But it was wonderful because there was a lot of Detroit people around, musicians who I’d known forever. A lot of blackjack was played. On a big tour like this you get a little crazy. In one hotel we decided to have a rubber dart-gun fight before a show,” she says.
“We hid behind mattresses in the hallway, and it got serious, dark… Who was going to win? Alice hid in a room. Then I saw his rather large nose poking out from behind a television set, and I went [mimes shooting a pistol] ‘boink!’ I didn’t break it, but it was pretty close. His first words were: ‘Ouch!’ and then ‘Good shot!’ That night, on stage he wore my tour T-shirt out of respect.”
Last year when Cooper was on tour, guitarist Nita Strauss also became the centre of one of Cooper’s stunts, as she shared a close encounter with a boa constrictor during a live show. In a video shared to her Instagram, the snake could be seen licking her face as she continued to play through Cooper’s 1991 hit, Snakebite.
Alice Cooper is playing shows across the globe this year. Suzi Quatro will play across the UK in April. Find out more via her official website.
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J. Rockett Aqueous Review
It might be an overstatement to call the J. Rockett Aqueous chorus “surgical.” But for any player that has lamented a lack of subtlety in vintage-style chorus effects, the Aqueous offers an impressive level of control, making it a promising studio and performance tool and an intriguing alternative to the classics—even as it often excels at those sounds.
Waves on the Turquoise Sea
J. Rockett seems to relish a challenge. Even drive pedals, like their Archer series of Klon clones, sit either at the head of their class or are designed to the specification of a very particular, discerning player. In some cases, they have collaborated with designers responsible for stompbox institutions, with the aim of redefining them. They rarely build anything ordinary, and in that way the Aqueous fits the company’s lineage well.
The Aqueous’ digital circuitry is built around the Accu-Bell ABE-1, an effect module constructed by the same company that makes the popular Belton Brick module at the heart of many popular and excellent digital reverbs. Though it’s a digital circuit, Aqueous’ sounds make it a spiritual descendant of many pedals that vintage heads obsess over, like the Boss CE-1 and CE-2 and Electro-Harmonix Poly Chorus and Clone Theory. With the exception of the Poly Chorus, most of these pedals were straightforward affairs offering little control beyond rate and depth. Where additional controls existed, as with the Poly Chorus, they often served to make things extra weird. What’s cool about the Aqueous is that it uses its extra flexibility to achieve greater precision and subtlety instead.
The most interesting of these additional controls are the preamp and tilt EQ knobs. The former will appeal to some as a way to compensate for perceived volume loss. But it’s also capable of subtle drive that blurs modulations and makes them sound like a more cohesive part of your signal, not unlike a dark analog delay. The tilt EQ adds either real darkness by subtracting high end, or brightness that brings a more analog-like liveliness to the output. The tilt EQ works beautifully in concert with the wet-dry mix control, another much less common chorus control parameter, to enable very specific shaping of the modulation intensity and presence.
The practical importance of chorus—or any modulation—that can be foregrounded or tucked back into the hidden corners of a mix in this fashion is hard to underestimate. In live situations, different rooms can respond to the EQ peaks and valleys created by chorus in the same way overdrive or distortion can, and the ability to adapt to those shifts can be the difference between a guitar that goes missing in a mix and one that vibrates with life. The studio benefits of a chorus this nuanced are even more obvious. In both situations the Aqueous can be a great scalpel.
I Threw a Brick
As we’ve noted in earlier J. Rockett reviews, the company has a way of building things to a bulletproof standard. This applies to the Aqueous for sure. Though the I/O and 9V DC jacks are mounted to the printed circuit as well as the enclosure, the enclosure itself is robust enough to be used in self-defense. And it’s hard to imagine many shocks, bumps, or bruises that the Aqueous couldn’t handle. The knobs, meanwhile, are the kind that make on-the-fly adjustments easy. They are smooth, sensitive, and resistant to accidental adjustments. But the real beauty of the control set is the use of Neve-style wing knobs for the preamp and tilt eq, which stand up a little taller and facilitate easy adjustment with your toe.
The Verdict
If you're open-minded about what chorus can be, the Aqueous merits more than a casual tryout. Vintage-aligned players with very specific opinions about how chorus should sound might find certain elements of classic voices missing. Aqueous’ tendency to be many things could also come at the expense of super-deep, over-the-top sounds like those a vintage Poly Chorus or Way Huge’s Blue Hippo can generate.
But if you’re less attached to those templates, Aqueous might leave you wondering why anyone bothers with less tailorable chorus units. A colleague suggested that Aqueous might be a chorus for people who don't like chorus. I’d venture that Aqueous is simply a great chorus for players who want a more flexible one.
Question of the Month: Who's Your Favorite Independent Guitar Builder?
Adam Sturgeon, Status/Non-Status
Being left-handed has major downsides when it comes to guitars. There are very few choices available, setups are often terrible, and the better options come with reversed wiring. I've spent a lot of time building my own guitars, with various issues and inevitable failures along the way. So, it was very exciting to connect with Belvedere in building my own, fully custom leftie. Belvedere is a newer guitar company operating out of the Mile End Guitar Coop in Montreal. From highly curated woods to handwound pickups, pre- and post-build consults, I’m feeling incredibly fortunate and inspired to work with them!
Obsession: Lately, I’ve also been totally obsessed with tattoos. Again. There are several shops and quite the community of artists in my neighborhood, and I’ve been making new friends and getting renditions of some of my favorite personal items tattooed all over my legs—a coffee mug, old guitar pedal, even a hockey skate.
Dennis Cagle, Reader
I have gone to NAMM and other vintage shows for a number of years now. I’ve played the best of the big-name manufacturers, as well as boutique guitars from across the country … and other continents. As a lifelong musician and a wanna-be luthier myself, I honestly can say that my favorite builder is none other than Anthony Sims and the guys at Lucky Dog Guitars. They produce the best-quality, best-sounding, best-looking, and best-playing guitars that I’ve found. Even though I’m no longer on the road, and the guitars that come in for setups or other jobs are ones I work on for my own enjoyment, I had to buy a Lucky Dog for myself. For playability, it’s the standard that I strive for when I send one out. I won’t even mention what great guys Anthony, John, and Eric are.
Obsession: A few years ago, I attended the Amigo Guitar Show that comes to Franklin, TN, each year. This show had thousands of vintage instruments, treasures really. One vendor had a $60,000 price tag on a Martin dated around 1918, if I remember correctly, and he looked at me and said, “Pick it up and play it.” I’ve been obsessed ever since.
Ted Drozdowski, Contributing Editor
For sound, imagination, and vibe, Chris Mills from Zuzu Guitars in Pennsylvania is my guy. Chris built my main instrument, which I call the Green Monster, and no two of his guitars are alike. The Monster’s finish is a Behr color called fish pond, the mahogany body and perfect-for-me neck are hand cut, and Chris makes his own exceptional pickups, which, with coil splitting, give me the core tones of a Les Paul and a Strat, with a Strat’s weight and balance. If you check zuzuguitars.wordpress.com, you can see all of his work, which is trad and rad at the same time.
Obsession: Tremolo. I’m in a Pops Staples phase … again. But, I love adding EHX’s Pico Atomic Cluster to it, for a William Burroughs approach to melody.
Brett Petrusek, Director of Advertising
Rock N Roll Relics for their unmistakable visual signature, cool energy, and rock ’n’ roll attitude. Their shop in North Hollywood has an old-school record store vibe. It reminds me of the early San Dimas Charvel era. Every guitar I’ve picked up from Billy Rowe and Co. has always just felt great, like an old friend. You don’t need to spend a lot of time getting to know the guitar; it just works with you right away. With custom finishes, custom colors, and premium parts, like ratio tuners by Graph Tech, Jescar Frets, TonePros bridges, paper in oil capacitors, and multiple pickup configurations, you can make it your own. It’s also cool to know that no two guitars are the same—when it’s yours it’s uniquely yours.
A totally different style, but I must also give a shout out to Tonfuchs guitars from Germany. I was happy to discover and see a few of these guitars in the wild at the 2026 NAMM show; the builds were impeccable. Uwe Schölch is an artisan/craftsman of the highest order. Check his guitars at tonfuchs-guitars.com, and on IG at: @tonfuchs_guitar.
Obsession: Currently in the studio working on my band’s second album and I kinda want a Flying V. So yeah, recording and Flying Vs.
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are “Dancing” and letting loose on latest SatchVai single
While Joe Satriani and Steve Vai’s SatchVai project has been touring for the last couple of years, the pair of guitar legends are still in no rush to release a full album. Instead, they’ve been drip-feeding their fans, sticking to one collaborative release a year – and it’s finally time for another single.
Dancing comes as SatchVai’s third track to date. It joins the 2024 release of I Wanna Play My Guitar and 2025’s The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1 – and it’s a vibrant burst of playful guitar tones. The riffy reimagining of Paolo Conte’s 1981 track of the same name sounds like it could soundtrack a bombastic cartoon heist, unfolding in a chaotic slew of bright, bouncy grooves.
“Dancing really captures the playful side of what Steve and I discovered on stage together last summer – that push-and-pull of melody and energy,” Satriani explains in a press release. “The video also gave us a chance to show that spirit in a completely different way.”
Directed by Satriani’s son, ZZ Satriani, the Dancing music video is brilliantly goofy. The surreal narrative sees Satriani and Vai trying to please an over-the-top manager (played by comedian Brendon Small) who insists that their live show isn’t entertaining enough. To up their gave, the SatchVai pair need to start doing backflips, grow bigger fingers… and start Dancing, of course.
“This band thrives on surprise – musically and visually,” Vai says. “Dancing is a perfect example of that. It’s melodic but relentless, and the video turns that energy into a kind of surreal comedy. It’s a glimpse into the personality of this band before we even hit the stage.”
While there’s no telling what ‘surprises’ the duo have in store next (perhaps the second half of The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1?), the SatchVai project will be embarking on a US tour this April. The Surfing With The Hydra tour will run up until 30 May, with support from prog-metalers Animals as Leaders.
Head to satchvaiband.com for more information and tickets.
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Sharon Osbourne says Ozzfest will “absolutely” return in 2027
Last month, Sharon Osbourne hinted that she was in talks with Live Nation to revive Ozzfest. Now, Sharon claims that there will “absolutely” be an Ozzfest revival next year.
In a recent appearance on the RIFFX podcast, Ozzy Osbourne’s widow and ex-manager since 1979 confirmed the news. When asked if Ozzfest would return in 2027, she said: “ Yes, absolutely – we’re gonna do it.”
First held back in 1996, Ozzfest served as an annual festival celebrating the metal and hard rock scene. From nu-metal to dark gothic metal, the line-up was an eclectic representation of the metal genre. It halted its run in 2008, with a few one-off events before a solid run of annual events between 2015 and 2018.
As Sharon explains, that three year run wasn’t meant to end in 2018. In her words, her and Ozzy always wanted to revive Ozzfest – but, unfortunately, that’s when Ozzy fell ill. “It was just a month before Ozzy got sick, and that was at the Forum in L.A…. there were no plans to stop it,” she says. “We were still gonna do it, but Ozzy couldn’t.”
However, Ozzy didn’t want his illness to put a permanent halt on Ozzfest. “Ozzy and I would talk about it, and he’d say, ‘Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?’” she recalls. “And I’m, like, ‘Yeah, it’s a brand. It will work without you.’ And he said, ‘We should do it!’”
In January, Sharon revealed in a Billboard interview that she was in discussions with Live Nation about Ozzfest. “It was something Ozzy was very passionate about: giving young talent a stage in front of a lot of people,” she explained. “We really started metal festivals in this country. It was [replicated but] never done with the spirit of what ours was, because ours was a place for new talent. It was like summer camp for kids.”
In the interview, she also shared plans to include some new flavours in the Ozzfest revival line-up. “I’d like to mix up the genres,” she said.
Despite Ozzy’s name being slapped on the festival, Sharon played an equal role in Ozzfest’s creation. In fact, Sharon is the reason the festival even exists; she brainstormed Ozzfest to spite Lollapalooza, since the festival refused to book Ozzy to perform. So it’s safe to say fans are in safe hands. “All of the creative direction for visuals at Ozzfest was mine,” she told Billboard. “I can’t sing a note – I’m tone-deaf – but I can be creative, and I like to create things.”
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Dave Mustaine says he wants to move into acting after Megadeth’s retirement – and would even cut his hair to do it, but only for a “big part”
After over 40 years, the end of Megadeth is in sight. And while frontman Dave Mustaine wouldn’t be surprised of their farewell tour lasts “three to five years” – via an interview with Kerrang! – he’s already making plans for life post Megadeth – and he’s got his sights set on Hollywood.
As he tells Classic Rock in a new interview, he plans to use his retirement to pursue new avenues of interest, like expanding his acting portfolio. “I wouldn’t mind studying acting,” he says.
While he’s not a very seasoned thespian, Mustaine has had a handful of small acting gigs in the past. Perhaps his most serious role was a one-off appearance in the TV series Black Scorpion. The 2001 show followed the titular superhero fighting crime, and Mustaine played villain Torchy Thompson. More recently, he did some voice acting in the 2017 horror/musical Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill.
That being said, Mustaine is adamant he wants to fine-tune his skills. “I’ve already done a ton of stuff on TV – hosting game shows, appearances in small sitcoms and movies – so I’m very accustomed to being in front of the camera,” Mustaine explains. “I think that might be fun to do.”
And he’s serious about it; he’s even willing to chop of his iconic ginger mane to land the right gig. “If they asked me to cut my hair, I’d be willing to do it!” he adds. “But it would have to be for a guaranteed part – and a big part, to make that kind of a commitment!”
As well as his acting dreams, Mustaine also notes that he’d be interested in helping other artists. If anyone is keen to learn some guitar from one of the best, he’s more than willing to pass down some advice. “I really want to share my gift with younger musicians,” he says. “Actually, it doesn’t even have to be a younger musician. It it’s somebody that’s a little bit older and they want to learn what it is that makes Dave tick, I don’t care about their date of birth, I just want to be able to share.”
He goes on to note that sharing his gift is only fair – considering it was a generous “gift from God”, in his words. “I’ve been gifted,” he emphasises. “I wouldn’t be this good on my own.”
Recently, Mustaine revealed that ex-Megadeth members wont be involved in the band’s grand farewell tour. It’s a decision that ex-bassist David Ellefson has criticised. Speaking on Argentinian rock radio station UnDinamo, he said: “I have always said that I am available for that. And I would do it because I think any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded… I would hope and even pray that any misunderstanding or any bitterness would be removed, that that would somehow be dissipated.”
Megadeth are currently on tour in support of their self-titled final record. See the band’s official website for dates and tickets.
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“Our emotional vocabularies were not vast”: Black Crowes brothers Chris and Rich Robinson on how they put their legendary feuding behind them and reinvent the band
![[L-R] Chris and Rich Robinson of The Black Crowes](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Chris-Rich-Robinson-new-hero@2000x1500.jpg)
They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and that was certainly the case for Chris and Rich Robinson. Famous for being “at each other’s throats”, The Black Crowes brothers claim that their 2015 split was crucial to heal their relationship. Of course, a few rounds of therapy also helped.
In a new interview with Classic Rock, Rich claims that his relationship with Chris is “night-and-day better” than it once ways. “It’s so much healthier,” he insists. “Making records is so much cooler. Touring is so much better. We call and talk about the day-to-day shit… just stuff like brothers do, you know?”
It’s a healthy, brotherly bond that wouldn’t have been possible without their six year split between 2015 and 2021. “When we got back together, we had grown a lot,” Rich explains. “We’re both in our fifties now! So we said: ‘Look, we don’t want to do some bullshit money grab, going on tour and fighting and have it be shitty.’”
As well as generally maturing, Chris notes that therapy was also played a massive part in healing old wounds. “Rich and I are mid-century products of the Deep South; our emotional vocabulary was not vast,” the brother notes. “To be where we are today, we had to mature, and that meant going through what we went through.”
Speaking to Howard Stern in 2019, Chris expressed his remorse over how he’d ended things with his brother. “I said some horrible things. I was in a negative place, but you know what, I’ve apologised to Rich about that,” he said. “A lot of things have changed for me in the last two years. I was in a relationship that was failing, I was in a negative place, I was dealing with depression. And I’m sitting over here, like, ‘Why am I saying bad things about my brother?’”
It would be two more years until the pair finally made amends in 2021 – and they’re glad they waited. Despite plenty of enticing offers to tour across that period, the brothers knew they had to patch up their relationship before working together again. By 2021, the pair were ready – and it was just in time for the 30 year anniversary of their debut, Shake Your Money Maker.
“We needed to strip everything back, and put our relationship first,” Rich tells Classic Rock. “We needed to listen to each other… and so Chris and I have been really adamant about that, and it’s helped our relationship tremendously.”
Nowadays, the pair are thick as thieves. In the interview, the brothers even recall an interaction with the late Todd Snider; when the guitarist visited the Robinsons, he marvelled at how in-sync they were. “What’s going on with you two?” he apparently exclaimed. “Are you wizards? You don’t even say anything to each other!?”
Since their reunion, the brothers have been churning out some great work together, from 2024’s Happiness Bastard, and their latest record, A Pound Of Feathers, is set to drop 13 March. It’s an impressive feat for a pair who, at one point, couldn’t stand being in the same room as one another.
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Get a Fender American Professional II Telecaster for $200 less right now in this tasty deal at Sweetwater
Looking to add a Tele to your collection? Sweetwater is currently offering a $200 price drop on Fender’s American Professional II Telecaster.
The Professional II line was unveiled in 2020, offering a line-wide revamp of the brand’s flagship American Professional series of electric guitars and basses. The launch followed rumours that the series was due its first revamp since it was originally launched back in 2016.
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This Butterscotch Blonde model features several improvements and upgrades that enhance the classic Tele design. Namely, this model is fitted with V-Mod II Telecaster single coil pickups designed by Fender’s pickup guru, Tim Shaw. They’re described as offering a vintage voice with modern clarity.
The model also has a roasted pine body, a choice steeped in Fender history, as pine was one of the woods Leo Fender experimented with when he was first developing the Telecaster. Other key specifications include a maple neck with a satin finish, a Deep C neck profile, and a contoured heel joint. The model also has a maple fretboard with 22 narrow tall frets, plus an upgraded cut three-saddle top-load/string-through bridge for enhanced flexibility for setting individual string tension.
Find out more below:
At the time of its launch, Fender’s Justin Norvell said of the series: “Over the past few years we have refined and elevated the American Professional series as a result of ongoing conversations with our artist partners.
“With their feedback and innovation a priority, we reviewed every element across the series, incorporating specs like a new sculpted neck heel, new pickups, supernatural neck finish, and various aesthetic refinements including bold colourways, tonewoods like roasted pine and tortoiseshell guards on select models.”
Shop this deal and more over at Sweetwater.
The post Get a Fender American Professional II Telecaster for $200 less right now in this tasty deal at Sweetwater appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Keo are proving that Gen Z still love guitar music: “We do feel like we’re on the tail of those bigger bands”
“I’m more obsessed with guitar now than I’ve ever been in my life,” professes Finn Keogh. Although Keo’s frontman and rhythm guitarist has been toying around with his dad’s Yamaha acoustics, banjos and mandolins since primary school, his first true love was songwriting, not his six-string. “I know it sounds mad, but I’m going through a Hendrix phase right now. It took me all this time…”
The ying to Keogh’s yang is lead guitarist Jimmy Lanwern, dubbed the “final fit” for the London alt-rock quartet after many had attempted the role. Gripped by Hendrix, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis and all sorts of 90s alt-rock, Lanwern’s “conventional guitar heroes” route explains why you’ll generally catch him with a Jazzmaster or Jaguar. “I don’t know if it’s quite obvious,” he jokes through his dark mop of hair, “but Jonny Greenwood was a huge influence on me.”
Although Keo had been slaving away on the London gig circuit for a couple of years, Lanwern’s introduction sparked a significant shift in their fortunes. By his third gig, they’d secured an agent, manager and played at Scala, as mutterings of the capital’s next great guitar act intensified while they consciously held back music. Closer in age than their bandmates, Keogh and Lanwern’s friendship is key to their synchronicity with the guitar.
“I actually saw his pedalboard before anything, because I was fed up with playing with guitarists [who] would turn up without a pedalboard,” Keogh explains. “If you invite someone to rehearsal and they plug their Les Paul into the fucking black Boss Katana, they might be able to shred….” He politely declines to finish that sentence, but in Lanwern, he found a player who had substance to his style. “I was more serious about tones than I was about my playing, and I think that’s the reason it works,” Lanwern tells Guitar.com.
Image: Hermione Sylvester
The Sound Of Sirens
After breaking the deadlock last March with debut single I Lied, Amber, Keo’s debut EP Siren followed in June. Every strum of the guitar feels intentional and raw, finding a moody middle ground on songs like Hands and Thorn. Rarely driven by catchy riffs and hooks, there is a sense that Keo are steadily curating their own wall of sound, albeit with much more of an indie twang than the haze of The Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine.
“We definitely think more about soundscaping,” explains Keogh. “Not just throwing on an overdrive and going, ‘This is the scale and this is a lick.’ [Creating] an atmosphere more than anything, that’s what I love about Jimmy’s playing.” In conversation with Keogh today, his charismatic but pensive nature resembles a bandleader who cares deeply about each moving part within that atmosphere.
Perhaps destined to become a frontman, Keogh admittedly resonates with lead singers more than guitarists, picking up playing habits from friends and peers. “My old friend used to really aggressively swing his neck after every chord, and it’d have this nice vibrato,” he explains – a trait that he’s transferred onto Lanwern. “Not only did it look cool, but you’re changing the pitch – ever so slightly – of that chord. It’s almost like shaking the slide on a fret.”
Admitting he fell in love with Ben Howard’s “percussive” pick-and-go technique and early Keo songs attempted to recreate Pearl Jam’s Daughter, the framework for Keo clicked into place when he stopped looking to other artists for inspiration. While he also writes solo material – and has recently penned a global publishing deal with Universal – he’s realised any rules for what defines a Keo song are made-up.
“Every band starts by looking for [their sound], and it takes them a long time to not,” he elaborates. “You’ll get two years down the line and always drop those songs. The best songs, for me, you’ve got everyone in the room after going, ‘Where does that come from?’ Almost like trying to figure out your ancestors or giving it a DNA test. ‘Why did that sound like that?’ The best influence naturally comes out, rather than thinking about it.”
The Kids Are Alright
TikTok has aided Keo’s early buzz, despite their alt-rock serving as the antithesis to the commercial sounds you’d expect to go viral. At their shows, you’ll find rooms dominated by teenagers, a characteristic shared by bands like Fontaines D.C. and Wunderhorse in recent years. Keo’s sound has drawn unavoidable comparisons to the latter, and there’s a sense they are next in line to follow them through to academies and arenas. On this month’s upcoming UK tour, they’ve shifted 3,000 tickets in London alone.
“I think we get an unfair amount of criticism for jumping on some bandwagon with Wunderhorse and Fontaines,” muses Keogh. “But I can wholeheartedly say that since the dawn of time, I wanted to make a band that was Pearl Jam-esque, Nirvana-esque, Radiohead-esque. I will give kudos to Wunderhorse and Fontaines, because when I saw them very early on, it was quite reassuring to see how people were doing guitar music in a new fashion. We definitely took a lot of influence from those bands, but we were already on our way to figuring out how to make something new.”
“I remember a period of time where I was really frustrated, that I was into all this old music, and no one else I was mates with seemed to really be into it,” recalls Lanwern. “Meeting Finn and the boys and seeing bands like Wunderhorse and Fontaines, it does reassure you.” At their gigs, both Keogh and Lanwern see snippets of their younger selves in the audience: the fan undergoing that eureka moment, finding others who love good old-fashioned rock music.
“You can see them coming to your shows, it’s like they’ve had this secret on their chest for their whole lives,” says Keogh. “They discover our band, and they’re like, ‘Fuck, I get this, and maybe only I get this,’ and I think that makes it more valuable to them. Everyone else that comes to the shows feels the same, and then suddenly you’ve got all of those people in a room, a bit of a scene going, and a community.”
Image: Hermione Sylvester
At the time of writing, just four guitar bands are on the Reading & Leeds 2026 line-up, a festival that has always existed as a pillar of youth. They are Fontaines D.C., Florence and the Machine, Geese and Keo. Having already performed on its BBC Introducing Stage, do Keo feel the pressure of the festival’s guitar-rich heritage, as if they’re flying the flag for the next generation of guitar bands?
“To say we’re carrying the torch is quite a big thing to claim, but it is quite a surreal thing for it to be growing so quickly, and I feel like we’re almost trying to catch up with it,” responds Lanwern. “It’s hard to accept, mentally, where we are,” adds Keogh. “When you’re coming up, there’s this imposter syndrome here and there, but within Keo now, we’ve honed our craft so much and truly put in the hours. There is also now this confidence of, ‘We are the real deal,’ because we’ve fucking gone through everything we needed to go through.
“When we go to Reading, the mindset is that we are competing for that ‘spearheading band.’ We do feel like we’re on the tail of those bigger bands, and we’re putting everything we fucking have into this band. If you put enough effort into something, you feel like you’ve gained enough knowledge and earned your stripes, essentially. The shows give you adrenaline. You want those shows where all eyes are on you – where it freaks you out.”
With just one EP to their name, everything about Keo’s attitude, sound and decision-making points towards a band destined for greatness. Such is the confidence in their live show that only last month, they released their Live At Village Underground film in independent cinemas around the UK. Now, speaking to Guitar.com in between studio sessions, they are readying their next move.
“A band gets to a certain point where you almost start referencing yourself, and you’re not thinking about other bands,” concludes Keogh. “It takes years to get to, but in the last six months, there’s no need for [explanation]. Keo has got its own blueprint now, it’s going down its own lane, and that really fucking excites me.”
Keo will tour the UK from 5-15 March 2026.
The post Keo are proving that Gen Z still love guitar music: “We do feel like we’re on the tail of those bigger bands” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 161
Episode 161 of the Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast, where amp tech Skip Simmons tackles all of your questions about guitar tube amps.
Thank our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars; and Amplified Parts / Mod Electronics. Use the discount code TAVA10MOD for a one-time, 10% discount on Mod Electronics orders at https://www.modelectronics.com. Usable on speakers, amp kits, pedal kits, reverb tanks, etc. Offer ends April 11, 2026.
Some of the topics discussed this week:
:42 Phil Upchurch and ‘What It’s Like to Be a Musician’
3:25 On the Bench: A non-working outboard tremolo by Skip, a unique Massie trem circuit, putting trem in a Bassman 100, bias modulating tremolo
9:57 A TAVA giveaway (Thank you, Union Tube & Transistor and Exile!)
14:44 An Electro-Music Baffler, answered; a vintage Roberts electric mandolin; Tiny Moore; Bob Wills in Sacramento
25:12 Follow our Instagram page and help us get to 10,000 followers, the Garnet amp book (link), the Garnet Herzog
28:16 An amp tech for Guam
36:12 Working on a Johnson Celestion, why were some volume pots in front of the first tube? the best spare 6V6s to seek out
42:02 Talking Micro-Frets guitars on the Fretboard Journal Podcast (link)
43:13 Why is my Fender Super 60 so noisy?
49:30 A 1968 Fender Super Reverb with replaced transformers, using the extra secondaries? bias talk
56:03 Homemade salsa
59:19 Recommended reading: Proper Records’ ‘Hillbilly Boogie’ box set (Amazon link)
1:00:33 Recommended watching: ‘The Life We Have’ (YouTube link, warning: it’s a tear jerker)
1:01:46 The Webster-Chicago 166-1 vs. the Voice of Music 160 amp schematics; homemade chicken wings
Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.
Want to support the show? Join our Patreon page to get to the front of the advice line, see exclusive pics, the occasional video and more.
Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.
Win these shirts (details around minute 10)… 
The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 161 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.
Fix the Tiny Gremlins Stealing Your Guitar’s Tone
Electric guitars can be marvelous contradictions. They are simultaneously robust mechanical objects and fragile ecosystems where a few small changes can turn poetry into prattle. The good news for those of us who prefer our magic quick and easy is that improvements don’t require a lot of money or late nights spent questioning life choices. Here are a handful of my favorite simple tweaks that can enhance performance and sound. I think of these as seasoning adjustments rather than major structural renovations—salt, not sous-vide.
1. Saddle-Slot Polishing: Who doesn’t benefit from a nice massage? I know I do. Microscopic burrs or rough casting marks on saddles—especially on import bridges—can rob sustain and introduce phantom harmonics as well as tuning issues. You don’t need to totally reshape anything, just a little buff and shine. Use a strip of 1000–2000 grit sandpaper or abrasive cord gently pulled through the string slot a few times. The goal isn’t to reshape anything, it’s just subtle smoothing. The audible result is a clearer attack, smoother decay, and fewer pings when tuning.
2. Trem Spring Alignment and Tension: Fender-style tremolo springs are usually installed once and then forgotten, but uneven spring tension can cause a bridge to return inconsistently. Try loosening the claw screws slightly and then retighten them evenly, counting the turns and matching the distance traveled. Be sure to mark where you began by drawing a line on a piece of masking tape. I like to snap a reference photo to remind me where I started. Symmetrical tension often yields a more predictable return-to-zero, so start there. Some techs advise removing a spring or two on the treble side where the tension is higher, but I always start with all of the springs on deck. Keep experimenting until you get the result you want. If things improve, you’re gold. If not, relax, because that photo will always be your map back home.
3. Pickup Screw Isolation: Here’s one for those of us not afraid of getting lost in the woods. Pickup-mounting screws can transfer vibration from the body into the pickup in unpredictable ways—especially if you play loud or use a ton of gain. Put a short length of surgical tubing over the adjustment screws instead of using traditional springs. The pickup becomes mechanically quieter, which translates to less microphonic behavior at volume. Larger tubing can quiet the springs themselves if that’s the problem. While you’re in there you can stick a length of self-adhesive foam rubber to the bottom of the pickup plate to calm down microphonics.
“Electric guitars are a microscope for vibrations, so it helps to start at one end of the fiddle and check everything that screws or bolts down.”
4. Contact-Point Cleaning: Electrical contact cleaner is cheap but the results are big. Your guitar has more contact points than you might imagine. Output jack, switch contacts, pot wipers, and bridge ground screws are all fair game. Oxidation is the silent tone thief, stealing high end and dulling your tone. A five-minute cleaning session can restore sparkle you didn’t realize had left the room. This isn’t mojo—it’s maintenance. If you’re feeling ambitious, take this opportunity to re-solder anything that looks questionable.
5. Tighten Up and Fly Right: Loose or rattling parts can introduce mechanical noise, especially at stage volume. Electric guitars are a microscope for vibrations, so it helps to start at one end of the fiddle and check everything that screws or bolts down. Start with the tuners and work your way down. The audible differences are minimal—until they aren’t. When you’re standing in front of a loud amp, eliminating one more source of chaos is an act of mercy.
6. Neck-Screw Torque Consistency: On bolt-on guitars, uneven clamping pressure can subtly affect resonance. Remove and reinstall the neck screws one at a time, tightening them evenly and deliberately—not crazy-tight, just consistent and snug. If you feel any of the screws very easy to turn going in, you might want to put a thin strip of wood in the body hole to improve positive mechanical contact. If you want, you can remove the neck altogether and look for stray finish or anything that might be between the neck and body that might rob the transfer of vibration.
Final Thoughts from the Bench: None of these modifications will turn a plank into a prima donna on their own, but that’s not the point. Guitars, like recipes, respond best to small, thoughtful adjustments made by you while paying attention. Every little thing contributes to the whole. Sometimes the improvement isn’t just the sound itself—it’s your relationship to the instrument after you’ve listened closely while messing with it. And if nothing else, you’ll have spent a few hours learning about your guitar in the most direct way possible: with your hands on it, instead of your wallet.
Satch on Vai | 100 Guitarists Podcast
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have one of the deepest guitar-shredding relationships in the 6-string universe. Famously, Satch was Steve Vai’s guitar teacher back in their Long Island days, and they’ve developed their careers across the decades as solo artists, as partners in the G3 world, and now with their own co-led band, SATCHVAI. To celebrate, we’ve got a two-episode arc with each of the guys talking about the other one’s playing. First up is Satch talking all things Vai, from their early days in the lesson room to their upcoming Surfing With the Hydra tour.
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Joe Satriani And Steve Vai Release New Satchvai Band Single “Dancing”
Legendary guitar icons Joe Satriani and Steve Vai return today with the SATCHVAI Band release of their brand new single, “Dancing,” out now via earMUSIC, alongside a wildly entertaining new video directed by Satriani’s son, ZZ Satriani.
The video stars actor, comedian and musician Brendon Small (Metalacolpyse. Dethklok), a longtime friend of both guitarists, who hilariously portrays an overzealous talent manager pushing the duo to cast dancers for the band’s upcoming live show. The chaos unfolds in sync with the track’s fast-moving melodic interplay between Satriani and Vai — a rapid-fire exchange of soaring guitar lines that mirrors the eccentric parade of auditioning performers. Eagle-eyed fans will also spot a cameo from the band’s powerhouse drummer Kenny Aronoff, adding to the tongue-in-cheek energy.
Musically, “Dancing”— a reimagined interpretation of a song by iconic Italian singer, pianist, and songwriter Paolo Conte — showcases the SATCHVAI Band at full throttle — a vibrant, melodic conversation between two of rock’s most expressive guitar voices. Built on momentum, melody, and fearless musical chemistry, the track captures the spirit of spontaneity and joy that defined their electrifying European tour.
Satriani shares, “‘Dancing’ really captures the playful side of what Steve and I discovered on stage together last summer — that push-and-pull of melody and energy. The video gave us a chance to show that spirit in a completely different way. Watching ZZ bring this absurd casting concept to life — and having Brendon step into the madness — made it even more fun.”
Vai adds, “This band thrives on surprise — musically and visually. ‘Dancing’ is a perfect example of that. It’s melodic but relentless, and the video turns that energy into a kind of surreal comedy. It’s a glimpse into the personality of this band before we even hit the stage.”
The release arrives as the SATCHVAI Band prepares to bring their “Surfing With The Hydra” 2026 U.S. Tour stateside for the first time. Launching April 1 in Seattle and running through May 30 at Wolf Trap, the tour follows a celebrated European run that included stops in London, Paris, Copenhagen, and festival appearances at Hellfest, Umbria Jazz Festival, and Guitares en Scène.
Support on all dates will come from progressive metal innovators Animals as Leaders.
On the Surfing With The Hydra Tour, fans can expect a full-band, high-energy performance featuring more new material from the forthcoming SATCHVAI Band album alongside iconic favorites from both artists’ catalogs.
“Dancing” follows the duo’s previous releases, including the cinematic instrumental “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1” and the anthemic “I Wanna Play My Guitar,” featuring powerhouse vocals from Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple and Black Country Communion. A full album is expected later this year.
Together, these tracks preview a collaboration that is decades in the making. Despite nearly 50 years of friendship, the SATCHVAI Band marks the first time Satriani and Vai have formally united in a shared group — alongside Aronoff, bassist Marco Mendoza, and guitarist Pete Thorn — forging a live experience built on virtuosity, friendship and fearless creativity.
All ticket details available at SATCHVAIBAND.COM
April 1 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre
April 2 – Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
April 4 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater
April 5 – Reno, NV – Grand Sierra Resort and Casino
April 7 – Long Beach, CA – Long Beach Terrace Theater
April 8 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
April 10 – Mesa, AZ – Mesa Amphitheatre
April 11 – Las Vegas, NV – The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas
April 14 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
April 16 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall
April 17 – Dallas, TX – Music Hall at Fair Park
April 18 – Austin, TX – ACL Live at the Moody Theater
April 20 – Mobile, AL – Saenger Theatre
April 22 – Pompano Beach, FL – Pompano Beach Amphitheater
April 24 – Clearwater, FL – Baycare Sound
April 25 – St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amphitheatre
April 26 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
April 27 – Atlanta, GA – Atlanta Symphony Hall
April 29 – Charlotte, NC – Ovens Auditorium
April 30 – Durham, NC – DPAC
May 2 – Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre
May 3 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
May 5 – Milwaukee, WI – The Riverside Theater
May 7 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
May 8 – Cincinnati, OH – PNC Pavillion at Riverbend Music Center
May 9 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park
May 10 – St. Louis, MO – The Factory
May 12 – Buffalo, NY – Kleinhans Music Hall
May 13 – Toronto, Ont – Meridian Hall
May 15 – Northfield, OH – MGM Northfield Park
May 16 – Rochester Hills, MI – Meadow Brook Amphitheatre
May 17 – Syracuse, NY – Landmark Theatre
May 20 – Boston, MA – Leader Bank Pavilion
May 21 – Albany, NY – Palace Theatre
May 22 – Waterbury, CT – Palace Theater
May 23 – Virginia Beach, VA – The Dome
May 27 – Reading, PA – Santander Performing Arts Center
May 28 – New York, NY – Beacon Theatre
May 29 – Atlantic City, NJ – Borgata Hotel Casino & SpaMay 30 – Vienna, VA – Wolf Trap
Toronto’s Frank Brothers Build Guitars From the Heart
Twin brothers Tim and Nick Frank were college students in their Canadian hometown when they built their first guitar.
It was the late 2000s, and Tim Frank was working a summer job at a canoe club that had taken over a decommissioned firehouse on Ward’s Island, just south of Toronto’s harborfront. There, he and his brother had access to a backyard shed equipped with a bandsaw, a MacGyvered drill press, and a dream.
It wasn’t the first time either of them had experimented with lutherie. When they were teenagers, Nick had gifted Tim a copy of a Dan Erlewine book on guitar repair, and Tim started doing fixups for his friends while Nick defretted his bass so that he could play more like Jaco Pastorius.
Building their own guitar posed a whole other challenge. The first one they built together at the canoe club had problems, but it showed a lot of promise. Tim and Nick kept honing their skills at college in Halifax, working out of a tiny room in Tim’s house that they converted into an ad-hoc workshop. When they returned to Toronto, they found a home in a 2,600-square-foot warehouse space in a century-old building in the city’s east end, which is where they decided to go all-in and start their own guitar company in 2014.
Fast-forward to today, and the Frank Brothers Guitar Company is established as an international purveyor of boutique guitars, with a small but mighty catalog of one-of-a-kind designs. Led by Tim and Nick, with business support from their older brother Jon, Frank Brothers has carved out a niche with its unique, vintage-inspired aesthetics and high-quality craftsmanship.
The company’s signature model is the Arcade, a double-arched solid body noted for its eye-catching look, comfortable playability, and warmth, sustain, and openness. When Frank Brothers brought the Arcade to the NAMM show just a few years into the company’s tenure, an early Reverb review commended the “superb build quality” and described playing it as “a raw and overwhelming experience.”
Since then, Frank Brothers’ reputation has continued to grow. The company’s roster of clients includes Phish’s Trey Anastasio, Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson, Zac Brown Band’s Clay Cook, Walk the Moon’s Eli Maiman, Dispatch’s Brad Corrigan, Arkells’ Mike DeAngelis, the Beaches’ Leandra Earl, and solo artist James Bay, as well as live and session players for John Mayer, Vulfpeck, and Lou Reed.
It’s been just over a decade since the Frank Brothers first broke into the boutique-guitar market. But for the full story of the family business, you have to go way further back.
A Local Legacy of Music
In the Frank family, there’s an ingrained appreciation for craftsmanship in musical instruments that’s been passed down through generations. The brothers’ father, Jim Frank, was an award-winning recording engineer who worked with artists like Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, Bob Seger, and the Guess Who. Through him, the brothers learned about the value of high-fidelity sound. Their grandfather, Philip Frank, was an acclaimed violinist who played with Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra and recorded with a golden-era Stradivarius. He taught them respect for quality instruments. “We grew up with this understanding that not all instruments were made the same, and that they didn’t have equal value or sound, and that there were some instruments that were just special,” Tim Frank says.
So, when the brothers started building their own guitars professionally, they wanted to make instruments that would sound great, feel great, and play great—and last for generations. “When we first started, there was this newbie attitude where we didn’t know any better, so we tried to achieve something that we didn’t have the skills for at the time,” Tim says. “But we were always chasing perfection.”
The Frank brothers also had access to a wealth of knowledge and guidance from several master luthiers based in Toronto. When Jean Larrivée gained international respect for his steel-string acoustics in the 1970s, he enlisted several highly talented craftspeople to help build Larrivée Guitars. When he later relocated to Canada’s west coast and then onward to California, Larrivée left behind a community of people like William “Grit” Laskin, Linda Manzer, David Wren, and Tony Duggan-Smith, who stayed in Toronto and became renowned luthiers themselves.
“There’s been a culture of guitar-making here in Toronto since the ’70s, and these people were still around,” says Tim. “We got the opportunity to talk to some of them, ask them questions.”
Finding Their Niche
In a world of Fenders and Gibsons, the twins wanted to stand out. For inspiration, they looked to the retro Japanese imports of the ’60s and ’70s. These were models that took the recognizable silhouettes of classic American guitars and twisted and stretched them into funky new shapes that still resembled the originals, but were different enough that the companies making them wouldn’t get sued. “We wanted to make something that was familiar but different,” Tim says. “Something that people would recognize, but would also be its own thing.”
Drafting their concepts by hand, Tim designed the body and Nick the headstock, each of them sketching separately. When they put their two pieces of draft paper together, the designs complemented each other perfectly. Call it twin telepathy.
By the time of their third guitar build, they had zeroed in on what would be recognized today as an Arcade. The design features an arched top and back, an extra-deep neck tenon, and their signature “blended heel,” with a 25" scale length, a 12" radius, and a deluxe, hand-painted finish.
“We grew up with this understanding that not all instruments were made the same.”—Tim Frank
A couple of years ago, they added two additional models, both with a body design that looks a tad like a Gibson SG but sits more like a classic Fender. The Radar Deluxe is a set-neck mahogany guitar with a 24 3/4" scale length and a 12" radius with Kalamazoo-style parts. The Sonar is a California-inspired design with an alder body and a maple bolt-on neck, with a 25 1/2" scale length, a 9.5" radius, deep body contours, and Fullerton-inspired parts such as a Mastery vibrato and a chopped T-style bridge.
That brings Frank Brothers’ current catalog to six models in total, all fully customizable. There are four different Arcade models, with the base edition starting at $4,495, the thinline at $4,695, the signature at $5,795, and the semi-hollow at $6,795. The Sonar is the most affordable at $3,895 and up, while the Radar Deluxe starts at $4,395.
Almost all of Frank Brothers’ guitars are custom models that are made to order. Occasionally, they’ll make a few “brothers’ choice” guitars that they’ll sell on their website, and some are made for their 11 dealers in Canada, the U.S., United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Japan.
In the early days, it would take about 12 weeks to make one guitar. But their two-man operation has since doubled with the addition of two craftspeople so they can keep up with demand. Nowadays, the company makes two or three guitars a week; last year, they built 138 total.
A Meticulous Process
Step into the Frank Brothers workshop in Toronto and you’ll instantly be greeted by the rich, earthy aroma of freshly cut wood. On the day Premier Guitar stopped by, the air was filled with the sweet smell of Spanish cedar, evoking a sauna or a cigar box. (In this case, the guitar being built was for a cigar-loving client, so it was an intentional choice.)
Frank Brothers mostly uses mahogany for the Arcade model and the Radar Deluxe, but some are made with korina instead—for clients, like blues guitarist Josh Smith, who are seeking a body similar to mahogany but with a bit more presence and clarity in the mid-range. The Sonar is typically alder or maple.
“There are few people you can be as ruthlessly honest with as your brothers.”—Tim Frank
The company brings in ethically sourced shipments of new woods a few times a year, letting them dry out for over a year before cutting them into smaller chunks for body blanks, which are further dried for another six to 12 months until they’re ready to be milled. The milling process itself happens in gradual steps using their novelty-size jointer and Haas CNC machine to gradually pare down and shape the wood as its natural tension is released. “We’re not just milling it and then making the guitar,” Tim says. “We’re milling it, letting it rest, letting it de-stress, milling it again, and shaping it over time so that we get the most stable piece.”
During our visit, the CNC machine was in the process of milling the radius into a fretboard, having already been resurfaced three previous times. When it comes time for the fret slots, they’ll cut them in a pocket style rather than a straight line through the wood so that the fret tangs aren’t visible from the sides. Tim says this creates a firmer fit. “It’s a little detail that adds fractions of an amount of extra stiffness,” he says. “But, you know, we’re going for fractions.”
Once the fretboard gets glued to the neck, they use a highly precise straight edge to re-level the wood with sanding blocks until they reach their straightness tolerance of one half of a thousandth of an inch—less than the thickness of a human hair. They repeat that process again as they build in the tension of a single-action truss rod, and again as frets are installed.
Frank Brothers also take an unusual approach to their joints. For their angled headstocks, they use a “diamond” volute joint popularized by Martin acoustics prior to the First World War and typically found today on high-end classical or flamenco guitars. Tim Frank says it’s a highly labor-intensive practice, but it gives them a more sturdy, durable joint and, as a side benefit, the process uses a template that reduces wood waste. And then there’s Frank Brothers’ secret ingredient, the “blended heel.” Because the Arcade body is arched on both the top and the back, there’s no flat reference surface to build the heel. Instead, they do the build inside a block of wood, and only once they’re ready to glue the neck in do they cut the shape of the guitar.
“You get this big, Bo Diddley-looking thing with the neck in it,” Tim says. “And then we put it on the machine, and then we cut it out. It’s more like carving a statue from a block of marble than it is building a piece of furniture or a traditional guitar.”
While both brothers have a hand in each guitar from first cut to final finish, the woodworking is Nick’s area of focus. Tim’s specialty is the finishing, done entirely by hand with a nitrocellulose lacquer and great attention to detail, making it the most time-consuming part of the whole process.
Frank Brothers opt for classic colors like candy apple red, Pelham blue, shoreline gold, and sunbursts, but they put their own retro-inspired spin on these by tweaking and re-toning the paints so they appear aged. While finishing, Tim even takes it an extra step further by using a razor blade glued to a toothpick to meticulously scrape the color off along the edges to reveal the bony white binding.
“At this price range, it’s expected that it has to sound good, play great, look great,” Tim says. “But where we have a lot of fun is with those really small details—finessing those things into making these guitars go beyond expectation.”
“It’s a little detail that adds fractions of an amount of extra stiffness. But, you know, we’re going for fractions.”—Tim Frank
By the time a Frank Brothers guitar is ready to play, roughly 60 hours of manual labor have been undertaken at their Toronto workshop. Tim Frank says their pursuit of perfection is ultimately what has allowed them to grow their client base almost entirely by word of mouth.
“The feedback we get from people that play our guitars—even in Toronto, where the weather and humidity fluctuate like crazy—is that they really don’t need to mess with them,” Tim says. “They’re super, super stable because of all that engineering. The end result is a guitar that you don’t need to futz with much. And also, we think it makes for a better-sounding guitar—something that’s more responsive, a little bit more lively, and with better sustain.”
A Guitar to Last Generations
For the Frank Brothers Guitar Company, it’s all in the name. The Frank family fostered an appreciation for fine instruments, and now that the brothers are running their own family business, that brotherly dynamic powers everything they do. “There are few people you can be as ruthlessly honest with as your brothers,” Tim says. “That relationship has really influenced the way we build guitars and the level that we work at. We’re really focused on the details.”
Tim defines that standard as “heirloom quality”—the idea that a Frank Brothers guitar should be something that you’d be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren, the same way their father and grandfather passed on their musical legacies.
“We’re trying to make something that you would not only be proud to own and play yourself, but also want to pass along to the next generation,” Tim says. “We’re trying to make timeless guitars.”
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