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It’s not every day a guitar company’s signature artist asks for cheap versions of his own model… just to tinker with them. Between launching his record label and releasing a new album, 71-year-old jazz icon Pat Metheny has found a decidedly unusual way to spend his downtime: transforming inexpensive versions of his signature guitar into private works of art.

• READ MORE: Myles Kennedy was worried about “tainting the history” of Jeff Buckley’s famous Telecaster when he used it onstage in 2019: “I truly didn’t feel worthy of it”

Speaking in the latest issue of Prog magazine, Metheny – who recently launched Uniquity Music and released his new studio album, Side-Eye III+ – gives a rare peek into his quirky hobby, explaining how these modest instruments become one-of-a-kind creations.

“I get Ibanez to send me these cheap, $400 PM358, the budget version of my signature model, and tell them not to put any finish on them,” the guitarist explains. “Then I set about them with a wood burner in various ways.”

As Metheny notes, the results are never meant for a stage or store display – they exist purely for his amusement. Asked if Ibanez knows what he’s getting up to with their guitars behind the scenes, he laughs: “They know how weird I actually am, so it probably wouldn’t surprise them.”

“I paint too; I do a lot of odd stuff. But I have no interest in sharing my artistic output with anyone.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Metheny turns his attention to the hot button topic of AI in music, describing the technology as “part of this wonderful array of tools we musicians have available in the 21st century” despite the anxieties surrounding it at large.

When asked if he worries about AI mimicking his music, Metheny shrugs.

“They’ve already done it. But if I type my name in then what I hear back is… well, they can’t really cop a lot of that stuff yet. OK, there’s a threat to the paying-the-rent part of music for sure. The guys who write muzak – man, they’re done. But I got into music so that I can understand it more, and there’s no shortcut to understanding harmony and counterpoint and improvisation.”

He sums it up philosophically: “The key thing about AI is that it’s still searching and there’s something missing. It’s like if you ask a musician to define ‘soul’, or you ask a neuroscientist to define ‘consciousness’. They can’t do it.”

Listen to Metheny’s latest album Side-Eye III+ below.

The post “They know how weird I am – so it wouldn’t surprise them!”: Pat Metheny gets Ibanez to send him “cheap” guitars for DIY projects – but keeps them on the down-low appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It used to be that the quickest thing about the Black Crowes was their tempers. Well, perhaps not anymore. Everything about A Pound of Feathers suggests a sense of speed and urgency – it’s the second record from the reunited brothers Robinson in under two years, and it was recorded in fewer than 10 days.

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Its first song, the rollicking Profane Prophecy, slams out of the gate with spitting riffs and swagger to spare – it’s loose and freewheeling in a manner that felt beyond them as their initial run collapsed into acrimony and extended genre exercises. “We were winging it,” guitarist Rich Robinson says over Zoom. “That is what makes rock ’n’ roll rock ‘n’ roll, because it could go off the rails at any time.”

If 2024’s Happiness Bastards had enough about it to suggest that the Crowes had kicked free of the nostalgia circuit they briefly joined with reunion tours celebrating the 30th birthday of their 1990 star-making debut Shake Your Money Maker, then its successor punches everything up a few notches.

Returning to the studio with producer Jay Joyce in Nashville, A Pound of Feathers pointedly rejects the hermetically-sealed sound of many late-career rock records, which are seemingly intent on papering over any cracks left by the passage of time.

Instead, it is a gritty, grimy thing driven by a desire to capture the sound of people interacting with one another in real time, the mess and mayhem driving things on. “There’s a human element to writing and recording in that way,” Rich elaborates. “Humans are imperfect, humans speed up going into the chorus, because the chorus is exciting. It’s like, you breathe in, you breathe out, you know? Sometimes you walk, sometimes you run.”

Running Lean

After Happiness Bastards was captured alongside an all-new band comprising guitarist Nico Bereciartúa, keyboard player Erik Deutsch, drummer Brian Griffin and long-time bassist Sven Pipien, A Pound of Feathers underlines its zero-fat genesis by being the product of a bare-bones, three-piece version of the band, with Cully Symington on drums and Rich handling guitar and bass. Rich sees it as there being more than one way to skin a cat. “Chris and I move quickly,” he says. “We’ve been doing this for so long, the two of us, that we can read each other’s minds.”

“Jay was like, ‘I want you guys to come down for a week to 10 days, and let’s suss everything out.’ The idea was to bring the band in after that,” he adds. “But we were finishing songs. At the end of five days, we had nine that we were really happy with. Changing the dynamic, by bringing the band in, is going to alter the flow. You’re going to have to stop, reset and then try to recapture what everyone loves about these songs. So we just said, ‘Fuck it. Let’s keep going.’”

In the past, this decision-making process might not have worked out. Or, at least, it would have unearthed some of the interpersonal strife and insecurity that ran in parallel to the band’s imperial phase, when the Black Crowes were as well known for infighting as they were for the undeniable chemistry between the Robinsons – who were warring brothers before people knew who the Gallaghers were – drummer Steve Gorman, guitarist Marc Ford et al.

“I was 19 when I made Shake Your Money Maker,” Rich says. “We sold over seven million albums. One of the first shows we played was to 12 people in Atlanta. A year later, we’re playing in Moscow in front of a million people with AC/DC and Metallica. No one can really sit you down and explain how to deal with that.”

Throw a hellish touring schedule – 20 months or so on Shake Your Money Maker, straight into something in the same ballpark for its double platinum 1992 follow up The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion – plus drugs and ego collapse fuelled by exhaustion and you’ve got a potent mix that Rich describes as “dumping tons of gasoline on a fire”. In this environment, would anyone have been able to duck into a studio and make an album like A Pound of Feathers? “It would have been impossible,” Rich says. “Just to have the space to flush out our songs. Now, it’s different.”

“When we split up, it was years and years of toxicity: toxic family dynamic, toxic bullshit, backstabbing,” he continues. “People would go in the back lounge – Chris would be there and they’d say, ‘Your brother said you’re a dick.’ And then they’d come up to me and say, ‘Chris said you suck,’ or whatever bullshit that was. After we split up, we got offered tours every year for those six or seven years. We never took them. And when we decided maybe it’s time to get back, we randomly ran into each other and we talked about it. We decided this was a good idea, but we had to start from scratch. We decided to put our relationship first.”

Sibling Harmony

That relationship is front and centre on the record itself, which is musically pugilistic instead of literally pugilistic. Chris sounds great, all louche drawl and rat-a-tat phrasing, and Rich matches his energy with lean, mean garage-rock riffs on songs such as Do The Parasite! and It’s Like That. The first of his firecracker leads arrives only six seconds into the opening track.

“It’s youthful,” he says. “Some sessions that I’ve done with people producing, when you deal with older bands, their first thing is, ‘don’t overplay.’ Let’s leave space for the vocalist, and if you’re the bass player, just play the root note on the kick, you know? I’m like, ‘Bullshit!’ Our favourite records were made by 20-year-olds showing the fuck off. Listen to John Paul Jones on Ramble On. Listen to Jimmy Page. Listen to the Rolling Stones – no one is conserving energy on those records. They’re psyched to be there and they’re going to show you what they can do.”

Leaning further into the fast and furious nature of things, Rich cycled through guitars at a clip in order to create variety as a single player laying down two or three tracks per song. “I brought, like, 40 guitars into the studio, and about 30 amps,” he says. In heavy rotation were his trio of 335s – a ‘61, a ‘62 and a ‘68 – plus roughly 10 Telecasters and a ‘64 Rose Morris Rickenbacker. For solos, he often turned to his ‘68 Les Paul Goldtop, while his signature Gretsch G6136T-RR Magpie underpins the rumbling, sinister blues of the closer Doomsday Doggerel.

For Rich, tone-chasing begins and (almost) ends with an amp, to the extent that a couple of years ago he started Muswell Amplification with his guitar tech Roland McKay, building on the sound of his 1968 Marshall Bluesbreaker. “I believe that an amp sound is paramount,” he says. “Some people like to get their tones out of pedals, which is really weird to me. If you get a great amp sound, then any pedal is going to sound markedly better. I did use pedals, some fuzz on stuff, but the amp is king.”

“I had my ‘68 Bluesbreaker, a ‘66 Bluesreaker, my Vox AC30, Twins, tweed Princetons, my Vibrolux, and my Muswell amps – we like to explore,” he adds. “I think the difference in the tones this time around is that a lot of the amps I have are combos, and they’re open-backed. Jay had bought this old greenback Marshall 4×12 and this thing sounds fucking amazing. It was literally one of the best cabinets I’ve ever heard. He has it dialled in. I wound up plugging all my different amps through that, and it is a nastier tone.”

Unplugged Gems

But, while A Pound of Feathers is in its element as a flat-out rock record, its acoustic songs are equally important in driving home the philosophy behind its construction. On Pharmacy Chronicles, for example, you can get a sense of the space and atmosphere in the room itself, and almost feel the percussive nature of the guitar. To return to a phrase Rich uses multiple times during the course of our chat, the way the situation is mic’d makes it sound human. “That was a J-200, which I’ve never recorded with before,” Rich says. “I bought one, and I got two more because they’re so cool.”

“They’re two 1964 J-200s – one had a nickel bridge, and then one had, I guess it was a vinyl bridge or something like that, a plasticky kind of thing,” he continues. “Jimmy Page told me that Donovan had one like that. Everyone loved it because it was darker, and it resonated, so everyone would borrow Donovan’s guitar. The nickel projects a little better, it’s a lot brighter. I’ve always loved Martins. I have a signature Martin and I’ve always loved dreadnought guitars – I’ve stayed away from jumbos because it’s been hard to find some that I really gel with. But, man, these three are really amazing.”

More than four decades on from the Crowes’ formation as a high school band, Chris and Rich Robinson are still finding out new things about themselves, still figuring stuff out on the fly. For now, too, it’s all in service of having fun. “I think that is missing when people record 20 verses, take the best one, and then they grid it out,” Rich observes. “It’s called playing music. It’s not called working music.”

The Black Crowes’ A Pound of Feathers is out March 13 via Silver Arrow Records.

The post Rich Robinson on why the Black Crowes channeled the spirit of “20-year-olds showing the f**k off” on their new album appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Virtuoso and former Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse has opened up about his struggles with arthritis in recent years, and how he remains determined to continue playing despite the pain.

In 2024, Morse explained how “10,000 notes a day” of practice for “decades” – combined with a genetic history of arthritis – means his fingers “don’t have the cartilage anymore”, leading to pain while playing guitar.

• READ MORE: Myles Kennedy was worried about “tainting the history” of Jeff Buckley’s famous Telecaster when he used it onstage in 2019: “I truly didn’t feel worthy of it”

Now, in a new interview with American Musical Supply, the 71-year-old guitarist tells the story of how he once watched a bassist with one arm perform live, and how the memory keeps him inspired despite his own health issues.

“I thought at one point, ‘Dude, you’re done,’” Morse says [via Blabbermouth]. “And I thought, when I was a kid going to see bands in Atlanta, it was a three-hour drive, a band called Hydra came out. The bass player, his arm was cut off here. And he was playing the gig and he was getting into it, and it was great… 

“Every time I’m feeling bad about, ‘This hurts…’ he played a gig with a nub. And you think about [jazz guitarist] Jeff Healey [being] blind and making his own technique.”

Morse continues: “Humans adapt. And I’ve learned a lot from watching things on the farm, watching the ants, for instance… I’m like Bill Murray with the groundhogs. The persistence of the animals counts. They keep on and on and they find a way. But they never stop. I guess that’s one of my big lessons, is don’t give up while you’ve still got a breath.”

Steve Morse adds that he’s tried “every treatment” he can find in a bid to help his arthritis condition.

“The reason why I wanna keep playing is because it really is a part of me – I mean, it’s a big part of me…” he explains.

“I’ve tried every treatment I can find. In fact, I’ve got another trip a thousand miles away to try something else. So, yeah, I changed my technique, changed my picking pattern, changed everything that I can to make it through whatever the challenge is.”

The post “He played a gig with a nub”: Steve Morse remembers watching a one-armed bassist perform – and how it inspires him to keep playing despite arthritis struggles appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Right now at Sweetwater you can save over $1,000 on a range of PRS 40th anniversary Custom 24 models until the end of March.

These 40th Anniversary Custom 24 guitars are reduced to $5,822.50 and are available in four different finishes: Sub Zero (blue) and Tiger Eye (brown), plus a Micro Wraparound Burst version of each. Granted, these guitars aren’t cheap, but they’re top-of-the-line instruments, and $1,000s in savings is nothing to be sniffed at…

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The PRS 40th Anniversary Custom 24 offers a mahogany body and an Artist Grade figured maple top. It has a mahogany neck and a compact Pattern Thin profile, a 10-inch-radius ziricote fingerboard, and Old School Birds inlays.

• READ MORE: “It just seemed Looney Tunes to me”: Paul Reed Smith dismisses the notion that you “can’t play solos” on a 7.25”-radius fretboard

Each is also fitted with two of PRS’s DMO humbuckers and has a five-way blade pickup switch. Topped off with PRS Phase III locking tuners, a Gen III tremolo bridge, and a pre-factory headstock eagle inlay, only 400 of these guitars were made available worldwide, and Sweetwater says it only received 26.

PRS celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. In honour of its special birthday celebrations, PRS held a get together with 1,400 artists and music industry personnel at California’s House of Blues, where they were treated to an evening of performances by PRS’s extensive roster of talent. Hosted in conjunction with NAMM 2025, the exclusive event saw the likes of John Mayer, Mark Lettieri, Orianthi and others performing.

Later, when speaking to Andertons, founder Paul Reed Smith spoke of the brand’s signature tone: “We’re starting up the beginning of PRS having its own sound,” he said. “So, there’s sounds of Les Pauls, there’s sounds of Strats and Sounds of Teles, and maybe there’s a side table of SGs and Gretches and this and the other, Danelectros… But we’re starting to get our own tone and it’s starting to be acknowledged.

“The party last night was about that. There weren’t Tele tones or…Well, there might have been some Strat tones, maybe. Really beautiful ones. John’s solo in Gravity last night was spectacular.”

Shop this deal and more at Sweetwater.

The post Save $1,000s on these stunning PRS 40th anniversary Custom 24 guitars at Sweetwater! appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Fender has expanded its lineup of utility pedals with the Strobo-Sonic – a new “ultra-precise” tuner pedal with ±0.01 cent accuracy.

Built for performing musicians and professionals, the Strobo-Sonic also features a large, high-visibility 2.3″ x 2.1″ LED display with auto brightness dimming for low-light environments, and operates in two modes, Strobe and Needle.

• READ MORE: Laney’s new Prism-Mini is a pocket-sized smart amp ready to take on Positive Grid’s Spark GO

Strobe tuning is a tuning method by which a strobe light illuminates a pattern – often on a rotating disk, or a digital equivalent, as is the case with the Fender Strobo-Sonic Pro Tuner – which spins or moves at a rate corresponding to a specific pitch. The pattern appears to freeze when the string is perfectly in tune. It’s regarded as the most accurate way to tune a guitar.

The Strobo-Sonic also features a Needle mode, offering a more familiar tuning experience for many players.

It also sports convenient side switches offering deep control over reference pitch – this is adjustable between A = 430Hz and 450Hz – plus three bypass modes: true bypass, buffered bypass and buffered always-on.

The Strobo-Sonic also occupies a pedalboard-friendly form factor, measuring 115mm x 66mm x 44mm and weighing just half a pound.

“Made for the stage, the pedalboard-friendly tuner offers a high-visibility display, two easily trackable tuning display modes, and accessible side switches for deeper control – perfect for players of all skill levels,” says Fender.

The Strobo-Sonic Pro Tuner is available now, priced at $129.99 / £95. For more info, head to Fender.

The post Fender’s new Strobo-Sonic Pro Tuner pedal uses strobe tuning for “ultra-precise” ±0.01 cent accuracy appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Being a hugely successful guitarist – in Alter Bridge and alongside Slash, plus as an accomplished solo and session musician – Myles Kennedy has had access to some truly special instruments over the course of his career.

Kennedy recently explained how he got “emotional” when he had the chance to hold Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstein guitar while tracking the latest Alter Bridge album at 5150 Studios. And now, he’s remembered a Paris performance back in 2019 in which he covered Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, while holding the late guitarist’s 1983 Telecaster.

• READ MORE: Rick Beato says excessive phone scrolling is the reason he can’t downpick like James Hetfield

The performance came during an Alter Bridge set at L’Olympia in Paris, France on 9 December 2019, and as Kennedy explains, his veneration of Jeff Buckley had him questioning whether he was even “worthy” to hold his guitar.

“Grace [Jeff Buckley’s only album, which came out in 1994] is an album that gave me the same feeling as hearing [Van Halen’s] Eruption, with my brain wondering, ‘Whoa, what’s happening here?!’” Kennedy explains. 

“I also felt that way when I heard Julian Lage. Playing Jeff’s guitar was amazing, though I truly didn’t feel worthy of it. I was a little uncomfortable, to be honest.

“I gradually convinced myself that it was okay. It’s just a guitar that’s part of this incredible history. All I had to do was not taint that history!”

You can check out a pro-shot video of that now-famous performance below:

As for what technically makes Buckley’s ‘83 Telecaster so special, Kennedy goes on: “It’s just an early-to-mid ‘80s Tele, but there’s something weird about how the pickup was wired. 

“Apparently, there’s something technically wrong with it, at least from what [Matt’s Guitar Shop owner] Matt Lucas explained to me. That’s what gives it that beautiful shimmery sound. It’s all down to this imperfection, which makes it even cooler. When you plug it in, you think, ‘Oh yeah, there’s that sound!’”

Despite Alter Bridge’s enduring success, Myles Kennedy and his bandmates remain astutely aware of the rich rock history of some of the studios they record in and instruments they get to play.

The band recorded their self-titled new album at LA’s 5150 – the studio once owned by Eddie Van Halen and now operated by his son Wolfgang.

“Wolf was incredibly kind enough to bring that offer up with our manager,” Kennedy recently explained. 

“We were like, ‘Really?’ We knew the history of all the incredible music that had been made there. Just the fact that he trusted us enough to come in and not totally ruin the legacy really meant a lot. When we all showed up, we were very cognisant of that, and we wanted to honour the situation.

View a list of Alter Bridge’s upcoming tour dates at their official website. Listen to the new Alter Bridge album below:

The post Myles Kennedy was worried about “tainting the history” of Jeff Buckley’s famous Telecaster when he used it onstage in 2019: “I truly didn’t feel worthy of it” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Portable all-in-one digital practice amps are all the rage right now, and a new contender to Positive Grid’s Spark GO has arrived in the form of Laney’s Prism-Mini – a compact desktop smart amp packed with presets, onboard effects and Bluetooth connectivity.

At its core, the Prism-Mini aims to be a self-contained tone playground for guitarists who want big sounds without the bulk. Despite its small size, the amp comes loaded with 100 presets, split between 50 factory patches and 50 user slots, giving players plenty of room to explore and store their own signature tones.

• READ MORE: It’s time you ditched your tube amp for a modeller: this is why you should do it

Laney says its factory presets are far from generic placeholders. Instead, they’re carefully crafted tones inspired by the sounds of notable Laney players including Tony Iommi, Billy Corgan, Devin Townsend, Lari Basilio, Tom Quayle and Jack Gardiner – offering quick starting points for everything from doom-laden Sabbath grind to modern prog and fusion tones.

Players can choose from 17 amp models, covering everything from crystal-clean tones to full high-gain firepower, alongside 32 studio-style effects spanning drive, EQ, modulation, delay and reverb.

The unit allows up to six DSP effects to run simultaneously alongside the amp and cabinet models. Those effects can be freely arranged using Laney’s Tone Wizard companion app, which lets players drag and drop blocks anywhere in the signal chain. From the app, users can edit patches, manage presets and control the amp remotely, as well as import and export tones for easy storage and sharing.

Notably, those sounds are delivered through a surprisingly serious speaker setup for a practice amp this size. The Prism-Mini features dual 1.5” woofers and a true stereo 3W + 3W output, promising a wider and more detailed soundstage than the typical single-speaker mini amp. In other words, it’s built for more than just quiet bedroom noodling.

A 1.77” full-colour LCD screen on the amp itself provides quick access to presets and parameters, while Bluetooth 5.3 allows players to stream backing tracks directly from a phone or tablet. The app also includes a built-in drum machine, while the amp itself packs a tuner and Bluetooth audio streaming, making it easy to jam along with backing tracks or your favourite records.

If it isn’t already obvious, portability is a key part of the design. A rechargeable battery provides up to 14 hours of playtime, so the amp can travel easily from desk practice to dressing-room warmups without needing a wall socket. USB-C charging keeps things simple, and despite the compact build, Laney says the amp still delivers “rich stereo depth” and a tone that feels “unmistakably Laney”.

Priced at $149, the Laney Prism-Mini is available now in Blue or Black colourway.

Learn more at Laney.

The post Laney’s new Prism-Mini is a pocket-sized smart amp ready to take on Positive Grid’s Spark GO appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Buyer’s remorse is a familiar tale for many guitarists, but Jake E Lee knows the opposite: the regret of passing on a guitar that just felt right. The former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist recently shared the story of a Telecaster he once let slip – and how he still thinks about it decades on.

In a new interview with Guitarist, Lee recounts his strongest case of buyer’s remorse: “About 20 years ago, I was in a local guitar shop, looking to see what they had, and there was nothing new but this ‘67 Telecaster. And I don’t like Telecasters. I don’t like the way they sound. I don’t like the way they look. I have no fondness for Telecasters at all. But I picked this one up anyway and it felt really good, so I plugged it in. It sounded really good and I had a connection with it.”

• READ MORE: “It’s noisy, it’s crap, and we f**king love it”: Max Cavalera was so bad at guitar for Sepultura’s first gig, the guitarist from another band offered to tune his guitar for him

Despite the instant spark, Lee hesitated.

“But I put it back down and said, ‘I don’t really like Teles… I don’t even know why I picked it up,’” he says. “Two days later, I went back in there because I couldn’t quit thinking about it and it just felt right, but they’d sold it already. So that’s a different kind of buyer’s remorse, right? Maybe we’d call that no-buyer’s remorse [laughs]. I still think about that Tele every once in a while… there was just a connection there. I really wish I’d bought it.”

Lee’s regrets aren’t limited to Telecasters. Over the years, there’s been a long list of guitars he wishes he’d held on to.

“How long have you got?! I had a ’56 Les Paul Junior and a ’67 ES-335 that I wish I’d held on to. I wish I still had my original SG that I sold in the 90s, too. The list is too long and too sad,” he says.
Elsewhere, Lee also shares some sage advice for guitarists searching for that elusive “ultimate” instrument. His tip is simple, but it comes from decades of trial, error, and hard-earned lessons.

“Play it, don’t just hope for the best,” Lee says. “With older guitars, there are some that are really special and some that are just okay – you have to play those first. But I’ve bought new guitars online, like an Eastwood Messenger like [the Musicraft model] Mark Farner used to play with Grand Funk Railroad. If it’s a new guitar, the quality is gonna be pretty standard.”

Returning to the Telecaster story, the guitarist sums up why hands-on experience matters: “Going back to that Tele I mentioned before, I never would have thought about buying that guitar – and I should have bought that guitar – if I hadn’t tried it. That’s why you need to try a guitar. Sometimes you get a connection where you just feel it, like it’s the right one. And sometimes you’ll pick up a guitar that you’re sure will be the right one and it’s not there.”

The post “I don’t like the way they look or sound. I have no fondness for them at all”: Jake E. Lee hates Telecasters… but there was one which changed his mind appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

After a short break in our series taking a look at some of the choice offerings from NotPedals.com, we’re returning to the shelves of that ever-so-cool small builder marketplace to take a look at the Galahcore FX Ploverdrive – an interesting overdrive pedal with some uniquely Australian aviary inspiration.

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The Ploverdrive is inspired by the masked lapwing, AKA the spur-winged plover. It’s an Aussie bird that’s known for defensively swooping at anything or anyone that threatens its nest – even, in some cases, airplanes. This aggressive territorial control is aided by its spurs – sharp outcrops of bone on its wings’ carpal joints that can make a curious cat’s day a lot worse.

In all it’s a good basis for thematically mapping onto an overdrive pedal, as the heart of the unit is the Spur control – a highly interactive tone control that gives the Ploverdrive a lot of its character. I’ll get onto the specifics of its functioning in a moment. The Spur control is joined by the more standard and self-explanatory gain and volume controls, with no other switches, leading to a pretty straightforward three-knob drive format housed in a 1590bb-sized enclosure adorned with some gorgeous art by Conrad Keely of the band …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.

Build quality, along with the quality of the art’s printing, is top-notch – component selection tends towards the sturdy and the high-end. Jacks connect with a satisfying and firm clunk, and the potentiometers offer the kind of resistance that indicates a quality part. Everything else is all pretty within the remit of a ‘standard’ pedal – mono, 9V pedal power, so it’s time to plug in and get going.

In use

When I first fire up the Ploverdrive, I happen to have the Spur control all the way ‘down’ and the gain all the way up. There are few better ways to wake up in the morning – the Spur control, a little like a RAT’s filter, is wired ‘backwards’, in that anticlockwise means a brighter, more focused and more resonant sound. Combined with the higher gain setting its a very punchy sound indeed, and per the manual is voiced more for brightening up a neck pickup.

On the bridge pickup that brightening effect is a little too effective, but on the neck humbucker of a Telecaster Deluxe the Ploverdrive does indeed add a lot of clarity – impressive given that this is a pickup that can quickly overwhelm a gainy amp.

Rolling the Spur all the way to the soft, fluffy, not-yet-flying-baby-bird side of the dial, and things get more interesting still. Here you’ll find the basis of a great sound for warm, wooly leads – the sound is very rounded, no matter the pickup, and does invite some more singing, Claptony style playing – here, higher gain settings accentuate its smooth, sustaining character, rather than the sonic stabs of the less friendly side of the Spur control.

And speaking of gain – there’s a lot of it! We’re still firmly in overdrive territory here, it’s no HM-2, but atop a relatively clean sound from a Marshall-style amplifier, the Ploverdrive can add a decent amount of thick saturation by itself. However, in backing off the gain control and setting the Spur to something less extreme, the sound remains very characterful and perhaps shines a more flattering spotlight on the operation of the Spur control. The amount of volume on tap can absolutely invite the front end of your amp to the party too – which is always a good combo with a mid-gain overdrive that manages to keep things dynamic. Set right the Ploverdrive will be extremely honest as to how hard you’ve hit your strings.

But enough restraint – doesn’t this bird attack airplanes? Setting the Ploverdrive back to its aggressive stance and feeding it into a more gainy amp, even more avenues for Ploverdriven goodness open up. The slightly resonant ring to the brighter side of the Spur control means that for “chugging” it may not be the most ideal pedal – through faster playing your ear does tend to latch onto the more static factor of that resonant beak. Er, peak.

However, if you put a more generic metal sound out of your head for a moment you get an excellent tone for clanking noise rock in the vein of The Jesus Lizard and Shellac. The sharpness of the more extreme settings becomes a feature not a bug if you play it right – and the fact that the pedal remains dynamic the whole way up the gain lets you still express yourself through it, but the fact that its EQ curve is very much not flat and transparent remains a boon for this kind of music.

Should I buy a Ploverdrive?

Overall the Ploverdrive is an affordable but creatively-designed pedal that is easy to learn, and hard to master, in a very good way. The spur and gain controls are quite interactive with each other, and so I was still finding new sounds within the thing days into my testing. And that’s not to mention that it very much won me over by coming with a nanoblocks model of a bird, which, you know, more pedals could stand to do. If you like an overdrive that’s ready to make its presence known with an aggressive caw and an ambitious swoop at a Cessna, you won’t be disappointed in the Ploverdrive.

Check the pedal out at notpedals.com.

The post Galahcore FX Ploverdrive review: focused boutique overdrive can help a board take flight appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Who’s got the most ferocious picking hand in metal? 99 times out of 100, that award would surely go to James Hetfield. The Metallica frontman is known for his relentless downpicking capabilities, which are still sharp as a tack in his 60s.

The stamina required to downpick eighth notes at 215bpm for extended stretches and across two-hour setlists is simply out of reach for many players. Your forearm also needs to be kept tremendously physically fit in order for the muscles to cope with the continuous strain.

In a new interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, music YouTuber Rick Beato explains his theory as to why his own downpicking isn’t what it used to be, and it has to do with his smartphone use, apparently…

• READ MORE: “Honestly, I wanted to grab my guitar and smash it through the wall!”: Zacky Vengeance on being put through his paces by Synyster Gates on Avenged Sevenfold’s latest album

“James and Kirk [Hammett, Metallica lead guitarist] – the downpicking… I used to be able to do that!” Beato says. “I just can’t do that anymore. It hurts my thumb.

“I think, honestly – I thought a lot about it – it’s like, ‘Why is it so painful, why is it so hard?’ It’s from swiping with your thumb on phones. And I think it affects that basal joint there.”

“I’m serious,” Beato confirms, adding: “I think that that’s actually right. Because I’m thinking, ‘Why does it hurt so much to do that, all the downstrokes and stuff? It’s gotta be something.’ It’s like, yeah, it’s from swiping with a phone.”

So what do you reckon? Do you also suffer thumb joint pain when trying to downpick thrash metal riffs, which may have been made worse by excessive TikTok doomscrolling? It’s an interesting theory, to say the least…

It’s worth noting, though, that even James Hetfield admits he finds Metallica’s relentless downpicking sections tricky at times.

“We all have our own certain songs that are a little difficult,” he said in January on Metallica’s own podcast, The Metallica Report. “Moth Into Flame, Master of Puppets, those are two that are, ‘Wow, those are a little difficult.’ I’m sure Lars [Ulrich, drummer] has his list; we all have our list. But we push through, and we help each other with it.”

The post Rick Beato says excessive phone scrolling is the reason he can’t downpick like James Hetfield appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Avenged Sevenfold’s Synyster Gates has solidified himself as one of the most technically proficient and wildly creative guitarists in rock and metal music in the last 25 years. Known for his devilishly accurate sweep picking and fretboard-spanning rapid-fire solos, his face-melting guitar work is present across the Huntington Beach metallers’ discography.

And in a new podcast episode with YouTuber Nik Nocturnal, rhythm guitarist Zacky Vengeance reflects on trying to keep up with his co-guitarist while recording the band’s sprawling prog-influenced latest album, Life Is But A Dream…

• READ MORE: Mesa/Boogie has relaunched the Triple Rectifier – the amp that helped define metal music

“Dude, I’ve got to be in a band with fucking Synyster Gates!” he jokes. “That dude, he comes up with the craziest jazz chords – and he’s got long-ass fucking fingers… He can span seven, eight frets. And he can play faster than almost anyone. He just can.

“I always say there’s certain shit I cannot do. The same as you can’t run faster than [Jamaican sprinter] Usain Bolt at the Olympics. I can’t play shit as fast as he can play it, no matter how hard I try. I can set the metronome, I can try and try and try.

Zacky continues: “Even with Life Is But A Dream, I had to learn stuff that I’ve never even fathomed and chords I can’t even – but it’s fun! But at first, I mean, honestly, I wanted to grab my guitar and smash it through the wall. But once you’ve got it, you’re happy you did it.”

A highlight of Synyster Gates playing on Life Is But A Dream… comes with a ludicrous solo at the end of third track Nobody. Check it out below:

Elsewhere in the interview, Zacky Vengeance reflects on writing the riff for Waking the Fallen track Unholy Confessions, which remains one of the band’s biggest songs, and is often argued to be one of the quintessential metalcore riffs.

“It kind of blows my mind because having written that riff, I was a kid, you know? I was, like, 20 years old,” he says. “And you have no idea that it’s gonna have an impact when you’re writing it. It was a riff I was playing when I lived in my parents house, when we were touring in a van – running through it at soundcheck.

He explains that he wrote the riff as a byproduct of learning to play guitar. “I was a punk rock guitarist in high school – I grew up learning punk songs, like Bad Religion songs, Pennywise songs, and stuff like that.

“And then when me and Matt started Avenged, he started showing me stuff like At The Gates, Children of Bodom, In Flames, Pantera – shit that I wasn’t fully used to. And I was like this shit’s fucking awesome. I don’t know how to play it though. I can’t play this shit.

“So I was practicing and practicing. I’ve never taken any lessons but I was just trying to play what I heard and come up with riffs, and it was still a full learning phase. And honestly, with guitar, I don’t think there’s ever not a learning phase. I’m still learning.”

Zacky Vengeance is set to release his debut solo record, Dark Horse, on 3 April, 2026. Artistically, the project sees him use his real name, Zachary Baker.

The post “Honestly, I wanted to grab my guitar and smash it through the wall!”: Zacky Vengeance on being put through his paces by Synyster Gates on Avenged Sevenfold’s latest album appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Mesa/Boogie is reissuing its legendary Triple Rectifier amp head – which along with its lower-powered sibling, the Dual Rectifier – has been pivotal in shaping the sound and direction of the rock and metal genres since its launch in the early ‘90s.

Arriving on the heels of the reissue of the Dual Rectifier last year, the Triple Rectifier reissue – dubbed the 90s Triple Rectifier Solo Head – promises the same “layered harmonics, tight low end and percussive mid hit” that made the original such a classic, while sporting a blacked-out aesthetic: with a black chassis, black Speed knobs and black Diamond Plate.

• READ MORE: Steve Vai plays on cover of Van Halen’s Jump for 2026 World Cup anthem

“Since its original release in 1992, the Rectifier family has dominated – and in many ways reinvented – the sound of rock and heavy music, powering walls of crushing high gain for detuned crunch rhythms and bass lines that became the soundtrack of a generation,” Mesa/Boogie says.

Built in Petaluma, California, the 90s Triple Rectifier Solo Head is a metal-ready, 150-watt, Class A/B, all-tube monster packed with six Mesa 6L6 power tubes, and three 5U4GB rectifier tubes. It also features a maintenance-free fixed-bias design and bias switch which support alternate power tube types like EL34s.

There’s also selectable Tube or Silicon Diode rectification, as well as a two-position BOLD/SPONGY power switch, allowing you to tweak the feel and response of the amplifier to your taste and preference.

In keeping with the original Triple Rectifier’s dual-channel design – later versions came with three channels, and the “Triple” refers instead to the inclusion of the three 5U4GB rectifier tubes – the new reissue features two independent channels, with Channel Style/Cloning voicing options plus Gain, Treble, Middle, Bass, Presence and Master dials for each channel. There’s also a tube-driven FX loop onboard, with a global output level control active when the loop is engaged. This loop is also engage-able via external switching.

Weighing just over 22kg, the 90s Triple Rectifier Solo Head’s chassis features marine-grade Baltic birch finished in Black Bronco vinyl with a black Diamond Plate grille. It also comes with a fitted slipcover to keep it safe in transit.

“Following the excitement around last year’s Chrome edition of the ’90s Dual and Triple Rectifier Solo Heads, we wanted to honour one of the most iconic Custom Dress options in our history with a limited run of stealth-inspired ‘Blackout’ Triple Rectifiers,” says Doug West, Director of Tone Lab for Gibson Amplifiers and MESA/Boogie.

“These coveted heads feature the original black chassis, replacing the polished aluminium diamond plate and grille vent with black anodised versions, and swapping chrome speed knobs for sleek black ones. 

“Back in the ‘90s, these upscale, blacked-out models dominated stages behind some of the biggest names in rock. Today, finding one on the pre-owned market usually means heavy wear from years of touring – so this is a rare chance to own one in pristine, brand-new condition.”

The 90s Triple Rectifier Solo Head is priced at £3,799. For more information, head to Mesa/Boogie.

The post Mesa/Boogie has relaunched the Triple Rectifier – the amp that helped define metal music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Imagine being so new to guitar that, at your first gig, the guitarist from another band has to step in and tune your instrument for you. That was the reality for Sepultura’s Max Cavalera, who remembers the moment with equal parts horror and humour.

In a new interview with Metal Hammer magazine, the rhythm guitarist reflects on the early days of his career and how the band got started.

“I wanted to be a drummer at first,” Cavalera explains. “[Iggor, his brother] was a born drummer, a natural talent, but he didn’t have a drum kit until [Sepultura’s third album, 1989’s] Beneath The Remains… He was way better than me, so I had to pick a new instrument and guitar seemed like the right choice.”

• READ MORE: “I couldn’t help overplaying”: John Mayer on nerves during first Dead & Company tours

Even after picking up the guitar, the learning curve was steep. “I didn’t know how to play,” Cavalera admits. “I still remember when I learned the first riff of [Black Sabbath’s] Heaven And Hell, I ran out and did laps around the backyard. I was like, ‘I made it! I’m somebody!’ Ha ha ha! It was like a moment in a comedy movie.”

Which probably explains why the band’s first gig was… a bit of a mess.

“I remember playing with this band Overdose and they were really good, like a Brazilian version of Maiden,” says Cavalera. “The girls loved them. We were the opposite. The girls hated us, we didn’t know how to play. The guitar player from Overdose took my guitar and everything was out of tune. He said, ‘Let me tune the guitar for you, bro’, but it didn’t help my playing. It was just noise.”

Still, there were small victories amid the chaos.

“There were two guys wearing Motörhead shirts and they fucking loved the show!” Cavalera recalls. “‘You guys are the greatest thing ever! It’s noisy, it’s crap, and we fucking love it!’ Two guys out of a hundred. Ha ha ha!”

The post “It’s noisy, it’s crap, and we f**king love it”: Max Cavalera was so bad at guitar for Sepultura’s first gig, the guitarist from another band offered to tune his guitar for him appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$1,099/£999, two-notes.com

The original Two Notes Reload was something of a well-kept secret in guitar circles. In terms of profile, it was frequently outshone by the undoubtedly impressive Universal Audio OX Amp Top Box, but that was more to do with marketing than capabilities. It might not have had the stylish looks to become a constant feature in the background of every guitar influencer’s videos, but the Reload could go toe to toe with it in features and usability.

• READ MORE: Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini review: “this is the most universal Quad Cortex yet”

Perhaps the industrial appearance of the original Reload didn’t help its case against the undoubtedly nicely designed Ox Box, but for those in the know, it became a real weapon on stage and in the studio.

For starters, the original Reload came packaged with Two Notes’ cabinet emulator plugin, Wall Of Sound, which offered hundreds of different cabinet and mic options, many of them designed in conjunction with prestigious guitar amp and cabinet manufacturers.

It’s part of why many guitarists were disappointed when the original Reload was discontinued a few years back. But never fear, now the Reload is back in a completely redesigned package – is this the Ox-beater we’ve been waiting for?

Two Notes Reload II – what is it?

Two Notes claims the Reload II is a “ground-up rework” of the original, and this time the load response receives the stamp of approval from perhaps the most authoritative name in guitar speakers – Celestion.

“With a completely new load architecture developed for Reload II, it was essential that the response didn’t just perform well technically but behave in a way that felt authentic to both players and amplifier”, says Guillaume Pille, Two Notes founder and CEO. Collaborating closely with Celestion to ensure it met their expectations for real-world speaker behaviour, the design process culminated in an impedance curve inspired by Celestion’s iconic driver lineup, earning Reload II the industry-first Celestion-Approved Load Response badge.

Whereas most load boxes base their impedance curve of a single speaker or cabinet, the Reload II was instead developed by analysing and averaging impedance characteristics across a range of Celestion drivers. According to Guillaume, “this approach delivers a balanced, musically responsive load that works optimally across the broadest possible range of amplifiers, rather than being tailored to a single tonal reference”.

Two Notes Reload II – build quality and design

You’ll also have noticed that the Reload’s aesthetics have been given a serious upgrade here. Gone is the utilitarian metal casing and cheap-looking black knobs, replaced instead with an elegant brushed-steel front panel and neatly laid out control panel, beautifully flanked by faux-wood panelling. It still weighs a significant amount, but this is one of the few times that weight is an indication of quality, as serious components are required to absorb up to 200W of amp power.

Most guitarists will likely be looking at the Reload II for its attenuation and cab simulation, but it offers far more than that. It’s also a solid-state two-channel power amplifier capable of outputting 215 watts per channel from an amp or line level source, each with a stereo effects loop. The potential live and studio configurations possible would take up this entire review, but of particular interest is the ability to run a wet-dry-wet amp stereo setup using just one amplifier.

The line-in facility may be of particular interest to those playing through digital modellers. Should you wish to use them in a more traditional setup or even simply as an onstage monitor, then it can be run it direct into one of the two channels, which will power a cabinet or FRFR speaker.

Why would we need an effects loop in a loadbox? Well, the stereo effects loop will prove a godsend for those using single-channel or vintage amps without effects loops. Many vintage amps, including my ’85 Marshall JCM800, have no effects loop. This means everything, including modulation, reverb, or delay, must be routed through the front of the amp, which generally yields a tone completely enveloped by the effect. Using it via the Reload enables us to mix in these effects post-power and preamp section.

Two Notes Reload II – in use

With the luxury of several amps to choose from, I select the one with a tone that has been least accurately reproduced following attenuation over the years – my Mesa Mark IV head. I take a line from the speaker-out and plug into the Reload’s amp-in jack socket, setting the impedance to 8 ohms (4 and 16 ohms are also available), and then plug my 2×12 Mesa cab with Vintage 30s into one of the ‘cab-out’ sockets.

Like most Mesas, the Mark IV doesn’t rely on its 85-watt power section for overdrive, but even with a master volume it’s extremely difficult to generate usable tones at bedroom-friendly levels on its own – let’s see if the Reload II changes that.

Setting the master volume halfway and dialling in my usual gain-laden tone on the amp’s lead channel, I begin to crank up the oversized cab volume knob on the Reload II. One of the most coveted retained features of the original Reload that returns here is the ability to increase/decrease volume in a linear fashion with precise, smooth increments – all the way from barely audible to deafening.

At a very low volume, my sound is immediately recognisable, still in possession of the punch and grunt I was expecting, but without upsetting the neighbours. As per its predecessor, there are tone-shaping controls on the front of the unit, to dial back in any frequencies you may feel lost during the attenuation process. A common side effect of attenuation is a slight loss of high-end, and this can be compensated for on the Reload by turning up the presence control.

However, as I sweep through different volumes, I don’t feel the need to add additional presence or depth. Tube amps, irrespective of attenuation, always sound better with the volume up, so I choose to crank it up a little bit more, still within reasonable volumes. What I continue to experience is the information-laden guitar tone that I’ve come to expect from my beloved amp, and the loss of detail that feels inevitable with attenuation is barely perceptible, if it exists at all.

Connecting one of the two line-outs from the Reload into my audio interface, I load up the included Genome software. It seems quite a significant upgrade on the former Wall Of Sound cabinet emulation software in terms of appearance and features, and it’s straightforward enough to use without the manual. Input and output volumes feature at the top of the screen and directly underneath is a left-to-right signal chain of 10 blocks, which can be filled with a variety of applications such as amps, cabs, effects and so on.

The first step is to insert a DYN-IR cabinet. There are 16 dynamic cabinets free with the Genome, but fortunately, I’m also able to restore and use previous purchases I made via the Wall Of Sound app. So I load up a 2×12 Rectifier cabinet with Vintage 30 Celestion speakers. The cabinets are all dynamic, which means that you can move the position of the mic onto different areas of the speaker cone and at different distances. There is also a selection of mics to choose from, but my choice is a virtual Royer 121 ribbon mic pointed at the middle of the cone.

It’s a little sludgy sounding at first so, as I would in the physical world,I add a virtual Shure SM57 to balance out the low end and provide more high-mids. I’m quite blown away by the accuracy of the tone. In my opinion, many load boxes with cab emulation are a little fizzy in the top end and a great deal of tone shaping is required to achieve accurate emulation of the desired tone. Here though, my amp’s character is instantly recognisable.

To finesse further, I load a graphic EQ into my chain block and enact a low-cut on the lowest of frequencies, then finally I add a tiny bit of reverb to thicken up the sound a little. It sounds very impressive, and A/B’ing with both the actual mic signal using the same mic and cab, and our Fractal Audio Systems Axe FX III Mark IV profile (which is a superb recreation of the iconic amp) reveals very little difference at all.

Two Notes Reload II – should I buy one?

The original Reload, with its sensitive and accurate linear attenuation (not stepped-up volume like the Ox), was arguably one of the best attenuators on the market. The Reload II has really taken the attenuation accuracy much further and the Genome software (of which a lifetime license is provided) is much more user-friendly and feature-packed.

A grand is a lot of money to spend on any bit of hardware that doesn’t actually make any noise itself, but it’s worth remembering what you actually get here. Not only do you have a superb attenuator and uber-accurate cab simulation, but you also get a two-channel power amp, allowing a plethora of live and studio set-up options, including the ability to run a wet-dry-wet setup.

You also get Genome, with its plethora of effects and tone-shaping tools, which even in its infancy, delivers regular updates and a flow of third-party cabinets, which can’t be said of one of its main high-profile competitors.

Despite the hyperbole about amps facing their demise following the domination of digital modellers, reality tells us differently. These modellers wouldn’t exist without amps and the raison d’etre of two of the most popular – Kemper and Quad Cortex – is to profile your own amp. Guitarists will always love tube amps, but the difficulty of operating them within an acceptable volume whilst running the tubes hot is age-old, but this has now been comfortably addressed by the proliferation of load boxes. The Reload II has proven itself to be the best of them. Don’t let the price fool you – the package is worth every penny.

Two Notes Reload II – alternatives

The Fryette Power Station ($1,199 / £899) is the Reload II’s biggest competitor in my view. Having similar features, including a high-end amplifier attenuator, effects loop, a reactive load and the real kicker; it also possesses a 60-watt valve power stage built-in so it can be used to beef up the volume of any low-wattage amplifiers you may wish to use live. This is a highly regarded unit amongst guitars, preserving any amp’s tone in low volumes much better than the opposition. It doesn’t come with its own cabinet emulation software but does feature a line-out so that it can be used with third-party software.

The Universal Audio OX Reactive Amp Attenuator with Speaker Modelling ($1,499 / £1,259) is currently the industry standard loadbox and a mainstay in studios around the world. Featuring attenuation capabilities and a cab emulation software suite loaded with the most iconic of speakers, cabs, and microphones, its firmware and software updates are few and far between, but fans of the unit would argue that UA got it right first time, so updates are superfluous.

The Suhr Reactive Load Box ($599 / £419) is another hugely popular choice. With its impedance curve based on one of the most popular speakers, a Celestion Greenback in a 4×12 cab, its emulation is known to be warm and dynamic. It’s limited to an 8-ohm input but it’s unlikely to find many amps that don’t output this impedance.

The post Two Notes Reload II review: is this the new king of amp-top attenuators? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Van Halen’s ’80s classic Jump has been given a fresh spin for the FIFA World Cup 2026, with guitar virtuoso Steve Vai lending his chops to the new cover.

The reimagined track arrives via Coca-Cola’s Real Thing Records label in partnership with Capitol Records, bringing together Latin pop heavyweight J Balvin, singer Amber Mark, Vai and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker.

• READ MORE: How Eddie Van Halen’s treasured Lamborghini Miura was restored and unveiled as a touching tribute to the guitar legend

“Being a football fan means feeling everything at full volume – the joy, the heartbreak, and the hope that keeps you coming back,” says Joshua Burke, Head of Global Music & Culture Marketing at Coca-Cola. “Jump captures those shared highs and lows that unite fans everywhere. Coca-Cola and the FIFA World Cup have always brought people together, and we wanted this track to feel like that moment when millions of fans are singing the same feeling at once.”

While the original’s unmistakable synth stabs remain front and centre, the new version leans further into modern pop territory. Balvin delivers an extended rap verse, while Vai takes on guitar duties, recreating – and putting his own spin on – the iconic solo first made famous by the late Eddie Van Halen. The track was first teased earlier this year through Coca-Cola’s ‘Bubbling Up’ campaign as part of the build-up to the 2026 tournament.

Released on the band’s blockbuster 1984 album, Jump remains the most successful single in the Van Halen catalogue. At the time, its synth-driven hook marked a surprising pivot away from the band’s bluesy hard-rock formula. For some fans it was a shock; for everyone else, it was irresistible – and the gamble paid off, turning the track into one of the most recognisable arena anthems of the decade.

Its connection to sport runs deep too. Ahead of the 2012 Summer Olympics, Jump was voted most popular sporting anthem in a poll conducted of members PRS for Music.

“Van Halen’s Jump is one of those rare songs that transcends generations, so approaching it came with a lot of respect,” says Mark. “Being able to honor the original while bringing a modern perspective was incredibly special.”

Vai’s presence also adds a neat historical link to the Van Halen camp. In the mid-’80s, the guitarist joined David Lee Roth’s solo band following the singer’s split from Van Halen – a gig that saw him tackling Eddie’s famously acrobatic parts on songs like Panama and Hot for Teacher night after night.

The new single arrives alongside an animated music video directed and designed by McFlyy, featuring stylised versions of the performers and an animated cameo from football star Lamine Yamal as the road to the 2026 World Cup ramps up.

Listen to the track below.

The post Steve Vai plays on cover of Van Halen’s Jump for 2026 World Cup anthem appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Stephen Carpenter’s Deftones riffs have played a pivotal role in shaping the alt-metal genre. But his guitar skills haven’t always been universally admired.

In a new interview in the latest issue of Metal Hammer, original Deftones bassist Dominic Garcia – who held the post between 1988 and 1991 – remembers actively teasing Carpenter during the band’s early years for not being a “shredding guitar player”.

• READ MORE: “I didn’t know if I wanted to be on that train”: Original Trivium frontman explains why Matt Heafy’s “laser focus” on perfection made him leave the band

While Garcia was the band’s original bassist, he assumed the drummer position “around 1991 or 1992” after he says original drummer Abe Cunningham “left the Deftones” to join another band called Phallucy.

“I took over on drums and that’s when [bassist] Chi Cheng joined the group,” he says. “I loved Chi, he was really cool – he was into poetry and all this stuff. Just a wonderful, kind-hearted person.” Chi Cheng remained a member of the Deftones until 2008, when he was involved in a serious car crash in California. Cheng died in 2013 from a sudden cardiac arrest.

Garcia continues, explaining that Phallucy’s bassist quit, and the idea of him playing “two different instruments in two different bands” – drums in Deftones and bass in Phallucy – seemed “super-cool”.

“I found out from a third party that Stephen had got a guy named John Taylor to play drums in the Deftones,” he says. “I was a little bit heartbroken because I’d started the band, but we were still friends.”

He adds: “I used to give Stephen a load of shit because he wasn’t a shredding guitar player like Eddie Van Halen. I was just being a snob, a cocky kid, but maybe it was low-key bullying.”

As it stands, Stephen Carpenter is still not touring internationally with Deftones. In 2022, the guitarist announced his decision to step away from performing with the band outside the US. Many believed it was due to his anti-vax views around the time of the Covid pandemic. The guitarist has also noted his struggles with anxiety more recently.

Last year, frontman Chino Moreno noted he wasn’t sure the exact reason why Stephen Carpenter was refusing to tour with the band outside the US, 

“I don’t want to speak for him. And even if I could, I still don’t have an answer,” he told Metal Hammer. “And if he does have an answer, I think it’d be great if one day he would share it. But yeah, we support him. We have to. He’s our friend. And his health, be it physically or mentally, always takes the forefront of anything.”

View the Deftones website for a full list of upcoming tour dates.

The post “I used to give Stephen s**t because he wasn’t a shredder like Eddie Van Halen”: Original Deftones bassist says he used to make fun of Stephen Carpenter’s guitar skills appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

While Matt Heafy has very much been the face of American metal heroes Trivium for the bulk of their career, the band’s original frontman was Brad Lewter, who filled the spot between 1999 and 2000.

A year after their formation, the band recruited a young Heafy at only 13 years old. And despite his fledgling status, he played a pivotal role in driving the eventual success of the band.

• READ MORE: Wolfgang Van Halen reveals he and his dad jammed a song on the new Mammoth album before he died: “I taught him how to play it on guitar, and I played drums”

In a new interview in the latest print issue of Metal Hammer, Lewter recalls the shift in the band’s dynamic after Heafy joined, explaining how the “determination” of Heafy and founding drummer Travis Smith had him questioning whether he “wanted to be on that train”.

“Heafy and Travis were really determined,” Lewter explains. “They’d be woodshedding, where you just sit and go over the same riff over and over again, whereas me and [founding member] Jarred [Bonaparte] had other things away from the music.

Lewter remembers Heafy’s “laser focus” and pursuit of perfectionism, adding: “His dad was very active in management and promotion and I didn’t know if I wanted to be on that train.”

The vocalist ultimately left the band in 2000 – a year after Matt Heafy joined – but admits he did later feel a sense of regret after witnessing the group’s success.

“There were some regrets about hopping off when I did – seeing them on MTV or touring with Metallica – but it wasn’t for me,” he says. “I’m more of an introvert. I’m an animator, and so I would sit in my comfortable space in a dark room in front of a screen.”

Things all worked out in the end, as Lewter is now a professor of animation at Ithaca College, New York.

“I am still friends with Heafy and his wife on social media,” he explains, “so I see the updates, and that’s not the kind of life I could sustain.”

Trivium’s last album was their 10th outing, In the Court of the Dragon, which landed in 2021. The band have confirmed a new album is in the works, with an eye to release it in late 2026 or early 2027.

The Orlando metallers also have a number of shows booked in Europe this summer. For tickets and a full list of dates, head to Trivium.org. 

The post “I didn’t know if I wanted to be on that train”: Original Trivium frontman explains why Matt Heafy’s “laser focus” on perfection made him leave the band appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Wolfgang Van Halen has reflected on the time he and his late father Eddie Van Halen jammed on a song that would appear years later on his band Mammoth’s latest album, The End.

Guitar legend Eddie Van Halen tragically passed away in 2020 before the release of any music under his son Wolfgang’s band, Mammoth. The band’s first song, Distance, arrived a month after Eddie’s death, and served as a touching tribute from Wolfgang to his father.

But ideas that would later become Mammoth songs were in the works years beforehand, and as it turns out, Wolfgang even jammed one song in particular with Eddie way back in 2014.

• READ MORE: Billy Corgan thinks rock has been “purposely dialled down” in culture: “All I know is I saw the gravity shift”

Answering a fan’s question in a new edition of SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation with Eddie Trunk, Wolfgang remembers [via antiMusic] : “Actually in December of 2014 when I was getting ready to track what would be the beginning of Mammoth – it was January 2015 that we started the original tracks.

“I actually have a video – it’s a really terribly filmed video because it’s right next to my hi-hat on my cell phone, so it’s just all hi-hat, total noise.

“But on a song that actually ended up on The End – Selfish – I have a video of my dad and I jamming on that song in 2014, which is crazy to think that it came out last year. That’s how long that idea has been around.”

Wolfgang explains that the pair jammed the song through “a couple of times”.

“I taught him how to play it on guitar, and I got on drums… That’s a video I hold very close. I love that.”

He says the only reason he’s never shared the video with the world is because of the poor audio quality due to the camera placement.

“I don’t know, you can barely hear it,” he says. “I probably should have put the phone camera somewhere else. But yeah, we did. I don’t think it ever got out how stoked Dad was about it. He loved the music so much. And he heard a lot of what would end up on the next few albums, because the 28 songs I wrote at the very beginning of Mammoth in 2015, kind of got spread out because certain ideas weren’t done yet.”

While Wolfgang appears to be in a good spot now, he admits he still has moments of sadness when thinking about sharing his newest musical ideas with his father.

“It’s a tough, emotional thing,” he continues. “Every positive thing that happens to me has a tinge of sadness because it’s like, ‘Dang, I really wish I could have shared this with Dad. I wish he could have seen it. He would be stoked.’”

The post Wolfgang Van Halen reveals he and his dad jammed a song on the new Mammoth album before he died: “I taught him how to play it on guitar, and I played drums” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

David Bowie producer Tony Visconti has shared new behind-the-scenes stories from the making of Heathen, including a blistering one-take guitar performance from Pete Townshend that left the Who legend with bleeding fingers.

In a new interview with Spin, Visconti revisits the 2002 record, his first full-album collaboration with Bowie since 1980, and the musicians who contributed to its sessions.

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“As for working side-by-side in the studio, we both played many instruments, and I was singing backing vocals with him since the earliest albums,” Visconti says of his time with Bowie. “He was impatient. If we wanted a guitar part, we didn’t want to phone for a player and wait until that guitarist was free. David and I shared guitar duties frequently. We were a two-man band.”

Occasionally, outside musicians were brought in. One such cameo was Pete Townshend, whose appearance on Heathen happened largely by chance.

“Townshend dropped in for a visit when we were recording in Philip Glass’s studio, Looking Glass. They had a long chat, and I could see camaraderie between old friends,” the producer recalls. Before long, Bowie invited him to pick up a guitar.

“David asked him to play. He did, but we asked him to play a bit more aggressively, and he said, ‘Oh, do you mean Townshend Windmill Chords?’ He nailed it in one take. Two of his right-hand fingers were bleeding afterwards,” says Visconti.

Another contributor to the album was Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, who played acoustic guitar on Bowie’s cover of Neil Young’s I’ve Been Waiting for You.

“The Grohl story is interesting,” Visconti says. “He played acoustic guitar, remotely from California, and sent us a file. His drumming would’ve been better, but that didn’t happen.”

The session also came with a price tag Visconti still finds hard to believe.

“Afterwards he sent David an invoice for $10,000. Sure, he was on top of his game, but that was ludicrous,” the producer says. “I don’t know if David actually paid him that much.”

The post “Two of his right-hand fingers were bleeding afterwards”: Tony Visconti on Pete Townshend’s one-take David Bowie Heathen session appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Nothing proves humans have free will quite like Japanese jazz fusion virtuoso Masayoshi Takanaka’s ridiculous red surfboard guitar.

Weighing around six kilograms and looking more like beach equipment than a stage instrument, the larger-than-life guitar will return to the spotlight this March. Takanaka’s first UK solo shows were originally booked for London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, but overwhelming demand saw them upgraded to two nights at Brixton Academy, where nearly 10,000 fans are expected to watch the 72-year-old shred his psychedelic surf classics with the lifeguard-board-turned-guitar in hand.

Created in collaboration with luthier Takeda Yutaka, the surfboard guitar was designed to capture the breezy, beachy essence of Takanaka’s psych-surf sound. It also doubles as a tribute to a late friend – an experience that prompted the guitarist to reflect on life’s fleeting nature.

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“You can do what you like while you’re alive. When you’re dead, you can’t do anything. So I decided to make a surfboard guitar,” Takanaka says in an interview with Surfer Today. “I’m jumping the gun a bit, but I was thinking, ‘Oh, come to think of it, surfing was popular around the time of the Bubble Era… I have a summer song that goes well with it…’ and then I thought it would be interesting to make a surfing guitar. I heard it was hard to make.”

After exploring several options, Takanaka and Yutaka hollowed out a real surfboard to house a playable guitar inside.

“I made it with realism in mind,” the luthier explains. “The surfboard itself is hollow inside, so you can’t attach the neck or parts directly to it. So I attached the neck to a small wooden body and screwed it in from the back of the surfboard. In order not to sacrifice playability, we made sure it wasn’t too heavy and left enough clearance around the neck. Considering maintenance, the guitar part is removable.”

The surfboard guitar originally debuted in light blue on Takanaka’s 2004 and 2005 tours before being repainted bright red. Its complexity made the luthier vow never to attempt another, and its monstrous weight meant Takanaka could only play it for a few songs per show.

“It’s hard to play, as expected. I just play this because I wonder if people watching me will find it fun, but I wonder if some percentage of them think I’m stupid,” Takanaka admits. “So if I play two songs with this guitar at a concert, I will get a little more exhausted. So, I think it would be better to use it only occasionally.”

Fans hoping to see the surfboard guitar in action are in luck. Takanaka says he’d given the instrument away after years of touring with it in Japan, but managed to get it back for his upcoming world tour.

“Actually, I gave it away after using it at a lot of my shows in Japan,” the guitarist tells The Guardian. “I thought I didn’t need it any more. But life is short, and you have to do what you really want to do while you’re still alive – that was why I made the guitar in the first place.”

The post “I made it with realism in mind”: Inside Masayoshi Takanaka’s ridiculous six-kilogram surfboard guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.