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“I thought it was a peculiar track and interesting and people might like it, but I had pretty much excluded the possibility of it being a single of any kind,” exclaims Brendan B Brown, frontman, guitarist and songwriter of Teenage Dirtbag, the 2000 anthem by Brown’s group Wheatus that appeared on the group’s self-titled debut album.

It’s now 25 years since Teenage Dirtbag took Brown from playing to a handful of people to taking to the festival stages around the world. The song hit number one in several countries, including Australia, and made the top 10 in the US and UK. No one is more surprised at the song’s longevity than Brown himself. “I thought it was too long and that it had this kind of character switch in the middle that felt a bit theatrical,” he says.

• READ MORE: Trivium’s Matt Heafy names the five up-and-coming metal bands everyone needs to watch in 2026

Teenage Dirtbag’s instantly recognisable and unmistakable opening riff came about after Brown struggled to figure out Mark Knopfler’s opening guitar riff to Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing.

“I was trying to get my head around Mark Knopfler’s playing of the riff on Money for Nothing,” he explains. “It was such a big single when I was a kid. In the video it had Mark’s pinky sticking out, and I remember thinking, what’s he doing? And I ignorantly stabbed at that for many, many moons.

“Eventually I came up with my own version of it, which was similar, in regards to the shape of the hand. I wasn’t taught to do it by anyone. I just watched him in the video, as the video starts with a big closeup of Mark playing it, and I went from there.”

Brown’s attempt at mastering Knopfler’s legendary ‘clawhammer’ fingerpicking style was further informed by two other unlikely sources.

“I realized that AC/DC’s Malcolm Young did it on Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution too, and also Angus Young on Who Made Who,” he says. “So, I really learned how to play fingerstyle from rock and roll guitarists, which was kind of a little weird. You’re supposed to play fingerstyle with the pinky but I got there with my own incorrect version of it.

“Playing the main riff to Teenage Dirtbag absolutely destroys my fingernails on tour, so much so that I have to put glue on them to keep them together. It’s quirky how I play it too with a sort of thumb, thumb, finger pluck, thumb, thumb, finger pluck pattern. It’s very percussive, like a kick, kick, kick, snare, kick, snare, kind of thing.

“I’m just using a regular standard E major chord which to me, is a big chord. There’s a lot of big rock records that have big sounding opening E chords. For example, you have Back in Black and you have Rush’s Tom Sawyer. And those two songs came out around the same time and were big tunes back then, so, it inspired me to write a song that had a big E chord in it, too, which I did with Teenage Dirtbag.”

Leader Of The Gang

First written and demoed back in 1995, Brown asserts the song was pivotal in his transition from band member to frontman. “Doing the demo was the first exploration for me as to what it would be like to be the leader of a band where my voice was the lead voice,” he says. “And that’s a very nerve wrecking thing to try and do after you’ve only been a guitar player in previous bands, and feeling not very confident about.

“I did the demo on a Tascam Portastudio 424, one of the small four track units, which I still have in the attic. The finished recording was recorded on a Tascam DA-78HR system, which was the front loading ADAT machines from Tascam that you would stack and sync together. We had four of those that we bought with our advance money.”

The song’s change in dynamics, from acoustic driven verses to a choir of distorted electric guitar in the chorus has proved a mystery to many in how Brown achieves those heavily distorted tones. His answer will surprise somewhat.

“There’s no electric guitars whatsoever on the recording,” he reveals. “A hundred percent of the electric guitar that you hear on the record is a Martin 00016 TR. A guitar I picked up from the Guitar Center in Los Angeles. When I first played it, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is the one’. So, I took it home and it’s been with me ever since. It’s also the one that’s in the video, too. It’s retired from the road now as it’s a little too fragile. But it spent a good 15 years on the road with me.”

In order to achieve the distorted tones on the recording, Brown plugged his Martin into a SansAmp PSA-1 preamp, “with some very particular settings”.

“And I doubled-tracked it twice,” he adds. “So, there’s two performances on the right, and two performances on the left. I also took a Mesa/Boogie Subway Blues amp that I had, and put the volume knob just right before the breakup point so that if I played it hard, it gave me a little bit of tube distortion from the power amp tubes. And if I backed off of it, it would give me a sort of chunky clean sound. And I overdubbed one per side, too. When you listen to the Teenage Dirtbag recording, you’re hearing six tracks of six performances of guitars. So, there’s six layers of guitars on there.”

The song has of course become a staple of the band’s set ever since, but replicating that tone in the live environment proved challenging, but Brown found a way around it. “When it came to getting that distorted tone live, I initially was using a little Danelectro Daddy-O pedal for the real fuzz to give me that crunch, and an Ibanez Tube Screamer for just a bit of overdrive,” he says. “And I had it split through a Whirlwind ABY Splitter where I had the acoustic sound going out. Eventually, I put the acoustic sound on a volume pedal, so that it ducked when I played the ‘electric’ part. So, I was initially just tapping on and off the distortion pedal when playing Dirtbag. Then I switched over to expression pedals with the DigiTech 2120s [a rack-based valve amp simulator] which is what I now use.”

It’s an unconventional way of doing things, but one that fits perfectly in with the history of this most eccentrically recorded, but enduringly popular, slice of early 2000s rock.

The post How Wheatus distorted an acoustic guitar to make Teenage Dirtbag an early 2000s classic appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$1,149/£1,175, martinguitar.com

Martin and Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy have some history. Back in 2012, the pair collaborated on the 00DB Jeff Tweedy – a guitar based very loosely on the 0-18 guitar he’d owned and played extensively on albums since the 90s.

• READ MORE: Martin 000 Jr Sapele review: “a guitar that could easily become a lifelong companion”

People loved that guitar, but such is the nature of endorsement deals and licensing arrangements; it was discontinued in 2019. However, the tail end of 2025 brought happy news. Not only would Martin and Tweedy be renewing their relationship, bringing the 00DB Jeff Tweedy back into the lineup, but it would be joined in the lineup by a new and more affordable signature guitar, enter the 000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy.

000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy – what is it?

Once you’ve managed to work your way through its rather elongated name, the 000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy is a small-bodied electro-acoustic that’s rather different from the 00 model. For a start, this guitar is made in Martin’s Navojoa, Mexico factory – which is why it costs the best part of 3,000 bucks less than the 00DB – but that’s not all.

Rather than a 00 body shape, the Tweedy uses the similar but slightly shallower 000 Jr body shape – as used to great effect in the Shawn Mendes signature as well as the most recent 000 Jr that Josh was so effusively impressed with earlier this year.

Like that 000 Jr, it has a solid Sapele construction, but here instead of the open-pore finish of the Junior series we get a rather handsomely applied Tweedy Burst. Unlike that Junior series, all the woods used in this guitar are FSC-certified, including the ebony fingerboard. That neck is a little shorter in scale than the DB, too – but it’s still ‘full size’ at 24.9 inches.

You also get a set of upgraded nickel Grover open-gear tuners for a vintage look with improved stability. Electronics are provided courtesy of Martin’s trusty E1 system, and you also get a soft shell gigbag for your money, too.

000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy – playability and build

Before we start, a confession – I didn’t really want to review this guitar. When I saw both of the revealed Tweedy models, the guitar I was excited about was the reborn 00DB… so I was kinda bummed out when Editor Josh asked me to check out this one instead.

You hear the word Junior, and you assume that the guitar is going to be… well, junior! A smaller and less robust version of the original? I obviously forgot about all the amazing Les Paul Juniors!

Regardless, this preconceived notion didn’t last long – pretty much from the second I pulled it out of the gig bag and tuned it up. Instantly, it didn’t feel like a small guitar, with that 24.9-inch scale length it has the playing experience of a full-sized instrument, but with the comfort and portability of a travel guitar. I was caught off guard.

The nicely applied burst also makes it feel some distance away from the student guitar I had in my head. The comfortable PA neck shape and graduate Performance Taper carve makes this a very fluid and comfortable instrument to play. While the stripped-down Junior series often feels like ‘My first Martin’ visually, this really does feel elevated to go with that price tag.

000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy – sounds

If I was wrong-footed by how impressive this guitar looks and feels, the first strum of an open E chord was enough to knock me on my behind. Despite its compact body dimensions, the Tweedy has a full, warm and balanced tonality from E to E string – something that’s probably a combination of sapele’s mahogany-like qualities, plus that rather fetchingly striped ebony fingerboard.

There’s no overabundance of anything here – bass, middle or trebles – it’s just impressively and compellingly even and balanced reproduction of each string. It’s a rare and impressive thing for a guitar in this price bracket – I’ve played instruments that cost twice as much that don’t have this level of even tonality. It’s a guitar that’s begging to be taken into the studio and recorded with.

In the studio, you’re likely gonna want to mic this thing up, but if you’re playing out (or lack a good mic at home) you have the option to go direct thanks to the onboard E1 electronics.

Running into my BOSS AC-22LX acoustic amp for testing purposes, I found that the pickup did a nice enough job of replicating that balanced tonality of the unplugged instrument – though it did need a little bit of chorus and reverb added on the amp side to really open it up.

The onboard tuner is fast and accurate, and having that phase switch certainly is handy if you have any issues with amps or PA systems in a live environment.

000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy – should I buy it?

I know when to admit I’m wrong, and in this case Josh was entirely correct in picking this guitar for me to review. I assumed that a budget model would offer a markedly inferior experience to the US version – instead we have something that stands on its own two legs as a compelling guitar in its own right.

This is the most balanced acoustic guitar I’ve played or reviewed that costs less than $3,000 – so while that pricetag might seem a lot compared to other Martin 000 Jr models, you have to realise we’re dealing with a pretty special instrument here.

It’s also a fantastically portable instrument, and it’s the sort of thing I wouldn’t hesitate to take to a songwriter round, a jam session, or even to the studio. It offers the sort of balanced and compelling sound of a full-sized Martin in a travel guitar body – I didn’t think it would be possible, but I’ll say it again, I was wrong!

Martin 000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy alternatives

The basic Martin 000 Jr Sapele is a very impressive guitar for a lot less money ($749/£749), though it lacks some of the visual and sonic refinement of the Tweedy. Another seriously impressive small-bodied guitar is the Taylor GS Mini e-Koa Plus ($1,199 / £1,099), while the Breedlove Oregon Companion CE ($1,999) is a lot more expensive than the Tweedy, but it sounds fantastic.

The post Martin 000 Jr E Jeff Tweedy review – “I’ve played instruments that cost twice as much that don’t have this level of even tonality” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

On the surface, the worlds of rock and classical music couldn’t be further apart. However, former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman insists that listening to classical music could teach all rock and metal musicians a trick or two.

Speaking with interviewer Tobias Le Compte, Friedman reveals that he listens to classical music “all the time”, because he is constantly “learning” new skills from it. “I’ve learned so much from classical music and have played classical music, as a soloist, with many big orchestras,” he explains [as transcribed by Blabbermouth].

• READ MORE: Marty Friedman on his unconventional picking style: “It’s not something I think people should analyse or study”

Rather than restricting yourself to the conventions of one genre, Friedman insists that all musicians should explore different worlds of sound. Rather than simply thinking “the grass is greener on the other side”, classical artists should allow themselves to “rock out, shake their asses and bang their heads”, just as Friedman is allowing himself to embrace the “big crescendos of classical music”.

The difference can sometimes be a challenge, but it’s worth it. He notes that even the nature of a classical performance can push you to your guitar limits. He recalls a recent performance with Antonín Dvořák, which saw him performing non-stop for a solid 25 minutes. “All the cues are so different from a rock band,” he explains.

“It takes so much work to do; it’s a whole different lifestyle,” he adds. “It took a lot of practising, rehearsing and learning in a different way. So I learned a ton from it, and I’ve done that several times now… it’s such a thrill.”

Plenty of other rock and metal guitarists have also cited classical music as a huge inspiration. Tim Henson in particular was classically trained in violin, which has massively informed Polyphia’s expansive, progressive sound. Elsewhere, Randy Rhoads’ complex solos are also classically informed.

Yngwie Malmsteen also praises the influence of classical music on his guitar playing. He has previously claimed that listening to German composer Johann Sebastian Bach had a far greater impact on him than, say, Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore. “I based my guitar playing on classical violin, not guitar,” he revealed at Hellfest in 2024.

“I love Ritchie Blackmore, no doubt about it, but my playing is nothing like his,” he said. “It sounds a bit old fashioned to me when people tell me I was influenced by Blackmore: just listen to how we play!”

On the more experimental end of things, Polish guitarist Marcin Patrzałek’s unique Flamenco-tinged percussive fingerstyle approach to his instrument is also massively influenced by his classical training.

The post “I’ve learned so much from classical music”: Marty Friedman on why every rocker should study classical music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Black Sabbath’s 1970 self-titled debut famously changed the face of metal forever. Without it, we wouldn’t have heavy metal – but, if you look further back, other artists were also beginning to explore heavier sounds. In fact, Robert Fripp believes that King Crimson’s 1969 debut helped lay the foundations of metal’s heavier sibling.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Fripp notes that King Crimson’s influence on heavy metal is often ignored. He argues that the band’s In the Court of the Crimson King record, and particularly the track 21st Century Schizoid Man, was “about as metal as it gets”.

• READ MORE: Nuno Bettencourt admits debuting his guitar brand at Black Sabbath’s farewell show “was probably a really f**ked-up thing to do”: “Washburn didn’t know I was leaving”

“I saw a recent video on YouTube on the 10 precursors to heavy metal, and 21st Century Schizoid Man wasn’t among them,” Fripp says. “That’s absurd!”

While Crimson are often branded as a prog unit, the essence of metal has always rumbled beneath the surface. “The powerful, metallic element has always been there in Crimson,” the guitarist insists. “For me, it became increasingly articulated in the simple question: What would Jimi Hendrix have sounded like playing a Béla Bartók string quartet?”

“In other words, the sheer power and spirit of the American blues‐rock tradition speaking through Hendrix’s Foxy Lady or Purple Haze,” he adds.

Don’t just take Fripp’s word for it – even the Prince of Darkness himself paid tribute to the track 20 years ago. Ozzy Osbourne’s cover of 21st Century Schizoid Man features on his 2005 solo record, Under Cover, and is comfortably suits Osbourne’s heavy metal edge. “[Ozzy] was always generous enough to acknowledge Crimson,” Fripp notes.

Elsewhere, The Who’s Pete Townshend also acknowledged the track’s heavier textures back in 1969. “21st Century Schizoid Man is everything multitracked a billion times, and when you listen, you get a billion times the impact,” he wrote in a teaser ad prior to the release of Court of the Crimson King [via Rolling Stone].

“Has to be the heaviest riff that has been middle frequencied onto that black vinyl disc since Mahler’s Symphony No. 8,” he added.

While Crimson’s experimental sound has taken on many forms, Fripp argues that the band’s “metal voice” can be found everywhere. From their debut, to 1973’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, metal has always played a small part in the Crimson formula.

The post “That track was about as metal as it gets!”: Robert Fripp argues that this King Crimson track laid the foundations of heavy metal appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$209.99/£198, boss.info

Hey, have you ever considered that maybe you’ve got too many effects pedals? One answer might be to sell some of them – ha, imagine! – but another way to make more space is simply to get smaller ones. Boss knows this, and that’s why the XS-1 Poly Shifter exists.

• READ MORE: Boss XS-100 Poly Shifter review – even better than the squeal thing?

Launched alongside the powerful but slightly enormous XS-100, this is the same kind of multi-function pitch-shifter, powered by the same all-new algorithms, but offered in the standard Boss form factor that’s been ruling stages since the 1980s. So… perhaps you’ve got room in your life for one more pedal after all?

Boss XS-1 – what is it?

By all means have another quick read through my review of the XS-100, because the basics are unchanged (plus I really like the line about the elephant). But here’s a mini-recap anyway: with these two pedals, Boss is making a play for the market currently dominated by DigiTech and its Whammy range of pitch-manipulators. You can shift up or down, from a single semitone to a multi-octave interval, you can blend that sound with your dry signal, and you can also select ‘detune’ mode for more subtle chorus effects.

Obviously the bigger unit has an expression treadle, plus a screen for navigation (including presets) and the option of stomping between two different intervals – none of which is present here. For the record, the maximum interval has also been cut from four octaves to three; but seeing as a three-octave leap is still more than any human could possibly find a genuine use for, that hardly qualifies as a compromise.

Boss XS-1 – is it easy to use?

This being a Boss pedal with two knobs and two switches, it couldn’t be any easier to use unless it had arms that stuck out of the sides and played the guitar for you. We’re talking real ‘don’t bother with the manual’ stuff here, and that’s quite a change from the logical but multi-layered operation of the XS-100.

The first knob controls the balance of the output signal, from all dry to all pitch-shifted; the second controls the shifting interval, which can be anywhere between one and seven semitones (ie: a fifth), or one, two or three octaves. The little toggle switch below that selects up, down or the detune option, while the one on the left lets you set the footswitch to latching or momentary mode. And that really is everything.

Boss XS-1 – what does it sound like?

When it comes to the sounds, it’s all about the algorithms – and so this part of the review could almost be a direct copy of what I wrote about the XS-100. The crucial part is that the latency is impressively low and the processed tones are impressively pure, with barely a hint of the digital scratching and crackling that you might associate with pedals of this type.

The available effects can be divided into four broad categories: down-tuning for baritone-style metal riffing; up-tuning for a virtual capo and/or impossibly high widdling; blending in an up-octave for an approximation of a 12-string sound (you’ll want the balance at around 10 o’clock for this); and blending in any interval for tight-tracking harmonies. Oh, and that’s not counting the detune effect, which is much easier to access here than on the bigger unit thanks to that dedicated switch. It sounds really rather nice in an 80s kind of way, and can be adjusted using the two knobs.

The one thing you can’t do, of course, is Whammy-style soaring and swooping, which depends on foot control… but there is an input for an expression pedal, so even that isn’t completely off the table. Make sure you’ve got one that’s Boss-friendly, though: my Moog EP-3 normally gets on great with every stompbox it sees, but it sounded all sorts of wrong with this one.

Boss XS-1 – should I buy it?

By now the reasons to buy into Boss’s new XS range should be clear: put simply, it’s got the best algorithms. So if you’re after purity and realism above all, then this has to be the first name on your shopping list.

That just leaves the question of which model to get. The XS-100 is a chunk of fun for sure, but I like the XS-1 a lot more. It’s got all the features you need – compatible expression pedal permitting – plus it’s far cheaper, it’s easier to use and it takes up much less space. Just don’t blame me if you end up buying three more pedals to fill the gap.

Boss XS-1 alternatives

The DigiTech HammerOn ($299/£219) is one of three compact pedals in the Whammy family, and offers up/down shifting plus lots more besides. A simpler option is the Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork ($198/£169), and a more complicated one is the full-size Boss XS-100 ($349.99/£299).

The post Boss XS-1 Poly Shifter review – all the magic of the XS-100 in a smaller, smarter format appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Back in the ‘80s, tensions between David Lee Roth and the rest of Van Halen were steadily rising. In 1982, Eddie Van Halen was even prepared to jump ship and abandon Van Halen altogether, begging Gene Simmons to let him join Kiss. However, Simmons rejected the guitar legend’s proposal.

We know what you’re thinking – who would say no to Eddie Van Halen? While the rejection might seem like a slight on Eddie’s talent, it was actually an admission that the Eddie’s guitar playing was a little too bold for Kiss to contain. “There wouldn’t be room for Eddie in Kiss,” he admits in an interview with MusicRadar.

• READ MORE: “I said, ‘Eddie, you can’t go up on stage. This thing’s out of tune.’ He goes, ‘I’ll show you’”: Gene Simmons recalls a backstage moment with Eddie Van Halen

Eddie proposed the idea of joining Kiss in 1982, following the release of Van Halen’s Diver Down record. At the time, Eddie was unsure whether he could continue working with frontman Roth. Aware that Kiss were on the hunt for a new guitarist to replace Ace Frehley, he approached Simmons and asked to join the band.

“Eddie told me, ‘Roth is driving me nuts – I can’t take it!’” Simmons recalls. “He said: ‘I gotta leave. I know you’re looking for a lead guitar player. Do you want me in the band?’”

Despite Eddie’s desperation, Simmons was firm. He gave the Van Halen guitarist some vital advice: “I said, ‘Eddie, a band is worse than a marriage. You’re going to have ups and downs and stuff. But with Van Halen, everything begins and ends with you – it’s all about the guitar. Those riffs, that’s the backbone of what it is. That’s the sound.”

Simmons went on to note that those “backbone” riffs were “not necessarily the point of view of Kiss”. As he puts it, Eddie joining Kiss would have been like “putting Jeff Beck or Jimi Hendrix in AC/DC”.

“Hendrix would suck up all the oxygen,” he explains. “He needed just one bass player and a drummer so he’d got that room without a rhythm guitar player there. Eddie was like Hendrix in that sense. He needed a lot of room.”

While Van Halen had been created with Eddie Van Halen’s riffs in mind, Kiss didn’t have enough space for such gargantuan solos. “With Van Halen, it [allowed] a lot of room for the guitar player to take up,” Simmons notes. “There just wasn’t that room unless we wanted to gut what Kiss was all about. Eddie would have taken over.”

Although we’d love to have seen Eddie Van Halen storming the stage in Kiss makeup, Simmons’ rejection forced Eddie to persevere with Van Halen. And it’s good he did, because the band’s next album, 1984, featured some of Van Halen’s most iconic cuts, including Jump and Panama.

“Morally, I think I did the right thing,” Simmons concludes. “[I told] Eddie, ‘You’ve got to stick it out. No matter what the problems are in the band, you’ve got to hang in there.’”

“It’s never easy! You take a look at Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who had their ups and downs, or John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who were childhood friends. But you don’t let the band break up, even if it means switching lead singers. And in the end, that’s exactly what Eddie did.”

The post “Eddie would have taken over”: why Gene Simmons rejected Eddie Van Halen’s request to join Kiss appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Globe-trotting can come with a hefty price tag – but what if you got paid to travel the world? That’s exactly what inspired the Haim sisters to pack up their lives and pursue a career in music.

Speaking to The Times, Haim reveal what first inspired them to bind together back in 2007; the trio wanted to break out of Los Angeles and see the world. “It was our evil plan,” Este Haim reveals. “Growing up, we hadn’t seen much of anything. We wanted to discover the music scene in the UK, to visit Japan, but how the fuck are we going to afford it? If we start writing songs together, maybe we can.”

• READ MORE: How Women Are Giving Metal Guitars A Mainstream Moment

From an early age, Haim were weaned on all things musical, aiding in the efforts of their singer of a mother and drumming father. This meant that the trio shared an innate musical connection – something that deserved to be explored. In 2005, sisters Danielle and Este joined with pop group Valli Girls. but it quickly became clear that there was a missing link – their younger sibling, Alana.

When the trio finally joined forces in 2007, everything fell into place. They were adamant they’d be able to take on the world. “Starting Haim, we had blind optimism,” Alana admits. “We just thought it was going to work. Not to be too ‘LA’ about it but it was a form of manifestation.”

Of course, success didn’t come overnight. However, nothing could deter them. “For the first five years we were playing to three or four people,” Danielle recalls. “But something about getting on a stage together made us happy.”

Eventually, Haim would get their big break supporting The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas on his solo tour in 2010. Danielle was performing double duties, performing with her sisters before going out and playing guitar in Casablancas band. Thereon out, it seemed like everything clicked into place.

Their true breakout moment would come in 2013, when the sisters were seemingly everywhere at Glastonbury Festival. They performed sets on both the Pyramid and Park stages, as well as joining Primal Scream onstage as backing vocalists.

With their newest album, I Quit, up for a Grammy for Best Rock Album, its clear that Haim were absolutely correct – they are stronger together. Looking back, the sisters are proud of themselves for committing to the grind. Though Este admits that “when you’re 13, being forced to be in a band with your parents and little sisters is not the coolest thing”, now she fully embraces it. “I think it’s cute,” she notes.

The post The “evil plan” that led the Haim sisters to start playing music together appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

About ten years ago, I started building my own guitars in my garage. I did it in an effort to better understand the instruments that I love so much – and it certainly did that, though perhaps not in the way that I anticipated.

Over many years and many builds, I have realized that I was wrong about a lot of things when it came to guitar construction prior to starting to build my own. These were common preconceptions and misunderstandings, I think – but learning about them the hard way has helped me to understand the gear I own better, and enabled me to make better choices when I’m buying new guitars. Hopefully it can help you too, even if you never have any intention of picking up a fret file!

“Hand Built” Is More Complex a Term Than Many Realise

I had always believed that “hand-built” guitars were superior to standard production line guitars that were carved out using CNC machines. When you build a guitar by hand you get an appreciation for hand-built guitars because of the focus and literal sweat that goes into it, but you also realise that consistency is difficult to achieve, even with using jigs. Over the years, I have developed an appreciation for CNC Machines as they take a lot of the rough cutting work out of guitar building – work that is not all that fun to do.

I’ve learned that the machines used to industrialise the guitar-building process are just as impressive as the instruments they create. Plek machines, for example, are able to level frets down to such an impressive degree that it makes the prospect of doing them by hand seem rather archaic. Even touring the Gibson factory and seeing the old custom hand-built machines and tools that were used to streamline the building process helped me to embrace the idea that hand-built is a more complex term than I had previously imagined.

Everything Matters

Claiming that a guitar is simply the sum of its parts ignores the interplay between those parts. This is a topic that can get really deep into the weeds, but mastering the art of constructing an instrument with a certain sound is a science that I am far from mastering. However, building your own guitars does give a healthy respect for builders out there who carve bracing, chamber specific sections of a body, or use certain metals in the bridge that are designed to create very specific sympathetic frequencies, giving each guitar its own voice.

I’ve learned that when you pluck a string on a guitar, the entire instrument vibrates; those vibrations can sometimes feed back into the string, giving it those sympathetic resonances. A high-end instrument that is tailored to a certain playing style will take every aspect of construction into account when trying to achieve that sound. After building my own guitars, I believe that tonewood matters, I believe that the glue we use to glue the body matters, and I believe that how the neck fits in the neck pocket matters. Everything matters.

I’m certain someone will claim they saw a guitar made out of corkboard that sounds just as good as a vintage Stratocaster, simply because they saw something on YouTube. But I have to ask those people, did you hear it with your own ears, or did you hear it through some computer speakers?

The only way to do such a comparison is to play both with your own hands and listen to it, live, with your own ears. And I’m not going to say that all vintage guitars sound good – they certainly don’t. They were incredibly inconsistent, as anyone who has played a lot of them will tell you.

Some will say that a guitar’s tone is all about the pickups and not much more, but I have learned that is not true either. A guitar is more than the sum of its parts and sometimes the smallest details can be just as important as the “main” features of a guitar. For example, we spend so much time talking about how certain pickups sound, but we far too often ignore that those pickups are subject to the wiring within the guitar, the pots that we use, the wire itself, the shielding, the output jack.

If one of those components is sub-par, then the overall sound of the pickups will be sub-par. Building your own guitars forces you to focus on these small details that casual guitar players overlook when discussing tone. It will force the realization that a guitar’s tone is not the result of one certain thing.

Let’s Talk About Money

When I first started thinking of building my own guitar, I was under the impression that it would be cheaper than buying my own version of that guitar. For the cost of the tools needed to build a guitar alone, one could purchase a pretty nice production-line guitar.

When you start thinking of all the tools needed to build a guitar; routers, sanders, fret saws, files, levelers, drills, bits, sandpaper, fret press, sanding blocks, clamps, various jigs and templates, it can add up very quickly. Just to give you an idea, if you want to do binding on your guitar, you’ll need a router bit and a series of bearings.

StewMac sells this kit for $160-$206 (depending on how many bearing sizes you want), which is about as much as I spent on my router itself.

I was fortunate enough to have a lot of these tools before I started building my own guitars, but there are always some tools that you’ll find makes the job so much easier. A fret slot miter box would be a good example.

Good quality fret files would be another. If you are anything like me, you will try to buy some cheap ones on eBay that suck and end up buying quality files from a reputable company anyway.

I’ve found guitar building to be an incredibly enlightening and rewarding hobby and I encourage anyone who loves guitars to give it a try. As one of my childhood heroes, Red Green, used to say, I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.

The post I was wrong: I’ve been building my own guitars for over a decade, and here’s the most important lessons I’ve learned appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Dave Mustaine has revealed that a hand ailment that makes playing “really painful” is the main reason behind Megadeth’s decision to call it quits after their final album and farewell tour.

Earlier this August, the thrash metal legends announced plans to release a final self-titled record in early 2026, followed by a global farewell tour that will take the band across North America, Europe, and back.

• READ MORE: Dave Mustaine wants Megadeth’s last show to be in space: “I think that will be a really fitting climax!”

Speaking with MariskalRockTV about his condition, Mustaine says that he noticed growing discomfort in his hands while working on the band’s new record.

“I just said one day to my management, ‘You know, I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be able to do this,’” the Megadeth leader recalls. “I didn’t say, ‘Hey, I wanna retire right now.’”

The 62-year-old explains that Dupuytren’s contracture – a condition that causes a thick cord of tissue to form in the palm, bending one or more fingers toward the center of the hand – is affecting his hands to the point where playing the guitar has become extremely difficult.

Holding up his hand for the interviewer, Mustaine showed how the disorder is already affecting him. “It’s gonna make my finger come down like this,” he says. “It’s already started, where it’s kind of bunching up a little bit. And then if you look at the tips of my fingers, they’re severely arthritic. So all those bumps make it really painful to play.”

While he plans to undergo surgery to address the condition, Mustaine is waiting until after the farewell tour to avoid any setbacks.

“If I wait until my hands are causing a problem and I try it and it doesn’t work, well then I’ve toured everywhere, I’ve said farewell everybody and am not leaving stuff unsaid or unfinished,” he says.

Check out the full list of tour dates at the Megadeth website.

The post Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine reveals hand condition making it “really painful to play” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Carving out your own identity in rock is tough – even more so with the Van Halen name hanging over your head.

Wolfgang Van Halen has spent years stepping out of one of rock’s biggest shadows, and in a recent interview with Chile’s Radio Futuro, the Mammoth leader slash Van Halen alum opens up about the challenges and freedoms of forging his own path, and the satisfaction of finally being taken “seriously” as an artist in his own right.

• READ MORE: The legendary guitarist that Wolfgang Van Halen calls “the Malcolm Young of metal”

Asked what it feels like to be recognised for his own musical accomplishments, Wolfgang says [via Blabbermouth], “It’s pretty great. I’m very lucky and happy that people are beginning to take me seriously as my own artist and separate me from my family history. ‘Cause at the end of the day, that’s all I would really like to do, is be taken at face value for what I represent and not for what my family represents. And I think that’s why I’m trying to do something different.”

“I don’t play Van Halen music at my shows,” he adds. “I would rather fail on my own than succeed by playing Van Halen music. So I think it just shows the work that I’ve been putting in and people beginning to see the person I am on my own. So I’m very grateful.”

Still, the musical connection to his father runs deep. As Wolfgang explains, both he and Eddie “started on the drums”, which gave them a “great sort of rhythmic background to the foundation of being a musician”.

“And so I think we both attack guitar playing from a rhythmic perspective,” says Wolfgang. “And so I think that’s a really great thing that my dad and I have in common. And I’m very happy to have that in common with him.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Wolfgang also praises the growing presence of women in rock, saying “It’s awesome… I think it’s an archaic mindset to think that women can’t be in rock and roll.”

“I mean, I think one of my favorites out there right now is a very close friend of mine, Lzzy Hale of Halestorm. I think what she’s doing is incredible, and she’s one of the best singers out there. And also, yeah, the drummer that they’ve got for Rush [Anika Nilles] is incredible. I can’t wait to see what the shows are gonna be like. I remember I watched some of her videos on Drumeo, on the YouTube channel, and she’s just absolutely insane. No wonder they picked her… [Linkin Park’s Emily Armstrong], she’s badass as well,” says Wolfgang.

Mammoth is currently riding the wave of their third album, The End, which they celebrated with a headline tour that wrapped up earlier this month.

The post Wolfgang Van Halen on stepping out of his father’s shadow: “I’m happy that people are beginning to take me seriously as my own artist and separate me from my family history” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Breaking into metal can be brutal, as 39-year-old Matt Heafy will tell you from experience. Long before Trivium settled into their role as one of the genre’s most reliable headliners, the band’s early success made them a target, drawing hostility not just from fans, but from some of the very bands they grew up idolising.

• READ MORE: Trivium’s Matt Heafy names the five up-and-coming metal bands everyone needs to watch in 2026

Speaking to Guitar.com in a new interview, Heafy looks back on the period surrounding 2005’s Ascendancy, the breakout album that positioned Trivium as metal’s next big thing. Despite the magazine covers and blockbuster tours, the band quickly learned that success came with its own harsh lessons.

“It was rough being bullied by our favourite bands, and by their fans,” Heafy recalls. “We got bottles thrown at us [while onstage]. People tried to accost us by our van.”

He adds, “We were on tour with Lamb of God, Machine Head and Gojira in 2006, and we had our sound guy walk out on us. I was going to our bus and some guy said [sarcastically], ‘Good show,’ and flipped me off and walked off.”

Those early battles left Heafy determined to do things differently. Rather than perpetuating the same hazing culture, the frontman is now a vocal supporter of new metal acts, regularly inviting younger bands out on tour with Trivium and using his radio show to spotlight emerging talent.

It’s a mindset that shapes how he views the scene today – and why he believes it’s in a healthier place for newcomers.

Reflecting on the current state of metal, he told Metal Hammer: “It’s a good time to be playing heavy music, man. It’s a good time to be a younger band, too. You’re not having to deal with as much of the bullshit that we had to deal with: there’s not this intense ostracisation, this intense cliquiness.”

The post “It was rough being bullied by our favourite bands”: Matt Heafy opens up on their rough early touring experiences appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden believes pop-punk’s biggest chapter is still being written, and according to the guitarist, there’s one band with the power to follow in the enduring, stadium-filling footsteps of the Rolling Stones.

After seven years away, Good Charlotte returned this year with Motel Du Cap, their first new album since 2018’s Generation Rx. It marks the end of a long quiet stretch for the Maryland pop-punk veterans, who had largely stepped back from releasing music after that record and its accompanying tour.

• READ MORE: Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden: “If you’re a guitar player, your skills go completely to waste if you’re not working with a f**king great songwriter”

Speaking to Guitar.com in a new interview, Madden shares his thoughts on what it takes for a guitar player to leave a lasting mark and why he doesn’t believe the era of pop-punk stadium bands is over just yet. When asked to name the most important guitarists in the genre, his number one choice came without hesitation.

“If I have to go number one, it’s Billie Joe from Green Day,” says Madden. “They’ve taken pop-punk all the way from clubs to stadiums and now a bunch of pop-punk bands have done – or will do – stadiums. You haven’t seen the last pop-punk stadium band. Green Day will be the [next] Rolling Stones, as they continue on and play stadiums all over the world.”

For Madden, Joe’s influence goes far beyond guitar tones or technical showboating. Instead, it’s about songs – and the ability to write music that embeds itself into culture.

“Again, it goes back to, ‘How can I become a guitar hero? How can I become a guitar player that’s remembered in time?’ It’s all about the songs,” Madden continues. “Billie Joe has his own feel, and his own journey, too. That would be the poster child to me, because they are a fixture in the culture of what people love and remember and associate with. That makes him a really important pop-punk guitar player.”

Good Charlotte’s latest album, Motel Du Cap, is out now. The band is also set to appear at the Slam Dunk Festival next May.

The post The pop-punk band Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden claims will be “the next Rolling Stones” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$599/£449, fender.com

Whilst players from Beck, Gibbons, Cropper to Springsteen have chosen the single-pickup Fender Esquire as their six-string of choice over the years, many players still prefer a Telecaster’s broader tonal palette courtesy of its dual pickup format.

• READ MORE: Gretsch Synchromatic Falcon review – “this guitar is going to make Falcons a much more common sight on everyday stages”

But can that still work when that magic is distilled into something a lot more humble than the guitars that those icons were using? Well, Squier’s latest addition to the impressive Classic Vibe range aims to make you a believer…

Squier Classic Vibe Custom Esquire – what is it?

In addition to having considerably more naming designations than it does pickups, the Squier Classic Vibe Custom Esquire eschews the blue-collar simplicity of what most of us would associate with the Esquire look for a classier double-bound early 60s custom colour look.

You get a poplar body and a maple neck with an Indian laurel fretboard – as is the norm for the Classic Vibe range – plus a single alnico single-coil pickup with a three-way selector switch (more on that later).

The Esquire is available in Candy Apple Red or the classy Sherwood Green you see here. It’s not often that a guitar unboxing gets all heads in the room turning – especially at this price point – but there can be no doubt that this Squier Esquire is a looker.

However, like a nightclub bouncer in a dinner jacket, looks can be deceptive; underneath the West Coast hot rod look, is there a bruiser waiting to be unleashed?

Squier Classic Vibe Custom Esquire – build quality and playability

With its double-bound body, the retro-feeling slim C-ish neck profile and 21 vintage-sized frets, it all adds up to a 60s Fender playing experience in the hand – there’s even a subtle hint of flame to the back of the neck, adding to the ‘how much?’ vibe.

The single Fender-designed alnico single-coil bridge pickup has controls for volume and tone, but also a 3-way selector. Why? Well, thanks to some clever wiring, position one has a capacitor to give a dark pseudo-‘neck’ tone, the middle position has the tone and volume controls connected and having the selector all the way back bypasses the tone control for a subtle lift in output and top end.

Squier Classic Vibe Custom Esquire – sounds

Plugging in, and instantly the drawback of that single pickup is felt. Unfortunately, to my ears, the pseudo neck position is just too dark and woolly to be usable in most musical contexts. It’s not the end of the world, however – there are plenty of simple wiring mods you could make to the capacitor value to change this should you be handy with a soldering iron, though I can’t really understand why Fender would persist with this as the default.

Getting to the good stuff, however, the Fender-designed single-coil pickup at the bridge is a sweet and punchy-sounding pickup, bright without being abrasive, offering plenty of snap and clarity to notes with cleaner sounds and a powerful punky snarl with more gain. Select the ‘middle position’ dial the tone control back and a mellower tone that contrasts well to the straight-ahead bridge sound emerges, and select the pickup alone in position three ups the brightness and output a touch, pure BFG, pure rock ‘n’ roll and loads of fun, offering more versatility than the single pickup initially suggests.

Squier Classic Vibe Custom Esquire – should I buy it?

I thought I’d miss those genuine neck pickup and middle position Jimmy Page Tele tones; however, the straight-ahead bridge sound, especially the snarling aggressive vibe of the bypassed tone control setting, meant I was having so much fun I forgot all about them!

This is a seriously cool guitar, head-turning elegant looks, retro feel, and tons of 60s Americana vibes. And it has some seriously good tones, too. For this price, you’d be crazy not to take a look.

Squier Classic Vibe Custom Esquire – alternatives

For more classic single-pickup action, a good P-90-loaded guitar is a must, and the Epiphone Coronet ($449/£379) is a lot of guitar for the cash. Alternatively, for a wallet-conscious take on a Gibson classic, there’s the Sire Larry Carlton L3 P90 ($459/£279). For heavier music with the stripped-down simplicity and a cool range of colours, the humbucker-loaded Squier Sonic Esquire H ($230.99/£159) is a tempting proposition.

The post Squier Classic Vibe Custom Esquire review – “I was having so much fun I forgot all about the neck pickup” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Perry Bamonte, guitarist for The Cure, has died after a short illness over Christmas, aged 65.

Bamonte’s death was confirmed by the band earlier today (27 December). “It is with enormous sadness that we confirm the death of our great friend and bandmate Perry Bamonte, who passed away after a short illness at home over Christmas,” the band’s statement reads.

Bamonte began as a personal assistant and guitar technician for frontman Robert Smith, before joining the band on guitars and keyboards in 1990. He remained until 2005, and rejoined in 2022.

The band continues: “‘Teddy’ was a warm hearted and vital part of The Cure story. Looking after the band’ from 1984 through 1989, he became a full time member of The Cure in 1990, playing guitar, six string bass and keyboard on The Wish, Wild Mood Swings, Bloodflowers, acoustic hits and The Cure albums, as well as performing more than 400 shows over 14 years.”

“He rejoined The Cure in 2022, playing another 90 shows, some of the best in the band’s history, culminating with The Show of a Lost World concert in London November 1 2024. Our thoughts and condolences are with all his family. He will be very greatly missed.”

The post The Cure guitarist Perry Bamonte has died aged 65 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

boss.info

What makes a great octave pedal? That question is a bit of a pandora’s box, but we can at least prop the lid open for a bit with one of the most popular modern octave pedals out there: the Boss OC-5, which folds in nearly 40 years of Boss octave history, while remaining a lot more accessible than octave workstations like the Pog 3.

• READ MORE: Electro-Harmonix POG3 review – the wildest pedal EHX has ever made

The OC-5 was released in 2020, superseding the very vintage (and analogue) OC-2 Octaver from 1982, and 2003’s OC-3 Super Octave. The OC-3 was notable as it was the first polyphonic octave pedal – meaning it could accept chords without completely destroying its ability to track. The OC-5 contains a more modern polyphonic mode, as well as a recreation of the OC-2’s glitchy, dual-sub-octave tracking.

OC-5 control overview

The OC-5’s controls are pretty straightforward, with the exception of the multi-function range/-2 oct knob on the right. This varies its function depending on if you’re in vintage or poly mode – in vintage mode, it blends in an ultra-low sub-sub octave, while in poly mode, it controls how the -1 octave signal tracks. On its lowest range, this sub-octave will only follow the lowest note of a given chord – turn it up, and more of your signal will join the low-octave mix. Other than this control, there’s dry blend, which ranges from completely killing the signal to a fairly hefty boost, the blend for the upper octave and the blend for the sub octave.

Vintage mode

True to the goal of recreating the OC-2’s rudimentary tracking, the Vintage Mode is purely monophonic. But even with single note inputs, it can struggle to find what you’re actually playing, resulting in glitchy artefacts as the octave sound jumps about. This mode is still a lot of fun, although unless you’re in a two-piece, the -2 octave sound is absolutely bound to get lost in a full band mix.

Poly Mode

This is the main event, really, and realistically the far more usable of the two modes. The improved tracking makes it obviously much more tight and responsive to play – and thanks to that cleaner tracking, the mix controls are a lot more useful in dialling in what output you want.

The upper octave here is a lot of fun, especially on leads – one of the main uses of an octave pedal is to make your guitar sound like a synth or an organ, and while the OC-5 isn’t quite as built for that approach as, say, the new Pog 3, there are still plenty of big synthy sounds on tap, especially with some gain and power chords.

Some aggressive use of the upper octave is perhaps the most fun you can have with the OC-5, though – especially on leads, adding a screaming, Jack White-style edge to things.

Digital vs analogue octave pedals

While the original OC-2 was analogue, the power of the OC-5 comes from its digital nature. But if you’re in the market for a compact octave pedal, you may well have come across a modern analogue option like the EQD Tentacle, an updated version of the Dan Armstrong Green Ringer, or something like MXR Blue Box.

These pedals rely on the fact that you can do some very simple maths with analogue equipment – either folding the signal over to double its frequency, or using flip-flop circuits to recreate every other wave peak to half the frequency. This leads to a much more chaotic and fuzzy sound, hence vintage octaves are so closely associated with octave fuzzes rather than cleaner “pitch-shifting” units.

A/Bing the OC-5 (with only its upper octave engaged) and an EQD Tentacle is particularly illuminating in this regard – even with an amp set clean, the Tentacle introduces audible distortion – and while it “handles” chords, anything more complex than a power chord gets messy – even basic thirds get crunched apart.

On the other hand the OC-5 in its modern Poly mode introduces no distortion at all, with a sparkly-clean recreation of the exact same sound, only one octave higher, blended in. So keep this in mind if you’re looking to make a decision between an analogue and a digital octave pedal in 2025.

Can you stack the OC-5?

The OC-5 is an excellent pairing with some heavy full-spectrum distortion – especially something super-saturated like a Big Muff. If you’re a fan of, say, Jack White, you may already know that a digital octave run into a Big Muff Pi is one of the best sounds out there – and thanks to the OC-5’s clean tracking, big riffs will gain a synthy, powerful character rather. We’ve seen this sound get a lot of love recently with Keeley’s Octa Psi and Eventide’s Knife Drop, the latter a collaboration with White himself.

But combined with impedance-sensitive fuzzes, however, things are less ideal – the Boss buffer will present problems even in bypass, and the digital nature of the tracking is not a fond pairing with the more uncontrolled nature of a raspy, vintage-voiced fuzz.

Another trendy pairing in recent years has become an octave pedal and a RAT, a combo made famous by Sunn O)))’s albums Life Metal and Pyroclasts, immortalised in the band’s signature Life Pedal. This sound is definitely doable with the OC-5 – run into a RAT, you get a thick but harmonically complex wall of sound. However, the cleanliness of the OC-5 means that, in comparison to using an analogue octave up, things don’t quite develop and shift over the course of a (very long) note – arguably the appeal of that sound.

Who is the OC-5 for?

The world of pitch-shifting is a massive and expansive one – and the OC-5 only represents a small part of it. The clean, full sound of an octave harmony is a very distinct thing to the more evocative sound of a scale-based harmoniser, or the free-form pitch ramps of something like a Whammy. And the OC-5 offers a good amount of control, but nowhere near as much as some of the bigger workstation pedals out there – but for guitarists looking to explore the benefits of cleanly mixing in octave-shifted sounds into the mix, whether that’s for otherworldly synth parts or for massive Jack White impressions, the OC-5 is a great, affordable compact option.

OC-5 alternatives

We’ve already mentioned a lot of the different styles of octave pedal already, but for posterity let’s establish some directions to go – using the OC-5 as a starting point. Given its affordable and compact nature, a starting point is a good way of looking at it – for many, it’ll be all they need – for others, a gateway drug into the world of octaves.

If the OC-5 is too clean for you, and you want raspy unpredictability, you can go for the Earthquaker Devices Tentacle for an analogue upper-octave sound. In the other pitch direction the MXR Blue Box is a sub-octave fuzz, and is completely gnarly.

If you want more control over your octaves, most iterations of EHX’s POG line will give you that – not least the incredibly extensive new POG 3. Until boss makes an OC-200, it’s probably the most fully-featured octave pedal you’ll be able to find – but keep in mind its price and its size make it a pretty big commitment.

The post Boss OC-5 review: what makes a great octave pedal? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Wolfgang Van Halen is inspired by a number of modern metal players, but his love for Tool runs deep, and his admiration of Adam Jones’ guitar work perhaps even deeper.

WVH’s band Mammoth released their third studio album, The End, back in October. Though it departs from the sound established by the band on their first two albums, the influences of his favourite players still jump out.
Alongside the likes of Foo Fighters and Intervals, Wolfgang has shared his love of Tool a number of times across his music career, and feels that Jones’ approach to guitar echoes that of AC/DC’s Malcolm Young.

• READ MORE: “It’s not about having a guy jumping around on stage… It’s about playing the f**k out of your instruments”: Wolfgang Van Halen on what really matters onstage

He tells Guitar.com, “I think, in terms of every instrument I play – bass, guitar, drums and singing – each member of Tool is on the respective Mount Rushmore for their instrument.

“The first song I heard from them was Third Eye [from 1996’s Ænima], which is funny, because it wasn’t a single or anything. It kind of opened my mind – opened my third eye, so to speak – regarding what music can be. I was like, ‘This is a 13-minute song! Not just a four-minute thing!’ It blew my mind when I was in seventh grade. There’s power in its simplicity: when Adam just holds down the rhythms and almost lets Justin [Chancellor, bass] take the lead, they have such a great connection.”

He adds, “When it comes to rhythm playing, Adam is almost like the Malcolm Young of metal. He is such a fucking awesome rhythm guy, and he’s a great lead guy, too. Things like the talkbox solo on Jambi are just the best.

“In Mammoth, the influence of bands like Tool and Meshuggah will come out in places you don’t expect. If you listen to [the song] The End, the very end of it, there’s this double-kick, half-time, metal-ey thing. They just pop up… It’s never intentional.”

Mammoth’s third album The End is out now. They head out on tour in March – find out more via the official Mammoth website.

The post The legendary guitarist that Wolfgang Van Halen calls “the Malcolm Young of metal” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Jason Isbell has made a rather strange comparison, but it kind of makes sense – his beloved Martin guitars are somewhat “like a laptop”.

Isbell teamed up with Martin for the launch of two signature models back in October, both of which take after his beloved pre-war 0-17 model used across his latest record, Foxes In The Snow.

• READ MORE: The Guitar.com staff picks: this is the best new gear of 2025

Speaking to Guitar.com about the guitars, as well as the Grammy nominations for his new album, Isbell likened his use of Martin models to the use of a laptop – not necessarily due to any jazzy technical specifications, but because of how versatile he finds them to be. With a Martin in hand, he gets stuff done.

“I’ve never felt like I could do something that a Martin couldn’t do,” Isbell explains. “You know, it’s kind of like my laptop. Especially with the really good old ones or the nice Custom Shop new ones. It’s like I’m doing emails on here, and this thing could operate a city or an automobile, y’know?”

He adds, “You don’t want your tools to create the ceiling. You want your creativity to create the ceiling and the tools should be able to follow you there. And that’s always been the case for me with Martins.”

The launch consisted of the super limited Martin 0-17 Jason Isbell, with just 50 made available, and the slightly “more accessible” 0-10E Retro Jason Isbell. Speaking of the two variations, he says, “This time around, I felt like a version that was more accessible would be a good idea because I didn’t want to split the difference.

“I feel like there wouldn’t be as much of a purpose in making one that was sort of in the middle of the road. I wanted one version that was as close to the old guitars we could get and then, one version that sort of had the spirit of that guitar, but was a lot more affordable.”

Find out more about Jason Isbell’s signature models via Martin Guitar.

The post Jason Isbell thinks his Martin guitars are sort of “like a laptop” – and his justification actually makes sense appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Matt Heafy has opened up on his struggles with burnout and mental illness, sharing how in 2024 he juggled around 30 projects at the same time.

His band Trivium released a new EP, Struck Dead, in October, which explores his confrontation with his own mind. Though still super busy balancing the writing of the band’s 11th album with fatherhood, Twitch streaming, and more, Heafy has a new perspective on his mental health, and is trying to scale things back.

• READ MORE: This is why Matt Heafy uses a double guitar strap

In an interview with Guitar.com, he shares: “[Last year] I was doing 15 to 20 to 30 projects at the same time. I was producing bands, I was managing bands; I was making all these different products and trying all these different things, like scoring video games and scoring a movie and starting a pop-up restaurant.”

The pressure became too immense, and his bandmates and loved ones staged an intervention. Heafy went on to attend counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy: “What we determined through therapy is that I’m naturally very low on serotonin,” he explains.

“I have to be on SSRIs to help my very low serotonin. Once I corrected that, we realised that I’ve got intense ADHD, anxiety and OCD. I wanted to figure out what makes me tick. Why do I think this way? How can I stop going to such an extreme point every single time?”

Track Six Walls on the new EP is potent with brutal honesty about the darkness that overcame him. He tells us, “I buried myself in my own coffin, and the six walls of this wooden coffin are what I pictured. I’m finally trying to break free. It took, like, a year. It was in January [2025] when I started coming to. On the first tour after treatment – after 38, 39 years of living the same way – I was like, ‘Holy shit! I’m having so much fun!’”

Hear the track below:

Trivium’s new EP, Struck Dead is available now to buy or stream. Find out where you can get support if you’re struggling with your mental health.

The post “I buried myself in my own coffin”: Matt Heafy opens up on mental health struggles appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Tom Morello’s Arm The Homeless guitar is featured on 22 albums and has accompanied him on every tour from 1998 to the present day. Now, thanks to Fender, you can now get one of your own.

The guitar’s origin story begins sometime around 1986 and 1987. Morello had just moved to LA having graduated from Harvard, and splashed out on a custom guitar from LA’s Performance Guitar USA. Luthier Kenny Sugai had made guitars for Frank Zappa, Joe Walsh and Steve Vai, but there was a problem with Morello’s finished model – he thought it was “crappy”.

• READ MORE: “There’s creativity to happen, and there’s a job to get done”: Tom Morello says you have to be “professional” to be a successful rock star

Sugai was not to blame for his disappointment, though. As Morello has admitted, he had ordered a custom made instrument with “no idea” what he was doing. He began to completely modify the guitar, changing everything apart from the body wood, leading to the creation of one of the most recognisable and unique guitars of our time.

The model has now been fully replicated by Fender, and proceeds from each sale of the instrument go towards supporting the work of Midnight Mission in Los Angeles, and Covenant House, a charity that helps homeless teenagers across the US.

In a new interview with Guitar.com, Morello assures us that the real Arm The Homeless guitar will still come out for special occasions and remains in the studio “always ready”, but says this new replica is now the one he takes out on the road.

It faithfully emulates the original so closely, that even Morello’s son has struggled to tell them apart. But there is one identity marker on the original guitar that was not included in Fender’s rendition.

“If you look closely you can tell, because a dog chewed the headstock of the Arm The Homeless guitar at some point in the past. And we did not recreate because I did not think that was important to the sound! But you will always be able to tell the real one because it’s been chewed!” Morello explains.

Of the charitable aspect of this guitar collaboration, Morello adds: “It was important that in making a guitar that has spent so many decades on the front lines, fighting for the oppressed and fighting for justice, that there be a justice component to this as well.

“While this guitar is made up of scraps and shards, to get it just right is not necessarily an inexpensive process. And so I want to make sure that there’s a Robin Hood component, where when you purchase this guitar it does filter back into people who really need it.”

You find out more or shop the guitar now over at Fender.

The post The secret difference that Tom Morello uses to tell his original Arm The Homeless guitar apart from his new signature model appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$199, uaudio.com

Glossing over a period towards the end of the 20th century when it slightly didn’t exist, Universal Audio has been making studio equipment since 1958. It’s also been doing effect plugins since 2002 and amp emulator pedals since 2022, so there aren’t many companies with better pedigree when it comes to creating an entire guitar recording chain in the software realm.

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A plugin for your DAW of choice, Paradise Guitar Studio includes virtual stompboxes, amps, cabs, mics and studio effects – everything you need, in theory, to record high-quality tracks without any hardware except a guitar, a cable and an audio interface. OK, and maybe a pick.

UA Paradise Guitar Studio – what is it?

I’ve reviewed most of the aforementioned UA amp pedals, and there’s been something of a common theme: the user experience isn’t always perfect but the tones are fabulous. And the good news is, the amps in this plugin are built on the same software. At least, on some of it…

The thing is, Paradise Guitar Studio is not the sort of ultra-comprehensive offering that will keep you scrolling through dozens of models before you even record a take. UA describes the gear it’s included as a “golden unit” collection, which I think is another way of saying “not very big”.

Three of those pedals were made available as individual plugins over a year ago: the Dream ’65 (based on a black-panel Fender Deluxe Reverb), Ruby ’63 (Vox AC30) and Lion ’68 (Marshall Super Lead). They’re joined here by the Woodrow ’55 (tweed Fender Deluxe) and Enigmatic ’82 (Dumble Overdrive Special), plus another black-panel Fender modelled on the more headroomy Showman. That’s a total of six, which is enough to cover most bases but does mean neither of UA’s recent high-gain amp emulators – the Knuckles and ANTI – is on board. Perhaps these are being held back for a rock and metal add-on?

In terms of effects, there are six drive/distortion options, seven modulation types, four delays and four reverbs, plus two compressors and two EQs. The speaker cabinet selection is a lot more generous – I counted 34 – but each has its own mic (or pair of mics) and you can’t change these or move them around.

Hardcore recording nerds will already be sneering at these limitations, but if you’re new to this sort of thing – or just crave simplicity – it’s still an impressively well-appointed tonal toolbox. And there are loads of user presets to get you started.

UA Paradise Guitar Studio – is it easy to use?

Guitar plugins like this have been around long enough now that there’s no excuse for making one that’s difficult to use. Luckily, Paradise Guitar Studio doesn’t need any excuses because it’s as clear and intuitive to navigate as it could possibly be.

The carefully curated selection of models certainly helps with this: there’s no need to go scrolling in search of an amp, because they all fit on one page. But UA also deserves credit for some fine UX design, with everything just where you’d expect it to be and no unpleasant surprises.

There is one more limitation that might bother some shoegazers, soundscapers and ambient drug casualties: you can only use a maximum of five stompboxes in front of the amp. It’s also a bit of a faff to remove a pedal from your virtual pedalboard, except by replacing it with another one. Not a real issue, just an annoyance for neat freaks like me.

UA Paradise Guitar Studio – what does it sound like?

Those fabulous amp tones I mentioned earlier? They’ve made it safely across from the real world to the virtual one. All are beautifully realistic and three-dimensional, with special mention going to the rich chiming midrange of the Vox model and the sweetly thick scuzz of the tweed Deluxe. Side-scrolling through the cabs brings instant access to all the options you could want for that all-important final stage of tone shaping, and you’re then free to play around with EQ, compression and reverb.

Both black-panel Fender amps work well as clean platforms for the pedals – and this, lest we forget, is another field where UA has plenty of experience. Its range of standard effects boxes is now 14-strong, so it’s no surprise that the delays and reverbs in particular are well up to scratch.

This is one area where you might find yourself longing for more choice, though. The six dirt options are a Muff, a Rat, a Klon, a Tube Screamer, a Fuzz Face and a Nobels ODR-1 – solid picks. But when it comes to modulation, three of the seven models are choruses – what is this, 1985? – along with a tremolo, a vibrato, a flanger and a phaser. This latter has just a single knob for speed, MXR-style, and a switch for vintage or modern voicing.

Still, you do have the option of going hybrid – combining your own real pedals with Paradise Guitar Studio’s virtual amps. So maybe it isn’t time to toss all your trusty old hardware onto a giant bonfire just yet.

UA Paradise Guitar Studio – should I buy it?

There are two very clear reasons not to buy this plugin. If you’re a metal fan looking for your next fix of high-gain chuggage, you’re not going to find it here; there are plenty of other plugins for that, though. Or if you’re a dedicated tone-sniffer who demands hundreds of options and complete control over every imaginable parameter, you’re not going to find that either. For everyone else, UA’s impeccable tones should prove more than enough.

UA Paradise Guitar Studio alternatives

If varied options is your bag, the one to beat in this race is IK Multimedia AmpliTube 5 Max V2 (€99.99), which includes a huge array of pedals, amps, cabs, mics and virtual recording spaces. Its many challengers include Positive Grid Bias X ($149); but if you fancy something even simpler than UA’s offering, try the MixWave JHS Loud Is More Good Collection ($179) with its five pedals and one amp.

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