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April 2025

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66 articles

April 24
- “What he's playing is often very simple. That's the beautiful thing about David.” Steven Wilson on David Gilmour and remixing the newly released ‘Pink Floyd at Pompeii — MCMLXXII’
- Etsy sells Reverb to investors with stakes in Fender and SoundCloud, but says no one is getting “preferential treatment”
- The original Alice Cooper Band and the Faces are set to release their first new albums since 1973
- "We were all very serious – guitar battles and everything…" Interviewed in late 1976, just prior to their split, The Band's Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko look back
April 23
- “If you can't do it in two takes, you can't do it”: David Lee Roth was a demanding band leader – his former guitarists dish the details on what it was like to be his foil
- "I got carried away": How being in Whitesnake with Steve Vai made Adrian Vandenberg a better player
- "Phil Mogg was cool but he didn't have his stuff together…" Yngwie Malmsteen on why he rejected UFO to venture into the unknown with Alcatrazz
- "Slide? I flipped the bird a lot when I was a kid, so I just naturally put that to use…" Bonnie Raitt started out driving Son House and Skip James to festivals – then she became the biggest female slide player around
April 22
- "Very few people can play fast and put feeling into it. A lot of it is just cold technique…" Peter Frampton: The Guitar Player Interview
April 20
- “He always has a stack of older six-penny pieces he could rely on.” Why old coins proved the perfect guitar pick for Brian May
- "I thought, 'Jeez, how the hell did he do that?'" Phil Manzanera on the tone, tuning and technique of his teenage friend David Gilmour
April 19
- “I felt so crestfallen. I wanted to throw my guitar away.” Alex Lifeson on the gig that made Rush feel like they’d made it — and how one audience member brought them crashing down to Earth
- “It’s tongue in cheek!" The story of The Beatles song with three guitarists, three bassists, McCartney on drums — and a lyric that made enemies
April 18
- “He goes, ‘Play, boy,’ in that very southern way. I start taking my solo, sweating: ‘He’s going to hit me! I know it’s coming.’” How Jerry Lee Lewis terrorized Rory Gallagher, Dave Davies and Ritchie Blackmore
- “I had just been turned on to Ravi Shankar, and I had an album in my suitcase. I gave it to George.” How David Crosby's casual recommendation changed George Harrison’s guitar playing forever
- "Stevie always sounded the same whether it was rosewood or maple.” Jimmie Vaughan says Stevie Ray Vaughan would agree — there's no tone difference between rosewood and maple fretboards
April 17
- “Jeff Beck used to love seeing him and Lenny play live! It feels full circle.” Jeff Beck’s $490,000 Yardburst Les Paul was just played on Lenny Kravitz's full tour by guitarist Craig Ross
- "We tried everything we could to dirty it up." Why the Beatles couldn't have made "Helter Skelter" without the Who
- “We went from playing high school dances once or twice a month to playing six nights a week.” Alex Lifeson tells how one change helped Rush’s career take flight
- “Yeah, that's good. You got it." Andy Summers teaches John Mayer how to play the most challenging guitar riff in the Police catalog
April 16
- “I did the least commercial thing I could think of.” Ian Anderson explains how an old Dave Brubeck jazz tune inspired him to write Jethro Tull’s biggest hit
- “Make sure I’m dead.” Eddie Van Halen’s former wife Valerie Bertinelli hopes a Van Halen biopic never happens. Alex Van Halen has other plans
- “Is it going to revitalize American industry, or is it a big disaster?” Chapman Guitars owner Rob Chapman raises concerns about the impact Trump’s tariffs will have on the guitar industry
April 15
- “That's enough to make anybody who writes songs want to retire." Mark Knopfler on his difficult collaboration with his childhood hero, Bob Dylan
- “I knew he was going to be somebody then. He had that star quality”: Ritchie Blackmore on his first meeting with Jimmy Page and early recording sessions with Jeff Beck
- "It's a powerful, versatile variation on the timeless Telecaster, with a vital back story to boot." We review the Fender Stories Collection Mike Campbell Red Dog Telecaster
April 14
- “He used to send me to my room to practice my vibrato.” His father is the late Irish blues guitar great Gary Moore. But Jack Moore is cutting his own path with a Les Paul in his hands
- "Why can't we have more Django Reinhardts going, 'F*** everybody. I'll turn up when I feel like turning up'?" Happy birthday to Ritchie Blackmore. The guitar legend looks back on his career in an interview from our December 1996 issue
- "This 'Bohemian Rhapsody' will be hard to beat in the years to come! I'm awestruck.” Brian May makes a surprise appearance at Coachella to perform Queen's hit with Benson Boone
- "Get off the stage!" The time Carlos Santana picked a fight with Kiss bassist Gene Simmons and caused one of the guitar world's strangest feuds
April 13
- “It’s a special kind of moment when you hit that first note of a solo and you literally get nothing.” He’s played with David Bowie and the Cure, but Reeves Gabrels says things don’t always go right, even for the pros
April 12
- “We’re Liverpool boys, and they say Liverpool is the capital of Ireland.” Paul McCartney explains how the Beatles introduced harmonized guitar leads to rock and roll with one remarkable song
April 11
- “We’d heard Jimi Hendrix, we'd heard the Who, but now we finally got to see these guys. And watching Jimi Hendrix burn his guitar….” Grace Slick on Hendrix at Monterey, Jefferson Airplane and the Spanish origins of “White Rabbit”
- "When they left town, I went to the airport and got to meet Ritchie, and he thanked me for covering for him." Christopher Cross recalls filling in for a sick Ritchie Blackmore on Deep Purple's first-ever show in the U.S.
- “I’m still playing but I’m covered in blood. Billy’s looking at me like, ‘Yeah! That’s punk rock!'” Steve Stevens on his all-time worst gig with Billy Idol — and the visit to Jimi Hendrix's grave that never happened
April 10
- "He goes to England and all of a sudden he's on the floor humping his guitar!” Gene Simmons tells how he, Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley followed Jimi Hendrix's lead and gave Kiss some British swagger
- “I was home with the family and I got a phone call saying, 'You've won a Grammy.' We were like, 'You've got to be kidding?'” Martin Barre recalls Jethro Tull’s famous Grammy triumph over Metallica 36 years on
- “F****d me up completely. I couldn’t make head or tail of it.” Eric Clapton on the one guitarist who blew him away onstage
- Guitar Center's Guitar-A-Thon is back, and it includes a colossal $600 off a Gibson Les Paul, $180 off a Fender Strat, and a slew of new exclusive models
April 9
- "The only thing missing is the noise from the tape loop." We review the Strymon EC-1 Single Head dTape Echo, a convincing take on a very special vintage tube Echoplex
- “We were underdogs that still had to prove ourselves.” Aerosmith feared their label would drop them if 'Toys in the Attic' wasn’t a success. Fifty years on, Joe Perry discusses the riffs that saved them from oblivion
- “My worst case of buyer’s remorse was probably an impulse-buy banjo." Yvette Young shares her worst purchase stories and delivers her top tips for regret-free guitar shopping
- “I’d always worshipped Steve, and whenever he made a move, I would be right on it.” How a 20-year-old hot-shot guitarist convinced Eric Clapton to switch from Les Pauls to Fender Strats
- “I avoided it like the plague, but you have to understand it and feel it to be a complete player.” Martin Barre neglected one important aspect of guitar playing for years until another famous guitarist helped him see the light
April 8
- “That was the first song I ever attempted to play, but I heard congas and drums that exploded like fire.” How the Kinks inspired Al Di Meola to write a fusion classic
- "We tried every guitar for weeks, and nothing would fit. And then, one day, we pulled this out." Mike Campbell on his "Red Dog" Telecaster, the guitar behind Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Refugee" and the focus of two new Fender tribute models
- A gigantic $360 off Positive Grid's celebrated BIAS amp sim software may have just put the nail in the coffin of my beloved valve combo
April 7
- “I feel like a fraud. Because people don't know — but they're gonna find out one day.” Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner opens up about struggling to play guitar since his emergency heart surgery
- “Write for five minutes a day. I mean, who can’t manage that?” Mike Stern's top five guitar tips include one simple fix to help you develop your personal guitar style
- "It's one of the coolest guitars that I own. And look — it’s fretless!" Dweezil Zappa revels in the quirks and sonic benefits of his one-of-a-kind Gibson "Roxy" SG
April 6
- “The looping show is high anxiety for me. The only time I get to relax is when I’m soloing.” Johnny A. walks us through his song-based live looping strategy as he demonstrates his guitar rig
April 5
- "Bird just grinned. He’d never heard a guitar played like that!" George Freeman, onetime guitarist for Charlie Parker, has died at age 97. Read our 2024 interview with the jazz icon
- "It’s as if all of Jeff Beck’s genius is right here on one album. There’s a taste of everything.” Joe Perry riffs on Beck, the Yardbirds and "The 10 Records That Changed My Life"
April 4
- "It was in the early days of wireless guitars. I went to the bathroom but didn't have time to take my guitar off, and the sound was coming back through the amp." Squeeze guitarist Glenn Tilbrook reveals his best and worst gigs of all time
- Orianthi performs at Guitar Player Presents in Oakland, California — Win Tickets
- "Ritchie has actually been told by his cardiologist not to get in a plane." Ritchie Blackmore suffered a heart attack a year and a half year ago and has been warned not to travel by air
- “Yes, I can do it all.” Shaquille O’Neal stuns fans by playing a Three Days Grace song on an acoustic guitar. Or is it a ukulele?
April 3
- “I did the dumbest thing and pointed it at the audience. When I turned around, flames were shooting into the crowd.” Kane Roberts on the time he nearly set Alice Cooper's audience on fire with his flame-throwing machine-gun guitar
- "I heard a livelier overall sound, with a more multidimensional voice that enhances a chewy texture to the harmonics." We asked an avowed string snob to try Cleartone Treated Strings on his guitars. Here's what he told us
April 2
- “I thought, Robert Fripp’s a good guitarist. Maybe we could do something.” Andy Summers isn’t a fan of King Crimson, but his collaboration with Fripp came along at just the right time
- "I don’t like collector's items. I said, ‘Give me the blue one.’" Chrissie Hynde reveals the origins of the 1965 Fender Telecaster she's played since the dawn of the 1980s
- "I wrote it in five minutes the night before.” How a candid moment caught on camera became the final Beatles song the band recorded together
April 1
- “A good example of how, as artists, you have to blindly move forward with crazy ideas”: The story of Joe Satriani’s showstopping Crystal Planet Ibanez JS prototype – which has just sold for $10,000
- “I felt myself starting to cry.” Eric Clapton’s 'MTV Unplugged' Martin acoustic returns in two guises. But Slowhand’s affinity for the guitar brand began long before that seminal live performance
- "Jaco thought he was gonna die that day in the control room of CBS! Tony was furious." John McLaughlin on Jaco Pastorius, Tony Williams, and the short and tumultuous reign of the Trio of Doom
- “It’s all been building up to 8 p.m. when the lights go down and the crowd roars.” Tommy Emmanuel shares his gig-day guitar routine, from sun-up to show time