Whether they’re played in a club, a theater or a stadium, most rock shows are sweaty affairs for musicians. But what’s it like to perform on some of the coldest stages on Earth?

From Metallica’s record-breaking 2013 Antarctica expedition to Van Halen performing in a blizzard and Tesseract gracing a stage made entirely of ice, rock history has delivered some frosty gigs. As far as experiences go, there’s nothing quite like them.

Thrash-metal giants Metallica entered the record books 13 years ago when performing a 10-song set in a packed-out dome near the Argentine Antarctic Base Carlini. In doing so, they became the first musical act to have played a show on all seven of the Earth’s continents.

The 120-strong audience comprised Coca-Cola competition winners from across Latin America, research station scientists from Russia, South Korea, China, Poland, Chile, Brazil and Germany, along with the ship’s crew.

“Part of the deal was we couldn’t disturb the environment, the penguins, and all the incredible wildlife down there,” drummer Lars Ulrich said of the show in 2023 (via Metal Hammer).

Not only was it the first metal show where penguins were of paramount importance, but it also meant that the band had to ditch their tube amps and anything else that might get loud.

The solution was to send the band’s live feed to the audience via headphones, essentially turning the performance into a silent headbangers’ ball. At a time when digital amp modelers were still looked upon dubiously by gear nerds, the band turned to Fractal.

“The initial question is, can we make this work?” James Hetfield’s tech, Chad Zaemisch, later told Guitar World. “From a technician’s point of view, you don’t want to say to the guy you’re working for that what you’re doing is not going to be as good as before.”

Yet, the show went down without a hitch, and Metallica has stayed loyal to Fractal’s Axe Fx modeler ever since. But other bands haven’t been so lucky.

In 1995, Van Halen were in Denver on the Balance tour when a freak blizzard whipped through the city. The weather conditions deteriorated as the show went on, leading to snow accumulating onstage. Still, the band refused to cut the show short, given that so many fans had made the effort to get there. Even with frozen fingers, Eddie Van Halen and company tore through a 21-song set.

It’s a sentiment that U.K. progressive metal band Tesseract can relate to. Two years after Metallica’s glacial gig, the seven-string guitar advocates made their own way into the record books.

As part of Jägermeister’s Ice Cold series of shows at Snow Village in Kittila, Lapland, they became the first band to perform on top of a structure made completely out of ice.

Snow Village in Kittila is built each year from 44 million pounds of snow and 78,000 pounds of ice, and while it looked impressive, the onstage temperature of -4°F was anything but. As Metal Hammer reports, several band members suffered a loss of feeling in their hands after just the first song of soundcheck.

“One of the main challenges is keeping the instruments at the same temperature,” Amos Williams, the band’s bass guitar player, explained. “If the strings become colder during the set, then tuning will become a massive issue.”

“The strings are ice, and that’s making our fingers pretty dead,” Williams told Total Guitar from backstage. “I’ve actually got a heat pad on my palms [under my glove].”

“The bit I’m worried about,” he added, “is snow getting into [our gear], because it isn’t, basically, water? Hopefully nothing’s going to short-circuit.”

Unlike Metallica’s carefully controlled Antarctic performance, neither Van Halen nor Tesseract had the luxury of insulating themselves from the elements. Together, they prove that some of rock’s greatest gigs are remembered not just for the songs that were played, but for the conditions the bands overcame to play them.

When Metallica invited original Thin Lizzy guitarist Eric Bell onstage in Dublin to cover the group's take on the tune “Whiskey in the Jar,” in 1999, it was meant to be a moment for all to savor. But Bell says the experience left a sour taste in his mouth.

Two decades later, Bell branded the thrash-metal giants a “pack of bastards” for allegedly failing to pay him for the gig. But in a new conversation with Guitar World, he reflects that their chemistry felt off from the start — and even admits he’s carried one regret from that night ever since.

The folk song is about the Irish highwayman Patrick Fleming, who was executed for his thievery in 1650. In the early 1970s, Bell, alongside bass player and vocalist Phil Lynott, made the tune their own. It's been covered by many different artists, with the Dubliners’ 1968 version another notable rendition, but Bell’s lead work separated Thin Lizzy’s take from the pack. His superlative guitar solo didn’t hurt, either.

Fast-forward to 1998, when Metallica’s cover proved a roaring success. The band amped up the twin-guitar harmonies that would later define Thin Lizzy’s post-Bell era — after Lynott reshuffled the lineup with Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson — and it even won a Grammy.

So when Metallica rolled into Dublin for a show at the Point Theatre the following year, it made perfect sense that Bell should come onstage to perform the song with them.

“I didn’t know anything about Metallica,” Bell confesses. “But it was funny; they got in touch with me. Someone from their setup phoned me and said, ‘I work with Metallica. We’re doing a world tour. Would love to have you come along to play with us in Dublin and do “Whiskey in the Jar.”’”

Bell was then asked if he’d heard Metallica’s version of the song. When he said he hadn’t, the voice on the other end of the phone asked, “What planet are you living on?”

“I said, ‘Jupiter,’” Bell recalls with a chuckle. “Anyway, this courier arrived on a motorbike about two days later, and he had quite a few records, cassettes and DVDs of Metallica doing ‘Whiskey in the Jar.’”

Bell agreed to play the show, but was shocked by one detail.

“Once we got to Dublin, the thing that threw me was, I was trying out this Marshall amp, and Metallica walked in sort of like cartoons,” he remembers. “They said, ‘Hey, man, when we do this, we tune our guitars a whole tone down.’ I thought, ‘A whole tone? The guitar is going to sound like a fucking banjo!’”

Metallica began down-tuning around the mid-’90s, starting with Load, the first album recorded after the change. They dropped their electric guitars to accommodate Hetfield's vocal range as he aged.

“I just felt a bit out of place, especially as my guitar was in standard tuning and I was playing along in F instead of G. If I had the chance again, I’d tune it down because it was tricky playing it in F.”

For that matter, Bell says he would ask for money upfront. As it happened he got nothing for his time onstage with the thrash legends

“They are a pack of bastards," he told NME. "I couldn’t believe what they did, especially as they are so well off. I should have been paid £2,000 but got fuck all.

“If Metallica ever asked me to guest with them again, I’d ask for five grand in advance. In cash so I’d know I had it in my pocket.”

Bell told Guitar Player that the Thin Lizzy gig was a dream come true, but one particular show brought his tenure with the band to a dramatic end. He couldn't play without drinking, he had said, but he, too, couldn't play after drinking.

Last year, the guitarist announced an album of re-imagined acoustic versions of songs from the band's first three albums, splicing unheard Phil Lynott vocal takes with newly recorded guitars. It was the first time he'd recorded under the Thin Lizzy banner since his 1973 departure.

Meanwhile, his successor, Scott Gorham, says it took him a while to find his footing in the band, and the American learned to adapt their Irish roots to find his place in their lineage.

The rise of Eddie Van Halen as a generation’s guitar hero saw thousands running to their local Guitar Center to buy a Superstrat and master tapping licks. As his son, Wolfgang Van Halen, once said, EVH “kind of ruined” the ‘80s guitar scene, as a raft of copyists followed in his wake.

But for other impressionable musicians like Les Claypool, his influence would push them away from the electric guitar while inspiring them to reach new heights on their chosen instrument.

“Everybody wanted to be Eddie Van Halen,” the Primus bass player and frontman tells Rick Beato. So, his looking to the low-end of the scale made perfect sense — all these guitar players would need a bassist for the bands they started. Although it took a little coaxing from his schoolmate, Kirk Hammett, to become embroiled in band life.

“He actually tried to get me to sing for his band,” Claypool reveals. “We had algebra together, and he sat behind me. He would always go, ‘Hey, Claypool. Hey, Claypool, check it out, man.’

“I still, to this day, remember this ad. It was the ad for a Stratocaster where the guy's holding it, and he's going, ‘It's a rock machine,’ and the guy behind him is going, ‘No, it's a country machine.’ And he's [Hammett] like, ‘Here's my guitar, Claypool, man. It’s the one I'm getting.’”

Hammett, who of course would go on to take over the world with Metallica — although a Fernandes was his Strat of choice in the band’s early days — was just one of the players to have been enraptured by EVH’s flair and fretboard pyrotechnics.

“That first Van Halen album blew open everyone’s minds to the potential of electric guitar,” he told the New York Times of his influence in the wake of his passing in 2020. “His right-hand technique, the way he hammered on strings, with super-wide intervals that a person could not humanly stretch. It was an incredible sound. Eddie started this momentum of just getting sounds out of his guitar that no one got.”

The Hammett-Claypool tie-in never happened after he “chickened out” of being Hammett’s frontman. “I was a total Bobby Brady, croaking and cracking,” the bassist admits. But another band soon began their search for a bass player, and Claypool’s fate was sealed.

“There was a guy who had this bass for sale for 15 bucks, some old piece of shit, and — actually it was 30 bucks, and I had 15 — I said, ‘Dad, can I borrow 15 bucks?’ He's like, ‘Is that really what you want to do?’ And I said, ‘Yep.’ He's like, ‘Well, let's go down and talk to Al's Music.’ It was a buddy of his.

“We went down and we got a brand-new P-Bass copy, by Memphis. I got this thing, and I had to pull weeds all summer to pay for it. But then I was instantly in a band, because nobody wanted to play bass back then.”

Claypool and Hammett each fared well in their music careers, but behind the scenes, there was a fallout from their aborted attempts to play in a band together.

“I didn't find out till years later that he was kind of pissed at me for bailing on his thing to go play bass in this other band,” Claypool says.

In 1986, following the passing of Metallica founding bassist Cliff Burton, Claypool auditioned for Metallica. At that time, he'd started laying the foundations for what would become Primus and, with it, his rather atypical slap-and-tap bass style. It was a world away from Burton's approach to the instrument, and that wasn't lost on the band's drummer, Lars Ulrich. He reportedly told Claypool, “You're not really used to this kind of music, are you.”

“I was a carpenter and would have joined any band that paid me,” Claypool told Guitar World. “Kirk called me, but I didn't fit in. I had a blonde Mohawk and baggy skater pants and two different colored tennis shoes — and this was back when they had long hair and tight pants.”

Ultimately, he's glad he never got the gig. In Primus, he ventured into uncharted territory that never would have been explored had he joined a band basking in the success of Master of Puppets.

At the same time, like Van Halen, Claypool set out to do things with his bass guitar that others had not.

“My style in Primus evolved from me consciously trying to play bass and rhythm guitar at the same time,” he explains. “Primus was all about doing something that nobody had ever heard before, and the guitar players I used were textural players. I wasn't really used to playing with regressive players who wanted the bass to stay in the background. I was into Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, and Andy Summers.”

In related news, Kirk Hammett has given Guitar Player an extensive tour of his gear collection and revealed that he's sat on a mountain of riffs for the follow-up to the band's 2023 album, 72 Seasons.

Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine has leveled fresh accusations at Metallica, saying his former outfit used a number of his songs and riffs and didn't credit him for the work.

The guitarist’s ill-fated days in Metallica are a dark chapter in heavy metal's history. Mustaine was part of the thrash band's first lineup, alongside mainstays James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, and bass player Ron McGovney. The bass position was the first to change, with Cliff Burton coming into the fold in '82. After Mustaine was kicked out of the band in an acrimonious split in ‘83, Kirk Hammett arrived to replace him just in time for their debut LP, Kill 'Em All.

Mustaine's riffs can be heard on that album, as well as its follow-up, Ride the Lightning. The guitarist is credited on six songs across those records: "Jump in the Fire," “The Four Horsemen,” "Phantom Lord," "Metal Militia," "Ride the Lightning" and "The Call of Ktulu."

But he says his contributions were used against his will. The story goes that Mustaine’s troubles with drugs and alcohol — and multiple punch-ups with Hetfield — were to blame for his departure.

Mustaine, however, paints a slightly different picture.

“We all drank. That’s why they called [the band] Alcoholica,” he tells The Shawn Ryan Show. “I mean, they didn’t call it Dave-Alcoholica. And they continued to drink like that even after I was gone.”

Mustaine landed his spot in Metallica after answering a newspaper ad and says he and Ulrich initially bonded over their shared love for Welsh power trio Budgie.

“Me listening to Budgie showed them I had credibility in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal world,” he says. “They were a three-piece that kicked arse.”

During a meeting, Mustaine suggested that an early version of the Metallica song "Hit the Lights" needed “way more guitar solos,” and he didn't need to do much more than that to earn his place in the group.

“I went to Ron McGovney's parent’s fourplex. They had this place where James was living with Ron,” he explains. “And I went up there with Lars and I set up my amps. I plugged my guitar in and I just started warming up

"They wouldn't come in. I thought, This is really strange. I walked out and said 'Guys, are we going to do the audition?' They said 'You got the gig.'”

Whether they were intimidated by Mustaine's talents or had simply seen enough isn't known, but his time in the band proved fruitful. Until it wasn’t.

“We got out to New York [where the Kill 'Em All was tracked] and I had this quarter-inch reel of tape," he says. "It had probably two days of guitar riffs on it; just me playing and playing and playing. We took that with us.

“Then one morning I woke up and they said 'You're out of the band.' I said, 'No warning? No second chance? You're just gonna kick me out?'

"It showed a grotesque lack of character. It pissed me off."

Mustaine says that anger was a huge part of the fuel" that led him to form Megadeth.

“And I told them when I left: 'Do not use my music.'

"And of course they used it.”

Mustaine's says his work can be heard on the band's third album, Master of Puppets.

“I wrote a whole bunch of 'Leper Messiah' too," he claims. "They didn’t give me credit. Do you think I was gonna hear my riff and think ‘That’s not me’

“I wrote a lot of their music that made them. And all the solos on that first record were mine, the best Kirk could [do was] try and copy them.”

Mustaine's comments contrast with accounts from two of his former guitarists, Marty Friedman and Chris Poland, who each attempted to downplay the Metallica-Megadeth rivalry.

“I don't think we cared as much about Metallica as people put in the press,” Friedman told Vanyaland. “We were definitely our own band. We admired Metallica for the great work that they did, and they're playing a similar genre of music to what we were doing.”

“There was absolutely no feud type of thinking,” early guitarist Chris Poland echoed. “I just remember the journalists: It's a juicy headline, and so they go with it. That part was probably fabricated a lot in the media from our side.”

Mustaine’s comments show he clearly had one eye on what Metallica were doing as he forged his career with Megadeth — and notably, Mustaine still has no credit on “Leper Messiah.”

His statements seem remarkable considering that he and Metallica have buried the hatchet over the years. The groups performed together on Metallica's 30th anniversary shows in 2011, and as recently as 2023 Mustaine praised Hammett for doing him the "honor" of copying his solos on his early Metallica cuts.

But Mustaine clearly hasn't forgotten that dark day long ago in New York.

Heavy metal was forged through Tony Iommi’s riffs on Black Sabbath’s timeless 1969 debut album, and it spread like wildfire. The ‘70s were dominated by bands pushing that heaviness to new extremes.

Despite its popularity, the genre wasn’t recognized by the Recording Academy with a dedicated Grammy award for another two decades. When it was, things got off to a farcical start when Jethro Tull's Crest of a Knave went up against Metallica's ...And Justice for All for the inaugural win in the category of Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental.

It was a momentous occasion for Metallica. The young thrash metallers had proved resilient in the wake of founding bassist Cliff Burton’s tragic passing, redefining themselves with ...And Justice for All, their monumental fourth album. Everyone was convinced they would win in the category, which also included albums by Jane's Addiction, Iggy Pop and AC/DC.

Tull was so certain to be passed over that they didn't even bother to show up. As former guitarist Martin Barre reveals, the band members were still at home on the night of the award ceremony.

“It was surreal,” he tells Guitar World of the band's inclusion. “We were in the U.K. when we're told that we were nominated, and we were like, 'Wow… we're nominated for a Grammy?' but there was no thought that we would get it.”

They weren't alone. Even the band’s label, Chrysalis, were certain Metallica would win.

“I don’t think there was one single person in the company who thought, Hang on a minute, Jethro Tull might win the Heavy Metal award,” Chrysalis’ founder Chris Wright told Classic Rock.

Barre recalls Chrysalis telling them, "'Metallica are huge, and they've got a big presence at the ceremony and are going to play there, they're going to wipe you out.' And even though we were invited to go, the record company said, 'No, we're not going to fly you over. You're not going to win. Just stay home.'

"So we just sat at home.”

Yet, when Alice Cooper and Lita Ford came forward to present the award's nominees, the outcome surprised everyone, including the presenters. When Cooper opened the envelope, Ford gave a snigger as she glanced at the card within bearing the winning entry. Cooper did the honors.

"And the winner is Crest of a Knave, Jethro Tull."

The shock rocker recalled the award ceremony years later.

“We went to the Shrine Auditorium for rehearsals that day, and that involved opening an envelope with a dummy card inside, which has a name on it,” Cooper said. “But it’s never the name of the real winner, it just gives you something to read out. I think, during rehearsal, the name on that card was Jethro Tull, so I read it out.

“[That night] I opened the envelope, and when I saw the name, I thought they’d given me the envelope from the rehearsal. I looked at it again, and it did have a different seal on it and details like that. It was the real thing.

“There was this huge sort of 'Springtime for Hitler' gasp from the audience. Then everybody broke out laughing.”

“I was home with the family,” Barre recalls today. “I got a phone call saying, 'You've won a Grammy.' We were like, 'You've got to be kidding?'”

Metallica, meanwhile, were rightly shocked to be beaten by a group that didn't qualify as either hard rock or heavy metal.

“All those who are ‘in touch’ — the critics, the day-to-day involved people — assumed that Metallica would walk away with the award,” Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich said. In hindsight, however, he theorizes that “most of the academy who vote for the nominees are in the age group of 40 to 60, and are very much less in tune with what goes on in the music scene.”

Despite the outcry, Jethro Tull didn't let it dampen their spirits.

“I'm really proud of that,” Barre says of the win. “We had a huge party; it was brilliant. It means a lot to me, but it could either mean nothing or everything. It was a weird category, sort of fuzzy around the edges. But essentially, that album obviously deserves that award.”

In the same interview, Barre revealed that says he was a “terrible” rhythm guitar player until a big-name player helped him see the light and revitalize his playing.

Meanwhile, Tony Iommi says he nearly launched Black Sabbath with a Fender Stratocaster, but fate seemingly intervened after a “dodgy” car park swap.

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett says he and Metallica plan to start work on their next album once their current tour winds up next November.

To that end, Hammett has already cooked up hundreds of riffs for when the band is ready to begin work on the record, the follow-up to their 2023 release, 72 Seasons.

“I have 767 new ones for the next album,” Hammett tells Rolling Stone of the riffs.

“It is such a nightmare going through this stuff, too,” he added of the surfeit of riffs. “And I’m the one responsible for all of it and I can’t do it.”

Hammett’s riffs have been behind countless Metallica tracks. As he told Guitar Player in 2020, his talent for it was fueled by players like Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Michael Schenker, as well as through under-the-radar selections by Judas Priest and Santana.

He still has many months to sort through his riffs and stockpile additional ideas while Metallica are on the road for 72 Seasons.

“I don’t foresee us starting the next album for at least another year because we’re still finishing the tour,” he says. “Once we fully finish this and go to all the outlying places like Asia and Australia and New Zealand, I think we’re gonna take a little bit of a break, not too much of one, and then we’re gonna get right back into it.”

In addition to Metallica’s next album, the guitarist is planning his first full-length solo album to follow-up on his 2022 debut EP, Portals.

“I’m just actively getting ideas together for my solo album,” he told Rolling Stone. “I guess the best way to describe it is it’s gonna be a fusion of all sorts of styles….

“All of a sudden I’m writing classical progressions, and all of a sudden I’m writing more heavy stuff and all of a sudden I’m writing like a funk thing….

“There will be vocals because the songs that I wrote scream for vocals this time around.”

Hammett says it’s too early to know who will do the honor of singing the material. But he does have an instrumental piece in the lineup that “sounds like it’s 2000 years old called ‘The Mysterion.’ It’s based on all this stuff that I’ve been reading, the ancient Greek texts, and it’s amazing to me because I wouldn’t have had this instrumental if I didn’t start reading these ancient texts.”

Hammett also pondered the possibility Metallica might revisit its controversial late 1990s Load and Re-Load albums again.

“Who knows? We might just say, ‘Okay, let’s go back to the ’90s again,” he suggest. “It’s not a bad idea!”

He says that while those albums were not well-received by fans back in the day, some of their audience seem to have come around to the records.

“When Load and Reload came out, there was a lot of backlash,” he says. “But nowadays I run into fans and they love that era. We play ‘Fuel’ and people go nuts. We play ‘Until It Sleeps’ and people know every word.

“It’s kind of like how when I was a teenager, I listened to all the Zeppelin albums except Zeppelin III because it was more acoustic and I just wanted the high-energy aggressive stuff. But over time I really came to embrace Zeppelin III and how wonderful it is.”

However Hammett is storing his new song ideas, one hopes he keeps a better hold on it than he did in 2014, when he lost his phone containing his riff ideas while at Copenhagen Airport. Metallica were working on their album Hardwired…to Self-Destruct at the time. The loss meant the guitarist had nothing to contribute to that record.

"I put riffs on my iPhone, but something very unfortunate happened to me about six months ago,” the electric guitar player told The Jasta Show in 2018. “I lost my iPhone [containing] 250 musical ideas. And I was crushed. It didn't get backed up.

“To try to remember those riffs? I can only remember, like, eight of 'em.”

In related news, Hammett and Gibson Publishing announced the guitarist’s new book last week. Titled The Collection: Kirk Hammett, the 400-page book spotlights some 65 guitars from the Metallica axeman's stash, including his famous “Greeny” Gibson Les Paul Standard, formerly owned by Peter Green and Gary Moore, and his 1979 Gibson Flying V.

So will Gibson Publishing's The Collection: Kirk Hammett come with a warning — or at least a towel to mop up the drool that will likely be prompted by the pictures?

"Maybe a trough," the Metallica guitarist suggests with a laugh.

The Collection: Kirk Hammett has just been released via Gibson.com and Gibson Garage locations. The 400-page book, featuring photos by Ross Halfin, is a spin-off of Hammett's The Collection episode last fall on Gibson TV and spotlights some 65 guitars from the Metallica axeman's stash.

It's offered in three formats that should please the range of Hammett's fans. The top offering is a Custom Edition of 300 copies with a lenticular cover and a portrait of the guitarist signed by him and Halfin. It comes with case candy that includes an Axe Heaven miniature replica of Hammett’s 1979 Gibson Flying V with case and stand, an exclusive pick tin with six Dunlop Kirk Hammett signature Jazz III guitar picks, and a Gibson Publishing Certificate of Authenticity. It's all contained in a presentation box that bears an illustration of the guitarist catching a wave.

There’s also a Deluxe Edition of 1,500 in slipcase packaging, signed by Hammett and including a poster; as well as the Standard Edition premium coffee table book.

In addition to photos of Hammett's guitars, The Collection: Kirk Hammett includes photos of the guitarist shot by Halfin on location in Hawaii and Los Angeles as well as rare images from Halfin’s photo archives, new interviews with Hammett by Gibson editor-in-chief Chris Vinnicombe and Gibson director of brand experience .Mark Agnesi.

"I always wanted to do a book about my guitar collection," Hammett, on break from Metallica's M72 World Tour, tells Guitar Player via Zoom from his home in Hawaii. The Collection follows It's Alive!: Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Movie Posters, a 2017 book that documented Hammett's collection of those items. It's also Gibson’s second guitar tome, following The Collection: Slash in 2023.

"Once the [movie poster] book came out, it opened up so many opportunities for me, for my collection," Hammett says. "I was able to showcase my movie poster collection in top-notch museums, as an art collection — that was directly the outcome of putting out a book.

“So I realized, wow, putting out a book has amazing benefits and returns. I have no idea what that might be for the guitar collection, but I'm just hoping that it gets to people who really just love and enjoy looking at these guitars like I do, and maybe somehow, some way, it might inspire people to start up their own collection."

And before you raise your eyebrows about that — "I do have resources," Hammett acknowledges, including scouts who find guitars for him — he's adamant that you don't need to have his kind of money to join the collector’s ranks.

"There are so many guitars out there that still are hanging out — in closets, underneath beds, in attics, in storage places — that need to come to light," contends Hammett, who began collecting guitars and amplifiers in earnest during the mid ’80s.

"If you think about how many guitars were produced in the years of 1952 to now, if you just reason that maybe half of those guitars have survived, that's still an overwhelmingly large number of guitars. It's got to be in the millions. There are so many guitars just lying around in corners that have value and worth.

“So I’m hoping this book can wake up and inspire people to go into zones that they never really explore and take a walkabout and see if there's any old guitar out there. If you're diligent enough, and savvy and smart and know how to make a deal, you can track down some really amazing instruments out there."

Included in The Collection book are many of Hammett's likely suspects, such as Greeny, the 1959 Les Paul Standard previously owned by Peter Green and Gary Moore, and the 1957 Korina Flying V prototype, which Hammett estimates is only the second or third ever made. There's also the 1979 Flying V that Hammett played in Exodus and used for the solos on Metallica's first few albums.

But the book allows him to dig deeper into the collection than the Gibson TV episode did. It includes, of course, his ESP models adorned with images of his horror collection as well as three Gibson SGs with noteworthy pedigrees.

"I came to SGs pretty late in the game," Hammett says. "It wasn't til probably Load/Reload that I started playing SGs, and it's 'cause [producer] Bob Rock put one in my hand: a '61 SG with P.A.F. pickups. And, man, what a sound it had!

“From that point on I've always been waiting for great SGs. There's a lot of SGs out there, but I just wanted to wait for one that was a cut above."

He gravitated toward the SG Customs with three pickups. One he found, from 1961, was previously owned by the Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante and played on the group's hit "Otherside" and in its "Fortune Faded" video.

But the real gem was another '61, a twin-pickup Les Paul SG custom that, it turned out, was owned by Les himself.

"It's a rare color, 'cause you usually see them in red, right?" Hammett recalls. "So I picked up this white SG and I plugged it in, and I couldn't believe how great it sounded, how great it played. I was like, 'Whoa! There's something about this SG.'"

Hammett subsequently took a photo of the electric guitar and sent it to his contacts at Gibson.

"I said, 'Guys, this SG is special. It's a cut above your standard SG.' The text back was, 'You need to send us more pictures. Send us a picture of the serial number and of the neck and of the pickups.'

“I was like, 'Okay, what's the big deal?'"

It turned out the guitar was indeed Paul's and featured in publicity photos as well as on the covers of Warm and Wonderful and Swingin' South, with his wife Mary Ford, and 1968's Les Paul Now!

"It was a match, and that was so cool," Hammett says. "The guy I got it from had no idea, either. I'm sure if he would've known the price would've been three times what I paid for it."

Hammett adds that he has "not really bought a guitar in a long time. I do trades, bro," which he acknowledges is its own weird kind of science. "I always trade up," he explains, "but in the process of trading up, sometimes you have some remorse: 'I got this really great guitar, it's Les Paul's SG, but, man, I wish I didn't have to part with that Ice Mist Stratocaster from 1963. That was a pretty weird guitar, too.'

“But I had to part with that. I'd rather have the SG than that Ice Mist Strat...

He laughs.

“But I still wish I had it!"

Hammett considers himself "a dynamic collector" and "not a hoarder," which makes it difficult to determine the size of his collection at any time. "My collection ebbs and flows," he explains. "It breathes. It doesn't remain static. Things come in, things go out, things change. And I like that. A collection should do that. Collections, I feel, should serve the creator." And, he adds, the guitars he chooses are made to be used rather than possessed.

"I do play all the guitars that I have," Hammett says. "The guitars you collect for their collectability and visual appeal I get bored with right away, 'cause they don't feel like instruments. I don't believe in turning a guitar into a piece of sculpture; I believe guitars should be played, and I'm actively purging my collection to get rid of guitars that I don't play because I believe they would be better off in someone's hands who'll actually play them. But I want to interact with my guitar, with my collection.

"I believe that certain guitars have music in them. Certain guitars have riffs in them — that's also kind of a standard bearer on whether or not I want to hang on to a guitar, 'Does this guitar have riffs in it?' I'll play it for 15 minutes, and if I’m reaching for the tape recorder the answer is 'yes.' Sometimes I'll play a guitar and it doesn't feel like it has any riffs in it; it's still fun to play, but..."

Hammett is already planning for a second volume of The Collection that would possibly include some of his vintage amplifiers as well.

Until then, he's preparing for the resumption of Metallica's tour on April 12 at the Sick New World Festival in Los Vegas, with U.S. dates booked into late June. The group is also planning to make another movie, although Hammett "can't really expound on that too much." In the meantime, he's spent part of the band's break writing music for whenever the studio next beckons.

"Before we start touring I always have a big, long check list of things to do, musically, and say, 'How much of this can I get done before we actually start rehearsing?'" Hammett says. "It keeps me busy, and I love staying busy...'cause I'm engaged with the music, and music is truly magic. Every day I feel like an empty vessel and I sit down with my guitar and stuff comes out and I don't even think about it. The music just flows.

“If I open myself up to these amazing creative forces that are out there — they're unseen, but they're in the room with me — the music will flow. Much of 72 Seasons, the writing for that album, and also on my Portals solo EP came just like that. It's bonkers, bro."

To explore and order The Collection: Kirk Hammett, visit Gibson Publishing.

Metallica are arguably the biggest metal act in the world. With the electric guitar duo of Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield at the forefront of their sound, the thrash metal group forged the essential elements of the genre and became its most important champions.

But they had a lot of early struggles according to the group that introduced them to audiences on their first tour. The San Francisco metallers made their first U.S. road trip in 1983 as the opening act for the British group Raven. And apparently their sound and appearance led many in the audience to ask, “What the hell is this?”

Raven was formed in Newcastle, England in 1974 by brothers Mark and John Gallagher and quickly became a force within the growing New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene. After playing shows with Ozzy Osbourne, Motörhead and Iron Maiden in the early 1980s, Raven embarked on their first U.S. headlining shows in support of their third album, All for One.

“We came out to do our first tour of the States, and our management was the same as Metallica’s,” guitarist Mark Gallagher remembers. “They were just starting out, and [Megaforce Records founder] Jonny Z, who was our manager at the time, said, ‘I’ve got the biggest band on the West Coast from San Francisco. They’re gonna open for you.’

"We were like, ‘Really? Who’s that?’”

John Gallagher, Raven's bass guitar player says they couldn’t believe their luck.

“When you thought of the big bands in San Francisco, it’s a long list. I mean… there was Y&T and even Journey."

Instead, they were told they were going out with Metallica.

"We were like, ‘Who?’”

Management sent over a cassette of Metallica's debut, Kill ‘Em All, which had been released that July and would pave the way for a thrash metal movement. Recalls John, “I put it in, played it, and I’m going, ‘Does this sound like it’s at the right speed?’ It kind of sounded like if you put a Motörhead album on at 78 rpm."

“We kind of dug it,” Mark adds. “We thought it was like a more refined Motörhead, like, real kick ass."

Unfortunately, audiences didn't share their enthusiasm. "When we went out and played the shows, a lot of places didn’t like Metallica," Mark explains. "They were like, ‘What the hell is this?’

Adding to the unusual experience, Raven found themselves playing venues in some of the country's far-flung places.

“Other than the major markets, we played some nutty places on that tour, like Bald Knob, Arkansas, and some really weird gigs,” Mark says. “The whole thing was quite an experience.”

Debut tours are vital acid tests in the rise and fall of bands vying to be their generation’s next superstars. They can help launch a band to success and teach valuable lessons, like Alex Lifeson’s eye-opening experience opening for Rory Gallagher in 1974.

It all apparently paid off for Metallica. Despite their frosty reception, they would go from strength to strength and become one of the biggest bands in the world. The group is among the many acts who will be featured in Black Sabbath’s all-star final show in Birmingham this summer.

In addition, Metallica's former lead guitarist, Dave Mustaine, would find fame with Megadeth and battle it out with Metallica to lead the thrash metal pack. However, two of the band’s former guitarists, Marty Friedman and Chris Poland, have downplayed the rivalry between the bands and now say they learned a lot from Metallica’s success.

Guitar World’s full interview with Raven is due to be published on its website soon.

As Sunday’s contest proved, the Chiefs/Eagles rivalry has nothing on the Metallica/Megadeth tussle that has loomed over Dave Mustaine’s entire career.

But new comments from former Megadeth guitarists Marty Friedman and Chris Poland suggest the rivalry between the bands was blown out of proportion, even though Megadeth were “pissed” when Metallica scored a major hit with Master of Puppets in 1986.

Mustaine was a key player in Metallica’s very early days. Although he was ousted from the band in fairly brutal circumstances before their 1983 debut, Kill ‘Em All, he still has writing credits on the LP and its follow-up, Ride the Lightning.

It’s amid that backdrop that he formed Megadeth in ‘83. Their track "Mechanix" — a Mustaine song that served as the basis for Metallica's "The Four Horseman" — was the first taste of a rivalry brewing. Fans and the media have amplified that discord over the decades, but Friedman refutes the idea that Megadeth was driven by any sense of hostility.

“I don't think we cared as much about Metallica as people put in the press,” says the guitarist, who was part of the band’s most successful period between 1990-2000 tells Vanyaland. “We were definitely our own band, our own entity, as far as I'm concerned. We admired Metallica for the great work that they did, and they're playing a similar genre of music to what we were doing.”

But that doesn’t mean they were unaware of the movements of Hetfield, Hammett, and co.

“There is no question that we were watching their every move,” he adds. “What they were doing, what we could learn from it, what we could adapt to our situation from their success. Mustaine pioneered this heavy-metal rhythm guitar style. James Hetfield pioneered this heavy-metal guitar style. They both were very, very important in the formation of thrash metal.”

He also believes the feeling of respect was mutual.

“I think we could both learn from each other,” he says. “We could certainly learn from Metallica's great success. However, it wasn't like any kind of, 'Look, we hate Metallica' and 'We want to beat them.' There was absolutely no feud type of thinking. I just remember the journalists: It's a juicy headline, and so they go with it. And that stuff goes on to this day.

"But that part was probably fabricated a lot in the media from our side,” he continues. "We were just way, way too busy with our own music, our own careers to really follow them that much. I respected them a lot. I continue to respect them, and I think they're an awesome band and there's still lots to learn from them.”

Perhaps looking to downplay the toxic narrative, Mustaine has joined Metallica onstage several times over the last decade or so. Mustaine has also spoken of his regret of punching Hetfield in the face; an incident which contributed to his dismissal.

Building on Friedman’s comments, Chris Poland, who was one of the band’s earliest lead guitarists and has contributed to three records across two tenures in the band, has reflected has spoken about how the band reacted to Metallica’s seminal album, Master of Puppets.

The Bay Area thrashers had already built a steady following with their first two LPs, but their third full-length saw their status skyrocket. That left a bitter taste in the mouths of Megadeth’s members.

“I was so bummed out,” Poland reflects in conversation with Ultimate Guitar. “Our record [Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?] had just come out, and when I heard the production on Master of Puppets, I was so pissed. And I knew it was because those guys were focused. We were not focused. We were drug addicts.”

"I mean, they wrote great songs. And we pulled Megadeth's songs off, but we weren't saying, 'Maybe we should retube that amp and get it biased?' We weren't thinking like that,” he says of his former band’s lack of attention to detail. “Plus, those guys were in Europe.

"Everything was running at 240, even the console. I think that had something to do with why that record sounded so good. And the producer [Flemming Rasmussen] was just freaking amazing.”

If anything, Metallica’s success with Master of Puppets was to Megadeth’s benefit. Thrash metal blew up in 1986, and the band was at the heart of it. And looking at the Megadeth records that followed in its wake, 1988's So Far, So Good... So What! and '90s Rust in Peace, the album may have lit a fuse under Mustaine’s backside.

In related news, Marty Friedman has explained why playing live is the best way for guitarists to improve and praised John Sykes' guitar playing in the wake of his passing.

The thorny subject of the greatest guitar solo of all time has long been a fiercely contested debate, probably because every solo is different. How do you compare, say, “Comfortably Numb” with “Crazy Train,” or “Stairway to Heaven” with “Sultans of Swing”? It’s impossible. Still, public opinion ebbs and flows, and we wanted to find out which solos currently rank among our readers as the greatest of them all.

So we ran a poll on GuitarPlayer.com to find out and here we present the results. We’ll take a look at the stories behind the songs and find out just what made those lead guitar breaks so great through conversations with Brian May, Kirk Hammett, Michael Schenker and others.

20. Gary Moore | “Still Got the Blues”

GUITARIST: GARY MOORE (1990)

The definitive blues guitar ballad.

Presented as the title track from his 1990 album, this wistful tune in A minor became Gary Moore’s calling card fairly late in his career, when he reinvented himself as a blues artist. There’s a point in the solo where you can hear the Belfast great switch from the neck humbucker to the bridge on the 1959 Les Paul Standard he nicknamed Stripe and start deviating from its main theme, mainly sticking within the A minor pentatonic scale, with a few notes from the Aeolian and harmonic minor scales.

Moore was plugged into his prototype Marshall JTM-45 reissue head with one of the company’s newly designed Guv’nor distortion pedals out in front. More than 30 years later, this remains one of the most raw and expressive blues tracks, with Moore almost fighting his guitar at points, yet never failing to deliver the goods

19. Metallica | “Fade To Black”

GUITARIST: Kirk Hammett (1984)

Metallica’s first ballad features some of Kirk’s most epic playing.

Recorded at Flemming Rasmussen’s Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen in February and March 1984, Ride the Lightning, Metallica’s sophomore album, was more progressive and stylistically greater in scope than the all-out thrash assault of their debut, Kill ’Em All. That change is evident on “Fade to Black,” which features acoustic guitars and a nonstandard structure more akin to the “Stairway to Heaven” school of songcraft. But it is the song’s timeless melodic solo that most vividly signals a stylistic shift in guitarist Kirk Hammett’s playing. And the signature element he employs for the last solo is arpeggios.

“I have been playing that song for so long now,” Kirk tells our sister publication Total Guitar. “For the very last solo, I know how I want to start it, but then I am in an area where I can improvise for 16, 18 or 24 bars, and then [drummer] Lars [Ulrich] will hit a certain fill, which means that it’s up and it’s time for the arpeggio part. And then I just slide right into those arpeggios.” And they are arpeggios played on two strings, Hammett specifies. “When guitar players first started incorporating arpeggios into their playing, before the whole Yngwie sweep-picking thing, arpeggios were played on two strings – not three or four strings,” he explains. “And that was what the vogue was at the time in the 1980s, so I have been playing those for a long time. I use my middle finger just to anchor my position on the neck.”

That’s a great tip from the man who plays the solos. But how should you tackle them yourself? First, there are two essential scales you’ll need to know: the B natural minor scale and the B Phrygian mode, both shown below. These cover you for the entire opening 30 bars, which, let’s face it, is a lot of music, so this is a good reason to learn a couple of shapes if ever there was one.

To make it simpler, most of your time is spent in the natural minor scale. Not until around bar 20 will you find yourself briefly landing on the C note, which appears in the Phrygian mode. The bottom line is that Hammett improvises this part of the solo live – and these are the shapes he uses.

Up next are those two-string arpeggio shapes, and they’re 16th notes – all of them! At 142 bpm, it’s pretty fast, but Hammett doesn’t pick every note, opting to use pull-offs to make those rapid licks easier. It’s definitely something to experiment with and if you’re still struggling, you could try adding in an occasional hammer‑on, too.

18. Steely Dan | “Kid Charlemagne”

GUITARIST: Larry Carlton (1976)

Messin’ with the “Kid.”

Steely Dan’s catalog is filled with remarkable guitar solos, but Larry Carlton’s brilliant work on The Royal Scam’s “Kid Charlemagne” remains the most celebrated. Carlton strings together a series of tasty phrases that follow the underlying chord changes with a blend of inside and outside playing that is technically mind bending and emotionally satisfying.

“I was pretty familiar with the tune, so I just improvised,” he tells Guitar Player. “People think I’m kidding when I say that, like I had worked the solo out beforehand, but I didn’t. It was straight improv, and it worked.” Very well, in fact. Perhaps more has been written about his solo than of the song itself.

Despite the acclaim, Carlton was, and remains, nonplussed. “When the record came out, there was a wonderful review of the tune in Billboard and they raved about the solo,” he says. “I put the record on and listened to it with my wife, and at the end of it I said, ‘I don’t know. It just sounds like me.’”

17. Cream | “Crossroads”

GUITARIST: Eric Clapton (1968)

The finest rock and roll cover of an acoustic blues song.

It started as a blues tune called “Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson and became one of the finest examples of natural ability, soulfulness and showmanship from a virtuosic 22-year-old guitarist named Eric Clapton. His reimagining of the song as “Crossroads” further cemented a legacy that by then had earned him the nickname God.

Famously recorded at San Francisco’s Fillmore West venue for supergroup Cream’s Wheels of Fire album, Clapton’s arrangement retains the soul and spirit of Johnson’s original but updates it for a contemporary audience raring to cut loose and be entertained by dazzlingly quick, passionate musicianship.

Remarkably, Clapton is no fan of the performance: He complains that the band lost the “one” in the first verse of his second solo break, thereby throwing off his phrasing. That’s perfectionism for you. For everyone else, this four-minute track remains a source of fascination more than 50 years on.

16. Eric Johnson | “Cliffs Of Dover”

GUITARIST: Eric Johnson (1990)

Heavenly tones from the Texan great.

This instrumental won Eric Johnson a Grammy for its exquisitely tasteful guitar playing and jaw-dropping tones. For the recordings, the Texan musician mainly stuck with his early ’60s ES-335, though he chose to use his 1964 “Virginia” Strat for the opening lead and parts of the main solo. The guitars were fed into a 100-watt Marshall Super Lead, with an Echoplex and BK Butler Tube Driver to help achieve those smooth, violin-like tones and warm sustain.

“I first heard him in 1986 on Live at Austin City Limits,” Joe Bonamassa told us in 2015. “It was ‘Cliffs of Dover,’ and it was just terrifyingly good guitar playing. I wasn’t even sure if it was real! Then I saw him live, and his tones were the best I’d ever heard. I wondered how this guy was getting all of these sounds out of his Strat. I’d never seen anybody have such a forward-thinking rig like that.”

15. Prince | “Purple Rain”

GUITARIST: Prince (1984)

The Purple One’s defining guitar moment.

The epic outro to “Purple Rain” – which takes up nearly two thirds of the song itself – stands out as some of Prince’s finest work on the six-string, wailing away in G minor pentatonic and occasionally including some more modal notes, like the minor 6th. There’s also that repeating motif that dances around the 2nd and minor 3rd intervals.

It’s simple and effective, setting things up for the vocal melody that comes in toward the end. It’s not a busy solo by any means. Rather, the Purple One chose to leave a lot of space in between the lines he played and focus on big hooks instead of monster licks.

Prince would extend the solo for up to 15 minutes in live performance. While there are many great live renditions of this track, his half-time performance for 2007’s Super Bowl in Miami is the stuff of legend. Shredding alone onstage in the middle of a storm, Prince seemed to be living the moment for which this song was written.

14. Deep Purple | “Highway Star”

GUITARIST: Ritchie Blackmore (1972)

Race with devil on English highway.

“I wrote that out note for note about a week before we recorded it,” Ritchie Blackmore said of his remarkable and most definitely memorable solo to “Highway Star.” “And that is one of the only times I have ever done that. I wanted it to sound like someone driving in a fast car, for it to be one of those songs you would listen to while speeding. And I wanted a very definite Bach sound, which is why I wrote it out – and why I played those very rigid arpeggios across that very familiar Bach progression – D minor, G minor, C major, A major. I believe that I was the first person to do that so obviously on the guitar, and I believe that that’s why it stood out and why people have enjoyed it so much.

“Over the years, I’ve always played that solo note for note, but it just got faster and faster onstage because we would drink more and more whisky. [Keyboardist] Jon [Lord] would have to play his already difficult part faster and faster, and he would get very annoyed about it.”

13. Guns N’ Roses | “Sweet Child O’ Mine”

GUITARIST: Slash (1988)

A game of two halves.

Slash’s solo on this Guns N’ Roses breakthrough single is rock guitar at its finest. The first half is laid-back and modal, built around the Eb minor scale with a few major 7ths thrown in for a harmonic-minor flavor. The second half is much more aggressive and bluesy, and sticks mainly to position one of the pentatonic scale an octave up the neck in the same key. The bends feel that much wider and the vibrato more pronounced.

Slash plays the first section on the neck pickup for thickness and warmth before switching over to the bridge for more bite, with his Cry Baby engaged. Perhaps most impressive is his off-the-cuff sense of feel and how he strings it all together, which is the mark of any great guitar solo. Remarkably, although Slash’s riff was responsible for the song’s creation, he wasn’t fond of the song originally. “We were a pretty hard driving band, and that was sort of an uptempo ballady type of a thing,” he said. “So it’s grown on me over the years.”

12. Ozzy Osbourne | “Crazy Train”

GUITARIST: Randy Rhoads (1980)

Fretboard fireworks galore on Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz comeback.

The Double-O has often cited Randy Rhoads as the man who saved his career – and when you hear the solo on “Crazy Train,” you understand why. Although Rhoads’ classical- and modal-based approach was far from Tony Iommi’s blues leanings, he was, like Ozzy’s old bandmate, a true inventor.

There’s a section toward the end of this solo that actually sounds like a train squealing off the tracks, thanks to the use of a chromatically ascending trill that then descends in key. Rhoads concludes the solo with a fast-picked F# minor pentatonic phrase before a rapid Aeolian legato run ending with a big bend on the 19th fret.

The shredder performed the solo with his customized Jackson guitar through a Marshall and a couple of 4x12s while sitting in the control room. “We’d plug the guitar directly into the console,” recalls Blizzard of Ozz engineer Max Norman. “We’d preamp it in the console and send it down to the amp from there. That way we could control the amount of gain that hit the amp.”

11. Michael Jackson | “Beat It”

GUITARIST: Eddie Van Halen (1982)

Breathtaking results from an unlikely pairing.

Asked to contribute guitar to Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, Pete Townshend declined but offered a suggestion: How about Eddie Van Halen? Jackson and producer Quincy Jones thought that was a great idea, and got Ed onboard to play the solo to “Beat It.” But after hearing the part where he was asked to solo, the guitarist was unhappy with the chord changes and had the engineer edit the tape to create a new pattern that better suited what he had in mind.

Ed knew Jackson might be surprised and possibly unhappy with his executive decision. “So I warned him before he listened,” he told CNN in 2012. “I said, ‘Look, I changed the middle section of your song.’ Now in my mind, he’s either going to have his bodyguards kick me out for butchering his song, or he’s going to like it. And so he gave it a listen, and he turned to me and went, ‘Wow, thank you so much for having the passion to not just come in and blaze a solo but to actually care about the song and make it better.’” And he did it for free.

10. The Beatles | “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

GUITARIST: Eric Clapton (1968)

An uncredited Slowhand makes a rare guest appearance with the Fab Four.

By 1968, George Harrison was penning compositions that rivaled those of his bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was every bit as good as anything his musical partners wrote, but no one could get up the enthusiasm for it, so Harrison invited his pal Eric Clapton to play on the session, knowing it would put the Beatles on good behavior.

Using Harrison’s 1957 “Lucy” Gibson Les Paul through a Fender Deluxe amp, Clapton doesn’t so much mimic the haunting, aching main melody as he creates a harrowing song within a song. His descending bends and release notes, and that inimitable vibrato, are on full display and are appropriately tear-jerking, weaving a dramatic narrative that builds to a shattering climax.

9. Chicago | “25 OR 6 TO 4”

GUITARIST: Terry Kath (1969)

Wah-drenched ecstasy.

This magazine once described Terry Kath’s “25 or 6 to 4” solo as “Wes Montgomery meets Jimi Hendrix,” and it’s a fair point, as Kath was influenced first by jazz and, later, hard rock. As a founding member of the jazz-rock band Chicago, he held down guitar duties for the group until his tragic death from an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1978.

Though his superb playing graced many tracks – notably “Introduction” and “Free Form Guitar,” both from the group’s 1969 debut, The Chicago Transit Authority – there’s no denying the power of his soloing on the group’s early hit “25 or 6 to 4.” Kath uses his wah generously to add emotion to his lines, giving them at times a frenetic despair.

Kath most likely played his Gibson SG Standard, as pictured on Chicago Transit Authority’s inner sleeve, using his favored string set, as revealed to GP: the high E string from a tenor set and a standard set for the rest, moved down one string (i.e. high E for the B string, B for the G string, and so on).

8. Lynyrd Skynyrd | “Free Bird”

GUITARIST: Allen Collins (1974)

The Bird is the word.

As it happens, the four-minute-and-24- second guitar solo that closes “Free Bird” was originally added to give singer Ronnie Van Zant a chance to rest his vocal cords during Lynyrd Skynyrd’s relentless performance schedule. At 143 bars long, the solo is far and away the most epic offering here (in fact, it’s 286 bars of recorded music because the whole thing is doubled).

The tune appeared on the group’s eponymous debut album in 1973, and guitarist Allen Collins delivered the lot on his 1964 Gibson Explorer. As Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington once told Guitar World, “The whole long jam was Allen Collins himself. He was bad. He was super bad! He was bad-to-the-bone bad. When we put the solo together, we liked the sound of the two guitars, and I could’ve gone out and played it with him. But the way he was doin’ it, he was just so hot! He just did it once and did it again, and it was done.”

7. Dire Straits | “Sultans Of Swing”

GUITARIST: Mark Knopfler

An understated guitar hero fingerpicks his way to glory.

Right when the world was crowning Eddie Van Halen the new King of Guitar, along came the rather unassuming Mark Knopfler – schooled in rockabilly, blues and jazz – who demonstrated that you didn’t need walls of distortion to turn heads.

Knopfler composed this pub-rock classic on a National steel guitar but thought it sounded “dull” – that is, until he picked up a Stratocaster, at which point the song “came alive.” Using nary a hint of grit on a Fender Twin, he fingerpicks not one but two standout solos.

The first features a lyrical section of elegant, Chet Atkins-style single-note and chordal bends that sigh and swoon with dreamy romanticism. In itself, that would be enough, but the outro solo is the real attention-grabber, on which Knopfler builds to a dazzling set of spitfire 16th-note arpeggios – cleanly played, precise and rousing every time you hear it.

6. The Jimi Hendrix Experience | “All Along The Watchtower”

GUITARIST: Jimi Hendrix (1968)

The greatest solo in a cover version.

This song tops any list of covers that are better than the original. Guitarists invariably refer to it as a Hendrix cover rather than a Bob Dylan original, proof of how much Hendrix made it his own. Jimi’s rhythm playing is astounding, both in the intro and in the deft chord/ melody work of the verses, and of course, there’s the small matter of four guitar solos to consider. The man many refer to as the best of all time makes the most of his Strat and Marshall rig here, but it’s his offering at the 2:20 mark that we’re interested in. Following an opening run of octaves, he gets into his stride with a typically blues-based minor pentatonic approach in C#.

At 2:32, the main solo explodes into a trademark combination of rhythm and lead, plus funky scratching on muted strings. It’s worth playing along with the scratches, trying to keep a loose wrist and consistent down-up strumming. Those few beats alone will teach you a lot about Jimi’s groove and feel.

To get the sound, select a bridge-position single-coil pickup, dial in delay at around 350ms, add compression for sustain and opt for a Vox wah pedal or something similar. You’ll hear the wind begin to howl.

5. Eagles | “Hotel California”

GUITARISTS: Don Felder & Joe Walsh (1977)

Those iconic twin-guitar harmony lines took the Eagles to new heights.

The title track from the Eagles’ fifth album, and without doubt the song the band will be most remembered for, “Hotel California” frequently tops greatest guitar solo polls. The solo begins at 4:20, forming an extended coda, over which guitarists Don Felder and Joe Walsh trade licks before joining together to play those iconic harmonized licks at 5:39.

As it turns out, those harmony lines work in a relatively simple fashion. Felder and Walsh play an arpeggio of every chord, and the harmony is created by one of the guitars always playing one note lower down in the chord. For example, the notes of the Bm chord are B, D and F#, so, if the higher guitar plays an F#, the lower guitar will play a D, and so on.

This nugget of information can take you a long way to mastering those descending arpeggios. We won’t go as far as to say you could easily work it out by ear, but if you know the chords to the song, it’s possible to jam along. And you can’t say that about many of the solos on this list!

4. Queen | “Bohemian Rhapsody”

GUITARIST: Brian May (1975)

It might just be the biggest rock song of all time.

Following Freddie Mercury’s 1991 death and a cameo moment in 1992’s Wayne’s World, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became a trigger point for a worldwide outpouring of affection and respect for Queen. Their renewed popularity would continue into the new millennium as Ben Elton’s We Will Rock You musical and the band’s discovery of a different way to exist behind frontman Adam Lambert brought their music to a new generation.

And “Bohemian Rhapsody”? Unsurprisingly, it’s Queen’s best-known song, and its brief nine-bar solo is a short and sweet musical interlude, bridging the verses to lead into what’s become known as the song’s “operatic section.” Those two words alone should warn you that this song shouldn’t work. There’s no chorus and, aside from two verses, no repetition. But of course it does work, and Brian May’s solo is the perfect melodic break.

His phrasing is loose and natural, moving across the backbeat rather than sticking to a rigidly timed grid. The fastest licks are expressive bursts, rather than repetitive noodling, and his articulate pre-bend and vibrato technique demonstrates his beautiful touch. Somehow, within the confines of the complex structure of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” this solo is made to order.

3. Led Zeppelin | “Stairway To Heaven”

GUITARIST: Jimmy Page (1971)

Heaven-sent soloing.

From the moment Jimmy Page plays the opening run on his ’59 Fender Telecaster, right through to the flurry of notes and the wailing bend that completes it, this is guitar-solo perfection – a masterpiece of composition. Rather than wander aimlessly, Page creates a song within a song.

The opening phrases set the scene, as he adds notes to the pentatonic scale to follow the song’s final chord progression. A rapid mid-solo repeating lick raises the bar before a game of question-and-answer with a haunting overdubbed guitar leads into that last flurry and bend. As we say, it’s all about the composition: licks that track the chord changes, the contour of the melody and the pacing of the widdly bits all take the listener on a journey.

Three takes were recorded (the other two allegedly still survive, presumably locked in a Led Zeppelin vault somewhere), all of them improvised, although Page has reportedly said that he had worked out the opening line. But while we’re all certainly curious to hear those solos, let’s face it: They’re not going to be any better than the one we’ve come to know and love all these years.

2. Van Halen | “Eruption”

GUITARIST: Eddie Van Halen (1978)

Eddie’s iconic solo that shook the world.

With its mix of fast legato hammer‑ons and pull-offs, pinched harmonics, whammy-bar dives and two-hand tapping, Eddie Van Halen’s mind-blowing instrumental guitar solo inspired a generation of guitar heroes. While the tapping gets the attention, his tone, blistering legato and creative note choices are all equally important. Amid all that virtuosity, Eddie still played with joyous rock and roll abandon.

Remarkably, Ed was never completely happy with the released recording. “I didn’t even play it right,” he told Guitar World. “There’s a mistake at the top end of it. Whenever I hear it, I always think, Man, I could’ve played it better.”

His admission aside, the track is a technical opus. The first eight bars are a bluesy affair, whose virtuoso legato licks perhaps recall the mojo of Jimmy Page’s breakdown solo in Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” It’s a theme Eddie develops over the following eight bars, taking notes from the major and minor pentatonic scales to add chromatics.

His tapping finale is probably one of the least understood solo sections in rock history. Eddie’s taps are not always on the beat, which makes for tricky timing changes as he switches from tapping the first and fourth sextuplet notes to the third and sixth notes. From start to end, “Eruption” is a masterpiece that would take most guitarists a lifetime to perfect.

1. Pink Floyd | “Comfortably Numb”

GUITARIST: David Gilmour (1979)

Gilmour’s greatness comes through in waves.

In a 1992 interview with MTV’s Ray Cokes, Gilmour was asked what he thinks of Keith Richards’ theory that songs, lyrics and guitar solos are “just out there in the air and you sort of grab them.” Gilmour agreed. “I think he’s right. They sort of appear as if they are out there in the air. But I don’t know how they get there.” But the best ones he said, just happen. “The best ones do, but often you work very hard and struggle over them.”

Gilmour's two "Comfortably Numb" solos are certainly among his best, and it’s easy to understand why our readers voted his efforts to be the number-one pick in our poll. But the real question is, which of those two solos qualifies for inclusion? Whichever way you go — and granted, most fans prefer the first solo to the second — there's certainly plenty to justify the song's position at the top.

The tone is legendary. Gilmour’s signal chain consisted of his iconic black Strat, then featuring a DiMarzio FS-1 bridge pickup, into a HiWatt DR103, with the essential EHX Ram’s Head Big Muff pedal. The FS-1’s fatness and the Big Muff’s smoothness leave no hint of the harsh treble that can plague Strats. With some extra help from an MXR Dyna Comp, Gilmour had so much sustain that he could hold notes as long as he wanted. As in his live rig, he combined a WEM 4x12 cab with a Yamaha rotary speaker lower in the mix, to add subtle modulation. The epic delay was added in the mix.

The first solo, in D major, uses the Strat’s neck and bridge pickups together, permitted by a custom switching arrangement. His phrasing here is the more unconventional of the two, with arpeggios and sliding passages. Gilmour’s use of the bar for vibrato – aided by its shortened tremolo arm – again distinguishes him from typical bluesers, inspiring many a fusion player in the process. He rakes into the beginning of many of the phrases, similar to Brian May, extracting all the excitement he can from every note.

By comparison, the outro solo’s licks are more standard, with phrases similar to Hendrix’s. The passages at 4:57 and 5:12 could be from “All Along the Watchtower” or “Foxey Lady,” but in this epic track few listeners would make the connection. It sounds both masterful and improvised at the same time. Gilmour has explained he created this impression by recording five or six takes and compiling the finished solo from the best bits of each. The result is stunningly well written, with a combination of repetition and development that keeps the excitement building for two minutes. The Hendrix-style blues lick returns at 5:27, longer and more intricate than before. The aggressive double-stops first appear at 5:15, and by 5:35 he has turned that idea into a motif.

For the climax, Gilmour shoots up an octave just when it seems he’s wrung every inch of expression from his maple neck. He descends back down the neck, incorporating one of his spectacular three-fret bends on the way, and finishes with another take on that double stop motif. It has all the excitement of an improvised performance, and all the structure of a careful composition.

Both solos share brilliant rhythmic awareness. Gilmour uses triplets, sextuplets, 16th and 32nd notes freely, within the same phrase. And check out the effect at 5:10 when he plays a lick in 16th notes and then immediately repeats and expands in sextuplets. A good solo can have great tone, rhythms, melody or expression, but only a work of rare brilliance features them all to this degree.

WHEN GUITARIST ERIC JOHANSON was coming up, it wasn’t the slippery slide work of Elmore James and the tones of the blues greats that excited him. Once he began playing at age five, what kept him interested in guitar was the manic rhythm playing of Metallica’s James Hetfield. 

“The rock albums with the big, thundering bass, the drums punching you in the chest and the guitars that sounded huge — that’s what drew me in,” Johanson explains. “Some of my earliest experiences trying to figure out what I was hearing came down to the tones and textures and the sound itself, rather than the notes and chords.” 

Johanson’s obsession with building walls of sound with his guitar never stopped, even as his interests expanded to include blues. For evidence, listen to the tall tones on The Deep and the Dirty (Ruf Records), his fourth and latest album of original music, which are as ferocious and fuzzy as anything in Jack White’s catalog. 

Those tones have been part of his sound all along — like his speaker-shredding blast on “Till We Bleed,” from his 2017 debut, Burn It Down, and the adrenalized tones on “Buried Above Ground,” from 2020’s Below Sea Level — but they’re larger than ever now.

 “I’m working on my sound constantly,” Johanson says. “When I get in the studio, it’s more or less just a snapshot of what I’ve got going on with the rig at that moment. I’m a big fan of that symmetry between the studio setup and the live setup.” 

After starting out in 2010 as a guitarist for acts like Cyril Neville, Johanson signed with Tab Benoit’s Whiskey Bayou Records in 2016 and has worked solo since. 

On 2021’s Covered Tracks volumes one and two, he dug mostly into acoustic instruments as he re-imagined songs by Nine Inch Nails, Chicago, Fiona Apple and the Beatles. But on The Deep and the Dirty, Johanson roars back on electric from the first notes of the opening track, “Don’t Hold Back.” 

“I’m really into the raw experience of the moment,” he says. “I want this explosive kind of energy. There’s something about a really gritty Velcro fuzz that, to me, expresses the emotion I was trying to get across, especially opening up the record like that.”

Given what you’ve said about how rock music affected you as a child, I have to imagine tone remains your primary focus?

I’m really particular about tones, and I always try to get the sounds right with just the guitar and the amp first when recording. You really can’t fix that if it’s not right to begin with. I like a lot of bottom end, so I’m usually running a 4x10 cabinet or a 4x10, plus a 1x12 or 2x12, because I like a full-range sound. 

Once I’ve got a full-range sound going, then I’m usually trying to dial in enough grit to have some sustain and a little bit of natural compression going on without losing the definition or getting too much high end. 

Is having a full-range setup a necessity for you in a trio? 

I think it definitely is. If you’re doing the trio thing, it wouldn’t make sense to have an exclusively top-end sound, because you are covering so much ground. But that also is just what appeals to me. I really don’t like piercing guitar tones that lack bottom end. There are guitar players I like a whole lot, like Freddie King — I love him and can listen to him all the time — but I would never try to seek out his guitar tone. 

My tone knobs are generally set up the middle, with a little tweak one way or another, depending on what it’s sounding like to me in the room. I want to have this natural, warm, full sound, where it can be loud without hurting your ears. 

Is the core of your sound still your Category 5 amplifier? 

That’s the main amp. It’s just one channel, with volume, tone and reverb controls, but I also have a ’66 Fender Deluxe Reverb as the second amp, and they’re pretty much equal in the mix at all times.

On The Deep and the Dirty, we also had an Orange amp for a clean track, just in case, and it did come in handy on some of the fuzzy songs and places where we wanted to bring out more definition. Other than that, it was pretty much just the rig. 

I really like a round sound, so I’ve taken to stacking a couple of overdrives. While I like the sound of the amp just cranked, it doesn’t always respond exactly how you want it to, because it can start to collapse on itself with a non– master volume amp. 

So I’ve gotten into trying out different overdrive pedals and figuring out which ones stay true to the sound of the amp. Fuzz is really a new thing for me. I stayed away from it for a while, just because it’s such a different level of intensity sometimes.

How deep is your overdrive bullpen now? 

The sound of the Category 5 when cranked is great, but I have taken to not running it in a super-overdriven state, partially because I like the punch of the note attack. On a non–master volume amp, when you start to get it to sing, you also lose the percussive attack. You can’t really have both. And the way I’ve been able to dial that in, especially at different volumes and different venues, is to use overdrives. 

The Origin RevivalDRIVE is one pedal I’ve found that’s really good for that. It has a mix control, so depending on the level I’ve got the Cat Five turned to, I can use the mix knob to let through more of the direct guitar or the pedal. 

In front of that, I’ve gone back and forth between a Klon KTR and a Wampler Tumnus Deluxe, which I like because it has a full EQ on it, so you can get those mids under control a little bit. But the KTR is the one I used on this record. I had a gold Klon back in the early 2000s, but I lost it in Hurricane Katrina.

How closely did the themes on The Deep and the Dirty influence your tones? 

The style of music I play is very much about creating in the moment, so every time you play it you’re reinterpreting it live, and it’s different every time. 

I’m getting into those ideas in various places on the record, and certainly the first song, “Don’t Hold Back,” is exactly what I’m talking about. This moment, right now, is all we get. There’s something about the tone that grabs me; the texture of it excites me. 

I’ve learned that I am just about as into sound as I am into music. In other words, the textures and the tones of things. I want the sound of the record to be the sound of the actual guitar rig, versus just recording some old little vintage amp that you only had in the studio that week. I want to feel like I’m hearing the speakers right in front of me.

The Deep and the Dirty by Eric Johanson is out now and available to buy or stream

Gibson has announced the next rare guitar on offer via their Certified Vintage program is a ‘Burst called 'Sunny.'

This “immaculate” 1960 Les Paul Standard was previously owned by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett who gave the guitar its nickname on account of its tone.

“'Sunny' is special because not only is she in immaculate condition, but her tone is so present and bright,” said Hammett. “It’s like the sun cutting through clouds on an overcast day. Hence the name ‘Sunny.’ That’s the truth. The name came because she was so full and bright sounding.

Appearing on electric guitars in 1957, Gibson PAF humbuckers are generally prized for their open, articulate sound, though each pickup is unique (the bridge pickup in ‘Sunny’ measures 8.2k ohms while the neck pickup reads 7.6k).

This, along with the natural variation in wood, gives each ‘Burst a unique personality.

And with its highly figured maple top and rich Cherry Sunburst finish, this example stands out as among the most desirable of its type.

Originality is also a crucial factor when it comes to determining the value of vintage guitars and ‘Sunny’ appears with no major mods. However, like so many Les Pauls from this era the original tuning keys appear to have perished, though Gibson says the guitar has now been restored with “correct 1950s Kluson single-line/single-ring” tuners.

Such repairs are essential in order for the instrument to remain playable. As Mark Agnesi told us in a recent interview: “If you’re talking about value, what’s it really worth to you if you can’t play it?”

Fully authenticated by its maker, this 1960 Les Paul Standard, serial number 0 1490, is covered by Gibson’s new limited lifetime warranty and ships with its original case along with a modern Gibson Deluxe Protector Case.

“The reason I chose Gibson Certified Vintage for the worldwide offering is because having a mint vintage Gibson guitar can sometimes feel like having a brand-new Gibson guitar,” continues Hammett. 

“They’re made that well. And this is what’s really special; the fact Gibson recognizes this and is willing and ready to re-warranty these beautiful instruments.

 “I think this is just a great reflection of Gibson’s integrity towards the past, present, and future.”

All Gibson Certified Vintage guitars are offered via the Gibson Garage in Nashville, TN.

Select models will be available for purchase here.

'Sunny' is available now for shipping or pickup at the Gibson Garage.

Call (615)933-6000 for more information.

Following up the recent news of another Greeny Les Paul replica, Gibson has announced the latest creation in their ongoing collaboration with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett.

The Kirk Hammett 1979 Flying V – a recreation of the guitarist’s first-ever Gibson axe – is now available worldwide via Premium Gibson dealers and Gibson.com.

Priced $14,999, the Kirk Hammett 1979 Flying V joins the ranks of the highly collectible Custom Shop artist models – many of which have appreciated in value over the years.

Check out this 2010 limited-edition Gibson Custom Shop aged/signed Kirk Hammett Flying V replica listed at $16,500, for example.

Limited to just 200 instruments worldwide, Gibson’s latest batch of Kirk Hammett guitars was crafted in Nashville, Tennesse at the Custom Shop and expertly aged by the Murphy Lab. Each comes with a Certificate of Authenticity photo signed by the Metallica star.

Considered one of the most important electric guitars in the history of metal, Hammett’s original 1979 Gibson Flying V appears all over Metallica’s earlier albums, including Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, …And Justice for All, and Metallica a.k.a. The Black Album.

Inspired by V-toting metal guitarists like K.K. Downing of Judas Priest and Michael Schenker of Scorpions, the young musician purchased his Flying V because, according to Gibson, he was “looking for a fuller sound.”

Featuring a single-piece mahogany body finished in Murphy Lab aged Ebony nitrocellulose lacquer, the Kirk Hammett 1979 Flying V boasts a Kirk Hammett V Profile neck with an Indian Rosewood fretboard.

Hardware includes M6 Schaller tuners, a custom replica bridge and a '79 V truss rod cover, while Hammett’s “full” signature tone is provided by a pair of T-Type humbuckers. Comes with an SKB Flying V case.

Visit Gibson for more information.

So many guitarists of the late ’70s and ’80s were using the Roland stereo chorus in the studio that it’s sometimes difficult to parse if the sound was coming from an amp (such as the JC-120), a pedal (like the CE-1, CE-2 or CE-3 Chorus Ensemble) or a Dimension D rack unit.

Regardless, “that sound” is all over countless classic recordings from the era.

When used in the studio, the JC-120 provided a meatier rendition of the tone that players had previously achieved by DI’ing their tracks.

As noted by Steve Levine, producer for Culture Club, China Crisis and others, “In the right hands it’s quite a tone palette, you can do a lot with it. It does bridge the gap between being a regular amplifier and a kind of DI’d monster.”

Billy Duffy of the Cult and other projects derived the clean, chorused element of his signature tone from a JC-120, often used in combination with a Marshall JCM800 or other tube amp.

Although the Cult hit “She Sells Sanctuary” has a heavy feel that helped lodge it as a classic rocker amid the British New Wave boom of the mid ’80s, the guitar tone on the song is clear and clean, and slathered with JC-120 chorus.

“The signature sound of the first two Cult albums was the Gretsch and a Roland JC-120,” Duffy explains on BillyDuffy.Com. “The Roland is great for the early, chimey stuff, because of that chorus sound – which I can really only get out of the combos. Some guys get a great sound with just one amp, but I’ve never been able to do it.”

Johnny Marr’s use of chorus with the Smiths was generally pretty subtle, but also an essential ingredient of his sound on many classic tracks.

“The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” and “I Don’t Owe You Anything” from the Smiths’ self-titled debut album reveal a nuanced chorus tone that might have been JC-120, CE-1 or Boss CE-2, while the swirl is a little thicker on songs like “The Headmaster Ritual” and “I Want the One I Can’t Have” from the 1985 follow-up, Meat Is Murder.

Marr turned to that sound again for his latest solo album, 2022’s Fever Dreams, where we hear it prominently on “Receiver,” “Ariel” and other tracks, shining through what is otherwise a denser mix than heard on early Smiths records.

“For this album, I also dug out my old Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amp,” he told Rod Brakes in Total Guitar magazine. “Transistor amps have a sonic presence that puts the sound right in your face. It’s sort of an Ennio Morricone sound.”

While Andy Summers’ seminal swirl on early Police hit “Message in a Bottle” is purported to be a combination of pedals, he is also a long-time devotee of the JC-120, and often had one in his touring rig with the band.

“The Roland JC-120 has been a staple in my collection of amplifiers for as long as I can remember,” he told Roland.com, “probably from the day it came out! I have used it on many recordings for its distinctive clarity of sound and always-superior chorus. If I am playing away from home and amps have to be supplied, my first choice is always the JC-120. It is a no-fail amp in just about every situation.”

While it might sound counter-intuitive, heavy metal icons Metallica have often turned to the JC-120 for the clean tones tracked by guitarists James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett.

Several songs on 1988’s …And Justice for All feature the amp, likely heard most prominently on “To Live Is to Die,” but also apparent in the mellower passages of “One” and the intro to the title track.

It’s no surprise, however, that a creative sonic sculptor like Adrian Belew might have fallen in love with the JC-120’s sound, as he did from the very first listen. “I first heard a JC-120 at a casual party in L.A. in 1977,” he told Roland. com. “Someone was playing some chords and noodling around – not very well in fact – but the sound mesmerized me.

“I had never heard an amp sound so pristine and beautiful. There was a shimmering clarity to every note. Then the player turned on the actual stereo chorusing. Wow! What an incredible sound. I nearly fell off my chair! I sat there speechless until I finally asked if I could play through it. Within the first two notes I played, I was madly in love with the JC-120.

“To me, the stereo chorusing and vibrato were the single most beautiful guitar sounds I’d ever heard an amp produce. I was in L.A. at the time rehearsing with Frank Zappa, my first big break in the music business. I told Frank about the amp, and the next day one showed up for us to investigate.

“Frank liked it enough to advance me the money to buy my first JC-120. I still have it ensconced in my studio. I still love it and still record with it.”

Belew’s first prominent use of the JC-120 appeared on the 1978 Zappa classic Sheik Yerbouti, but he also plastered the amp – with and without chorus and vibrato effects – on several tracks of David Bowie’s 1979 album, Lodger, the seminal Talking Heads super-group affair Remain in Light from 1980 and King Crimson’s 1981 smash, Discipline, which reveals that crystal-clear shimmer on Belew’s tour de force “Elephant Talk,” “Frame by Frame,” “Thela Hun Ginjeet,” “The Sheltering Sky” and others.

Visit the Roland website for more information on Jazz Chorus amps.

Click here for info on Boss chorus pedals.

Rock Believer, Scorpions’ new album, has been a long time coming. It’s their first release in seven years, since 2015’s Return to Forever, and, happily, it is exactly the record Scorpions fans would want, bringing elements of their most successful albums, 1979’s Lovedrive and 1984’s Love at First Sting.

As it happens, that was no accident. The band deliberately set out to channel the forces that were at work back then, even resorting to using the same guitars and amps that were used on those landmark Scorpions albums.

With estimated total album sales of around 100 million, Scorpions are a huge live draw around the globe.

Just ask rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker. “We’ve played in 88 countries,” the founder of the German hard-rock group notes.

“I remember James Hetfield being asked by an interviewer how many countries Metallica had played in, and he replied that he wasn’t sure, but he knew it wasn’t as many as Scorpions.”

Schenker and Scorpions singer Klaus Meine may be well into their 70s, but they are showing no signs of slowing down the pace of their live work.

The band were in the middle of intensive rehearsals when Guitar Player tracked down Schenker and lead guitarist Matthias Jabs to discuss the new album. They were in fine spirits, overflowing with enthusiasm for the record and the chance to get back onstage.  

Rock Believer is one of the strongest records in your catalog. What accounts for that?

Matthias Jabs I’m really delighted with the result. The circumstances were different from how we recorded in the past, because the pandemic forced us to work by ourselves, as the producer that we’d chosen couldn’t come to Germany, and we couldn’t go to L.A.

We decided that we’d have to produce it ourselves, but that turned out to be the right move, because we had no outside influence and could really concentrate on doing exactly what we wanted to do.

Rudolf Schenker Yes, we were in our own bubble in the studio, and we could work on it as long as we wanted – but without overworking it, which can sometimes be a problem. We knew exactly what we wanted though, which was to capture the DNA of [1982’s] Blackout and Love at First Sting.

It’s very much the record every Scorpions fan would want to hear.

Schenker We wanted to make a rock album that was not too polished. We wanted to go back into the center of what Scorpions should be, because sometimes we have been a bit too polished. We wanted to make a rock album for the rock community.

Jabs I think so too. Looking back, I think we found our signature sound in the early ’80s, and you can hear, without any outside influence and advice from producers, that is still what we sound like.

The production is very raw, and also live sounding.

Schenker I think the fact that we played live in the studio contributed a lot to that raw sound.

Jabs I agree. I think the way that we recorded it is the best way to do it. Bands tend to use programmed drums and fly things in, and we’ve done the same things ourselves on recent albums.

But the fans told us that it doesn’t have the liveliness of older records when we record that way. We made Rock Believer like we made Love at First Sting, where we were all standing in the room, all playing the basic tracks live.

This is the first studio album that you’ve recorded with Mikkey Dee behind the drums. How did he affect the band’s sound?

Schenker I think Mikkey plays very slightly in front of the beat, like me, and this gives a very live feeling to the songs, because there it feels like the beat is almost being pushed. When everything is perfect, it is boring. [laughs]

Mikkey has a special kind of attack, and I think we bring the same feeling, which sounds very natural for Scorpions.

Jabs He’s a really good drummer, which helps recording everything live. He has a really positive personality and he’s great to hang with, so he brings a great vibe to the recording process. He has a lot of energy. You can play for eight hours, and he never tires out.

What was the songwriting process like?

Schenker We wanted to make the album without any outside writers. Greg Silverman, who was originally scheduled to produce before the pandemic hit, made suggestions for a couple of songs, so we gave him a credit, but otherwise everything – the writing, playing and producing – was done by the band.

The good thing with this album is that Klaus wrote the lyrics first, which we’ve never done before. The lyrics were very inspiring. I was living in Thailand when he was sending me the lyrics, and I would drive around, picturing how the songs should sound, remembering the way we would feel when we were playing live and touring.

Jabs Rudolf will prepare a basic demo – the chord changes and sometimes a riff – and then we all work on them to turn them into the final song. I will come up with guitar arrangements and some riffs as well.

When we are all standing together working on the songs, it’s easy to come up with ideas and try them out right away. We know immediately what works.

Mikkey always insists that we have proper endings to the songs, so that is something we also have to work on.

The opening track, “Gas in the Tank” is really hard hitting, yet very commercial. There’s a great line in there: “The king of riffs is back in town.” The solo really lifts the track even further.

Schenker Yes that is a great line. [laughs] It is so positive, everything is like it was in the ’80s for us musically at the moment. We are so positive and enthusiastic.

Jabs I wrote the riff for the solo part first, then I worked on the solo. The sound you can hear at the beginning is a battery-powered drill. [laughs]

Several of your solos feature harmonized parts. How will you do those parts live?

Jabs I will play the solo, as I’ve done on previous harmonized solos, and our front-of-house mixer will bring in a harmonizer on key parts of the solo, at peak spots, so it gives the impression that the whole thing is in harmony.

The title track, “Rock Believer,” looks like it will be a live anthem.

Schenker Yes, because we are rock believers. I’ve been a rock believer for over 60 years. [laughs] We’ve got three generations of rock believers now around the world. A large percentage of our fans are under 28.

Jabs Actually, the demo for this was very mellow, a little like the first verse, but for the whole song. I thought if we’re going to call it “Rock Believer,” then it should rock. I changed the intro, the riff and the riff under the solo. I think it gave the song a totally different sound.

“Seventh Sun” has an interesting mix of guitar sounds. There is a hint of “Kashmir” about it.

Schenker There is. “Kashmir” is a fantastic song. When a song goes really deep inside you, sometimes some elements of it will come out in something that you write years later. I think “Seventh Sun” shares some of that great atmosphere of “Kashmir.”

In 2016 I was onstage in Tokyo with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, and I said to Jimmy afterward that he inspired me to write “Still Loving You” because of “Stairway to Heaven.”

Jabs There is a hint of “Kashmir” and also a song we did in the ’80s called “China White.”

“Seventh Sun” is like a collage of slide guitar and regular playing. It’s important that you find the right stuff to keep the momentum and the atmosphere when you’re creating guitar parts. Sometimes a regular guitar solo doesn’t really cut it, so you have to find something different to lift the song. It was important to keep the mysterious feel of the track.

We’ll definitely be playing this song live. It has a very heavy feel. The new songs sit so well with our classics that we’ve ended up adding six songs from the album to our live set while we’ve been rehearsing.

What did you use to record the album?

Schenker I mostly used the electric guitars and amps that I used in the early ’80s – 50-watt Marshalls, the ’58 Flying V that I’ve used for years. It’s an unbelievable-sounding guitar.

Jabs Guitar-wise, I used my old Les Pauls. I have a ’58 and a ’59, and I also use a ’55 Junior with P-90s for rhythms. I also used my old Explorers and Strats that I used on the ’80s records, plus all the old amps and cabs as well, like my old Soldano amp and a Fender Tone-Master.

I also used a ’61 Vox AC30, which I bought during the recording because I wanted something super clean.

I think the way that you get to the point with your solos, without overstaying your welcome, keeps a lot of the vitality and the urgency of the songs.

Jabs Exactly. It was always my goal that the guitar solo should give the feeling of the song continuing, even if it’s on a different level, rather than it sounding like it’s gone into an instrumental phase. The solo should be part of the music, and that’s what I always end up going for.

There should be some melody that is a reminder of the main melody of the song. It is much harder to play a great guitar solo in eight bars than it is if you’ve got three minutes.

You announced the farewell tour in 2012, yet here we are 10 years later. What was the reason for that?

Jabs When we announced it, we were serious about it, but a couple of weeks into the tour – I think it was at the airport in Lisbon – I asked Klaus, “Who thought of the idea to call this the farewell tour?”

He told me he didn’t know. I was so surprised because I thought it was him, as he is the oldest of us.It turned out nobody in the band knew – everyone I asked thought it was someone else in the band. [laughs]

Turns out it was the management, who were thinking that, with Klaus and Rudolf in their mid ’60s, they’d want to stop by the time the tour ended a couple of years later.

As soon as we played the “last” show, we got the call to do MTV Unplugged. I went to Stockholm several times to arrange the Unplugged concert, and that kicked us back into things.

Schenker Sting in the Tail was a great album, but our management thought maybe we couldn’t top it. As Matthias said, the MTV Unplugged invitation really made us have a think about our music. We’d always wanted to do it for years but had never been able to fit it into our touring schedule. I think it made it seem obvious that we should carry on.

Michael Schenker attacks the band, and you, Rudolf, on a frequent basis in interviews. Does that bother you much?

Schenker I tell you one thing: I love my brother. He can say whatever he wants to say. He’s an amazing guitar player, an amazing person – whatever he wants to say, why not say it? [laughs] If that is what makes him happy, then okay. I wish him all the best.

I think, sooner or later, we will all be friends again and we will play together again. My life is too happy to put myself into a dustbin over it. I want to live in the sky. I am so happy for my life. [laughs]

Jabs That’s fine for you, but I think it’s pretty dumb of him to keep doing that. It’s not smart at all. I feel that airing whatever you might think or feel about your family in public just shows a complete lack of style. You don’t do that. And as a band, we don’t care.

I always had a good relationship with Michael, but when I hear things like this, I don’t really want to have a relationship with him.

It’s been 50 years since the first Scorpions album, Lonesome Crow. I’m sure you didn’t think you’d still be discussing your music 50 years later.

Schenker I always believed in myself, the band and the future of rock – always. People in Germany would say to me that I was crazy, I was stupid to think that I’d be able to make a living doing this. People told me that I should get a real job, or else what would I do for a living when I was 40.

I used to just say, “Fuck you.” [laughs] I live for music, I love music. I never want to be part of a system, or a puppet. I was looking for the right chemistry, the right people, and when I found them I knew that we would be successful.

We wanted to be like the Rolling Stones, traveling around the world and making music.

It is interesting, and a sign of your ambition, that you recorded all the songs in English from the start, with the clear intention of reaching a worldwide audience.

Schenker Exactly. The reason why I picked Scorpions for our name was because it was a good name that would be understandable in Germany – where we had to start – but also all around the world.

That was why I didn’t spell it with a K, which is how it is spelled in Germany, but with a C. It was not easy at first – we wanted to go outside of Germany, to the world. We played everywhere we could, every continent, every country, to show the world who we were and what we had.

I always wanted to play in America. I remember telling [producer] Conny Plank, who wanted to sign us very early on in Germany, that we wanted to play in America, and Conny laughed, saying, “Don’t you know how many great musicians there are in America?”

I just said, “Fuck it! We’re going to play there.” [laughs] It took seven years before we did our first American shows in Cleveland, supporting AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Ted Nugent.

What keeps everything fresh after so many years?

Jabs We enjoy what we’re doing, and we have no plan B. [laughs] This is all we know. Now, after two years without concerts, I feel so desperate to get back out onstage again.

We’re definitely not tired, physically or mentally, and we really want to get back on tour and to play the new songs as well. It’s great to get a chance to refresh the set list. We played the last set for over four years, so it’s exciting to change things up.

Schenker And I would add, I enjoy my life; I enjoy my music; I am thankful for everything that I’ve got.

If you make your life positive, it stops you getting old. If you are miserable, you will get old too fast. We have an amazing new live set, we are fit enough, we’ve got a full tank of gas, and we will rock you like a hurricane. [laughs]

There was a long gap between the last album and this one. Do you anticipate the next record coming out over a shorter interval?

Schenker I don’t know. To be surprised by life is the best thing that you can do. I think routine and too much planning breaks the feeling of surprise. I’m just going to be open to what happens.

Jabs I don’t know when we’ll do another one at this stage, but I do know that we won’t make the same mistake again of announcing our last show or our last album. It’s better to keep quiet. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve been on a very long encore.

Order Scorpions’ Rock Believer here.

We recently asked a handful of some of the guitar world's best-known players to recommend their favorite lesser-known solos.

Here’s what Metallica’s electric guitar whizz Kirk Hammett had to say…

1) UFO | “Rock Bottom” from ‘Strangers in the Night’

GUITARIST: Michael Schenker

“I love the version on Phenomenon, but on the live version from Strangers in the Night, Schenker shows the full breadth of his playing style. He plays melodically, he plays modally. He has this European sensibility in his note choices. He ups the intensity of the song slowly, and at one point he does a harmony line with the keyboards. The intensity builds as he plays with more and more energy, until the drum break in the middle. Then the chord change hits. He pushes the intensity dial up to 13, playing toward this crazy, emotional, dynamic conclusion. It’s wonderful and beautiful, and I have so much reverence for it.”

2) Judas Priest | “Beyond the Realms of Death” from ‘Stained Class’

GUITARIST: Glenn Tipton

“That middle solo by Glenn Tipton is amazing. His sense of melody is astounding, but it’s also his tone. It’s so great, and every single passage he plays makes sense melodically. It’s really catchy and hummable, and you can sing along to it.”

3) Santana | “She’s Not There” from ‘Moonflower’

GUITARIST: Carlos Santana

“His use of the wah pedal, his attack and energy across the three solos in the song... He uses a couple of techniques that are a little off the cuff – super-long delay time, and pressing on the string behind the bridge to give a whammy-bar effect. The phrasing and tone on these solos are amazing.”

Pick up Santana’s Moonflower here.

Get Stained Class by Judas Priest here.

Grab UFO’s live album Strangers in the Night here.

If you are able, cast your mind back to 1991 and you may remember a slew of albums appearing within weeks of each other that would forever change the course of music.

There was, of course, Nirvana’s Nevermind and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik (September 24); Guns N’ Roses' Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (both released on September 17); and Metallica’s eponymous ‘Black Album’ (August 12). Not to mention the debut albums Leisure by Blur and Pretty on the Inside by Hole (August 26 and September 17, respectively).

And on this day, in the middle of 1991’s soundtrack peak, arrived Pearl Jam’s debut album, Ten. Five years later, the band would release their fourth studio album, No Code, also on August 27.

In celebration of these classic albums, Pearl Jam have today released newly remixed state-of-the-art digital-only editions of Ten and No Code. Both the 30th anniversary digital edition of Ten and 25th anniversary digital edition of No Code have been mixed by producer/sound engineer Josh Evans in state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio for an an immersive sonic experience.

"These two albums sound amazing in the immersive format," said Evans. "For Ten, the goal was to create the best version of the record, bigger, wider and higher fidelity; now, it actually sounds as great coming out of your speakers as it does in your memory of hearing it the first time.

“25 years ahead of its time, No Code almost sounds like it was intended to be an immersive album; experimental layers, nuance and raw aggression are all amplified and expanded in a simultaneously bigger and more intimate experience."

Later today (5pm PT) a free streaming event kicks off on Pearl Jam’s YouTube, Facebook, and nugs.net. Presented by Pearl Jam’s fan community Ten Club this free stream showcases Pearl Jam performing No Code live in its entirety.

Reverb.com has announced an official Jason Becker gear shop – featuring six- and seven-string guitars autographed by an all-star lineup of guitar greats – in an effort to raise funds for The Jason Becker Special Needs Trust.

Headlining the shop is a 'Triumphant Friends 2' Kiesel JB24 signed by every member of Metallica, Sammy Hagar, Steve Vai, Tosin Abasi, Herman Li, Steve Lukather, Alex Lee, Albert Lee, Neal Schon, Elliot Easton, Stevie Salas, Warren DeMartini, and Chris Broderick.

Additionally, the shop is offering a Joe Satriani-signed and -stage played 2004 G3 "Flame" guitar, a stage-played Nili Brosh-signed Ibanez seven-string, a PRS SE signed by Mark Tremonti, an Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro signed by all of the members of Trivium, a Jackson Pro signed by Jeff Loomis, and a BC Rich sporting the autograph of Zoltan Bathory.

Reverb.com says that this batch of signed guitars will soon be joined by more signed gear, including a Paul Stanley-signed Ibanez signature. 

All proceeds from the sale of the instruments will go to assisting Becker – who has battled ALS for 30 years, and recently experienced a health scare that sent him to the hospital – with his medical costs.

For more info on the guitars, stop by reverb.com.

Barely a couple of days after the sale of the ESP 400 Series S-Type he used in Metallica's "One" video, another legendary Kirk Hammett guitar is headed to the auction block.

This particular instrument is the head-turning, glow-in-the-dark, custom ESP "Ouija Board" guitar that Hammett used onstage, and on Metallica's blockbuster 1991 self-titled album, plus the band's three subsequent efforts – Load, Reload, and S&M. 

Put on the block by Gotta Have Rock and Roll, and said to be in "very good" condition, the guitar features graphical elements invoking ouija boards, plus EMG pickups and a Floyd Rose tremolo. 

Notably, as a unique mark of its authenticity, the guitar features a hand-written note on the back from Hammett that reads "This guitar has been one of my main touring & recording guitars of the 90s… This guitar has been used extensively on the albums Load, Reload, Garage Inc., Black Album, and S&M."

Along with its original touring case, a certificate of authenticity, and photos of Hammett with the guitar, the Ouija Board ESP will be sold with a signed, stage-used guitar strap.

The auction for the custom, Kirk Hammett-used ESP Ouija Board guitar goes live tomorrow, Wednesday, April 14. The minimum bid for the guitar – which is valued at $300,000 – $350,000 – is $225,000.

For more info on the guitar, head on over to gottahaverockandroll.com.

The ESP 400 Series S-Type guitar that Kirk Hammett used in the music video for Metallica's 1988 hit, "One," has sold at auction for $112,500.

Sold by Heritage Auctions, the autographed, 7.9 pound guitar features a rosewood slab neck, Floyd Rose-style trem, a trio of single-coil pickups, a natural finish, and black hardware. Having begun with a starting bid of just over $20,000, the S-Type was bought by an anonymous bidder.

Taken from the band's 1988 album, ...And Justice for All, "One" was Metallica's first top 40 hit, and remains – as one of their most well-known songs – a live staple for the band.

The guitar was accompanied by a certificate of authenticity – also signed by Hammett – and its original hard case.

For more info on the guitar, stop by entertainment.ha.com.

The ESP 400 Series S-Type guitar that Metallica's Kirk Hammett used in the music video for the band's 1988 classic, "One," is on the auction block.

The autographed, 7.9 pound guitar – which is in "excellent" condition, according to its listing – features a rosewood slab neck, Floyd Rose-style trem, a trio of single-coil pickups, a natural finish, and black hardware.

The guitar is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity – also signed by Hammett – and its original hard case.

The current bid for the guitar – the auction for which is being held by Heritage Auctions – is $26,000. Bidding for the guitar ends this Sunday, April 11.

For more info on the guitar, stop by entertainment.ha.com.

ESP has teamed up with Metallica's Kirk Hammett to launch the 30th Anniversary KH-3 Spider guitar.

Based on the KH-3 model Hammett used extensively on Metallica's 1992 Black Album tour, the KH-3 Spider features an alder body, extra-thin U-shaped three-piece maple neck with a neck-thru-body construction, and a 24-fret Macassar ebony fingerboard with a 24.75" scale length, skull and crossbone inlays, and scalloped frets from position 17 to 24.

Sounds come by way of Hammett's signature EMG Bonebreaker pickups, while a Floyd Rose 1000 bridge also comes standard on the guitar.

Based on the design from Hammett's original KH-3, the spider graphic on the guitar's lower bout was created by graphic artist Pushead.

“I really like the feel of the single cutaway shape, and thought it would be great to add a locking trem and my usual EMG pickups,” Hammett said. “Not to mention also having the perfect area to plaster the killer Pushead graphic that was drawn specifically for this guitar back in the day!”

The LTD version of the ESP 30th Anniversary KH-3 Spider will be available in February for $1,299, while the hand-crafted ESP version will arrive later this year for $4,699.

For more info on the guitar, stop by espguitars.com.

Gibson has given Metallica's Kirk Hammett an official, custom reproduction of "Greeny," his beloved, and legendary, 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard.

Originally owned by the late blues guitar legend and Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green - and sporting a famously backward neck pickup that gave the guitar its trademark, "out-of-phase" sound - "Greeny" was purchased by Hammett from vintage guitar dealer Richard Henry in 2014.

Hammett has used the guitar - which was later sold onto the equally influential Gary Moore - extensively since, both onstage with Metallica and at the star-studded Peter Green tribute concert that took place at the London Palladium in February. 

"Special thanks to Cesar [Gueikian] and Mark [Agnesi] at Gibson for making me a Greenie twin!" Hammett wrote on Instagram.

The elephant in the room, of course, is whether or not this means we'll soon be seeing a Gibson Custom Shop Greeny replica produced on a wider scale.

There have been a number of unofficial replicas - not to mention the countless guitarists who've had the Greeny neck pickup mod applied to their own Les Pauls - but an official Greeny replica run would definitely be timely, given the guitarist's recent passing. 

Replica run or not, we'll certainly keep our eyes peeled!

A few years ago, Metallica’s James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett sat down with Jude Gold for Guitar Player’s April 2017 issue. The wide-ranging conversation was heavy on gear, including a discussion about the guitarists’ touring rigs.

During the interview, Gold asked Hetfield and Hammett, “If I was onstage with you at a soundcheck and you handed me your guitar and said, ‘Here, give it a swing,’ what do you think might surprise me about playing through your rig?”

Hetfield: You’d probably be surprised that there isn’t a giant backline, and that it’s not as loud as you might expect it to be. I have two cabinets and that’s it. A lot of our sound is coming through in-ear monitors, and a lot of it is coming through the Meyer wedges we use on stage. 

We’re very happy with our monitor sound. A huge wall of amps doesn’t seem necessary to us anymore. We like to be a little more streamlined, so we can show up at a TV show, a radio thing, a stadium, or a club, and things will work the same in every setting.

Hammett: If you picked up any of my guitars, you might be surprised that they’re not super easy to play, because I play with relatively high action. If a guitar’s action is really low, I don’t like it. I need to have some space between the string and the neck.

There would probably be less wear and tear on my hands and my fingers if I lowered the action a little, but I like the guitar to fight back - especially because my right-hand attack is so aggressive. 

I don’t want it to be too smooth and seductive, because my playing style is half caveman, half Lord Byron. My strings aren’t even particularly light. At home and in the studio, when we’re in [A 440] concert pitch, I use Ernie Ball .011s. When I’m on the road, though, and playing for hours and hours each day, I’ll go down to .010s.

What are your go-to stage guitars these days?

Hetfield: It’s mostly ESP guitars for me - all of which have Ernie Ball strings and my EMG Het Set pickups. I’m really loving my ESP Vulture - which has a Flying V type of design that I came up with last year - and also my ESP Snakebyte.

I’ve also got a few Gibsons in there - just for diversity. I love the V shape, the Explorer shape, and the traditional Les Paul shape. Those shapes fit my body best, and I love playing them. But that Vulture guitar! It’s nice and light and it’s really lively sounding.

Hammett: We actually have two entire sets of touring guitars and amps. We call one the Black System, and the other the Blue System, and they leapfrog when we’re touring. If, say, the Black system is at a show in London, the blue system might be on its way to Switzerland. 

On one system, I’ll have my original 1988 ESP KH-2 “Skully” guitar - the very first ESP that I ever got - as the main guitar. The other system features my ESP “Mummy” guitar, which I’ve been playing since the ’90s.

The problem used to be staying consistent with the amp sounds, because one system would usually have a better-sounding amp than the other, and James and I would always know which system sounded better. But we solved that problem when we switched to Fractal Axe-FX processors. Now we have the same guitar sound everywhere - even in rehearsal.

Hetfield: We’re really pleased with Fractal. It’s amazing. For my rig, we went into the studio and put some sounds into it - a combination of my Mesa/Boogie amps mixed in with a little bit of my Diezel sound. The clean sounds are from the Roland JC-120.

On stage, Mesa 2:Ninety power amps drive my cabinets, but those cabs aren’t miked at all. They’re only there for my monitoring, for getting feedback, and for just feeling it. The Fractal is going direct to the board.

Hammett: For a while, we didn’t have any cabinets onstage, but that was just too weird. I need to hear something. I need to feel the air being pushed by the speakers for it to sound natural to me. So I have one cabinet on stage for monitoring, and one cabinet in a flight case with a fixed mic on it.

The following is an excerpt from an archival GP interview with Kirk Hammett, in which we asked the Metallica guitarist to list the five guitar solos that changed his life. 

“Let Me Love You Baby” - Jeff Beck Group

Why? It was the first guitar solo I figured out by myself!

“Mother Mary” - UFO

Hearing Michael Schenker for the first time changed how I wanted my own solos to sound in terms of phrasing, technique and being something that was memorable and catchy.

“Machine Gun” - Band of Gypsys

A sonic, mystical, multi-dimensional journey into some otherworldly soundscape that triggers my imagination every time I hear it. I feel captivated by the mere mention of this song!

“Sails of Charon” - The Scorpions

To me, Ulrich Roth was one of the first guitarists to use that neo-classical guitar style, and this solo was totally unique at the time, simultaneously melodic and dynamic, with a climax so incredibly ripping. How can so many notes be so perfectly in place?

“Warrior” - Thin Lizzy

This solo was the first time I’d ever heard a wah pedal. I remember that when that sound came out of the speakers, it startled me. The one guy that I’ve always thought did not get enough credit was Brian Robertson, and his style and feel is something that I aspire to.

It’s not that Metallica frontman James Hetfield isn’t thrilled that his band’s new album, Hardwired … to Self-Destruct [Blackened], debuted at number one worldwide—the sixth Metallica release in a row to do so. It’s just that there’s another number that is more important to him—zero. That’s how many empty seats the singer/guitarist likes to see at Metallica concerts. It’s also how much space the singer/guitarist would, in a perfect world, have between the audience and stage.

“I want to see faces,” says Hetfield, who works with stage designers and venue managers to get the barricades at Metallica shows as close to the stage as local ordinances will legally allow. “I need to see eyes. I need to see the reaction. I need to get the energy. And, yes, I am pretty surprised at the huge response to Hardwired. People buying the record and making it number one is a very nice thing. But I don’t worry about whether we’re number one, two, or three, or whatever. For me, when people show up to watch us play, that’s when it feels successful.”

Similarly, aside from spending time with his family, Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett can’t think of anything he loves more than taking the stage with Hetfield and his other two band mates—bassist Robert Trujillo, and drummer Lars Ulrich.

“I rarely have a bad Metallica gig because I enjoy myself so much up there,” says Hammett. “I’m like all other guitar players—I like hearing my guitar really loud. I’m not even really talking about filling the arena or stadium full of guitar sound. That’s cool, too, but I just love standing in front of any amp cranked up to that sweet spot where it gets warm—whether it’s in my house, in a club, a small hall, or even back at [Metallica] HQ.”

Although both guitarists have, in recent years, relocated their families out of Northern California (the Hammetts to the Hawaiian Islands, the Hetfields to Colorado’s Rocky Mountains), HQ remains the tricked-out San Rafael, California, office/rehearsal facility/recording studio/clubhouse/pinball parlor where most things Metallica still go down. For this interview, though, the guitarists called in from the winter leg of their 2017 World Wired Tour—Hetfield from Beijing, China, before the band’s show at the Sports Arena, and Hammett, a few days later, after their concert at Singapore’s Indoor Stadium. And these “Enor-moDomes” are small venues for Metallica, who will likely be playing American stadiums later in 2017, when they embark on their first U.S. tour since 2009.

But whether Metallica is playing arenas or stadiums, the band’s worldwide success is all the more astonishing if you remember where they used to play ….

When I started at Berkeley High School in the mid ’80s, I often noticed flyers on nearby telephone polls advertising Metallica gigs at a local club called Ruthie’s Inn—sometimes with Exodus or Megadeth on the bill. What were those shows like?

Hetfield: Ruthie’s was a lot of fun. Back then, we had no worries, no agenda. And it was our local hang, too. Going there was our weekend ritual. No matter who was playing, we’d be there.

Hammett: We didn’t require much—just a few amps, a drum kit, and some guitars, and we were good to go. We were always having sound problems, but it didn’t matter, because we were only concerned with getting up there and being as heavy, aggressive, confrontational, and visceral as possible. Nowadays, it’s the same basic ingredients, but the glaring difference is that we have better equipment, and a higher level of quality that we need to hit.

When I finally had a band and gigged at Ruthie’s a few years later, it was a rainy night, and there were buckets everywhere inside the club—even on the stage—to catch water coming through the ceiling.

Hetfield: Actually, at our show in Shanghai a couple of nights ago, there was a leak in the arena’s roof, and it was dripping right onto my dry T-shirts for stage! [Laughs.] Since those days, we have evolved into a worldwide band that is still going after 35 years—which is still unbelievable to think about.

Obviously, with success, you were able to hire pro guitar techs and tour managers. But is their any staffer you have now that you never dreamed you’d have?

Hammett: Yes. Mike Gillies. He runs our Pro Tools rig and records every single live show, rehearsal, and TV appearance we do. He also maintains a huge reference library of all our music—which is helpful if, say, we’re in doubt about a part on a song we haven’t played in a long time, or we want to hear what tempo we were doing a song at on the last tour. He has a lot of album stems, too, so he can often isolate the original part for you, slow it down, or even change the pitch to match whatever tuning you’re in. His position is not one we ever asked to be filled. His job just sort of evolved over time.

I understand you guys have a tuning room set up at every venue. A whole room just for tuning?

Hetfield: It’s a band room, actually, where we can run through songs and go over vocal harmonies and guitar parts, etc. And when we’re performing in places like China, it can be interesting, because there are certain songs we’re allowed to play, and others we’re not. So, because of the censorship that still happens, there may be some songs we need to rehearse that we haven’t played in a while. Sometimes, a new riff comes up in there, so we record it on the spot, and maybe it ends up on the next record. Also, while we’re in there, we’ll figure out if there are particular sounds we need to work on with the crew. But we have an amazing road crew that is very well prepared, so we usually don’t even need to soundcheck.

If I was on stage with you at a soundcheck, and you handed me your guitar and said, “Here, give it a swing,” what do you think might surprise me about playing through your rig?

Hetfield: You’d probably be surprised that there isn’t a giant backline, and that it’s not as loud as you might expect it to be. I have two cabinets and that’s it. A lot of our sound is coming through in-ear monitors, and a lot of it is coming through the Meyer wedges we use on stage. We’re very happy with our monitor sound. A huge wall of amps doesn’t seem necessary to us anymore. We like to be a little more streamlined, so we can show up at a TV show, a radio thing, a stadium, or a club, and things will work the same in every setting.

Hammett: If you picked up any of my guitars, you might be surprised that they’re not super easy to play, because I play with relatively high action. If a guitar’s action is really low, I don’t like it. I need to have some space between the string and the neck. There would probably be less wear and tear on my hands and my fingers if I lowered the action a little, but I like the guitar to fight back—especially because my right-hand attack is so aggressive. I don’t want it to be too smooth and seductive, because my playing style is half caveman, half Lord Byron. My strings aren’t even particularly light. At home and in the studio, when we’re in [A 440] concert pitch, I use Ernie Ball .011s. When I’m on the road, though, and playing for hours and hours each day, I’ll go down to .010s.

What are your go-to stage guitars these days?

Hetfield: It’s mostly ESP guitars for me—all of which have Ernie Ball strings and my EMG Het Set pickups. I’m really loving my ESP Vulture—which has a Flying V type of design that I came up with last year—and also my ESP Snakebyte. I’ve also got a few Gibsons in there—just for diversity. I love the V shape, the Explorer shape, and the traditional Les Paul shape. Those shapes fit my body best, and I love playing them. But that Vulture guitar! It’s nice and light and it’s really lively sounding.

Hammett: We actually have two entire sets of touring guitars and amps. We call one the Black System, and the other the Blue System, and they leapfrog when we’re touring. If, say, the Black system is at a show in London, the blue system might be on its way to Switzerland. On one system, I’ll have my original 1988 ESP KH-2 “Skully” guitar—the very first ESP that I ever got—as the main guitar. The other system features my ESP “Mummy” guitar, which I’ve been playing since the ’90s.

The problem used to be staying consistent with the amp sounds, because one system would usually have a better-sounding amp than the other, and James and I would always know which system sounded better. But we solved that problem when we switched to Fractal Axe-FX processors. Now we have the same guitar sound everywhere—even in rehearsal.

Hetfield: We’re really pleased with Fractal. It’s amazing. For my rig, we went into the studio and put some sounds into it—a combination of my Mesa/Boogie amps mixed in with a little bit of my Diezel sound. The clean sounds are from the Roland JC-120. On stage, Mesa 2:Ninety power amps drive my cabinets, but those cabs aren’t miked at all. They’re only there for my monitoring, for getting feedback, and for just feeling it. The Fractal is going direct to the board.

Hammett: For a while, we didn’t have any cabinets onstage, but that was just too weird. I need to hear something. I need to feel the air being pushed by the speakers for it to sound natural to me. So I have one cabinet on stage for monitoring, and one cabinet in a flight case with a fixed mic on it.

Do you feel like the Fractals sound as punchy on stage as your tube heads do?

Hetfield: Well, they probably won’t ever sound exactly the same as amps they’re replacing, but we’ve worked really hard to get them extremely close. And I’ll tell you, for convenience’s sake for our crew, and for consistency out front for our soundman, Big Mick [Hughes], it’s an amazing setup.

Metallica hasn’t done a U.S. tour in eight years. Any hints as to what the new stage is going to be like?

Hammett: At this point, we have a lot of plans, but we can’t go into detail because it’s still developing. One thing we are going for is a cleaner look—less gear onstage, and more focus on what the four of us are doing.

Do you guys still get the same emotional release from playing the guitar as you did when you started as teenagers?

Hetfield: Absolutely. I’ve probably said this before, but my wife will know when I’m in a crappy mood, and she’ll say, “Hey, when’s the last time you played guitar?” Guitar really does put me in a happy state—a content state. I love just sitting and playing. And I’ll tell you, when you’re out on tour and you play your rig through a giant P.A. system in a stadium, it’s still cool. It’s like a kid living the dream.

Kirk, what directions are you going as a lead player these days?

Hammett: Well, it’s really strange. My ten-year-old son plays cello, and my eight-year-old son plays violin. They’re just starting, but there’s a lot of classical music in the house. And in much the same way as when I used to put on Jimi Hendrix and get licks from “Red House,” I’ve started doing that with classical pieces. I’ll hear a little thing and go, “What is going on there?” Then, I’ll grab my guitar and figure it out. I had never thought of doing that with classical music. I’m also loving tango music. I can’t believe how emotional it is. I totally love Cuban music, too, and I am obsessed with Bossa Nova, as well. I love Jobim. I spend a totally inappropriate amount of time sitting with my acoustic guitar playing Bossa tunes over and over.

When a guitar player walks into HQ for the first time, is there anything about the place that might blow his or her mind?

Hammett: Well, it’s like Guitar Center, but personalized. [Laughs.] James and I really like Les Pauls, so you’ll see a lot of those. You’ll also see a lot of ESP guitars—my models, and James’ models. You’ll see amps stacked high—new amps, vintage amps, and boutique amps. There’s also whole bevy of guitar effects—stompboxes and rack stuff—and a piano that everyone poses with, but never plays. Honestly, we’re so stocked up on gear, that I’m shocked when we discover we don’t have something and need to buy it.

I have a lot more guitars than I actually need, so I’ve started going through them to figure out which ones really sound good and which ones mean something to me. The rest I’ve started selling anonymously on eBay. I won’t tell anyone that I’m the owner, because if I do, the transaction gets complicated.

Your rigs are slimming down, your stage is more streamlined, and your guitar collections might be shrinking. Listening to the new record, it seems as if you’re also streamlining musically a bit—back to raw thrash metal, but with a modern sound.

Hetfield: I think we get a little older in life and want to simplify things and stick to the stuff that works. As far as the album itself being streamlined, though, I don’t know. We had so many riffs, the album had to be on two CDs!

I love the way the album sounds. I think [producer] Greg Fidelman did an amazing job at helping us get the sounds we wanted. It sounds really powerful, but also smooth, so that you can really turn it up without it punishing your ears. You don’t get ear fatigue listening to it. It’s warm, but fat. That’s really what we were after.

In an age of dropped-tunings and 7-and 8-string guitars, I’m amazed at how heavy you guys made the songs in E sound. It’s like you somehow made E sound heavier and deeper than it should.

Hetfield: I think that’s part of the lively feel to Hardwired—staying in E on many songs, instead of recording dropped, like we do live. We’ve experimented with that quite a bit. Having one song that’s tuned down—“Dream No More”—creates some good diversity, but when you have everything tuned down, eventually it all just sounds the same.

The “Moth Into Flame” chorus lick is so catchy. How did that materialize?

Hetfield: We probably played it on the road somewhere, and it got recorded and put in our library. It doesn’t really matter who put the riff in there, because all four band members have tons of ideas stored up—especially now, since it’s been eight years between albums. When it’s time to plan a record, Lars and I sit down, as we’ve done with all our albums, and we go through all the riffs to find find the A+ riffs. “Moth” was definitely one of the A+ riffs.

What are some of the craziest, wildest, most Spinal Tap moments that have occurred on your big stages?

Hetfield: Lots of things have happened to us on the road, from electricians being electrocuted to big pieces of pig parts flying up on the stage at festivals, to bolts and darts being thrown at us. I haven’t really done the falling off the stage thing yet, but our career’s not over [laughs]. Our stages have been extremely dangerous over the years. There has been fire hidden underneath the stage, things that fall over and explode, roadcrew members seemingly falling out of lighting rigs. We’ve done lots of crazy things that scared people, which is always pretty fun. In the movie Through the Never, there’s that new, improved And Justice for All statue crumbling down and bouncing into the crowd. We’ve even had big Tesla coils onstage. I don’t think anyone else has done that.

Hammett: During the Ride the Lightning tour, I think I fell off the stage two or three times. Part of the reason for that was we used to drink before we went on, and sometimes my footing wasn’t as good as it could have been. Next thing you know, I’m on my back. One funny thing that comes to mind is the night we changed the key of “Jump in the Fire” from G to F#, because we had figured out that if it was down a half-step, we could utilize open strings—which always makes things sound bigger. So, later, when we’re deep into our set, the song finally comes up, and someone forgets that it’s now down a half-step. Everything’s off by a minor-second. We’re a full two minutes into the song, and it’s still completely atonal. I mean, to be fair, when you have in-ear monitors, and all you can hear is yourself, it’s hard to figure out that you’re in totally a different zip code than everyone else. But that was hilarious. It was microtonal f**king chaos.

I wanted to congratulate you on cofounding KHDK Electronics, Kirk. What’s it like being in the guitar-pedal business?

Hammett: It’s a lot more fun and creatively satisfying than I expected it to be. I love the fact that I’m manufacturing pedals that I want to use. It’s such a great feeling to be able to think something up, have it built, and then have it sitting in front of you. My partner, Dave Karon, and I have been trying to get these pedals into everyone’s hands—musicians in rock bands, funk and soul bands, blues bands, jazz bands, and country bands—because we are not just a heavy-metal pedal company. We’re also in the process of building pedals for a few other guitar players right now, and I’m really excited about that, because I want them to get the same feeling I got when I had that first KHDK Ghoul Screamer sitting in front of me. There I was, thinking, “Finally! A Tube Screamer with more knobs and compression.” I want to be able to offer that kind of situation to players who have an idea for a pedal that they’ve always wanted to have, but that no one has built.

What do guys think of djent? Do you check out bands like Meshuggah, who are still very much metal, but are taking the rhythmic complexity factor to the next level?

Hetfield: Of course. Yeah. We’ve done quite a few shows with Meshuggah. They’re one of a number of bands out there that are really pushing the limits as far as sonics go, as well as playing some extremely intense and challenging stuff. It blows my mind that I have no idea how they can remember those songs. Then again, people ask us the same question—“How do you remember that song?” Well, you write it. That’s how you remember a complex song. When you write the song, it’s a lot easier to remember than if you’re trying to learn someone else’s thing.

Kirk, you’ve been public about the fact that in recent years you’ve become alcohol-free. Has quitting drinking helped your playing?

Hammett: Yes, it has. Alcohol just stopped working for me. So, about two-and-a-half years ago, I quit drinking. I had been in this routine for years and years where we’d play a show, and, afterwards, I’d go out and get drunk, come back to my hotel room, grab my guitar and start playing, and two or three hours later, pass out and go to sleep. I still play guitar in my hotel room after shows, but now I do it without being drunk. And this means that the next morning, I remember what I played the previous night. It stays with me. Because of that, I’ve reconnected with my guitar in a way I never expected. It’s the weirdest thing to have been playing guitar since I was 15 years old, and, then—36 years later—connect with it in a completely different way. It blows my mind.

Kirk’s Green Machine

Since the summer of 2014, Kirk Hammett has been the owner of what may be the most hallowed Gibson Les Paul in history: “Greeny,” the famous ’59 Standard once wielded by revered British bluesman Peter Green. Yet Hammett doesn’t feel like he’s the guitar’s owner.

“I just feel like I’m the guy taking care of it for this period of time,” says Hammett, who purchased the instrument for “under seven figures”—a bargain, apparently. “Greeny has its own fan base. It has its own life separate from mine, and I love that. It’s not tied to me like some other guitars are. And everyone who sees Greeny wants to take a picture with it. It’s as if my wife were a famous movie star and I’m constantly having to step aside so people can take pictures with her.”

The guitar is legendary for at least three reasons—Peter Green’s use of it on iconic Fleetwood Mac recordings (“He wrote ‘Green Manalishi,’ ‘Oh Well,’ and ‘Albatross’ on that guitar,” raves Hammett); its long tenure with Gary Moore, who purchased it from Green in 1969 (“Gary played it on Black Rose, one of my favorite Thin Lizzy albums”); and the spooky out-of-phase sound it gets with both hum-buckers engaged.

Famed luthier Jol Dantzig had the opportunity to examine Greeny’s pickups and controls in 1984. “Everything looked totally stock,” he later told GP’s Andy Ellis. “The pickups were wired in phase, but I knew they didn’t sound stock when played together. Then, I used a compass to measure the pickups’ polarities. I discovered that one magnet was oriented north-to-south while the other was oriented south-to-north. The pickups were magnetically out of phase. This was the secret we’d all been searching for.”

Hammett was impressed by the guitar from the moment he first plugged it in. “I was in London one fine summer day when a dealer friend invited me to check it out,” says Hammett. “We ran it through a vintage Marshall Bluesbreaker 2x10 combo, and immediately the bridge pickup had a nice, full tone with lots of presence. I checked the neck pickup and thought, ‘Wow, that’s one of the fattest neck sounds I’ve ever heard.’ But when I put it in the middle position, oh my god—it sounded like a Strat through a 100-watt Marshall fully cranked.’ Seven hours later, after making a counter-offer, the owner called and told me we had a deal. I had never even thought about owning Greeny before that day. I was just on tour, and Greeny came to me.”

To hear Hammett playing Greeny with Metallica, listen to his solo on “Hardwired,” the first track on Hardwired … to Self-Destruct. He played the part on Greeny while plugged into three amps—a modded Marshall head, a Mesa Dual Rectifier, and a Kirk Hammett signature-model Randall KH103 “Meathead” with a KHDK Ghoul Screamer pedal engaged for extra drive.

“That solo is all blues licks,” says Hammett, who also played Greeny on several other tracks on the album. “The licks are just strung together in such a way that it sounds like a heavy metal solo. If you really listen to it, though, the opening lick is just a Robert Johnson lick that’s turned up.”

Despite being a near-priceless hunk of guitar history, Greeny has been touring with Hammett and Metallica.

“I play it on ‘Whiskey in the Jar,’ which is a song Greeny has probably played numerous times before I came along,” says Hammett. “A lot of people have played that guitar, including Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher, and George Harrison. And the guitar will continue to get played. I’m not going to put it in a f**king display case. That piece of wood is all the right things at all the right times, and it was created for all of us.”