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HISTORICAL FACTS: 56 - The Untold Story

“A Tube Screamer is a Tube Screamer. It’s one of the great cons of the guitar industry. They got these dirt boxes right the first time!” Why Jared James Nichols stopped obsessing over gear – and honed in on his playing instead

Freedom, says Nichols, is the knowledge you can pick up anyone's guitar and sound like you, and now the Nashville-based Les Paul wrangler is finding that freedom in songwriting

Guitar World

“I sold my first guitar to my drummer. He paid me $50, put SpongeBob stickers on it, then lit it on fire”: Kiki Wong reveals her Smashing Pumpkins live rig, gear regrets and how a Line 6 amp made her the player she is today

Kiki Wong might be the only guitar player alive today who can recall from memory Ibanez S series model numbers. Here's what the S40DXQM means to her...

Guitar World

“All I remember is thinking that the bass turned into a snake. I broke all the strings, threw it down and left the stage”: Bootsy Collins was tripping on LSD when he took the James Brown bass chair to its most in-your-face level

Unable to deal with Brown’s disciplinary code, Bootsy was gone within a year

Guitar World

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“I was broke. I only had $200 and we booked a gig. There was this guitar at a pawn shop that had been there for years...” How George Thorogood stumbled across the Gibson that became his go-to guitar – a week before his first gig with the Destroyers

Thorogood recounts how he originally opted for a now-discontinued hollowbody – with a little inspiration from the Beatles and Keith Richards

Guitar World

“I didn’t know him or trust him. But I gave him all of that money in the hope he would bring me a Strat. I had no idea if I’d see him again”: Rammstein’s Richard ZK on the coffee shop rendezvous in East Germany that got him his first Fender

The Rammstein riffer wanted a Strat to imitate his hero, Jimi Hendrix – but getting hold of one took some serious work

Guitar World

“I knew relic’ing was coming. I did it myself, to my own guitar, very crude and primitive. I put it on a stand at a guitar show, with no strategy. And it changed everything”: How relic’ing conquered the guitar world

The not-so-gentle art of relic’ing has enjoyed arenaissance since its maligned roots in the mid-’90s. We asked scene godfather and Gibson Custom Shop guru Tom Murphy how the tide turned

Guitar World

“He asked to hear it, so I played it, and he said, ‘I have to play on this. Give me a track’”: How a 20-year-old Steve Lukather beat three seasoned session pros to feature on this ’70s soft rock classic

England Dan & John Ford Coley bookended their decade-long career with the album Dr. Heckle and Mr. Jive, which features a fast-rising Lukather on a couple of tracks

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“I learned to play everything on it. We wrote our first song as Jonas Brother on that guitar”: In the mid-2000s, the Jonas Brothers exploded onto the scene as a guitar-slinging band for teens – Kevin Jonas looks back on the guitar that started it all

Nowadays, Jonas has a penchant for Gibsons, but he hasn't forgotten the humble Japanese build that kickstarted his career

Guitar World

Looking to kickstart 2026 with a new guitar or pedal project? Here are 12 of my favourite DIY guitar kits, easy mods, and simple pedal builds to help you smash the January blues

These self-assembly guitar and pedal kits make great projects and are even suitable for guitar-building newbies

Guitar World

“After it was called the ‘solo of the century,’ I remember saying to Steve Lukather, ‘Come on, this is ridiculous’”: Nuno Bettencourt on turning down Ozzy, Sabbath’s final show and how Extreme finally got their dues

Having torn up the rulebook and raised the bar once again for lead guitar, Nuno Bettencourt promises no let up – he’s out for blood again

Guitar World

“The rest of the world didn't know that the world's greatest guitarist was playing a weekend gig at this place in Chelmsford”: The Aristocrats' Bryan Beller recalls the moment he met Guthrie Govan and formed a new kind of supergroup

As per Aristocrats lore, the power trio formed right after an impromptu jam at NAMM 2011

Guitar World

“They stole our name, which means Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were listening to our records. But the main reason people know us is Gary Moore, and that doesn’t bother me at all”: The tale of the original Irish Skid Row

Bassist Brush Shiels looks back on his lifelong friendship with Moore, why he won’t sue the American hair metal band, and how Peter Green was responsible for their first album sounding so bad

Guitar World

“I saw a recent video on YouTube on the 10 precursors to heavy metal, and Schizoid Man wasn’t among them. That’s absurd”: Robert Fripp explains how King Crimson paved the way for heavy metal

Robert Fripp says the band doesn't get enough credit for its hard-hitting groundwork

Guitar World

“I’ve worked with Lee Sklar. I got to see Anthony Jackson play. I had Pino Palladino on my first album. I’ve been able to absorb that bass-playing mojo”: How the bass guitar became a crucial part of Sheryl Crow’s songwriting process

Already a Grammy-winning, global pop star, Sheryl Crow geeks out on bass for all the right reasons

Guitar World

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“Jimmy Page used one of our guitars. It was some of the best tremolo work I’d ever heard”: Paul Reed Smith on how he built his brand, secret PRS players – and why the internet is wrong about tonewood

Once the guitar brand for the one percent, the smash-hit success of the SE line took PRS Guitars mainstream, but for Smith, it’s still about trying to raise the bar and find new sounds

Guitar World

“I was like, ‘It’s time to do your solos.’ He goes, ‘OK, I’m gonna call up my guitar teacher, have him do the solos and then have him teach me’”: Dave Mustaine on the ill-fated guitar appointment that led Megadeth to Jeff Young

The thrash icons thought they’d found Chris Poland’s replacement, only for a bizarre moment in the studio to force a change

Guitar World

“Those were the cocaine ’80s. They devoted a whole day to auditioning snare drum samples –just to double-up the actual snare”: Nancy Wilson knew Heart had to adapt to survive the excesses of the 1980s – but she didn’t expect their greatest success

Heart's self-titled 1985 album was just what the doctor ordered, ushering in a triumphant second act for the iconic Seattle rockers

Guitar World

“I was drinking a lot and forgot that I bought it. The folks at Carter Vintage called me and were like, ‘You gonna come get this guitar?’” Marcus King on the vintage guitar he accidentally bought while drunk

King recently played Rory Gallagher’s famed white Fender Telecaster and Jeff Beck’s iconic Yardburst Les Paul

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Guitar World

What’s your pedalboard persona? Find out with my pick of stompboxes to match your player identity

16 awesome pedals for any type of guitar player, but what does your pedalboard say about you?

Guitar World

“I kept seeing outdated business models that didn’t make sense in today’s social media-driven world”: The unstoppable rise of signature guitar companies, as explained by Ola Englund

With more artist products available now than ever before, and an entire movement of brands run and owned by musicians, we investigate theevolution of signature guitar gear with a little help from the Solar Guitars founder

Guitar World

“I had to go outside to the garbage bags and find the certificate because I’d thrown it away!” The Cult’s Charlie Jones didn’t know about his Grammy win for Please Read the Letter… because he didn’t read the letter

Irony is alive and well

Guitar World

“When we lost Jeff, his wife wrote to me and said, ‘I’m going to sell the guitars. They keep reminding me of him’”: John McLaughlin remembers gifting Jeff Beck the white Strat that featured on his seminal Wired record – and helped shape his guitar legacy

The iconic Strat was reportedly stolen at a later date

Guitar World

“I toured with Stevie Ray Vaughan when he was sober and he was a freak of nature. I couldn’t relate to his playing”: The Outlaws' Henry Paul on opening for The Rolling Stones, finding fame thanks to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and his one-of-one red Gretsch Falcon

The Gibson loyalist who’s served three stints with the Outlaws has been there, done that – played to stadium crowds, seen rock's greatest guitar heroes up close and witnessed prime-era Keith Moon debauchery

Guitar World

“When Stevie called us, we had to tell him the party was over. We said, ‘We’ve just blown out Stevie Wonder!’” Stuart Zender on sessioning for Stevie Wonder and supplying the funk to Jamiroquai’s first three albums

After he quit Jamiroquai, Stuart Zender became an in-demand session bassist, jamming with Gorillaz, Stevie Wonder, and Amy Winehouse co-writer Mark Ronson

Guitar World

“Ken pulled this instrument out of this blanket and I was astonished. My jaw hit the floor. I’d never seen anything like it”: Remembering Ken Parker, the genius luthier who brought us the Parker Fly

One of the guitar world’s most visionary makers, who took the archtop guitar to unimaginable levels and also created the radical Parker Fly, has died aged 73

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