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MYSTERIOUS: 12 | Mind Blowing Facts

“I wanted it to be a workhorse I could bash around, beat up, hit with metal pipes and get thrown into kegs without breaking in half”: The making of Jim Root’s Telecaster, the guitar that brought Fender into the modern age

Some metal players prefer the traditional high-performance brands. Others favor medieval shapes. Not Root. The Slipknot guitarist wanted something old-school, classy… indestructible

Guitar World

“It’s clear to see that modelers have won the battle”: Modelers outsold traditional amps and combos in 2025 – but the war between the two might not be over just yet

Reverb's end-of-year sales stats make for interesting reading with regard to the current state of the amp modeler vs. tube amp debate

Guitar World

“It was the worst guitar I’d ever played. I’d spent all my money making it. I was stuck with it. So I started writing songs”: Arm the Homeless was a disaster, then it changed rock history. Tom Morello reveals how Fender replicated its misfit charms

Arm the Homeless is synonymous with the Rage Against the Machine firebrand and one of the most iconic electric guitars of all time. Morello explains why, after 30 years, he’s finally getting sentimental about his “artistic co-worker” – and the one thing that separates the Fender replica from the original

Guitar World

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“One of the best-sounding headphone amps for guitar I’ve had my hands on”: Blackstar Beam Solo review

Blackstar enters a very busy market with their take on the ubiquitous headphone amp for guitar

Guitar World

“There was a guy checking out people who were coming in, and he’d go over the microphone, ‘Now here’s Elton John and his band!’”: Davey Johnstone on guitar shopping with Elton John – and how he ended up with his iconic Les Paul Custom

Johnstone says some of his best guitars came via the kindness of Elton John as he recalls one surreal day in the legendary NYC gear institution Manny's and the unexpected gift of a Clapton Strat

MusicRadar

“The ‘Arm the Homeless’ guitar has been my comrade for life in the sonic sphere. It allowed me to find myself as an artist”: Tom Morello’s favourite electric has just been recreated by Fender

We have all seen this guitar. We have all heard it. Now we can buy it, and it has the same off-brand build and graphic finish as the original

MusicRadar

“On the real Arm the Homeless guitar, a dog chewed the headstock. Other than that, they’re absolutely identical”: Tom Morello has been playing a Fender Arm the Homeless replica live and none of us noticed – now it’s available to buy

Five years in the making, the Rage Against the Machine guitar anti-hero’s most iconic instrument has been replicated by Fender – and even Morello admits he can’t tell the difference

Guitar World

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“The guy met me in a Tower Records parking lot and gave me that bass... I’ve recorded every record on it since I got it”: How Flea landed his cherished 1961 Fender Jazz Bass after finding a seller during the early days of Twitter

During the early days of his career, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist was far from a gearhead – but an old Fender changed his tune

Guitar World

“It’s like getting a pre-washed pair of jeans: they’re broken in so they’re comfortable right out of the store”: The making of the American Professional Classic series – the brand-new “lived-in” (but not relic’d) US Fender line

More aged nitro finishes and a new US-made line-up that pares back the modernisms. Are our tastes changing? Max Gutnik, chief product officer at FMIC, tells all

Guitar World

“He broke my heart, but at the same time, I was like, ‘Okay, well, I would love to have a Fender Jazz Bass’”: Bootsy Collins' first Fender Jazz Bass has just been sold at auction – and shot past its estimate

James Brown bought the bass sometime in 1970 for his young protégé, William Earl Collins, better known as Bootsy Collins, and it would go on to be played by another one of his bassists, Fred Thomas

Guitar World

“Rickenbacker had a doubleneck guitar and bass, so I bought one. Then Fender came to me and said, ‘Why are you playing that?’” How Moody Blues bassist John Lodge found another gear with a Fender double-neck that was half P-Bass/half Telecaster

Having anchored the Moody Blues since the ’60s, the late John Lodge had a VIP seat for the Austin Powers-like era that made London the capital of cool

Guitar World

“A warning shot to the competition and a reminder that Fender is still very much a force in the amp modeler market”: All the guitar gear that has caught my eye this week – including a new digital era for EVH

A landmark update for the Tone Master Pro, a new digital 5150III combo, and a signature capsule for Iron Maiden all landed this week

Guitar World

“You can get some very mournful sounds out of it as well as in‑your-face. It’s a real old battle-axe”: Gary Moore’s 1963 Telecaster is modded and thrashed to death – and it’s got a tone pot that behaves like a wah

Before it was auctioned for just under $69,000, we take a closer look at one of the lesser-spotted electrics in Moore’s collection, with Bonham’s Steve Clarke sharing its story

Guitar World

Fender keeps up with Neural DSP in the amp modeler race by giving the Tone Master Pro its first polyphonic synths – included in major free firmware update

New amps, cabs, a raft of effects, and some big quality of life updates keep the modeler’s talons sharp

Guitar World

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MusicRadar

“It was pretty much written in a day. I knew I had something quite special. Then the next day we played it with the band and it sounded like a bag of…”: How Neil Finn created the beautiful ballad that gave Crowded House a global smash hit

"Hey now, hey now..."

Guitar World

“Virtually indistinguishable from the all-tube original”: EVH signals the start of a brave new era with its first digital combo – which promises authentic Eddie Van Halen tube amp tones

The three channel amp is a lightweight reinvention of Eddie Van Halen's iconic 5150III in a digital combo form

MusicRadar

EVH Gear turns its “holy grail” Eddie Van Halen amp Hypersonic with an all-digital 5150III 6L6 modelling combo that weighs a whopping 16kg less than its tube-driven equivalent

The three-channel 50W monster is a super lightweight combo that is easy on your back while showing no quarter with its high-gain tone, and EVH Gear says its faithful to the original tube amp

Guitar World

“People don't know this. He loved it”: Jeff Beck secretly played a PRS at home – and the company is trying to get it back

Beck played Fenders, Gibsons, even Jacksons onstage – but he reportedly kept a PRS handy at home for recording

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MusicRadar

“When we were finished gouging it with screwdrivers, spraying blops of paint on it, dragging it around the yard, and banging it on the driveway, we hung it up in a tree”: Adrian Belew on how he and Seymour Duncan made one of the first relic’d guitars

The prog guitar icon has posted new pics taken by Seymour Duncan that show off their handiwork as they turned Belew's new Strat into a relic and started guitar's most controversial trend

Guitar World

“He proved to me long ago that Fender belongs in the world of heavy metal”: Fender honors Iron Maiden’s 50th Anniversary with a stable of limited signatures for Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Janick Gers and Steve Harris

The UK metal titans’ triple guitar team and bassist have all been honored with a range of specially tailored signatures

MusicRadar

Fender and Jackson celebrate 50 years of Iron Maiden with limited run signature models – including a Masterbuilt Dave Murray Strat that’ll leave you losfer words

Choose your fighter, Maiden fans, with four variations on the archetypical Superstrat including a Custom Shop doozy... And it is foot on the monitor time with that Harris P-Bass

Guitar World

“Bob Dylan wrote some notes on a napkin and said, ‘Give this to McGuinn. He’ll know what to do withit.’ It was like the Holy Grail”: Roger McGuinn on the making of The Byrds’ countercultural classic

Roger McGuinn explains how Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Bob Dylan and CBS-era Fender amps all factored into the making of The Byrds’ 1969 classic, Ballad of Easy Rider

MusicRadar

“It’s the biggest song in the set and it wasn’t a single. It wasn’t anywhere close to being a single”: The classic track that defines John Mayer as a guitarist and a songwriter

“Without Pearl Jam there is no Slow Dancing In A Burning Room,” he said

Guitar World

“Gives you the keys to a studio full of classic tube amps, speaker cabs, stompboxes, and effects”: Universal Audio’s amp-emulating pedals have been a huge success – now they’ve arrived in plugin form via the all-inclusive Paradise Guitar Studio

Offering six amps, cab sims, and studio-quality pre- and post-effects, it aims to be a one-stop shop for vintage tone enthusiasts embracing the modern age

Guitar World

“James Brown told me, ‘Son, you can’t come on my stage with that funny-looking thing!’” When a young Bootsy Collins joined James Brown’s band, the Godfather of Funk bought him a Fender Jazz Bass. Now it’s up for auction

Following Bootsy’s departure from the JBs in 1972, the bass continued its life on stage with Fred Thomas, another of Brown’s longtime bassists

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