Got a question for your favorite guitarist? Let us be your go-between. The concept is easy — you submit your queries and we pass them on to some of the world's greatest guitarists. Only the sharpest and funniest questions will be used.
This month, we're giving you the chance to ask guitarist Joan Jett anything you want!
From the Runaways, to the Blackhearts to solo and beyond...no part of her career is off limits!
Just email your questions to dearguitarhero@guitarworld.com and put "Joan Jett" in the subject line. Remember to include your name in the email body, so you can get credited in the magazine, and impress and annoy your jealous friends!
Joan Jett with the Runaways: "Cherry Bomb"
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts "I Love Rock n Roll"
The all-new September 2013 issue of Guitar World is available now! And you have two covers to choose from!
The first cover features Guitar World's ultimate Prog-Rock Roundtable of the Dillinger Escape Plan's Ben Weinman, Animals as Leaders' Tosin Abasi and Periphery's Misha Mansoor. Guitar World gets the three virtuosos together for an in-depth discussion on the state of modern rock and guitar playing. We also ask how these guys became such damned good guitarists. Preview this story HERE!
The second cover features Asking Alexandria, who, after a near break up return bolder and more guitar-driven than ever. Ben Bruce and Cameron Liddell talk about the making of their latest album, From Death to Destiny. Preview this story HERE!
The September issue also includes Kirk Hammett, who we follow through two days of rock, horror and hijinks at Metallica's 2013 Orion Music + More festival; Guitar World's guide to seven- and eight-string gear; Two Queensrÿches, two new albums, and one lawsuit for the right to the band's name; and much more! Preview this story HERE!
Although several fan-filmed videos of Nine Inch Nails performing their new song, "Copy Of A," have surfaced online, the band have released the official studio version of the track, and you can check it out below.
The band premiered "Copy Of A" and another new song, "Find My Way," at Fuji Rock Festival on July 26. "Copy Of A" has since become their set opener on their US dates.
All these tracks — plus two another new ones fans have had a chance to sample, "Disappointed" and "Came Back Haunted"— are from Nine Inch Nails' upcoming album, Hesitation Marks, which is set for a September 3 release.
The new album, the followup to 2008's The Slip, features guest appearances by bassist Pino Palladino, Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and guitarist Adrian Belew, who was even a full member of NIN for a little while (More on that here).
Take a listen — and be sure to tell us what you think in the comments!
Children of Bodom guitarist Alexi Laiho was rushed to the hospital this past Thursday, August 8, forcing the band to cancel their sold-out show in Nashville, Tennessee.
As reported by Metal Underground, Amon Amarth (co-headliners with Children of Bodom), Battlecross and Huntress took the stage, doing what they could to save the Nashville show. However, Children of Bodom were also forced to cancel their August 9 show in Cleveland.
Laiho was hospitalized in July 2012 due to extreme stomach pain, admitting he needed to reduce his drinking. It is still unclear if this latest health scare is related to last year's incident.
No other details have been released, but an official release is expected from the Children of Bodom camp. We'll keep you updated on this situation as we get details!
The next Children of Bodom show is scheduled for September 1 in Hiroshima, Japan.
The band's latest album, Halo of Blood, was released June 11 via Nuclear Blast Records.
Many guitarists have often wondered, How can I play eight different string instruments during a song?
By many, we actually mean one guitarist, specifically Justin Stone, who conceived his eight-neck Rocktopus guitar while absent-mindedly scribbling on a scrap of paper.
“I drew a cross and thought to myself that a guitar with four necks would be pretty cool,” Stone says. “Then I drew an X over the cross and thought that an instrument with eight necks that were each different kinds of stringed instruments would be even more incredible. Right away, I thought of an octopus wrapping its tentacles around it, and the ideas kept snowballing.”
The Rocktopus, which Stone describes as “a functional piece of art,” consists of three electric guitars (tuned to E, D and F), an electric 12-string, bass, cello, five-string banjo and acoustic guitar attached to a central body. “Connecting eight 45-degree-angled wedges — two of which are hollow — to fit perfectly together as a single body was the biggest challenge,” Stone says. “The octopus is carved out of wood and encrusted with rainbow abalone shell and steel suction cups.”
Because the Rocktopus weighs 40 pounds and is six feet in diameter, Stone waits for special occasions to assemble it.
“Playing it isn’t difficult,” he explains, “but the setup is. It takes about three hours to affix the necks, put on strings and stretch them.” Perhaps someday Stone can hire the Octomom’s brood to tend to the Rocktopus.
Metallica’s 1983 debut, the explosive Kill ’Em All, taught a grateful world a lesson in unbridled thrashing fury. Since then, their sound has passed through numerous stages, but the guttural intensity that was the hallmark of the young Metallica remains the essence of the band today.
Over the past 25 years, Hammett and James Hetfield have established themselves as metal’s quintessential guitar alliance. In the following retrospective, Kirk and James take a walk down Metallica memory lane and critique some of the key songs in the band’s harsh, noble history.
“Seek and Destroy,"Kill ’Em All (1983)
JAMES HETFIELD: The idea for “Seek” came from a Diamond Head song called “Dead Reckoning.” I used to work in a sticker factory in L.A., and I wrote that riff in my truck outside work. This was our first experience in a real studio. I used a white Flying V, which was the only guitar I had back then. I still have the guitar in storage. The song is based around a one-note riff that was up a little higher. Though most of my riffs are in E, that one worked off an A.
KIRK HAMMETT: When I was doing that guitar solo, I was using James’ Marshall. That was the Marshall—it had been hot-rodded by some L.A. guy, the same guy who hot-rodded Eddie Van Halen’s Marshalls—and when it came time to do my guitar leads, I just plugged into that. I had maybe four or five days to do all my leads. I remember thinking, There’s 10 or 12 songs on this album, so that means two a day. I had to throw down a solo, not think much about it, and move on.
I had my trusty old Ibanez Tubescreamer, my trusty wah pedal and my black Gibson Flying V that I used on the first four albums. It was either a ’74 or a ’78, I’m not sure. I didn’t have much really worked out; I knew how I wanted to open the initial part of the solo after the break, so I just went for it two or three times.
And then the producer said, ‘That’s fine! We’ll use it!’ There were no frills, no contemplation, no overintellectualizing—we weren’t going over the finer points. On a couple of notes in that solo, I bend the notes out of pitch. For 18 years, every time I’ve heard that guitar solo, those sour notes come back to haunt me! [laughs] I remember on that tour, whenever it came time to do that guitar solo, I was always like, Okay, I’m gonna play this so much better than the way I recorded it!
I had been taking lessons from Joe Satriani for, like, six months prior to joining the band, so his influence was pretty heavy in my mind and in my playing. He passed down so much information to me, I was still processing a lot of it. When it came time to do the solo, I was thinking, I hope Joe likes this. I hope this isn’t something he’ll just pick apart, like he has in the past.
"The Four Horsemen,"Kill ’Em All (1983)
HETFIELD: Dave [Mustaine, Metallica’s original guitarist] brought that song over from one of his other bands. Back then it was called “The Mechanix.” After he left Metallica, we kind of fixed the song up. The lyrics he used were pretty silly.
HAMMETT: Prior to recording that song, we put in a slow middle section that wasn’t there when I first joined the band, and it needed a slow, melodic solo. I remember going through the song with everyone, and when I got to that part, I played something really melodic. Lars looked up at me and said, “Yeah, yeah!” He’s a big lead guitar fan. One of his biggest influences is Ritchie Blackmore. For that song I put down one lead, then added one on a different track.
I wasn’t sure which one to use. I listened to both tracks at once, to see if one would stand out. But playing both tracks simultaneously sounded great, and we decided to keep it like that on the record. Some of the notes harmonized with each other, and I remember Cliff [Burton, bassist] going, “Wow, that’s stylin’—it sounds like Tony Iommi!”
"Creeping Death,"Ride the Lightning (1984)
HETFIELD: We demoed “Ride the Lightning” and one other song in the studio before we recorded the album, so there’s actually a demo somewhere of those three songs with different lyrics. When we did the crunchy “Die by my hand” breakdown part in the middle, I sat in the control room after we did all the gang vocals, and everyone was just going nuts! That was our first real big, chanting, gang-vocal thing. There was almost some production value to it. That whole album was a big step for us. By then I had the Gibson Explorer. I grew to love that shape better than the V.
HAMMETT: When we first began playing that song in the garage, I noticed that the lead guitar part also incorporated the chorus. I thought that was a good opportunity to play something a bit wild and dynamic. The first figure in that song pretty much came off the top of my head. I was still using the black Flying V and the Boss distortion pedal through Marshall amps, with a TC Electronics EQ. For that song, Flemming [Rasmussen, engineer] suggested that I double-track the solo, which made it sound a bit thicker and fuller. We did that solo, after which we had to do this small fill at the end, a four-bar break with four accents afterwards. The plan was to fill the break up and play something over the four accents. When I studied with Joe Satriani, I did this chordal exercise, a diminished chord with four notes. I just played that over these four accents, and it worked out real nice.
"Fade to Black,"Ride the Lightning (1984)
HETFIELD: That song was a big step for us. It was pretty much our first ballad, so it was challenging and we knew it would freak people out. Bands like Exodus and Slayer don’t do ballads, but they’ve stuck themselves in that position which is something we never wanted to do; limiting yourself to please your audience is bullshit.
Recording that song, I learned how frustrating acoustic guitar can be. You could hear every squeak, so I had to be careful. I wrote the song at a friend’s house in New Jersey. I was pretty depressed at the time because our gear had just been stolen, and we had been thrown out of our manager’s house for breaking shit and drinking his liquor cabinet dry. It’s a suicide song, and we got a lot of flack for it, [as if] kids were killing themselves because of the song. But we also got hundreds and hundreds of letters from kids telling us how they related to the song and that it made them feel better.
HAMMETT: I was still using the black Flying V, but on “Fade to Black” I used the neck pickup on my guitar to get that warm sound. I played through a wah-wah pedal all the way in the “up” position. We doubled the first solo, but it was harder to double the second solo in the middle because it was slow and there was a lot of space in it. Later I realized that I harmonized it in a weird way—in minor thirds, major thirds and fifths. For the extended solo at the end, I wasn’t sure what to play. We had been in Denmark for five or six months, and I was getting really homesick. We were also having problems with our management. Since it was a somber song, and we were all bummed out anyway, I thought of very depressing things while I did the solo, and it really helped. I played some arpeggios over the G-A-B progression, but we didn’t double track that solo. When that was finished, I went back and did the clean guitar parts behind the verse. James played an arpeggiated figure while I arpeggiated three-note chords. We ended up getting a very Dire Straits–type sound.
"The Call of Ktulu,"Ride the Lightning (1984)
HAMMETT: Again, we were using Marshalls; I tracked the whole album with Marshall amps and my Gibson Flying V. For that song, I knew that I wanted to come up with something really melodic at the beginning of the solo. At that point in the song, there’s just a lot of riffing, a lot of heavy dynamics. I was thinking, Wouldn’t it be nice if we had something somewhat melodic to lead into it? Hence that little melody I played. I can remember thinking, Fuckin’ hell, man, these guys want me to play an awful-long fucking guitar solo! It was our first instrumental, and it was an incredibly long guitar solo.
It was, like, ‘How can I keep this solo going without making it sound like I’m just playing a bunch of notes?’ So I thought that I would break it up into sections rather than play one long spew of notes. I used a modal approach, and there are also arpeggios that I play in the solo. They’re actually ‘broken arpeggios,’ a term that I got from Yngwie Malmsteen. At that time, 1984, Yngwie was big in the guitar world; he influenced me in that he was using all these different scales and different arpeggios, and really got me thinking about that kind of sound. I was also thinking chromatically: there’s that one part at the top of the next cycle where I play a chromatic lick that goes all the way down the high E string with the wah pedal.
I actually wrote out the entire solo on pieces of paper, using my own notes and my own pet names for the individual licks. I would say that 80 percent of it was composed beforehand and 20 percent of it was improvised. When we revisited that song with the symphony on S&M, it was a lot of fun. It felt like I was visiting my guitar technique from, like, 15 years ago or something. I just don’t play like that now—I’m a lot bluesier—so it was pretty trippy.
"Welcome Home (Sanitarium),"Master of Puppets (1986)
HETFIELD: The idea for that song came from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “Fade to Black” worked well, and we wanted to have another slow, clean, picking type of song, this time with a chorus. I had trouble singing that chorus. It’s really high, and when I went to sing it in the studio, I remember Flemming looking at me like, “You’re kidding.” I said “Shit, I don’t know if I can do this!” So I ended up singing it lower than I intended, but we put a higher harmony on it and it worked pretty well. The riff for that song was lifted from some other band, who shall remain anonymous.
HAMMETT: The beginning of the first solo is an arpeggiated ninth chord figure, where I basically mirror what James is playing. The second guitar figure had some harmonies. I used a wah-wah pedal on the third solo, which was pretty straight ahead. The fourth solo comes out of harmonized guitars; the very last lick was based on something really cool I saw Cliff play on guitar in the hotel one night that I knew would work in that spot.
"Master of Puppets," Master of Puppets (1986)
HETFIELD: I think we wanted to write another song like “Creeping Death,” with open chords carried by the vocals and a real catchy chorus. On Master of Puppets we started getting into the longer, more orchestrated songs. It was more of a challenge to write a long song that didn’t seem long. The riff for that song was pretty messy—constantly moving. It works good live. People love to scream “Master!” a couple of times.
HAMMETT: I used my Jackson Randy Rhoads V for this solo. When you listen to the solo, there’s this weird sound right after the mellow part where it sounds like I’m hitting a superhigh note in the midst of my phrasing, like I’m fretting the string against the pickup. Well, what happened was, I had accidentally pulled the string off the fretboard! You know how you take an E string, you pull it down toward the floor away from the neck? I accidentally pulled down on the string, and it fretted out on the side of the fretboard. We heard it back, and I was like, ‘That’s brilliant! We’ve gotta keep that!’ Of course, I’ve never been able to reproduce that since; it was like a magic moment that was captured on tape. That was one of my most favorite things about that guitar solo. I thought I had screwed the solo up by accidentally pulling on the string, but once I heard it back, I thought it sounded great. That was definitely a keeper!
For the next solo we used backward guitar parts. To get them I played a bunch of guitar parts that were in the same key as the song and laid them down on quarter-inch tape. Then we flipped the tape over and edited it, so we had two or three minutes of backward guitar. We put it in the last verse of the song.
A lot of people think I actually came into my own sound on that song. That had everything to do with buying Mesa/Boogie Mark II-C heads. Boogie made those heads for a short time in the mid Eighties and only made a limited amount of them. They moved on after that, and they haven’t really been able to recapture that sound since—I don’t know if they ever tried or not. But there’s something about Boogie Mark II-C heads that were really unique and very individual in their gain stages and overall sound. Most of Master of Puppets was tracked with Boogie heads and Marshall heads combined, and I used my Gibson Flying V and my Jackson. By that time, I also had my black Fernandes Stratocaster.
The $5.98 EP/Garage Days Re-Revisited (1987)
HETFIELD: Putting out an EP of all cover tunes was absolutely unheard of, which we thought was really cool. We didn’t do too many arrangements, except to some of the Budgie tunes, where we eliminated some lame singing parts. For some of the songs we tuned down to D to make them a little heavier. The guitar sound is really awful, but it was the first thing we put out where the bass could be heard, so Jason [Newsted, bassist] was happy
HAMMETT: That was recorded when I first started using ESP guitars with EMG pickups. All the lead guitar parts on that EP flowed really quickly. I did them in two nights. All of the leads were mine. The fact that the original versions of “Helpless” and “The Wait” don’t even have solos in them was a bit of luck—no one would have anything to compare them to, and it kept any preconceived ideas out of my head. We did that EP for the fans, just for fun, and Elektra loved it and released it.
"…And Justice for All,"…And Justice for All (1988)
HETFIELD: That song is pretty long, like all the songs on that album. We wanted to write shorter material, but it never happened. We were into packing songs with riffs. The whole riff is very percussive; it goes right along with the drums. The singing on that song is a lot lower than usual.
HAMMETT: I worked out an opening lick for the solo but it wasn’t really happening, so I plugged in the wah-wah pedal, which I always do when all else fails. As soon as I plugged in, we were done. A lot of people give me shit about how I hide behind the wah pedal, but something about it brings out a lot of aggression. It just tailors the sound to match the mood and emotion I’m trying to convey. It’s purely an aesthetic thing and not a crutch or anything like that. The riff where I utilize the open string hammer-ons developed from a Gary Moore lick that I’d been studying. I figured it would sound really good combined with the heavy E-chord progression
"One,"…And Justice for All (1988)
HETFIELD: I had been fiddling around with that A-G modulation for a long time. The idea for the opening came from a Venom song called “Buried Alive.” The kick drum machine-gun part near the end wasn’t written with the war lyrics in mind, it just came out that way. We started that album with Mike Clink as producer. He didn’t work out too well, so we got Flemming to come over and save our asses.
HAMMETT: I lost a lot of sleep over that set of guitar solos! [laughs] The main guitar solo at the end, with the right-hand, Eddie Van Halen–type tapping came almost immediately. That guitar solo was just a breeze; what was going on with the rhythm section in that part of the song was just very, very exciting for me to solo over. The first solo was a little bit more worked out.
I heard James playing some really melodic stuff over the intro, just doodling around, and I thought, That’s pretty cool, I’m gonna use part of that. So I have to give credit to James for subliminally pushing me in that melodic direction. I think the first two licks at the top of the first solo are his, and the rest of the solo just sort of fell into place. That little chord comp thing in that first solo came from a major-chord exercise that I do all the time. I thought it would sound really good in the solo if I just staccato-picked it and resolved it right there. I thought the solo needed something to perk people’s ears up!
The middle guitar solo in that song, I must have recorded and rerecorded it about 15 million times. I wanted a middle ground between the really melodic solo at the beginning and the fiery solo at the end. I wanted that to sit very confidently within the song, but it sounded very unconfident, and I was never happy with it.
Finally, it came down to the wire: we were mixing the album while simultaneously touring on the Monsters of Rock tour. One night, I flew from Philadelphia to New York City, and while everyone else was on their way to Washington, D.C., I went to the Hit Factory and rerecorded the solo again. I brought my guitar, I had one of my main amps sent to the studio, and I redid the solo there and finally nailed it. I was very, very happy about that! The next day, we played a show in Washington, D.C. It got panned by the critics, because we’d all only had about three hours of sleep and were exhausted.
But I got a good solo the night before, so it was worth it!
We wanted a clean guitar sound for “One.” I think at that point I was using the ESP neck-through-body KH-1 guitar, with the skulls on the fingerboard. I’d gotten that guitar in ’88 and used it pretty prominently in the studio. I used an ADA preamp and an ADA MP-1—it was a programmable digital amp that had tubes in it, with a separate rack-mounted Aphex parametric EQ. I remember blending that thing with the Boogies for lead sounds and clean sounds. The clean sound on ‘One’ was done almost exclusively with the ADA MP-1.
"Enter Sandman,"Metallica (1991)
HAMMETT: Again, I was playing my ESP with a wah pedal, and this time I used a bunch of different amps. We were combining Boogies and modified Marshalls; I also think we had a clean old Fender in there, and maybe even an old Vox amp, and they were all blended together to get that tone. I can remember getting that lead guitar sound together very quickly, very spontaneously. When it came time to start thinking about that guitar solo, I just thought, Well, this is a great guitar song, and it’s in the spirit of all my favorite guitar bands, like Thin Lizzy and UFO, but kind of modernized. So I kept thinking, Michael Schenker, Michael Schenker… But then I started thinking, If Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy played on this song, what would he play? With that mindset, I started playing what I thought Brian Robertson would play on a song like that, and the entire fucking guitar solo wrote itself!
You know how the guitar solo plays out, and then there’s a lead guitar break that leads into a breakdown? I think the time has come to tell where I actually got that lick. It’s from ‘Magic Man’ by Heart, but I didn’t get it from Heart’s version; I got it from a cut off Ice-T’s Power album, where he used it as a sample. I was listening to Power a lot while we were recording Metallica, so I kept on hearing that lick. I thought, I have to snake this! I did change it around a little bit, though.
"Don’t Tread on Me,"Metallica (1991)
HETFIELD: A lot of the songs on this album are more simple and concentrated. They tell the same story as our other shit but don’t take as long. There aren’t a hundred riffs to latch on to—just two or three stock, really good riffs in each song.
I used my ESPs and tons of other guitars: a 12-string electric, a Telecaster, a Gretsch White Falcon, a sitar and other things. I also used a B-Bender, a bar installed in the guitar that twists the B string up a full step. It’s used a lot in country music. But “Don’t Tread” is just real heavy guitar—there’s really nothing else to it.
HAMMETT: I used a Bradshaw [preamp] because the mids were clean and the low end sounded real percussive, and I put it through a VHT power amp. The harmonic distortion also sounded nice and dirty. For the highs we used two Marshalls. We combined all the sounds and put it all through Marshall cabinets with 30-watt speakers and blended all the room mikes. My sound is a lot thicker and punchier than before, and I think it’s better than ever. For the majority of the leads on this album I used a third ESP guitar. I also used my 1989 black Gibson Les Paul Custom. For the clean sound, I used a ’61 stock white Strat and a Fender blackface Deluxe. I also used a ’53 Gibson ES-295 style, and an ESP Les Paul Junior with EMG pickups.
I used the ’89 black Gibson Les Paul Custom and a wah-wah pedal on “Don’t Tread on Me.” At one point I had to play these ascending lead fills, and it just wasn’t happening at all. So I wound up playing harmonics instead of lead guitar fills, and it worked really well.
"The God That Failed,"Metallica (1991)
HETFIELD: That’s a very nice song. Slow, heavy and ugly. There are a lot of single-note riffs and more open-chord shit on this album. A lot of the rhythms I came up with were a little too complicated—half-step changes and other weirdo shit that Kirk had trouble soloing over. So we simplified some things. All the harmony guitar stuff on this album is incorporated in the rhythm tracks. I played rhythm all the way through, then I overdubbed harmony guitar things. There are harmony solos and harmony guitar in the rhythms, but they’re very distinct from each other. We found that layering a guitar six times doesn’t make it heavy.
HAMMETT: I had this whole thing worked out, but it didn’t fit because the lead was too bluesy for the song, which is characterized by real heavy riffing and chording. So producer Bob Rock and I worked out a melody, to which I suggested that we add a harmony part, but Bob said it would only pretty it up. So we ended up playing the melody an octave higher, and it sounded great. We basically mapped out the whole solo, picking the best parts from about 15 solos I’d worked out. It’s one of my favorite solos on the album.
One thing I did on this album that I hadn’t done before was play guitar fills. I filled up holes—like when James stops during the vocal, I put in a little stab or, as Bob calls it, a “sting.” My solos on this album are a little offbeat. Though a lot of guitar players start the solo on the downbeat—the first beat of the measure—I come in on the upbeat of the third measure of a bar, like on “Enter Sandman” and “Don’t Tread on Me.”
"Hero of the Day,"Load (1996)
HAMMETT: The first time James heard my solo on "Hero of the Day," he didn’t like it. He said, "It sounds like bad Brian Robertson!" [laughs] I was, like, "What do you mean?" And then, after much "debating" back and forth, we kind of agreed that it wasn’t so much the solo that was the problem but the lack of anything going on underneath it. So he went and put something down underneath it that made it sound, well, a little better to his ears, I guess. It was one of those things where one musician hears one thing one way and another musician hears it completely different.
For the Load album, I was experimenting so much with tone that I had to keep journals on what equipment I was using. For "Hero of the Day," I know I used a 1958 Les Paul Standard with a Matchless Chieftain, some Boogie amps and a Vox amp—again, they’re all blended. I was listening to a lot of David Bowie at the time, particularly the sounds on Low, and I was really interested in playing guitar parts to see if I could shape the character of the song by playing parts instead of solos. And to a certain degree that’s what I was trying to do during "Hero of the Day." It’s a guitar solo in the classic sense, but it’s a part of the song as well. I was very into the idea of creating soundscapes and crafting textures. I was tired of playing ripping, shredding solos; I wasn’t into proving myself like I was around, say,…And Justice for All. It’s great to be able to have that in your back pocket and use it when necessary. But for the most part, taste, tone and atmosphere are my main concerns.
I’ll tell you a funny story, though. In ’94, a guy came up to me and said, "How come you stopped doing double stops? You used to play a lot of double stops, and then you stopped doing it. I miss it." And when we were recording Load, all of a sudden I remembered him saying that. I thought, Yeah, you know, he’s right! So in that song "Better Than You," which ended up on ReLoad, I just crammed both solos with all sorts of double stops. And that was totally for that guy.
"Fuel,"ReLoad (1997)
HAMMETT: That track was actually recorded at the same time we were doing all the Load stuff. It was one of the first tracks [from that session] that I actually played a guitar solo on. That guitar solo was played through a couple of old Marshalls, some Vox amps and the Chieftain, and I used a 1963 Sea Foam Green Strat. I can remember thinking, God, this guitar has such a killer sound to it! It wasn’t like all my other guitars, which had active humbuckers and everything. It sounded fat, present and full, and I was blown away by how big it sounded, even though I was going through single-coil pickups, stuff that wasn’t active. That was a real treat for me, because it really felt like I was going in a new direction, tone-wise and equipment-wise. And that all kind of blossomed throughout Load and ReLoad. Bob Rock definitely had a big role in that, because he’s a total equipmenthead, and he really got me thinking about vintage gear.
"No Leaf Clover,"S&M (1999)
HAMMETT: That song came together only about a week before we actually played with the symphony. And that week leading up to the actual dates was so hectic. We had to do so much footwork that I really didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to spend on that solo. So I thought, Hell, I’ll just go for it and improvise! And what you hear on that track is just me improvising, and playing off the top of my head on my ESP ‘Mummy’ guitar. I mainly used my live rig, which consists of Boogies and Marshalls and Boogie cabinets. My rack-mounted wah is in there, and that’s about it, other than maybe just a touch of delay.
There’s a modulation toward the end of the solo, and I kind of wanted to outline that modulation a little bit. That’s why I shift keys for the four or eight bars at the end. The solo on "No Leaf Clover" is actually comped from the best licks from both nights and made into one solo. In retrospect, I would have loved to have had more time to structure it and put it together. But we were on a deadline, blah blah blah, and we really didn’t want to rerecord anything—we wanted it to all be recorded with the symphony. So we just kind of went for it.
A few years ago, the editors of Guitar World compiled what we feel is the ultimate guide to the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.
The list, which has been quoted by countless artists, websites and publications around the world, starts with Richie Sambora's work on Bon Jovi's “Wanted Dead or Alive” (100) and builds to a truly epic finish with Jimmy Page's solo on "Stairway to Heaven" (01).
On June 10, we kicked off a summer blockbuster of our own — a no-holds-barred six-string shootout. We pitted Guitar World's top 64 guitar solos against each other in an NCAA-style, 64-team single-elimination tournament. Every day, we asked you to cast your vote in a different guitar-solo matchup as dictated by the 64-team-style bracket. Now Rounds 1 and 2 have come and gone, leaving us with 16 guitar solos and eight matchups.
So ...
WELCOME TO THE SWEET 16 ROUND, where all 16 still-standing solos will go head to head before your eyes! As always, you can vote once per matchup, and the voting ends as soon as the next matchup is posted.
In some cases, genre will clash against genre; a thrash solo might compete against a Southern rock solo. But please get real, people! They're all guitar solos, played on guitars, by guitarists, most of them in some subset of the umbrella genre of rock. When choosing, it might have to come down to, "Which solo is more original and creative? Which is more iconic or important? or Which one kicks a larger, more impressive assemblage of asses?"
Winner:"Free Bird" (56.33 percent) Loser:"No More Tears" (43.67 percent)
Today's Sweetwater Sweet 16 Matchup (3 of 8) "Stairway to Heaven" Vs. "Heartbreaker"
Today, for the first time since the Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time readers poll began on June 10, a guitarist is squaring off against himself! Yes, it's Jimmy Page against Jimmy Page! (This shouldn't be too surprising, since the Led Zeppelin axman is responsible for four of our final 16 guitar solos; it was bound to happen at some point.) Be sure to cast your vote for his classic solo on "Stairway to Heaven" (01) or his equally classic "Heartbreaker" (16) solo.
HOW THEY GOT HERE
• "Stairway to Heaven" defeated Prince's "Little Red Corvette" (64) in Round 1 and Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" (32) in Round 2.
• "Heartbreaker" defeated a pair of instrumental tunes: Carlos Santana's "Europa" (49) in Round 1 and Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover" (17) in Round 2.
Get busy! You'll find the poll at the very bottom of the story.
01. “Stairway to Heaven” Soloist: Jimmy Page Album: Led Zeppelin—Led Zeppelin IV (Atlantic, 1971)
If Jimmy Page is the Steven Spielberg of guitarists, then “Stairway” is his Close Encounters. Built around a solid, uplifting theme—man’s quest for salvation—the epic slowly gains momentum and rushes headlong to a shattering conclusion. The grand finale in this case is the song’s thrill-a-second guitar solo.
Page remembers: “I’d been fooling around with the acoustic guitar and came up with several different sections which flowed together nicely. I soon realized that it could be the perfect vehicle for something I’d been wanting to do for a while: to compose something that would start quietly, have the drums come in the middle, and then build to a huge crescendo. I also knew that I wanted the piece to speed up, which is something musicians aren’t supposed to do.
“So I had all the structure of it, and ran it by [bassist] John Paul Jones so he could get the idea of it—[drummer] John Bonham and [singer] Robert Plant had gone out for the night—and then on the following day we got into it with Bonham. You have to realize that, at first, there was a hell of a lot for everyone to remember on this one. But as we were sort of routining it, Robert started writing the lyrics, and much to his surprise, he wrote a huge percentage of it right there and then.”
Plant recalls the experience: “I was sitting next to Page in front of a fire at our studio in Headley Grange. He had written this chord sequence and was playing it for me. I was holding a pencil and paper, when, suddenly, my hand was writing out the words: ‘There’s a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.’ I just sat there and looked at the words and almost leaped out of my seat. Looking back, I suppose I sat down at the right moment.”
While the spontaneous nature of Plant’s anthemic lyrics came as a pleasant surprise, the best was yet to come. The beautifully constructed guitar solo that Guitar World readers rated the “best ever” was, believe it or not, improvised.
“I winged it,” says Page with a touch of pride. “I had prepared the overall structure of the guitar parts, but not the actual notes. When it came time to record the solo I warmed up and recorded three of them. They were all quite different from each other. All three are still on the master tape, but the one we used was the best solo, I can tell you that.
“I thought ‘Stairway’ crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there, and showed the band at its best. Every musician wants to do something that will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did that with ‘Stairway.’ ”
16. “Heartbreaker” Soloist: Jimmy Page Album: Led Zeppelin—Led Zeppelin II (Atlantic, 1969)
Performing a convincing solo in a group context is difficult for any musician, but it takes a real man to stand unaccompanied and deliver. On “Heartbreaker,” Jimmy Page did just that. For an electrifying 45 seconds, Page let loose sans rhythm section and, needless to say, the guitar world has never been quite the same.
“I just fancied doing it,” laughs Page. “I was always trying to do something different, or something no one else had thought of. But the interesting thing about that solo is that it was recorded after we had already finished “Heartbreaker”—it was an afterthought. That whole section was recorded in a different studio and was sort of slotted in the middle. If you notice, the whole sound of the guitar is different.
“The solo itself was made up on the spot. I think that was one of the first things I ever played through a Marshall. I was always having trouble with amps, and Marshalls were state-of-the-art reliability. By that time I was using a Les Paul, anyway, and that was just a classic setup.”
“We definitely recorded the solo section separately,” confirms engineer Eddie Kramer. “Jimmy walked in and set up and the whole session was over in about 20 minutes. He did two or three takes and we picked the best one, which was edited in later. However, to this day, I have a hard time listening to it, because I think we did a shitty edit—the difference in noise levels is pretty outrageous. But I don’t think Jimmy cared, he was more interested in capturing an idea, and on that level, he succeeded.”
If you’re a fan of classic rock and read Guitar World or any of the other music magazines out there, I’m sure you’ve seen the ads for Rock ’N’ Roll Fantasy Camp.
Brian Wilson, Jeff Beck, Roger Daltrey, Bill Wyman and Ace Frehley are just some of the members of rock royalty who have shared their stories and talents with Rock Camp attendees since its founding in 1997.
"People look at us and say, 'They have fun. They have freedom.' And music is the last great freedom we have left," the Who's Roger Daltrey, who has taught at the camp, told USA Today in 2008. That just about hits the nail on the head.
Just last week, I was at the Gibson showroom, which is housed in the old location of New York City’s famed Hit Factory, working on some demos. It’s usually a pretty quiet atmosphere, but that day the studios were overrun with people in a way I had never seen. I saw some familiar faces, so I asked what was going on and discovered Rock ’N’ Roll Fantasy Camp was in town for the week.
After chatting with some of the organizers and catching up with Rock Camp founder David Fishof, who has worked with sports stars and rock luminaries like Ringo Starr and the Monkees, I found myself in a rehearsal room with some campers and Wallflowers, Foo Fighters and session keyboardist extraordinaire Rami Jaffee, jamming on songs by the Allman Brothers, Cream and Bob Dylan.
“This is a unique, out-of-the-box experience,” Fishof told me. “We have some of the biggest names in rock who are adored onstage getting down at the ground-floor level of creation with their fans. And besides, there’s nothing cooler than singing a Who song with Roger Daltrey.”
But if your impression of Rock Camp is CEO’s and wannabe rockers waiting for an audience with their favorite guitar god, you’ve got Rock ’N’ Roll Fantasy Camp all wrong. The campers I met were just as serious about learning and experiencing what it’s like to play with top-shelf musicians as they were to attend the Q&A later in the week with Kiss’ Peter Criss.
Jaffee, for instance, has worked with Johnny Cash and Jakob Dylan and played London’s Wembley stadium with Foo Fighters, but he says Rock Camp can be even more inspiring and fulfilling.
“What are those experiences if you can’t share them?” Jaffee asked me during a break. “I’ve got a teacher’s soul. I feel like I learn as much from the campers as they learn from us. But taking someone who has only shredded along in their headphones or played to a perfect drum track in their garage to learning to listen to what’s going on around them — the give and take of what making great music really requires — is really tremendously fulfilling.”
He’s right. In Studio 3, Jaffee and I walked a group through the various parts of the Allmans’ “Midnight Rider." While Jaffee worked with the guitarists and bass player, I chatted with the drummer. I suggested he move to the ride instead of the 16th notes on the hi-hat he’d been playing, and to anticipate the kick drum on the three beat.
He showed me a chart he had prepared at home before getting to camp that didn’t jibe with what I was suggesting. We talked a bit longer, and I suggested he try to see what fit with what the other guys were playing and how they were playing it. When we went back to jamming and he struggled with the part he had charted and moved on to what I suggested, I could see it was like a lightbulb going off. The groove fell into place and the song started to come together. He beamed at me. I felt great.
On the second day, I visited Jaffee’s assigned “band,” consisting of guitarists Alan Bennett, 65, of Washington, D.C., and Kyle Purwin, 18, of Los Angeles; Mark McNary, 50, and his teenage sons, Luke and Max, of Denver on bass, drums and guitar, respectively. After listening to Jaffee lead them through progressively developed versions of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” in which everyone chipped in, I chatted with the elder McNary.
“We all like the same music, so that’s the easy part,” McNary told me. “But at home, I’m always the one calling for practice. This is a bonding experience, for sure, but I know it’s also something we’re going to look back on later as something really special.”
As I wandered the halls, I listened as legendary drummer Joe Vitale — who has played with everyone from the Eagles to CSN and Peter Frampton — took his campers through the fine points of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” with patience and precision. And later I was blown away by what I heard in the old Hit Factory’s large Studio 6 live room; 10-year-old Ben Bluestein was wailing soulfully on guitar, leading a group of middle-aged campers like he was Duane Allman reincarnated.
“This is my third camp,” Bluestein told me afterwards. “I’ve been to camp in Vegas twice and now New York City. It’s great. It makes you better on timing and songs and playing with a band.”
But even at 10, Bluestein is honest about what drew him to the guitar. “I love music and I wanted to learn the songs I love. And you get chicks.”
For more about Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy Camp, visit its official website.
Jeff Slate is a NYC-based solo singer-songwriter and music journalist. He founded and fronted the band the Badge for 15 years beginning in 1997 and has worked with Pete Townshend, Earl Slick, Carlos Alomar, Steve Holley, Laurence Juber and countless others. He has interviewed and written about everyone from the Beatles and Kiss to Monty Python and rock musicals on Broadway. He is an avid collector of rock and roll books and bootlegs and has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Dylan and the Beatles. For more information, visit jeffslate.net.
MOD Kits DIY has introduced the Persuader Deluxe Pedal Kit.
The Persuader Deluxe utilizes a Darlington preamp to push cascaded triode vacuum tubes into distortion. Four dual triode vacuum tubes are included with each kit (JJ 5751, 12AX7B China, JJ 12AU7 and NOS US-made 12AT7), which can be swapped to create a wide range of tones.
The tones range from just a hint of break-up with the JJ 5751 to over-the-top crunchy distortion with the NOS US-made 12AT7. You can easily switch out the different tubes, choosing your own tone. A boost switch provides an additional layer of flexibility with added gain and a little extra bottom end. An LED indicator lights up when the Persuader Deluxe is engaged and not in true bypass mode.
MODTM Kits and Assemblies are designed to give novice and experienced musicians the opportunity to build or modify their own amps, effects pedals and guitars. All kits come with easy-to-follow instructions and use point-to-point wiring. All effect pedals and amplifiers come with a pre-drilled enclosure and all necessary parts are included.
All you need to provide are hand tools, a soldering iron and solder. The effect pedal operates on a 9V battery; for a longer lasting option, a 9-volt adapter can be purchased separately.
For a complete listing of kits available from MODTM Kits DIY, visit modkitsdiy.com.
The following content is related to the September 2013 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.
For an artist with such a vast body of work, Richard Thompson has spent much of his musical life under the radar. A founding member of Fairport Convention (he penned their anthem “Meet on the Ledge”) and the folk-rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson, he is also a critically acclaimed solo artist whose songs have been covered by numerous artists, including Robert Plant, Elvis Costello, David Byrne and R.E.M.
Thompson plays Martin, Lowden and Farrington acoustic guitars, and as we’ll see in this lesson, he favors hybrid picking (“pick-and-fingers” technique) and often opts for drop-D tuning (lower your sixth string’s pitch one whole step, to D). Today, with a career spanning almost 50 years, Thompson is still recording and touring, and is busier than ever. Let’s examine some of the things that make this picker tick.
Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of “Leave Me in the Dark,” a brand-new performance video by Walking Papers.
The new band features former Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagan, ex-Screaming Trees/Mad Season drummer Barrett Martin and Seattle scene favorites Jeff Angell and Benjamin Anderson, both from the Missionary Position.
The track is from the band's self-titled debut album, which was released August 6 via Loud & Proud Records. The album also features Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready on two tracks.
Although Walking Papers began as Angell and Martin's duo, Anderson and McKagan joined last year. The group began selling a self-released disc at their shows but soon realized their music deserved better treatment.
"The music was too good, the band was too good for us to fall flat because we wanted to be indie and indie didn't go anywhere," McKagan told USA Today. "You don't want to be that indie. The music industry's tough enough at this point."
Walking Papers are headlining the second stage of this year’s Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival. Be sure to check out all their upcoming dates below.
AUGUST
13 Saratoga Springs, NY Saratoga Performing Arts Center
14 Mansfield, MA Comcast Center
16 Bristow, VA Jiffy Lube Live
17 Holmdel, NJ PNC Bank Arts Center
18 Wantagh, NY Nikon At Jones Beach Theater
20 Toronto, ON Molson Canadian Amphitheatre
22 Tinley Park, IL First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
23 Nobleville, IN Klipsch Music Center
24 Clarkston, MI DTE Energy Music Theater
27 Oklahoma City, OK Zoo Amphitheater
28 Dallas, TX Gexa Energy Pavilion
29 Woodlands, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
31 Albuquerque, NM Isleta Amphitheatre
SEPTEMBER
1 Englewood, CO Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
2 Salt Lake City, UT USANA Amphitheatre
5 Nampa, ID Idaho Center Amphitheater
8 Ridgefield, WA Sleep Country Amphitheater
11 Mountain View, CA Shoreline Amphitheatre
13 Phoenix, AZ Desert Sky Pavilion
14 Chula Vista, CA Sleep Train Amphitheatre
15 Irvine, CA Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of “K-yotic,” a new music video by singer/guitarist Malina Moye.
The clip features appearances by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer William "Bootsy" Collins and drummer Frankie "Kash" Waddy. Collins and Kash were members of James Brown's band before splitting off and joining Parliament/Funkadelic.
The "K-Yotic" video was created by indie film director and Steven Spielberg protege Marc Fusco, who says, "I knew with an amazing performer like Malina and the colorful Bootsy Collins, we could stretch the boundaries of reality with the 'K-yotic' music video. There's an 'Alice In Wonderland'/'Wizard of Oz' vibe that adds a lot of fun and humor to the whole thing, yet it still remains sexy as hell."
Moye's resume includes making history as the first African-American woman to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" on guitar at a professional sporting event. She also performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s tribute concert saluting Chuck Berry.
Recently released as a digital single, "K-Yotic" is the first taste of Moye's upcoming album, Rock 'n Roll Baby, which is scheduled to be released in early 2014 via WCE Records, distributed by BDG/RED Distribution, LLC (a division of SONY Music Entertainment.)
Eric Clapton's 2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival, which took place at New York City's Madison Square Garden this past April, is coming to a movie theater near you tonight — Tuesday, August 13.
The film version of the event — titled Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013— is being presented in nearly 500 theaters around the country through NCM’s Digital Broadcast Network. Tickets are available at theater box offices and at fathomevents.com.
The film features performances by Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, Jimmie Vaughan, Vince Gill, Buddy Guy, John Mayer, Keith Urban, the Allman Brothers Band, Blake Mills, Booker T., Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks, Doyle Bramhall II, Gary Clark Jr., Gregg Allman, Los Lobos, Robert Cray, Sonny Landreth, Warren Haynes and more.
For a complete list of theater locations and prices, visit the NCM Fathom Events website (NOTE: Theaters and participants are subject to change). Get your tickets at fathomevents.com.
Leslie West will release a new album, Still Climbing, October 29 via Provogue Records/Mascot Label Group.
“This record is a sequel to Unusual Suspects, where I had friends of mine that include Slash, Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa and Billy Gibbons come to the studio and play,” West says. This time, Jonny Lang, Johnny Winter, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and Alter Bridge/Creed’s Mark Tremonti do the honors.
“What’s different on Still Climbing is that I wanted my guitars to sound as big as I look. So I used four of my Dean signature model guitars with my Mountain of Tone humbucking pickups. I plugged them into my Blackstar amps — no pedals — and turned them up loud and raw, and what you hear is exactly what I did in the studio. These Blackstar amps deliver everything I need without 'confidence' pedals. I played one of the early tracks we recorded for Slash, and he said, ‘That is as heavy as it gets.’"
Still Climbing is co-produced by West and Mike “Metal” Goldberg, who engineered all of the sessions. Songs like “Dyin' Since The Day I Was Born,” “Hatfield or McCoy,” and “Busted, Disgusted or Dead” establish a new litmus test for “heavy.” The latter features West and Winter on dueling slide guitars.
West also gave up smoking cigarettes and pot after a bout with bladder cancer, so it’s no wonder many of Still Climbing’s numbers explore the theme of survival and, ultimately, triumph. To that end, West avows, “Not only am I lucky to be here, but because I stopped smoking my voice is now stronger than it’s ever been — as strong as my guitar playing."
His inclusion of “Feeling Good,” a song by British actor-musician Anthony Newley that was made famous by Steve Winwood’s group Traffic, is a testimonial to all of that. Its lyrics celebrate a “new dawn for me” as West and his longtime buddy Dee Snider trade vocal lines.
"Being in Mountain was one of the most satisfying things I have ever done in my professional life," West says. "I became a musician, not just a guitar player. Being in the group with Felix Pappalardi was an honor, who was so talented as a producer, arranger, bass player, guitar player, and all the things I aspired to be. We had some great years together, and some rocky roads. His wife Gail, who by the way shot and killed Felix, could suck the fun out of a clown. It left a terrible taste in my mouth about working with my wife, Jenni. I did not want to risk going down that path where your wife was involved in every aspect of your musical life. Jenni has become so good at expressing thoughts to paper, she has become my primary collaborator on the lyrical side of my new recordings."
Either way, you might appreciate this new video (posted on YouTube August 10) of the Breaking Bad theme song performed with things you'd find in a meth lab.
We're not exactly sure if a Gibson acoustic/electric qualifies, but whatever. We're glad it's there. Enjoy!
On August 27, Sony Legacy will release Higher!— the first-ever career-spanning box set from Sly & The Family Stone.
To celebrate the release, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive photo gallery below. It features several rare photos of Sly with various guitars, including Fenders and Gibsons. There's even a vintage Ibanez ad for you to check out.
Higher! is a 77-track, 8LP box set that showcases Sly & The Family Stone's hits in stereo and mono. Also included are gems from Sly Stewarts' pre-Family Stone period, studio outtakes and instrumentals. The box set features 17 previously unreleased tracks in all.
The music is accompanied by a colorful and detailed 104-page, 12-inch book of rare photos, posters, picture sleeves, recording documents, vintage ads and other memorabilia, along with liner notes by Jeff Kaliss (author of Sly's only authorized biography), track-by-track annotations and a detailed timeline of Sly & The Family Stone's career.
Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello recently told Bloody Disgusting that he's working on a new rock release, a guitar-heavy album that's set for a tentative 2014 release.
"It's just time to rock," Morello said, adding that he's "written a batch of songs with huge riffs and huge grooves."
"I'm working it out with my band now, and we're about five songs deep at this point, but we're taking our time with it," he said. "It will definitely be a release-the-hounds effort."
"This will be the first time since Rage Against the Machine or Audioslave that I've made a really big rock record."
Morello also hinted that the new album — due to its "release the hounds" heaviness — probably will not be released under the Nightwatchman moniker.
The latest Nightwatchman album, World Wide Rebel Songs, was released in 2011.
Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of "Meine Brille," the new music video by Germany's We Butter The Bread With Butter.
The song is from the band's new album, Goldkinder, which was released today, August 13. Goldkinder is the quartet's third full-length and their first official physical release in the US.
Boasting mixing assistance from Stefan Glaumann (Rammstein, Apocalyptica) and produced by the band themselves, the new WBTBWB material takes their distinct sound — a mix of heavy rock with elements of metal and electro-pop — to new heights.
Underscoring the band’s drive for growth in the three years between 2010’s Der Tag an dem die Welt unterging and Goldkinder, guitarist Marcel Neumann says, “We had about 80 songs recorded during this time. However, we kept throwing away recordings and starting over again until we felt we created something totally new.”
While Neumann admits the band might shock fans who loved the pure aggression of Der Tag, he says, “It makes us sad to see every band trying to copy themselves or others.”
Currently in the midst of a European tour (including a string of dates with Trivium), We Butter The Bread With Butter will embark on their first US tour with support from Incredible Me (Artery Foundation). Confirmed dates appear below the video.
We Butter The Bread With Butter North American Tour Dates (More TBA):
9/4 – Empire – West Springfield, VA
9/5 – The Studio At Webster Hall – New York, NY
9/6 – The Palladium (Upstairs) – Worcester, MA
9/7 – Theatre St Catherine – Montreal, QC
9/8 – Sneaky Dee’s – Toronto, ON
9/9 – Peabody’s Downunder – Cleveland, OH
9/10 – Fubar – St. Louis
9/12 – Marquis Theatre – Denver, CO
9/13 – In The Venue’s Club Sound – Salt lake City, UT
9/14 – Shredder – Boise, ID
9/15 – El Corazon – Seattle, WA
9/16 – Branx – Portland, OR
9/18 – The Boardwalk – Orangevale, CA
9/19 – Whisky A Go-Go – West Hollywood, CA
9/20 – Chain Reaction – Anaheim, CA
9/21 – Soma – San Diego, CA
9/22 – Pub Rock – Phoenix, AZ
9/26 – Sons Of Hermann Hall – Dallas, TX
Singer/guitarist Laura Wilde grew up 8,000 miles from the US in Melbourne, Australia.
At 19, however, she followed her dream to make her living as a musician and made a beeline for Los Angeles.
Now, not even four years later, Wilde has a successful solo album under her belt — 2012's Sold My Soul— and is touring the US as Ted Nugent's opening act.
We recently tracked down the 23-year-old Wilde and presented her with 13 questions about her varied influences (including Suzi Quatro), gear, future plans and touring with the Motor City Madman.
GUITAR WORLD: We know you've been influenced by Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, but you've also listed one of the coolest influences I've seen a while — Suzi Quatro. That’s a name you don’t hear often. What got you into her?
My mom had a vinyl record of hers; she's wearing that sparkly suit, and she just looks so cool. She’s chilling out with the boys. There’s a picture on the back on the album where she's rocking her bass. I found it really inspiring. The music has heavy drums and is super-glam and has some Elvis Presley and Little Richard influences. I found it really inspiring how she blazed a trail for women in rock.
As an American, I know how I discovered Suzi. But did you watch Happy Days in Australia?
It usually ran when I was in school. I'd watch it when I stayed home sick.
I hear distinct influences in your music — like Sweet, for instance. Am I off-base or did you spend a lot of time listening to bands like that?
Australia is a cultural fusion of music. We get all the American and British music, and then we have our Aussie pub culture, which is very conducive to writing rock music. We've given birth to great rock bands like AC/DC, Jet, Wolfmother and others. The US has different influences entirely. There's a more vast population and great mixes of influences — and Australia gets all of those.
You grew up at a time when it was probably easier to get English and American music. I imagine your parents would've had a harder time finding Black Sabbath records when they were growing up.
Yeah, with music downloads it really connects the world. You can get anything instantly. With things like Spotify, you can pick a genre and hear everything from every decade. It’s fantastic.
Some artists might find that a double-edged sword. It makes your music much more accessible. Someone going to see Ted Nugent can go online and get familiar with your music before you come to town — and that's great. On the other hand, it often makes it harder to sell albums.
I think if someone really loves it and wants to hear it, they can go on iTunes and get it. It’s great for the fans that they can get familiar with my work. It’s nice as a fan that they can sing along.
How did you get started on guitar?
I've been obsessed with musical instruments for as long as I can remember. I have no idea why, but seeing the guitar when I was little would make my heart flutter. I would walk past a music shop and nag my parents to go in. Nothing has really changed with my obsession. I wasn’t allowed to play until I was 12. By the time I finally got one, I never put it down. I felt so lucky to have one in my hands and play it. When people would smash guitars, I’d be looking at the guitar and thinking they could've given it to me!
How did you wind up singing?
I was always into performing at school. I was in the school musical and studied classical singing when I was 15 through 17. So I studied music at school, then I started playing in bands. Doing both — singing and playing guitar — just came naturally.
Do you find doing both limits you on guitar because you're worrying about vocal melodies? Or are you one of the few who are blessed and able to do both?
I’m certainly not blessed. It takes a lot of work to play certain things and sing.
How do you approach writing new material?
The songwriting process varies from song to song. Sometimes it’s just pouring your heart out into a recording. Sometimes it starts with a riff or a chorus. It really is just different every time.
Do you have a lot of interaction with Ted Nugent when you tour with him?
He comes into our dressing room sometimes and checks up on us and makes sure everything is going well with us. Ted is so great. His work ethic and how he performs is phenomenal. He pours his heart and soul into his guitar and expresses his personality through his guitar. His concerts are incredible experiences.
Do you get a little intimidated when he’s watching you play?
I appreciate that he’s not scoffing!
Your debut album, Sold My Soul, was released in 2012. Have you been writing material for the next release during this current tour?
I've been writing like a mad woman since Sold My Soul was released. I’m generating a pool of material to choose from for the next record. We're hoping to get into the studio after this tour.
Every guitar has a special place in my heart. Right now, my main guitar is the Dean ML with the six-in-line headstock. It’s a classic Dean with a modern twist.
You can catch Wilde on tour with Ted Nugent through August. Visit laurawilde.com for more information and tour dates.
John Katic is a writer and podcaster who founded the Iron City Rocks Podcast in 2009. It features interviews with countless rock, hard rock, metal and blues artists. In 2013, he started Heavy Metal Bookclub, a podcast and website devoted to hard rock and metal books.
These videos are bonus content related to the October 2013 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.
