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The Latest Breaking News from Classic Rock

“People have a hard time understanding how unsurprising Bohemian Rhapsody was to us”: These are the two early Queen songs that Brian May says paved the way for Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody didn’t appear out of nowhere

Louder

Kiss legend Ace Frehley dead at 74

"Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!" The former Kiss guitarist's family have confirmed his passing in a statement

Metal Hammer

“We said, ‘We’re calling the band Leonard Skinner!’ And everybody laughed and clapped and thought it was cool. So we kept it”: The early days of Lynyrd Skynyrd recalled by legendary guitarist Gary Rossington

Plus: the British band that inspired the young Skynyrd to work harder

MusicRadar

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“I never realised just how difficult it was for Alex. He had to rethink everything”: When Geddy Lee’s obsession with synthesizers made Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson feel sidelined in his own band

"The guitar suffered in a lot of the mixes," Lifeson said

MusicRadar

"More relatable than Mötley Crüe or Ratt and hipper than Foreigner or Journey": Night Ranger's place in rock history settled by first album Dawn Patrol

Night Ranger hit the ground running with their platinum debut Dawn Patrol

Louder

“You’d get the chart positions. ‘Oh, we're Number One again!’ It almost got boring after a while”: Brian May and Roger Taylor recall the making of Queen’s masterpiece A Night At The Opera

“People have a hard time understanding how unsurprising Bohemian Rhapsody was to us," May says

MusicRadar

A Night At The Opera: 50 years on, Brian May and Roger Taylor on Queen's operatic masterpiece - only in the new issue of Classic Rock

Also in this issue: Heart, Scorpions, Eric Gales, Creeper, Tom Petty, UFO, David Bowie, Zakk Wylde, Devon Allman, Counting Crows and more

Louder

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“Let me just put this record on and clear the room! Or play it to a girlfriend and then wonder why she threw herself out the window”: Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson on the cult prog rock mavericks who inspired him – but were too out-there to be successful

They played a gig at Bruce Dickinson’s school when he was 15 years old

Louder

“He thought: ‘I’m just going to do an over-the-top pop song’ – a heavy metal pop song”: The flop single that became a power-pop classic thanks to one of the greatest live albums of the 70s

It finally launched the career of one of rock’s greatest bands

Louder

“Me and Taylor sat down, and she says, ‘I can’t sing that line’, cos it was a bit too risqué”: Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott on duetting with the teenage Taylor Swift on an 80s rock classic - and the raunchy lyric they had to change

Louder

"I'm not sure I could have been the flashy guitarist he wanted me to be": Y&T's Dave Meniketti on turning down Ozzy and improving your chances of survival

If it’s classic hard rock that flicks your switch, here’s a band to flick it for you

Louder

“When Ronnie sang about Neil Young in that song, that was kind of a joke lyric about him. We loved Neil Young!”: The true story of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama

"Neil wanted to play the song with us!"

MusicRadar

“We opened with it and the crowd broke through the barrier. We had to stop midway because people were getting hurt”: The game-changing late 80s single that put an obscure band from San Francisco on the map and helped ignite the alt rock explosion

New singer, new sound, the start of a whole new era

Metal Hammer

“You could never call us pretentious. We were a rock’n’roll band. A rock’n’roll band that liked to experiment”: The wild story of Family, the British hellraisers that John Lennon loved and Middle America hated

Prog? Rock? Blues? Family were a square peg in the round hole of early 70s rock

Louder

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Louder

“David Byron refused to be helped. On one occasion he slapped me round the face, kicked and screamed at me. We couldn’t take it any more”: The stellar rise and chaotic fall of Uriah Heep, the 70s rock giants who tore themselves apart

Uriah Heep could have been been as big as Sabbath or Zeppelin if it wasn’t for drink, drugs and egos

Louder

“We were the new outrageous band in town. We were dirty and nasty and had naked girls on stage”: The satirical 70s shock rock anthem that gave Kiss and Alice Cooper a run for their money

Frightwigs, platform boots, fake schlongs and a 70s classic that skewered slumming rich kids

MusicRadar

“When we went to record it, the record company said, ‘Man, they won’t play that, it’s too long.’ But we said, ‘We don’t care!’”: How the young Lynyrd Skynyrd turned a simple love song into a southern rock epic

"Ronnie said, 'Just go till I tell you to quit!'"

Louder

“God? Maybe he’s gone senile”: Lemmy was once asked what he thought about God and religion, and he didn’t hold back

The late Motörhead frontman liked a lot of things, but religion wasn’t one of them

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Louder

“At first it felt like a bit of a novelty song. It was a shock that it became so popular”: How an unknown American trio scored a huge hit with the greatest Neil Young song Neil Young never wrote

The story behind a 70s soft rock classic

Louder

Motörhead: 50 Years Louder - A celebration, only in the new issue of Classic Rock

Also in this issue: Robert Plant, Terry Reid, Grand Funk Railroad, Luke Morley, Spinal Tap, George Harrison, W.A.S.P, Vernon Reid and more

MusicRadar

“I sat down at the piano and started this song about a woman that was involved with birds and magic”: The classic Fleetwood Mac hit that Stevie Nicks wrote in just 10 minutes!

Nicks’ performance of the song on stage every night “was like an exorcism”

MusicRadar

"It's a classic... one of the best rock songs ever”: Which 2013 track could Brian May be talking about?

Queen man says: "I wish I'd heard it when I was a kid"

Metal Hammer

Life on the precipice: How Audioslave gave Chris Cornell hope

Audioslave successfully separated the four members from the shadows of their former bands, but for Chris Cornell it was far more important than that

MusicRadar

“I said, ‘Rick, you think we should take a break?’ And he goes, ‘Oh yeah, we got it on tape three hours ago – we just like hearing you guys play!’”: ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons describes Rick Rubin as a “peculiar” kind of producer

Plus: how the Texan trio created something new out of an old hip-hop track

Louder

"Steve Hogarth bursts into the studio, holding a gun": What happened when Marillion allowed a journalist to play on their new album

In 2008, Marillion got a Classic Rock journalist to play on the album Happiness Is The Road, and things got weird

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