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The Latest Breaking News from Guitar World

“Elton said, ‘I'd better buy that guitar just to have in my house.’ I played it and said, ‘Yeah, you'd better buy it, so I can play it when I come by’”: One of Davey Johnstone's favorite guitars was once a piece of upscale decor for his superstar bandmate

Johnstone did end up with the '50s-era beauty in the end, though not for a happy reason

Guitar World

“There are people who think it makes a big difference to the sound. Stevie always sounded the same whether it was rosewood or maple”: Jimmie Vaughan says your fretboard choice doesn’t matter – and SRV is his proof

SRV played Strats with rosewood and maple fingerboards, and although he's more commonly associated with the former, his brother says he performed the same on both

Guitar World

“My hand hit the glass and it broke. It got totally trashed. I can’t feel my pinky from nerve damage”: The freak injury that changed the way Chris Poland played guitar – and ended up informing the sound of Megadeth’s Rattlehead

The former Megadeth guitarist had a stand-off with a 200lb oak door, resulting in an injury that would forever change how he plays guitar

Guitar World

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Mark Tremonti’s PRS signature amp is one of the best affordable high-gain heads on the market – and it just got one major upgrade

An all-new Archon Classic and 4x12 "mega-sized" cab have also been released

Guitar World

“The hotshot guitar player at our gig said, ‘Your guitar sounds terrible. You should leave that thing on.’ So I turned on the Big Muff…” How a heckler helped J Mascis unlock his Dinosaur Jr. guitar tone

Mascis first started playing guitar as a means to write and perform with Dinosaur Jr., but his tonal awakening came mid-gig thanks to a rather critical listener

Guitar World

Stevie Ray Vaughan, Simple Minds, Megadeth, the Cult and the class of 1985 – only in the new Guitar World

Also starring Jimmie Vaughan, GA-20, Kiki Wong, Dead Kennedys, the Smithereens' Jim Babjak, Cracker's Johnny Hickman, King Diamond, Third Man Hardware, Sue Foley's new GW column, Money for Nothing and more

Guitar World

“My guitar tech ran in and said, ‘Hey, you want to meet Pete?’ I was too scared”: The Smithereens’ love affair with The Who goes way back – yet when guitarist Jim Babjak got the chance to meet Pete Townshend, he turned it down

The Smithereens even released a covers album that pays homage to The Who's 1969 record Tommy

Guitar World

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“Every tour was the best I could have done. It was only after that I would listen to more Grateful Dead and realize I hadn’t come close”:John Mayer and Bob Weir reflect on 10 years of Dead & Company – and why the Sphere forced them to reassess everything

In this exclusive interview, Bob Weir and John Mayer break down the Sphere experience, latest gear adjustments and their ever-evolving musical partnership and float the possibility that they'll enter the studio one day

Guitar World

“I suppose I felt that I deserved it for the amount of seriousness that I’d put into it. My head was huge!” “Clapton is God” graffiti made him a guitar legend when he was barely 20 – he says he was far from uncomfortable with the adulation at the time

Speaking to Guitar World in 1994, Eric Clapton said that at the time – though he would grow more humble over the decades – he was “unbearably arrogant”

Guitar World

“I was in a frenzy about it being trapped and burnt up. I knew I'd never be able to replace it”: After being pulled from the wreckage of a car crash, John Sykes ran back to his burning vehicle to save his beloved '76 Les Paul

What would ~you~ do for your favorite guitar?

Guitar World

“Seeing friends and heroes of mine having their solos plagiarized broke my heart”: Giacomo Turra used their solos note-for-note for his own viral content. Now the guitarists who had their playing “stolen” are speaking out

Turra was accused of lifting solos for his social media output, and responded to the allegations in an apology video – but guitarists are continuing to find evidence of his repurposed playing

Guitar World

June 2025 Guitar World lesson videos and more

The one where Joe Bonamassa unlocks some of Rory Gallagher's slide guitar secrets and Paul Riario declares a 'Victory' for Gibson

Guitar World

“It’s the guitar I’ve dreamed of making for years”: Jackson and Bring Me the Horizon’s Lee Malia champion the rise of the metal offset with new signature Surfcaster

Featuring old looks, modern features, and pickups voiced to Malia’s aggressive-but-open specifications, the LM-87 is one of 2025’s finest new signature guitars

Guitar World

“At some country show I was playing, my dad saw one lying on the floor that somebody left or dropped. I had never seen one before”: He started playing at the age of three, and at 13, he came across something that would help define his unique sound

One of the most distinctive (and underrated) blues guitar players of his era, Jeff Healey adopted his radically unconventional approach to the instrument at a very young age

Guitar World

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Guitar World

“It's the most significant development in the last 50 years. Everything else has just been a little tweak on something Leo Fender or Les Paul did”: Once Allan Holdsworth picked up a headless Steinberger, there was no turning back

Though he'd also later work with Carvin, Holdsworth remained a headless guitar devotee for the rest of his life, telling Guitar World in an interview just days before his death, “Once you play a headless guitar, you’ll never want to play a regular guitar again”

MusicRadar

"I remember showing up at 10 or 11 in the morning and working on solos and that leading to two or three o’clock in the morning the next day”: How Metallica beat the clock and battled fatigue to create a poignant and pulverising anti-war epic

The sound of Metallica in full command, One would prove to be the ultimate thrash metal power ballad

Guitar World

“I played the national anthem at a football game on a Les Paul with a Floyd Rose. I turned my back for five minutes and it got stolen”: Orianthi names her favorite guitars – and tells us why her PRS sounds better than a holy grail Les Paul

The Australian virtuoso is a guitar nut with an extensive collection, but if it came down to a choice of three, these would be the guitars she could not bear to let go

Guitar World

“I was working with David Gilmour and I said, ‘I can't work out how to play this.’ He couldn't either’”: Phil Manzanera tried to relearn one of his classic riffs after it was sampled by Kanye West and Jay-Z – and even the Pink Floyd hero couldn’t help him

The Roxy Music legend was ultimately saved by a younger player, who helped him get to grips once again with the iconic hook

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Guitar World

“I freaked out when I saw it on stage. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s it. That’s the guitar I worked on’”: The incredible untold story of the mystery Martin that was specially commissioned in 1973 – and went viral with John Mayer 50 years later

Mayer's viral performance with Sheryl Crow in 2023 sent the guitar world into a frenzy when he took to the stage wielding on unidentified small-bodied 12-string acoustic – now its astonishing history has finally come to light

Guitar World

“If you’re in the market for a single-cut on steroids with vintage charm, this is the one to wield”: Heritage Guitars Custom Shop Core Collection H-137 review

There is something very Special about this retro electric from a Kalamazoo factory with some serious history

Guitar World

Billy Corgan announces new solo project featuring Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Kiki Wong, and U.S. tour celebrating classic Pumpkins eras

The tour, titled A Return to Zero, promises to be a career celebration – with a setlist that draws from seminal Pumpkins albums – and kicks off this summer

Guitar World

“If any song can unite all generations of rock guitar fans, this is it”: March 2025 Guitar World Editors' Picks

A round-up of March's best and most exciting guitar-led cuts from the likes of YUNGBLUD, Sleep Token, Samantha Fish, Great Grandpa, Rachel Chinouriri, Joe Bonamassa, Mickey Callisto, and many, many more

Guitar World

“They’re basically Les Paul copies, let’s be frank. It’s a Les Paul-style guitar and I already have amazing Les Pauls”: Kirk Hammett owns over 100 guitars but none of them are PRS. He explains why

The Metallica guitarist has an enviously extensive guitar collection, but it doesn’t feature any of Paul Reed Smith’s builds

Guitar World

“Jeff was playing through his dodgy Marshall and didn’t like the sound. He said, ‘We’ll do it again, later on…’” Mick Rogers may be in possession of Jeff Beck’s last-ever studio recording

Mark Knopfler’s charity single Going Home, released in March 2024, was widely thought to be Beck’s final recording, but Rogers says he has an unreleased studio track that may very well take that crown

Guitar World

“The concept of the guitar duel at the end was just appalling”: Crossroads is an essential piece of '80s guitar lore, but not every guitar legend was a fan of the film

A guitarist with a particularly vested interest in Robert Johnson and Crossroads (the song), expressed his distaste with the movie of the same name in the pages of Guitar World

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