Innehållsförteckning för August 2023 från Guitar World

VOL. 44 | NO. 8 | AUGUST 2023 ...SAME AS THE OLD BOSS! AS THE COVER line suggests, this issue does indeed mark the first time in 31 years that Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt has graced the cover of Guitar World. That brings us back to 1992 — the same year I was stopped by a Pennsylvania state trooper for somehow still having a four-year-old inspection sticker on my ’88 Dodge Dakota! It’s worth noting that Nuno was actually on two GW covers that year: January, when we called him the “M.V.P.,” and December, when we called him the “new boss” (as in, “Meet the...”). So sure, he’s the “older” boss now (although he still magically looks the same-ish; what do you use on your hair, Bettencourt?!?), but he is definitely…

TUNE-UPSNEWS + NOTES Q What was the first guitar you ever had? It was a borrowed Höfner Colorama when I was about 12. There was a fad in the Sixties for guitars to be covered in a kind of vinyl material that we called Fablon, which this guitar had, in red. But the first guitar I bought with my own money was an acoustic for £3. I used to make my own guitars, too, as I couldn’t afford them. When I was 15, I made a sort of Strat, which was pretty good, and I used that in the bands I was playing in at the time. Q What was your first gig? I was around 12. We used to have something called Saturday-morning pictures in the U.K., at a…

RICHIE KOTZEN GAVE Winery Dogs fans a bit of a scare back in 2017 when he announced that the supergroup trio (which also includes bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Mike Portnoy) would be “taking a break,” a phrase commonly uttered — along with “we’re going on hiatus,” another good one — when a band is close to kaput. “I probably overstated the point, and it caused some confusion,” Kotzen now says. “We toured pretty hard on our first two albums, and we just needed to catch our breath. That’s really all there was to it. It was a break — lots of bands take breaks. The last thing you want to do is tour to the point that you’re burned out.” As it turned out, the band’s hiatus didn’t last…

WHEN DEVILDRIVER FINALLY got back on the road this past March — following a three-and-a-half-year absence reflective of the pandemic and vocalist Dez Farfara’s near-deadly bout with Covid — lead guitarist Mike Spreitzer got to take his number one guitar out of its case for the first time in ages. Spreitzer is quick to point out he was still shredding at home, but when it comes to his drastically angular ESP V, some things just aren’t built for riffing on the couch. “They’re not the most comfortable shape to play sitting down,” Spreitzer says with a laugh, confessing that ESP Eclipses are his go-tos in those cases, this also extending to the guitar pool he turned to while tracking DevilDriver’s bombastically grooved Dealing with Demons Vol. I and II. In…

Q: KISS' TOMMY THAYER: THE 10 (OR 11!) PLAYERS WHO SHAPED MY SOUND 1. Pete Townshend 2. Peter Frampton 3. Davey Johnstone 4. Robin Trower 5. Mick Ralphs 6. Ace Frehley 7. Ronnie Montrose 8. Ritchie Blackmore 9. Alex Lifeson 10. Pat Travers “In true Spinal Tap tradition, I chose 11 players, and the 11th is Rick Nielsen. He’s one of the greatest riff-masters and tunesmiths of all time. He’s got style and attitude going back to when I first saw Cheap Trick open for Kiss at the Portland Memorial Coliseum in ’77. I instantly loved everything about them — the look, the energy, the songs, the Hamer guitars and the tattered Sound City cabinets.” Q: EDDIE MARTINEZ TALKS ROBERT PALMER’S “SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE” “That was a fun track… Robert [Palmer]…

ALTHOUGH FOREVER LINKED to David Bowie’s breakthrough success — and what is, for many, Bowie’s golden era in the early Seventies — Mick Ronson’s career continued long after his departure from Bowie’s band, the Spiders from Mars. Bowie’s announcement from the stage of the London Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, when he unexpectedly declared that the Spiders had played their final show together, came as a huge shock to the rest of the band. Ronson had carved out a reputation for himself as not only one of the premier guitar heroes of the glam age, but also as a gifted producer and arranger. While the band were understandably dismayed and disappointed at Bowie’s decision, plans were afoot to turn Ronson into a solo star in his own right. Unfortunately for Ronson,…

SOUNDCHECK WHILE THE QUALITY of affordable acoustic guitars has increased exponentially over the last decade, many of these guitars tend to sound rather similar. Taylor’s American Dream series is a notable exception, offering a variety of body styles and tone woods that each deliver their own distinctive voice. The new AD12e-SB is Taylor’s second American Dream Grand Concert model and the first of which to feature a solid Sitka spruce top, providing a new voice that many players are likely to find perfect for their needs. FEATURES The AD12e-SB’s all-solid tone wood formula consists of a Sitka spruce top, walnut back and sides and tropical mahogany neck with eucalyptus fretboard. Combined with the model’s compact Grand Concert body shape, Taylor’s V-Class bracing and large soundhole, this all adds up to…

OVER THE LAST two columns, we looked at various ways to craft melodic solos over alternating relative major and minor chords. As a basis for study, I used the 16-bar chord progression from my original song “Twilights,” which includes two different sets of relative major and minor chords. This month, I’d like to offer some additional examples of approaches to melodic soloing over this progression. The “Twilights” progression begins with an alternating two-bar pattern of F(sus2) to Dm(sus2), played four times. The progression then modulates to a different key while switching the order of the relative major and minor chords; in bars 9-14, the relative minor chord comes first — Gm — followed by its relative major, Bb. A richer harmonic accompaniment is achieved by replacing the basic chords with…

OVER THE LAST few months, we explored the use of chromaticism within the blues as part of a three-tiered approach that I like to use to connect one chord to the next in a blues progression, namely, chromaticism, diminished phrases and ii - V - I (two-five-one) turnarounds. This month, we will focus on diminished 7 chords, which I’ll refer to simply as diminished. Let’s begin our investigation of how to bring in diminished chords in the same way we covered the joys of chromaticism, by first playing rhythm guitar only across the 12-bar blues progression and dropping in the appropriate diminished chords to “connect” one chord to the next in a harmonically interesting way. FIGURE 1 represents a rhythm guitar approach, played as a shuffle in the key of…

“RISE” WORDS AND MUSIC BY GARY CHERONE, NUNO BETTENCOURT AND JORDAN FERREIRA. COPYRIGHT © 2023 SLIPKID MUSIC, BRUNO GRAFFITTI MUSIC AND INTERSTELLAR SOUL. ALL RIGHTS FOR SLIPKID MUSIC ADMINISTERED WORLDWIDE BY KOBALT SONGS MUSIC PUBLISHING. ALL RIGHTS FOR BRUNO GRAFFITTI MUSIC ADMINISTERED WORLDWIDE EX. JAPAN BY SONGS OF KOBALT MUSIC PUBLISHING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC.…

“ROCKY MOUNTAIN WAY” WORDS AND MUSIC BY JOE WALSH, JOE VITALE, KEN PASSARELLI AND ROCKE GRACE COPYRIGHT © 1973 SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC., BARNSTORM MUSIC AND BELKIN MUSIC COMPANY. COPYRIGHT RENEWED. ALL RIGHTS CONTROLLED AND ADMINISTERED BY SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC.…

STAY CONNECTED WITH GUITAR WORLD ON AND GET THE LATEST GUITAR NEWS, INSIDER UPDATES, STAFF REPORTS AND MORE! “Why not a guitar table?” Since retiring as a letter carrier, I’ve been woodworking and especially crafting live edge wood slabs. I’m always looking for new creative ideas, so I thought, “Why not a guitar table?” This is my third one, and so far there’s a lot of interest. It’s an exciting project! — Peter Bender Some Carl Perkins and Jerry Reed, please While I have great love and admiration for Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen, I can’t help but wonder why you have not — and do not — showcase some major and incredible guitar players such as Jerry Reed and Reggie Young. Reed’s “claw”…

TUNE-UPSNEWS + NOTES MY CURRENT TOURING pedalboard is a workhorse! Designed and executed by the wizards at XAct Tone Solutions in Nashville, the brain of the board is a Line 6 HX Effects [multi-effects processor]. I use the HX Effects library to cue up patches for a fast tremolo, slow tremolo, noise gate, slap echo and boost — and also as a switcher for the rest of the pedals on my board. My main overdrive pedals are the MXR Sugar Drive and the TB Drive [Tyler Bryant Signature Shakedown Special] by Rodenberg Amplification. My only fuzz is the Royal Jelly [Overdrive/Fuzz Blender] by Beetronics; we recently performed our song “Bad Spell” on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, and the tone for that song is the Royal Jelly with a slap echo. It’s…

FOLK MUSIC HAS often been a quiet form of rebellion, but on Sunny War’s sixth and latest album, Anarchist Gospel, the singer-songwriter transcended the typical constraints of the genre. And it was the virtually limitless canvas of DAW home recording that inspired her to pursue a more experimental approach. “It really changed how I wrote, because before I would just record me and my guitar into my phone, and if I had an idea for a song, I couldn’t really layer,” War says. After spending time exploring Logic software during tour breaks, though, and working with virtual instruments, she chased her muse deeper into the music than ever before. “I spent more time [on pre-production] at home, where I could record harmonies and add bass and program drums, and really…

DURING THE LATE Seventies and into the Eighties, few bands were pilloried by music critics quite like Triumph. “Faceless” and “corporate rock” were two of the tags regularly assigned to the Canadian power trio composed of guitarist-singer Rik Emmett, bassist Mike Levine and drummer-singer Gil Moore, and those were some of the kinder descriptors lobbed at the band. Admittedly, Triumph never professed to be anything more than a sleek, well-oiled, turbo-charged outfit that blitzed its audience with smoke bombs, lasers and flame throwers while dishing out headbanging, fist-in-the-air AOR anthems like “Lay It on the Line,” “Magic Power” and “Fight the Good Fight.” Hell, they even called one of their albums Rock & Roll Machine, just in case their subtlety went over anybody’s heads, and to celebrate their razzle-dazzle stage…

COVER FEATURE THE LAST TIME NUNO Bettencourt appeared on the cover of Guitar World was the December 1992 issue, when this magazine declared the then-26-year-old phenom the “new boss.” At the time, Bettencourt had turned the six-string universe on its ear with the excessively funky and fiery guitar acrobatics he packed into every groove (or, given the smash acoustic hit “More Than Words,” almost every groove) of Extreme’s smash sophomore album, Pornograffitti. Here we are more than three decades later, and while Bettencourt has continued to push the creative and technical limits of rock guitar — on successive albums with Extreme; in his own solo work and projects like Mourning Widows; with superstar bands like Satellite Party; alongside pop superstar Rihanna; and with Yngwie Malmsteen, Zakk Wylde and Tosin Abasi…

“IF EDWARD WAS HERE, WOULD I HAVE THE BALLS TO PLAY THIS FOR HIM? WHEN I FEEL LIKE THAT, I KNOW I’M READY TO RELEASE SOMETHING” Let’s hop right in! “Rise” begins with a very heavy, aggressive riff played in a drop-D tuning. What was the genesis of the song, and how did it come together? I always go into recording a new album with the mindset that I’ll never release anything that doesn’t mean something to me. Much to the band’s financial detriment, we probably have four albums’ worth of material from over the last 10 years that we’ve never released. When it gets to that point where you really want to share a track with someone special — you call your brother or your buddy and you say,…

DID YOU KNOW the January 1992 issue of GW called Nuno Bettencourt the M.V.P.? If you’ve been following along for a while, you probably did. But if you’ve just joined the party, let us catch you up. If we dial back to ’92, all things considered, being called the M.V.P. was major praise. Yes, Eddie Van Halen, Slash and Steve Vai were doing their thing, but old-guard types like Joe Perry, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page were scurrying about, too (as they are now). So what made Nuno the M.V.P.? It’s simple: Nuno, in so many ways, propped up the world of rock guitar. In the early Nineties, most young guitar players had chosen to mosey down the path of the Seattle sound, but not Nuno. When Nirvana and Pearl…

WITH THE EXCEPTION of an occasional funky rhythm track, the electric guitar isn’t heard very much on songs topping the pop and R&B charts these days. Steve Lacy is trying to change that, both through his own work and as a collaborator with artists like Fousheé. As a result of Lacy’s growing following and influence, Fender joined forces with Lacy to develop his first signature model, the Fender Steve Lacy People Pleaser Stratocaster. Of course, the Strat has already been pleasing people for nearly seven decades, but Lacy has added a few elements that promise to please a new generation of Strat players as well. FEATURES The Steve Lacy People Pleaser Stratocaster is built upon the foundation of a vintage Strat, featuring an alder body and a maple 21-fret 25…

ONE OF MY favorite styles of guitar playing is slide guitar. In general, I try to avoid slide guitar because there are “slide players” and then there’s me! There are slide players who have dedicated their lives to the craft, including the dreaded intonation — playing slide in tune, which is not easy — and have become true masters of the intricacies of slide guitar technique. I use slide more as a way to “season” the music. You’ll never see me on a jam session with a slide in my pocket, saying, “Hey, I’ve got my slide!” That won’t be me; I like to play regular guitar because, that way, I know I'll be playing reasonably in tune. That said, I’d like to go through some of the essentials of…

“RISE” Extreme THIS EXCITING NEW song finds veteran guitar god Nuno Bettencourt in top form, riffing and shredding his ass off as creatively as ever. And with a tributary nod to the flashy, soulful style of the late, great Eddie Van Halen, the nimble axman offers a welcome dose of the joys of playing and listening to an inspired, virtuosic solo that perfectly serves the song and brings it to a goosebump-inducing climax. Nuno kicks off the track with a chunky drop-D power chord riff, using all down-strokes and some fret-hand-muted “chucka” strums (indicated by X’s), as well as a little bit of palm muting (P.M.), to keep the open low D notes from ringing too much. He continues this riff for the verses (section B) and offers some interesting…

“YOU SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG” WORDS AND MUSIC BY MALCOLM MITCHELL YOUNG, ANGUS MCKINNON YOUNG AND BRIAN JOHNSON. COPYRIGHT © 1980 AUSTRALIAN MUSIC CORPORATION PTY LTD. ALL RIGHTS ADMINISTERED BY SONY MUSIC PUBLISHING (US) LLC, 424 CHURCH STREET, SUITE 1200, NASHVILLE, TN 37219. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED. USED BY PERMISSION.REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD LLC.…

THE RICKENBACKER 360/12 is the most famous and popular electric 12-string guitar, thanks to its use by George Harrison on more than a dozen Beatles songs like “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Ticket to Ride” and by Roger McGuinn (who actually used a Ric 370/12) on “Mr. Tambourine Man.” But although the Fender Electric XII 12-string electric is not as well known, its distinctive sound may arguably be equally as familiar, thanks to its use by Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” “When the Levee Breaks” and other songs as well as on “Beck’s Bolero” with Jeff Beck, by Pete Townshend on several tracks of the Who’s Tommy, by Eric Clapton on Cream’s “Dance the Night Away” from Disraeli Gears and by Wrecking Crew…

TUNE-UPS BY HIS OWN description, Adrian Belew’s 25th solo LP draws more from “quirky pop” than the proggy acrobatics of his former band, King Crimson. But these two creative roles — the Beatles-y hook writer and the experimentalist — always balance each other out in the long run, eternally linked by his uncanny gift for summoning strange noises. “[That’s] been my most important contribution,” Belew says. “I’ve always had a knack for emulating sounds or creating new ones.” In the emulation category, Elevator has plenty of choice moments, like a frenetic sedan-horn guitar solo on the bluesy “A Car I Can Talk To.” “It harkens back to the very early days of my career, back to right before Frank Zappa discovered me,” Belew says, reflecting on the period before his…

FOR THOSE LEANING toward indie, a life in music presents many challenges. For Yvette Young, the Ibanez-wielding leader of Covet, perseverance became a mantra while writing her latest effort, Catharsis. “Without getting too much into it, Catharsis is significant,” Young says. “I went through a lineup change because I felt unsafe within my project. I had to get things out and purge; it was an emotional catharsis. I spun that into a positive, and even though it was tumultuous, it was healing. Catharsis encapsulates my new beginning.” No one would have blamed Young for folding Covet’s proverbial tent. After all, she’s released four discs under her name, so she’s capable of making a go of it on her own — but Covet holds a deeper meaning. “I wanted to give…

NAMM.ORG DESPITE SOME NOTABLE name-brand absences, there was a lot to see and chew on at the 2023 NAMM Show. And the ebullient vibe was undeniably palpable among the exhibitors and attendees who were caught up in the carnival-like atmosphere of NAMM. Every year promises advancements in the latest recording tech, reimagined classics and flat-out show-stoppers in gear, and this show didn’t disappoint. Behold! Here’s the gear that made the biggest impression on us. IBANEZ AXE DESIGN LAB SERIES SML721 The SML721 is part of Ibanez’s new Axe Design Lab series, which churns out experimental and exciting next-gen guitars. Ibanez refers to this guitar as a “light” multi-scale — with the first fret being parallel to the nut, followed by the frets gradually tilting inward as one moves further up…

NUNO’S TWO-HANDED ARPEGGIO TAPPING IN “GET THE FUNK OUT” AND “HE-MAN WOMAN HATER” ARE A THING OF LEGEND IN THIS LESSON , we’ll explore several of the signature techniques that characterize Extreme axman Nuno Bettencourt’s unique, fiery style, with five examples that embody key elements of the guitarist’s approach to playing rhythm and lead. GET THE TONE Nuno is primarily a humbucking pickup fan and is well-known for using the Washburn N series guitars, which he helped to design. Although finding himself within the shred genre, Nuno’s lead tone is usually cleaner than you might expect, his funky approach requiring the fundamentals of the note to ring through clearly. Try the following amp settings, as starting points, then tweak to taste: Gain 7, Bass 6, Middle 7, Treble 7, Reverb 3.…

ONE OF MY favorite pick-hand articulation techniques is hybrid picking, which combines flatpicking with fingerpicking, either together or in a quickly alternating fashion. When a series of notes is played with just the pick, most often the sound is very uniform. This is, of course, something that is generally desirable and, in fact, needs to be practiced diligently in order to execute flat-picking with precision and consistency. Fingerpicking, on the other hand, allows for a greater range of timbres, tonal variations and dynamics, as attacking the strings with the flesh of the fingertips offers the potential for each note in a sequence to have its own distinct character. With hybrid picking, we can combine the best of both worlds, making it an indispensable expressive tool. Over the last two columns,…