Innehållsförteckning för August 2025 från Guitar World

SINCE A LOT of this issue is a celebration of Black Sabbath’s historic Back to the Beginning event on July 5 — a mega-happening that’s destined to be one of the biggest single-day shows in the history of hard rock and heavy metal — we thought we’d hit you with a little Sabbathcentric history of our own... + June 1990 GW: Ozzy Osbourne makes his first cover appearance. He’s standing next to his loyal guitarist, Zakk Wylde, who made his first cover appearance exactly one year earlier. + August 1992 GW: Tony Iommi makes his first cover appearance, sharing the real estate with Metallica’s James Hetfield. + June 1997 GW: Ozzy and Iommi appear on their first cover together, a fancy-pants foldout job with Marilyn Manson, Korn and Dimebag Darrell.…

SINCE LEO FENDER and George Fullerton properly launched G&L in 1980, the brand has been associated with high-quality instruments — but has primarily lived in the shadow of Leo’s first and namesake firm, the almighty Fender. In the years since, G&L has dropped tasty models like the ASAT, S-500, Skyhawk, Nighthawk, Climax, Legacy and Jerry Cantrell’s beloved Rampage, which can be seen being brandished by the grunge gunslinger in Alice in Chains’ “Man in the Box” music video. Along with those models came Leo’s remarkable MFD pickups, Dual Fulcrum Vibrato, Saddle Lock Bridge and many more mad-scientist inventions. This, along with the fact that Leo and George used to partake in quality control — even signing the neck pocket of early G&L guitars — had Leo feeling closer than close…

LIKE MANY GUITARISTS before him, when Tool’s Adam Jones describes his early experience with Black Sabbath, he recalls the fear — and excitement — the foursome of Osbourne, Butler, Iommi and Ward elicited. “I always wanted to do a compilation of music that scared the shit out of me when I heard it for the first time,” Jones says. “Black Sabbath was like that for me. I loved horror movies, and [Sabbath] had the same temperature to me. There’s just something romantic about it. I feel lucky that there are so many songs I’m obsessed with. I still put that music on today, and I get the same thing I was getting out of it when I first heard it. I can’t say that about a lot of bands.” Tool…

JUDGING BY HIS cavernous riffs, it’s not hard to see that when it comes to guitar, for Jerry Cantrell, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Sabbath tree. It’s a fact, and Cantrell isn’t hiding it. “Those [Black Sabbath] albums and songs are timeless,” he says. “They spoke to me then; they speak to me today.” Sabbath first entered Cantrell’s orbit when the burgeoning riff meister was a grammar-school student in Pennsylvania in the late Seventies. From the moment Cantrell took in the opening chords of “Iron Man,” he was hooked. So it must’ve been sweet when just over a decade later, in 1991, Cantrell’s band, Alice in Chains, supported Ozzy Osbourne on his first “farewell tour,” the No More Tours Tour. “We’ve had a close relationship with Ozzy since…

ALTHOUGH MASTODON’S BILL Kelliher is one of metal’s premier riff writers, he remains in awe of Black Sabbath. Moreover, he’s in awe of being asked to be a part of the July 5 Back to the Beginning event. “I’m just going to take it in, man,” he says. “I’m privileged to be in a band that’s been asked to be on such a metal experience.” Metal, indeed. It’s been a whirlwind for Kelliher and Mastodon, who, back in March, announced the “mutual” departure of Brent Hinds, meaning Mastodon will most likely be sporting a new lead guitarist come July 5. Still, Kelliher marvels at the fact that the original four members of Mastodon held it together for so long, which makes the lessons learned from Sabbath — who have had…

BLACK SABBATH, IN any of their incarnations across their 57-year career to date, are a force of nature. Inventing heavy metal and doom metal at a stroke, thrilling the wise with their epic fantasy lyrics and scaring the weak-witted with their satanic flirtations, Sabbath have somehow survived it all. They’ve been through lows and highs — in commercial and narcotic senses — and have navigated periods of total unfashionability as well as others of godlike regard. As we approach July 5, the original — and best — Sabbath lineup of John “Ozzy” Osbourne (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Terence “Geezer” Butler (bass) and Bill Ward (drums) are headed toward the apex of their existence: Back to the Beginning at Villa Park in Birmingham. How big is this show? The support acts…

ALTHOUGH HE ISN’T related to Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, John Page can also be considered a guitar legend — not as a musician but as one of the world’s most respected guitar designers and innovative luthiers. With an esteemed background as the co-founder and former head of the Fender Custom Shop, Page has closely worked with and created instruments for some of the most celebrated rock stars in the biz, including Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and Pete Townshend. Page eventually left Fender to pursue other interests but ultimately returned to his passion by launching his own brand, John Page Classic Guitars, in 2015. During this time, I became intimately familiar with two of his premier models: the Ashburn and AJ, both of which were designed by him but made…

TODAY I'D LIKE to talk about downpicking — picking or strumming consecutive downstrokes — and why it can be so musically effective. This is something I learned from studying the riff-writing style of Metallica’s James Hetfield. If you think about the approach to guitar that I’m mostly known for, it seems to have little in common with Hetfield’s. But I would argue that it has much to do with it, because so much of the energy, feel and sound of one’s rhythm parts has to do with the manner in which we attack our strings. When it comes to sound and feel, there are huge differences between alternate picking (down-up-down-up), legato phrasing (using hammer-ons and pull-offs) and downpicking. In FIGURE 1, I begin playing a two-note G5 chord in an…

OVER THE LAST two columns, I’ve demonstrated a handful of what I consider to be essential “blues approved” licks that work well both as embellishments to rhythm parts or as phrases within a solo. Our framework throughout has been a 12-bar blues shuffle in E, with focus on navigating the change from the I (one) chord, E7, to the IV (four), A7, and back. We then applied a similar approach for moving from E7 to the V (five) chord, B7, and then back down through the progression to A7 then E7. The method I’ve emphasized for moving from E7 to A7 is to play the chromatically ascending notes B - C- C on the G string, targeting C on the downbeat of 1, followed by a high G note on the…

“CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE” Black Sabbath AS HE HAS done for several other classic Black Sabbath songs, such as “Sweet Leaf,” “Into the Void” and “Supernaut,” Tony Iommi recorded “Children of the Grave” with his Gibson SG tuned down one and one half steps, to C # standard (low to high: C ), which not only makes the guitar’s strings considerably slinkier and easier to fret, bend and pick, but also lowers the pitch of the instrument, which adds “heaviness” to the tone. Iommi kicks off the song with a “galloping triplets” motif on his open 6th string, for which he combines swing eighth notes and eighth-note triplets, with bassist Geezer Butler octave-doubling the part. At section B (bar 5), Iommi proceeds to double his own notes an octave up,…

Solid as an Andy LaRocque Finally, somebody caught up with Andy LaRocque [June 2025]. As a lifelong guitar player, when somebody asks me who’s missing and underrated, Andy is always in my top five. Part of King Diamond’s long success and still-touring relevancy, I credit to Andy, always being there as King’s wingman for almost four decades. His melodic fretboard gymnastics have always been incredible and stand alone in this genre. Every time I’ve seen him live, he just absolutely nails it. Thanks again to Guitar World for catching up with him — and maybe introducing him to some younger players who don’t know his work yet. — Frank Kowalski, Alpine, California Blow by Blow tuning issues? I’ve always had a lot of respect for Joe Satriani’s playing, and he…

“FIRST AND FOREMOST, I defer to [Friedman Amplification founder] Dave Friedman, who puts my gear together. Dave always knows the litmus test, where, when I’m not using a pedal, my guitar has to sound exactly the way it does going straight into the amp. When he put together my current [rig] incarnation, he used a stereo setup with two Freidman [SS-100 V2] amps, my latest signature model. “The pedals are all bypassed — and, lo and behold, they sound exactly how I want them to. Rule number one: When you’re not using a pedal, your guitar must sound like your original guitar sound. And I don’t keep effects on all the time; I’m not one of those guys. I like my effects to come in and go, ‘Wow!’ “I’m always…

AFTER A SESSION career that included credits with Keef Hartley, Toots & the Maytals and Steve Winwood (along with an appearance in the Beatles’ Help! movie as a child actor), by the late Seventies, Junior Marvin established himself as a noteworthy go-to player with a distinct Jimi Hendrixmeets-reggae edge. That served him well, as after hooking up with Bob Marley in early 1977 as a replacement for Al Anderson, Marvin immediately played lead guitar across Marley’s iconic 1977 album, Exodus. That record and its follow-up, 1978’s uber-chill Kaya, are widely regarded as two of the greatest reggae albums of all time, but Marley’s next album — 1979’s Survival — is overlooked by drive-by fans. That’s probably because Marley was reeling after an attempt on his life in 1976 and because…

WITH THE GRASS ROOTS Let’s Live for Today (1967) Tao Pop (2024) HIS LATEST SOLO ALBUM AS A MEMBER of the hit-making, late-Sixties pop-rock group the Grass Roots, guitarist Creed Bratton lived the life of a king. But as he tells it, all that excess — the girls, the drugs, the girls — was nothing but hard work. “Led Zeppelin were a bunch of pussies compared to us,” he says. “We partied like crazy. But see, I was an athlete. I was a swimmer in college. When we got successful with the Grass Roots, I became a reluctant rock star. I didn’t like getting high, but I had to do it. It was part of the deal, so I joined in. I’d wake up in the morning and go, ‘I…

THIS IS HOW IT ALL BEGINS. It’s May 1969 and four men are crammed into a room in the Newtown Community Centre in Aston, Birmingham, England, inventing the future. Between them, they sport an array of haystack hairstyles and unkempt moustaches, although they’re all barely out of their teens. The eldest is a dark-haired figure who plays his guitar left-handed and emits an air of menace. At 21 he’s their unofficial leader. The rest of them are barely 20. They’ve been playing together for nearly a year by this point, briefly under the name the Polka Tulk Blues Band, then even more briefly as plain Polka Tulk, and now as Earth. For most of that time they’ve been grabbing gigs wherever they can, mostly playing blues and blues-rock covers. But…

JAKE E. LEE was in a unique position when he joined Ozzy’s band in 1983. He wasn’t just filling Randy Rhoads’s shoes; he also was covering some of Tony Iommi’s most iconic riffs and solos. “It just sounds evil,” Lee says of Iommi’s playing. “He bends so [that] it’s not quite in pitch. It just made it sound so much better. There are things like that that I found challenging. Where did he come up with all those riffs? It’s not human. It’s unfathomable how he just kept coming up with riffs!” Lee has been recovering from a shooting that took place near his Las Vegas home last October. His left arm was injured in the incident — but he also suffers from arthritis in his right hand, leaving him…

LIKE SO MANY of the bands that were offered a spot on the Back to the Beginning bill, Halestorm came back with an instant “yes.” Well — not that instant. “We got an email from Sharon Osbourne,” says Halestorm guitarist Lzzy Hale. “When the email came in, I didn’t answer it for two days because I was like, ‘What the hell is going on? Are we meant to have this email?’ It was very hush-hush; no one was talking about it or knew anything about it. It was such a crazy feeling when it was confirmed that we were being asked to play at this monumental event.” How important was Sabbath in terms of your musical development? When I was a kid, my ABCs of rock ’n’ roll were Alice…

CONSIDERING THAT THEY’RE old pals, Scott Ian wasn’t surprised to get a random text from Tom Morello. The surprising part was the text’s content: “Do you want to come jam a Sabbath song at the final Black Sabbath show in Birmingham on July 5?” Obviously, Ian — a lifelong Sabbath devotee — was in. Soon the rest of Anthrax was in too. “It’s mind-blowing,” Ian says. “I’ve been flipping out. It ’s hard to believe it ’s real. It’s not hard for me to think back to my childhood discovering them — and the earliest days of Anthrax. We were a bunch of kids in Queens [New York], doing our best to emulate the bands we loved, thinking, ‘Could you imagine if we ever got to do this?’” Were you…

XOTIC’S RANGE OF AC and RC Booster pedals has solidly earned their status as bona fide classics in the stompbox canon. And as a testament to their enduring popularity, they’re still common and essential staples on many professional and studio guitarists’ pedalboards. Considering that the original AC Booster debuted in 2002, you can say Xotic has taken its time by being very methodical and deliberate before launching an update to their popular pedal. But here we are, 23 years later, and Xotic returns with the AC Booster V2, a much improved and versatile version that retains the same beloved control set but with a side panel of four DIP switches for even more tone shaping capability and an additional footswitchable gain boost. Build Quality The AC Booster V2’s familiar tone-shaping…

ERIC JOHNSON IS without doubt one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and, as I’ve stated, he has been a huge influence for me from the very first moment I heard him, way back in 1986. One of the things essential to Eric’s style is the incredibly seamless way he connects his lead phrases. Most people’s reaction to listening to an Eric Johnson solo is to say, “Wow, it’s so fast!” Yes, Eric can certainly shred! But more important than his speed is his accuracy. Accuracy will always win the day over speed. You want to, and need to, hear the notes clearly! When I was a kid, I would take single-note phrases and drill them in every key, on every fret of the instrument. Knowing where the notes…

ONE OF MY biggest musical influences is the king of blues power, Albert King. There are so many things that define his unique approach to playing, and I think about these things every time I pick up my guitar. The first thing is that, like me, Albert didn’t use a pick. He fingerpicked his strings aggressively, mostly with his thumb and index finger, snapping them against the fretboard and creating a distinctive and deeply expressive sound. Albert also played the guitar “upside down.” With the instrument strung conventionally for a right-handed player, he flipped it over and played it left-handed, with the order of the strings being reversed: the lowest string was closest to the floor while the highest string was closest to the ceiling. He also played in an…

As heard on MASTER OF REALITY “CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE” WORDS AND MUSIC BY FRANK IOMMI, WILLIAM WARD, JOHN OSBOURNE AND TERENCE BUTLER. © COPYRIGHT 1971 (RENEWED) AND 1974 (RENEWED) ONWARD MUSIC LTD., LONDON, ENGLAND. TRO – ESSEX MUSIC INTERNATIONAL, INC., NEW YORK, CONTROLS ALL PUBLICATION RIGHTS FOR THE U.S.A. AND CANADA. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED. MADE IN U.S.A. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING PUBLIC PERFORMANCE FOR PROFIT. USED BY PERMISSION.…

READER ART OF THE MONTH If you’ve created a drawing, painting or sketch of your favorite guitarist and would like to see it in an upcoming issue of Guitar World, email GWSoundingBoard@futurenet.com with a .jpg or screenshot of the image. And (obviously...), please remember to include your name! DEFENDERS of the Faith David Robbins AGE: 69 HOMETOWN: Charleston, SC GUITARS: Gibson Les Paul R9, Gibson SG ’61 reissue, PRS Custom 24 Core, Fender Eric Clapton Strat, Epiphone Casino, Martin 018, Taylor 12-string, Taylor 414 SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: Cream “Crossroads,” Derek and the Dominos “Layla,” AC/DC “Givin the Dog a Bone,” Johnny Winter “Leland Mississippi Blues” and original tunes GEAR I WANT MOST: ’59 or ’60 Les Paul, Dumble amp, Custom Shop SG, Fender Twin, Marshall 50-watt, PRS McCarty 594 hollowbody…

GOOSE HAS BEEN the fastest-rising act in the jam band universe over the past few years and is poised for blast-off with the release of their fourth studio album, Everything Must Go. Their summer tour will include their first headlining show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where they performed last November for the Soulshine benefit concert for hurricane relief along with the Dave Matthews Band, the Warren Haynes Band and Nathaniel Rateliff & the Nighsweats. Lead guitarist Rick Mitarotonda has emerged as a new guitar hero, his playing clean and concise while always seemingly ready to explode in fast-fingered flights of fancy. Formed in Connecticut in 2014, Goose began to gain steam five years later when a performance on the smallest stage at the 2019 Peach Music Festival…

IF YOU CAUGHT Black Sabbath’s The End tour, which lasted from 2016 to 2017 and spanned 81 shows over six legs, there’s a good chance you caught Rival Sons opening for them. But even if you didn’t, that tour remains a significant pride point for Rival Sons’ fuzz-laden guitarist, Scott Holiday — and it’s why Rival Sons are a part of Back to the Beginning. “I got to see a lot,” Holiday says about his time on the road with his heroes. “It’s rare that you get to spend that much time with a band that has been that legendary for that long. It was a heavy feeling to think you could be that deep into your career and be so totally focused on delivering those old songs. It was…

EVEN THE MOST modest home studio should have a decent variety of microphones at its disposal. The proliferation of high-quality, inexpensive condenser and dynamic mics introduced over the last few decades has helped aspiring engineers reach this goal somewhat. However, many studios still lack a ribbon microphone, which is a versatile mic for capturing great sounding recordings in numerous applications, particularly miking guitar cabinets. Until recently, ribbon mics were rather expensive, required a high-quality, high-gain mic preamp and were notoriously fragile and unable to handle high sound-pressure levels (SPL). Warm Audio’s new Fen-Tone WA-FT selectable passive/active ribbon mic combines classic, compact, pencil-style ribbon mic design with modern features like a built-in selectable +26dB in-line preamp/gain-lifter, custom Japanese 1.8-microns thick aluminum ribbon, Neodymium magnets, USA-made Cinemag transformer and the ability to…