Guitar World
May 2025Guitar World is the world’s leading guitar magazine. Professionals and beginners alike turn to Guitar World for top-flight coverage of their favorite artists, from rock titans like Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Metallica's Kirk Hammett to contemporary stars like the White Stripes' Jack White and Tool's Adam Jones. Every issue of Guitar World magazine offers broad-ranging interviews that cover technique, instruments and lifestyles as well as Guitar World’s famously thorough lessons and transcriptions.
ROOM FOR SPHERES
IT ADMITTEDLY DOESN’T do a lot of good to try to “sell” the issue here on the Woodshed page. I mean, by the time you’ve reached this section of the magazine, you’ve theoretically already bought the issue, pulled it out of your mailbox or picked it up at your (very cool) dentist’s office before enjoying another (very uncool) root canal. Still, I’m gonna say it: Our cover story is just as fascinating as the wholly unexpected musical partnership between Bob Weir and John Mayer. There’s so much to find interesting — so many things to latch onto — from the ins and outs of the “Dead Spec” version of Mayer’s PRS Silver Sky to the audiovisual wonders on display at Sphere in Las Vegas (which I haven’t yet experienced —…
SOUNDING BOARD
Jeff Beck still gets ’em thinking Upon excavating the March 2025 issue from beneath the pile of envelopes in the mailbox, which I had neglected for many weeks, my brain took delight in seeing Jeff Beck on the cover and happily exclaimed, “Things are looking up!” Request: I wonder if there’s a chance in the (guitar) world that we can get a close-up photo of his 2022 pedalboard featured on page 63? Beautiful shot of the ’54 Les Paul (Oxblood), BTW. Wraparound tailpieces (no bridge) confound me, only having seen them in pictures and never really researching. My bad there, but if you’re ever lacking for a little something to fill space, a piece (pun might be intended) pertaining to the subject would be interesting. No intonation adjustment? String height?…
STAY CONNECTED WITH GW ON
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 Jack Zhou AGE: 29 HOMETOWN: Vancouver, Canada GUITARS: Ibanez RG550 Genesis, Ibanez RG7620, Ibanez RG1XXV, Ibanez Premium RG870QMZ, Ibanez IC420 SONGS I’VE BEEN PLAYING: Racer X “Technical Difficulties,” Joe Stump “Speed Metal Messiah,” JS Bach “Prelude No. 5 in D Major BWV 850” GEAR I WANT MOST: Ibanez PGM301, Ibanez RG760, Ibanez Universe UV7PWH James Swartz AGE: 63 HOMETOWN: Port Townsend, WA GUITARS: Kiesel Vader 6, Kiesel Osiris 6 and 6X, Ibanez JS1CR, Ibanez JS2450, Gibson Les Paul Custom,…
Satch Unchained
THOUGH HE’S FAST approaching his 70s, Joe Satriani remains one of the busiest guitar players in the game. There’s a new live album out, documenting the original G3 lineup’s sold-out reunion tour of last year. He’s been paying tribute to Eddie Van Halen in the ongoing Best of All Worlds tour alongside Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham. And there’s the recently announced Surfing with the Hydra tour with the Satch/Vai band, where they’ll be performing new original music written together and solo tracks as one group for the very first time. For a six-stringer who released his debut EP way back in 1984 and now has 18 solo full-lengths under his belt, plus two albums with Chickenfoot and all kinds of collaborations stretching across the last four decades,…
COVER MODELS
GUITARIST MARTY FRIEDMAN GUITAR 1991 JACKSON FIREBIRD CUSTOM SHOP PROTOTYPE GW COVER DATE DECEMBER 1991 THIS INTERVIEW JANUARY 2025 PHOTOGRAPHER NEAL PRESTON Q: When and where did you buy this guitar? I’m sure I was somewhere on the road, right around the time of the photo shoot, when Jackson presented me with several guitars of very cool shapes. It might have been a prototype. Q: What drew you to it? I loved the shape. Jackson should get more recognition for being the first top-tier company to make guitars of radically “heavy metal”-looking shapes way before anyone else did. Arguably, they were the only top-tier company making them for a very long time. Before Jackson, all the weird-shaped guitars were sonically and visually suited to other genres, like surf music or…
Zeal & Ardor
BORN 11 YEARS ago out of an experiment to combine Norwegian black metal and American slave songs, Zeal & Ardor has developed its inchoate, one-man demos into a cohesive, multidimensional band that integrates alt-rock, industrial, pop, math-metal, classical and indie-rock. Greif, the group’s fourth full-length, is an offbeat, schizophrenic and sometimes unnerving collection of occult-themed songs united by a desire to expand, evolve and consume like a virus. “The tendrils have grown in every which direction,” agrees racially mixed Swiss-American founder Manuel Gagneux. “What can I say? I’m easily bored. I always want to elbow my way out to have more room to explore.” To that end, Gagneux invited his bandmates (lead guitarist Tiziano Volante, bassist Lukas Kurmann and drummer Marco Von Allmen) to contribute original ideas to the finished…
