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January 2025
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445 articles
- January 31
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- "I've never been this honest in my music before": Struts frontman Luke Spiller releases epic debut solo single Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes And Wine
- Def Leppard release version of Ben E. King's soul classic Stand By Me for FireAid
- "It's about going the extra mile in the pursuit of a greater flavour." New Delhi nu metal band Bloodywood just released a brilliant new music video celebrating Indian cuisine
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "We got any Led Zeppelin fans out there?" Watch pop superstar Pink absolutely smash a timeless Led Zeppelin classic at Los Angeles FireAid benefit show
- “Sometimes his lyrics are so indistinct they may as well be wordless. Sometimes they are actually wordless”: Jonathan Hultén’s Eyes Of The Living Night is brilliant and beautiful
- Great new prog to enjoy from Ghost Of The Machine, Tiktaliika, Avawaves and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "Thank you for showing up LA." Watch Red Hot Chili Peppers' four-song set at star-studded FireAid benefit show in Los Angeles
- “The dynamic twists and thoughtful depths of the mix suggest these pieces aren’t so much produced as dramatised”: Soft Machine’s Softs vinyl remaster
- Andy Summers and Robert Fripp's Complete Works 1981-1984 to be released in March
- Watch Dave Grohl's daughter Violet front a surprise Nirvana reunion, and Billie Eilish join Green Day, at emotional FireAid concert in Los Angeles
- "An almost humbling experience": The guitars are the thing on G3's Reunion Live album
- “Their own songs, freed from the dated sonics of their recorded counterparts, benefit most from the live treatment”: Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe’s An Evening Of Yes Music Plus returns in 4-disc set
- "The sound does not do the band justice": The Yes soap opera reruns on Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe's live An Evening Of Yes Music Plus
- Eddie Vedder, Jack White, David Byrne and more to star at SNL 50th anniversary concert
- "You gave me the confidence to fly": Metallica, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and more react to the death of Marianne Faithfull
- Remember Threatin, the 'fake' band who embarked on a UK tour playing to no one and went viral in 2018? Now Jered Threatin is back, but it's looking grim
- January 30
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- Marianne Faithfull dead at 78
- "This song was love at first harpsichord!" Black Country, New Road return with video for brand new single Besties
- “I’m trying to coin the phrase ‘spy-chedelic rock’ – but everyone thinks it’s just a typo!” Why Rosalie Cunningham broke the fourth wall with her cinematic sort-of concept album To Shoot Another Day
- I’m a music journalist bored of writing about the same artists, so here are 11 awesomely weird metal bands you won’t discover anywhere else
- Fleetwood Mac fans! Can we finally all admit that Tango In The Night is better than Rumours?
- Roger Waters will release The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux box set in March
- “I'm not having that!” The night Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher stormed out of a Spinal Tap gig in New York after discovering that the English hard rock legends weren't actually a real band, or indeed English
- “It’s an extremely playful, extremely dark, complex song, unbelievably deep.” Nick Cave names the hip-hop song that he wants played at his funeral
- “Ninety per cent of drummers are interchangeable, but you definitely know when he’s playing… I wish I could be as creative as him”: If a Skindred show slumps, Phil Collins saves the day
- "The management have threatened to arrest me!": Scott Weiland on his furious final days with Velvet Revolver
- "It's like Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown but with less generation-defining genius and far more people dressed as bees": The SNL movie Saturday Night is fast and funny
- A beginner's guide to Bad Company in 10 songs
- "I've given up drinking. And I feel great. I'm not as much of an arsehole any more": Massive Wagons on sobering up, getting serious, and the size of Bruce Dickinson’s mouth
- January 29
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- Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks release stunning live version of Yes classic Your Move / I’ve Seen All Good People
- Twelve-disc Wishbone Ash Live At The BBC box set out in March
- "All American and Canadian heads…..We are back!" Irish hip-hop sensations Kneecap announce 15-date North American tour
- “He sometimes gets overshadowed by his own brilliant lead playing”: What was underrated about Eddie Van Halen, according to Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick
- 10 brilliant but overlooked rock and metal albums you need to hear from 2000
- "I ****ing LOVE it!" Liam Gallagher officially approves of Bring Me The Horizon's wild Wonderwall cover
- "This song is a reminder of how we started but it’s also the first part of a new story we want to tell." Ten years after they began work on it, Sleigh Bells release new single Wanna Start a Band?, and share North American tour dates
- "The perfect soundtrack for moshers who like to party...this feels like the beginning of something special." Alt Blk Era's Rave Immortal has officially announced one of the most exciting new bands in alternative music
- “A lot of people came with their backs up... it was kind of scary.” Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones reflects on his band's infamous, “chaotic” first US tour, and promises that the punk legends will be back this year
- I used to feel like a geek for loving prog metal. In 2025, it’s taking over the world – and I couldn’t be happier!
- "If he hadn’t been around, we’d have had to get some fat old geezer who’d be telling us about how he played with Clapton in ’76." Noel Gallagher on how Johnny Depp ended up playing on an Oasis album
- “Lionisation is too late when you’re dead… I’ve often thought of faking my own death and watching the record companies drum up all the stuff they can”: A fight, a show then a drink with John Martyn
- "Steve was living out this James Brown fantasy, only he'd taken it one step too far": Quarrels, cocaine, and the rise and fall of Humble Pie
- "I made an incredible deal with Spotify when it was two weeks old": Toto songs are now played three million times a day on Spotify and Steve Lukather seems pretty happy with that
- Watch: Punk band Knuckleheadz take over McDonald's and play 'F*** McDonaldz' as Ronald McDonald crowd surfs
- January 28
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- Def Leppard update fans about Vivian Campbell's health, share footage from show played without him
- Rush share unboxing video for new Rush 50 box set
- “Being on a trip was stimulating… you weren’t covered in blood, but you’d experience it as if you were”: Of their many mistakes, The Pretty Things know which one derailed S.F. Sorrow, the first rock opera
- I’ve listened to every single King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard album and I can tell you that these are their five very best
- "You can hear influences of early grime, jungle, techno and Chicago footwork." Kneecap share seven hard-hitting, banging new takes on live favourite H.O.OD.
- "Did he ask me to write a song with him? I didn’t take that seriously. We’d had a few pints." The night Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder hung out 'til dawn with Bob Dylan in an Irish bar in New York
- IQ announce brand new studio album Dominion, their first for six years
- Moody Blues singer Justin Hayward announces Forever Autumn tour for October
- The Secret Service locked Rage Against The Machine in their dressing room after bassist tried to “attack” a billionaire on SNL
- "When you have a band this good, I believe in showing it off": Alice Cooper announces shows in Wales and Scotland
- “I found the underground a more realistic place – bodies all over the floor, film projections on various surfaces, and a right old racket coming from the stage… altogether rather dreamlike”: Robert Wyatt on his improvised life
- The 10 worst Led Zeppelin songs of all time, because not every Led Zeppelin song can be as good as Kashmir
- "He was the first time I'd ever seen the potential of music to be evil": From Oz punk to Detroit blues, Nick Cave names his Desert Island Discs
- "I did start by saying: 'Do we need another guitar solo here?'" David Gilmour on boomer fortune and the making of Luck And Strange
- January 27
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- Injured Orianthi drops out of Alice Cooper tour at last minute – replacement already announced
- "No one else is making contemporary heavy metal on their level." Every Trivium album ranked from worst to best
- Steven Wilson announces first full-band North American solo tour for seven years
- Hear Deafheaven go back to black metal with new single Magnolia
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- Wardruna fans! Order this exclusive 2LP Birna vinyl and signed art card bundle, only through the Metal Hammer store
- David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy musicians reunite for European tour
- “Two years ago, I was robbed in São Paulo. Two guys on motorcycles put a gun to my head”: Slipknot’s Eloy Casagrande explains the hidden meanings in his mask – including that gruesome bullet hole
- The Who, the Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter and more lined up for this year's Teenage Cancer Trust shows
- "As a guitarist he has few peers but as a songwriter he's no Roger Waters": David Gilmour soars on beautifully crafted if ultimately unchallenging debut solo album
- “A ferociously experimental trip into the outer limits of rock, jazz, soundtrack music, cartoon horror and Zappa-like chaos”: The prog credentials of Mr. Bungle’s Disco Volante
- “Man, it was amazing, the reactions we got for a Britney Spears cover. A lot of kids were super-mad at us”: The rocket-fuelled rise of Finnish hellraisers Children Of Bodom
- At last! Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp have unleashed their inner punk
- "You might not know the Bob Dylan songs I'm performing": Watch Timothée Chalamet play his three favourite Dylan songs on SNL
- January 26
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- "People recognise me as astronaut pirate movie star cool and that’s obviously accurate": The Darkness release new rock anthem Rock And Roll Party Cowboy
- “Steve Hackett asked, ‘Do you want paid or shall I record for your next album?’ I said, ‘I’ll forget the money in two weeks – your solo will be there forever”: Orphaned Land updated Plato to make a point about revolution
- “When I read stories about guys who snorted everything they had, I said, ‘That‘ll never happen to me.’ But in the end I blew 20 million”: The wild story of Aerosmith’s spectacular 1980s fall and rise
- "It was darker than other bands but it really got me to let go of the old and embrace the new." The late 80s alt-metal album that Korn guitarist Head says accidentally invented nu metal
- “I was shocked when I found out Demis Roussos was in the band. I had to convince a friend that it was really him”: Maxine Peake’s prog adventures with Aphrodite’s Child, Gong, Hawkwind and mushrooms
- “Aqualung got its share of bashings in the Southern USA. It created anger amongst those ultra-conservative Baptist types”: How Jethro Tull conquered America in the 70s and became rock’s unlikeliest superstars
- “I was dead against it… I have to say I was sulking for no reason”: the Depeche Mode classic that Martin Gore was opposed to, despite the fact he wrote it
- “We didn’t want to do a cheap cash-in, a quick reunion album. We took our damn time”: How extreme metal legends Celtic Frost returned from the dead with the Monotheist album
- January 25
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- “A really painful song about how hard it is to lose friends. When I sing it, I think of John Belushi”: We asked Blues Brothers star Dan Aykroyd to give us his 11 favourite blues records, and he delivered
- "Chris Squire asked me to join Yes. I was extremely flattered." Astonishing revelations from Steve Hackett when we interviewed him about 2019's At The Edge Of Light
- “Some of the people I thought were good were actually bad. I felt a lot of betrayal and uncertainty”: Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach explains the trauma and anger behind new album This Consequence
- “After years of taking heroin, it becomes this black ooze that covers your heart and you can’t feel the music any more": How Stone Temple Pilots and Scott Weiland gave it one last chance with their self-titled sixth album
- “It used to be an adventure, that’s why I did all those drugs. But after a while it stops being awesome and that’s the reality”: How Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes faced his own demons to make That‘s The Spirit
- “It’s one of the only love songs I’ve ever written”: inside Stand Inside Your Love, the last classic Smashing Pumpkins single
- “I got a phone call asking me for a quote about Lennon. Apparently I was one of the last musicians seen talking to him before his death”: Rick Wakeman’s wild tales of John Lennon, David Bowie, Keith Moon and Ozzy Osbourne
- “Walk into a strip joint and nine times out of 10 you’ll hear this song. It brings tears to my eyes”: The chaotic story of Girls, Girls, Girls, the album that almost killed Motley Crue
- January 24
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- "I had to play this sh***y little kit. It was just awful. I really had a bad time": Roger Taylor looks back on a problem Queen finally fixed after 50 years
- "Once again, our justice system has failed survivors." Games of Thrones actress Esme Bianco speaks out as news breaks that Marilyn Manson will not face criminal charges in relation to allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence
- "Our motto is always play like you have a big d**k." In 1984, MTV introduced its viewers to Red Hot Chili Peppers, a hot new 'cutting edge' band whose try-hard 'wacky' antics suggested they might also be Hollywood's most insufferable brats
- “They could have trod some of the more aggressive ritualistic paths that endear them to metal, prog and folk fans… instead there’s an airier touch on a record of extraordinary scope”: Wardruna explore the nature of the bear on Birna
- "People told me our records had saved their life." How Big Brave bounced back from burnout to create a unifying cry in A Chaos Of Flowers
- Watch Linkin Park’s Emily Armstrong prove her vocal prowess in her first take recording Heavy Is The Crown
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Watch Jay Weinberg drum Slipknot songs for the first time since parting ways with the nu metal icons in 2023
- If you ever dreamed of living in a mansion in Scotland formerly owned by Genesis, we have excellent news: there's one on the market right now, and it's going for a song
- "Maybe Tom Hanks wasn’t ready for Kneecap smoking a joint on the red carpet." Kneecap brush off Oscars snub, announce Dublin arena show
- “Three guitars? I don’t get that. I’ll step down!” Iron Maiden fans rejoiced when Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith came back – but one member almost quit because of it
- Cool new proggy sounds from Frost*, Dim Gray, Klone and more in Prog's new Tracks Of The Week
- "Wardruna remain a genuine force of nature." Heilung might've played Glastonbury, but Birna shows Wardruna are still the grand daddies of Nordic folk
- “Communal spaces for the strange:…every diversion is explored – ideas and genres ebb and flow, occasionally careering out of control”: Matt Berry’s Heard Noises adheres to his oblique vision
- Linkin Park have released an a cappella version of new album From Zero for all your Linkin Park a cappella needs
- "This album wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t toured with Cult of Luna." How avant-metal maverick Julie Christmas made the weird and wonderful Ridiculous and Full Of Blood
- Watch the trailer for Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), the long-awaited documentary about troubled psychedelic pioneer Sly Stone
- “Some bands would think such an unlikely chart-topping feat would require them to lurch into a new chapter. Instead, Mogwai retreat to their discomfort zone”: The Bad Fire is reassuringly blurry
- Aerosmith are heading back to the stage - but it's for one night only
- "I woke up three days later, in France, in this stupid castle, and I'm thinking: 'What just happened?'": How Stevie Nicks escaped the chaos of Fleetwood Mac and soared solo
- "The joy is more joyous, the heartbreak more alluring": Larkin Poe serve up more country-infused rock'n'roll on Bloom
- The diminishing returns of a great legend: Acoustic Sessions might make you miss Phil Lynott, but a 'new' Thin Lizzy album? We should be so lucky
- January 23
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- 10cc celebrate 50th anniversary of I'm Not In Love with new single release
- Winter warmers! You can stay warm and still rock out with up to 60% off jackets and coats at EMP's winter sale
- “Mike Oldfield was pushing it a bit and I was getting edgy. He said, ‘I owed you that because I auditioned with Family and you blew me out.’ Good on him!” Roger Chapman’s journey from local band stage invader to unique prog star
- "We're in debt to Slayer forever." Ice-T explains why Slayer's comeback is great for metal fans
- Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth) likens guitar playing to sex: “If you practise at home, you’re going to get good at practising at home. If you go out and do the real thing, you’re going to get good at doing the real thing.”
- "If Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell were to decorate their shared home in heaven, they would use our Dirty Collection." Flexing an imaginary endorsement from two dead rock stars must surely be the weirdest and most random product launch idea ever
- “Everybody thought, ‘Now World War III is gonna come!’” Mille Petrozza reveals which classic Kreator track was inspired by 9/11
- “President Trump, please put your ketamine-fuelled pet rocket monkey back in his cage”: Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe verbally eviscerates Elon Musk following Tesla CEO’s controversial gesture
- "The drugs got heavier and things got weirder": The wild life and violent death of Chicago's Terry Kath
- "We made a lot of people angry." When At The Drive-In released the brilliant Relationship of Command 25 years ago, their label boasted they would "save rock". Instead, the band hyped as 'The Next Nirvana' found themselves fighting to save their souls
- An unreleased Tina Turner song has surfaced and it has a connection to AC/DC
- 10 crazy metal collaborations that took us totally by surprise last year
- "We all went to visit him in hospital. And he was still wearing his cowboy hat": The crazed story of The Quireboys, the band who had it all then partied it all away
- We made a timeline of everything that’s happened in human history using only Iron Maiden songs
- Dream Theater share tour diary music video for new track Midnight Messiah
- The guitar on the cover of Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow album has just sold for over a million pounds
- January 22
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- Tedeschi Trucks Band announce mammoth live schedule with Gov't Mule and Whiskey Myers
- “They’ve created something very beautiful and we’re extremely proud of it.” Watch A Film For The Future, Coldplay's "jawdropping" companion to Moon Music, created by more than 150 visual artists from 45 countries
- “It was a very strange experience. It was like there was two people inside of him.” U2's Bono on the night he met Joy Division's “beautiful soul” Ian Curtis
- One of the most savage screamers in modern metal is unexpectedly showing off his singing voice in the brilliant new, Office-homaging video by UK metalcore heroes, Employed To Serve
- Metallica released their first music video 35 years ago. This is how it ruined my life.
- The Very Best Of Talk Talk to be reissued on double vinyl and CD in March
- “We cared so much about the music that we’d have these confrontational group therapy sessions… And then the switch went off”: Spirit didn’t know they were a prog band, but were always proud of their fearless diversity
- Nine Inch Nails announce long-rumoured world tour with UK, Europe and North American dates
- “This could be the last show we ever play!” Bad Nerves prove why they're Billie Joe Armstrong's favourite new band
- FiiO DM13 portable CD player review
- “I think he did it to take the p*** out of it and it blew up in his face": Toto guitarist Steve Lukather isn't so keen on Weezer's cover of their hit Africa
- “We have made the collective decision that 2025 will be our last year.” UK metal favourites Orange Goblin to break up after 2025 tour
- “I’m still amazed to this day that no one outside of Birmingham can understand a word I say!” Founding Black Sabbath members to be awarded with Freedom Of The City honour by Birmingham City Council
- "The stunt co-ordinator said, 'Don't put your hand here - you'll blow it off.'" The story behind Ice Nine Kills' ultra-gory Terrifier 3 tie-in A Work Of Art
- "About halfway through the gig, I got down on my knees and prayed that God would forgive me and release me from this situation": The psychedelic early days of acid overlords and space travellers Hawkwind
- “From here I drew a line to Pink Floyd and painted my room black … who knows where I’d be now if I’d never heard them?” Mikael Åkerfeldt, Bruce Soord and others pick their favourite Camel albums
- "Hopefully Babymetal can teach me their dance routines, and I’ll teach them mine." How Eurovision helped Bambie Thug became Ireland's next breakout star
- "I never wanted it to be just about me": John Sykes on Blue Murder, the band he formed after leaving Whitesnake
- January 21
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- "Let's make more memories together!" The seemingly unstoppable Peter Frampton announces another US tour
- "We’re in a really weird spot, and I can’t really tell you what’s going on. I don’t know myself." Faith No More's Bill Gould has no clue as to his band's current status, and it seems like no-one else does either
- Garth Hudson, one of the men who helped Bob Dylan go electric, has died
- Kraftwerk to celebrate 50th anniversary of classic Autobahn album with reissues in March
- Best portable CD players 2025: Revive your CD library with these powerful portable players
- “Witness fulfilled so many dreams… I was in doubt about where to go after that”: VOLA’s battle to find a direction for latest album Friend Of A Phantom
- “I should have been dead that night!”: Ace Frehley looks back on Kiss' wild on-stage mishaps, including the trick that doctors warned could have left him in a wheelchair
- Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson finishes 13th in fencing tournament, watch him compete
- "After shaking her hand, I went out and had like five cigarettes in a row just to calm myself down. I get starstruck easily": Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt on the time he met ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog and had dinner with her
- “It was the most explosive diarrhoea you’ve ever seen in your entire life!” The ballad of Heriot’s Debbie Gough and the guitar shop window pooper
- “They were a gang!” The first band Metallica supported on tour didn’t think the thrashers had a chance in hell of making it big
- "It's about the legacy of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and what it stands for": Lynyrd Skynyrd announce UK tour with Blackberry Smoke
- "I hadn’t heard of him, to be honest": Steve Jones on the return of the Sex Pistols and how new frontman Frank Carter joined the fun
- "A small subset of fans had a practice of showing up to gigs in Nazi regalia." System Of A Down's Serj Tankian on why supporting one iconic metal band was like "rock 'n' roll boot camp"
- “Our producer chopped down the songs to four minutes… the originals were much longer and stretched out”: King Crimson fan and Saxon vocalist Biff Byford narrowly missed out on being a prog musician
- "We could wear wigs and it would be cool instead of corny": Stryper frontman Michael Sweet lists 10 reasons why his life would be much easier if he was actually fronting a Stryper tribute band
- “The director came up with this idea of flying at me with a helicopter. I thought, This will be the last thing I ever do.” Guns N' Roses guitar hero Slash on the making of the epic music video US President Donald Trump considers the greatest of all time
- January 20
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- Former Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake guitarist John Sykes dead at 65
- "Don’t call it a happy album!" Katatonia and the story of Sky Void Of Stars
- “I was on my way to Vegas to marry a French boy, who was asleep on my lap, and I was listening to this song thinking, I'm living the dream. Then he woke up and said, I can't marry you.” Du Blonde on the eight songs that changed her life
- "You sound sexy": Watch Kid Rock once again prove to be one of the most cringeworthy rockers on the planet as he attempts to flirt with a BBC News reporter during a live TV interview
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "When I heard her sing that for the first time, I had tears streaming down my face." Jinjer on their emotional new album - and why it's taken so long to get here
- "Or are we too addicted we can’t log off even for one week?": R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe encourages fans to stay off social media in protest of the "gross" far-right
- "It’s a break from touring, it’s not a permanent stop." Floor Jansen on Nightwish, Yesterwynde and what comes next
- "The Boston Symphony hasn't changed its name, so why should Foreigner?": Mick Jones looks back on 50 often fractious years with one of rock's most successful bands
- "We would just take each song and try to raise it to the standard of a rock classic": The albums produced by Mutt Lange you should definitely listen to
- "Jean-Michel Jarre said he loved my music, but that I was too acoustic for him. That got me thinking": Urged on by fans, Mike Oldfield’s final album was a look back to his early years
- "A unique album, bursting with intelligence, creativity, and shining musicianship": Bob Dylan creates a watershed in the history of music with Blonde On Blonde
- January 19
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- Vivian Campbell misses first Def Leppard show of 2025 to recuperate from cancer treatment
- “This song is nuts! It’s a very violent, angry call for being a champion of all who deserve it”: Matt Heafy on the classic Trivium song inspired by Muse
- “Our best friends were drug dealers. We identified with them because we felt like outcasts, menaces to society”: The chaotic story of Aerosmith’s early years
- “The producer was saying, ‘You guys suck! You can’t play!’ I don’t know if that was a tactic to get us to perform better!”: How Cathedral reinvented doom metal for a new generation
- "Every night I was living out my teenage fantasy." Lzzy Hale talks joining childhood heroes Skid Row
- “At my level Spotify would be like a turkey voting for Christmas”: Billy Sherwood, Big Big Train,and other artists who pay it forward helped John Holden return to prog after he’d abandoned his ambitions
- “I become a Colossus of Maroussi, I can do anything!”: Michael Stipe on the period when R.E.M. became a stadium band and he embraced his inner showman
- "I terrified and annoyed countless people for decades." Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe on the karma of being cornered by drunks
- January 18
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- "The last Tool record ... sounded like spa music." Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta gives brutally honest appraisal of prog metal giants' Fear Inoculum
- “It’s the perfect encapsulation of youthful anger… It still sounds feral and savage to this very day”: The cult 1980s classic Ghost frontman Tobias Forge calls the perfect extreme metal album
- “Metal fans are still stigmatised. So I try and write lyrics with meaning, rather than standard metal lyrics”: How Megadeth‘s Dave Mustaine set out to bust a few myths with Super Collider
- Why does metal love Vikings so much? We interviewed Grand Magus, Wardruna and a college professor to find out
- “I thought Bowie was talented even though he lacked direction. I could hear the star quality in his voice”: Tony Visconti’s tales of David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Phil Lynott and U2
- “It was too Rod Stewart”: the huge Radiohead song that the band have distanced themselves from… and no, it’s not Creep
- “We were weeping like little babies, trying to figure out whether to continue, and if so how”: How HIM pulled back from the brink to make their final album Tears On Tape
- “Wordless vocals wail around the memory of his lost love, manifesting a grief too terrible to put into words”: David Crosby’s solo debut proved his prog credentials
- “It’s the most spontaneous thing I’ve ever been involved in”: the story of Mad Season, the grunge supergroup that Mike McCready hoped would save Layne Staley
- Scorpions postpone Las Vegas residency to allow Mikkey Dee to recover from illness
- January 17
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- "Being sober was a real different experience from a band that was always wrecked": How Mötley Crüe cleaned up and made their biggest album
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Watch masked enigmas Imperial Triumphant become the first metal band to play New York’s iconic Chrysler Building
- "I thought, What is this? I don't understand what I'm hearing, but wow!" Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor on the "life-changing" record which blew his teenage mind, and why soft rock legends Barry Manilow and Billy Joel may have influenced his songwriting
- It's the return of Prog's Tracks Of The Week! Cool new proggy sounds from Coheed & Cambria, Don Airey, Wardruna and more
- Haken guitarist Charlie Griffiths unveils new Tiktaalika project
- “Iron Maiden’s tough, because it’s a very different vibe between Killers and Number Of The Beast”: Slayer’s Kerry King names his five perfect metal albums
- “We didn’t know we were creating a new style… we took sounds from anywhere and everywhere”: Tony Visconti, Roger Dean and the making of Osibisa’s debut album
- The Dust Coda announce departure of old frontman, new frontman already in place
- "The sound of a man running wild in his own imagination": Frank Black's Teenager Of The Year still sounds brilliant 30 years on
- "I first heard it when I started taking acid": Devin Townsend picks the soundtrack of his life
- January 16
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- "You know, at my age, it hurts my shoulders to do all this": Sammy Hagar says he doesn't want to tour anymore
- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rod Stewart, Stephen Stills, Stevie Nicks, Green Day, Joni Mitchell and more confirmed for FireAid benefit concerts
- “All you have to do is turn on the TV and you’re inundated by complete lies from people who are supposed to be running this country”: How distortion, chaos and a world gone mad shaped R.E.M.’s game-changing album Document album
- "He said, 'The last thing I want is you guys going on David Letterman and the freakin’ drummer’s singing." How Mastodon left sludge metal behind for cosmic prog metal on Oblivion
- "My first concert was The Black Crowes, but my second was ZZ Top. That would've been the cooler answer!" Brat's Liz Selfish: 10 Records That Changed My Life
- "Dance, drink, and be merry!" Green Day's "glorified karaoke" side-project The Coverups host a joyously messy party in London
- “I’d rather be remembered for our legacy than returning as the top Rush tribute band”: Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee are jamming together – but they have no plans to resurrect Rush with a new drummer
- “He couldn’t understand amidst the noise that I was the other singer! I almost enjoyed it better that way”: The underwhelming moment when Yes’ Jon Davison met predecessor Jon Anderson
- Desperate to master “the art of growling”? This Dutch university offers degrees in heavy metal music. Seriously.
- “Hendrix took a look at my first album and said: ‘I’ll try it this way’. I don’t appreciate that. But then I can’t play the guitar like him”: The chaotic story of Arthur Lee and Love, the 60s renegades who helped invent the LA scene
- Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown is an enthralling depiction of the emergence of a singular musical genius and cultural disruptor, with Timothée Chalamet superb as a young Dylan
- “Turn the lights off, put the music on, close your eyes and start to have a waking dream… it might even inspire people to create movies that could be scored with this music”: John Carpenter’s second career in prog
- January 15
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- Former 24-7 Spyz vocalist and Black Rock Coalition co-founder Peter 'P. Fluid' Forrest, murdered in New York
- Eagles donate $2.5 million to upcoming LA wildfires relief concert
- New Zealand groove metallers Alien Weaponry announce new album Te Rā, launch epic Mau Moko video
- “You have to destroy things in order to create things. And I did destroy a really beautiful life.” Lucy Dacus announces new album Forever Is A Feeling, shares two new singles and North American tour dates
- “I borrowed an iPod for a flight and put Moonmadness on it. Flying through the clouds, I was listening to Air Born thinking, ‘This is great!’” Why Baroness ex Peter Adams loves Camel
- Watch Dream Theater's prog metal legend Mike Portnoy attempt to play along to Taylor Swift's Shake It Off with absolutely no idea what he's listening to
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- Super Deluxe edition of classic Yes album Close To The Edge on the way
- "My friend’s mom had connections with the Grateful Dead and could score good acid." Kyuss legend Brant Bjork was destined for a life in rock'n'roll
- "We can't quit, we don’t know how, we've come too far": Those Damn Crows release thumping new single No Surrender
- "We were even rebelling against the people who embraced us": A brief history of cult Paisley Underground psychonauts The Dream Syndicate
- “Something we did do was throw out the rulebook”: Arch Enemy discuss “chaotic” new album Blood Dynasty
- “He was wearing a red satin suit and he’d closed his eyes to do existential-style doodles. Then he got ink on his suit and was pissed off”: Why Captain Beefheart is The Primevals frontman Michael Rooney’s prog hero
- "I did have a multitrack tape of that, but it got mislaid": The secret history of Led Zeppelin’s lost masterpiece
- "The whole evolution of electric guitar-driven, album-oriented music can be traced directly back to him": The Bob Dylan albums you should definitely listen to
- "I sometimes struggled to convey what we were just talking about, and not everyone understood it": A story of Ghost's concert movie, logistical complexity and Hollywood finance
- "Right now nobody gives a flying **** when your record drops or the next concert is!" Motley Crue's Tommy Lee isn't impressed by tone-deaf musicians self-promoting while Los Angeles is burning, but there's a plot twist
- January 14
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- "Just as Dave pioneered a genre with Megadeth, we wanted to pioneer something new in the world of wine": Dave Mustaine's wine company is now offering luxury wine-related excursions
- "When you're young you've got all this violence in you, and that music released it for me." U2's Bono on the "genius" musician he considers an "exorcist"
- Osibisa founding member and singer Teddy Osei dead at 88
- Alt.rock icons Swervedriver release first new music in five years and it's predictably epic
- “I’m too old to be famous.” Paramore's Hayley Williams has discovered an unreleased album her 78-year-old grandfather Rusty recorded almost 50 years ago, and you can hear its first single now
- "It's chock full of fist pumpers, head bumpers, stinky dumpers, meaty thumpers and toe stumpers." Cult legend John Reis announces new album Time To Let You Down, shares single Fed To The Dogs
- "I certainly did not imagine that a son of mine would get rich from being obnoxious!" In 1987, the Beastie Boys were portrayed as the world's most outrageous, offensive band, a danger to civilised society. Their parents found it all hugely amusing
- Envy Of None detail upcoming second album Stygian Wavz
- Sabaton to release World War I-themed movie on streaming services this spring
- "We’ve played shows on mushrooms in the past." Blood Incantation made one of 2024's trippiest, most ambitious metal albums, and we're starting to see why
- Listen to thunderous new Architects single Blackhole
- “There’s a lot of jeopardy involved for them”: Marilyn Manson: Unmasked director applauds accusers who came forward ahead of series’ UK broadcast
- “I just want to roll into it with an energy like it’s all starting again”: Slipknot’s Clown teases new album (and Look Outside Your Window) coming soon
- “I thought it was just going to be a fun little party record, but my grief started leaching into the music”: Devin Townsend is slightly embarrassed by his new album, and that’s a good thing
- Nine Inch Nails confirm they’ll announce first dates on long-anticipated world tour soon
- “It’s a case of writing something you thought was wryly amusing, then it just won’t leave you”: Horrified by his own mission statement, Public Service Broadcasting’s J. Willgoose Esq. calls himself a pessimist with impostor syndrome
- "Fake blood starts pouring from an amateurish-looking skull incorporated into a plank of wood": A night out with Iron Maiden before they were famous
- "It might kill me to be on the road, but it will certainly kill me to not be on the road": Sweet guitarist Andy Scott reveals why he won't stop touring
- Alabama Shakes leader Brittany Howard just played her first gig with her new hardcore band Kumite, and personally offended punk rock gatekeepers are already crying hot salty tears just thinking about it
- January 13
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- "We had turned into grotesque prog creatures": How Rush reinvented themselves
- "It was an unmitigated disaster." Beatles legend Ringo Starr reveals why he and Elton John's mother walked out of one of her son's most legendary stadium shows
- Skunk Anansie release spiky new single An Artist Is An Artist, and if you hate saxophone Skin has news for you
- "Haters gonna hate while I live my dream." Seattle R&B/Soul singer Shaina Shepherd responds to hot takes on her one-off performance fronting Soundgarden
- Neil Young once threw Bob Dylan off his tour bus because he didn't recognise the legendary singer/songwriter
- English Teacher, Du Blonde, Nadine Shah and more join Iggy Pop, Manic Street Preachers and Sisters of Mercy on Bearded Theory festival bill
- Now you’re playing with power! Lego level up the retro vibes with the new Lego Nintendo Game Boy
- “Righteous proof that rebel music and irony are alive and well”: Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name amasses one billion Spotify streams
- The 50 best metal songs of 2024
- Mastodon’s new album is “all over the place” musically, teases Brann Dailor
- Feel old yet? These classic metal albums turn 20 in 2025
- "Slipknot took care of us!" Knocked Loose's Bryan Garris on rubbing shoulders with metal icons, taking hardcore mainstream and what comes next
- "It's interesting that metalheads resonate with us.” Kalandra mix ethereal prog, Nordic folk and, er, bird songs. So why can't metal fans get enough of them?
- Rachael Yamagata teams up with TESSAN to inspire journeys through music and connection
- Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale once dumped a guy for falling asleep during a Tool show
- “You’re 17, it’s a normal dumb night, then someone’s screaming, ‘Get on the floor!’ I’m gonna die. This is the end of my life”: The armed hold-up that set the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne on the road to music
- "After a lifetime listening to hard rock and heavy metal I discovered Talking Heads and realised how good music could really be": Talking Heads open up new worlds on Remain In Light
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "Marriage is f*cking metal." Cradle of Filth members Marek Šmerda and Zoë Federoff married in Arizona
- The miraculous journey of an Angry Young Man: The Elvis Costello albums you should definitely listen to
- January 12
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- "These eighteen months have been the hardest thing I've ever been through in my life": Jesse Malin on the spinal stroke that left him paralysed from the waist down and the long road to recovery
- "All had this feeling that it was something really momentous": Bruce Dickinson looks back on his solo albums and forward to Iron Maiden's big year
- Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith loses Malibu home to Los Angeles wildfires
- "It's only afterwards that you realise, 'Hey, Kayak could really have been something'": the story of the Dutch proggers and their 2018 album Seventeen
- “I like to push some of those buttons. I like the fact that people have a problem with what we’re doing”: How Metallica kicked back against the 1990s haters with Reload
- “Part of the attraction for Lou Reed was that I had an ample supply of hash”: how a British 70s cult hero became a member of famously grumpy Lou’s crew
- “We really weren’t compatible. It was kind of cool, but there was a lot left to be desired”: The singer who briefly replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1977 – and then was forgotten
- “We were supporting a third-rate slide guitarist in an empty roadhouse”: Pulp guitarist Mark Webber on the Britpop legends’ weirdest ever gig
- “We demonise the concept of being angry. But it needs to be used as a tool”: The game-changing 2015 album that reinvented metalcore
- “I’ve had prog dates because of our concerts… the great thing is that you don’t have to explain your weird musical tastes!”: Focus guitarist Menno Gootjes’ prog life
- "Starr's semi-spoken, shoulder-shrugging vocals sit well with these jaunty but wry earworms": Ringo Starr sets sail for unchartered waters on languid country album Look Up
- Primus guitarist Ler LaLonde's home decimated by California fires
- January 11
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- “Our manager started making up rumours that I was back on heroin and the band were breaking up”: How Aerosmith defied grunge and a giant meteor to become bigger than ever in the 1990s
- “Metal is the only genre that’s open to so many different types of music. That’s why Babymetal is here right now”: How Babymetal smashed the barriers and defied the haters to become Japan’s biggest metal band
- “We were doing things that would have been beyond us with Ozzy. With Ronnie James Dio, there were so many more options”: How a reinvented Black Sabbath saved themselves from oblivion with Heaven And Hell
- “You only get caught when you’re successful”: Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on the time Willie Dixon came calling for his Whole Lotta Love songwriting credit
- “Prog rock is to music what sci-fi is to literature: a desire to further the imagination, to push the music to the edge”: How William Shatner learned to love prog and make an all-star album with all the humanity of classic Star Trek
- “Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to talk to me. They thought I would be right for the part of The Terminator”: WASP frontman Blackie Lawless’ wild tales of Lemmy, Gene Simmons and The Village People
- “We’re all doing things. I think that keeps Creed healthy”: Mark Tremonti on the importance of Creed’s members working on other projects
- January 10
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- "I was definitely doing too much Bolivian marching powder." Hollywood star Rob Lowe reveals that he once "cut a demo" with AOR superstars Toto, which might just be the most '80s thing ever
- Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor nominates one of 2024's biggest hit singles as his favourite song of the year
- “Burn Hollywood Burn is a protest song. Has nothing to do with families, losing everything they have in a natural disaster.” Public Enemy's Chuck D calls out edgelords using his song to soundtrack online footage of devastating Los Angeles fires
- "They’d usually freak, there’d be a lot of threats, a lot of aggression." Why shoegaze legends My Bloody Valentine had to hire their own security guard to protect audiences from angry security guards at their gigs
- PUP announce UK tour, pay tribute to "the unsung heroes who run the merch table" with their brilliantly inventive lyric video for new single Paranoid
- Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine announce pop-up shops for UK tour – and you can get tattooed there if you’re brave enough!
- "They seemed to come out of some New York film where it was all flick-knives on the street." The Damned's Dave Vanian on the gig that changed his life
- “Grand Designs is inspiring – it highlights the human spirit”: Alter Bridge singer and certified Anglophile Myles Kennedy names his favourite British TV shows
- Caligula's Horse vocalist Jim Grey guests on Voidchaser's new single Trust
- Weite share video for the compelling Roter Traum ahead of European dates
- The Hourglass Effect's gorgeous new EP Inner Ocean is the burst of country-fried rock 'n' roll you need to get you through winter
- “People prefer to deal with the shadows rather than dealing with the truth”: 10 epic songs that showcase Orphaned Land’s ferocious pursuit of a better world
- "Cannibal Corpse have made it to a level where they’re playing to thousands." Gatecreeper want to make death metal as big as possible
- Jethro Tull share first music from upcoming album Curious Ruminant
- Pop megastar Halsey booked hardcore shows when she was 16
- "It's about man's insatiable addiction to discover and use”: Manic Street Preachers on their new single People Ruin Paintings
- Metallica’s James Hetfield names who he deems the “master craftsman at lyrics” – and it’s not a metal musician
- "System Of A Down isn’t working right now, so do you want me to just sit around and wait?" How Shavo Odadjian ditched nu metal for deathcore with Seven Hours After Violet
- “Chris Squire was super fun. I love it when musicians retain their childlike qualities; that’s where music comes from”: Tal Wilkenfeld’s prog connections include David Gilmour, Todd Rundgren and Trevor Rabin
- "It just seemed like another really good way to bring people together": How Slash re-electrified the blues for the hard times
- "That song has been my passport, my bank manager and my lover down through the years": Cutting Crew's Nick Van Eede on (I Just) Died In Your Arms, gangster rap and Tanzanian bandits
- "Snarling, fast and furious, full of meaty hooks and exasperated observations": Lambrini Girls gleefully mix subversion with humour on debut album Who Let The Dogs Out
- "A humorous and bewildered look at the modern world from a man who has never quite seemed a part of it": Julian Cope rediscovers melody on mischievous 37th solo album Friar Tuck
- "Each of the dozen tracks is based on a gigantic riff": Mark Tremonti finds a way to expand his palette on The End Will Show Us How
- January 9
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- "Johnny Rotten came in, turned to Iggy and said, Oo the f***'s that – your manager or something?" David Bowie on his first encounter with the Sex Pistols
- Listen to entrancing new Lacuna Coil single Gravity
- Andy Bell collaborates with Michael Rother on new single i'm in love
- “Dave Mustaine can’t help but stick his foot in his mouth”: Slayer’s Kerry King explains his relationships with Metallica members old and new
- “I knew The Poison was going to be massive!” Metal Hammer releases exclusive Trivium x Bullet For My Valentine bundle – featuring a t-shirt you can’t get anywhere else!
- Orphaned Land share emotive reworkings of their very first song The Beloved's Cry
- Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse Of The Heart was originally written for a Nosferatu musical: “If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in the dark"
- "Snoop Dogg said he’d had over a billion streams and made less than $43,000 – that should scare the **** out of everyone." Ice-T on Body Count, dream collabs and more
- Steve Hackett shares new live clip of Defector track Jacuzzi
- "At the time I was very interested in drugs. Drugs was chic." Blondie's Debbie Harry on the 'fashionable' drug scene she found in 1960s New York
- “I’ve been sober for a few years now, so it’s kind of about that”: Jinjer singer Tatiana Shmayluk names her favourite song on upcoming album Duél
- Hear ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo team with wife Paula and current Slayer guitarist Gary Holt to cover Scorpions’ Animal Magnetism
- Steven Wilson announces screening and shares trailer for new movie for The Overview
- Squid share new Japan-inspired single Building 650, announce UK tour
- Ethel Cain nosedives into the haunting depths of a sexually tormented and guilt-ridden mind on the dark, disquieting Perverts
- The 20 best metal albums of 2024 - as voted by the readers of Metal Hammer
- The blow that ended it all: How the return of Jane's Addiction was floored not by musical differences, but by a punch thrown by their singer
- “A lot of bands were bigger than us, but few can claim to have such a diverse catalogue of music… I know it’s all been worthwhile”: Gryphon’s Dave Oberlé looks back
- "Slash is the reason I picked up a guitar, when I was nine": Meet Grace Bowers, the teenage guitar sensation who's getting the attention of the A-list
- "We've been to hell and back, and we came out the other side": Bullet For My Valentine almost broke up, but a billion streams says they're ready to celebrate
- "He sang 'Squeeze My Lemon' and we're like, 'Oh, we must leave, we must leave the premises'": Heart's Wilson sisters once walked out of a Led Zeppelin show because Robert Plant was too suggestive
- January 8
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- "I just thought it was a good Queen gig. I was more interested in The Who": Photographer Neal Preston on being onstage with Queen at Live Aid
- "Unless your guitars and your attitude resemble these nuggets then you can kiss my tubular bells." Oasis' Liam Gallagher shares his love of the Sex Pistols, revealing how "all heaven broke loose" when he first heard the punk legends
- “It’s a story about artistic authenticity in an increasingly synthetic world.” Succession star Jeremy Strong talks about his experiences working on the forthcoming Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere
- Big Big Train announce very first Canadian live dates
- Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks announce further US tour dates for April and May
- "It's journalistic complacency and claptrap." Robert Plant never liked the idea of Led Zeppelin being labelled a heavy metal band
- "I’m refining my primary sound and style through simplicity, brevity, and clarity." Bob Mould announces new album Here We Go Crazy, shares video for its title track, reveals US tour itinerary
- Marko Hietala shares video for rocking new single Rebel Of The North
- Ex-Mushroomhead singer Jeffrey Hatrix diagnosed with cancer, Gofundme launched
- “This is gonna make her cry. I don’t care!” Bill Hader, punk rock aficionado, will make his daughter love the Misfits whether she wants to or not
- “Mantra Of The Cosmos is like Dylan, Dali and Ginsberg on a rocket ship to the moon to have it with the Clangers.” Oasis' Noel Gallagher joins Shaun Ryder's indie supergroup for new single Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous)
- “We started by playing an old song and it was a case of the hairs standing up on your arm. I felt straight away that we were back”: The power of music compelled Beardfish to return
- Cradle Of Filth announce new album The Screaming Of The Valkyries – but that Ed Sheeran track isn’t any nearer: “We’re not absolutely sure how it will emerge, but it’s been done”
- "I went to an award show with my **** out, just wearing chains. Lordi thought I looked cool.” Five minutes with nu gen provocateur Mimi Barks
- Members of Yello, Daft Punk and New Order guest on new Wolfgang Flür album Times
- Millennial metalheads, rejoice! Killswitch Engage announce US shows with fellow metalcore champions Shadows Fall
- “Andrew Loog Oldham asked if we were songwriters. I said we were – then I had to go away and figure out how you wrote songs”: The Nice helped found prog and merged classical music with rock, then they were gone
- A back catalogue to epitomise the American Dream: The Van Halen albums you should definitely listen to
- "I had 24 hours a day, seven days a week to take drugs": Peter Perrett and the long road to a genuine late-career masterpiece
- "To connect with a little band called Body Count says a lot about David Gilmour": Ice-T on Law & Order, not blowing up the planet, and breathing new life into a Pink Floyd classic
- "We get the electric guitars going and we hit it hard": Brothers Osborne's TJ Osborne on playing out, coming out, and the fine line between country and rock'n'roll
- "The weirdness level is completely off the charts": Justin Hawkins explains unsettling video for The Darkness's I Hate Myself
- January 7
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- "In the current world there is little that could be more challenging and complex than achieving peace and love": Slovenian industrial music titans Laibach release uplifting cover of Foreigner's I Wanna Know What Love Is
- "Tupac stopped me from committing a murder." Public Enemy's Flavor Flav on the night Tupac Shakur talked him out of crushing a thief's skull with a fire extinguisher
- Matt Berry shares psychedelic new single Wedding Photo Stranger
- “He heard this outrageously bad dance version. He was enraged; we love that song. The producer said, ‘You should cover it’”: Oceans Of Slumber’s return to prog metal
- Riverside share powerful live video of Friend Or Foe?
- “A great motivation at a time when I didn’t really know what to do next”: Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick remembers playing sole gig with Ozzy Osbourne
- Mogwai's new single Fanzine Made of Flesh sounds like "ABBA meets Kraftwerk" according to guitarist Stuart Braithwaite
- Guns N' Roses, Sex Pistols, Lorna Shore – plus one more day – added to Rock For People 2025
- Ramones would have been gifted Bruce Springsteen's first hit single if Springsteen's manager hadn't intervened
- “Bet you didn’t know!” Glenn Close once drummed for System Of A Down, Daron Malakian ‘confirms’
- “This record is about unapologetically accepting that you are the sum of all of your parts”: Halestorm discuss their next album, inspired by Motörhead, country and Skid Row
- “We’d been paying Rick Wakeman £25 a week and Yes offered him £100… We had his son Oliver with us for a while, and he left for Yes too!” Dave Cousins and the life and times of Strawbs
- "We are genuinely sorry for this oversight": Angus and Malcolm Young's childhood home demolished despite being on National Trust Register of Historic Houses
- "Neil would do a full hour of unrelenting drumming before he went on stage to play for another three": A personal tribute to Neil Peart
- David Gilmour solo albums: the essential guide
- January 6
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- Lambrini Girls unpick all of modern Britain’s shortcomings and emerge as punk's most vital new disruptors on the furious Who Let The Dogs Out
- "Anybody who thinks they can do exactly the same thing they did 50 years ago is mad": Ian Paice on how drummers keep playing as they get older
- The 10 best punk, metal and classic rock songs soundtracking season two of SAS Rogue Heroes, the loudest, most explosive show on TV
- Marilyn Manson: Unmasked, a three-part documentary telling "the shocking story of one of rock music’s most polarising figures" to air on Britain's Channel 4 this month
- "If this album had been released 25 years ago, it would have been a revelation." New Tremonti record The End Will Show Us How is just about what you'd expect, but it's pretty damn good all the same
- Pattern-Seeking Animals share video for new single In My Dying Days
- The Halo Effect have crafted the first great melodic death metal album of 2025 with March Of The Unheard
- “The arc of his life was the story of our times.” Bruce Springsteen, Fiona Apple and Steve Earle to appear on concept album about the life of Hollywood legend and counter-culture icon Dennis Hopper
- "We always thought we'd get the call to say, Can you turn it down just a little bit?" Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross add to their trophy cabinet with Golden Globe win for Challengers
- "James and I have talked about it...kind of." Could James Hetfield and Jerry Cantrell make an album together one day?
- "An Amplifier classic in the making!" Amplifier share first music from upcoming album Gargantuan. Watch their video for new single Invader here...
- "I was a dangerous addict." Demi Lovato and Alice Cooper guitar hero Nita Strauss on the struggles of staying sober while touring
- "It's unlikely that I'll ever listen to any other Asia albums but only time will tell": Asia upset the prog purists and delight their bank managers on freakishly successful debut album
- “How dense was I, singing those songs and not realising those things were happening to me?” Linda Thompson on struggling to sing, struggling to perform live and why her kids aren’t her greatest achievement
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "It looks like Kim Deal with Bruce Springsteen's guitar": The long-awaited Rory Gallagher statue has been unveiled in Belfast and fans are not happy
- "I should have put it out back then": Neil Young is to release yet another 'lost' album from the 1970s
- January 5
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- The motorbike Neil Peart famously rode between shows on Rush's R30 tour is being auctioned
- "Frontmen don't do humble, but today I was": Bono receives Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden
- "I really felt like I let our British and European fans down": Geddy Lee gives fans "a straight answer" about the end of Rush
- “It feels like our last punk single, this mad little blip on the radar”: the story behind the Manics’ 2000 hit The Masses Against The Classes
- “We had to rush on to cover up this cacophony of brass players who couldn’t see what they were doing, having a go and failing miserably”: When Balaam And The Angel tried to emulate ELP, it didn’t go well
- "The original fans are all our age, and they're all sort of expiring." Judas Priest's Ian Hill on the importance of appealing to a younger audience
- Eric Avery working on new music with Jane's Addiction bandmates – but there's no mention of singer Perry Farrell
- January 4
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- “He was a great guitar player. He’s not looking at what he’s playing, he really knows the instrument”: Joe Satriani says Kurt Cobain was an underrated guitar hero
- “We were the biggest of our generation of metal bands. We’d done it through hard graft and killer songs. None of that trendy image rubbish”: How Saxon’s Wheels Of Steel turned them into the NWOBHM’s first stars
- ‘John Belushi always used to try to get off with my ex-wife. I’d say: ‘John, I can hear you, you fat git’”: Ronnie Wood’s wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan and Axl Rose
- “F*ck rock stars, tonight we’ve got musicians!”: saluting Self-Pollution Radio, Pearl Jam’s chaotic and star-studded foray into broadcasting
- 10 underrated indie-rock records released in 2000 that deserve your attention
- “I had no illusions about losing popularity – in fact, I almost did it intentionally. A guy from the label said, ‘Are you crazy?’ I said, ‘Yes, but I assume the consequences’”: John McLaughlin’s career outside the lines
- January 3
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- Watch rare, newly unearthed, footage of an unmasked Slipknot soundchecking for a hometown club show in 2000, plus footage of that wild Des Moines gig
- A Limp Bizkit-inspired IPA called “Fred Thirst” exists now
- "He’s basically a juvenile delinquent who’s out of control." Bass legend Tony Levin reveals which studio session was the most significant of his storied career
- Reactivated Nevermore holding open auditions for new singer and bassist
- "We got **** in the press, we got bullied...but we’ve had the same trajectory." Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium are together on the cover of Metal Hammer for the first time ever
- "He does things his own way and that’s why we love him." Neil Young to headline Glastonbury, following U-turn on his recent decision to pull out of the festival
- “I wanted to explore melody even more than we have in the past”: Employed To Serve’s next album inspired by In Flames
- The Cure’s new album could be out this summer, and Robert Smith has just detailed two songs set to appear on it
- “As pictorial histories go, it’s as smart and surprising as Cardiacs themselves”: A Big Book And A Band And A Whole World Window by Aaron Tanner
- “The lowest on my list of things we’ve ever done”: M. Shadows names the Avenged Sevenfold song he considers a “throwaway”
- A Multitude Of One announce epic new concept album A Templar’s Tale
- “Welcome textures and colours… but the overall mix lacks depth and coherence”: White Willow’s remaster of fourth album Storm Season
- Celebrating 50 Years Of Rush: an exclusive new interview with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson - only in the new issue of Classic Rock
- How Jimmie Rodgers changed the face of popular music – and built a song franchise in the process
- January 2
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- "It's adrenaline-filled and balls-to-the-wall": Tony Iommi and Glenn Hughes have recorded a song with Robbie Williams
- “We’re gonna be doing stuff we’ve never, ever done before”: Bruce Dickinson promises Iron Maiden’s 2025 tour will have a “setlist for the ages”
- “Another day and I’d be playing drums with Lemmy in Heaven”: Scorpions and former Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee was hospitalised with sepsis last month
- "I like those guys in concept." Watch legendary former Police drummer Stewart Copeland create a magical new foundation for a classic nu metal anthem
- Former Iron Maiden man Tony Moore announces UK tour dates
- Watch Rush, Chris Cornell, Dave Grohl, Heart, Tom Morello, John Fogerty, Chuck D and more jamming on Robert Johnson's blues classic Crossroads in 2013
- “People would say, ‘He took a trip and now he’s weird.’ He wasn’t weird at all”: Mick Rock’s “surprisingly simple” friendship with Syd Barrett, and other psychedelic adventures
- Simon Godfrey announces new Fine Modern Gentleman record label
- Ex-Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg is making a solo album
- “The world my kid is going into is insane. I can’t write positive lyrics”: How In Flames defied the haters and the apocalypse to make A Sense Of Purpose
- Ghost Of The Machine share first music from upcoming album Empires Must Fall
- “It shouldn’t work but it comes out brilliant… You can spend hours studying what they did and still not fully get it”: Nik Kershaw’s passion for Gentle Giant
- 25 things we’re looking forward to in 2025
- “She was like, ‘This will not be tolerated. I spent years building a profile and you’re not going to throw my hard work away’.” The Libertines' Pete Doherty reveals how intrusive media attention soured his relationship with supermodel Kate Moss
- January 1
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- The decade the blues mutated: A beginners' guide to 80s blues in 10 essential albums
- Watch Billy Corgan sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame for 40,000 fans in an icy stadium in Chicago
- "Glastonbury is now under corporate control": Neil Young pulls out of UK's biggest festival, citing BBC interference
- “The combination of music and sex was something I had never encountered in any other group”: How the Rolling Stones married sex, blues and rock’n’roll and launched themselves to notoriety
- Watch Alanis Morissette celebrate the new year, and the 30th anniversary of her hugely successful Jagged Little Pill album, on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve show
- “I thought, I gotta have some real track marks before I quit heroin.” The Lemonheads' frontman Evan Dando knows that he's lucky to be alive
- "My anger is a gift. But it's consuming me." Inside the rebirth of Jason Aalon Butler's genre-splicing punk machine, Fever 333
- Mystic Festival is boasting one of 2025's best lineups and one of the most unique and great value metal festival experiences in the world
- “Some thought it inspired; others heard an epic train wreck… His palette broadened, the songs lengthened, the lyrics became more personal”: The prog credentials of Sufjan Stevens’ The Age Of Adz
- “Who is gonna sing that to who? Cos you sure ain’t singing it to me and I sure ain’t singing it to you”: the reason that Prince turned down Michael Jackson’s request to do a duet on an 80s classic
- "It’s actually Sid Wilson’s favourite Slipknot song." Inside nu metal's greatest deep cuts
- “I got him a drink and it went from there”: how Damon Albarn and Noel Gallagher buried the hatchet and became unlikely friends and collaborators
- “I chose to leave, to focus on myself… It was a very difficult, painful, sad time for everyone”: Vincent Cavanagh had to quit Anathema to become The Radicant
- "He was trying to numb the past, dull the present and look for comfort in the future. He found it there and it killed him": Dan Aykroyd on the tragedy of John Belushi and the making of The Blues Brothers
- "We just went in and just destroyed San Francisco, and that was it": Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin's historic arrival in America
