Features archive

January 2024

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267 articles

January 31
- The 10 best 21st-century Iron Maiden songs
- “Daevid Allen was always throwing a grenade into situations… Tim Smith was quite benign, although very driven. They both had the same sort of presence:” Kavus Torabi compares his late Gong and Cardiacs bandmates
- Watch Metallica perform Creeping Death with a fan on lead vocals and still sound surprisingly good
- "David Bowie said, I hear you play a mean piano": Rick Wakeman on playing on Space Oddity and Hunky Dory, then turning down David Bowie's invitation to join The Spiders From Mars on the same day he joined Yes
- Vote for the best Korn song ever
- 10 obscure but amazing New Wave Of British Heavy Metal bands that should have been far, far bigger
- “If there’s a message it’s live every day as if it’s your last. I went through a very sticky patch… The freedom of not being enslaved by addiction is marvellous”: John Wetton’s return from the darkness
- The Heart albums you should definitely own
- "If anyone tries to tell you that Max’s wasn't a drug den, then they are lying to cover their now-respectable asses": the story of the club that provided a safe haven for New York's creatives, freaks and weirdos
- A pouting member of Mötley Crüe, a Bon Jovi songwriter and a risque video: Joe Perry looks back on the song that took Aerosmith back to rock's top table
- "I walked into my publicist's office saying, 'I've got the formula. I've cracked it.' And that was the minute I stopped having the formula": How Roll Away The Stone was the beginning of the end for Mott The Hoople
- The 40 best AOR vocalists of all time
January 30
- The 10 funniest death metal cover songs
- “I never thought prog would be some sort of positive career move… It’s a different audience now and not quite the arenas any more”: Tiger Moth Tales’ Peter Jones returns to guitar for his most personal album yet
- “We’ve got lots of leftover material from Repentless – we wrote so much stuff!” The story of the lost final Slayer album
- "In screaming so loudly for so long I gave myself chronic laryngitis and screwed up my voice forever": Mountain man Corky Laing reveals how a seductive dancer inspired a hard rock classic
- "He looked like Daniel Day Lewis in The Last Of The Mohicans, except he jangled when he walked. I thought: 'That's a bit interesting'": Billy Duffy on Ian Astbury and the early days of Death Cult
- "I was stunned and hurt. I can't begin to describe the feeling of betrayal": What happened when Don Henley joined Guns N' Roses
January 29
- “This is the next natural step in our evolution. This is a pinnacle moment for us. It’s something we had to do.” How Dream Theater made uber concept album The Astonishing
- "The only thing I find offensive is the suggestion I’ve done something wrong by making the record I wanted to make." Steven Wilson and the trials of The Future Bites
- “Hearing that incredible orchestration and hearing Peter Gabriel really belting out my lyrics… that was an ambition I didn’t know I had”: How ex Genesis singer helped Elbow frontman’s family through parents’ divorce
- "Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast!": the brutal true story behind Machine Head's Davidian, one of the defining anthems of '90s metal
- "I wanted to be Aaliyah so bad": Escuela Grind's Katerina Economou picks the ten records that changed their life
- "We’ve been calling ourselves the Backstreet Boys of the metal scene": Forget Eurovision, Blind Channel are now aiming to conquer the world
- “Those who have heard it suggest it may not be the lost classic its reputation implies”: Six songs that didn’t make Yes’ 90125 tracklist
- Here are the best alt. rock songs you'll hear this week, featuring Yungblud, Frank Turner, Brittany Howard and more
- "In all those children's stories, you take some kind of chemical and have a great adventure. Alice In Wonderland is blatant": Grace Slick on the inspiration behind Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Gary Clark Jr, Mark Knopfler, Mick Mars and more
January 28
- "I couldn't do it because I was burnt out": How Trent Reznor almost missed the chance to become an Oscar-winning film composer
- “People think we’re a pop band. But we never have been. We just had some huge success that hurt us a little”: how Huey Lewis & The News became America’s favourite good time rock’n’roll band
- “It's the natural knee jerk reaction for some people when they see someone young and successful and female…”: The Last Dinner Party on overcoming online trolls to make the year’s most hotly-anticipated debut album
- “We put a good spin on it publicly but the truth is Bill almost died”: Michael Stipe on how R.E.M. narrowly averted tragedy on the Monster tour
- The 10 best Led Zeppelin songs that aren’t by Led Zeppelin
January 27
- “I’m a believer in things happening for a reason. If I had become a huge star then I may not be alive today”: how cult 70s soft rockers Desmond Child & Rouge launched the career of a songwriting superstar
- “Christian Bale stands behind me and, in the Batman voice, he says, “Are you Tim, from the band James?”: the crazy story of when James frontman Tim Booth got a role in Batman Begins
- “You can be out of fashion and suddenly people are sampling you and covering you and you’re hip again…”: Tears For Fears’ Curt Smith on how a new generation discovered the band
- “I was worried about the album. Someone said it was more commercial. I thought, ‘Oh God, what‘s that supposed to mean?”: how Magnum made their masterpiece On A Storyteller’s Night and saved themselves from oblivion
- “It was a no-brainer to get Jeff Porcaro from Toto to produce. He’d played on more hit records than anybody I knew”: how cult melodic rockers The Strand made the greatest AOR debut album you’ve never heard
- “It’s a blessing and a curse… there’s times you feel like they’re hacking up your child! But the real freedom comes in trusting that it will all work out for the best”: How supergroup Transatlantic made Kaleidoscope
- "They're as good as anything anyone's ever written": My 10 favourite Thin Lizzy songs, by Brian Downey
- “That was when I knew we had really accomplished something”: Alice In Chains on the transformative success of their Jar Of Flies EP as it turns 30
- "I'm the flash in the middle": All 57 Bon Scott AC/DC songs ranked in order of greatness
- "Everybody freaked out about how beautiful Debbie Harry was, but more focus should’ve been on how great that band were." Paradise Lost's Nick Holmes picks the 10 songs that changed his life
- “I’ve been thinking of taking drum lessons… What I won’t do is put together a new band”: What Nick Mason said before he put together a new band
January 26
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Great new prog from No-Man, Sleepmakeswaves, Temic and more in Prog's new Tracks Of The Week
- "Get me 100 gallons of whipped cream, fill the bath with tequila and don't forget the goats": Watch Lemmy's gloriously weird appearance in an insurance ad
- “Headbanging is more fun than going through a windshield!” Watch Iron Maiden star in the bizarre seatbelt safety advert from 1991 that almost got them a meeting with the President Of The United States
- "MTV said that if Trump was in our video, they'd put it on high rotation straight away": The story of Donald Trump, $250,000, and the all-girl metal band
- "What a revelation! In-your-face, bare-boned, all Ramones, all the time, balls-to-the-wall": How Dee Dee Ramone's private teenage escape inspired a punk classic
- In the spring of 1967, the newly formed Traffic retreated to a haunted cottage to write their debut album, Mr. Fantasy. Cue in-fighting, an unhappy local with a shotgun, and incredibly strong acid
- "Abbey Road was really unfinished songs all stuck together. None of the songs had anything to do with each other, no thread at all": A track-by-track guide to the final album recorded by The Beatles
January 25
- "At one point he had me on a leash. I told him he shouldn't be afraid to jerk me around": For Alice Cooper, working with horror legend Vincent Price on his 1975 TV special The Nightmare was an absolute scream
- “Every album is different, but this one was a strange process." The Neal Morse Band's Great Adventure
- "Everything blew up. I remember there was a store in East Village that started selling ruffled shirts and velvet jackets." Vampires, Jesus and goth going mainstream: the story of Type O Negative's Bloody Kisses
- "I thought, 'I’m gonna make a song telling people to party, but party however they want.'" How an earnest, sober young man in a grubby white t-shirt called Andrew W.K. convinced a post-9/11 world to embrace positivity with a song called Party Hard
- “At the time, we had a lot of anger, a lot of depression, the world was crazy. That song reflected what we were thinking.” How Sepultura's Refuse/Resist captured the mood of a world in turmoil - and put South American metal on the map
- “I knew how to play the whole of Misplaced Childhood when I was 12. I can’t bear to listen to it now – it reminds me of being a miserable 12-year-old”: How former Oceansize member Mike Vennart grew up and moved on
- "They didn't like the record, they didn't like our songs and they didn't like band": How Mr Big conquered record company indifference with To Be With You, the song that transformed their lives
- "I have on my rider that I need two bottles of fine red wine. I won't accept anything that costs less than 100 dollars!": Jane's Addiction on breaking up, getting back together, tour life and the lure of Beyoncé
- "What was really exciting for me was watching Paul's total respect for his band members": Giles Martin tells the inside story of the final Beatles song, Now And Then
January 24
- "We've got a problem with the other band who registered the name and are trying to stop us from going to Germany. But we are trying to deal with that now": How Nektar resurrected themselves with The Other Side
- "We've had sex a lot to HIM": Atreyu's Brandon Saller shares the 10 records that changed his life
- “I just knew Trevor Horn as a pop producer. When he turned up with a guitar, I said, ‘Is that a prop, or are you going to use it?’ We just didn’t hit it off”: How Yes’ 90125 became a triumph – despite starting with “the worst jam in history”
- “We were all saying, ‘We’re gonna make this something they can never follow up.’” How Linkin Park and Jay-Z united for the ultimate metal and hip hop crossover, Collision Course
- “They offer a stern challenge to newcomers… they are not a straightforward band, and their music remains almost impossible to describe”: the Residents’ prog credentials
- They're heavy music's latest masked mavericks, and they’ve sold out Wembley Arena. But who exactly are Sleep Token? We chart the rise and rise of metal’s hottest band
- "We would go out and he really never wanted anybody to know that he was a musician": The troubled life and lonely death of Peter Banks, the man once called "the architect of prog"
January 23
- “He listened to our first album and said, ‘I see spaceships.’ We asked him what he thought of the second album. He said, ‘More spaceships – just darker!’” There are no spaceships on The Emerald Dawn’s time-travelling album
- "We were never motivated purely by money – that idea was knocked out of us many years ago!” Landmarq and the story of Entertaining Angels
- Every Anthrax album ranked from worst to best
- “By the time I swapped over the tapes I knew I was in the stinky brown stuff. Somebody said, ‘God help us’ … the budget for the cover was cut back”: How Rick Wakeman proved everyone wrong with The Six Wives of Henry VIII
- "I'd have to go up on stage alone, playing that guitar riff, and the others would join in. It was pretty nerve-racking": The story of Message In A Bottle by The Police
- In the early 80s Australia's biggest and most dangerous band, The Angels, had the world at their feet. But their meteoric rise and tragic fall is a tale littered with chaos, controversy and death
January 22
- "If you think it’s just about putting make-up on your face and you can have a fifty-year career, boy, are you dreaming": Gene Simmons reflects on 50 years of Kiss
- "Music really saved my life. It was the one place I could go where there was sanity and beauty": Steve Perry on being inspired, and being an inspiration
- "If everyone could go to a psych ward for a couple of weeks, the world would be a better place": Ginger Wildheart on recovery, rejuvenation, and why the next Wildhearts album will be your favourite
- “Us and them doesn’t exist any more”: How The Cult's Ian Astbury tried to break down genre barriers with his pre-Lollapalooza festival Gathering Of The Tribes, and claimed he got “ripped off” for his trouble
- Here are the best alt. rock songs you'll hear this week, featuring Kim Gordon, Chelsea Wolfe, The Jesus and Mary Chain and more
- 10 metal bands with obscenely long gaps between albums
- “She has managed to maintain her position without ever once being sucked into the creative vacuum of celebrity culture”: The less we see of Kate Bush, the more we want to know
- "We walk in the door, it’s 11 o’clock at night, and he says 'Mom! I have Bruce Springsteen with me!' And she goes: ‘Who?’" This incredible Bruce Springsteen anecdote about the time he went to a fan's house proves why The Boss really is one of a kind
- "I was diagnosed with an ulcer on my 21st birthday. The doctor asked me: 'What's the problem, kid? Is there something or someone…' I said: 'Let me stop you right there. There is indeed someone'": the tumultuous story of Jellyfish
- "Led Zeppelin played to a crowd of 150,000, but no-one on the bill was looking for a big break or even a record deal": How 60s' music festivals turned a generation of blues aficionados into the first rock stars
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including the Blackberry Smoke, Big Big Train, Joanne Shaw Taylor and more
January 21
- I was like, ‘I ain’t been in another band, I ain’t done this for anybody else before'”: Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders on the time he joined Iggy Pop’s band
- The 10 worst Metallica songs
- The 10 greatest slide guitar moments in rock
- "We were scared to death about working with him": The Killers on the time they recorded a song with Lou Reed
- “S for Saga, S for Saxon and it landed on Six By Six. Also, we have six arms, six legs, six eyes and and so on...” Welcome to the world of new prog supergroup Six By Six
- “To get a vote of confidence from someone we hold in highest regard was thrilling”: Shirley Manson on how Garbage got Brian Wilson’s blessing to use a Beach Boys hook in Push It
- “It went a bit off-piste, like ‘I don’t know what I’m doing now… but I like this!”: Bill Bailey on his first ever gig
- “We were the original bearded pirates. Nobody gave us a chance”: the epic story of how Whitesnake became the greatest blues rock band of the early 80s
- “We knew a transplant would be very risky. He said, ‘I’ll either walk out of the hospital or I’ll be carried out. I can’t take it any more’.” Mama’s Boys looked set to break America in the '80s, but naivety, bad luck and family tragedy broke their hearts
January 20
- “I didn’t want to record the best progressive album of all time, I just wanted to have fun." How Riverside made ID.Entity
- “Had I known I was going to create a piece of history, I would have approached things differently”: how Only Child made one of the greatest cult hard rock debut albums ever
- "I'm like, 'Does he really want me to play him the album or is he just being nice to me, like some son-in-law type thing?”: Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig on having Quincy Jones as a father-in-law
- The 10 best cover songs by nu metal bands
- “We might have blown our wad on our first single!” Mudhoney’s Mark Arm on the making of their classic debut Touch Me I’m Sick
- “He just showed up and didn’t sit with us or anything”: The inside story of Jason Newsted’s final Metallica show
- 8 totally obscure AOR albums that should have been huge
- “I said, ‘Let’s take a little drive’ and we drove down to Basildon”: Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan on the time he took his family to where he grew up
- 10 songs that invented thrash metal, according to Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian
January 19
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “It was like being a reporter with a notebook going, ‘No! Wow!’ It was hilarious. We had all the fun but we didn’t have to go through the lifestyle”: Martin Barre on being serious with Jethro Tull while Led Zeppelin partied
- "I don't think I'd have enjoyed a stay in a South American prison": Therapy?'s Andy Cairns has learned some important lessons from three decades in rock
- Cool new prog sounds from Lesoir, Ihsahn, Chelsea Wolfe and more in Prog's new Tracks Of The Week
- "Even if you listen to a band every day, go to every show and follow their every move, they are not your friends." From Bad Omens to Sleep Token, it's time to talk about toxic fandom in metal
- "We were rivals once but it doesn't feel like there's any rivalry now. We're all on the same team, for heavy metal": Revisiting the first ever Big Four show, as Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax invaded Poland in the summer of 2010
- “These rebels are our own children… who masquerade at night in leather and chains yet retreat by the light of day back into the fabric of our society”: watch US TV show Tomorrow investigate the dark side of punk rock in America in 1980
- "When I first heard it, driving round LA, it sounded great, it leapt out of the speakers": the story of The Doors' Love Her Madly
- "Towards the end it was not pretty. I scraped myself off the walls of insanity. I was barking like a dog": the last days of Deep Purple
- High-energy boogies, guitar and bass showdowns and bizarre cat noises: A beginner's guide to Ten Years After in five essential songs
- "She was a much more joyful, humorous, entertaining, alert kind of person than is generally described": The epic story of the real Janis Joplin
January 18
- "For me, the challenge in doing this long-form concept is for people to not tune out." How Perfect Beings made their fnal album Vier
- “Even though I go off on a tangent sometimes, I think he appreciates the melodic aspect I bring to the John Hackett Band”: Guitarist Nick Fletcher indulges himself on solo instrumental Quadrivium
- “We prefer to remain free and in control, even if the road is difficult alone. I’m also clear the record industry today is probably no longer interested in groups like ours." The trials of Lazuli and their latest album11
- “John Paul Jones kept to himself, but Jimmy Page took great delight in showing you what he’d been doing the night before”: Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson on touring with Led Zeppelin, John Bonham’s pranks and Jimmy Page’s ‘fruity’ Polaroids
- “Our drummer left for a sandwich and never came back. We heard he was found wandering in no man’s land by Canadian Mounties”: An epic guide to every Swervedriver album in the band’s own words
- “Freddie goes berserk and says: ‘I’m not being constrained in my wardrobe. I will wear what the f**k I like!’”: how Queen made the groundbreaking 1981 concert movie Queen Rock Montreal
- Every Baroness album ranked from worst to best
- “People do albums and say, ‘I just do it for myself’ – that’s absolute rubbish. No one ever really means that”: How Mike Rutherford measures his success
- "The most surreal moment of my life was when Neil Young pied me": Robert Trujillo on a year in the life of Metallica
- David Crosby: celebrating the life of a quick-witted, acid-tongued raconteur and troublemaker with the voice of an angel
- "My success with women increased when I had Geddy Lee hair": The 10 best Rush songs ever, according to the Trailer Park Boys
January 17
- "Music is like skiing - you don’t have to go down the black runs with the hairiest turns to get the thrill": An interview with late Eagles founder Glenn Frey
- "He'll tell you I pushed him more than I needed to, and he's probably right": Mick Jones looks back at the Foreigner single that helped invent the 80s
- Every No Doubt album ranked from worst to best
- “You look back and wonder what really happened there. I was asked to lie about my age and I just thought, ‘I can’t be doing this anymore.’ It wasn’t fun”: One single show rekindled Magenta singer Christina Booth’s passion for music
- The 10 best cover songs by thrash metal bands
- “We were insisting we’d maintain our own identity, and perform a set before Peter Gabriel joined us onstage… I’m pretty sure that’s what soured the deal!” Happy The Man’s very brief stint as Gabriel’s backing band
- The 50 best AOR albums of all time
- Those Damn Crows are flying high: they delivered one of 2023's best albums, headlined their favourite festival, and Johnny Depp knows exactly who they are
- "You're so independent; you're so tough": Relive the bizarre moment Donald Trump fired Gene Simmons on Celebrity Apprentice
January 16
- "All those times we shared when it was the three of us, you can't get that back": Rush's Geddy Lee looks back on his effin' life
- “As a band you can be just awful and still have lots of success. But they were truly great.” The tragic story of Snot, the best lost band in nu metal history
- "I don't think their IQ is very high": watch the Beastie Boys behave like obnoxious frat boy jerks on Dutch TV
- "Hunger is what keeps you alive": How nerve damage and burnout led Linnéa Olsson to embrace vulnerability and anger with Maggot Heart
- “One slide was closed down – somebody broke their nose on it”: MTV once took Alice In Chains to the deadliest waterpark in America
- "Hopefully we get more horny metal songs in 2024": Inspired by Bat Out Of Hell and the theatricality of Ziggy Stardust, Creeper have proved Sleep Token aren't the only band bringing sex appeal back to metal
- How to store your vinyl: Tips and tricks on how you can keep your record collection in great condition
- “Someone will send me photos of reindeer that inexplicably died in a circle and say, ‘This is so Green Lung!’ I’m like, ‘Yeah! This is working!’” How rising occult stars stumbled into a genre of their own
- The Clutch albums you should definitely own
January 15
- "Mike Bloomfield came up to me at the Avalon Ballroom and says, ‘You can’t do that’. I said, ‘C’mon, Mike, you can do it, too. All you gotta do is turn this knob up to 10'": The story of Blue Cheer, the band who invented heavy metal
- "No matter what his issues may be personality-wise, he's a brilliant singer": The Black Crowes' Rich Robinson chooses the soundtrack of his life
- Watch this incredible YouTuber play death metal classics by Cannibal Corpse, At The Gates and In Flames on piano
- 10 metal bands’ first-ever concerts caught on film
- “I suppose what’s different is me. I’ve done a lot of exploring, particularly with Robert Fripp… Working with him was very easy, which doesn’t sit well with a lot of the public’s perceptions of him!” Theo Travis looks back
- 10 heavy metal solo careers that fell completely flat
- "I owe him an apology. I'd like to sit down with him and have a beer": Extreme's Nuno Bettencourt on upsetting a member of Guns N' Roses and the guitar solo that broke the internet
- "I felt that if I didn't open myself up, then it might limit or hurt the songs": The Cold Stares look back on one of 2023's best albums, Voices
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including the Black Crowes, the Black Keys and the Kris Barras Band
January 14
- “You have to be all in. It’s all or nothing”: How Dave Gahan prepares for a Depeche Mode show
- 10 classic metal albums celebrating major anniversaries in 2024
- 10 amazing covers by massive metal bands that you’ve (probably) never heard
- "Someone from the BBC said my outfit revealed ‘too much penis’. I’m not a Ken doll!": Lord Of The Lost reflect on a wild 2023
- The 10 worst Beatles songs
- “I wanted us to be the punk Monkees, the mainstream Ramones or Mötley Crüe with sneakers”: the story of Candy, the cult 80s LA glam rockers who produced a future Guns N’ Roses superstar
- “I met the man who wrote the jingle for Bodyform, which is probably the highlight of my career”: Shed Seven on the time they rerecorded their song on an advert for The Link
- 10 heavy metal bands who need to reunite in 2024
- “We’re all very temperamental in our different ways, but we’ve learned to live with that”: how Black Sabbath were reborn in the 21st century as Heaven & Hell
- “The proggiest pop song to reach the top spot since Marillion’s Kayleigh... and that only actually reached No.2”: Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know and its parent album, Making Mirrors
- The Dave Grohl albums you should definitely own
January 13
- “We treated them like a bunch of hairy blues wankers… I wish we’d had the sales Eliminator had!” How British synth-pop duo OMD unwittingly set ZZ Top on the path to mega-stardom
- "You’ll find out over the next couple of years what it means when Beartooth headline": Caleb Shomo on idolising David Draiman, duetting with Papa Roach and whether he'd reunite with Attack Attack!
- “Marrying a rock band to an orchestra was seat-of-the-pants stuff." The story of Barclay James Harvest's Once Again
- "Nu metal content makes people feel a part of a community": How TikTok is helping nu metal's comeback
- 8 obscure but brilliant 1970s glam rock songs
- “My first thoughts were, Well this is pretty funny!”: Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard on the emotions stirred up by revisiting the band's early days with Pearl Jam Twenty
- “To survive in this game, we had to get away from the 10-minute guitar solos”: the story of .38 Special, Blackfoot and the Southern Rock/AOR crossover
- “The film is so shocking that as soon as you hear any of the music, you’re thinking about maniacs running around causing havoc”: Mogwai’s favourite progressive movie soundtracks
January 12
- The best new metal songs you need to hear this week
- Here are the best alt. rock songs you'll hear this week, featuring Sprints, Ride, Sheer Mag and more
- Great new prog music you need to hear from Caligula's Horse, North Sea Echoes and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- “Having a narrative stretches you… you’re having to come up with a ‘film for the ear’ to bring the lyric to life”: 49 years on, Steve Hackett returns to the concept album genre
- "We want to challenge ourselves": Code Orange are evolving beyond hardcore to grasp at something much bigger
- "A friend said this sounds like the Emperor album that was never recorded": Ihsahn is returning to his symphonic black metal roots on his new self-titled album
- “We wrote a postscript which gives the listener the chance to choose their own end to the story… continue the cycle or give the character up to the sea”: iamthemorning’s path to Lighthouse
- "I was a little punk kid. I skateboarded. I had purple hair and dressed like a boy": How addiction, heavy metal and a Greek family in Atlanta helped build Starbenders, one of rock'n'roll's most compelling new bands
- "What most people only think of or whisper in private, Kevin would scream at the top of his lungs. That kind of honesty is rare, and it comes with a price": the chaotic story of Kevin DuBrow and Quiet Riot
- "Those three and a half minutes tell you everything you need to know about Slade": The story of the anthemic classic Mama Weer All Crazee Now
January 11
- "Billy Corgan helped me through some personal struggles and has been a close friend." How Myrkur is balancing loss, motherhood and humanity
- "We learned so much from In Flames": Orbit Culture have toured with some of metal's most legendary names, now they're ready to conquer the world on their terms
- "Sometimes when you're scared and your adrenaline's pumping, you just start beating the shit out of your instrument": revisiting Nirvana's electrifying 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live
- The New Model Army albums you should definitely own
- "He was so close to death - they had to cut off his finger": Bonafide are back, and they've got some stories to tell
January 10
- "Ozzy called asking me to help him out because Randy Rhoads had died. I asked for a private jet so he’d turn me down": Michael Schenker on UFO, Scorpions, and snubbing The Rolling Stones, Ozzy and Thin Lizzy
- The 50 greatest metal EPs of all time
- “He never set out to please or comfort, so we often end up with his brilliant musical mind at its best… For that, we can forgive the physical abuse of a few Hammond L-100s”: King Crimson, Marillion, Tangent members and more pay tribute to Keith Emerson
- "Bands need to say 'we're not doing it'": Why musicians are taking a stand on merch cuts
- "People thought our Times Square Billboard was photoshopped": Indonesian metal sensations Voice Of Baceprot reflect on their first US tour
- "I always wanted Magnum to be an underground band, not a pop band": How Tony Clarkin wrote Magnum's first Top 40 hit, Days Of No Trust
- The Magnum albums you should definitely own
- "If we make this record and it sells, then if nothing else some of our heroes can get some royalties": The stories of the songs that powered Guns N' Roses' strangest and most understood album
- "Every single note he played could kill me with its beauty": Celebrating the life of a man regularly described by his peers as the greatest guitarist of them all, Jeff Beck
- David Bowie: curator, mentor, nurturer, counter-intuitive collaborator, hard rock lover, surfer of the zeitgeist, Tin Machine genius
January 9
- "Shirley Bassey arrived, took off her coat and went straight into the studio. She sang and then just collapsed on the floor": an epic Jimmy Page interview
- "We need to keep bringing new bands through": we talk to a Download Festival booker about the future of metal and running the UK's biggest rock fest
- “You get a few people that bring notepads and binoculars, but a lot of people find the fun aspect appealing… It’s not prog because it’s silly, it’s not jazz because it’s loud and it’s not rock because it’s weird”: So what are The Aristocrats?
- "Phantom of the Opera is one of the reasons I’m a singer. It was like lightning from the sky." Tarja Turunen: My Life In 10 Songs
- "Tell Michael if he wants to see Bubbles again, he can come to the bar": The night Bon Jovi kidnapped Michael Jackson's pet chimp
- “The council turned the power off in the middle of Out Demons Out. We carried on, and David Bowie is happily shouting his head off with me… We both received letters from the council, banning us for life”: Edgar Broughton has mellowed, but not entirely
- The 10 best Jimmy Page riffs
- "I wanted to write an album for my 15-year-old self, growing up kind of lost, but just knowing I loved music": Sophie Lloyd on the origins of her Imposter Syndrome album
- Why you should definitely own Klaatu's debut album, and it's got nothing to do with The Beatles
January 8
- "Calm and casual at the soundcheck, electrified and electrifying once the venue is full": nine videos to celebrate the humble genius of Def Leppard's Steve Clark
- "We come on all kicking and screaming and for three songs we'll punch you in the face…": Ashley McBryde on making country music for rock fans
- "You want to touch people with eclectic taste in music." Synyster Gates talks The Beatles, Avenged Sevenfold's bold new era and the artists taking alternative music forwards
- "Dave Grohl said Arms Wide Open was one of the best songs ever written." Mark Tremonti on Creed, Alter Bridge, singing Sinatra and everything in between
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Royal Republic, The Pineapple Thief, Bob Vylan and more
- The Primus and Les Claypool albums you should definitely own
January 7
- Long John Baldry helped found the British blues scene, inspired Eric Clapton, discovered Rod Stewart, and gave his name to Elton John: He was also the voice of Sonic The Hedgehog's Dr Ivo Robotnik
- "At some point between now and the next album there will have been a change": Tobias Forge teases the fate of Papa Emeritus IV and what 2024 might hold for Ghost
- "There used to be loads of bands like U2 and Bob Dylan who were all about politics, but apparently that’s not really the thing anymore." Within Temptation's Sharon Den Adel on nu metal, tennis and the importance of caring
- "Without Black culture, hardcore wouldn’t even exist": Zulu are calling for unity and cultural recognition in the modern alternative scene
- “During the 70s, every morning I woke up and thought: ‘This could end today’”: the epic story of how the Eagles became America’s Band
- The history of Metallica as told in 10 groundbreaking gigs
January 6
- “I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but we had the goods. We knew what we were doing”: how Bad Company conquered in America in the ’70s
- “We got caught up in the hype. Maybe another label would have given us a clobber round the head”: how Angel delivered a 70s pomp rock classic with Helluva Band
- “I think a lot of people are left feeling empty and isolated, with a loss of meaning and purpose. That’s something I felt the need to write about." Myrkur tells the story of Spine
- "We felt like we'd failed": SiM were one of Japan's best kept metal secrets, but after writing a song for Attack On Titan they're ready to conquer the world
- “Polyrhythms, unusual sounds from didgeridoos to sitars, bizarre song structures, people singing backwards… It’s prog with loops and breakbeats”: Orbital’s Orbital 2 (The Brown Album)
- How Syd Barrett cast a spell that lasted throughout Pink Floyd's career
- The 8 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
January 5
- 10 times bands made masterpieces late in their career
- The 10 greatest heavy metal live performances on late-night TV
- "We had a wicked circle-pit with Jason Momoa, Dave Grohl and Mike Clark": Rob Trujillo talks 72 Seasons, celebrity mosh pits and what comes next for Metallica
- “I didn’t have anything against guitars – I just had this idea in my head of two keyboard players using an array of instruments. Everyone said, ‘It’ll never work.’ Well, they were wrong”: The short life and lasting times of Greenslade
- "The mugger stopped by the passenger door, took up the classic two-handed shooting position, took aim, and fired his gun": What happened when The Kinks' Ray Davies was shot in New Orleans
- Tony Moore played keyboards for Iron Maiden at one show in 1977: Now he's back on the road with Steve Harris
- "The crowd was berserk, and Bruce just beaming. It was like he knew. He'd taken a massive step": Bruce Springsteen and the long road from Sunday matinees to stardom
- "It's a lot heavier than you'd expect": Mike McCready on Pearl Jam's next album, working with Andrew Watt, and the state of the US
January 4
- He played for the Psychedelic Furs, hung out with an overdosing Phil Lynott, fingered Andy Warhol’s bullet wounds and once tipped a pint of beer over singer Richard Butler. Duncan Kilburn remembers his years of living dangerously
- “They sort of jiggled around for a while until someone found something and took hold of it and the rest went, ‘Great!’” The Cure co-founder Lol Tolhurst’s love for Can
- “People would love for there to be gossip. When you get six blokes in a room together, there will always be spats now and again…" How Ghost Of The Machine rebuilt themselves from the ashes of This Winter Machine
- "I was 12 when I heard Roundabout by Yes, and it floored me immediately!" Hasse Froberg's own musical companions
- "I didn’t recognise him straight away and my son said, 'Dad, that’s Brian Johnson!'" Nicko McBrain on playing the "stunning" Power Trip Festival, his stroke recovery and what's next for Iron Maiden
- "I just wanted to kill everybody in the room!" How Warning revitalised Skindred's career, gave us the iconic Newport Helicopter and confirmed them as British metal's greatest party band
- Every At The Gates album ranked from worst to best
- “Talkback microphones go to our in-ear monitors and our lighting guy… It messes with the audience’s minds. ‘If they improvised that, how did the lights know when to change?’” How Umphrey’s McGee keep their shows rolling
- "One minute they were a band you'd never heard of, then the next you couldn't get into the gigs": In 1972 the then-unknown Focus appeared on UK TV. Within a year, their guitarist was voted best player on the planet
- "I sat down on the stairs of my basement and just cried. It killed me that he wasn’t going to be there any more": The final struggle for the life of Phil Lynott
January 3
- "In our haste, the lump of hash got away and slipped down the sink drainpipe. Panic!": What happened when Jimi Hendrix created havoc and got banned by The BBC
- Watch Limp Bizkit play a gig in a car park then destroy their own drum kit
- “Kirk Hammett said, ‘Ah, Cannibal Corpse – that’s an interesting name!’” 20 legendary metal bands remember their first shows
- "I went to Rough Trade: they told me it was the worst record they ever heard in their life. Everybody else that I could get a meeting with told me the same thing": The Undertones' Teenage Kicks wasn't always considered a punk rock masterpiece
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- Sophie Lloyd: 10 records that changed my life
- Six New Orleans blues albums you should definitely own
- "It's nice to know that England has finally risen to our cultural level": a month before Ed Sullivan, American TV began to take The Beatles seriously
January 2
- "On the Space Oddity album we had no idea what we were doing. So we tried something different, something harder": the making of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World
- Every While She Sleeps album (and one EP) ranked from worst to best
- 10 metal bands who ‘went soft’ – and were better off for it
- “To me, it was like getting the car back on the road. The fact that we only managed to do about 10 shows before the wheels came off again was a bit of a slap from the gods”: Despite the challenges, Fairport Convention never gave up
- "I did Bat Out Of Hell thinking it was a comedy record. I did it as a spoof of Springsteen": What a career in music has taught Todd Rundgren
- 24 things to get excited about in 2024
- "I did all that Hammer Of The Gods stuff – I lived Hammer Of The Gods!": Robert Plant looks back
- "There was this extra Dolly energy on there – and she's doing these wonderful ad libs, singing around me": Peter Frampton on Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney, and sitting down onstage
January 1
- "The ones I love the best are the ones where he sounds like he's falling over drunk while he's playing": Goo Goo Dolls' John Rzeznik on the soundtrack of his life
- "I want my Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. I want to find real love. I want to make more money than I ever have": Wild nights on the road with The Struts
- “I was just lost… but if you just fall to the floor and lie there, you’re just going to take a kicking. I had to stand up and fight”: When Fish made an album about the most difficult time of his life
- The 10 least popular Slipknot songs (according to Spotify)
- “Prog date? Very much no! You didn’t get too much romance at The Peel, unless you made a financial investment”: The Fierce And The Dead’s Matt Stevens recalls his favourite venue
- The Walter Trout albums you should definitely own
- The Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon: My stories of Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Jon Bon Jovi, Dave Grohl and more
- "We're progressive people who grew up in a very conservative town. We're used to bridging the divide": Brothers Osborne's new album is a celebration of freedom and inclusiveness
- "We'd sit surrounded by amps. The magic just flowed. It gave you goose-pimples": How Status Quo made Hello! and turned into Britain's hottest band of 1973