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August 2024

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194 articles

August 31
- “Grunge? I don’t know too many things where people are praised for having less skill”: The blazing story of Shrapnel Records, the 80s label that gave shred to the world
- “Chuck Schuldiner from Death yelled at me for being drunk onstage. That was me not at my best”: Legendary drummer Gene Hoglan is interviewed by equally legendary drummers from Slipknot, Sepultura and more
- “The way he uses all his drum kit; no one else really sounds like that." How Gavin Harrison's arrival inspired The Pineapple Thief's Dissolution
- "I wanted to be the person who came up with the ideas and made grandiose visionary albums." How TV soap opera director Phideaux became a prog sensation
- “In the 80s, you ordered a gram of cocaine like you ordered a beer. Doing cocaine was normal in those days”: The high times and crazy life of the Scorpions
- "I had a swastika t-shirt thinking I was Sid Vicious!" The chaotic rise, fall and rise (again) of iconic rasta-punks Bad Brains
- “It had a huge impact on me and helped shape who I am today”: Metallica’s Lars Ulrich on being an Oasis superfan
- “The death of my mother was the worst thing that ever happened to me. For a year my motto was, ‘Why should I play, why should I eat, for what?’”: The darkness and despair of late Type O Negative frontman and goth metal icon Peter Steele
- “You’ve got to have control over the creative side. If all you’re interested in is the music then you’re gonna get shafted”: 25 years on from the release of their debut, revisiting a 1999 interview with Muse
- “When I heard the synth intro to The Final Countdown, my reaction was: ‘This is nuts, we can’t use this.’ Thank God they didn’t listen to me”: The epic story of Europe, the band who were more than just a one hit wonder
August 30
- “MTV said, ‘When we look at bands like Mötley Crüe, we know it’s a joke.’ I’m not going to be some clown for MTV”: The twisted, turbulent story of Danzig’s classic Metallica-approved debut album
- The 13 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Every Outkast album ranked from worst to best
- Every Leprous album ranked from worst to best
- Cool new proggy sounds from Tim Bowness, Charlotte Wessels, Dim Gray and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "I stood right at the front and watched. There was hardly anyone there": Behind the scenes at Led Zeppelin's first UK show, told by the people who saw it
- "He remains the world's most influential guitarist": Six essential posthumous albums by Jimi Hendrix
- "There was no food allowed backstage, only drugs and booze": Clem Burke's stories of Debbie Harry, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and more
August 29
- “Iggy Pop told me he got a speeding ticket while pumping out the demo!” Asian Dub Foundation's Steve Chandrasonic on his band's collaborations with Iggy Pop, Sinéad O’Connor, Public Enemy's Chuck D, Stewart Lee, Primal Scream and more
- "Bleak and hopeless, beautiful and poignant, desperately uncomfortable to listen to, yet impossible to ignore." Revisiting Manic Street Preachers' dark masterpiece The Holy Bible at 30
- “My doctors wanted to cut my arm off”: How Fleshgod Apocalypse turned a near-fatal accident into symphonic death metal magnum opus Opera
- “I played it to Jon Anderson and his son. They were both crying – which was either a huge compliment or a disaster!” Trevor Rabin and Jon Anderson unlock the secrets of Yes's overlooked Talk
- "There’s a sadness to that album." How addiction, thrash royalty and the long tail of 9/11 oversaw Lamb Of God's career-defining Ashes Of The Wake
- “I would like to do a duet with Bonnie Tyler!" Five minutes with Hammerfall's Joacim Cans
- Every Oasis album ranked from the worst to the best
- “Do you like... beer?” What happened when we accompanied sugar-sweet Japanese ‘Harajuku-core’ metallers Hanabie to the UK's biggest rock festival, Download
- “So wasteful… such a futile and pointless gesture”: Ian Anderson sent a flute into space, and William Shatner followed later. The Jethro Tull leader wishes neither of those things had happened
- "Oh my goodness! It's so rousing! Especially the end!": The soundtrack of Gene Simmons' life
August 28
- “The context had changed so much. I knew I had a lot of quirks and weird things, but there were only dysfunctions left”: Daniel Gildenlöw on confronting his neurodiversity via Pain Of Salvation’s Panther
- “I go to the urinal and I feel a wet stream going down my left leg.” The night ex-Beatle John Lennon peed on one of the men who launched Woodstock festival
- "Africa is the future of metal." Meet Arka’n Asrafokor, Togo's first heavy metal band
- Every Flaming Lips album ranked from worst to best
- “People will speculate that Mike Portnoy playing on my album means things are gonna change in Dream Theater. It’s not that at all”: When John Petrucci reunited with his old friend for solo album Terminal Velocity
- "It was spiralling out of control. You find yourself in some dodgy situations waiting outside train stations at three in the morning": How Orange Goblin's Ben Ward turned his life around
- The sounds that shaped rock'n'roll: A brief history of the Mississippi saxophone
- "If they were to take X-rays, you'd see that his joints have taken a serious beating": What AC/DC mean to me, by Aerosmith's Joe Perry
- "We went ahead and did it, and it exploded in everybody's faces. It was embarrassing": How UFO fell apart then found themselves again
August 27
- The 12 Oasis songs you need to know
- “I’m terrified… I want my child to grow up able to speak her mind and to have opinions of her own”: Why Airbag had to call out cancel culture on The Century Of The Self
- “I remember dissecting YYZ and learning all his different techniques… I use that stuff all the time with Dream Theater”: John Petrucci wouldn’t be John Petrucci without Rush’s Alex Lifeson
- "He would have embraced rap and hip-hop because he absorbed music like a sponge. It would have become part of what he created": What Jimi Hendrix means to me, by Eddie Kramer
- A beginner's guide to Taj Mahal in 10 essential videos
- "London was implicated in the collusion of a fat music industry bloated on cocaine and bereft of direction": How London lost its lustre
- "Baby boomers and bikers are eighty per cent of our audience, but we're seeing more and more young people": Fito de la Parra looks back on 60 years of Canned Heat
August 26
- "We always felt like we were on the brink of the mainstream, but never crossed over." Fictitious car crashes, flooded basements and Jackass: how CKY became unlikely MTV stars with 96 Quite Bitter Beings
- "This is the beginning of the journey." Why Stranger Things' Jamie Campbell Bower started an experimental metal band called BloodMagic
- "If memorable hooks were an offence they'd have been locked up with no chance of parole": The Cheap Trick albums you should definitely listen to
- “When it comes to many of the classics, I don’t even know what they’re about!” How Mikael Åkerfeldt’s policy of not taking advice led Opeth to Pale Communion
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
August 25
- “The phrase ‘What’s the frequency, Kenneth?’ represents inscrutability”: Michael Stipe on the story behind an R.E.M. classic
- “It’s disarming being expected to do the whole ‘Oh yeah! Throw the horns, dude!’ thing. I couldn’t do it with a straight face”: Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt loves metal, but he doesn’t always take it seriously
- “I am in the Gene Simmons business. I am the biggest fan of Gene Simmons”: Happy 75th birthday to Gene Simmons, Kiss bassist and unrepentant asshole
- “It was a tragedy what happened to Jaco Pastorius… It’s why I’m glad I only have a modicum of talent”: Chicago ex Jason Scheff hails his prog heroes Weather Report
August 24
- “Were Black Sabbath heavy metal? They were? Then I guess we are too”: How Tool pushed back the boundaries of metal and prog with 10,000 Days
- “Gong is the band you listen to when you smoke your first joint or drop your first acid trip at school”: The mind-bending story of cult psychedelic heroes Gong
- “Black metal is the only form of music since punk rock that’s not money motivated”: How members of Emperor and Amen smashed together black metal and hardcore in forgotten supergroup Scum
- “We weren’t doing electronic music with synthesisers, but with a bank of oscillators we stole from radio stations”: Jean-Michel Jarre and the creation of Oxygène
- "There has been no better ambassador for the electric guitar": Bernie Marsden, remembered
- “I don’t think we’re a band that will last forever. We could break up any time”: On the road with Thin Lizzy in America in the late 1970s
August 23
- The reviews are in for The Crow remake, and they’re brutal
- “We were blown away by what Michael Kamen did with Silent Lucidity. It gave us all goosebumps”: How Queensryche made a progressive metal landmark with Empire
- The 11 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- "I had a kind of queer awakening to All The Things She Said." Cassyette picks the 10 records that have changed her life
- “He’s so playful and cheeky… nothing he ever does sounds muso. I recognise the punk-rock chancer that I am in his playing”: What Guy Pratt learned from Tony Levin
- "I was 23 years old and my first boyfriend was John Lennon": 10 things you need to know about May Pang
August 22
- "If something’s wrong, you don’t have to just sit and take it." How gender-smashing punks Destroy Boys ripped themselves apart to start again
- “We were trying to get to that level of the music we really loved… It’s always slightly out of reach, but my God, you can have fun trying to get there”: Tears For Fears on their mystical purpose
- Five bands you must not miss at this weekend's Pelagic Records Festival
- “Tchaikovsky was a sort of mentor; if it was good, ABBA or whatever, we didn’t shut anything out”: When Gentle Giant revisited seventh album Free Hand
- "Monday was Heaven, Tuesday was Run To You, Wednesday was Somebody": Bryan Adams looks back on the miraculous creation of his breakthrough album
- "Rock music is so dominated by all-male bands so it feels cool to have a super-pregnant lead singer on the cover": Blues Pills have finally made exactly the album they wanted
- "I'm doing a two-hour show with a six-and-a-half-minute bass solo": Glam icon Suzi Quatro is not resting on her laurels
August 21
- Every Alien film ranked from worst to best
- “He asks the tech to put a light close to him so he sweats more. He likes feeling that we’re fully engaging ourselves”: When Von Hertzen Brothers began their ascent out of Finland
- The fret-meltin' shred guitar albums you should definitely listen to
- "We're taught to be ashamed of our accent and where we're from": Meet Big Special, the Black Country duo blending the blues, hip-hop and rock with beautiful fury
- Nathaniel Rateliff on hanging around with Robert Plant, getting high with Willie Nelson, and the struggles behind the new Night Sweats album
- "Nobody wants a reggae or a hip-hop record from us": How Blackberry Smoke keep moving forwards
August 20
- “He wasn’t like a mad scientist with all these live wires hanging around in the studio – the wires were all in his mind”: The prog credentials of pioneering producer Conny Plank
- Best Pro-Ject turntables 2024: Winning record players from the inimitable Austrian powerhouse
- “It really is down to Nik Turner’s habits… I wish it wasn’t, because it would be nice if it were more spiritual”: Dave Brock on how Hawkwind got their name
- "A new heavy metal classic for the ages": The song Ronnie James Dio called one of the "proudest things I've ever done"
- Black Smoke Trigger come from a small city in New Zealand but their ambition is global
- "He'd cook you a breakfast like your mother, then go out trawling through the markets buying second-hand clothes": A tribute to Phil Lynott, by the guitarists who played alongside him
August 19
- Every Eminem album ranked from worst to best
- The 12 bands that defined Arctangent 2024
- "We did desert shows at this empty pool by a nudist colony": How Fu Manchu spent thirty years preparing for The Return Of Tomorrow
- "It's blossomed into something that's effortless": Roots rockers Brave Rival spend most of their lives in a van, but it's been worth it
- “People would be like, ‘This again?’ I’d tell them it made my shift easier”: P.O.D.’s Marcos Curiel played Radiohead to survive working in a goth retail store
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
August 18
- “I don’t think the underground or extreme metal scene will ever dig us. It’s elitist”: How Trivium defied the gatekeepers and split the critics with The Crusade
- “We were getting hassle from everyone to make the perfect album. It had to sell or the band would stall”: How Bon Jovi made a hard rock monster and saved their career with Slippery When Wet
- “We booked a studio and said, ‘Whoever’s here on Monday morning is in Yes’”: How the band regenerated to make Drama, in their own words
August 17
- "It was an unfortunate incident which has been exaggerated and turned into folklore": How contractual differences between Aerosmith and Metallica at Woodstock 1994 came to blows
- “I got fed up with writing about crap monsters. What’s horrific about that? The real evil in this world goes on in society”: The stellar rise and tragic demise of Death, the band who pushed metal to new extremes
- “The first time I met Lemmy, he said: ‘How do you sit down with that sawblade codpiece?’ I said, ‘You don’t!’”: WASP frontman Blackie Lawless’s strange journey from shock rock to God
- “When we recorded Tears Don’t Fall, I passed out. On the take, you can hear a scream, and then this dropping body”: How Bullet For My Valentine stepped up to metal’s big league with The Poison
- “People go, ‘How can you write another Free Bird?’ And I go, ‘You can’t.’ Nobody could ever fill Ronnie’s shoes”: The unlikely second coming of Lynyrd Skynyrd
August 16
- “We knew Chris Barnes had to go. We phoned him on the road and said, ‘Dude, you’re out.’ It was as simple as that”: How Cannibal Corpse made 90s death metal classic Vile and ended up in the US charts
- The 15 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- New proggy sounds from Nightwish, i Häxa, Souls Of Ambience and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- Fire, faith and forgiveness: Former Great White manager Alan Niven on the self-destructive Jack Russell
- "I’ve spent a few years writing songs with little to no sense of direction, I think I’ve started to find my own sound again." Charlotte Wessels on restarting after Delain, dream collabs and why there are no guilty pleasures
- "Rock ain’t dead. To who?!" Duff McKagan talks Guns N' Roses, punk rock and how Velvet Revolver proved the haters wrong
August 15
- The 10 bands that defined Bloodstock 2024
- "The whole 'I Hate Pink Floyd' thing was hilarious. Anyone who took that seriously needs a new head." The story of the unlikely friendship between The Sex Pistols' John Lydon and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour
- "I don’t wanna call it therapeutic, but there was some catharsis in making this album." The Black Dahlia Murder's new album honours fallen frontman Trevor Strnad
- “For a supposed prog band they put their musicianship through the pop grinder and come out on top”: Lamb Of God vocalist Randy Blythe’s passion for Rush
- The best CD box sets every rock fan needs in their collection
- “I’ve never seen a penny… but I’m proud of what we did musically”: Steve Hillage’s mixed feelings on his only Khan album, and how the project lived on after he’d ended it
- A beginner's guide to Cat Stevens in six essential albums
- "The thought of being in jail in tights didn't appeal to Freddie at all": Queen and the struggle to make Day At The Races
- Watch Cozy Powell and Co. rattle through Dance With The Devil, their iconic glam rock tribute to Jimi Hendrix
August 14
- The 50 most metal movie moments ever
- “There’s stuff that’s quite ugly for the sake of being ugly and quite noisy for the sake of being noisy… I find myself almost talking people out of it”: What Steven Wilson knows – and doesn’t know – about his new Bass Communion album
- "He was definitely a component part of what informed the vocals of Robert Plant and Ian Gillan": Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson on the bluesman who inspired the great rock singers
- “He didn’t want to be a rock star, but made a great rock star… the only way is to run straight at the wall head first, minus the crash helmet”: What Hawkwind’s Robert Calvert means to Luke Haines
- "God is punishing me for my past wickedness by keeping me alive and in as much pain as he can": The tortured and tumultuous life of the late Ginger Baker
- "The reason I never made it big is because I never cared whether I made it big or not": The life and death of the guitarist’s guitarist, Roy Buchanan
- Troy Kingi is making 10 albums in 10 genres in 10 years: Album number eight is inspired by the Mohave desert, mapacho smoke and magic mushrooms
August 13
- “I got a letter from Ozzy telling me my services weren’t needed and Axl had gotten rid of me”: How Zakk Wylde launched Black Label Society with the booze-fuelled chaos of Sonic Brew
- “I don’t get into many fights now cos you get hit on the throat and you miss a gig”: The explosive rise of Lynyrd Skynyrd, America’s greatest southern rock band
- Five bands you mustn't miss at this year's ArcTanGent Festival
- “It might not be commercial, but it’s important that the art be preserved”: The attitude that built Decca’s offshoot Deram into one of the labels that pioneered prog
- "You're caught up in the tornado, and you see the cow fly by, and there goes the tractor": The Wilson sisters reflect on Heart's 50-year roller-coaster life
- "Bless the Rolling Stones' hearts, but I don't necessarily want to go on doing the same old thing": The Paul Weller albums you should definitely listen to
August 12
- “Anticipatory grief just walks with you all the time… that’s why I was trying to search for joy in certain pockets of places”: Jane Weaver’s recent experiences of death lent a “heavy mellow” to her new album
- “A lot of us didn’t like each other back in the day. Slayer were hard-ass. They didn’t even get along with Metallica”: Why Hirax’s Katon W De Pena is one of thrash metal’s great unsung heroes
- "I took a bit of steel railroad track and strung a string along it, then hooked it up to the radio": The story of Les Paul, the man who invented modern music
- "A corporate jack-off music festival disguised as some kind of important cultural event for the young generation": The grimy legacy of Woodstock 1994
- “Even with tensions rife, this music showcases the breathtaking musical telepathy they’d developed”: The best King Crimson songs of the 1970s
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
August 11
- One of the great American rock'n'roll bands: The Lynyrd Skynyrd albums you should definitely listen to
- “Rage Against The Machine, Korn, Limp Bizkit – we opened that lane up”: How Ice-T and Body Count returned to the fray to reclaim their throne with Manslaughter
- “Give me a break. Of course we’ve got frickin’ soul”: Dream Theater vs the haters
- “For a pissed-off, disillusioned teenager that hated the government, Banned In D.C. was the moment I found my tribe”: The 10 best Bad Brains songs according to Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach
- “Restraint was something other bands did… with little precedent, they were a progressive band to their very core”: Revisiting Cocteau Twins’ Treasure
August 10
- “I will never forget the looks of horror from the label. They saw it as commercial suicide – which I suppose it was”: the turbulent story of Celtic Frost’s avant garde thrash masterpiece Into The Pandemonium
- “We smoked so much weed that we set off the fire alarms and almost killed everybody with the gas that was going to be released”: The story of Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes, the debut album that revitalised 90s metal
- "I'm stunned that some bands have success. I don't like many bands, actually. The metal scene today is horrible": How Opeth separated themselves from the herd with Ghost Reveries
- “It’s the silliest name since Genesis did a track called Squonk. But The Beatles is a silly name, if you think about it”: The world according to Squackett, prog’s great forgotten supergroup
- “I felt so embarrassed for him and I didn’t want to make things even worse”: Ian Anderson, the man who refused to meet Elvis Presley
- "The idea that somebody could write an operatic version of what was going on on the street just blew my mind": Hank Azaria's Top 10 Bruce Springsteen songs
August 9
- “You had big everything. Big drugs, big money, big parties. And it’s all free, the more the merrier”: The fast rise, sudden fall and messy afterlife of glam metal heroes Ratt
- The 13 new metal songs you need to hear this week
- "Brandon Lee was always laughing, fun-filled and determined – a beacon of light." From HIM to Avatar and Ice Nine Kills, 90s cult hit The Crow has had a lasting impact on metal culture
- "There was a bit of a clash of cultures." The night that Hollywood star Mickey Rourke and a gang of bikers gatecrashed Bob Dylan's recording session with members of The Clash and Sex Pistols
- Not just No Life and Only One… 6 more rare songs Slipknot should play again
- Cool new proggy sounds from Dilemma, Nytt Land, Ebony Buckle and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- “The best advice anybody’s given me? Don’t die ashamed”: An epic interview with Lemmy about fame, Bob Dylan and driving on LSD
August 8
- "My dream was a place where we could create and make music and take magic out of the air": Remembering Robbie Robertson, architect of The Band
- “I never treated bands like rock stars, I treated them as people.” Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and the stories behind some of grunge's most iconic images
- “Chatting to the crowd never sat comfortably with us… being more mysterious really appealed”: Nordic Giants nearly unmasked for Prog, but changed their minds
- “Peter Gabriel got all the credibility, and I got the money – ha!” Phil Collins on his role as Genesis’ class clown and their only contact with the outside world
- "Sixty per cent of those lyrics, Robert came in with off the cuff": Jimmy Page on the rehearsal tape that captures the early magic of Stairway to Heaven
- "It's too safe. It needs a kick up the arse": How 10cc transformed I'm Mandy Fly Me into an epic via "two whacking great guitar solos" and a plane crash
- The albums produced by George Martin you should listen to but only one is by the Beatles
August 7
- Every Massive Attack album ranked from worst to best
- “It’s the irony of ironies – paying Zuckerberg to show people songs that are denouncing him”: Church Of The Cosmic Skull’s Bill Fisher puts politics in prog as he explores How To Think Like A Billionaire
- 10 bands that defined Wacken 2024
- “I just had to tell him, ‘You’ve outdone me, you bugger!’” Iron Maiden used to merely hint at their prog credentials… now they flaunt them
- Dreams really do come true: Every Electric Light Orchestra album ranked, from worst to best
- "Angus Young may be a silver-topped 69-year-old, but he's still the blueprint of what a rock'n'roll guitarist should be": Back on the road with AC/DC
- "We played eight shows and they were amazing. The kids followed us everywhere": The story of the album that should have turned Angel into stars
August 6
- “I was absolutely horrified when I saw the box set. I went ballistic! Explain to your readers I didn’t know about that”: Allan Holdsworth’s life in music
- "Imagine if Guns N' Roses were the worst band you've ever heard": How hardcore punk titans Discharge went glam metal and sabotaged their own career
- 10 classic albums that would be better if they were shorter, and how they should be shortened
- "There's magic in this band. There is real magic with these four members": Black Country Communion and the proud return of classic rock
- "The Red Hot Chili Peppers might have based their entire career on it": Steven Wilson's 20 favourite British rock albums
August 5
- Every Bring Me The Horizon album ranked from worst to best
- Every Run-D.M.C. album ranked from worst to best
- "This is one band that never thought about quitting, not even in the darkest times": The Def Leppard albums you should definitely listen to
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "I love Blackberry Smoke. They're the Status Quo of country": This is the soundtrack of legendary broadcaster Bob Harris's life
August 4
- "Rock'n'roll's a dirty job, and no one did it dirtier": The Aerosmith albums you should definitely listen to
- “They celebrate Mozart in Vienna 400 years later and they’ll be celebrating Prince in Minneapolis 400 years from now”: Prince’s old bandmates on Purple Rain, his legacy and more
- “I did it in 40 minutes and thought little of it”: How Phil Daniels saved Blur’s classic Britpop anthem Parklife
August 3
- "The annoying thing is that our album played Madison Square Garden before we did": the night Metallica launched The Black Album with the world's biggest listening party
- “Bonehead was saying, ‘You’ve not just written that!’”: Noel Gallagher on the night he showed Live Forever to the rest of Oasis
- “When we heard it, we were in shock. The producer had tried to make us sound like Def Leppard”: how Anthrax defied the odds to deliver a thrash classic with Among The Living
August 2
- “I had fights on the street. Guys couldn’t handle it. It was a challenge to them, especially as we would get girls”: how Poison took glam metal to the extreme with Look What The Cat Dragged In
- The 12 new metal songs you need to hear this week
- The 8 best metal EPs of 2024 so far
- Great new prog music you need to hear from Tim Bowness, Jordan Rudess, Oceans Of Slumber in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- Marilyn Manson is back. His return highlights how little the music industry cares about protecting women
- "It was so intense. It felt like lightning when I heard it as a kid": Rival Sons' Jay Buchanan picks the 10 albums that changed his life
- "Joe Elliott knows more about Mott than I do. You just have to sit back and listen to him": Ian Hunter's stories of Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, Bob Dylan and more
August 1
- Best CD players 2024: Rediscover the OG of digital music with our pick of sharp-sounding players
- “It’s loud, it’s obnoxious, it’s brainless, and It’s definitely not music for wimps.” When The Pogues' Shane MacGowan reviewed singles by Deep Purple, The Smiths, Robert Fripp, Dire Straits, Nico and more
- “All I can remember was Robert Fripp giving up completely, saying, ‘There’s no hope’”: King Crimson’s torturous journey through fourth album Islands – and its 30-year fallout
- "A load of big names kicked us off tours. We frightened them": Cactus should have been huge but it never happened - so we asked them to tell us why
- With the sounds of The Beatles and Beach Boys in their heads, The Lemon Twigs have spent their lives in search of perfect pop: On their new album they may have found it
- "We always play UK tours even if we're operating at a loss": Joe Elliott on the importance of Britain to Def Leppard