Features archive
September 2024
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87 articles
- September 16
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- “We played a cave underground. There was water on the floor and all our electrical stuff was in the water.” How Slift became heavy music’s least likely viral sensation
- “The original idea was to sell my songs to a publisher, not that I should be a singer or a performer”: An unexpected interview with Kate Bush while she was writing Hounds Of Love
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- September 15
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- "The sun will rise and fall, and BB King will play the blues": The incredible life of BB King
- "That's the problem with me, you see. I'm a lunatic": The true story of Marc Bolan's final days
- “It has brightened my spirit to see how many have posted about Ric, praising his originality, flair, and brilliance”: Revisiting Billy Corgan’s tribute to late Cars leader Ric Ocasek
- “It was very bittersweet and not an easy decision for us to arrive at”: Michael Stipe looks back on the day that R.E.M. split up
- “It was early days for the band. We’d gone out on a limb… it was by no means certain that the response would be positive”: Genesis’ early fears for Foxtrot
- September 14
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- "Antics leaked 10 days after we finished it... you’d go to every city and someone would be talking about it": Interpol on the premature release of their brilliant second record as it turns 20
- “When we first playing Reading, we got everything thrown at us. The whole crowd hated us.” Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes on the hurdles the metal giants overcame to become one of Britain’s biggest bands
- September 13
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- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “80 per cent of the people I meet are very boring people.” In 1975, Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore named his favourite guitarist, and shared his brutally honest thoughts on the '70s music scene
- "He's the king of death metal." Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt and Fredrik Akesson name the greatest death metal band of all time, and discuss their own journey through the genre
- Cool new prog you really must hear from Teramaze, Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "I love being a poser!" Five minutes with Fernanda Lira of fast-rising Brazilian death metallers Crypta
- September 12
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- "Will we bring the tour overseas? We’re exploring options..." Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe and Mastodon's Brann Dailor talk their new collab single, their history together and what the future may hold
- “Delivering a cerebral, skilful and inventive blend of prog and metal, they’ve remained proudly on the periphery of fashion”: The best Dream Theater songs featuring Mike Portnoy (to date)
- “I met Brian May and said, You're the reason I used to spend months and months on end in my garage trying to build a f***ing guitar.” How Queen inspired Radiohead's Thom Yorke to follow his dreams
- “The four-note phrase is arguably the most recognisable motif of the entire Pink Floyd catalogue”: Seven powerful moments that help make Wish You Were Here so unique
- "Phil Mogg sings so unusually so it's difficult to copy, but Axl did a fantastic job": Michael Schenker's track-by-track guide to his new album My Years With UFO
- September 11
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- “When I’m onstage my job is to be God. And I’m pretty good at it.” An epic, exclusive, revealing and sporadically very amusing interview with The Sisters of Mercy's iconic frontman Andrew Eldritch
- “They arrested a girl who had a blank piece of paper. She was making the point that even doing that would send someone to jail”: Iamthemorning’s Marjana Semkina hated mixing politics with art – until her native Russia’s war on Ukraine
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- “I never mind faking it. I had a filthy cold on the night, so vocals were grabbed from other shows. It’s only artifice when you pretend it’s something it isn’t”: Peter Gabriel explains his passion for the video medium
- With sales of more than 40 million, these are the Toto albums you should definitely listen to
- September 10
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- Watch 'The Battle of Britpop' play out on a football pitch, as Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher squares up to Blur's Damon Albarn in this resurrected archive footage
- “I realised on the very first tour that this was no kind of life… Should I be excited about leaving my family? No”: Neil Peart’s love, pain and thoughts on playing live before Rush bowed out
- “There’s a few stations that’ll play my music; very few, and usually after midnight”: Frank Zappa’s final print interview, and the 12 words he signed off with
- The releases you should definitely listen to on Neat Records, the kings of NWOBHM
- "Smile at your scared opponent and help them. If he's swinging wildly, chill him out": The Gospel according to Duff McKagan
- September 9
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- "It was important for us to press the reset button": Joe Perry on touring with Kiss and the making of Aerosmith's Honkin' On Bobo
- “He says, ‘Here you are, my good man’ and he hands me this glass of champagne.” How a wayward flying bass led to Nirvana meeting Queen legend Brian May for the very first time
- "The greatest rock'n'roll band ever to come from Finland": The Hanoi Rocks albums you should definitely listen to
- “It was sounding great, then halfway through the loop stops… We turned into a sort of working men’s club band!”: Marillion’s late-career hit single didn’t stop people asking Steve Hogarth about Fish
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "I've not done Taylor Swift's numbers, but I don't give a sh*t because I'm proud of the songs I did": As Fish prepares to leave the business behind, he reflects on Marillion, going solo and life after music
- "What's the difference between a Lada and a sheep?": Brian Johnson on the worst and best cars he's ever owned
- September 8
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- "They're called The Experience, man. You've gotta see them": In December 1966 Jimi Hendrix released Hey Joe: Five days later he played a casino in a hotel basement
- Actors, artists, transvestites, junkies and wannabes: How Lou Reed made the defining album of his career
- “Our producer played the intro to Nevermore and I was just blown away”: How U.K. became Witherfall guitarist Jake Dreyer’s prog heroes
- The 10 best cover versions by Smashing Pumpkins
- “For all its flights of fancy it’s not ironic; it finds him rooting for hard-grafting, often veteran grapplers”: The prog credentials of Luke Haines’ 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling
- September 7
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- “I’m not very good at ignoring people who slag us off”: the story of Radiohead’s My Iron Lung, the song that changed everything for Thom Yorke & co.
- “The great albums were not made under a microscope. They were made by living, breathing people who were excited by what they were doing”: How Kiss fought back against the music industry with Sonic Boom
- The 10 best Britpop B-sides, featuring Oasis, Supergrass, Ash, Elastica, Blur and more
- September 6
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- “One of the most singular, unique and influential catalogues in music history.” Every Talk Talk album ranked from worst to best
- The 14 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Awesome new prog you really must hear from God Is An Astronaut, Tomo Katsurada and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "You had guys who would jump into the crowd and then walk across people’s heads." Inside the year that turned thrash metal into a global phenomenon
- "I hear this screaming from behind me: Simon! Simon! Start the bloody song!" How Deep Purple entered their Mk IX era, inspired by the tedious complications of modern life
- "All the blood rushed into my fist and I decked him. He fell to the ground like a tipped cow": What happened the night Vince Neil punched Izzy Stradlin
- September 5
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- “Head and Fieldy are born-again Christians. I don’t choose sides. I’ve got Christian friends and Satanist friends”: How a reunited and rebooted Korn put religious differences aside to make The Paradigm Shift
- Does vinyl really sound better than other formats?
- “Robert Fripp was triggering sounds and I just responded… I told him I was feeling more comfortable, and he said: ‘You mean like you’re no longer being auditioned?’”: The series of incidents that led to Jakszyk, Fripp & Collins’ A Scarcity Of Miracles
- "I imagined cutting my hair to have a green reverse mohawk like Keith Flint." Leprous vocalist Einar Solberg picks the 10 records that changed his life
- "I'm an R&B singer in the body of a metal guy": Why Armored Saint recorded a cover of a Four Tops classic
- "I broke his nose. He chipped one of my teeth. We went and played the next day in Georgia and it was great": How Poison's career imploded
- What happened when we went record shopping with Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown
- To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Gene Simmons' pronouncement that rock is dead, here are the Top 10 other examples of Gene Simmons repeating his theory
- September 4
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- “It’s dangerous when you’re a kid shooting up drugs. Me and two other guys made it out alive. The others are dead or in prison”: How Mastodon transcended tragedy and trauma to make Crack The Skye
- 10 great Britpop-era indie bands who could reform to ease the pain of fans who missed out on Oasis tickets
- “Gary Wright split from Spooky Tooth, declaring the album ‘an utter failure’… but he was wrong”: Ceremony did more for prog than anybody realised at the time (except the French)
- “I went to Rio for a show. I told my wife I’d just been for a helicopter ride and I was now sitting on gorgeous white sand… She hung up on me!” The need to deceive loved ones inspired Caravan’s Paradise Filter
- Back in the 80s, someone thought it would be a good idea to launch a sports-themed AOR version of the Village People: The result was the All Sports Band
- "There's a reason why it's sold more than all the other AC/DC albums combined": Why I love Back In Black, by Def Leppard's Joe Elliott
- September 3
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- The Emerson, Lake & Palmer albums you should definitely listen to
- “This presidency isn’t a surprise to me. You could see it coming a mile away. But the scope of the corruption is unparalleled”: How Ministry’s Al Jourgensen tried and failed to bow out with the George W Bush-baiting The Last Sucker
- “I love Radiohead more than I could possibly love anything other than my kids.” Why In Rainbows is Charlotte Church's favourite Radiohead album
- “I was sitting in a bar and a friend came in and said, Bono from U2 just phoned my mother trying to find you.” How Depeche Mode/Nine Inch Nails producer Flood got to work with U2, and why working with Brian Eno made him “reappraise everything”
- “Devin Townsend was sick but he jumped right in. He treated the music like it was his own, which meant the world to me”: It’s all going well for Anthony Vanacore since he left America for China, formed OU, hooked a star producer and never looked back
- Why your choice of stylus and turntable cartridge matters
- “I sing in pictures – as I sing I see myself standing on the deck of a bloody great boat in Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”: How Powerslave pointed the way to Iron Maiden’s epic future
- “We almost ended up performing with Geddy Lee… it’s better that it didn’t happen!” Anthrax’s Scott Ian explains his lifelong passion for Rush
- "No minor chords here, just major chords hitting you in the balls! I was just mesmerised!": What AC/DC mean to me, by Kiss's Gene Simmons
- "Oozing with a tangible undercurrent of dark, forbidden sex": The Stooges' songs that provided a perfect blueprint for rock's future
- "He proceeded to take his trousers off between songs. The police got very twitchy": The chaotic night Led Zeppelin jammed with Ten Years After and the Jeff Beck Group
- September 2
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- “I’m going to get into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame one way or another and Lars Ulrich can’t keep me out!” How Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine used old rivalries as fuel for the Endgame album
- “He took out this big knife, put it on the table with a loud thud, looked at us and said, There's a lot of crazy people out there.” Eddie Vedder on the night Pearl Jam supported Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards
- "I was in spandex pants, reading Karl Marx." From birth in Harlem to graduation from Harvard to stripping, Rage Against The Machine and fighting the KKK: this is the incredible life story of Tom Morello
- “We were held together by Sellotape and sealing wax… We knew our days were numbered”: Tired, broke and losing members, Van der Graaf Generator went down fighting with The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- September 1
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- “We had collapsed financially – I couldn’t pay the wages. I was on the verge of bankruptcy”: The chaotic story of Ian Gillan’s erratically brilliant solo career
- From Oppenheimer to The Mandalorian, Childish Gambino to Vampire Weekend and more: 10 of the best by Oscar-winning producer and composer Ludwig Göransson
- “One of the toughest lessons I’ve learned is how to show backbone but not show your fist”: You Me At Six’s Josh Franceschi on the wisdom he’d pass on to the next wave of rock bands
- “There was some smoking and drinking but it wasn’t a lot of drugs. We weren’t coked out of our minds or shooting heroin”: The epic story of Kyuss, the stoner metal visionaries who blazed brightly and burnt out
- “You could be a Luddite and ignore these new instruments, or you could say, ‘Let’s give it a spin.’ And I chose the latter”: How Jethro Tull embraced synths, drum machines and the 1980s – and split their fans
- “I felt they were having second thoughts… I got quite angry – ‘Just stop the bus, I’ll get off, no problem’”: Ray Wilson knows what went wrong during his time in Genesis