Features archive

November 2024

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124 articles

November 21
- “He soars, swoops and divebombs his bandmates… two of whom quit shortly after”: 10 of Chris Squire’s mightiest musical moments
- "Paul was read the riot act, and given the chance to put things right. But he didn't put things right": The story of Iron Maiden - the Paul Di'Anno years
- "We were just looking for a hit. And we heard the beginnings of a new kind of sound": Inspired by Australian pubs and riding a wave of optimism, Simple Minds made the album that sent them soaring
November 20
- "I used to be a trance vocalist." Delain's Diana Leah picks the 10 songs that changed her life
- "It was an opening into a world of rock 'n' roll, sleaze, sexuality, drugs, violence and danger." They might sound worlds apart, but The Smiths wouldn't have existed without The Stooges, the US punks who made Johnny Marr's favourite record of all time
- "Trevor would've loved the new album." How The Black Dahlia Murder triumphed over tragedy with Servitude
- “We didn’t consider ourselves prog, but people said, ‘Hey, come and play our prog festival”: How Meer fought back from a disastrous start to deliver victorious third album Wheels Within Wheels
- Mrs. Henry have crafted one of this year's most epic rock albums with the 38-track rock opera spectacular Keep On Rising
- “Pink Floyd weren’t available. Jon Lord turned it down. So it came my way”: Roger Glover made an unexpected success of the soundtrack to a movie that never happened – but was it prog?
- The self-proclaimed heroic kings and defenders of True Metal: The Manowar albums you should definitely listen to
- "If God gets in his way he'll burn the heavens down": Tommy Henriksen's track-by-track guide to Crossbone Skully's Evil World Machine
- "We weren’t fiddling around and wondering what to do, we were going to nail this sucker": Steve Howe names the best record he's ever made
November 19
- "I wasn’t ready for a 13-minute song like Rime Of The Ancient Mariner." Members of Arch Enemy, Testament, Fozzy and Wargasm explain how Powerslave shaped modern metal
- "I was so traumatised by the music industry, severely depressed. To have the thing you love destroyed by other people is soul-destroying." How Du Blonde quit trying to please toxic men and music business scumbags, and started living her best life
- “We released a single and some fans complained there was too much pop, it was boring and they missed the odd time signatures … The funny thing is, the verse is in 13/8!” Leprous continue to be progressive even if it doesn’t seem to be prog
- "Music has been boiled down to fifteen-second gimmicks for social media": Tuk Smith wants to return us to a world shaped by weirdos and mavericks, not algorithms
- “John Peel said we were a waste of talent and electricity… It had become de rigueur to knock us”: Emerson Lake & Palmer and the making of Brain Salad Surgery
- "I run this business like an iron fist and nobody can get in and f*** with our band": Nikki Sixx on making new music, replacing Mick Mars, work-life balance and learning when to say no
November 18
- “I’m glad I took the risk, and I’m glad we have the kind of audiences that not only accept that but revel in it”: Ian Anderson looks back on his six solo albums
- "I played him the song first, and Johnny just looked at me like I was insane." How Rick Rubin convinced Johnny Cash to record his iconic cover of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt, and why Trent Reznor originally considered Cash's interpretation 'invasive"
- “Suddenly he had a different attitude, and from that moment it wasn’t as much fun… It’s strange when one of the guys is a little less keen”: How The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway forced Peter Gabriel and Genesis apart
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
November 17
- The laziest bands in the history of rock: 10 follow-up albums that took decades to appear
- "Peyote didn’t make me puke, but some of the other guys puked for all of us": The Eagles on Indian tribal rituals, playing with Guns N' Roses and the lyric police
- “I was on coke and dope but doing all these edibles. That’s what I’d become. My teeth were all gone”: Lemonheads leader Evan Dando on the moment he knew he had to get clean
- ‘The Hu didn’t speak a lick of English, but we both knew the language of rock. It’s a tribal warrior call!”: The greatest Papa Roach collaborations, in their own words
- “Sabbath is the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. But everything has to come to an end”: The triumphant story of Black Sabbath’s last ever tour
- “I was always so surprised that jazz musicians were into the idea of doing rock”: the story of Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime), the song that set up David Bowie’s final triumph
November 16
- “Our favourite bands didn’t chicken out on their third record. That’s not how Master Of Puppets or Number Of The Beast got made”: How Ghost teamed up with Katy Perry’s producer to kick things to the next level with Meliora
- "The tours were getting longer and crazier, and the expectations around us were astronomical." How Powerslave cemented Iron Maiden as the biggest metal band on the planet in 1984
- “Jim’s attitude was always: ‘Look out, man, I’m hell-bent on destruction.’ We couldn’t moralise”: How The Doors snatched victory from the jaws of chaos to make the classic Morrison Hotel album
- “Some of us were getting sober and cleaning up, others were not. It’s a recipe for disaster”: The chaotic story of Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual De Lo Habitual, the debauched masterpiece that changed music
- “The most exciting thing was, even though John was no longer on this planet, here he was in the studio with us”: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Jeff Lynne on how The Beatles made Free As A Bird
- Watch The Cure cover The Beatles with James, son of Paul, McCartney on keyboards
November 15
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Cool new proggy sounds you must hear from Teramaze, Sometime In February, Múr and more in Prog's all new Tracks Of The Week!
- “I wound up on the bill with them in Malaysia, where I got escorted offstage by police with automatic weapons”: Despite the drama, Joe Satriani still loves Jethro Tull
November 14
- “Captain Beefheart possessed an unrestrained imagination and a totally eccentric form of creativity… I’d have lasted five minutes in The Magic Band”: Colin Edwin’s prog world includes Magma, Cardiacs, Gong and more
- “Sometimes you have to take the piss out of the nerdiness in yourself!” How Geddy Lee geeked up for his Big Beautiful Book of Bass
- "People will become conditioned to artificial intelligence and learn to accept it": Kenny Wayne Shepherd on the spark of Stevie Ray Vaughan, smoking with Joe Bonamassa, and the dumb creep of AI
- "I couldn’t believe no one had done a song about a white guy trying to be gangsta": The story of The Offspring's global smash Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
- "To this day I don’t know how Brian Robertson got back to the hotel. He had been missing for a day": Through thick and thin - on the road with Thin Lizzy in 1976
November 13
- "I’ve thought about writing a will, just to make sure my daughters don’t throw my records away." With guest appearances from Ian Anderson and Joey Tempest, plus the return of death metal, The Last Will And Testament is Opeth's biggest swing yet
- “Now I can look back on what was probably the most painful year of my life as a positive experience”: How the loss of a pet and a health scare brought Pure Reason Revolution back to the studio
- "This could all fall apart at any moment." From collaborating with Bad Omens and Knocked Loose to touring with Bring Me The Horizon, Poppy might be metal's most vital artist of 2024 (just don't call her a metalhead)
- “You felt he understood innocence but couldn’t be innocent in the world, because you can’t… that’s where we wanted to be”: The real Syd Barrett, by the people who knew him
- "Is playing a sheep-shearing shed really what I wanted out of being in a band?!" Meet the Southern River Band, the Aussie rock'n'rollers with fire in their bellies and classic rock in their veins
- "Ritchie Blackmore never missed a note, and that ain't easy when you're about to be beheaded": An introduction to Terry Reid, the man who could have fronted Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple
November 12
- A guide to every Sleep Token song (and the theories behind them)
- “Her type of voice could work surprisingly well with our music”: Celeste (the black metal band) want to make a song with Celeste (the soul singer)
- “We always had so much more in common with bands like Yes and Genesis… we wanted to see how far we could take an idea”: What Blue Öyster Cult thought of being called prog – and what they really thought of the More Cowbell sketch
- "Lemmy was a creature of habit; he'd have a huge line of speed and then a big fry-up for breakfast": Topper Headon's wild tales of Johnny Thunders, Keith Moon, Keith Richards and more
- The albums you should definitely listen to by Europe, the second most famous group to come out of Sweden
- "It sounds like it's from like 1997 and 2037": Finger Eleven have made an album that sounds like it's from both the past and the future
- "I don't think I can get away with a song that talks about cutting a guy's balls off": Meet Bobbie Dazzle, the catsuit-wearing, flute-playing singer reinventing glam rock for a modern-day audience
November 11
- "I've changed it all around. I now meet each fan privately, instead of all in a room together": Cherie Currie on meet & greets, fan camaraderie, and the global cabal behind a worldwide takeover
- "We've had comments like 'Darling' and 'Can I carry your handbag?' and I think it just has to stop": The strange story of David Bowie's first TV appearance
- "Once Gared passed it became something that we had to do for him, in his honour." How the spirit and soul of late Planes Mistaken For Stars frontman Gared O'Donnell shines on in his band's new record, Do You Still Love Me?
- "I'm talking about people doing some despicable stuff...I’m also talking about my first ex-wife." Nile leader Karl Sanders on the fun of the 80s, being a black belt badass and how to stay authentic while writing death metal about ancient Egypt
- High Parasite are fronted by Aaron from My Dying Bride, produced by Greg from Paradise Lost and led by a fella called Tombs. You already know they're your new favourite goth metal band
- “An obvious smash in hindsight, given its chart-friendly tale of a gardener who refuses to grow up because he’d rather push his lawnmower around”: Genesis’ 10 best songs with Peter Gabriel
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
November 10
- “We sabotaged it all to a degree. We wouldn’t play a proper set, we’d do a wall of sound”: The story of Love And Rockets, the former Bauhaus members who helped sell goth to America
- “It reinforced believing in something even if you don’t have any cause to”: Gavin Rossdale looks back on the moment Bush blew up big
- “You know the way drummers get, they get a bit weird when they start singing”: watch a drunk U2 completely rinse Phil Collins at an awards ceremony
- “I was very successful working in the mortuary, and then I was living in a closet. It was worth it, suffering for my art”: The dark and twisted history of Korn, the band who invented nu metal
- “If you’re going to stay friends, you have to say something if someone’s out of line. We’ve kept egos in check all the way because of that.” How Rush’s Clockwork Angels became the prog icons’ perfect swansong
- “I wanted to give it everything – to be self-indulgent or whatever”: Breaking the rules of single lengths, using an air conditioner as a musical instrument, confounding guest musician Steve Howe… these are Queen’s proggiest moments
November 9
- “I’d indulge in all-night orgies of sex, violence, fighting, drinking and driving. Sometimes I even bit people on the street”: The chaotic story of Love/Hate, the greatest Sunset Strip band nobody cared about
- “I wanted to be in a band that would appeal to younger musicians like Pink Floyd or the Ramones did to me. That’s the pinnacle of our success”: How Soundgarden returned from the wilderness with King Animal
- “I had a meltdown. Cocaine psychosis took over – it’s a form of paranoid schizophrenia”: How Deep Purple split from Ritchie Blackmore and made a funky masterpiece in Come Taste The Band
- “He was called ‘the Wickedest Man In The World’ by the press – how can you fail to be fascinated by such a character?”: The twisted life and decadent times of Aleister Crowley, metal’s favourite occultist
- “Ozzy says, ‘I’ve never thrown a TV out the window.’ So I rip one out of the wall and launch it out of the window”: Zakk Wylde’s crazy tales of Ozzy Osbourne, Axl Rose, Eddie Van Halen and more
- Watch footage from David Bowie’s last ever live performance
- “Am I Evil? was me trying to beat Black Sabbath’s Symptom Of The Universe. I was determined to come up with something heavier”: The story of Diamond Head’s Lightning To The Nations, the cult album that invented Metallica
- “I remember knowing deeply it was a very special song”: Stone Temple Pilots’ Dean DeLeo on the making of their classic hit Interstate Love Song
- “She’s a furious texter. It’s a text storm!”: Billy Corgan on where his love-hate relationship with Courtney Love is currently at
November 8
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Great prog you must hear from Nine Stones Close, Tiberius, Krokofant and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week!
- "Oh my god, there was so much talk: ‘I bet there’s a real rivalry going on!'" How Within Temptation and Tarja Turunen formed the ultimate symphonic metal tag team for blockbuster single Paradise (What About Us?)
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- “I had a wake-up moment with Jon Anderson – ’It can be this great, so why am I in a band with people who just wait for the pay cheque?” Roine Stolt slashed the average age of The Flower Kings before making Waiting For Miracles
November 7
- "This is a teaching album": Why I ❤️ Led Zeppelin IV, by Heart's Ann Wilson
- "I've got my new band together now. I've got the Yes that I wanted": After half a century of Yes music, Jon Anderson talks about everything, from football to fairies
- “The fastest album they’d made, chock full of hard-headed riffs and squealing solos”: Every song on Judas Priest’s Painkiller ranked from worst to best
- “Massive. Exploring. Space travel.” After ELP’s Tarkus inspired the purchase of a Hammond organ, Elephant9 have defined and refined their experimental sound with help from across the Norwegian music scene
- “They just tour like there’s no tomorrow and they put on a wicked live show!” Mimi Barks names five young metal bands everyone needs to know
- "If myself and Dave Mustaine could have co-existed, Megadeth would have been a very different band." Kerry King on riffs, venomous housepets and which bands he'd join given the chance
- “We thought ‘the Gothenburg sound’ was an insult. Everything we set out to do was new and original.” We asked Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne to name the greatest Gothenburg metal album. This is what he said.
- “I said, ‘What do you mean, evacuate now? I just ordered my hors d’oeuvres!’” The twists of fate pushing Jon Anderson to finish his next projects – even if they take 30 years
- "The looseness that the Faces were known for just became too loose. It was such an unprofessional band": How Rod Stewart corralled chaos to make his solo classic Every Picture Tells A Story
- "I was being a very bad boy. It was not a good time": Bob Welch was the man who kept Fleetwood Man going, but a decade later he was smoking crack with Guns N' Roses
- "I don't only shoot famous people, but it's fun working with cranky old rock stars": Photographer Scarlet Page on her portraits of Lemmy, David Bowie, Dave Grohl, Chris Cornell and more
- "I'm still not sure that I can tell you exactly what happened, and I was there": Slash, Duff McKagan, Steven Adler and more tell the epic story of Guns N’ Roses' Use Your Illusion
November 6
- In late 1967 Pink Floyd stayed at Alice Cooper's house before appearing on American Bandstand: on both occasions, Syd Barrett completely baffled his hosts
- “The band played the Reichstag in Berlin to a crowd of 250,000. He went home and told everyone… They were more excited that somebody had won a tenner at the bingo!” The grounding experiences of Barclay James Harvest
- "I can’t see us knocking Taylor Swift off the top of the charts": Balaam And The Angel are back but they're still not quite sure where they fit in
November 5
- "I propose that businessmen should wear clown suits between the hours of nine and five": What happened when Jello Biafra ran for Mayor of San Francisco
- "The bondage video was overwhelming. You’re tied up, you can’t free yourself." Oceans Of Slumber singer Cammie Beverly on horror movies, her 'Roman Empire' and THAT music video
- "It is the biggest piece of garbage that ever happened to mankind": What happened when Celtic Frost embraced glam and destroyed their own career
- "Playing for fifteen people can be amazing experience if you make the night of ten of those people": Sepultura are coming to the end of the road and they're getting the crowd involved
- From grunge whipping boy to one of rock'n'roll's most charismatic if troubled stars: The Scott Weiland albums you should definitely listen to
- "We almost went to prison in Eastern Europe because of Lemmy": In the 90s Terrorvision were high flyers, but the fall hit them hard. Now they're back
November 4
- “It goes as silly, as heavy, as deep as we’ve ever done”: Soft Play’s Laurie Vincent on how the duo formerly known as Slaves were determined to do things their way second time round
- "I was trying to make the music I wanted to be making, I remember wanting everything to be faster": Eddie Vedder on Spin The Black Circle, the song that reinvented Pearl Jam
- “We knew not everybody would like The Astonishing – we’re not blind and we’re not stupid – but we did it anyway. After a long career we reserve the right to do that”: Jordan Rudess’ life and times with Dream Theater
- “Bono said, ‘Everyone is blowing smoke up our arse, will you come watch a few shows and help us make it better?’”: Gavin Friday on how he became U2’s Creative Director
- “A hideous mistake”: the 1993 song that Radiohead have tried to scrub from their history
- "I get chills thinking of it. It was like a kid seeing Santa Claus": What happened when Prince played Purple Rain for the first time
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
November 3
- “I don’t think we knew what the hell was going on. We were just happy that we were still around after 2112”: The history of Rush’s live albums, by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson
- “I never wanted to be in a band, I just liked playing music. I was never a showman. If I didn’t have my mask on I wouldn’t be at the front of the stage”: An interview with Mick Thomson, Slipknot’s reluctant guitar hero
November 2
- “Slash came up to me and said, ‘Man, I got laid to your records so much.’ I said, ‘Dude, didn’t we go to high school together?’”: How Lenny Kravitz’s Let Love Rule and Mama Said turned him into a superstar
- “People gravitate towards success. They say, ‘I want to play with Dio.’ I’ve always been able to surround myself with the top guys”: How Ronnie James Dio escaped Black Sabbath and launched one of metal‘s greatest solo careers
- “People used to say to me, ‘Oh, you’re better than Eric Clapton.’ I didn’t know where to put myself”: The triumph and tragedy of Peter Green, the man who founded Fleetwood Mac
- “There was a very real chance that James wouldn’t be coming back. And all that time we spent waiting was horrible”: The tumultuous inside story of Metallica’s St Anger album
- “We’d do these crazy shows with 16-inch glitter boots tacked to the piano and Neil screaming into the mic. It was like pre-punk. Audiences hated it”: Nils Lofgren’s wild stories of Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards and more
November 1
- The 12 best new metal songs this week
- It's Prog's new Tracks Of The Week! Cool new proggy sounds from Crippled Black Phoenix, Oddleaf, Outrun The Sunlight and more...
- "Our decision-making process has completely failed." The Battle Of Los Angeles at 25: how Rage Against The Machine just about kept it together to create one final masterpiece before imploding
- Every Testament album ranked from worst to best
- "She's made the jump from bizarre YouTube content creator to one of the brightest stars in metal." A guide to every Poppy album
- Every The Offspring album ranked from worst to best
- "I've seen Ozzy's arse more times than I've seen my own": That time Ozzy mooned the audience because he didn't think they were rocking hard enough