The Players
News and happenings from the world of your favourite guitarists
Joe Bonamassa has announced his latest signature model with Epiphone. The limited-edition Joe Bonamassa 1960 Les Paul Standard ‘Norm Burst’ is based on the guitarist’s pristine 1960 Les Paul that Joe discovered at Norm’s Rare Guitars in Tarzana, California.
David Lee Roth has recently claimed he “structured” guitar solos on Van Halen’s 1978 debut album. In a recent interview with Missouri radio station KSHE 95 to discuss his upcoming Las Vegas residency, Roth was asked about performing Van Halen songs – specifically whether he sought permission from his Van Halen bandmates to perform songs from their back catalogue. “No, because I wrote the songs. I wrote every word you heard, every syllable, every melody,” Roth claimed. “I structured out even the guitar solos on that first album. Why do you think the solos [later] changed so radically? I sang the solos for Jamie’s Cryin’ and Runnin’ With The Devil etc…”
Noel Gallagher has put his name forward as second guitarist in the increasingly unlikely event that The Smiths ever reunite. “I would love – and it’s never gonna happen, it’s a thing in a parallel universe – if The Smiths got back together,” Gallagher told Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 show. “I’m Craig Gannon and I’d go to Johnny [Marr] and say ‘Don’t get another guitarist, mate – I’m your man.’”
Former California Breed guitarist Andrew Watt recently produced Ozzy Osbourne’s new album, Ordinary Man, recruiting Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan to write and record the music with him – in an incredibly short time. “We wrote and recorded Ozzy’s entire album, musically, in four days,” Watt told Billboard. “There was no premeditation. The three of us just got in my basement, put on headphones, looked at each other, and wrote 12 songs, 10 of which constitute the album. It was magic. I don’t even remember it.”
Steve Vai has been looking back on his tenure with Whitesnake, 30 years on from recording Slip Of The Tongue, his only studio album with the band. But as the guitarist notes, it was a landmark for guitar, not just him. “There’s something very interesting about that record,” Vai told Whitesnake TV. “That’s when I got the first seven-string guitar. I was with Ibanez, I had the JEM, and then I asked them to make a JEM with a seventh string. Little did I know the subculture it was going to create, you know! That record, if you listen, that’s the first rock record that has a sevenstring guitar throughout the whole thing. And later on, obviously, I knew that there was gonna be these new young players that were going to come along and really make a difference with that guitar – and they did.”