Latest articles by Rob Hughes
"Roger punched me once, and I’m sure I asked for it": How The Who overcame internal strife and a drummer behaving like 'a Saudi prince' to make their most poignant album
By 1973 The Who were bored and angry – and Pete Townshend knew he had one last chance to hold the band together and unify them in the eyes of their fans
“Colin Moulding was deemed the good-looking one who wrote the singalong stuff, so he mostly got the A-sides. And because I was the weird specky one, I used to get the B-sides”: XTC’s Andy Partridge looks back and forward
Prog-pop mastermind on the power of failure, writing for the Monkees and more
"I went to my neighbour's house, told them my name was Lola Vasquez, an orphan from the 1930s, and could I please come inside and have a Pop-Tart." Six things you need to know about Grace Potter
One of the roots world’s most interesting, commanding storytellers, Grace Potter returns with her most powerful set of songs yet
"I kind of wished Kiss would sound like AC/DC": The Hives' Pelle Almqvist on the soundtrack of his life
The Hives frontman Pelle Almqvist picks his records, artists and gigs of lasting significance, and celebrates the beauty of 'six beers music'
The John Lennon albums you should definitely own
Iconic Beatle John Lennon's solo albums are full of timeless pop, but be prepared for avant-jazz, birdsong, politics and primal screaming too
"They were very avant-garde and I thought I was too, and it was all going to be very beautiful, man": how Pink Floyd learned to fly
In 1965 the musicians who'd become Pink Floyd were searching for a sound: then they ditched their R&B repertoire for much freakier fare
Gregg Allman: the 15 best songs from one of the great southern songbooks
Gregg Allman's ghosts drove him to do terrible things to himself; they also helped drive people who cared for him away. But without those ghosts he might never have been the artist he became
"None of us could have ever dreamt it was going to happen": the true story behind Led Zeppelin's secret Bombay sessions
In October 1972, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page travelled to Bombay to jam with Indian musicians. This is what happened
“We don’t see any point in repeating ourselves." The story of Motorpsycho's The Tower
Norwegian proggers Motorpsycho are very much a law unto themselves and in 2017 released the epic double album The Tower
"We were a bit embarrassed because this was the raging punk scene": How the "slight reggae" of The Police's Roxanne turned a teacher and two prog rock renegades into unlikely superstars
Banned by the BBC, Roxanne put The Police on the road to superstardom when a radio station in Texas embraced Sting's song about love in a red light district
"It's the audience that brings something magical to that song": the story of Nights In White Satin by the Moody Blues
Dumped by a girlfriend, Justin Hayward remembered a gift she had given him and started writing a song that became a multimillion-selling, era-defining classic – and earned him not a penny
“My mum said, ‘What about the drink and drugs and wild women?’ I said, ‘That‘s what I want to do this for!’”: the life and times of Bernie Marsden, British blues-rock‘s secret weapon
In 2020, Classic Rock sat down with late ex-Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden to talk fistfights with UFO, patching things up with David Coverdale and meeting James Bond
"The inebriation factor was endorsed by the hot tub, the bedroom with the chains, the S&M suite": How The Who's Keith Moon made rock's worst solo album
Two Sides Of The Moon cost $200,000 to record, but no amount of money could fix the real problem: it was an absolute mess
John Lennon wanted to produce them, Pat Metheny said he wouldn’t have played jazz fusion without them, and Rick Wakeman claimed he played the greatest organ solo ever: Rod Argent looks back on his time with the Zombies and Argent
Rod Argent was the founding member of The Zombies and Argent and collaborated with some of the best-known names in music, including Phil Collins and The Who. And now the Zombies are reanimated and ready for another bite of success…
The 20 most underrated Beatles songs
Even The Beatles’ most overlooked songs are better than many other bands’ best numbers
“My brother was into Yes but it didn’t speak to me. They knew too many chords!” He was a punk hero, while her dad was Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen was her babysitter. How Galen Ayers turned Paul Simonon onto prog
2023's unlikeliest duo discuss art as inspiration, Hendrix's guitar and the forthcoming Kevin Ayers’ reissues
"You start something, then come back after half an hour and you’ve seen the cosmos together." Motorpsycho and the making of Ancient Astronauts
Shape-shifting Norwegian proggers Motorpsycho discuss the creation of their 2022 album Ancient Astronauts, a lockdown album like no other
“For Lemmy and I, Hawkwind wasn’t a job, it was like family. That’s why he was so devastated when he got fired”: Stacia Blake’s role in space rock
They both left the pioneering band in 1975, but for dancer and lifelong artist Stacia, the connections were never broken
Woodstock Festival: 50 mind-blowing facts about the original celebration of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll
The Woodstock Festival became part of rock'n'roll folklore as half a million hippies descended on a farm in upstate New York in 1969
The Band albums you should definitely own
Few artists, if any, have captured rustic, earthy Americana as well as the mostly non-American quintet The Band
“I’ve been known to rant and rave… I had no idea that my words would be hostages to fortune”: but Van der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill doesn’t mind if quotes limited his success
He’s glad he never reached a level of success where someone offered to make him a star
“Without naming names, I have spent time onstage playing music I hate, wishing it was over”: King Crimson, Porcupine Tree and Pineapple Thief’s Gavin Harrison on being a pro
The eclectic drummer has been the jokey one in some bands and the serious, grown-up one in others - but it all comes down to the same approach
“This is what I can’t bear about fans: they assume songwriters are writing about themselves all the time” - Brian Eno’s quest to deliver “interleaved stories”
Music as movement, speakers in teapots and laughing with Robert Fripp are all part of the great experimenter’s process
10 bands whose best album was recorded live
10 live albums that remain a career pinnacle for 10 legendary bands
“A lot of people turned up just to see what we could get away with, the sheer nerve of it all… we weren’t pretending to be very good at what we did”: the implausible rise of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
Vivian Stanshall and his conspirators aimed to “play as loudly and badly as possible until someone took notice” – and it actually worked
