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June 2026

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282 articles

June 30
- "If another c**t calls me The Firestarter I'll stab him in the f***ing throat." How The Prodigy's incendiary electronic punk album The Fat Of The Land put a bomb under heavy music and freaked out British politicians
- “I think James is still fuming”: an interview with the artist who created Metallica’s Load and Reload album covers
- “I’ve never wanted to join in. My entire career has been about trying to do something and getting it slightly, wonkily wrong”: Peter Hammill’s maverick life in prog
- "I'm not too struck on Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, I never saw what was in Clapton at all". In 1975, Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore was asked for his thoughts on his peers: he did not hold back
- “They say it all went wrong when I started singing. But really, we all changed. It was a metamorphosis. I think we got better”: Genesis’ evolutionary A Trick Of The Tail, track by track
- "It was a craving for something new." Meet The Scratch, the metal misfits who might just be the missing link between The Dubliners and Metallica
- "Though he could be hell to be around, he had a pure heart." Nine Steve Marriott albums you should listen to and one to avoid
- "He grabbed me and said, I like you. You've got a lot of nerve": ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons on the night his teenage band supported Jimi Hendrix, and closed their set with Foxy Lady and Purple Haze
- "That riff is probably the very first heavy metal riff ever": The story of the Hendrix-inspired Cream classic their label boss thought was "psychedelic hogwash"
June 29
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 29, 2026
- “I’d look at this mysterious fog in the ceiling. It looked like God was up there in Heaven. The ‘fog’ was tobacco smoke”: Roy Harper’s son Nick on growing up around folk rock icons Pentangle
- “Oh God, it’s hard to listen to.” The story behind Nirvana’s final song, You Know You’re Right
- “I formed this band, for God’s sake! And I helped Roger a hell of a lot because he wasn’t a musician when we started”: The lost Richard Wright interview
- “I get into arguments with fans all the time about this. Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just a leftover Stone Sour song.’ No, I wrote that for Slipknot!” How Slipknot made the greatest metal ballad of the 21st century
- "It was darker than other bands but it really got me to let go of the old and embrace the new." The late 80s alt-metal album that Korn guitarist Head says accidentally invented nu metal
- "A nurse came in and said, 'You should stay another night or two because you almost died yesterday.'" How a near-death experience inspired the making of Failure's Location Lost
- "Ma, I'm real sick. I need help. I got to come home": The trauma and triumph of Stevie Ray Vaughan
- “Having ADHD isn’t a superpower. But we can turn pain into poetry, and this album does that’’: TesseracT and Chimp Spanner friends team up for Prince Of Failure debut
June 28
- “I imagined playing in San Francisco. I didn’t even know where it was! But within a few months, there we were”: In a world of smiling 60s beat bands, Procol Harum were serious – and it paid off
- "He only became a heavy metal guy after he’d spent time touring with Deep Purple and started in Rainbow." What happened when Ronnie James Dio met Ritchie Blackmore
- "The lyrics are like this crazy, mystical bum that lives in a cave and says, ‘Oh, I wanna reach the whales!’ Why do people want to hear this?" 13 rock and metal musicians hating on their own songs
- "It was a gift. It came from that mysterious place that lyrics sometimes come from": The Tom Petty reject that gave Don Henley the ultimate song of lost innocence
- "If a grudge is going to escalate, you might as well sock each other out and get it over with." How Deftones dealt with fame, the road and each other on the White Pony tour
- "Let’s not be grunge. Let’s be more like the Beach Boys. But loud." How Weezer's Rivers Cuomo wrote the perfect power-pop song but almost shelved it
June 27
- "Side effects include elevated heart rates, annoyed neighbours and speeding tickets." Here are Metallica's ten fastest songs, ranked by BPM
- “They’d been to university, they had bank accounts; two of them were teachers. They had a car; they’d got a bank loan to buy a PA!”: Phil Manzanera always knew Roxy Music were going to make it
- "He wrote stories so painfully real that rock’n’roll still bears their scars." From Velvet Underground to his often divisive solo work, here's why Lou Reed is rock’s greatest storyteller
- "So there I was, sitting in the driver's seat of a Lincoln Continental, underwater": The night The Who’s Keith Moon drove his car into a swimming pool
- “With two 12-strings and harmonies we’ve got Yes and Genesis, really. But that wasn’t the intention”: Was Chris Squire and Steve Hackett’s only Squackett album worth the wait?
- “You heathens. If this is the shape of punk to come, then I'm quitting punk.” The story behind New Noise, the Refused song baked into the DNA of chaotic kitchen drama The Bear
- "If you have a perception of him as an out-of-control rock'n'roller, that's not the guy I worked with." Jeff Wayne needed someone to play an apocalyptic preacher in The War Of The Worlds. In Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott, he found the perfect voice
June 26
- "Would all the men in the audience stand up?" It's now 25 years since The Hives teamed up with Kylie Minogue for a 96 second commercial voted the greatest cinema advert of all time
- “Afraid Of Sunlight escaped more than it was released." How Marillion's eighth album brought the curtain down on their time at EMI and set the band up for the rest of their career...
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "I just couldn’t relate to him at all. I could see that he was thinking, Who is this weird guy?" When David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen first met in 1974, it did not go well at all
- Every Grand Theft Auto soundtrack ranked from worst to best
- Hot proggy sounds from The Pineapple Thief, Prince Of Failure, Maya Ongaku, Raphael Weinroth-Browne and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- The unlikely birth of Velvet Revolver, the supergroup who triumphed against the odds
- “I was so difficult to deal with, but I wasn’t the only one in the band doing something that they shouldn’t have been doing”: how Deftones rose above turmoil and tragedy with Diamond Eyes
- "One of our videos hit 123 million views in Brazil, so we're flying out to play Monsters Of Rock." Meet Jayler, the West Midlands quartet with big dreams and even bigger plans
- "We owed the label half a million dollars. There was no way we're gonna pay that back." Crown Lands talk music biz, 19-minute songs, and why they'd rather be killed by robots than zombies
- "We dug our teeth into that song. It was all about passion and hauling ass." The story of the last song The Doors ever recorded
- "We were playing to capacity crowds, six or seven nights a week, everywhere we went. So we figured something was about to happen." The story of 1966, the year that built rock
June 25
- 10 cruelly over-looked alt. rock albums from 1996 that should have been massive in a fair and just world
- “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” How anarchy, acrimony and apathy killed the Sex Pistols just 78 days after the release of Never Mind The Bollocks
- “I was obsessed with him at school – it didn’t help with the girls! Because of him I got my first guitar, so he’s got a lot to answer for”: The prog hero who links The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord to Pink Floyd and The Beatles
- "If I hear a white-boy blues band now where it's a squeaky clean mix, I just want to vomit." All Them Witches' new album House Of Mirrors is steeped in the blues – but it rages
- “As hard as it was, and it was hard, nobody wanted to bottle out. We just knew we had a big landscape we could explore”: How Tales From Topographic Oceans became the most arduous project in Yes’ history
- "We kept writing songs, trying to ignore the fact they'd be a bit boring without a singer." From trauma to triumph: The story of Genesis's A Trick Of The Tale
June 24
- Jimmy Page on Presence: "You don't make music like that falling about in the street drunk"
- “We’re giving people candy with razor blades in it!” When caring about the world is the most radical thing we can do, dark proggers Crippled Black Phoenix lead the way
- “The spark that made heavy music interesting wasn’t there for me anymore”: How British metal didn’t quite rule the 90s
- "As soon as you got into the lift there were naked women painted green." Inside the wild 1986 party where Queen teamed up with Samantha Fox and Gary Glitter to entertain 500 celebrity friends
- "Roger immediately said, 'What's that?' Some riffs have a little bit of magic to them, and it's obvious." Watch David Gilmour play Pink Floyd classic Wish You Were Here in his home studio, and talk about the song's creation at Abbey Road
- The 10 heaviest metal breakdowns of all time
- “There was an ugly atmosphere. None of us wanted to be there. Then someone discovered magic mushrooms growing in the field outside”: When Marillion went pop with Holidays In Eden
- “We’re still making records because we think we’re the best band in the world”: The Jesus and Mary Chain may not have destroyed the music industry as they had hoped, but they gave it a damn good shot
- "What's Number One at the moment? I couldn't tell you. It's meaningless. All I care about is what Iron Maiden are doing next week." Steve Harris, Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith look back on Iron Maiden's 50-year ride
- Genesis: The early years - a surprisingly difficult quiz
- Remembering that time Rush's Alex Lifeson trolled the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with the most ridiculous awards speech ever
- "Music is a personal journey. Once you make it, it belongs to the world." Geoff Tate on the third instalment of what's now an Operation Mindcrime trilogy
June 23
- “The band didn’t break up. It’s just that there won’t be any more new music. And I need an outlet; music has been my life for over 30 years”: Fates Warning’s Ray Alder looks ahead
- "In the studio the baby I picked couldn’t put two gurgles together. I kicked it, I did everything to make it scream, and it really buttoned its lip." The stories behind David Bowie's Labyrinth soundtrack album, now celebrating its 40 anniversary
- Playing mediaeval folk, taking pensioners hostage and blowing up a house: the ridiculous ad campaign for Guitar Hero Metallica
- “We carried the mantle of The Beatles, but we didn’t have a George Martin to keep us in check. Our amazingly different ideas sadly tore us apart”: Why 10cc’s original line-up couldn’t last
- 10 nu metal bands who should have been massive
- “That brief time is the bane of my life. They were everything I was against”: Prog veteran David Paton loved working with Alan Parsons, Kate Bush, Rick Wakeman and Jimmy Page. But there’s one band he hated
- When Aerosmith's Steven Tyler offered to help Kurt Cobain kick heroin, the response from Nirvana's frontman was savage
- "It's a national anthem of rock." The story of the Kiss classic inspired by the tragic death of a fan
- "It's a gift that there are so many recordings of him, so his legacy will live on and inspire guitarists for an eternity." Remembering Mott The Hoople and Bad Company guitarist Mick Ralphs
- Rock's 20 greatest one-album wonders: The bands that made one album then vanished
- They've seen a million faces, and they've rocked them all: Every Bon Jovi album ranked, from worst to best
June 22
- Revisiting the seven weeks in 1991 that changed music history forever
- "When Mike was apprehended back stage and pulled the dildo from his pants, the tension was relieved." The night a pissed-off Mike Patton pissed on concert security staff, and avoided arrest by pretending it was all a hilarious prank
- From surprise Foo Fighters and The Prodigy chaos to hip hop, metal and punk rock takeovers, these are the 15 greatest Glastonbury festival performances ever
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 22, 2026
- "We thought we were on the brink of breaking technology. It seemed like we did something futuristic at the time." Slipknot, zombies and a three year old girl's approval: how horror punk prince Wednesday 13 built a career beyond Murderdolls
- "It’s fertility, resistance, sensitivity. Something that belongs to men, too." Rising Italian black metallers Bianca are bringing a new vision to the genre
- “Our drummer left for a sandwich and never came back. We heard he was found wandering in no man’s land by Canadian Mounties”: An epic guide to every Swervedriver album in the band’s own words
- “We weren’t arrogant enough to think we were suddenly the most important band in the world. We just knew we were”: A metal fan’s guide to Rush
- “You want him to be difficult. Nothing important was ever achieved by being nice. You want optimum ego power": The Darkness star Justin Hawkins on his prog hero
- “It’s about keeping rich people rich and poor people poor… that’s the reason we’re in perpetual war”: When Roger Waters was asked to take on the mantle of Pink Floyd, it rejuvenated him
June 21
- "It’s saying, ‘If I could smell you, if I could interact with you, I’d eat you alive.'" How a bizarre and controversial stalker video featuring two Hollywood heavyweights brought an end to Limp Bizkit's golden era
- “There’s healthy humility, but this felt crippling. You come out of that and go, ‘I don’t care what people think about me’”: What Radiohead means to Ed O’Brien after his complete transformation
- "Everybody was leaning over the banisters to listen to this guy sitting in the corner of the club playing. They were enthralled.” This is what happened when Jimi Hendrix landed in London for the first time
- "I had to learn to let go of the bitterness and stop being so one-track minded." They were in one of hardcore's most boundary-pushing modern bands with Code Orange: now Jami Morgan and Eric Balderose reunite to topple the music industry with Nowhere2Run
- “We came up very fast and we went down fast. We were carried away on that wave of euphoria”: how Motörhead made their two most controversial early 80s albums
- Flag-waving nostalgia, sibling tragedy and a cartoon kangaroo: this Kinks album was snubbed for five decades. Then the world realised it was a prog masterpiece
- "It's about a beautiful moment between a man and a woman. It’s about peace." How Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's vision of domestic bliss emerged when the USA was imploding under the stress of the Vietnam War
June 20
- “No promoter would book us; they just didn’t know where we fitted in… we were victims of being ahead of our time”: With a future Uriah Heep singer and rapidly changing style, were Lucifer’s Friend prog?
- "You can’t fight against reality, you’ve got to live in it or you never move forward." Vampires, Shoot 'em ups and fantasy worlds: How As Everything Unfolds rebuilt after tragedy
- “The audience threw lighters, bottles, ice cubes and coins. We managed four songs before being booed off”: the rollercoaster story of Loverboy, Canada’s greatest AOR band
- "I was in Ireland in my little house when I got the call saying, ‘This is Lars from Metallica.'" How metal's biggest band and a confused folk singer wrote a controversial hit that has soundtracked everything from WWE to The Sopranos
- “The rock business has become so established, and so much like a society, that I have revolted against it." After killing off Ziggy and breaking up the band, David Bowie recorded a covers album in a French castle. This is the story of Pin Ups’ creation
- "The line in the sand is whether or not you think for yourself." They dress like cowboys, make insane post-hardcore and might be the best new band you hear this year. Meet Ireland's Uncultivates
June 19
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Cool new proggy sounds from Arthur Brown, North Sea Echoes, Alex Henry Foster and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- “Band members complained of a loss of feeling in their hands after only one song”: When Tesseract set a world record by playing on a stage built from ice
- "The time is right for a revolution in rock'n'roll. It's yours for the taking. I believe it’s coming." Def Leppard and Extreme are currently on tour together, so we put their guitarists in a room
- "It has never ceased to amaze me how much use that one tune gets." The story of Sirius, the dramatic prog anthem played at every World Cup game
- “Band dynamics are always good when times are hard. When you achieve things the landscape shifts. There was an issue we couldn’t get past”: Richard Barbieri on why art rockers Japan split, and why their reunion imploded
- "Bon Scott chose to hang out with us more than AC/DC. He thought they were boring": The rollercoaster story of Y&T, the greatest hard rock band never to become huge
- "Music of vaulting ambition, cinematic in scope, literate, endlessly witty and intelligent." Nine 10cc albums you should listen to and one to avoid
June 18
- “Sales is not a mark of success": 10 brilliant rock bands from the '90s who should have been absolutely massive
- “I was jolted back to life to watch America go to hell!”: What this Norwegian prog band did after their singer’s near-fatal onstage heart attack
- The 6 bands who won Rock For People festival 2026
- "They were like, ‘Are you going to choose heavy metal? Or are you going to join the police?’" Black market bootlegs, tours with Iron Maiden and rock'n'roll monks: The Hu's Enkush Batjargal on how he became a folk metal icon
- “I could walk out of here, go get a drink and within a week I could be dead. But I’m not interested in doing that”: how Trent Reznor pulled back from the abyss to make Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero
- "I’ve been whipped, stabbed and had to have surgery. Most recently, I got licked on the tongue by Alice Cooper's snake." Nita Strauss shares the battle scars that shaped her into a modern guitar hero
- “It isn’t my fault. The band was going nowhere. I haven’t spoken to him for years – there’s nothing new to say”: How Styx finally got happy and achieved closure with their past
- "I don't think there is any musician that I've worked with that has ever come close to that." How Jimi Hendrix recorded Purple Haze – on a guitar he'd never played before
- "They're not gonna get anybody heavier than me, are they?" In 1971 Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant was asked how he dealt with bootleggers
- "I loved the idea of playing noisy, heavy rock, but calling ourselves after something diametrically opposed to that." Nine Budgie albums you should listen to and one to avoid
June 17
- "NME said we were the best thing since the Sex Pistols. Sounds said we were the worst group they'd ever seen." Why William and Jim Reid feared that The Jesus And Mary Chain's classic debut album Psychocandy might never get released
- 8 totally wildcard artists that we'd love to see play Download 2027
- “It might seem odd for a death metal band to love him, but he gave us a sense of ourselves”: Joe Duplantier on the prog rock icon who became Gojira’s guiding light
- The 10 greatest final albums in heavy metal history
- "John orders 12 bottles of champagne. I thought he was going to treat everybody in the club, but he turned to me and said, 'Go on, drink it – that's yours.'" What happened when John Bonham was best man at Tony Iommi's wedding
- "I'd listen to Great Balls Of Fire on repeat for hours at a time." For Jim Jones, rock'n'roll is way more than just music, it's something other-worldly, something sacred
- “I didn't tell the band, but I went to the gig and sat at the back. It was strange to see this other guy singing my lines… I really felt for him”: Michael Sadler was always going to rejoin Saga, and they knew it
- Jimi Hendrix was here: An interactive London map
- "I thought it was the lamest song I ever wrote in my life. It took me six months before I worked up the nerve to show the guys." The story of the Van Halen classic written to mock punk and embraced by the punk rockers
- "It was construed as being about a sex worker." The story behind Blondie's misunderstood debut single, released on this day 50 years ago
June 16
- "We did seven encores. We ran out of material and were forced to play Jimi Hendrix tunes. Imagine that, opening for Cream and finishing with Hendrix tunes?" The story of the legendary James Gang
- "We're splitting up. We're washed up, finished." Why making In Rainbows almost destroyed Radiohead, with even their management suggesting they should break up
- The 10 bands who won Download festival 2026
- Pixie boots, dad dancing, mistaken identity and falling off stage: Everyone’s got to start somewhere, and prog metal giants Dream Theater started here
- “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 manager said, ‘Ian Anderson and the boys don’t want you in the band so you’ve been fired.’ I replied, ‘How can you fire me when I quit three weeks ago?’” Mick Abrahams’ life after Jethro Tull
- "I have never had more people come up to me than at a Slipknot concert." Why Margot Robbie refuses to be embarrassed about being a lifelong metalhead
- "At the Troubadour club in LA, they made a grand entrance by rolling down the avenue in a tank." The wild story of Ann Boleyn and Hellion, the long-lost band loved by Ronnie James Dio
- "We got mad at a promoter and threw donuts at the wall backstage. Then we cleaned it up, because we felt guilty." The unlikely triumph of rock'n'roll's greatest nerds, the B-52s
- “The area was being evacuated. The police knocked our door and the letting agency told us to leave. We decided to stick it out”: Marillion’s Pete Trewavas on the storms, earthquakes and blizzard that birthed the third Edison’s Children album
- "I was transfixed. I thought it was someone else. I said: 'Is that us? That's us!'" The fractious story of the Kinks classic they're still arguing about
June 15
- "Drugs and alcohol and ego clashes got in the way, but we managed to keep them quiet": The unbelievable story of Chicago, the soft rock kings with steel in their hearts
- “I rode him so hard he threatened to take me apart piece by piece if I didn’t back off”: How an ex-punk band delivered one of the greatest albums of the 70s
- "It didn't matter we'd got a gold record - we still came off tour and had to go back to our day jobs." How Type O Negative created goth metal's greatest album: October Rust
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 15, 2026
- “Kraftwerk barricaded themselves in the dressing room. Our reviews were great and theirs weren’t, so we were asked to leave the tour”: Prog paradigm-changers Greenslade were warned two keyboardists and no guitarist would fail. They didn’t listen
- "I asked Ozzy if he was having vocal lessons back then, and he said, ‘No, just lots of alcohol and drugs.’" Zakk Wylde talks tributes, hot sauces and trying to turn Mark Wahlberg onto metal
- "I'm ashamed of the way I treated them. They didn't deserve that." Steve Albini had regrets about how he spoke about Pixies
- "I remember looking at him and thinking: 'This guy's gonna die.'" Robben Ford's wild tales of Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Kiss, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison and more
- “He was like an alien. He could talk about anything. That’s when we said, ‘Let’s make him do lyrics!’”: Rush’s Neil Peart, an exploding golf ball and two career-changing conversations
June 14
- All the songs Rush have never played live… yet
- “I’d only written one song before it. I expected it to be a big hit and it was. Then other things didn’t happen like that”: Admired by half the Beatles, Rick Wakeman and Pat Metheny, Rod Argent still didn’t have it all easy
- “I’d put the headphones on and listen to heavy metal, and then I'd want to break down the door to get out on the pitch and go kill someone”: Former England legend Terry Butcher is a huge Iron Maiden fan and the original heavy metal footballer
- "Dave was really nervous about talking to these guys": Why Dave Grohl ditched the Foo Fighters to make extreme metal supergroup Probot, featuring members of Venom, Sepultura, Motorhead and more
- “The fans understood I was the price they had to pay to hear the band they loved, so they put up with me. It’s not like you’re joining the Sex Pistols”: Trevor Horn on fronting Yes – and how it later made 90125 possible
- “There was me and my girlfriend, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, and Quentin Crisp all going up the in elevator, just chatting about where to go to eat”: The cult US singer who connects Bruce Springsteen, Ian Hunter and the Sex Pistols
June 13
- “I suspect they’ve had a lesser impact on the music world due to the complexity of their music”: No-Man’s Tim Bowness on his prog hero, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson
- “We did two days recording… he fired the whole band on the first day”: Tony Levin recalls the “really evil” bandleader who was more challenging than Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp
- Eric Burdon: the hellraiser who had it all and then lost it
- “If I’d started having hits early on, I may never have wound up playing so much with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen”: Most people are lucky if they play with one iconic artist. Nils Lofgren has played with two
- "Motorhead played as raucously and as fast as they could. They were head and shoulders above everybody.” Napalm Death vocalist Barney Greenway on Lemmy, free speech and lessons learned on the frontline of grindcore
- “I reckon Ritchie Blackmore might have thought we’d made a mistake having them open for Rainbow, as we just couldn’t match them”: When AC/DC blew Rainbow off stage
- Bullets, bikers and burnout: the story of Jimi Hendrix's last gig
June 12
- "If you want to believe we're a boyband, there's nothing I can say or do to make you change your mind." In early 2001, Linkin Park went stratospheric. Here's a snapshot of a band during blastoff
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- How the band David Bowie called “a psychotic Beatles” made the '80s weirdest and most influential alternative rock album
- Top new proggy sounds from Haken, Polyphia, A-Tota-So and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- "If one were to cut the crap from The Clash's final album, it could be released as a seven inch single, with no B-side." Ten forgettable punk albums with one killer song
- "I met God when I was high on opioids! It was a spectacular moment of realisation." Garbage's Shirley Manson on love, grief, and that beachball incident
- “We’d arranged to do an album of new material together. He called me… ‘I’ve got cancer; do you mind if we put things on hold?’ Sadly it never happened”: Rick Wakeman’s tribute to Jon Lord
- "God knows what I'm on about on that song. It's such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go." The story of the controversial Rolling Stones classic they won't play live any more
- “Five minutes is a great length for a song. You can really get a lot in, while leaving people wondering. But then, when you’ve got a 13-minute song…” Prog icons Yes keep things tight on new album Aurora
- "It's this melodic, wonderful thing, with two guitars interweaving in a way that's not just shredding." The Black Keys' Patrick Carney picks the songs that have soundtracked his life
June 11
- "It's an exploration of the dark underbelly of the American dream." The story behind the Eagles "spooky" classic Hotel California
- 15 Father’s Day gift ideas for your music-loving, pop culture-obsessed dad: From classic vinyl and band t-shirts, to World Cup Lego, iconic Converse & more
- "I traumatised the Celebrity Traitors." Banshee wails, fashion shows and disabled rights: Mallavora are fighting for a healthier music world
- "My sister gave me Powerslave and it genuinely changed my life. My mom legitimately thought Iron Maiden were channelling Satan!" The Bronx and Mariachi El Bronx vocalist Matt Caughthran picks the soundtrack to his life
- “We exhausted ourselves trying to help Scott and be a friend. He wanted no part of that.” The story behind Stone Temple Pilots’ ill-fated sixth album, as told by the band themselves
- "He moved mountains. He changed the language." A tribute to Brian Wilson: June 20, 1942 - June 11, 2025
- "As soon as we heard it, we looked at each other and gasped, 'This is gonna be a monster.'" How an out-of-body experience helped Alice Cooper create a song about the greatest three minutes of everyone's life
- "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
- "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
- “I had this massive revelation – I knew what I’d do for the rest of my life. I didn’t doubt it was gonna happen”: The prog band who made A-ha’s Morten Harket into a musician
June 10
- “Of any song that I've ever written, it's most blatantly about my time in Nirvana.” The story behind the Foo Fighters song Dave Grohl wrote about his Nirvana bandmates while crashing on Kurt Cobain's couch
- “My stroke was caused by stress." Tarja Turunen on Nightwish, buried hatchets and fighting back to good health
- From Metallica surprise shows to Slipknot triumphs, these are the 13 greatest Download festival sets ever
- 10 brilliant bands that broke up far too soon
- "Getting off the bus, you could be attacked by a gang of skinheads, bikers or straights. It was hairy." Riots, teargas and slamdancing – The 80s scene that helped inspire Metallica, Slayer, Napalm Death and beyond
- “I go onstage ready to fight”: What Dragonforce’s Alissa White-Gluz has learned during her time on metal’s frontlines
- "I have to get people to slap me across the face in case it’s all just been a dream." For the first nine years of their career, No Doubt were seen as a joke. But when they released Tragic Kingdom, no-one was laughing at them anymore
- "If you watch the video, you can see Jimmy dribbling onstage, Robert not hitting the notes, and me miming, playing the air." Phil Collins' memories of Led Zeppelin's "dark, sulphurous" Live Aid reunion are brutal, and spare no-one
- “The kid lost his mind: ‘You’re the guy from Guitar Hero! Do you play real guitar too?’”: How a 2000s videogame phenomenon made Slash famous all over again
- “How many times have I listened to this song? How many times have I blubbed with joy?”: Before Cardiacs’ Mike Vennart was in Cardiacs, he loved Cardiacs – who he discovered by accident
- The Karma Effect: big ideas, big ambition, big shows and the road to big success
- "Few bands have taken such risks, survived such fractures or left such a deep mark on heavy music." Nine Sepultura albums to listen to and one to avoid
- He hung out with Hendrix, got shock treatment with Ronnie Wood, shared girlfriends with Keith Moon, and was friends and rivals with Clapton and Page: Jeff Beck’s wild times
- "We were increasingly attracted to the beats, yet the Allman Brothers remain some of our biggest heroes." How ZZ Top mixed Depeche Mode and southern rock to deliver one of the biggest songs of 1983
June 9
- “I’m happy we’ve had hits. But I do wish the record label had put out some of our challenging songs as singles”: Some only know them as ‘That Africa band,’ but how prog are Toto?
- “We all looked at each other and said, 'We gotta get out of here!’”: the story of the night a synth-pop sensation caused an LA riot featuring 200 police officers, helicopters, barricades, smashed windows and a queue that stretched on for 15 blocks
- “I heard Lars Ulrich jumped out of a helicopter as it was landing and disappeared”: What happened the night Metallica’s drummer went missing – and Slipknot and Slayer saved the day
- "We were young men, living hard and out of control, and we lost our heart and soul." The story behind the John Frusciante song which saved the Red Hot Chili Peppers in their darkest hour
- “Screens and fake news and artificial intelligence… we don’t need that in the way of our connections”: How Sepultura made their technophobic final statement, The Cloud Of Unknowing
- "It's gotta have some kind of sexuality and alcohol abuse and some kind of looseness to it": The story of Queens Of The Stone Age's signature tune, a still-mysterious banger powered by Dave Grohl and a truly whacked-out video
- “I was in my boxers and my mother caught me in this heightened creative moment. It was pretty embarrassing”: Inspired by Tool, Led Zeppelin and classic sci-fi, Coheed And Cambria turned a tumultuous break-up into Welcome Home
- “Between girls, drugs and an entourage he’d bring everywhere, Pete was out of his mind more than at any other point”: How I Don’t Wanna Be Me gave gothic metal icons Type O Negative their last big anthem, but spelled the start of the end
- “We did 57 festivals. They assumed I trashed my guitar at every one, and at every other gig. But Pete Townshend would have the edge over me”: Did Muse’s Matt Bellamy really earn his Guinness world record?
- “It was strange to have all these boys adoring me, gazing at me almost in worship. It wasn’t me trying to be sexy – but just being myself”: Sonja Kristina’s highs and lows with prog groundbreakers Curved Air
- "He thought that the band should be a democracy, and it was more like a brutal dictatorship": The tangled story of Dire Straits, the million-selling band who quit at the height of their fame
- "This old lady really freaked out and said: 'Turn the backing track down!'" How Jimi Hendrix recorded the song that established his otherworldly abilities
- "A lot of modern rock has lost the fun factor – like, whatever happened to grandiosity?" Meet Brass Camel, your new favourite chaotic Canadian prog-funk melting pot rockers
- "Everyone has the right to be furious right now. And if that comes out in your music, I celebrate that." Why Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi are dancing and playing through the fury
- The fumble and the fill: Two moments of genius from Anika Nilles' emotional first show with Rush
June 8
- "I told our producer, If Slash calls back, tell him I'm not there." Why Detroit rappers Insane Clown Posse blew off superfan Slash after getting him to play on their break-through album
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 8, 2026
- "Anthony Kiedis and Flea showed up wearing dildos." The night Jane's Addiction played a freaky private Halloween party for a debauched Hollywood legend
- "It must be hard for him when people write, 'How could you leave Gwen, she’s so great'." Gwen Stefani wrote a whole album about her bandmate dumping her, and it made No Doubt huge
- "Some of my first TV interviews were explaining that the band was more to do with the heart than burning down a church." The rise, fall and demise of HIM - Finland's goth metal princes
- "I could feel his heart through his chest and he passed away right there." Childhood tragedy, unlikely success and emotional reunions: Max Cavalera on how he reshaped metal with Sepultura and Soulfly
- "It was a beautiful scar on the metal world." How Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Korn and the rest took nu metal from hated subgenre to the biggest thing on Planet Earth
- “Fans say, ‘You were part of the band.’ I was never part of the band… I was an employee. And all things come to an end”: Chester Thompson’s career in and out of Genesis
- "We think we played for eight hours. I can't say for sure, because everyone was tripping." The acid-fried story of Man, the Welsh jam band with its heart in San Francisco
- “He asked, ‘Will you guys ever tour again?’ We said, ‘We’re going out in 2026.’ The crowd laughed – then realised we weren’t kidding”: How Rush transformed from political pariahs to comeback kings
June 7
- “We said we’d only do it if it only came out in Japan. Then when we listened back, we thought, ‘Hang on, we’ve got something here’”: In 1972, Deep Purple were falling apart. And then they made the album that accidentally changed rock music
- “Certain people I knew from the scene wouldn’t speak to me after I got a hit. But it’s all music… I just had a great time”: Brian Auger warned Jimi Hendrix off drugs and learned what prog was from Keith Emerson
- “The guitar tone ripped my face off!” When Machine Head's Robb Flynn met Meshuggah
- “They said a four-minute single containing lyrics about Jesus would never get played on pop radio”: The US singer loved by John Lennon and hated by right-wing Christian groups who wrote the last great hippie anthem – and then vanished into obscurity
- “It was the first time I smoked pot and saw a naked girl. The next day I bought a guitar and swore to do this for a living”: How cult AOR hotshot Paul Laine made the greatest Bon Jovi album Bon Jovi never made
- “A few others were singing about the underside of life, but we had the heaviness to hammer the subjects home.” The inside story of Black Sabbath’s stoned masterpiece Master Of Reality
- “I was still sending him music. He was saying, ‘That sounds great, but you should use it for your solo album.’ I thought, ‘OK, I’m getting the message’”: Richard Barbieri on the much-needed Porcupine Tree hiatus
- "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
June 6
- “Are you trying to get us killed?” The explosive story behind System Of A Down’s Toxicity album
- "I don’t think I have to forgive them. They replaced me when I was sick and said I ruined the band": Styx fired Dennis DeYoung in 1999, but he still wants a reunion for the fans
- “Bowie’s a hell of a fast guy. I had to be quicker than him. The band and David would leave the studio to go to sleep, but not me”: How David Bowie came back from the abyss and made four albums in one year that changed music forever
- “Derek Shulman took me to a Bon Jovi show. The whole audience was freaking out, and Derek said to me: ‘Are you ready for this? It’s going to happen to you.’ And I fully believed in it.”: The unlikely rebirth of Dan Reed Network, funk rock’s nearly men
- “They had become genuine rock stars, with all the excess and trappings that go with it”: Why Korn’s most divisive album is way better than everybody thinks
- “I lost my virginity to a member of Legs & Co…” From the Bar-L to the Barrowlands, a day out with the Skids
- “I’m not a Satanist, I’m an atheist, but I write the best Satanic lyrics on the planet” How Slayer went from thrash provocateurs to metal’s unlikeliest elder statesmen
- “I loved what Hendrix did with it. Jimi took the song one step further with this really amazing, sweaty strum”: How The Troggs and Hendrix turned a flop ’60s single into one of the most famous songs in history
June 5
- The 25 best goth metal albums
- “They were defensive about keyboards. Everything I played, they had to have a band meeting about. Then they suddenly wanted wall-to-wall keys. It was quite silly”: Deep Purple’s Don Airey recalls the one album he regrets
- "In many ways that entire album feels like we were rebelling against ourselves." How Mastodon overcame moments of self-doubt and rebuilt themselves from the ground up on The Hunter
- "Freddie said, ‘Write me stuff, I know I don’t have very long. I will sing it. And then you do what you like with it afterwards." The tragedy and triumph of Queen’s final album and Freddie Mercury’s last goodbye
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "Steve Harris was a road sweeper when I met him." What it was like following metal icons Iron Maiden from their very first gig
- "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
- "He glared out into the audience like he wanted to kill each and every one of us, one at a time." The story behind the gig which inspired the birth of Joy Division
- Cool new proggy sounds from Gentle Giant, Voyage 35, Mastodon and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- "Are you a guitarist too?" The day that rock legends Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Brian May and Jeff Beck met Queen Elizabeth II
- “Metal needs a good f**king kick up the ass”: the story of Metallica’s Load
- "He had a cast of a human skull, because he was interested in the occult." The Life and legacy of At The Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg: the godfather of melodic death metal
- "I was introverted and just wanted to hide in my bedroom." Laura Cox learned everything by copying others on YouTube - but now she's writing her own script
- “If I’d been sacked, or left over musical differences, I’d have felt a right flunker”: Genesis ex Anthony Phillips on why he really quit – and why he’s not their version of The Beatles’ Pete Best
- "This man said, ‘I’ve brought my wife for a night out and you’re the worst band I’ve seen in my life. You’re crap.’” How the Moody Blues finally came good with Days Of Future Passed
- Bob Dylan introduced him to The Beatles, he married the girlfriend of a Rolling Stone, and he played with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and meditated with David Lynch. Donovan looks back...
- "I finished the melody in five minutes, but I was so jacked I couldn’t stop playing." The story of the Neil Young classic written on a piece of newspaper in the back of a car
June 4
- "Everyone agreed it was the perfect song." The story behind the Bruce Springsteen classic that's set to go viral thanks to the new Netflix show that Stranger Things fans will love
- "I knew something was wrong. I went to the bar and my girlfriend was there with another guy." The dagger-through-the-heart memory which inspired the biggest rock song of its generation
- "They commenced to destroy, slaughter and wipe the stage with our blood." How a hip hop powerhouse and a heavy metal institution united to create a whole new genre - and spark one of the rowdiest tours in history
- "I and everybody else were old farts in her opinion." Roger Waters on the night Sinéad O'Connor sang her spellbinding version of Pink Floyd's Mother
- "I don't always feel good at confronting people, especially people that I love. Sometimes, it takes songs to get the point across." This is the story of the vitriolic single that saved Paramore from splitting up
- "She’d be talking about a song with a really good guitar solo and demand we change it, make it heavier." The trailblazing metal singer who saved an influential band's career and inspired a generation of women in the process
- "A 42-piece orchestra, mellotron, and a string thing all playing this half-Turkish scale." The story of Ritchie Blackmore's most epic Rainbow song
- Hold up your phone, hang on to your tissues, we're going in: The 40 greatest power ballads of all time
June 3
- "I have this memory of killing myself, blasting my head off, and then throwing the guitar at the amp over and over." The story behind the most intense song on the most ambitious rock album of the '90s
- “We wanted this record to sound like it was from outer space.” How LA’s freakiest band Jane's Addiction kickstarted a rock revolution with the game-changing Nothing's Shocking
- “I laid that song down in four takes, but I was hammered when I recorded it”: How a deteriorating DevilDriver made immortal New Wave Of American Heavy Metal hit Clouds Over California
- “They expect you to fly about like a lunatic because they’re paying what they think is good money. What they get is heart and soul, and total dedication”: Why Kate Bush, David Sylvian, Tim Buckley and John Martyn all loved Danny Thompson
- “I was enthralled by the way they swapped instruments, and also the music they played. I was hooked”: The British thrash metal icon who adores prog eccentrics Gentle Giant (and he’s not the only one)
- "We were just tired, so we were like, 'Let's go live together in a cabin and take psychedelics', because that'll help." How The Beatles inspired one of emo's breakout bands to completely reinvent themselves
- 10 amazing covers by massive metal bands that you’ve (probably) never heard
- “I’m out here owning my weird because of Alice Cooper. He gave me the permission”: Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale reveals the 10 albums that shaped her career
- Two kids made their own Metallica video in 1989 and thinking about it, we're grateful we didn't have a camcorder then
- "You have to go and live in London for seven years. You'll be rejected 99 times out of a hundred." Watch Robert Fripp give a hopeful young musician some unflinching truth in 1985
- 10 bands who peaked with the first song on their first album
June 2
- “It was like a crazy film about what happens to serious musicians if they take a step to the left”: Fame and fortune called when prog stalwarts Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin released a pop cover. Did they sell out?
- “I was struck by the way he told the audience he wanted to die”: Al Stewart on a suicidal comedian, ignoring Robert Fripp, and the resulting hit single
- "People heard it and found it deeply offensive because they didn’t have the brain capacity to realise what it’s about." The story behind Ghost's most famous song - and what it really means
- 10 terrible metal albums with one classic song
- "Pat's Dogs! The cook is never tired! Pat's Dogs! The steam is always fired!" Celebrating that time Cinderella filmed a chili dog commercial before they were famous
- "It's the silliest, most oddball song in our entire catalogue, but it truly hit a nerve." How Toto used a synthesised flute riff and a drum loop to concoct a classic and a cultural phenomenon
June 1
- "When I see him in my dreams, he hasn't changed a bit. He is still my best friend." How Dave Grohl channelled his heartbreak over a devastating personal loss into one of Foo Fighters' most raw, emotional songs
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 1, 2026
- Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love spent New Year's Eve 1992 trying to save the life of an unconscious rock star who was turning blue on their hotel room floor
- “My wife is gonna die of it one day. They don’t know when. What do we want to do with our time here? Who do we want to throw out of our lives?”: Norwegian proggers Green Carnation’s second Dark Poem explores loved ones in crisis
- "We leaned into it when we realised it p***ed people off, because I was a little s***head." Black Veil Brides frontman Andi Biersack on being hated by metal fans, getting beaten up as Batman and chasing his dreams
- "She was looking at her pill bottles. I knew she was going to die so I was like, 'Put it down. Live right now.'" Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher wrote songs for Emperor Of Sand at his mum’s deathbed
- "We often felt like the strange duck on the festival bill because there was a woman in the band." How two modern metal icons united for a collaboration over a decade in the making
- "I walked through it all and felt like spitting on the lot of them". How Pete Townshend's disgust with the hippies inspired The Who's most epic song
- “People no longer wanted to see a band all dressed up with a big show. They wanted four blokes onstage with one light bulb”: When eccentric proggers Gryphon acquired Sex Pistols connections, they knew their time was up