Features archive

February 2024

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210 articles

February 29
- “There was just so much circus along the way. It felt like the album was cursed”: Having kids, splitting with one member, nearly splitting with another - small wonder it took Moon Safari a decade to deliver Himlabacken Vol. 2
- Watch the time pop trio Hanson did an acoustic cover of Slipknot’s Wait And Bleed as an April Fools prank
- Watch Pearl Jam play Alive and Even Flow live for Dutch TV pop show Countdown before Ten exploded worldwide
- “Genesis, Floyd and ELP all received so much more popularity… I’ve always just accepted who and where we were and I don’t think about why we didn’t reach those same heights”: Andy Latimer is happy if Camel managed to matter
- "Leslie said to the audience 'There’s a technical hitch,' and he touched the microphone and the guitar. And that was it": The tragic story of Stone The Crows, Scotland's great lost band
- Freddie Mercury's famed London mansion is up for sale: offers over £30 million invited
February 28
- 7 brilliant new metal bands to watch out for in 2024
- “As all popes do, they have their reign and then we continue forward”: What happened the night Ghost’s Papa Emeritus I passed the torch to Papa II onstage
- The 10 best heavy metal songs about Godzilla (and other Toho monsters, too)
- "One night we sat down and did the entire thing on a cassette set-up – it was magnificent!": How a set of unfinished, acid-fried songs about a mythical superhero could have been Jimi Hendrix’s last album
- The Robin Trower albums you should definitely own
- "People in Dublin thought we'd made it and were living like kings. Little did they know": Thin Lizzy and the struggle of Vagabonds Of The Western World
- In 1972 Slade made their way to Manchester to film a TV show for an audience of ambivalent teenagers: The result was brilliant
February 27
- “I want these recordings to actually be used, so they have to fit a picture:” Matt Berry’s not joking with his nostalgic album of library music
- “Hopefully, everything will go back to normal”: How Korn, Kid Rock and System Of A Down helped Metallica through the three weirdest gigs of their career
- “I’d love for one of my songs to become huge. I believe I’ve written stuff that could easily cross over. But the industry isn’t set up for someone like me to do that”: Steven Wilson once wanted to be a rock star, but became a musician instead
- "Vince Neil tried to fight me and my bodyguards had to sort him out": Andy Taylor is best known as Duran Duran’s guitarist, but he's a real rocker at heart
- "Mercurial, contradictory, vaulting from throwaway garage-candy to high art concepts and back again": The 20 best solo songs by Lou Reed
February 26
- "Tony Iommi ain't got charisma, it's like watching a lamp post with a guitar on": in 1986 Ozzy Osbourne invited Smash Hits magazine to join him on tour in Japan. The Prince of Darkness had a lot on his mind
- "I may be naive, but what performer wants his audience dead?": Watch comedian Bill Hicks point out the absurdity of Judas Priest's subliminal message trial
- “They don’t know how to make a bad album!” Metal Hammer writers battle it out over which Ghost album is best
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including The Struts, Orianthi, Beaux Gris Gris & The Apocalypse and more
February 25
- “I texted him and said, 'Hey, do you want to be in a horror film?' He said, 'Absolutely, brother'.”: Dave Grohl on how Lionel Richie’s cameo in Studio 666 came about
- “My mother called Robbie over and said, ‘You’ve got to behave yourself.’”: Elvis Costello on the time his mum told off Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler
- “I have to thank Eric Clapton for boosting my bank balance by recording After Midnight then cutting Cocaine”: the life and times of JJ Cale, American music’s best kept secret
- 10 essential Scandinavian AOR albums
February 24
- “The band thought I was dead. My neck was bent like it was broken”: the time Frank Zappa was severely injured after being pushed offstage by a fan
- “I’ve jammed with a lot of my heroes and now I’ve got Liam on that list as well”: Dave Grohl on the time he drummed on a Liam Gallagher song
- “We ended up at Robert Pattinson’s house with Rami Malek!": Alt-J on the wildest night out they've ever had
- “Prince would have the Presidential Suites, but he wouldn’t sleep in them…”: Prince and The Revolution drummer Bobby Z on what it was like being in a band with the Purple One
- “Lääz Rockit were headliners, and the band in the middle was Metallica.” The story of Lääz Rockit: the unsung thrash heroes who changed the future of metal’s biggest band
- “He was an immortal badass”: the genius of Tom Petty, by the people who knew him best
- “Michael Stipe told me to see an acupuncturist”: Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis on the best advice he’s received from his alt-rock forebears
- “There was this theory that once one major label had a prog band, all the others would follow suit…it didn’t really work like that”: Twelfth Night deserved big-time success with Fact And Fiction. That’s not what happened
- “A beautiful farewell from an instinctively progressive talent”: Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis made one stunning solo album, then walked away for ever
- “It was a total triumph as a soft rock masterpiece and a deeply personal statement”: how Journey singer Steve Perry’s stepped away from his day job to deliver an AOR classic with Street Talk
February 23
- The 11 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- 10 brilliant but overlooked records turning 40 this year
- "I'll never forgive myself for shutting my mouth. From that day on it was never any good": Joe Strummer on the day he knew that The Clash had lost their soul
- “Our contemporaries had numbers that got people up on their feet cheering. We didn’t… We wondered if A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers was the way to go. I thought, ‘We can’t even play this!’”: Van der Graaf Generator’s struggle through the 70s
- Great new prog music you have to hear this week from North Sea Echoes, Voivod, Einar Solberg and more...
- “It’s all just great rock and roll, that’s the only way to describe it.” There’s a Lemmy Kilmister solo album featuring Dave Grohl out there somewhere, and we desperately need to hear it
- “I'm old. I'm glad that what could possibly be my last hurrah is something that people – some people, at least – have noticed”: The rise and fall of the forgotten guitar hero, Jake E Lee
February 22
- "It's kinda insane that we made this thing that people are still talking about now": Botch on becoming hardcore legends and reuniting after 20 years for one last tour
- “It feels passionate, like it comes from the gut up. Everything is just so epic… I got goosebumps the first time I saw them perform”: Oxymorrons’ Matty Mayz watched Coheed And Cambria blow up
- "Whatever they're on, I want some!" That time Slade's Noddy Holder ran a critical eye over Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Oasis, Nick Cave, Flaming Lips and more
- “It’s amazing that this was recorded!” Listen to the only time Iron Maiden have ever performed 80s classic The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner live
- “We were challenging ourselves on this record and thought, ‘This might not work, but we’re going to find out!’” The story behind every song on Thrice’s The Artist In The Ambulance, in the band’s own words
- "I remember hearing Dire Straits in the car to the studio and thinking 'this radio poison is exactly what we're going to try and destroy'": Your guide to every Jesus And Mary Chain album in the band's own words
- “Oliver Wakeman scared me to death - he had so much energy coming out of him and I’d had just gone through my first series of cancer operations”: Gordon Giltrap is a loner who loves collaborating
- The night the revolution went mainstream: When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young became Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young & Tom Jones
- "When we played Donington and you hear 90,000 people go 'woohooo!' it's a great feeling": How The Quireboys turned a song with no chorus into a classic singalong
February 21
- "We were on live TV in front of millions of people. And it was torture": What happened when John Frusciante sabotaged the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Saturday Night Live
- "There was a two-minute pause, then everybody broke out laughing. They thought I was doing a joke": What happened the night Jethro Tull beat Metallica to a Grammy Award
- "The camera pans across, and you realise there are 60,000 people throwing bottles of piss at us. It was terrifying": Nigel Planer looks back at hapless metal heroes Bad News
- "We’re slowly becoming a band with its own identity.” How Riverside made Love, Fear & The Time Machine
- "The middle of the day was Marillion. Mornings and evenings DeeExpus." What happened when Mark Kelly joined North East prog rockers DeeExpus
- "I guess I didn’t expect them to look like that." We've found the reactions Gojira, Opeth, Obituary, Children Of Bodom and more had to hearing Bring Me The Horizon for the first time - and they might surprise you
- "I’d waited my whole life to come to Europe." Shawn 'Clown' Crahan on the five shows that built Slipknot
- The 10 strangest places heavy metal bands have performed
- "Suddenly this rather nice chap switched into streetwise-kid-from-Detroit mode, and threatened Phil with a broken bottle": The violent and slightly confusing story of Phil Lynott & The Soul Band
- "That record just transformed my whole life. Once I heard that, all of a sudden I understood what life was about": Slash reminisces about the band who inspired his journey through rock'n'roll
February 20
- "A lot of people don't like Ritchie Blackmore. But he feels he has nothing to say apart from what he says with his guitar": the mutual respect between Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and Mountain's Leslie West was sweet and pure
- "It was like being strapped to a rocket ship. Things took off in a beautiful, surprising way": The ultimate guide to every Billy Talent album in the band's own words
- “I didn’t know if Ross would be into this kind of music… I sent him an email and he was like, ‘Dude! You have no idea!’ It just fell into place”: How Haken’s Ross Jennings wound up making two albums in 18 months with Nick D’Virgilio and Neal Morse
- The 20 greatest Korn songs ever - as voted by you
- 10 heavy metal bands that wouldn’t be the same without Dune
- “The recording was dire, a fart in a windsock. I wiped it, happy to commit the actual colourful experience to my memory”: John Mitchell knows all about fans bootlegging gigs… he tried it himself
- "There are no words in any language to express how badly I feel about that night": The strange and terrible story of Great White, and the Station nightclub fire
- "I signed a deal. I was a millionaire for one whole day. The money was gone in an afternoon": Paul Westerberg on The Replacements, going solo and the love of rock'n'roll
- The critics hated it, Ringo Starr hated it, but over the years its experimental ripples widened: 11 albums that owe a huge debt to Paul and Linda McCartney's Ram
- "Angus looked like a pincushion, blood streaming out of his skin, and he's seemingly oblivious to the pain": Why supporting AC/DC is a thankless task
February 19
- "The red wine had flies in it. The mystery meat caused musicians to head loo-wards. There were bedbugs": In 1972 Jethro Tull retreated to a French chateau to record a new album. It was a disaster
- "Everyone was going mad about Oasis, but I preferred Blur": Jack Osbourne picks the soundtrack to his life
- "It was an honour to watch Mick Mars play our dumb songs!" How a secret meeting, some serious growing up and a Motley Crue legend helped Murderdolls reunite for their final album
- If The Beatles had never discovered drugs, says Killing Joke bassist Youth, then their music would have sounded very different – and so would everyone else's
- "It brings back lots of memories and takes me back to a place instantly of heartbreak but also teen rebellion, great times, intense times": This is the soundtrack of Bill Bailey's life
- "He wanted to stay up and party. Bon just wanted to keep the party going": What really happened on the night Bon Scott died?
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Joanne Shaw Taylor, The Warning, Lesbian Bed Death and more
February 18
- “I had to stop the show and ask these two boys if they were gonna kill me”: Garbage’s Shirley Manson on the craziest things she’s seen from the stage
- "The first thought about the band that went through my mind was: ‘The band’s over.'" How Avenged Sevenfold found the strength to carry on after the death of The Rev - with the unlikely help of Mike Portnoy and the guy who wrote 50 Cent's biggest hit
- "I got dared to go further, by Lou Reed!": Joan As Police Woman on how Lou Reed gave her the best advice of her career
- “Those Dire Straits songs walked away from me long ago. They belong to you now”: the life and times of Mark Knopfler, rock’s reluctant superstar
- “I’ve got butter to thank and I’ve eaten plenty since!”: John Lydon on how doing a TV ad for butter helped turn his career around
- “I tried for years to find this magical tone and I finally just gave up”: Tom Morello’s guide to being a better guitarist
- “We were inspired by the Brits at the start, then the British media forced us to become a different type of band. Made and broken in the UK, you could say”: The prog credentials of Styx
February 17
- “My girlfriend asked if it was easy to write a song and I said, ‘It’s very easy, I’ll write one now’”: Mike Scott on the making of The Waterboys classic The Whole Of The Moon
- "I think that Rush are the best band that have ever existed and ever will." Young UK prog rockers Square Wild state their case
- "I want us to be the scariest ride at the amusement park": How Lorna Shore became deathcore's defining stars
- The 6 prog bands John Lydon says he loves
- “They said, ‘We did a little thing for you, but we don’t know if it will make the album. I said, ‘You’re crazy – this is the single!’” the epic life of ‘Funky’ Claude Nobs, the man who inspired Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water
February 16
- 12 rock stars over 70 who are still delivering the goods
- "When I lived the 'rock star' lifestyle I have never felt so far away from myself. At times I actively hated myself and sought out my own destruction." How Frank Carter stepped back from the abyss and learned to love and be loved again
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “We had a song called Sitting With A Duck On A Bay, and a song with the title Duck’s End. We thought, ‘Are we writing an album with a story here?’” The Aristocrats’ new record is many things, but it’s not The Wall
- Cool new prog music you have to hear this week from Big Big Train, Exploring Birdsong, Midas Fall and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- “I watched a video of them in a small room and my mouth just dropped. Listen to the fluidly, how easily these guys play this: seamless, and that’s impressive”: why Dave Lombardo loves The Fall of Troy
- "As long as you can talk, you have a voice": An epic Bruce Dickinson interview
February 15
- "Does the music sound like Tool? Does it sound like Opeth? All these speculations are cool." How Soen introduced themsleves with Cognitive
- Best outdoor speakers 2026: Portable sound systems to rock the outside world
- "After the initial split I thought it was finished... time has proved me wrong." How Karnataka returned with The Gathering Light
- "Who would I like to duet with? Simon Le Bon: I’d like to bring him into prog and get him on a big chorus." Tesseract's Dan Tompkins faces down the most passionate interviewers in rock: progressive metal fans
- "The fight against Metallica was not my fight. I am glad to be friends with them." From his Megadeth days to THAT scandal, thrash metal icon David Ellefson has lived quite a life
- “What you’re hearing is an emotional reaction, it’s not us being smart or being good at something. It’s us being excited about what we’re doing because we’re discovering it”: When Motorpsycho completed their politically-aware trilogy with The All Is One
- "Topics like necrophilia are just kind of ‘whatever’ at this point." Gore-loving death metal veterans Dying Fetus are bored of trying to shock people
- The 10 greatest heavy metal power trios
- “We’d fly into town, we’d place the road crew in the limos and we’d go in hire cars… we were in it for the music, not the personalities”: John Anthony Helliwell recalls Supertramp’s glory days
- "When you can simplify what it is you want to say it's easier for more people to connect to": How Metallica stripped away the complexity to take their music to the masses
- "Bonzo was a dear friend of mine, and I think we might've been listening to a little Led Zeppelin": Deep Purple's track-by-track guide to Burn
- "He was absolutely the best guitar player of his generation. Dylan thought he was. Hendrix thought he was. Clapton thought he was": The sensational story of Mike Bloomfield, from prodigy to tragedy
February 14
- "Things have gone further than we envisaged, but that’s life": Saxon's Biff Byford on their new guitarist, extraterrestrial life and the future
- “He said, ‘How about Slayer with special guests Slayer?’ We went, ‘Wow, that could be crazy’”: the forgotten story of Slayer vs Slayer, the 80s metal Battle Of The Bands with only one winner
- Every Emperor album ranked from worst to best
- The 10 best Slipknot songs not by Slipknot
- "We have a dark image and spooky vibes...but then we also have anthemic choruses." South Of Salem count Avenged and W.A.S.P. as influences and are major horror nerds. They might just be your new favourite metal band
- That time Def Leppard showed up on Pawn Stars to authenticate a hand-painted guitar, and by doing so only made it more valuable
- "That's what Axl was most interested in, me getting eaten by a bear": Dirty Honey are ready for the big time, as long as the wildlife doesn't get to them first
- The Iggy Pop and Stooges albums you should definitely own
February 13
- "John Lennon and Yoko Ono essentially hijacked the airwaves": The show that brought the counterculture into American homes and the clip that keeps going viral
- “I put an ad in Melody Maker – ‘musicians only need apply!’ – and we got Peter and Michael Giles, and Robert Fripp”: So many artists wanted to be part of Judy Dyble’s world
- 10 heavy metal stars who should have solo careers
- "We'd all been drinking that afternoon. By show time I was obliterated": Graham Bonnet on the infamous night he showed the audience much more than he should have
- "It was five guys having the time of their lives in a recording studio. It was out of control but under control at the same time": Uriah Heep and a tale of Easy Livin'
- "We were surrounded by these drums and guitars that The Beatles had used, but the engineers were too stoned to record us": How the stars repeatedly failed to align for Trapeze
February 12
- A beginners' guide to Buzzcocks in 10 songs of boredom, thwarted love and mid-life confusion
- The Peter Gabriel albums you should definitely own
- "Keith had so much criticism after that 3 album. He was susceptible to that kind of thing." Robert Berry on his work and relationship with Keith Emerson
- "Our tour manager had to have every city’s morgue number, just in case we found Alexi dead in his bunk": The meteoric rise and tragic end of Children Of Bodom
- Keanu Reeves is bringing his "certainly not grunge" band Dogstar to the UK
- “I felt like a zombie… I don’t think I’ve ever put myself through that kind of intense collaborative experience before”: Bruce Soord pushed himself hard to deliver The Pineapple Thief’s It Leads To This
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including The Struts, The Lemon Twigs, Sheryl Crow and more
February 11
- "I was bored, so I wrote an album": Meet Skinny Knowledge, who've channelled lockdown frustration into bursts of pop-punk catharsis
- “That’s how you know the song didn’t have anything to do with Dez Fafara: you’d have seen him beat up, too!” From the WWE to the nu metal feud that never was, the strange story of Sevendust's Enemy
- “There were riots, police helicopters everywhere!”: Mute boss Daniel Miller on the moment he realised Depeche Mode were blowing up big
- “It was us trying to be a different version of ourselves”: James Dean Bradfield on the making of Manic Street Preachers' 2004 album Lifeblood
- “Me and Stipey stood there thinking, ‘This is history in the making’: the time Billy Bragg and Michael Stipe were roommates in Czechoslovakia
- The 11 most WTF collaborations in rock history
February 10
- “These songs owe more to rhythmic, krautrock mood-makers and post-rock and drone exponents as any early hip-hop influence… it’s not background music for middle class dinner parties”: The prog credentials of Massive Attack’s Mezzanine
- “It didn’t sell well in the States at all, but I learned later how popular it was in Europe”: cult US rockers LeRoux’s lost 1980 AOR masterpiece Up is the missing link between Toto, Kansas and Survivor
- “The press called us The Dirty Things: ‘Did you see them last night? Disgusting!’”: the epic story of The Pretty Things, the cult British band who should have been as big as the Rolling Stones
- "He's a true gem": Chvrches look back on their collaboration with Robert Smith
- "I got really tired of seeing my own face, or seeing a stranger’s opinion of me every day." Bad Omens are the hottest young band in metal - and Noah Sebastian is not exactly happy about it.
- “Nobody wanted Life Of Brian except George Harrison”: how Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and an ex-Beatle bankrolled two of the greatest comedy films ever made
- “The tunes are really good!” Chris Martin on Coldplay’s spoof Game Of Thrones: The Musical
- “I was earning good money and Marillion were all on £50 a week… I said, ‘I can’t really afford to join,’ so the manager gave everyone an immediate pay rise. I was Mr Popular”: Tales from Ian Mosley’s drum stool
February 9
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Great new prog music you have to hear this week from Trevor Rabin, Whom Gods Destroy, If These Trees Could Talk and more...
- "A national treasure? I'll take that over being called a smackhead, crackhead loser": Shaun Ryder on Black Grape, The Happy Mondays, Gogglebox and why it's great when you're straight, yeah
- "The money was tempting, I could have made a fortune, but my reputation would have been shot": why Jeff Beck turned down joining The Rolling Stones
- “However high-falutin’ the intention, you’re still onstage as an entertainer, so make a performance out of it!” Jo Quail claims it’s easy to write orchestral prog metal - and to be fair, she does make it sound easy
- "He ended up moving to Hawaii and living in the jungle in a tent for two decades": Israel Nash on the stories that inspired new album Ozarkers
- "When the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, life went from black and white to colour": The Beatles and the five songs that changed American music forever
February 8
- "Oi, Freddie! Have you succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet?": When Queen frontman Freddie Mercury met Sex Pistols bassist 'Simon Ferocious'
- “We broke up after debating the exact time signature of Solsbury Hill!” Before being able to enjoy lively debate with Peter Hammill, Tim Bowness dated an argumentative prog fan
- "You lose interest in smashing up hotel rooms... but there's days when there's a full moon and you feel a little crazy": In 1983, Alex Lifeson talked bad behaviour, bad press, and how Rush shook off their "lousy Led Zeppelin copy" tag
- Lawsuits, warfare and “bone movies”: The stories behind every song on Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard Of Ozz
- “We’ll die because the sun will burn out, or there will be no drinking water, and we’ll ask AI to help… it will only be another tool”: In Mariusz Duda’s own Marvel Universe, his album AFR AI D is about taming nightmares
- In 1980 Lynda 'Wonder Woman' Carter paid tribute to Kiss on TV, and we're not sure if our eyes have ever recovered
- Light My Fire turned The Doors into superstars: For a moment, it also turned Jim Morrison into a target for the Mob
February 7
- "Transcending both hype and generic pigeon-holing, it is arguably one of the finest recordings of all time": the miracle of Television's Marquee Moon
- "I thought David Bowie would call me a thieving Irish toerag!": The epic track-by-track guide to Therapy?'s Troublegum in their own words
- “To put up with stupidity and not call it out is a crime… When I think about some of the things I’ve said over the years, I’d really like to give myself a punch in the face”: On-call bassist Nick Beggs was always pretty angry
- "I was sitting way back, in the cheap seats, and I must tell you that I was weeping": why watching Jimmy Page play with The Firm made his former Led Zeppelin bandmate Robert Plant cry
- “John Bonham said rock and blues wasn’t a good place for girls. He wanted me to be a vet or a lawyer… for a while I went down the opera route”: Despite her brother’s misgivings, Genesis helped shape Deborah Bonham’s career
- TesseracT's latest album is "near-future fantasy about two people that have to traverse a strange land": And if that sounds like a video game, well, that's the plan
- "Rick Rubin said, 'I'd like to have the original Foghat and record them', so we buried the hatchet": The story of Foghat, who turned up the blues, grew huge moustaches, and became superstars
- Your essential guide to every studio album by The Velvet Underground
February 6
- "He looked as fit as a butcher's dog": Watch Bon Scott's surreal final UK appearance with AC/DC
- The 10 best Metallica songs not by Metallica
- 18 all-star singers, two cult albums and one personalised gravestone: The story of This Is Menace, the most underrated metal supergroup of the 2000s
- "We want to put out positive messages even when the music is its most brutal." Rising Japanese metal stars Hanabie have their sights set on world domination
- “The director told me he wanted a song about death… Not only that, but it was a rabbit”: Mike Batt on Watership Down, his concept albums and the connection between the Wombles, Steeleye Span and (maybe) Hawkwind
- Rising star Hannah Wicklund is only in her mid-twenties, but she's been building towards her new album for decades
- "Donovan came to my flat for a songwriting session. He brought a Tupperware box full of hash cakes": Catching up with Kula Shaker's Crispian Mills
- "You probably think it's easy being up here. Singing and everything, and playing. It's not. It's not easy": Acid days and ragtime jazz with Dan Hicks, an American eccentric
- The Night Ranger albums you should definitely own
- "The near-mythical aura that surrounds him was stripped away in that 40 minutes": What happened when Axl Rose gave his first TV interview in more than a decade
- "I came home from school and learned all the sounds, and learned all the songs note for note. I could just relate to it somehow": How the blues galvanised Gary Moore
February 5
- "Bob walked in and started berating everyone that was eating." How a furious Bob Geldof ruined a posh feast and inadvertently had Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Springsteen and the rest eating chicken and waffles during We Are The World
- The 50 metal albums you need to hear in 2024
- "Paris Hilton is a huge icon to me." Bimbocore, righteous feminism and "twerkle pits": how Scene Queen became the unlikely heroine metal needs right now
- From its incredible lineup to its unique and historic location, this is why Poland's Mystic Festival is a must-visit for metal fans around the world
- “Computers crashed several times… I recorded vocals four or five times. But on the other hand, I started doing my job alone, learning many things”: Why Tarja Turunen recruited Mike Oldfield, Trevor Rabin and Steve Rothery for Outlanders
- "That was real food for thought": Rick Wakeman on the surprise lesson he learned from a 16-year-old Brazilian fan
- "When my helmet hit the speedometer, it said 77mph, when I came to a complete dead stop": The story of The Godz, America's great lost biker band
- "Half of the people I knew wanted to pat me on the back, and the rest to punch me in the face": Bruce Watson looks back on Big Country's second album Steeltown
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Moon City Masters, the Pineapple Thief, Uuhai and more
February 4
- "I got on really well with Lembit Opik, he’s as mad as Bez": Shaun Ryder looks back on his time in I'm A Celebrity...
- “It was the kind of place where you could start a religion or plan a murder”: the story behind The Doors’ Morrison Hotel album cover
- "We had goosebumps... it was a very cool thing to be a part of": DJ Shadow on how watching Thom Yorke in the studio blew him away
- "Working with your heroes, you come at the situation with self-doubt": Idles on teaming up with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich for their new album
- “They must have realised it was a bit stupid”: Metallica have never covered a Saxon song, and Biff Byford has a theory why
February 3
- “Some people loved it and some people hated it…”: Blondie’s Clem Burke on the making of their classic hit Rapture
- “I think the appeal was that it was just a very spacey and very unusual sound world for me." How the classic Canterbury sound inspired young UK proggers Zopp
- “Our job here is done”: It’s ten years since Motley Crue signed their “Cessation Of Touring” agreement and vowed to retire... so what happened?
- “What came off his guitar, you still don’t even know to this day what the hell he was doing”: these are the 10 greatest guitarists ever, according to The Black Crowes’ Rich Robinson
February 2
- New prog music you have to hear from The Pineapple Thief, The Utopia Strong, The C Sides Project and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- The 11 best new metal songs you need to hear this week
- Every single Green Day album ranked from worst to best
- "I was a bad boy for a long time. But everybody would love to have been that mad guy for a weekend": the stories behind 11 classic Ozzy Osbourne songs, in Ozzy's own words
- The 10 best Bruce Dickinson solo songs
- “Isn’t it the best when you get into a band and they happen to have so much material to discover?” Yes’ Jon Davison fell in love with the Moody Blues by falling in love with John Lodge’s daughter
- "My name is Lucifer, please take my hand, is such a memorable lyric": Ghost's Tobias Forge on the satanic hymns which lured him to the dark side
- “Having been a rabid young fan of prog, I totally understand what it’s like when it’s not right. I was proud of my contribution but I had no idea if people were going to be happy”: Have Southern Empire got away with changing lead singers?
- "Some people expect us to be a woman and instead they get three greasy boys playing rock music": Florence Black are fiery proof that Welsh rock is on the rise
February 1
- "We had a fear of failure and a fear of success at the same time": How Green Day smashed through punk rock's glass ceiling to sell 20 million copies of Dookie
- “He really immersed himself in the story and spent weeks rewriting the narration… I had no idea what he was talking about, but it was so much better than what I wrote”: When Arjen Lucassen worked with his hero Rutger Hauer
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- “People would ask: ‘Is David Byrne a genius or a moron?’ I wanted to nip that ‘moron’ bit in the bud, so it was better to say ‘genius.’ The truth is somewhere in between”: The prog credentials of Talking Heads
- The Replacements and Paul Westerberg albums you should definitely own