Features archive

March 2024

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237 articles

March 31
- The 11 greatest Rush album sleeves, by the man who created them
- “We can make records until our hands fall off. But if we can’t sell it live, I don’t want to”: how Slayer reconnected with 80s thrash and made World Painted Blood
- We put together the ultimate Led Zeppelin IV covers album
- "My dad said, 'Turn off the demo, just play me it on acoustic guitar and sing it'": Inhaler's Eli Hewson on the advice he got from his dad, Bono
- “I feel like your spirit lives on in another reality. I feel like it gets transferred to another dimension”: how Mastodon transcended death and tragedy to make Emperor Of Sand
March 30
- "Nightwish can nail anything they turn their hand to." Nightwish’s cover of Symphony Of Destruction by Megadeth may be obscure, but it’s an ingeniously out-of-character triumph
- "When I saw No Doubt perform, it was like the sunbeams came down and the angels sang." 9 songs that changed my life, by New Years Day's Ash Costello
- “We’d play a song in a certain tempo. Three weeks later, it would be twice as fast”: who invented thrash metal? Kirk Hammett has a theory
- “I believed we would not get back together. I thought Rush was a place Neil was not going to be able to go back to emotionally”: how Rush survived the 1990s and early 2000s
- “Watching David Byrne work was so pivotal”: St. Vincent on what she learned from working with the Talking Heads leader
- "Get the **** off my stage before I punch you in the ****ing face": Ten times a band stopped a gig to lambast a member of their own crowd
- “It’s as evocative and deviant as the title suggests. It’s very sexual and disturbed”: the obscure 90s goth songs that changed Ville Valo’s life
- “I fell in love with Highway To Hell when I heard it in my dad’s pick-up truck. Bon Scott had a cheek to him”: pop superstar Rick Astley on his love of AC/DC, Slipknot, Yes and Foo Fighters
March 29
- “Taylor wanted to write a song for a friend of ours who was going through a bad time”: Perry Farrell on the time him and Taylor Hawkins teamed up to record a track for a pal
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Great new prog from Soen, Alex Henry Foster, Kiasmos and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- "We made a living off being stupid. I don't know if there's a legacy to be taken from that": there will never, ever be another band like the Butthole Surfers. And maybe that's for the best
- “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
- "They were like, 'You're old. Are you singing about sex stuff now because it's your last chance?' And I was like - it was my last chance long before this": Your guide to every Les Savy Fav album in the band's own words
- “We were really screwing with the system, removing applause from live tracks to sound like studio tracks – the exact opposite of what people do today”: How King Crimson made stealth live album Starless And Bible Black
- “The best frontman I ever saw. Nobody else came close”: The day David Lee Roth turned in the performance of a lifetime
March 28
- "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
- "Prog music, or heavy music in general, is a very conservative scene. When you are willing to expose yourself emotionally, it’s a vulnerable place to be." Devin Townsend tackles The Prog Interview
- “I’d never attempted to write a whole record on my own. I wasn’t feeling confident. I was concerned I might end up with a load of outtakes and waste the money”: How Steve Hackett made Voyage Of The Acolyte
- "The gap between pop and metal is getting smaller." From trauma-powered Taiwanese black metal to “nu gothika”, here are some of the best new metal bands you need to hear right now
- This 41 year old video is the oldest known footage of Slayer, and it proves they were brilliant from the start
- “You see people in music magazines who call themselves rebels. I’m more of a rebel because I really put my life at risk”: Aviv Geffen and Steven Wilson’s contrasting worlds make Blackfield’s work so powerful
- Every Steve Vai album ranked from worst to best
- "In the sixties, my mind was elsewhere – chemically, mystically and emotionally": Justin Hayward picks the soundtrack of his life
- Mick Mars put together the most hedonistic band of their era and has the scars to prove it: Now out of Mötley Crüe, he's starting a solo career. Lived a life? You bet
- New vocalists lasted five minutes and founder members quit amid the chaos: 1984 was an awful year for Black Sabbath, and by its end they were almost obliterated
March 27
- "People would say that I'm being promoted as a sex object whether I was clad in a nun's costume or nothing at all": Men working for England's music magazines used to get very, very worked up about the idea of Kate Bush being a 'sex symbol'
- "By the time we reach our dotage we should be throwing out an album every few minutes!" How Credo prepared to take on the world!
- “I guess I’m a big grunge-head!" Why WWE superstar Becky Lynch loves Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and the rest
- Here’s every album Tobias Forge has made outside of Ghost, ranked from worst to best
- "We were a performance art troupe that played pop songs. There was this element of wanting to destroy rock": meet Bodega, the next NYC band who could be your life
- “Neoclassical metal wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t heard Selling England By The Pound”: Genesis’ Tony Banks is Yngwie Malmsteen’s prog hero
- How a photo of notorious German fighter ace the Red Baron provided the cover of Led Zeppelin II
- "I don't write songs like a twenty-one-year-old any more, and I don't want to. I have much more to say": The story of Joan Jett, rebel with a cause
March 26
- The Yes albums you should definitely own
- "It's been a rough road. I never got to the point ever where I thought I'd actually achieved anything": An epic Jeff Beck interview
- "We grew up loving classic-era prog rock and that’s the music we decided we wanted to create, and also to make a real impact with it." The story of Haken's debut album Aquarius
- “It could be more amazing than U2’s triumph in Las Vegas. I think you could even blow that out the water”: Can Youth persuade David Gilmour to stage a live show with The Orb?
- "Marillion, Twelfth Night, IQ; to continue to call those bands neo-prog, I don’t see that as particularly positive. Everything has moved quite a lot since then." How Cosmograf defined the sound of Rattrapante
- “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
- Every Skunk Anansie album ranked from worst to best
- “I love how they’ve evolved over the years. They’ve taken risks, but always stayed true to themselves.” Watch the time Lacuna Coil singer Cristina Scabbia joined her idols Paradise Lost onstage in 2013
- “There were no egos: It was just about the music. There was an incredible flow… a magical, organic experience”: How supergroup Flying Colors made their debut album in just 9 days
- The Replacements intended to subvert the underground scene with Let It Be: Instead, they completely reinvented it
- Hello Cleveland! What's wrong with being sexy? Eleven ways in which Spinal Tap changed the lexicon of rock
March 25
- “That whole Christian thing, it’s so wrong. We were never Christian metal”: how doom pioneers Trouble overcame chaos, darkness and misunderstanding to make their 80s masterpiece The Skull
- "I think we need more people that can say, ‘I’m sober and that doesn’t make me less of a metal fan.’” Meet the people behind Raven Records, London's new heavy metal record store, coffee joint and, uniquely, alcohol-free bar
- "Ballet shoes and Motorhead don't mix": The history of Motorhead in 12 songs
- “At this point in my career, I basically am Glass Hammer, so why would I try to launch a whole new thing? I like to keep working and giving fans something to argue about”: Steve Babb marks his band’s 30th anniversary
- "I heard it for the first time at a dope dealer’s house one night": My 10 favourite British albums ever, by Status Quo's Francis Rossi
- "You have to manifest your destiny. You have to think about what you want to do, then do it": A celebration of the life of Taylor Hawkins
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Praying Mantis, White Dog, Castle Rat and more
March 24
- “If somebody’s got an alcohol problem or a drug problem, there’s nothing you can do”: the epic life of Don Airey, the man who has worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Ritchie Blackmore and Gary Moore and lived to tell the tale
- “I went home sore cos I was moshing!”: Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA on his favourite rock records
- The 4 songs Nightwish have only performed live once
- “Embracing the new eclecticism, they wove together a variety of threads to prove that heavy topics don’t need to be heavy-handed”: Super Furry Animals’ Rings Around The World bears all the hallmarks of a prog album
- “I didn’t want my children to grow up and not know Max”: how Max and Iggor Cavalera healed their wounds and buried the ghost of Sepultura with Cavalera Conspiracy
- “He’d go to the pub, come back at 9 o’clock, out of it, and go, ‘Right, let’s start’”: the story of Ozzy Osbourne’s forgotten 1970s “prog rock” solo band
March 23
- “Rob Zombie hates my guts. He owes everything to us”: GWAR’s Dave ‘Oderus Urungus’ Brockie was a genius, and here’s proof
- We reviewed every film Iron Maiden have ever written a song about
- The 10 best Blaze Bayley Iron Maiden songs
- “Lemmy was standing at the door. He gave me a bullet belt and a leather jacket and said, ‘You’re in!’”: the riotous story of Motörhead’s early years and the birth of “the worst band in the world“
- Ten times Billy Corgan collaborated with his heroes
- “We were broke. We couldn’t even afford food or drink. That’s how bad things were”: how Judas Priest’s Sad Wings Of Destiny finally set them on the path to heavy metal immortality
- “You pick five interesting guys, lock them in a room together… and if they make an album without actually killing each other first, it will at least be an interesting album”: How King Crimson made Larks’ Tongues in Aspic
March 22
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Cool new prog from Trifecta, Teramaze, Kamelot and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- Does anyone else remember that time Metallica played a secret show as a Ramones cover band?
- “The fact that he managed to mix the political with the comical and the absurd, without comprising his output, is a big influence”: Frank Zappa is Serj Tankian’s prog hero
- "We're only here to play fantastic rock music": The Hives promise that their upcoming live shows will be like "a regular rock show but there's more of everything"
March 21
- Slash interview: Growing up with the blues, assembling Orgy Of The Damned, meeting Peter Green, and the crazy journey behind that Oscars thing with Ryan Gosling
- "They’re one of the greatest rock bands in history." The heavy metal legends that Lady Gaga just can't get enough of
- 10 exciting new Irish artists you should be listening to in 2024
- “It ended up very miserable. Even Roger Waters says what a miserable period it was – and he was the one who made it entirely miserable”: How Pink Floyd made The Final Cut and learned to hate each other
- A rebuilt Wall, Madonna's producer and an American academic: How Roger Waters saved himself
- The T. Rex albums you should definitely own
- "As I grew up, instead of wanting to marry Paul McCartney, I wanted to be him": How The Bangles wooed 1984 with their power-pop debut All Over The Place
March 20
- "Everything we're doing right now is way different." What happened the day Linkin Park played a set at Grand Central Station
- "It's not every day that you get to sing with the queen": That time Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder teamed up with Beyoncé to perform a spine-tingling Bob Marley cover
- "I wouldn’t be the singer, the artist, anything without it." New Years Day's Ash Costello on the Millennial goth post-hardcore masterpiece that changed her life
- "The transition into what we’re doing now has been very strange.” How Halestorm, Slash and Ghost's Mary On A Cross unexpectedly helped Blackbriar become symphonic metal's new hopes
- Watch Skindred perform ragga metal banger Nobody on Conan O’Brien in 2004 – almost 20 years before it went viral on Tiktok
- “I was a wreck, physically and mentally. I wanted to cancel shows, split up the band, all these kind of things”: Aiming to make a “super-heavy record,” Opeth embraced the Mellotron and made Damnation instead
- "It was starting to feel like the band had run its course": Whitesnake entered 1984 on a high, but everything was about to change
- "The scent of cremated steaks and exotic gateaux lingers in the air": Revisiting the secret launch of Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers
- "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
March 19
- “I suddenly thought, ‘What’s happened in my life that I’m in a room in Liverpool with a Beatle!'" The making of Exploring Birdsong's Dancing In The Face Of Danger
- A beginner's guide to desert rock in five essential albums
- “I listen to pop music with headphones so intensely, like I’m studying the Torah… I love the ear-candy stuff!” You might find a hint of Olivia Rodrigo on the new Pattern-Seeking Animals album (and a mildly controversial sax solo too)
- “Everything from Between The Buried And Me to Duran Duran. There doesn’t seem to be a distinct barrier in terms of what we believe we can funnel into Kyros." The sound of UK prog rockers Kyros and new album Mannequin
- “What’s more satanic than a demon throwing a priest into the water, chained?!” Watch Jack Black react to classic album covers by Dio, Iron Maiden, Manowar and more
- “Robert Fripp watched the show from the wings. As I was playing I was thinking, ‘Oh, I stole this line from Robert… that’s a riff from him too!’” Billy Sheehan’s obsession with King Crimson’s Red
- The 10 best Randy Rhoads guitar solos
- "I think everyone has some sort of death wish... but I don't want to die": The spectacular rise and tragic fall of Paul Kossoff
- Every Patti Smith album ranked from worst to best
- "It was fun being friends with him. He was like a wizard": when you're David Bowie's favourite band, life gets kinda magical
March 18
- Eight new rock songs you need to hear this week
- "Did we mention that there’s also a pool?" Prog sets sail on Cruise To The Edge
March 17
- 10 massive pop stars who secretly appeared on rock and metal songs
- “I don’t think there was a single riff I wrote after 1992 that Zack de la Rocha even liked”: how Audioslave saw Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello escaping his own past
- “The closest thing I can compare it to is the film Gladiator”: Muse’s Matt Bellamy on what it’s like being at the centre of an enormodome rock show
- “The pearl is the little organism that has taken the shit and turned it into something beautiful. Maybe that’s part of what we’ve been able to do.” Eddie Vedder on how Pearl Jam got through their toughest moments
- "He just set me on fire": St. Vincent on working with Dave Grohl on her forthcoming new album
- “Thomas can listen to a single and say, ‘This is going to be a hit; this won’t be.’ He knows what’ll work on radio. And, of course, we’ve completely avoided that in Gazpacho!” The two-year making of Demon
- “Bob says: ‘Where you from?’ I say, ‘Birmingham’. He goes, ‘Birmingham? How’s Ozzy!’”: the unlikely time Rob Halford met Bob Dylan, the man who gave Judas Priest their name
March 16
- “I find it irresistible to play the curmudgeonly old vampire”: the late, great Mark Lanegan on why it’s important to keep your sense of humour
- Great new prog from sleepmakeswaves, Beatrix Players, Dim Gray and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- Why I love Kiss, by Bill & Ted’s Alex Winter
- “That was it for me, a rock god lead guitarist playing on it”: how Metallica’s Kirk Hammett helped a dance classic to come full circle
- “I don’t think Joe would’ve been happy retreading any steps he’d made already”: Paul Simonon on why The Clash never reunited
- “Marc felt this imposition of having to come up with another hit album. And fame fuelled that fire”: how Marc Bolan and T. Rex made a glam rock masterpiece with The Slider
- “There have never been fisticuffs in this band… Just tense silences”: How Supertramp made the classic Breakfast In America
- 6 mind-bending sci-fi novels every prog metal fan should read
- "The force that is in this music can never be extinguished": Read the letter U2's Bono wrote to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter Frances Bean hailing Smells Like Teen Spirit as a song that saved his life
March 15
- Every Metallica album ranked from worst to best
- "You're going to Hell for this!": That time I sent deathpunks Turbonegro to play Santa at an old folk's home, and the terrified residents thought World War III had started
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear this week
- "He was one of the gang": Before he won three Oscars and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, one world-famous actor was a roadie for Echo & The Bunnymen
- “I’m doing that thing that many may find tasteless but hopefully at least some may find thrilling… it’s not about control – it’s pure animal!” Why Steve Hackett ramped up the guitar attack on The Circus And The Nightwhale
March 14
- "It’s a maths geek’s love song to maths!" The story of Van der Graaf Generator's A Grounding In Numbers
- 10 bad habits every gig-goer makes: How many gig gaffes are you guilty of?
- “Before I wrote The Cartographer, I would’ve avoided using anything except strings – because I didn’t understand and had no cause to”: Jo Quail learned to write for trombone just in time to add energy to her EP set Invocation/Supplication
- “We were making very peculiar music not particularly well played. We got a record contract because the record companies thought, ‘We better get weird’”: Inside the mind of Judge Smith, the man who named Van der Graaf Generator
- "At first I thought Meshuggah were absolute noise, just trash!": Periphery's Misha Mansoor talks early influences, the benefits of social media and internet trolls
- “We were living with cockroaches, writing crazy concept albums and touring the planet”: how prog metal visionaries Voivod invented a whole new genre
March 13
- "We realised the power and beauty of nudity": the naked truth about why Red Hot Chili Peppers used to wear socks, and absolutely nothing else, onstage
- Watch David Bowie and Blur's Damon Albarn duet on Bowie classic Fashion on French TV
- "Hybrid Theory made me realise metal wasn't this weird, ostracised subgenre": Of Mice & Men's Aaron Pauley picks the 10 records that changed his life
- The 8 songs Iron Maiden have played live the least
- “We weren’t really sure if we could keep being a band – it was very hard to be motivated to remain”: The desperate meetings that saved Caligula’s Horse from self-destruction
- "Before Deathgasm, whenever movies needed a bully, they put them in an Anthrax t-shirt": One of the best heavy metal movies ever is getting a sequel, and it's going to be even more bloody, messy... and metal (of course)
- “Their sense of adventure has never been up for debate; their progressive ambitions are a perpetual undercurrent”: These songs prove Radiohead are prog
- “I needed to destroy”: Watch video footage of the first-ever Tool concert in 1991
- “I shouldn’t speculate why we were singled out, other than because we were massively offensive”: how Cannibal Corpse became death metal’s first million selling band
- "My man management skills are very poor, but the music that gets made is usually worth it": The story of John Kalodner, the man who made rock stars
- "A mesmerising snapshot of the nihilistic grunge age": Mad Season's only album may forever be associated with tragedy and loss, but the musicians sound liberated
- "It became my favourite song the first time I heard it, and it still is": How Jack White rocket-fuelled his hero Son House for a whole new generation
March 12
- The Supertramp albums you should definitely own
- “Why did you let Some Kind Of Monster come out?” What happened when Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson interviewed Metallica’s Lars Ulrich
- Fugazi: A great title but no songs to go with it… even the pathologically casual Marillion started to worry they’d never write the record, and they’d never get a drummer to play on it if they did
- "I wrote about a threesome I had in Holland." Lzzy Hale picks the 15 greatest Halestorm songs, and explains the stories behind them
- Every Metallica instrumental ranked from worst to best
- “It might be significant that my two favourite pieces of music of all time are Supper’s Ready and Thick As A Brick”: What Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris learned from prog
- Hüsker Dü may have looked like a bunch of misfits, but they enjoyed an extraordinary musical chemistry: Why you should definitely own Zen Arcade
- "Who knows where we would have gone had we not had that monster hit? It was the beginning of the end for us": The real story of Free, told by those who were there
March 11
- “Our music teacher would belt us if we didn’t know all the musical signs and notes. She used to play Mussorgsky… so I love ELP’s version of Pictures At An Exhibition”: Simple Minds’ Derek Forbes names his prog heroes
- “People think we get our calculators out and work out some kind of complex mathematical formula”: how Meshuggah redefined tech metal for the 21st century
- Ten moments of maverick musical genius from Keith Emerson
- "I don't think they're gonna retire. They've been retiring for the last twenty years": Kiss played their final show last year, but Ace Frehley isn't convinced
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Blues Pills, Tuk Smith, Pain and more
March 10
- Vote for the best Slayer song ever
- "When I was a kid, my obsession was rifling through the forest for mushrooms. Then I gravitated toward witchcraft." We spent a day amongst neolithic tombs and monoliths with occult metal sensations, Green Lung
- "We chose to be a progressive metal band because it meant that we could do whatever we want." Periphery
- “We weren’t tempted to pursue that particular avenue, no. Led Zeppelin did it much better than us”: the Pink Floyd song that made Nick Mason realise they would have been a “terrible” heavy metal band
- “People have to put up with this rap-metal stuff. They’re looking for something with meaning”: Mudvayne were written off as third-rate Slipknot clones. They proved everyone wrong
- “We hesitated to say yes. The chances of making fools of ourselves were so big”: Live Aid was Queen’s crowning glory. But they nearly turned it down
March 9
- “We don’t have this need to party and to cling to other people doing the same thing that we are”: how Within Temptation followed their own path to make The Heart Of Everything
- The rarest and most expensive records by 10 major rock bands
- "We like to keep the fans on their toes, and we like to keep ourselves on our toes too." The story of Between The Buried & Me's Automata concept albums
- “We invented the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal as a joke”: how Chimaira bounced back from the edge of oblivion with Resurrection
- "Blackwater Park has been hyped as this big breakthrough for us. It really wasn't": How stress, isolation and Grand Theft Auto III inspired Opeth to write Windowpane
- Mission From ’Arry: How Iron Maiden turned a sweary argument into the funniest metal “song” ever
- “Why is writing your own material such an obsession for so many people? They should be grateful we don’t write songs. They’d be terrible”: Manfred Mann has no time for his own back catalogue
- “He was one of the most crucial figures of the ’60s. Much of the underground was his invention”: the forgotten story of John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, the man who invented psychedelic London
March 8
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear this week
- “We knew if we stuck together, we would create great things.” Amaranthe have three vocalists and make music that resembles ABBA on a bloodthirsty rampage. They might just be the most extra band in heavy metal
- Killer new prog from John Carpenter, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Exist and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- “People don’t realise the depth and diversity on the rest of the material. If you’re a Yes or Genesis devotee, this band should be on your radar”: Kansas’ image problem means even a future member struggled to discover them
- "Then someone shoved a copy of the band's now legendary No Life 'Til Leather demo into my beer-stained hands": The Mötley Crüe haters who paved the way for one man's discovery of Metallica
- "I went out expecting to see Kiss at Hammersmith Odeon and instead spent the evening in a pub with Bon Scott and Angus Young": An AC/DC story
- For 10 years Sheer Mag were hounded by record labels but refused to sign: Now they're ready for the attention
- "I don't like the production of that record. I don't like how it sounds. I don't like how it looks": Soundgarden look back at their breakthrough album Superunknown
March 7
- "They daubed the walls of their hotel in human excrement": Remembering how Britain lost its mind when confronted with the Beastie Boys for the first time
- "Nobody liked us because we sounded like Foo Fighters!": the inside story of the doomed Dave Grohl album no-one ever talks about
- “I still buy a new album and flick through it trying to find the weepy ballad – but for God’s sake, I was in Mostly Autumn for 13 years!” Heather Findlay’s affection for melancholy
- “I would love to have been part of some of those great later pieces… But the price you pay is that some people’s lives are not happy”: What if Anthony Phillips hadn’t left Genesis?
- "We were in debt by about a million dollars. That album saved us from probable obscurity": The story of the Cheap Trick album that transformed their fortunes
- The Y&T albums you should definitely own
- "We're all in this together": In a world getting crazier and crazier, Ministry's Al Jourgensen is the unlikely voice of sanity
March 6
- “We had these guys stomp out a 700ft crop circle”: The story of when Korn played a concert surrounded by corn
- “While recovering, I didn’t want to stress myself out, so we didn’t rehearse as much. Luckily when I write the music, I give the hard parts to everyone else!” Earthside’s choice between aiming for perfection and getting their second album out ASAP
- "I'd cover Metallica's St. Anger": Babymetal talk touring, collaborations and opening the door for Japanese metal
- “We’re prog rock without the solos”: Experimental sounds, non-linear arrangements and big, conceptual ideas would seem to prove Guy Garvey is right about his band Elbow
- Jimmy Page and Jackie De Shannon: the songwriting partnership that inspired the future Led Zeppelin star's only lead vocal
- "So I drink it – and the next thing I know it was eight days later": Bluesman Philip Sayce on industry sharks, his werewolf obsession, and the dangers of drinking at LA parties
- Tension, ego, heroin: How The Clash's epic unreleased double album Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg all but finished them off
- "We're probably at the point that we can get away with it": Feeder are thirty years old in 2024, and they're finally ready to release a double album
- "That song will long outlive us. Can't think of a better calling card to leave behind": The Buckcherry song that'll be the band's epitaph
March 5
- "Prog is all about musicianship and a lot of people might think we just make slow stuff, but there’s a lot of thought and precision. We grew up on The Mars Volta and Radiohead." VLMV make their case
- 6 rare Slayer songs we need them to play at their comeback shows
- “There was an amazing synergy. The longest single session was 72 hours. We fed the engineer speed pills… we’d scramble to write lyrics then pluck vocal harmonies out of the air”: How Nektar’s ambition and effort gave the world Remember The Future
- Every Helmet album ranked from the worst to the best
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- Listen to Black Sabbath cover Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water, with Ian Gillan on vocals
- “Even with our accessible songs we get pinned as bizarre and wrong. Somebody was writing about unicorns and centaurs in a review and I was like, ‘That was two records ago’”: Did Coheed And Cambria go too far up their own concept for some?
- "My family were pastors and a lot of injustice was taught to me as a little girl. Now it's my time to put on the collar and preach": The rise of occult rockers Lucifer
- "We'd started playing small dance halls for a few hundred people, now suddenly we were opening for the Stones and The Who": A celebration of the life and music of Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington
March 4
- Every The Smashing Pumpkins album ranked from worst to best
- "The doubters have all gone now": Steve Diggle on continuing Buzzcocks without Pete Shelley
- "When we do progressive rock, there’s no rules – we just keep writing, keep putting together whatever parts we like." How The Flower Kings made By Royal Decree
- "It's a celebration that we’re still alive and we’re still going and hopefully there’s still light at the end of the tunnel." The story of Marillion and An Hour Before It's Dark
- "We threw everything away at one point": Justin Chancellor talks new Tool material, fashion and why MTVoid aren't a supergroup
- "My business is to create. It’s what I do." How Iron Maiden legend Bruce Dickinson struck out on his own, got weirder than ever and created some of the boldest music of his career, over 50 years in.
- “We want to be a voice for those who don’t dare speak up." Dogma are a bunch of sexually-charged, corpsepainted, metal-playing nuns. And they're here to spread liberation and queer love in the rock scene.
- “Serene, melodic and as refreshing as the breeze… complete with looped lambs’ cries”: How prog is Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure?
- Robby Krieger wrote The Doors' classic Light My Fire. But what he really wants, more than anything, is to have an instrumental hit
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Mdou Moctar, St Vincent, Danko Jones and more
March 3
- "We're singing about hot girls and cool stuff. It's what people really need right now": Now that Van Halen are no more, BulletBoys want to revive their party spirit
- “It’s about how grateful we were to have our time with Cliff”: Watch the only time Metallica have ever played emotional instrumental To Live Is To Die live
- “I have fond memories of sitting on Lemmy‘s lap after he’d come offstage, with his hair in a white towel turban”: Rob Halford says Judas Priest‘s new album has a tribute to Lemmy and Ronnie James Dio
- “When Dime went away, my heart went with him. I didn’t think I’d ever really be able to do this again”: Vinnie Paul’s return from tragedy with Hellyeah
- “We’re revelling in the hell we are in. We say, ‘Please enjoy your death’”: this classic Ghost interview from 2011 shows they were always destined for greatness
- The stories behind Bruce Dickinson's new album The Mandrake Project
- “I learnt such a lot from Roy Wood… when we did Northern Lights I said, ‘Why don’t we double track my voice?’ That’s all it took - but we didn’t know it would be a hit”: How Renaissance made it to Top Of The Pops and The Kenny Everett Video Show
March 2
- “We were spoofing the idea of the concept album, but in a fun way that didn’t totally mock it… It’s only in recent times that I’ve appreciated how complex the music is”: Why Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick needed to be serious - and a send-up
- “I had heard how turbulent this band was. All this fighting over control and power”: Don Felder lived through the best and worst of the Eagles, and came out the other side
- “I don’t remember saying I’d never heard Led Zeppelin. It’s beyond stupidity to say that!”: did Kingdom Come really sound like Zeppelin? Not according to singer Lenny Wolf
- “Vultures were on the bedpost. It was a dark road and I was losing my lust for life”: Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine is metal’s great survivor
- 10 classic metal albums that should be played live in full (but haven’t yet)
- "The Bigelf DNA is stronger than you think." How Mike Portnoy helped resurrect Bigelf with Into The Maelstrom
- The 20 greatest rock supergroups ever
- "We’re not a band that writes about fast cars, hot chicks and partying." How Queensrÿche got their prog metal groove back with The Verdict
- “Lyrically, it’s something that makes Samuel Beckett sound like Tommy Cooper." Tim Bowness and the story of Flowers At The Scene
- "When we first started, he did not want to sound like Iron Maiden": Roy Z on his three-decade creative partnership with Bruce Dickinson
- “10 years ago no one in the US would bought an album by an Italian metal band. The idea doesn’t seem so strange now”: how Lacuna Coil served up a 2000s classic with Karmacode and went global in the process
- “I picked up that sad song thing from Del Shannon and Roy Orbison. Sometimes sadness is the greatest thing to listen to… It’s like, ‘I’m happy now ’cos that’s exactly how I feel’”: Is the secret to Jeff Lynne’s success with ELO that simple?
March 1
- The 11 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “In my head I wanted to be in Genesis; I wanted to be in It Bites. I was living the dream and there was no second-guessing. So there’s a lovely innocence with these tracks”: What Rob Reed learned by reinventing Cyan for the 21st century
- Cool new prog music you have to hear this week from Von Hertzen Brothers, Jane Weaver, Richard Thompson and more...
- “It was so powerful and also kind of dark… it started to produce itself. I remember thinking, ‘I’m not pulling any punches – it’s going to be close to the bone”: Mostly Autumn’s struggle to give late guitarist Liam Davison the send-off he deserved
- “The heart of darkness for me is a heart of honesty, it’s the heart of vulnerability”: how Ville Valo pulled back from the abyss and bared his soul on HIM’s Screamworks
- "I've had to turn my back, because, you know, the big man is not supposed to cry": All the stories from behind the scenes at Kiss's emotional final blow-out at Madison Square Garden