Features archive

March 2025

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150 articles

March 31
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- “Musicians can get upset with each other, but you’re family. Chris Squire and I were like brothers – he was Darth Vader and I was Obi-Wan Kenobi!” Jon Anderson’s time-travelling solo album 1000 Hands
- "I had Nails, Oathbreaker, Power Trip, Billie Eilish and Labrinth on my writing playlist.” From being chummy with members of Slipknot to the worst show ever, here's what we learned in five minutes with Heriot's Debbie Gough
March 30
- “She was literally getting onto the plane. I felt awkward about it, but I’ve got a bad enough reputation and so has she”: The classic Megadeth song that was originally supposed to feature Lisa Marie Presley
- “I was living a couch, with no food and no money, just hoping the band would come through this”: The epic story of Meshuggah’s rise from thrash metal wannabes to tech metal giants
- "I thanked Corey Taylor for existing!" From collabing with Babymetal to hanging out with Bollywood stars, Bloodywood are breaking down barriers
- “It got to the point where I didn’t want to go in. It was painful”: the story of the lost Supergrass album that led to their split
March 29
- “Our manager said Mick Jagger and Jeff Beck were in the crowd. I had to put it out of my mind and play”: The epic story of Living Colour, the band that revolutionised 80s hard rock
- “We were a bit drunk, and I slurred to Ronnie, ‘Do you fancy doing an album?’ It was as simple as that”: How Heaven & Hell resurrected Black Sabbath’s other classic line-up with The Devil You Know
- “We don’t write love songs, we write hate songs”: how Skunk Anansie gave 90s British rock a shock to the system
- “Kenneth Anger laid a terrible curse on me. It was written out in blood. I burnt it at a crossroads”: Marianne Faithfull’s wild tales of Keith Richards, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and more
- “You’ve no idea how cold it was – totally freezing. I know we’re a doom band, but this was suffering way beyond the call of duty”: How Candlemass changed metal forever with doom landmark Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
March 28
- “It came very close to where I wasn’t going to do the album; I didn’t feel that what we’d agreed was fair”: How Pink Floyd made The Division Bell
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "The haters won’t stop us from doing what we do": Geoff Downes on Asia's new lineup and the band's future plans
March 27
- “You only have to hear the opening sweep to reach for your lighter and wave it in the air”: Tony Banks' greatest Genesis moments
- The greatest gig I've ever seen: 24 writers pick the most memorable live show of their lives
- From debauched prog revivalists to pioneers of the internet age: The Marillion albums you should definitely listen to
- “Rick Wakeman’s solo albums were just brilliant… when I heard he was doing Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace, I bought 12 tickets”: Prog is the reason Rick Astley became a singer
- What Alice Cooper has in common with Hannibal Lecter: Shock rock's foremost practising Christian on snakes, guns, alcohol and Bible study
March 26
- “The concept of cool and uncool is completely gone, which is good and bad… people are unashamedly listening to Rick Astley. You’ve got to draw a line somewhere!” Mogwai and the making of prog-curious album The Bad Fire
- "What happens next, you give everyone a hard-on and then go around the room with a bat like Al Capone?!” Ginger Wildheart's wild tales of Lemmy, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, Cheap Trick and more
- “My totalitarian rule might not be cool, but at least we’ve made interesting records. At least we polarise people”: It took The Mars Volta three years and several arguments to make Noctourniquet
March 25
- Psychic tests! Pet wolves! Chicken coops! Guns N' Roses and the wild ride towards Chinese Democracy
- “We spent seven months on David Gilmour’s boat and almost bankrupted ourselves. But Bob encouraged us to dream big”: How Bob Ezrin brought out the prog in Kula Shaker
March 24
- "Exul ended up being recorded at 10 different studios over two and a half years." Ne Obliviscaris and the heroic story of their fourth album
- “We embrace the spirit of early 70s prog as being the way that you should always approach music." Mastodon and their prog epic Crack The Skye
- "Instrumental albums are often made by musicians for musicians, so we wanted to keep things tuneful and hold the listener’s attention" How Animals As Leaders broke the mould with The Joy Of Motion
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- “Every record was a battle… I was listening, like, ‘This is amazing!’ but Robert Fripp was reliving the pain and trying to find his way through that”: What Steven Wilson learned from remixing King Crimson
March 23
- “I was so sick. I had tunnel vision and couldn’t walk. I was crawling to the toilet and I thought I was going to die”: The unbelievable rise of Opeth, the band who went from death metal no-hopers to prog royalty
- “It felt like there were dark times hanging over this album”: How hard rock supergroup Chickenfoot restarted the party on their second album, III
- “I feel like we’re more than a pile of bones and flesh. I don’t believe in the end of the spirit or soul”: How Gojira emerged from darkness and turned tragedy into strength with Magma
- “We have a lot of cool songs in Blink, it’s weird to me that’s the one!”: Blink-182 on the making of the “pretty little ballad” that became their biggest ever hit
- 10 brilliant new Irish artists you should listen to before next St. Patrick's Day rolls into view
- “It did sound like the nightmare Tony McPhee was trying to describe. Prog usually has softness and intricacy, but this wasn’t a record you disappeared into”: New Order’s Peter Hook hails Groundhogs’ Split
March 22
- “The conservatism of what’s called progressive rock these days appals me”: The life and times of Steve Hillage, the maverick guitarist who helped shape the sound of prog
- "The music’s pretty progressive, but it’s not Rush is it? It’s not exactly Dream Theater." TesseracT's journey to debut album One
- “I’m not a role-playing games guy. I’m not about drinking beer and singing folk songs. I’m all about sex, blood and rock’n’roll”: How Finnish glam-goth metal icons The 69 Eyes blazed a trail for HIM
- “If you don’t like Bringing It All Back Home, you don’t like music. You should hand your ears back.” Bob Dylan’s game-changing album is 60 today and still astonishing
- “I agreed to join the band when I was drunk. I’ve not much recollection of what went on!”: The chaotic story of Black Sabbath’s Born Again and the tour that inspired Spinal Tap
- “That song was a sad, minor key drone…”: the 2000 single that is one of Pearl Jam’s oddest releases ever
March 21
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Cool new prog you must hear from Matt Berry, Swallow The Sun, Alex Henry Foster and more in our all-new Tracks Of The Week
- "I don't know how we did it. Well, I do actually. We snorted a lot of cocaine": Elkie Brooks looks back on wild times with Vinegar Joe and six decades of rock'n'roll
- “The KKK were phoning my house and threatening me”: Propagandhi have been infuriating fascists for 40 years – and they still have plenty to say
- The Brian Fallon and Gaslight Anthem albums you should definitely listen to
March 20
- Every Lacuna Coil album ranked from worst to best
- Ever wondered what it's like putting on a metal festival? Music podcast Two Promoters One Pod reveals all
- “We took it badly – ‘No one wants us any more!’ We’d never been through the school of hard knocks. We didn’t know what it meant to work hard”: When ELP collapsed, Carl Palmer’s career-long lucky streak ended. But he didn’t give up
- "About ten years later I just needed to get rid of the leg, it was just too much pain": Six things you need to know about Shaman’s Harvest
March 19
- "It was a middle finger to everyone who’d told us we wouldn’t do anything." A track-by-track guide to Bullet For My Valentine's The Poison
- “It’s not about selling 12 million copies … the songs still touch me when I sing them or talk about them to this day”: Jethro Tull’s struggle to make Aqualung, in their own words
March 18
- “It was like being plugged into an electrical socket that has charged me ever since.” Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody on the rock show that made him want to start a band
- “We wanted to feel that we weren’t in a rush – even though we were. That’s how you end up singing in a sleeping bag”: From a mountain monastery to a cold bus in a snowstorm, the Von Hertzen Brothers’ Nine Lives was tough work
March 17
- "My mother took me to see Saga when I was 15. It was fantastic!". A glimpse inside Yogi Lang's prog world
- “When the saxophone started we laughed and skipped it… The reason I dismissed them then is exactly why I like them now!” How doom and occult keyboardist Carl Westholm was converted by Van der Graaf Generator
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "Bruce Dickinson, if you read this: call me!" Avantasia and Edguy frontman Tobias Sammett is a legend to power metal fans - so we got them to interview him for us
- “I went from being James LaBrie’s biggest critic to being his biggest cheerleader. I want him to succeed more than anybody”: Now Mike Portnoy is back in Dream Theater, he only wishes it had happened sooner
March 16
- “Music is viewed as one of the highest art forms, if not the highest artform, because it is able to be spiritual and sacred”: How Sunn 0))) conjured good vibrations and dark magic with drone masterpiece Monoliths & Dimensions
- “Mitch Mitchell was a journeyman. He was hopeless. John Bonham, Ringo Starr, Charlie Watts… they’re a three or four out of 10”: An audience with Ginger Baker, rock’s most cantankerous drummer
March 15
- “I can’t see us ever writing songs about boning strippers and doing cocaine in limousine jacuzzis”: How Alice In Chains came to terms with their dark past on The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
- “Any drug coming along, I’d take. It wasn’t a self-destruct thing. It either closed the door on my mind or opened one up”: The wild life and drunken times of cult rock’n’roll pirate king Tyla J Pallas
- “We have a Grammy-winning producer, a trained Shakespearian actor and a carpenter”: The death and resurrection of Hell, the occult metal pioneers that history forgot
- “We tried the spaceship at The Who’s studio. Pete Townshend saw it and said: ‘I want one!’”: How Jeff Lynne took Electric Light Orchestra and the Traveling Wilburys to infinity and beyond
- “What did we get for being innovative? We got slaughtered by everyone. That’s what you face for trying something new”: How Saxon made Crusader, the album that marked the end of their early 80s glory years
- Test your rock knowledge with this week's Classic Rock Quiz
- You can stick your Manchester and stick your London: here’s 10 reasons why Essex is responsible for the UK’s best ever artists (as decided by an Essex boy)
- “Donald Trump is a huge fan of mine. Mostly he’s jealous of my hair, which is much cooler than his”: Gene Simmons’ wild tales of Eddie Van Halen, Bob Dylan, Cher and Donald Trump
March 14
- Great new proggy sounds from Magic Pie, Sleep Token, Michael Woodman and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Test your metal knowledge with the all-new Metal Hammer quiz
- "My dad smashed the tape of Number Of The Beast: ‘I’m forbidding Devil’s music in my house!’ That only made it more appealing.” How Jesse Leach went from "Flanders kid" to future metalcore icon
- “There’s a healthy amount of dysfunction in our relationship”: How Larkin Poe finally got over their imposter syndrome to make kick-ass new album Bloom
- “Once you realise your existence is futile and life is a random gift, you think, ‘I’m going to make the most of it.’ Life is meaningless – so embrace it”: Steven Wilson looks back at Planet Earth
March 13
- “As a junior-millennial rock fan, hearing The Bends felt tantamount to digging up the first fish who grew legs”: We got a 28-year-old music journalist to review a 30-year-old Radiohead album and this is what he wrote
- "My entire life I've wanted to write a symphony. Now I have." Divide and Dissolve's Takiaya Reed has jumped from doom/drone to classical
- "A lot of people think it’s about Vikings, but it never was." We took Wardruna's Einar Selvik foraging in one of London's oldest graveyards
- “Every bad decision I’ve made, I’ve made when I’d been drinking. Waking up with a hangover, wasting a day, the bulls**t you talk”: How Ricky Warwick got sober and reconnected with his Northern Irish roots on new album Blood Ties
- “Gong’s appeal? Not becoming too commercially successful”: Daevid Allen bade a grateful farewell with I See You – but he still believed in the future
- “There certainly was a fair amount of hard drinking. But there was a degree of professionalism, if hard to recognise at times”: How The Pogues made a folk-punk classic in Rum, Sodomy & The Lash
March 12
- "A cocktail of pure fire and creativity." How Limp Bizkit went from nu metal's whipping boys to a beloved cultural force (again)
- “An album misinterpreted by lesser talents”: What do Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, Peter Hammill and Robert Fripp have to do with Britpop? See Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish for details
- “I had a dreadful hangover, so I put my dark glasses on and we played Children Of The Grave, Iron Man and Paranoid”: What happened when Black Sabbath reunited for one day only at Live Aid 1985
- Every Jinjer album ranked from worst to best
- “We’ve done a lot of our growing up in public, made our mistakes too. We’ve suffered at times with that. Our extremes are extreme”: How the Manic Street Preachers shook things up to make new album Critical Thinking
- “It’s a really good album, but I’m not sure it’s better than the ones that came before. You ask, ‘Why didn’t this happen sooner?’” Many consider Blackwater Park to be Opeth’s masterpiece. Opeth don’t
- “It was love at first sight. I broke up with Judy and chased Sharona for a year”: How The Knack wrote My Sharona, the one hit wonder to end all one hit wonders
March 11
- "Someone said, 'Ozzy and Sharon would like to say hi'. I was so starstruck!" From Ozzfest and partying with Bullet For My Valentine to stalkers and dodgy photoshoots, Lacuna Coil put Italian metal on the map
- “If you look at it, it’s my reputation… I need five months to prepare a show, and I can’t be writing new songs or promoting the album”: Is this why Kate Bush only ever toured once?
- “In that song Freddie is very naked. He’s singing from his heart”: The blockbusting Queen ballad that changed Von Hertzen Brothers frontman Mikko Von Hertzen’s life
March 10
- "I have the art for In The Court Of The Crimson King blown up on my office wall, right next to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway." Nova Collective's Dan Briggs gives us a glimpse into his prog world...
- "We tend to write very emotive music – you could say emotive rock." How Panic Room discovered themselves with Incarnate
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- “I heard it in a hip-hop song and thought, ‘No way did Nas write that!’” How Wendy James fell in love with an Iron Butterfly track she’d never be drunk enough to write
- “I used to go to the Camden Palace and drink with Boy George. I loved Culture Club”: How Ian Gillan put Deep Purple behind him and launched a new chapter of his career with Gillan
- “We all breathe the same air; we all reap the same potential doom from climate change; we better all bail out the boat… It’s a feeling of slightly despairing affection”: Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson stays curious while he still can
March 9
- “John Bonham was at the bar drinking quadruple brandies. He just turned around and whacked Gary in the stomach”: The crazed tale of the Heavy Metal Kids, the cult rock’n’roll hooligans with a tragic TV star singer
- “Everybody was fighting in the streets, getting thrown through car windows, it was insane! The cops arrested Jimmy and he went to jail!”: How Avenged Sevenfold went from metalcore brats to 21st century metal heavyweights
- “Everybody wanted to fight him, give him a tape or get him high. Anything except leave him alone”: How blues icon Johnny Winter survived addiction, shady business deals and himself
- “I lost the tips of two fingers in an accident when I was 17. Doctors told me that I had no hope of playing guitar again. I refused to accept that”: The life and times of Tony Iommi, metal’s indestructible dark lord
- “Feat. Thom Yorke…”: the ten best songs featuring guest vocals from the Radiohead frontman
March 8
- When you look into a human’s eyes, you feel this soul. You look into this bear’s eyes, you don’t see anything in there”: Slaughter To Prevail frontman Alex Terrible’s guide to wrestling bears
- “We went down the sheep-dip in the 80s. They douse you with pesticide, and then you’re lucky to make it out alive”: The rollercoaster story of Heart, the 70s rock icons who survived MTV, grunge and each other
- “I don’t think anyone is as iconic as I am right now”: How Ville Valo helped lead HIM to stardom and became a modern rock god in the process
- “I stood there thinking: ‘He’s not going to drive the tractor into the swimming pool, surely?’ And he did”: The insane story of The Wildhearts’ Earth Vs The Wildhearts, the cult ’90s classic that should have been huge
- “We’d solidly work from two in the afternoon to until 10pm. Why did we knock off then? So, we could get to the pub!”: The chaotic story behind Motörhead’s Overkill, the album that turned three speed freaks into stars
- "We saw Sleep Token in Glasgow. 14,000, sold out. It just makes me hungry." Deathcore heroes Fit For An Autopsy have their sights on being extreme metal's biggest band
- “It was a fantastic idea. I would have liked a ménage à trois with Brian Jones and his girlfriend”: The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies’ wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin and more
- Test your rock knowledge with this week's Classic Rock Quiz
- “The lyrics are quite nonsensical… I was hammered when I wrote it”: Noel Gallagher on the making of Some Might Say, the song that showed Oasis were set for the big time
March 7
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "He built a campfire in the middle of his hotel room. It was kinda cute…" The mad, bad and dangerously daft story of The Damned
- "Andrew Lloyd Webber said 'Be yourself - you're a rock star.'" How Vukovi's Janine Shilstone turned trauma into liberation
- “We can’t carry on for ever. The show we do is a very physical thing. How long can we keep going? I really don’t know”: The epic story of 50 years of Iron Maiden, metal’s ultimate band
- Cool new proggy sounds from Nad Sylvan, Bjørn Riis, McStine & Minnemann and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "I hate so many people!" Spiritbox give us a track-by-track guide to Tsunami Sea
- “On a frenetic album about consumerism and masturbation, you need your moments of contrast to count": The 10 best Genesis songs, as chosen by Prog readers
March 6
- "I get a kick out of pissing off the purists." From winding up death metal legend Glen Benton to chaotic live shows in their underpants, Chat Pile are one of metal's wildest new bands
- “I was unusually nervous… You may be doing exactly the same set, but it can have a completely different vibe.” When David Gilmour revisited Pompeii and faced the ghosts of Pink Floyd
- “People think of Ritchie as an angry, unfriendly guy, and that’s not him. I knew him when he was in a very good place”: Ronnie Romero has sung for Ritchie Blackmore and Michael Schenker and lived to tell the tale
March 5
- "Michael, come out and sing one with me please." Watch American icons Bruce Springsteen and Michael Stipe collaborate on a cover of Patti Smith's Because The Night and perform R.E.M. deep cut Bad Day together back in 2004
- "Life is short and we need to try to enjoy it, and protect the people and the things that we love. The time to protest will come again.” Punk rock icon Bob Mould is back with an album to get you through another American Crisis
- "I was emotionally moved watching Megan Thee Stallion interact with her fans." From surprise collabs with rap superstars to playing with Bring Me The Horizon and explosive new album Tsunami Sea, inside Spiritbox's incredible year
- "You can hear everything from Metallica to Nick Cave and Tom Waits." With Vice Grip, Parkway Drive went from metalcore stars to future festival headliners - and jumped out of a plane
- "The second we got the offer for Jimmy Kimmel I said, 'I'm gonna pig squeal on national television!'" Knocked Loose singer Bryan Garris on the Grammys, THAT performance with Poppy and conquering a phobia to bring heavy music to the mainstream
- I’m a Ghost fanatic, and these great songs by similar-sounding artists will stop me going mad during the wait for their new album
- “A 10cc reunion? It’s a hard no to that, I’m afraid”: Why Graham Gouldman is one of Britain’s greatest songwriters – even if people don’t know it
- The best Black Sabbath songs that don’t feature Ozzy Osbourne or Ronnie James Dio
- “I don’t think he ever got over being fired from King Crimson… but he went on to bigger, more financially successful things”: Peter Sinfield, the prog poet who gave voices to ELP, Roxy Music and many others
March 4
- "The only way I could approach this was making it up as I went along": Eric Bell on the controversial recording of Thin Lizzy's "new" album The Acoustic Sessions
- “We always wanted to celebrate this album, and to end our live shows at an iconic venue is the perfect way to finish”: After an epic-length search for lost tapes, Clannad passed into Legend alongside Robin Hood
- "I felt sad to see such joy in Neil’s face when we were down to the last few bars of our last song we played together": A Farewell to Kings - Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson look back on 50 years of Rush
- “We were whisked off in a limo and I joined them on their Learjet. I overslept in Jon’s hotel suite because they’d been very generous with spliffs”: My 39 days as a cosmic brother of Yes, by Gryphon’s Brian Gulland
March 3
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now
- "We were so fired up to go on before Jim checked out that we didn't acknowledge his death and grieve": When the music's over - the story of The Doors' strange afterlife
- “It’s such a good party trick – ‘So you think you’re heavy? Listen to this song from 1969!’” Enslaved’s Ivar Bjørnson argues King Crimson are the gateway from metal to prog
March 2
- "I'd like to think that everything people think about me is a misconception": An interview with the New York Dolls' David Johansen
- “The first time I ever got high was with Alex. He was just a terrific pothead, and a terrible influence on me”: The chaotic story of Rush’s early years and their journey from high school stoners to prog icons
- “I was eating tons and tons of painkillers. It was as hard to kick as heroin. It was really, really bad”: How High On Fire’s Matt Pike pulled back from the edge of darkness to make De Vermis Mysteriis
- “I was sitting in the studio, thinking, ‘I don’t think we can pull this together, we’re just going to have to split up’”: how Radiohead pulled themselves out of the depths to make The Bends
- “You see people who are into the glamour and ego of it. Music has nothing to do with ego. Music is like being a bank clerk – it’s work”: How Kate Bush smashed the barriers and became a star like no other
March 1
- “A lot of bands, it’s nepotism that gets them anywhere – go to the right party and make the right friends. For us, that wasn’t an option”: How Disturbed defied the odds to become nu metal superstars with The Sickness
- “We got pelted with glass bottles and dead rabbits. We stood our ground”: Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Machine Head’s Robb Flynn’s wild tour stories of bust-ups, injuries and urine-soaked tobacco
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- “Don’t relationships always get nasty in the end? A few knives get stuck in and before you know it, it’s out of control”: How Judas Priest reunited with Rob Halford to regain the metal throne with Angel Of Retribution
- “I wrote to Vincent Price. I didn’t expect a reply, but he knew who I was. He really got stuck into the role”: The twisted story of Alice Cooper’s shock rock classic Welcome To My Nightmare
- “It has pissed me off over and over again through the years that most fans who are real fans don’t really get the record”: the story of the album that was meant to be Smashing Pumpkins' fantastic farewell until it all went wrong
- “Our manager overheard one of Pink Floyd say something about our keyboardist and he threatened to break their legs”: Andy Fairweather Low’s wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Roger Waters and Tom Jones