Features archive
January 2026
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198 articles
- January 31
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- “We didn’t expect to be Bon Jovi. We didn’t go into this band wanting to own 15 houses and have 17 supermodels on speed dial”: The 90s alt-rock superstars who lost half their audience and angered Axl Rose by making the most antagonistic album “in history”
- “Everyone thought we were going to make an album that sounded like Green Day. So we made one that was even heavier than anything we’d done before”: How the reluctant ‘Godfathers Of Hardcore’ wrote the mosh-pit classic that put East Coast punk on MTV
- "The real ideological Nazis began coming out of the closet and attacked our shows." How pockets of mindless violence inspired the most important 63 seconds of punk you'll ever hear
- “I had the door slammed in my twice. I decided I’d make damn sure it never happened again”: The iconic singer who rose from the ashes twice to make one of metal’s greatest ever debut albums
- “It makes you wanna hurt someone real bad. They always have the most violent pits. Their riffs just bring out the aggression in people”: The three iconic metal albums that changed Ice-T’s life
- “We got airplay with that song, and that was remarkable. Unless you were Nirvana or Pearl Jam, radio stations weren’t interested”: How William Shakespeare inspired the song which became a surprise grunge-era hit and saved an entire genre
- January 30
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- From reggae/metal mash-ups to riff-stacked prog, these are the 11 new metal tracks that everybody needs to hear this week
- "I said, 'Only call me if it’s AC/DC or the Rolling Stones.' A week in, the phone rings, and it’s my agent saying AC/DC called. What?!" From her dad touring with Aerosmith to singing in The Grinch, Taylor Momsen on her life in music and movies
- Cool new proggy sounds from Arcane Roots, Karnivool, Crippled Black Phoenix and more in Prog's new Tracks Of The Week
- “Strange people just appeared. We had awful visions of ghosts in the room. There was rustling and scraping at the window. It was happening every full moon”: The creepy tale of Camel’s Moonmadness
- “Every song we came up with was like the greatest thing. Every time we’d write another it was like, ‘Oh my god’”: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax and more remember how thrash metal took over the world 40 years ago
- "He came down with this battered old Telecaster and played the best solo I’ve ever heard in my life": The debauched story of the Britrock classic made perfect by the last guitar solo from a legend
- "Some other very well-known people were at that first jam": Adrian Smith on how Smith/Kotzen got started, bonding over British rock and Iron Maiden's big homecoming
- "I sang Smoke On The Water with Deep Purple when they came to our school for a music clinic": This is the soundtrack of H.E.A.T frontman Kenny Leckremo's life
- January 29
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- "Being in a band with someone is very intimate. You exchange ideas, you have arguments, it’s exciting." The story behind the Fear City punk rock demo that Madonna recorded before becoming one of the world's biggest pop superstars
- “He wrote, ‘Eat more **** – 100,000 flies can’t be wrong.’ He hated us”: German prog icon was regarded with suspicion by other artists, the target of vegetables at concerts, and witness to a label boss jumping out a window to escape his band
- "Sometimes all your fans want is to keep living the same experience over and over again": The story of the love/hate hit that split the Judas Priest fan base
- January 28
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- “He’s always had more to say than can be expressed in just one band”: Every solo album by Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson ranked from worst to best
- “I wouldn’t say I’m an alcoholic – but then, you know, alcoholics say they’re not alcoholics”: The chaotic and confusing story of Metallica’s abandoned album
- “I felt a little bit grubby. I knew it hadn’t come from a place of complete integrity”: Steven Wilson tried to forget his shamelessly commercial Porcupine Tree song, but met it again in a strip club
- "If you have a sixteen-bar guitar solo, please don't turn into Yngwie Malmsteen or Joe Satriani": Ian Anderson on Jethro Tull, the right kind of guitarist, and forgetting what he's done
- "There are people who are almost tainted by their knowledge of music. It's almost like they know too much": How we got over ourselves and learned to love The Darkness
- "I preferred the Chili Peppers' cover to what Guns N' Roses did, but I was really happy about the royalty cheques": Stooges guitarist James Williamson looks back at the proto-punk ass-kicker David Bowie didn't understand
- January 27
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- "We spend a lot of time stabbing babies, fornicating with dogs, bombing churches." The dark, twisted, brilliant but largely forgotten grunge band who could have been bigger than Nirvana
- “There was a point where My Chemical Romance were opening shows for us. Quite quickly, they weren’t anymore”: The story of the post-hardcore takeover that didn’t quite happen
- “The song is about death. It came inside an actual dead person’s skull”: When The Flaming Lips proved they love you with a Halloween track lasting 24 hours
- "I had 20 kids on my doorstep looking in my windows. I couldn’t go to the grocery store." Tom Cruise, Eminem, the Twin Towers and a million sales in a week - the story behind the album that made Limp Bizkit the biggest rock band on the planet
- "It was the requiem for the kind of life that we all had dreamed would be in the sixties": More than half a century on, a folk-rock anthem about the souring of the American Dream continues to confound and inspire
- "We were a gang. I'd get into fights in bars defending them. But I had my dream taken away": With Guns N' Roses, Steven Adler went close to the edge more than anyone - but then it all came crashing down
- “If you see any Pink Floyd tribute act there’s an utter po-facedness to them. That seriousness has become the image of Floyd forever. We wanted a sense of fun”: Why Gary Kemp had to be part of Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets
- January 26
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- “That world just wouldn’t acknowledge our scene. It was either death metal bands or it was Cradle Of Filth everywhere”: The cult US hardcore band who smashed boundaries to make one of the 21st century’s most influential albums
- "And you know what? I'm just sharing ten years of groupies with ya, frat boy!" Why one of the biggest bands in rock music put a major music service out of business (and made one of the 2000s' strangest comedy sketch videos)
- “It feels good to have a thousand people flipping you off. Just to see the amount of middle fingers go up when we go into it is amazing”: The alt-rock superstars who trolled their fans with a 70s easy listening cover – and scored a huge hit with it
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: January 26, 2026
- “Let’s not forget he was still learning how to sing as ‘Bryan Ferry.’ I know I captured a fantastic atmosphere, complete with mistakes”: Some of Roxy Music hated Virginia Plain, but its producer loved it
- "I said something like: 'It would be really, really dreadful if that got wiped' and I found out later that that's exactly what he did": The story of the UFO classic inspired by a pair of murderous twins
- “For five minutes I was thinking I could have ‘guitarist for Genesis and Yes’ on my CV”: Why Steve Hackett didn’t take up the offer to join Chris Squire’s band, and what the late bassist said about his friend’s ego
- "We left mistakes in, we didn't clean it all up – which is a hard thing to do when you're a musician": How His Lordship hit the rock'n'roll bullseye with one of the best albums of 2025
- January 25
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- “Lemmy loved them. He was into anything fast and exciting and noisy. And they could play their instruments, unlike the punks”: The trailblazing 80s metal band loved by Motörhead, Iron Maiden and… George Michael
- “Keith Moon put the piranha in the bath and ordered a raw steak from room service. He told the waiter to throw the steak in the bath.” Shotguns, carnage and exploding drumkits – the insane story of The Who’s very first US tour
- “The truth is that I love Def Leppard, I love Enya, I just loved The Eurythmics and Broadway musicals and pop”: How metal’s ‘mad scientist’ wrote his breakout song – and confused the hell out of a prog legend
- “I’d put it up there with any of the greatest ballads that have ever been written. You can’t replicate it”: How one of rock’s most moving ballads was written in 15 minutes with a little help from the Bible
- “I had such dreams that people would see what I saw in them, but it was not to be”: When this prog metal singer had his band’s logo tattooed on his arm, they were already planning to fire him
- January 24
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- “A taxi knocked KK over. Glenn became an instant medic: ‘He needs hot water!’ He later told me: ‘Worst part is, I was tripping on acid at the time’”: How Judas Priest “danced with death” to make the album that turned them into superstars
- “When our agent heard the song live for the first time, he called me and said, ‘This is a hit!’ And he was right!”: The 80s metal anthem that turned the band who wrote it into global superstars – and the X-rated title it nearly had
- Debate: What was the best prog album of 1976?
- “There was a wishing well, a three-legged black cat, and the live room overlooked the mist-covered countryside.” Meet Cwfen, the Scottish doom witches giving Macbeth a run for his money
- “It fitted with the nastiness of the human condition and war and stuff. I wanted the words to sound violent and aggressive”: The apocalyptic anthem that sowed the seeds for prog – and became “the first heavy metal song” in the process
- January 23
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- "I heard that Metallica needed a bass player and brother, I was writing letters, made a tape of myself playing and sent it. Never heard a word back." The 80s pop culture icon who made an unlikely bid to join the world's biggest metal band
- "The lift stops. The doors open. And this bloke gets in. And it's Peter ****ing Gabriel!" What happened when Ozzy Osbourne bumped into the prog legend who made the album he was "obsessed" with
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “I said, ‘There are no vocals. It’s an instrumental album.’ The lawyer said, ‘Do you mean we’ve just paid $12,000 for a piano player?’” Rick Wakeman relives the moment he delivered The Six Wives Of Henry VIII to a horrified record label
- "I’m scared I’ll get in trouble." How the teenage son of a Canadian punk rocker sampled Beabadoobee without her knowledge on a song about a young man's dying words, and racked up two billion streams without leaving his bedroom
- Prog's Tracks Of The Week! Awesome new proggy sounds from Opeth, NMB, Myrkur and more...
- "I went from touring to working behind a bar in Manhattan, busting my butt to pay bills." How one of metal's most beloved bands reunited with an old friend to get a much-needed new lease of life
- "We thought we made really good records, but we never envisaged hanging out and playing boules at Elton's house": How Therapy? ram-raided the mainstream with an ode to the soap opera of teenage existence
- Debate: Who is the greatest drummer of all time?
- January 22
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- “He was praying to the sun and making loud noises. I asked, ‘Do you want to sing at our concert tonight? No rehearsal’”: Radiohead and Primal Scream influencers found their new vocalist on the street, after the previous one went mad on stage
- "He figured we were gonna get knifed...some guys were swinging pool cues!" From Peaky Blinders bar fights to being Slipknot-endorsed, how four Swedish hillbillies became one of metal's most exciting bands
- "Guns in the house means it becomes a hostage situation." This is what happened when a Los Angeles SWAT team swooped on ex-Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri - and the stand-off that followed
- "They got all these Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne albums and burned them…then ran away because they were scared." Car crashes, Satanism and 28 Years Later: the story behind Iron Maiden's classic anthem The Number Of The Beast
- "I've loved it and hated it, loved it and hated it": The story of the breakthrough hit its writer doesn't want to talk about ever again
- "We all had that feeling that nobody had ever heard anything like this before": How Iron Maiden got their man and made the album that sent them stratospheric
- January 21
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- “It might be the most words I’ve ever had to sing, which is why you see me reading them off a cheat sheet”: That time Steven Wilson covered a Taylor Swift song, proving he’ll always do what he likes
- "We expected a few hundred people to be there and it was several thousand. We were terrified!" Deftones, Sleep Token, Bad Omens...The Pretty Wild? Meet the viral metal duo officially embracing that controversial 'baddiecore' tag
- "I felt like I’d fallen into the bowels of the earth." Fears that witches under the spell of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page had targeted him to help birth the Antichrist led a paranoid David Bowie to store his bodily fluids in the fridge
- "Whoosh! A big flame goes right up under me. My arm, my hand, burnt down to the bone. Hair's gone." Inside the night Metallica's James Hetfield caught fire - and Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose caused a riot
- "It sounded like the way ice cream on a hot summer day tastes." How a Marquis de Sade biography, Willy Wonka's Oompa-Loompas and a bum note helped "a metal girl from Ohio" write a rock anthem that wowed Nirvana and changed Olivia Rodrigo's life
- “I thought, ‘I can’t hear guitar. This isn’t right.’ I pushed that fader up. He turned to me, smiling, and pulled it back down. I haven’t forgotten that”: How Alex Lifeson survived the challenge of Rush’s 80s synth obsession
- "They took a record that I'd made and erased all my songs, all my vocals. I thought, 'I won’t let you get away with this'": From goth glory to bad blood - the Gene Loves Jezebel story
- "It was a long year with many rewards. A couple of us developed expensive hobbies involving white powder and noses": The song that turned an English blues outfit into globe-trotting rock stars with high-maintenance habits
- "I just wish that Rage Against The Machine would make a new record!": Buckcherry's Josh Todd on the state of the nation, managing old habits, and going back to school
- January 20
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- "People worried about their brain should always wear a helmet": Watch Geddy Lee give celebrity tobogganing advice
- "We pulled off the impossible. We wanted to do something fun and screw with people's heads." How Korn, Snoop Dogg, Lil Jon, Xzibit and David Banner teamed up to make one of the funniest music videos ever
- “They wanted to get us away from the clubs, bars and dark influences. We were going to be good little boys and write an album. And it was just awful”: How Clutching At Straws broke Marillion and Fish apart
- “Suddenly I was popular with the record company again – people going, ‘Hello! Where have you been?’” How Mike Oldfield made Maggie Reilly sing in an odd style to make Moonlight Shadow
- "People said it was something they’ve never heard before." A camel, a wedding, the streets of India and seven million views: how one song and a crazy video turned an unknown Indian metal band into internet superstars
- "I did my last school exam and played Glastonbury two days later. Two weeks after that we went into the chart at number 11": The story of the joyous breakthrough hit inspired by Thin Lizzy, Star Wars and Dutch cigars
- "They used to describe us as the Rush of thrash metal": Coroner invented a genre. Decades on, they know how to write less complicated songs but they won't
- "All of a sudden, she started biting my tongue and wouldn't let go. There was blood everywhere. Then she went for my forehead": How Thin Lizzy made the albums that saved them, only to be plunged into chaos
- January 19
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- Seven classic metal albums you forgot came out in 2016
- "I gave away all my records, I started giving away my guitars, I was fantasising about my own death." The horrifying origin story behind one of the most uplifting rock songs of the '90s
- "We invited our families along, not thinking how it would be for them. When we came off, my sister was crying." How a teen pop duo earned the respect of Slipknot and Rage Against The Machine by getting bottled off stage by furious rock fans
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: January 19, 2026
- "It's not a well-written song by any means but it worked and became what it is...nostalgia." How one "stupid" song helped put one of the biggest metal bands of the 21st century on the map
- “Birmingham has always been embarrassed about its heavy metal heritage - and that’s unacceptable.” The story behind the petition to get Birmingham Airport named after Ozzy Osbourne - and why its founder is refusing to give up
- "I used to sleep with my guitar next to the bed": Born in a dream, the guitar solos in one of classic rock's greatest songs were out of key, but band superstition kept them in
- “The producer is looking at me across the room, eyebrow askew. Finally he says, ‘I don’t think so’”: The story of how Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess didn’t play on Pink Floyd’s The Wall
- January 18
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- “I was 100 per cent sure I was going to die. They were slamming my head against a railway track”: Leprous’ Einar Solberg faced his teenage demons on his solo debut 16 – and enjoyed the experience
- “We did it all ourselves. We used vinyl instead of leather, and our bondage outfits were held together with Velcro and glue”: The 70s art-rock provocateurs who stole Alice Cooper’s crown as America’s most deviant band
- “One of the guy’s friends came at Joacim from behind and smashed a glass in his face. Then they all ran away like scared rats”: The violence and defiance behind the 2000s metal anthem that accidentally inspired an Olympic gold medal
- “Here was a song I’d written, and it sounded absolutely magnificent. If I was to fall down a hole and never play again, I’d have that”: The legendary punk single that beat the Sex Pistols out of the gate by a month
- “When I look back, there’s never been any one thing that’s been normal about this band. I’m used to strangeness in my world!”: The controversial dance band who lit a fire under the 90s metal scene
- “Dream Theater have been completely unchallenged until now. There’s only so much room at the top of prog metal. We intend to have our thrones put in there”: How supergroup Sons Of Apollo flew before they fell
- “He hit me and he started crying and I remember thinking, ‘Weak as I am, I’ve got no tears for you, I’ve got tears for myself’”: The harrowing moment from a toxic relationship that this singer turned into a 90s rock classic
- January 17
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- “He was recovering from a broken jaw and was suffering chronic pain, but he was determined to endure”: How an ailing country icon made one of music’s greatest comebacks – with help from Rick Rubin, Tom Waits and Glenn Danzig
- “Kurt was a mess, drug-wise. I didn’t feel it was anybody’s business, I just wanted him off the project”: Kurt Cobain was supposed to produce these underground metal icons’ major label album – but they still made a classic without him
- “As we were leaving, Keith handed me this 1964 Gibson Hummingbird acoustic. ‘That’s not mine,’ I said. He said, ‘It is now. It’s yours’”: The incredible story of the cult British rock’n’rollers who happen to be one of Keith Richards’ favourite bands
- “After scrapping two albums I went to the accountant to find out how many pennies were left in the piggy bank. The answer was not many”: How Bruce Dickinson gambled everything on his second solo album – and ended up leaving Iron Maiden because of it
- “He phoned me up at seven in the morning and played about ten seconds of the EP over the phone. That was the moment”: Twenty-five years ago, five rowdy New Yorkers released a three-song EP that changed the course of rock’n’roll
- January 16
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- Metal Hammer reader's poll - the best metal albums of 2025
- "What’s the last thing a drummer says before getting kicked out of the band? 'Hey guys, I have a song that I think we should play!'" The story behind the forgotten Nirvana song that Dave Grohl was too nervous to include on their final album
- "We were brothers and I was trying so hard that I was choking him. That’s how I was taught to control things: intimidation and rage." Inside the depressing night Metallica split with Jason Newsted
- "The police and the army were all carrying guns. There was a real edginess to it all." How a "feral" Ozzy Osbourne crowd, an onstage meltdown, and some ill-advised nudity on live TV sparked a police manhunt for a British rock star in South America
- "I heard something on an ABBA record and it inspired the riff I needed. I said, ‘Guys, I’ve got it!'" The Sex Pistols, pop legends, Danny Boyle and the Olympics: the unlikely story of one of the most important punk songs of all time
- Ghost, Lamb Of God and Black Label Society: the best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "Playing a full set of Motörhead songs with Phil Campbell stood next to me is a bit nerve-racking": With a new deal and friends in the right places, Fury are ready to move up a level
- The Beatles Quiz: How much do you know about Help!?
- “It felt like the best thing we’d ever done. I was shocked when it wasn’t received well. The record company definitely didn’t like it”: Inspired by King Crimson, this 80s band pioneered a new kind of rock – and paid the price
- “Metal has always been a very tribal thing - some felt we were provocative merely for existing": The story of the Living Colour song that namechecked Stalin and Mussolini and inspired Tom Morello to form a band
- January 15
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- Prog's Tracks Of The Week is back with cool new proggy sounds from Big Big Train, Soen, Charlotte Wessels and more
- "The Minotaur has the face of his father. He has to decide whether or not to kill it." The true story behind Minotaur, the mythical Tom Jones/Black Sabbath concept album that shook the world of rock
- Debate: Will the return of Rush be the biggest prog event of 2026?
- "We went to his place, had a jam, and then he asked if I’d ever played with a Ouija board." Ball lightning, a freak house fire and the occult: how one classic 80s anthem officially crowned the queen of heavy metal
- One of the world's best and most diverse metal lineups in the heart of one of Europe's coolest cities? Here's why you need to be at Mystic Festival 2026
- "Eric Clapton wrote Wonderful Tonight at ours, sitting on a wheelbarrow": What happened when the bassist with one of the UK's biggest bands quit rock'n'roll for life on the farm and a travelling musical carnival
- “You probably wouldn’t think of us sounding like Pink Floyd. But we’ve got a lot of stuff live that’s quite trippy, influenced by them”: Feeder’s Grant Nicholas on having dinner with Alex Lifeson and trying to sing like Jon Anderson
- "If you break the song down, it's really not that original. But I thank God every day that I wrote it": How one radio play turned the Undertones' intended final release into a brand new beginning
- “Somebody threw a toilet roll at Peter Gabriel. He threw it back and it landed just below me. I had that bog roll on my windowsill for years!” Marc Riley’s prog world
- "We've lasted so long because we were never friends": Fifty years in, Cheap Trick might not hang out with each other, but musical glue binds them together
- January 14
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- “I said, ‘Listen, I don't think you should die!’” How Dave Grohl realised that the end was near for Kurt Cobain and Nirvana
- "Calvin Klein asked us to do an advert. We were like, 'f-you, no way!' That would have been huge." From touring with Slipknot to turning down iconic fashion designers, the story behind Kittie's classic nu metal anthem, Brackish
- "The only reason you look in the rearview mirror is to see how cool you look going forward." This is what happened when Metallica's Lars Ulrich interviewed one of his heroes, Iron Maiden legend Steve Harris
- "I nearly died at Download Festival. When I took that mask off it was like upturning a bucket." From a panic attack in a Rolls-Royce to being metal's hottest new masked band: an interview with President
- “It’s the worst thing you can imagine – a song written by the rhythm section. I have to fit a guitar part over this?” How Rush made Grammy-nominated instrumental YYZ
- "The song means as much today as it did then - kids trying to break out of their town to find something to do": Influenced by Aleister Crowley and toothache, the song that introduced new wave still strikes a chord
- January 13
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- “I’m so glad he got to hear what happened. His son told us it made it easier for him to let go”: The last message of a prog giant who hoped his band would outlive him, 48 years after it began
- "My god, we were such impatient boys." How a David Bowie screw-up and some dramatic miming on British TV helped Queen secure their first hit single
- “If it leads to success we don’t have anything against it. We still have the death metal vocals, after all – those put a lot of people off”: Amorphis steered surprisingly close to pop-rock on their latest album. But they’re not selling out
- “I said I’d sing it on the condition that I could record a song of my choice as well. That song flopped and theirs was a big hit!” How a future Mike Oldfield collaborator wound up with a glam rock chart-topper
- “It was a strange time. We didn’t have a manager and the base of the band had fallen out”: How Sepultura came back to life with Choke
- "When I'm peeling the sprouts, it's nice to hear Cannibal Corpse or Obituary just to maintain a bit of edge": Justin Hawkins on Christmas, being back in arenas, supporting Iron Maiden, brother Dan being a rock star, Yungblud and more
- "There was a rocky section with an avant‑garde solo, then some brass, and of course a complete piss-take of 50s doo‑wop": How a 40-year-old Glaswegian out-weirded David Bowie to become the most unlikely pop star of 1973
- January 12
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- "It was like sleeping with your ex-wife." Why a one-off reunion convinced one of the world's best-loved bands to turn down a $250 million offer to tour again
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: January 12, 2026
- "He was trying to get his life off the ground, and he's handed this $100,000 check." The story of the unknown musician who helped Axl Rose write a Guns N' Roses classic
- "Every time I opened Rolling Stone there was a picture of him in his underpants." How Mariah Carey, Cher, Whitney Houston, Courtney Love, Michael Stipe and more got savaged by one of the 90s' most brutal diss tracks
- "We're faking it until we make it, and that seems to be working for us so far!" Blending Fleetwood Mac’s bluesy etherealness with Led Zeppelin’s grit, multi-national rockers Luna Marble are just getting started
- January 11
- January 10
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- "We’ve not got too many years left so every gig is sacred...you appreciate it more." Iron Maiden legend Steve Harris on 50 years of heavy metal - and what comes next
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "He sang it to me and I thought it was beautiful. But he was emphatic: 'No, this isn't what we do!'" The story of the classic song Red Hot Chili Peppers didn't want to record and its unexpected impact on Middle America
- “Thank you for the good times. They will never rot”: David Bowie’s final message to Brian Eno – which he didn’t understand at first
- January 9
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- “It was Michael Jackson’s label. The people that worked there mostly thought that alternative, heavy music was garbage”: How cult fixtures Prong found their brief mainstream moment
- “We were supposed to sign our contract, but we had so much champagne celebrating that we forgot”: The story of Human Waste Project, the lost nu metal band who should have been huge
- “He was grateful just to play some music rather than just dwell on death”: When two members of Yes and one member of Led Zeppelin got together, anything could have happened. Sadly, very little did
- “People were saying that the style we were playing would mean we never got signed”: Sounding nothing like anyone else, how System Of A Down overcame the odds and started their climb to dominance
- "Nazis popped out of a U-Haul van, walking around the city." The craziest break-up ever, political black metal and Zakk Wylde's wingman: the best new metal bands you need to hear this month
- "I was naked in the vocal booth. At first, I did it as an experiment to see if it would help, then it became a tradition": The story of the spandex-clad classic that launched its creators into the stratosphere
- “If you’re talking dazzling sleight of mind, radical ideas and a willingness to create shock-art for the masses, there was no one more brilliant”: Revisiting David Bowie’s career from a prog perspective
- January 8
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- "In the mid-80s, to get your record played, you had to take the guitar solo out." Radio stations tried to cut Eddie Van Halen's solo from one of his most iconic songs
- "Any money I will make I will happily give away to others. Print that, because I will stand by that!" He said it would be "counter-productive" if his band's debut album was a huge success. Then it sold 20 million copies
- Queen Quiz: How much do you know about A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races?
- "The beauty of it is that it's two minutes long. It's not like it's Free Bird where you have to suffer through 10 minutes of playing it every night": The story of the psychotic debut single that kick-started the grunge revolution
- "Wildest night out? I'd have to say Lemmy. I don't think we got much sleep": Danko Jones on meeting AC/DC, playing with Marty Friedman and a wild night out in London
- January 7
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- "After he died, his body was dug up and moved seven times because people thought his fingers were possessed by the Devil": Bruce Dickinson's unreleased rock opera may be the greatest untold story of them all
- How Pope John Paul II forced Queen to cancel a planned appearance at Manchester United's 'Theatre Of Dreams'
- "Metallica seek raw, rowdy 'n' gutsy frontman." That time Metallica launched a worldwide search to find a new vocalist via an ad in a British music magazine
- "At school I did a presentation about Black Sabbath! I knew I wanted to move to the UK." Jack Black, angry nuns and Duolingo: the strange story of metal's weirdest new stars, Calva Louise
- "It did surprise us. People started calling us sell-outs." How Metallica wrote the metal power ballad that saved Miley Cyrus - and that Elton John called 'one of the best songs ever written'
- "I looked around and nobody was happy. And I was thinking: 'This is going to be rough'": What happened when Bruce Dickinson made the decision that changed his life
- “We started each day by doing yoga and breathing exercises. Then we took mushrooms and it got a little too psychedelic!” The prog duo who lost their label for being too weird, and decided to get even weirder
- "The record company barely even knew who we were. When we took the demos into them, they said: 'You're Super-Who?'": The story of the Supertramp classic the band eventually found too difficult to play
- "Purple Rain is like Stairway To Heaven. It's non-religious, but people feel reverent about it": The story of Prince's Purple Rain, this year's viral Stranger Things needle drop
- January 6
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- “War is senseless, it’s stupid, and in the end you could end up dead… but in some ways it is glorious”: From the Crimean War to the Stranger Things finale, the story of Iron Maiden’s The Trooper
- "We'd like to discuss a chart position." How a secret $70,000 cash payment to Italian gangsters secured a British rock band their first US hit single
- "The band started that album cycle as ones to watch and emerged as one of rock’s new leaders." Every Halestorm album ranked from worst to best
- "We weren't seen as enigmatic as some bands. I do feel that we were kind of under-appreciated": Ben Ward looks back on three decades in the Orange Goblin trenches
- “I’d never played a professional gig. To suddenly be aboard a cruise ship surrounded by real prog legends was just surreal”: How Haken’s last line-up change powered seventh album Fauna
- "I see them as the greatest ever rock'n'roll band. How can it be a bad thing to be compared to the best there is?" Airbourne on AC/DC, non-annoying Christmas songs, and why their new album had to be exactly right
- "We set out to make the ultimate Priest album. It could be the most successful failure we'll ever have!" A classic encounter with Judas Priest as they prepare to unleash the album that saves them
- January 5
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- The day that one of BritPop's biggest and best-loved stars shocked Glastonbury festival by joining hard rock legends Spinal Tap for a controversial celebration of plus-sized female buttocks
- "I probably should have retired years ago but I really love keeping the band alive": Ten Years After are down to one original member but there's still gas in the tank
- "I live in my childhood home, so the studio's right there. It's what I need to watch and protect, for the rest of my life": Wolfgang Van Halen on 5150, battling demons and the good ship Mammoth
- “I say, not entirely jokingly, we’re mapping out the architecture of eternity”: Every year the most unlikely prog supergroup spend three days shaping weirdo music. Their third album proves it’s working for them
- January 4
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- “We identified with bands like Metallica because they came in with this punk rock energy. But back then the biggest songs were Love In An Elevator and Still Of The Night”: The unexpected rap metal hit that saved a band’s career and ushered in the 1990s
- “If you lived in LA, in the trenches, you could relate to it. And knowing Axl, I could relate to exactly where it was coming from”: The electrifying early Guns N’ Roses song written in a basement that signposted how huge they would become
- January 3
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- "If he had survived that period, he would be one of the biggest stars in rock now, making records with Bono and Bon Jovi": The 12-month struggle for the life of Phil Lynott
- “With strange chords and enigmatic lyrics, it fed the metal mainstream with some of its most prog-friendly material in years”: In the desperate moments before grunge, this British band offered an ambitious alternative direction
- “I was living on my own. Things had gone off the rails a bit, drinking too much”: It was in a weird time signature and their old singer struggled to play it, but this huge hit helped turn a 70s prog band into 80s pop stars
- “If anything makes me regret not pursuing more of an artistic career, it’s looking at Brian Eno”: Still, BJ Cole didn’t do too badly with David Gilmour, The Orb, Bill Nelson, Scott Walker and others
- January 2
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- “I spent four days arguing about what could be done with an orchestra.” The story of a Smashing Pumpkins classic, aided by The Who, the cast of Titanic and SpongeBob SquarePants
- "It felt nice to infiltrate things our way. We haven't gone begging to any ****er ever. People have always come round to our way of thinking." How Simon Cowell and a Christmas Number One helped turn a Scottish rock trio into household names
- "People say it's a masterpiece now but at the time, we all thought: 'Jeez, this could be the thing that finishes us!'" Steve Hogarth on creative risks, bad advice, and his first 30 years with Marillion
- "Van Halen were opening for us and they were killing us every night. But they made us a better band!" How Journey found Steve Perry and made Infinity, the album that set them on the road to superstardom
- Iron Maiden, Metallica, Rush, Bon Jovi and more: 26 things we're looking forward to in 2026
- "All of our relations, our uncles, dads, granddads, they've banged on about this place for years": What happened when Massive Wagons played the first rock shows at a historic venue in 40 years
- “Working with him would have been a dream. If I could go back in time, I know exactly how it would go”: Perturbator aka James Kent on why Vangelis’ music endures
- “I told Kurt Cobain that I was going to write a song that had more 'yeahs' in it than anything he’d written.” How a joke between R.E.M. and Nirvana's mercurial frontmen resulted in a 90s classic
- “Kate Bush gave me a copy of Aerial at a party. I knew it was a gentle, emotional record. She said, ‘Don’t fall asleep while listening!’” Simon Drake’s career as a magician was inspired by prog
- January 1
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- “I don’t think Janis was living a life with the inevitability of death. She was getting cleaner and stronger”: The turbulent story of how Janis Joplin tried and failed to get off the rock’n’roll rollercoaster
- "I'm not a punk rocker. I don't make punk music. I don't walk around calling myself punk." How Shania Twain, Christina Aguilera's songwriters and an iconic neck tie helped Avril Lavigne launch her career-defining song
- “We didn’t make music for radio. But I thought: ‘Why not try it this time?’”: Sampled by Michael Jackson and namechecked in The Simpsons – the surprise hit that transformed a washed-up 70s prog group into 80s superstars
- “Once James Hetfield said he liked it, that was it. He said that it kicked his ass”: Nineteen years ago, this US metal band released their sixth album. Today it sounds like a Master Of Puppets for the 21st century
- Radiohead, Pulp, Alice Cooper, Johnny Cash and Lana Del Rey: the surprising list of artist who made James Bond themes only to have them rejected
- "Really, the whole scene was very Spinal Tap. It was almost beyond parody": The true story of Hear 'n Aid, the heavy metal Band Aid
- "We'd stay up all night drinking, chasing girls, partying – and our pilot was with us. The next morning, he was flying the plane!" The rise, fall and rehabilitation of REO Speedwagon
- The 20 best prog reissues of 2025
