Category Archives: The Player’s Room

By Elysse Miller I feel fortunate to have grown up during the punk and industrial heyday. One of the pillars of punk, Bad Religion, recently embarked on a new tour that started in Ventura, California. I watched in admiration as these legends played for hours, spanning their entire catalog and hitting their fans with the…

By Jay Hale If one had to list what were the most criminally underrated albums of the 90s, King’s X’s Dogman would be high on the list. Whether due to the changing tides of music at the time, the advent of grunge, the ripple effect of the death of glam metal, etc, it slipped under…

Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine changed the path of metal rhythm guitar: the kinds of chords and riffs, the attack and aggression of the picking style, and the crunch and bite of the tone itself. For many years – until he developed his signature Dave Mustaine LW-MUST Livewire pickups with us – Dave used the JB and…

  By Jay Hale Adrian Galysh is seemingly one of the busiest guitarists in the Los Angeles area.  Followers of his social media streams get regular notifications of gigs at the legendary Baked Potato and guest spots at Hollywood’s Ultimate Jam Night, as well as for sets he plays at local wineries and aeronautic events.

We at Seymour Duncan would like to show our support for our friend Laith Al-Saadi, who has made it into the top four of The Voice. And we want him to win. Laith utterly rips on guitar, and his love of the instrument comes through in every note he plays. His voice is incredibly soulful…

If you play metal bass, you owe a debt of gratitude and maybe a pint of Trooper beer to Steve Harris. Steve is credited with creating the infamous ‘gallop’ rhythm used throughout metal, and even if his contributions started and ended there, he’d deserve a place in the history books. But he’s done so much…

By Martina Fasano Gus G has been very busy lately, and that’s just how he likes it. With credits to his name like Ozzy Osbourne, Firewind, Nightrage and Arch Enemy, Gus G is no stranger to the higher profile names in the heavy metal arena. His virtuosic abilities and dedication to his craft is apparent…

By Jon Moody You did it, you finally did it! You booked recording time in a studio, filled out all the pre-production forms and possibly even sent in a deposit (if required) and your album is getting recorded. Or, maybe you just finally confirmed a date when you’re going into a friend’s basement to lay…

By Martina Fasano Whether it’s with Sanctuary, Nevermore, through his solo work, or most recently with Arch Enemy, Jeff Loomis has developed the reputation of being on of metal’s elite guitar players. His column in Guitar World magazine, “Merchant of Menace” provided a great many shredders with the tools they needed to try and emulate…

By Martina Fasano I first met Kimberly Freeman very briefly at the NAMM show, just after she signed some autographs together with the members of Doll Skin and rock legend Lita Ford. Everyone around (fans and industry types alike) was absolutely astounded at how fan-friendly she was: handing out necklaces to fans that had waited…