NINETEEN ’98
Soundgarden bites the dust as grunge shifts to the
bargain bins, James Hetfield meets up with his favorite
band, Gov’t Mule, and Guitar World readers submit
their votes for the 100 Greatest Solos of All Time.
Dear Guitar World,
I am a computer systems analyst. I’m in a union with 500 other computer hackers on a national and international level. Our union is seven–million strong, worldwide. If an apology is not given to Yngwie J. Malmsteen regarding your review of Facing the Animal, we will launch a worldwide computer attack on your fail safe systems, starting with your electricity. You have until April 5, 1998, to do this, or face our all–out war against your magazine and company.
—Christopher L. Osborne
P.S. Vengeance will be ours.
JANUARY In this Led Zeppelin extravaganza, Jimmy Page expounds on the new BBC Sessions, his group’s first authorized release of live material in more than two decades. “The BBC sessions show in graphic detail just how organic the group was. Led
Zeppelin was really moving the music all the time.”
COVER STORIES BY BRAD TOLINSKI; PHOTO BY CHRIS WALTERS
FEBRUARY Van Halen, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Kiss, Jeff Beck, Joe Satriani and others give GW the inside skinny on their plans for the coming year.
COVER STORIES BY VARIOUS; PHOTOS BY VARIOUS
MARCH It’s been three years since the last Van Halen album, and much has changed. Eddie talks about Van Halen III and the band’s third frontman, Gary Cherone.
COVER STORY BY VIC GARBARINI; PHOTO BY NATNANIEL WELCN
APRIL The 1998 Readers Poll results are in, and Guitar World celebrates by catching up with Radiohead (Best Alternative Album), Eddie Van Halen (#4 Best Hard Rock/Metal Guitarist), Dimebag Darrell (Best Hard Rock/Metal Guitarist), Days of the New (Best New Talent), Pearl Jam (#5 Worst Band) and others.
COVER STORIES BY VARIOUS; PHOTOS BY VARIOUS
MAY An exclusive interview with Eric Clapton about his latest masterpiece, Pilgrim.
COVER STORY BY BRAD TOLINSKI AND HAROLD STEINBLATT
PHOTO BY ALBERT WATSON
JUNE An open discussion with Jimmy Page detailing his latest collaboration with Robert Plant, Walking into Clarksdale.
COVER STORY BY ALAN 01 PERNA; PHOTO BY ROSS HALFIN
JULY With alternative dead and buried, Billy Corgan smashes into the future with the Smashing Pumpkins’ latest effort, Adore.
COVER STORY BY BRAD TOLINSKI; PHOTO BY PAUL ELLEDGE
1998 TOTAL ISSUES: 12
AUGUST The complete story behind Ozzy Osbourne, rock’s foremost madman. “The whole hippie thing was still happening around that time, and for us, that was bullshit. We lived in a dreary, polluted, dismal town in Birmingham, England, and we were angry about it—and that was reflected in our music.”
COVER STORY BY JEFF KITTS; PHOTO BY MICHAEL SEXTON
SEPTEMBER We asked and our beloved readers responded: Presenting the 100 greatest guitar solos ever, and the stories behind them. The top five: “Stairway to Heaven,” “Eruption,” “Free Bird,”
“Comfortably Numb” and Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.”
COVER STORY BY VARIOUS; PHOTO BY VARIOUS
OCTOBER With their first recording together in more than 18 years, a reunited Kiss prepare to unleash Psycho Circus upon a waiting world.
COVER STORY BY ALAN DI PERNA; PHOTOS BY MICHAEL SEXTON
NOVEMBER Marilyn Manson’s right-hand man deals the inside dope on the recording of Mechanical Animals.
COVER STORY BY ALAN DI PERNA; PHOTO BY ALBERT SANCHEZ
DECEMBER James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett give Guitar World a sneak preview of their upcoming album of covers.
COVER STORY BY JEFF KITTS; PHOTO BY MICHAEL SEXTON
JAN. 1998
VOL. 19 / NO. 1
Jimmy Page
As Led Zeppelin celebrates the release of its BBC Sessions collection, founder Jimmy Page discusses his Yardbirds days and how serving as Zeppelin’s producer ensured studio harmony.
GUITAR WORLD Led Zeppelin was one of the first bands to break away from the more casual hippie look of the Sixties and adopt a more glamorous personae. Did playing bigger venues and arenas demand a more stylized presentation?
JIMMY PAGE I considered myself quite a dandy in those days, so what I wore onstage was simply an extension of what I was wearing off stage. It wasn’t anything like, “Oh, we’re playing an arena so we must go out and buy ourselves nice new suits.”
GW Before you joined Led Zeppelin you were the lead guitarist in the Yardbirds, and before that you were one of England’s leading session guitarists. What impact did those experiences have on your work with Zeppelin? PAGE They were very valuable. I learned an incredible amount of discipline. When I was initially brought in to play sessions, I was just a rock musician who couldn’t even really read music, but because I was one of the only guitarists on the scene, they started giving me all kinds of work. Eventually, I learned how to read charts and started playing on things you’d never expect, like film scores and jingles. I even played some jazz, which was never my forte. But having to vamp behind people like Tubby Hayes, who was a big jazz saxophonist in England, or play on several of Burt Bacharach’s pop sessions gave me a fantastic vision and insight into chords.
Being a session player, however, wasn’t really me—it wasn’t rock and roll. Eventually, it became very confining, and I was looking to get out. In 1966, I got this offer to join the Yardbirds. Jeff Beck and I were friends, and he always wanted me to be part of the group. We talked about it and thought we could do some interesting things with two guitars. After I joined, I retired from session work overnight.
Once I got on the guitar with Jeff, I started really expressing myself. Then, after Jeff left, I stayed with the band and just kept stretching and stretching. The Yardbirds had several songs that called for lengthy improvisations, like “I’m a Man” and “Smokestack Lightning,” and I took full advantage of them to develop a bunch of new ideas.
After the Yardbirds fell apart and it came time to create Zeppelin, I had all those ideas as a textbook to work from. And as it was stuff I developed on my own while I was in the band, it was fair game for me to use.
So both things—the studio work and the experience in the Yardbirds—were really important. They both set the scene for Zeppelin. The studio gave me discipline and an incredible working knowledge of many kinds of music, and the Yardbirds gave me time to develop my ideas. GW What was your original concept for Zeppelin?
PAGE Ultimately, I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses—a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade.
GW Right from the beginning you were able to translate the extreme dynamism of Led Zeppelin’s live act into a dynamic studio recording: What was your secret?
PAGE That is interesting, isn’t it? One usually thinks of a dynamic album being translated into a dynamic live performance, but in the early days, it was the other way around for us.
I think part of the key was ambient miking. I remember playing on some rock sessions, and you’d find that the drummer would be put into this little box-like area with a low ceiling, where he’d thrash away. And nothing would be coming out of the drums. It would sound like he was hitting packing boxes because all the ambience and all the tuning was lost. From observing enough of those sessions, I knew straight away that drums should be miked like a proper acoustic instrument in a good acoustic environment.
When I started producing the first Zeppelin album, I knew the drums had to sound good because they were going to be the backbone of the band. So I worked hard on microphone placement. But then again, you see, when you have someone who is as powerful as John Bonham going for you, the battle is all but sold!
GW How did the four members of Zeppelin interact on a personal level? Was everything as smooth internally as it appeared to be?
PAGE I think the atmosphere in Led Zeppelin was always an encouraging one. We all wanted to see the music get better. And part of the reason things ran smoothly is that I had the last decision on everything. I was the producer, so there weren’t going to be any fights.
The atmosphere was always very professional. I was meticulous with my studio notes, and everybody knew that they would get proper credit, so everything was fine.
Another key: we all lived in different parts of the country, so when we came off the road we didn’t really see each other. I think that helped. We really only socialized when we were on the road. We all really came to value our family lives, especially after being on the road so much, which is how it should be. It helped create a balance in our lives. Our families helped keep us sane. 
FEBRUARY / VOL. 19 / NO.2
KIM THAYIL
The Soundgarden guitarist comments on what finally caused the once-great Seattle rock outfit to call it quits after 12 long years.
ProFile
sound of silence
Ten months ago, one of Souttle’s great rock bands abruptty and mysteriously called It quits. In this exclusive Interview, guitarist Kim Theyll roveals the less-than-explosive truth: Soundgarden went out with a whimper, not with a bang.
by Jeff Gilbert
GUITAR WORLD Who was the first member of Soundgarden to suggest breaking up?
KIM THAYIL It wouldn’t have mattered who brought it up. It was pretty obvious from everybody’s general attitude over the course of the previous half year that there was some dissatisfaction.
GW Where did that dissatisfaction come from?
THAYIL From everywhere dissatisfaction arises in a relationship or working situation. We were together 12 years. That’s a long time.
GW Were the differences primarily personal or creative?
THAYIL It’s not that clear cut. There were so many factors. Everyone in the band had their homes, their families, friends, girlfriends and pets to deal with...
GW It’s been said that with the breakup of Soundgarden came the death of grunge. Which do you feel more guilty about—starting it, or ending it?
THAYIL Grunge died way before we broke up. I don’t know when grunge came to be born. As a convenient reference point, grunge might have existed in terms of marketing. It was convenient for retail record stores so that they’d know where to file things. Grunge was a way to sell magazines, not a way to sell music. And I’m not simply saying this to criticize Guitar World—I’m saying this to criticize all publications. To answer your question, I don’t feel guilt, I feel shame for having to be associated with someone else’s starting of grunge, and having to share that label.
GW Would you say Soundgarden went out with a whimper instead of a bang?
THAYIL I felt we went out at the point of the band’s bang, but the way we went out may have been a quiet whimper. There really isn’t a good story behind our breakup. It was a common-sense thing. See, rock and roll is not comprised of company men, or religious zealots or genuflecting parishioners...
GW That could be argued.
60 Minutes with Joan Jett
One of Guitar World’s most popular departements through the late Nineties and 2004 was 60 Minutes, where we asked famous rockers to compile a list of the tracks they would pick if they were compiling a 60-minute mix tape. In this segment from February 1998, Joan Jett lists the hour of music that rocks her world:
Black Sabbath “Iron Man”
T.Rex “Jeepster”
The Sweet “Ballroom Blitz”
The Clash “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.”
Gary Glitter “Do You Wanna
Touch Me (Oh Yeah!)”
David Bowie “Suffragette City”
Sex Pistols “Anarchy in the U.K.”
The Ramones “I Wanna Be Sedated”
The Rolling Stones “Midnight Rambler”
Bikini Kill “Rebel Girl”/“New Radio”
L7 “Pretend We’re Dead”
APRIL / Vol. 19 / No. 4
JAMES HETFIELD MEETS GOV’T MULE
Warren Haynes and Allen Woody come face to face with their biggest fan, Metallica’s James Hetfield.
JAMES HETFIELD I really like your lyrics a lot. There’s a lot of sarcasm, and a lot of rich-versus-poor imagery.
WARREN HAYNES Well, I like to think of it more as “us and them,” us being people who want to help each other and them being people who only want to help themselves. Maybe when I was a kid I had it out for all rich people, but now I know that there are as many good rich people out as there are bad poor people.
HETFIELD But there’s a definite underdog vibe to your lyrics that I really dig.
HAYNES There is, and there’s a lot of social commentary, but it’s all tongue-in-cheek. None of it’s meant to be taken too seriously.
GW Metallica has also always championed the underdog.
HETFIELD Yeah, but it’s all so vague that it could mean anything to anyone. I know what it means to me, but it changes all the time, so I’d rather not put ideas in people’s heads. I’d rather people figure it out for themselves. HAYNES Right, I’ve found it’s better for people to decide for themselves because they’ll come up with grandiose visions that relate to their own lives, and which you could never match.
You guys have been spreading the writing credits around a bit. I notice Jason [Newsted] had one on ReLoad.
HETFIELD Yeah, Jason finally got in there. When we put a song together, everyone contributes, but that’s not really writing to us. Now we’re letting everyone play the way they play, instead of dictating everything. I guess that’s especially true of Jason.
ALLEN WOODY Man, he’s a slamming bass player.
HETFIELD Yeah, and he’s gotten so much better on this record. I was just blown away.
Crack Addicts
When we printed this
magnificent Storm
Thorgerson Pink Floyd
creation in our February 1998
issue, readers responded in
droves, asking where they
could get their hands on a
photo. We answered those
prayers in the June issue,
which contained a special
known as “Back Catalogue”
(originally used as a U.K.
promotion for the band’s 1995
box set, Box 1975-1988). The
flip-side, on the other hand,
was the epitome of rock
and roll ugliness: corpse-
like Marilyn Manson and
Twiggy Ramirez wrapped in
tourniquet tubing.
SEPT. 1998
VOL. 19 / NO.9
The 100 Greatest Solos of All Time
From “Stairway to Heaven” (#1) to “Wanted Dead or Alive” (#100): Guitar World readers vote for the greatest leads in rock history. 200 . GUITAR WORLD
To the rock guitarist, the solo is many things—the electric orgasm, the essence of all existence, the best way to impress sleek women. Not only do we love to play solos, we love to hear ’em. And the best solos thrill us beyond measure.
With that in mind, Guitar World asked its readers to compile a list of their five favorite guitar solos on a postcard and mail it in to our offices. The idea was that we would tabulate the responses and come up with a master list of the 100 greatest solos. Nice idea, huh? Well, you don’t know the half of it. The cards came. And they kept coming. They came until we had to pack up and find offices big enough to accommodate the flood of cards bearing your well-reasoned votes for the greatest solos of all time. We counted until our arms ached, until we put together the list of solos, with some very cool commentary, presented over the following pages.
So, how did you vote? Ultimately, only one pattern emerged: The guitar heroes of yesterday remain the guitar heroes of today. And the great solos of rock’s heyday in the Seventies are loved by the fans who heard them when they were new, and loved by the fans of today.
All this is as it should be, for we asked for the greatest solos. Greatness can be truly applied only to things that have withstood the test of time. As you’ll soon see, GW’s readers intuitively understood this essential provision when they voted. This random sampling from the top 100 screams for itself.
i) “Stairway to Heaven”
Soloist: Jimmy Page
Album: Led Zeppelin—Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
2) “Eruption”
Soloist: Edward Van Halen
Album: Van Halen—Van Halen (1978)
3) “Free Bird”
Soloists: Allen Collins, Gary Rossington
Album: Lynyrd Skynyrd—pronounced leh-nerd skin-rterd (1973)
4) “Comfortably Numb”
Soloist: David Gilmour
Album: Pink Floyd—The Wall (1979)
5) “All Along the Watchtower”
Soloist: Jimi Hendrix
Album: The Jimi Hendrix Experience—Electric Ladyland (1968)
6) “November Rain” Slash
9) “Crazy Train” Randy Rhoads
12) “Johnny B. Goode” Chuck Berry
14) “Layla” Eric Clapton & Duane Allman
19) “Floods” Dimebag Darrell
22) “Sultans of Swing” Mark Knopfler
24) “Fade to Black” Kirk Hammett
29) “For the Love of God” Steve Vai
33) “The Thrill Is Gone” B.B. King
36) “Black Star” Yngwie Malmsteen
38) “Whole Lotta Love” Jimmy Page
41) “Brighton Rock” Brian May
44) “Alive” Mike McCready
45) “Light My Fire” Robby Kieger
48) “Sympathy for the Devil”
Keith Richards
So) “Shock Me” Ace Frehley
53) “Too Rolling Stoned” Robin Trower
56) “War Pigs” Tony Iommi
60) “Zoot Allures” Frank Zappa
63) “Scar Tissue” John Frusciante
68) “Starship Trooper” Steve Howe
76) “Cinnamon Girl” Neil Young
78) “Truckin’ ” Jerry Garcia
83) “Scuttle Buttin’ ”
Stevie Ray Vaughan
88) “Kid Charlemagne” Larry Carlton
94) “Mr. Scary” George Lynch
97) “Beyond the Realms of Death”
Glenn Tipton
99) “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” Jeff Beck
100) “Wanted Dead or Alive” Richie Sambora