Latest articles by Matt Frost
How Train went from nearly splitting to proving their label wrong with smash hit Hey, Soul Sister
Co-writer Espen Lind on how he got the ukulele back into the charts – after saving the song with it
"People say, ‘Oh, Bring It On Home is stolen’. Well, there’s only a little bit in the song that relates to anything that had gone before it, just the end”: Jimmy Page and the story of Led Zeppelin's Bring It On Home
"I remember we did vocal overdubs in an eight-track studio in Vancouver where they didn’t even have proper headphones. Can you imagine that?"
“That was just the way it was at that point because Ahmet Ertegun was more or less in love with Eric. He thought Eric should be the frontman”: Cream and the trouble with Strange Brew
The classic opener to Disraeli Gears was never a favourite of Cream's members, and this is why
"If we do this correctly, I think this could be one of the best blues songs ever!": How Joe Bonamassa and Kevin Shirley took an obscure Tim Curry track to a whole new level
"When I first heard it, I was really stricken by the guitar playing, and I was really taken by the whole vibe of it"
“I had enough money for one last demo and sent it off to 24 companies, then figured I’d sit back and wait for the rejection letters": How Tom Scholz's years of dogged determination and intricate guitar tracking paid off for Boston and More Than A Feeling
“Epic flat-out rejected it and sent me an insulting letter!”
“It’s not about suicide, although I can see how people can think that, but that’s not where it’s at": Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser on why Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don't Fear) The Reaper is unlike anything else he's made
“It was one of those things that just sort of fell off my fingers”
"What we need is a song that is just really simple that everyone can sing": Paul Rodgers on the mission statement and magical musical combination that fuelled Free classic All Right Now
"I do think Koss’s sound was a big part of it"
“It was the tune that changed everything” for Noel Gallagher and Oasis, with his greatest guitar solo – but it turns out that Live Forever got a serious guitar edit in the control room
"It was essentially the same solo that’s on the finished version Noel always plays live, but when it went high on the second half all I could think of was Slash in leather kecks with a wind machine on the Grand Canyon"
“It was just another riff, like Into The Fire. We didn’t make a big deal out of it and it wasn’t being considered as a track for the album": Ian Gillan on the unlikely success story of writing and recording Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water
"The downdraft from the mountains caused the smoke to blow across Lake Geneva, like a film set or dry ice on a stage show. At this point, Roger wrote the words ‘smoke on the water’ on a napkin”
“I know Pagey made me mix the outro section half a dozen times: ‘Not enough of me, dear boy! Not enough of me, make me louder!’” – Andy Johns on the challenges of engineering Led Zeppelin's Rock And Roll
In 2011 the acclaimed engineer revealed some of the realities behind making Led Zeppelin IV: "John’s got his hi-hat nearly all the way open and that was bleeding all over the place"
“There were so many demos that sounded like major songs, but that one was near the top of the list": The making of the 1995 Radiohead classic that became one of their all-time greatest anthems
Producer John Leckie: "It sounded instantly like a big track"
"Phil picked up my second guitar and went up to the microphone and just started singing all these silly songs" – Eric Bell on the unlikely success story of Thin Lizzy's version of Whisky In The Jar
"As the taxi driver's talking to me, I suddenly made a riff in my imagination"
Engineer Andy Johns on recording and mastering Led Zep IV: “I put the tape on and the first song goes by and sounds bloody awful. Then the second one comes along and that’s really horrid, too... Pagey should’ve fired me at that point"
"Pagey was going on about seeing ghosts on the stairs and we were like, ‘Oh yeah right, Jimmy!’"
"I said, ‘Well, it’ll just be a back-up song in case some other things don’t work out’" – How Robbie Robertson wrote The Band's classic song, The Weight
"I sat the guitar on my lap and I was kind of bent over it and I looked inside the sound hole on the guitar and it said, Nazareth, Pennsylvania"
Bassist Bruce Foxton on the story of The Jam's That's Entertainment: “It was a bit of a departure for us, because it was acoustic”
The birth and recording of a British classic
The story of Wild World: "I don’t think that either Cat Stevens or Alun Davies would have been the same without the other. They were a complete fit”
Tea For The Tillerman producer and former Yardbirds bassist Paul Samwell-Smith on the recording of an acoustic classic
“Phil Spector would whisper, ‘You better not f*** up’”: The story of the Ramones' recording of Baby I Love You
Legendary keys player Barry Goldberg on the sessions that spawned the band's biggest UK hit
Producer John Leckie looks back on recording The Stone Roses classic I Am The Resurrection: “I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t think I’d still be talking about it years later!”
“I’m sure the backing track was done in one go”
“It was an exceptionally long time to spend on one song” – the co-writer and guitarist on Roy Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman tell the story of a classic song
Insight from co-writer Bill Dees and guitarist Wayne Moss on Orbison's greatest hit
"David Bowie said, ‘Have you got anything?’ Then I remembered these chords”: Ricky Gardiner on co-writing Iggy Pop's The Passenger
“Iggy recorded it on his mono battery cassette player with me playing it unplugged on the Strat"
Gregg Rollie on the recording of Santana's Abraxas and the classic instrumental Samba Pa Ti: "We put things on there that nobody would do. We experimented and had hit songs as well!”
The insider perspective on Carlos in peak form: "His headphones actually ended up on the ground. He was so engrossed in what he was playing and we only stopped it when he finally lost it"
“I remember I was at an awards ceremony and I actually heard Tony Iommi say it was his favourite riff ever" – Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson tell the story of Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak
“Jailbreak was actually going to be the beginning of the concept album”
"My Tele was on just about every track I did with The Smiths" – John Porter talks producing Johnny Marr on Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
The crafting of an indie classic
Leslie West tells the the story of Mountain's Mississippi Queen: "If only every song was that easy, man!"
In 2011 the late guitar icon offered the inside perspective on his signature song
Smoke On The Water at 50: The story of Deep Purple Mk II and the most famous guitar riff of all time
Between 1969 and 1973, Deep Purple’s MkII incarnation took on the world then tore itself apart. This is the story of the axe fights, smashed Strats, neo-classical solos and power struggles behind British rock’s most dysfunctional family