Say what you want, but U2 are awesome. From the early days right until How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, U2 have remained a consistently cool rock band, something that many of their peers have struggled to achieve.

With 22 Grammy’s behind them, they have proven to be a band to be named for many decades to come. Yes, Bono can be slightly annoying, with his preachy messages. What we forget is that they’ve got more money they can spend, and yet they still care about us common folk. Yay for a conscience!

Although Bono and his sunglasses attract the most publicity, another side of U2 is equally important, that of The Edge.

Born David Howell Evans in Barking, Essex, in East London to Welsh parents, Garvin and Gwenda Evans. When he was just a year old, he and his family including his older brother Richard (Dik) and younger sister Gillian moved to Mahalide in County Dublin Dublun.

The Edge went to St. Andrew’s National School where he received training in guitar and piano and frequently performed with his older brother, Dik Evans. The Edge, Dik Evans, Adam Clayton and Bono answered an advertisement by Larry Mullen, Jr. to form a band.
This band would go through many different forms until in March 1978,U2 emerged. Dik Evans had left the band before the name change. U2 then began playing shows all around Ireland, and released Boy, their debut album, in 1980.

In 1981, The Edge came very close to quitting U2 for religious reasons but was luckily persuaded to stay. Him, Bono and Larry Mullen, Jr. started a side project called Shalom Tigers around this time. After his decision to remain with the band, The Edge wrote what was to become Sunday Bloody Sunday. The Edge married his high school sweetheart, Aislinn O’Sullivan on the 12th of July in 1983. They had three daughters together. They separated in 1990, and when Irish law allowed divorce, settled apart in 1996.

On the Zoo TV Tour, what Q magazine called “still the most spectacular rock tour staged by any band”; The Edge met Morleigh Steinberg, a dancer and choreographer. The couple began dating in 1993 and had a daughter in 1997 and a son in 1999. They were officially married on the 22nd of June in 2002.

As a guitarist, The Edge is known as having a trademark sound typified by understatement, a shimmering, chiming sound (in part, created with the VOX AC-30s) accomplished by the extensive use of digital reverb, delay effects and a focus on melody and texture.
To achieve an “Edge-like” sound, the digital delay’s delay is set to a dotted eight note (3/16 of a measure), and its “feedback” adjusted until the number of repeats is about 2 or 3.

The Edge’s guitar technique has been shaped by many different influences. His first guitar was an old acoustic guitar, with which his brother Dik Evans and he experimented. He said in 1982 of this early experimentation, “I suppose the first link in the chain was a visit to the local jumble sale where I purchased a guitar for a pound. That was my first instrument. It was an acoustic guitar and me and my elder brother Dik both played it, plonking away, all very rudimentary stuff, open chords and all that.”

The Edge’s guitar influence can be heard in bands such as Radiohead, Muse, Coldplay, Angels & Airwaves, progressive metal pioneers Dream Theater, and much of the indie and alternative scene, such as current acts Editors and Switchfoot.

If all the above was cool enough, in 2002 The Edge was given his very own Irish coin. He has had his face minted onto a coin currently in circulation. How awesome is that, I sure as hell wouldn’t mind my ugly mug on a coin forever.

Personally, whenever I think of Queen I always remember We Will Rock You. I know it’s because during my earlier years at school, it was always (ALWAYS) the theme song at interschool events. It wasn’t until I grew a little older that I learnt to enjoy Queen, now I can’t get enough. I blame my infantile behavior on the jocks. Perfect scapegoat!

Besides Freddie Mercury, who we all know of and dig. You can’t not like the guy. Well, his legacy at least. Brian May, the guitarist is occasionally overlooked, not often, but often enough. Here’s a little bio-piece on one of the most famous guys out there.

Brian May is a world-renowned guitarist and songwriter with four decades as a musician behind him. The many recordings of him, with performance and production credits, have sold over 100 million copies around the globe.

Some of May’s most well known tracks are ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘The Show Must Go On’, Who Wants To Live Forever’, ‘Save Me’, No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’ and ‘I Want It All’. Talk about having street cred to your name.  As a solo artist he has released Another World (1998) and Back To The light (1992) as well as scoring the film, Furia.

Born as Brian Harold May in Hampton, Richmond, May went to Hampton Grammar School and started his first band with vocalist Tim Staffell that was called 1984 (after the George Orwell novel of the same name). He graduated from the Hampton Grammar School with ten GCE Ordinary Levels and four Advanced Levels in Physics, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Additional Mathematics

May has often said that in the 1980’s he siuffered from sever depression and often-contemplated suicide. He believes that any drug use would have worsened his problems.
May went on to study Physics at Imperial College London, and graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons) degree and ARCS with Upper Second-Class Honours. May then went on to study for a Ph D degree again at the Imperial College London’s department of Physics and Mathematics and was halfway with his degree when Queen made it big. He has authored many scientific articles relating to phyics and coauthored the book, Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe.

Queen originally started in 1971 when May and drummer, Roger Taylor, who had been in bands together before decided to start another band with vocalist and piano player, Freddie Mercury. Bassist John Deacon joined Queen in 1972 and they signed to EMI Records. The first album, Queen, was released in 1973, a mixture of glam rock and hard rock.
Queen went on to release to 15 more studio albums as well as becoming pop culture icons. They not only released a huge amount of videos that are to this day still popular, but also influenced countless acts.  In July 2005, Guinness World Records announced that Queen had overtaken The Beatles to become the most successful albums act in UK chart history. They were not without their controversial aspects though, such as Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality, his reluctance to state that he had AIDs and their performances in Sun City, South Africa whilst Apartheid was still in power.

May has influenced many musicians from many generations. These include Def Leppoard, Shirley Bassey, Elton John, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and even controversial rapper Eminem. May has performed with many artists as well, these include Foo Fighters, Guns N’ Roses, Luciano Pavarotti, Robbie Williams, Cliff Richards and Diana Ross. He even played guitar for the opening of the 2002 Winter Olympics. May has also worked and scored for theater. Together with the other members of Queen, May set up the Mercury Phoenix Trust, named after Freddie Mercury. Together they have raised over eight million pounds.
Overall, no one can say that Brian May has not been a successful man. Not only was he a member of one of the most influential bands of the century, but he is also a pretty smart guy. In 2008 he finally graduated with his Ph D.

Not many bands have been as influential as Metallica, one just has to ask any heavy metal fan, or even just a music enthusiast to know that Metallica have been the reason for many kids wanting to be rock stars. From Simpson cameos and having an insane amount of tribute albums, Metallica really have proven their power.

Besides a tumultuous lineup change (resulting in the formation of Megadeth) and James Hetfield’s seemingly constant boozing, Kirk Hammett has remained one heck of a lead guitarist. So much so that Rolling Stone placed him at 11 in their list, The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time as well as having his own guitar range, the ESP Kirk Hammett (or just ESP KH).

Hammett was born at the St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco at about 3am on Sunday, the 18th of November in 1962 to a Filipino mother and an Irish American father. His mother worked for the U.S government while his father was a Merchant Marine. Kirk has an older brother, Rick and a sister named Tracy. When Hammett was just 11 years old he tried to play piano but quit after only three lessons because he disliked the teacher so much.

As a young child, Kirk showed a lot of interest in his brother, Rick’s large collection of guitars, Rickenbacker bass guitars and hard rock records such as Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, UFO, Led Zeppelin, Status Quo and Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix was in fact one of Hammett’s biggest influences.

Kirk started playing guitar at the age of fifteen, starting with a Montgomery Ward catalog special and no more than a shoe box with a four-inch speaker as an amplifier. Talk about a shoestring budget.

After playing a 1978 Fender Stratocaster, Kirk tried his hand at customizing his sound with different guitar parts, eventually settling for a 1974 Gibson Flying V. Hammett spent so much on equipment that he started working at Burger King to pay for a Marshall Amplifier

In 1982 Kirk Hammett formed a band called Exodus with friends Tom Hunting and Gary Holt. Exodus is widely known as one of the main pioneers of Thrash metal, especially in the Bay Area Thrash movement. Hammett played on a demo of Exodus’ in 1982.

In 1983, on the first of April, Hammett was offered the position of lead guitarist in Metallica, replacing Dave Mustaine. Kirk at first thought this was an April fool’s joke. After accepting he caught a flight to New York to begin recording with the band.

Although Hammett is primarily Metallica’s lead guitarist, he has also written and added riffs for Metallica tracks since the middle of the 1980’s, especially during the 1990’s Load and ReLoad period. One of the above mentioned riffs was used in Enter Sandman, one of Metallica’s most well-known and loved songs. Enter Sandman was the first single off Metallica’s self-titled album, also known as the Black Album, and was ranked by Rolling Stone at 399 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Kirk and his first wife settled for divorce at the end of 1990, during the recording of the Black Album. Hammett now lives with his second wife, Lani, in San Francisco. On the 29th of September in 2006 became the father to a baby boy called Angel Ray Keala Hammett.

Kirk Hammett has been behind some of the best Heavy Metal tracks of all-time. Personally, I don’t think there is anyone who can dispute the fact that he is one of the best guitarists to come out of the last century. The Grammy’s say it all!

We here at Guitarzzz.com are trying something new. On a somewhat regular basis, you can expect a short bio piece on a famous or infamous guitarist. Looking for the facts, a no frills lesson? This is where to come!

Jimmy Page, a name that invokes thoughts of epically progressive guitar riffs, ridiculous amounts of hard drugs and myth almost to the point of legend.

Page, founding member of famous rock and roll band Led Zeppelin and a member of The Yardbirds, was born James Patrick Page on the 9th of January 1944 in the north London suburb of Heston in Middlesex-Britain to an industrial personal manager and a doctor’s secretary.

Page began learning to play guitar at around the age of 12. His first electric guitar was a 1949 Gibson Les Paul. He was highly influenced by the guitarists of the rockabilly genre, James Burton and Scotty Moore, both who recorded with The King, Elvis Presley, as well as Johnny Day, guitarist for The Everly Brothers. Page went on to be influenced by the blues sounds of B.B. King and Elmore James.

After Page graduated from school, with the aim in mind to work as a lab assitant, he started playing for the Beat poet, Royston Ellis, and then went on to join his first band Red E Lewis and The Red Caps. The first time he toured was with The Crusaders, he also released a single in 1982, “The Road To Love.”
Page disliked the touring life so much he left it and went to Sutton Art College to focus on painting and occasionally playing with fellow students.

One evening Page was spotted by John Gibb of The Silhouettes who asked him to feature as a session musician on singles for EMI. It was only when Mike Leaner from Decca Records asked Page to record that he agreed.

Page became a fulltime session musician and grew from strength to strength. His friendship with other guitar legend, Eric Clapton, whom he met in the days of art school, also grew. Page’s success as a session musician was so wide that it is often remarked that he must have appeared on 60% of all rock music from the 60’s.

After declining the chance to replace his friend Clapton as the guitarist for The Yardbirds, Page went on to experiment as a session musician. After being once again asked to be a member of The Yardbirds, Page first tried his hand at bass and then moved on to twin lead guitar player with friend, Jeff Beck. The Yardbirds broke up relatively soon after and despite the departure of Jim McCarty and Keith Relf in 1968, Page wanted to carry on as The New Yardbirds. They would become what we know as Led Zeppelin.

Due to Page’s great experience in the studio as a session musician and from his days with The Yardbirds, helped ensure Led Zeppelin’s critical success in the 1970s. His work as a composer, producer and guitarist for the band was highly important. He was also one of the main motivating forces behind the rock sound of that age with his trademark Gibson Led Paul guitar and Marshall amplification. His use of distorted fuzz guitar, eastern scales, slide guitar, acoustic guitar and experimental recording methods made Led Zeppelin a first of its kind. Jimmy also experimented with unusual playing styles such as his bow technique as well as the use of a theremin.

After Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980, Page attempted to form a supergroup, XYZ, with former Yes members. Unfortunately, the band never came to anything.
Page was then asked to compose the soundtrack to Death Wish II by Michael Winner. Page has gone on to perform at many charity events as well as being the main force behind the remastering of Led Zeppelin’s older records.

Page has won numerous awards in his life, from being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, not once, but twice. In 2001 he was voted London’s greatest guitarist in Total Guitar magazine’s poll of the greatest 12 British guitarists and in 2003, Rolling Stone magazine named him number nine on their list of the “100 greatest guitarists of all time”.

Richard Wright, keyboard player and founding member of the legendary psychedelic prog rock band, Pink Floyd has died of an unknown cancer at the age of 65 in his house in England, said a spokesperson. His family has asked that details surrounding his death, such as the cancer he suffered from, be kept a private matter.

Even though Wright was never viewed as having a high public profile such other key members of the band like the two leaders who were often head-to-head, singer-bassist Roger Waters and singer-guitarist David Gilmour or the founding singer-guitarist Syd Barrett, he is well known as having written or at least co-written many of the bands most famous songs, as well as contributing fundamental section to Pink Floyd’s dreamlike sound.

Wright went on to release to highly acclaimed solo albums, Wet Dreams and also Broken China. Both of these albums were written and performed by Wright and went on to showcase his talent at writing intricate progressive rock pieces as well as ethereal, dreamlike ambient works. He also played with many other musicians and bands, such as the band Zee and with fellow band mate David Gilmour.

Richard Wright was also an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist, having learnt to play the organ, piano, synthesizer, keyboards, trombone, guitar, harpsichord, cello, saxophone, farfisa, vibraphone and mellotron as well as being a talented vocalist.

Wright’s surviving family is his first wife, Juliette Gale, his second, Franka and his third wife Millie, after whom Broken China is dedicated. His two children from his first marriage also survive Wright.

Longtime friend and band mate, David Gilmour has told the public, “In my view, all the greatest Pink Floyd moments are the ones where he is in full flow. No-one can replace Richard Wright – he was my musical partner and my friend.”

Have you heard of this Romeo Rose? This is absolutely ABSURD. I remember reading his gear setup over a year ago on MySpace. He looked like a Stevie Ray Vaughan fan as he dresses like him, his gear setup would lead you to believe that he is after the Stevie Ray Vaughan tone, he “plays” the blues *rolls eyes* and I also think he is from Texas!?

Is this ridiculous or what? *sniff* I smell jealousy. I hate to even show the video on my blog here. but take a look at it. Perhaps send him some stfu mail if you feel that urge.

Mark Goffeney is a guitarist who was born with no arms. The first video I saw of him was his street performance of “Drift Away” (by the Doobie Brothers). I was truly inspired by him. It was just him in the middle of the street with his shoes off playing guitar while a crowd eased in to listen. Every once in a while we encounter moments like these that makes us think about how well we got it. And it’s amazing how his “disability” does not hold him back. He doesn’t think about his lack of arms. He’s just plays his music and it’s obvious he loves it.

Here he is with his band “Big Toe”. Their first official video We are The Same

I was introduced to Andy Mckee about 1 year ago by a friend on MySpace. Usually when someone suggests an artist for me to listen to, I’m kinda like “meh” before even checking them out. But I’m really glad I listened to this guy! I’ve been a fan ever since. His instrument of choice is of course, an acoustic guitar. And boy does he play it well.

Rylynn has to be one of the prettiest instrumentals I’ve heard in a long time. I believe this song was written for a friend of his that died, OR for his friends daughter that died. I’m really not sure which. Maybe someone can clear it up.

Open/Download Rylynn Guitar Tab