Annie Clark is officially one step ahead of us. We've always suspected as much, but this fact was confirmed the moment she emerged from hair and makeup for her inaugural Guitar World cover shoot holding a guitar...and wearing a dress that featured a print of a bikini body, just like the kind you'd find hanging in the window of a kitschy beach shop. [Read more]

“Benvenuto, bambini!” Roger Waters exclaims through his microphone to the line of children excitedly walking toward the stage inside Rome’s massive Stadio Olimpico. On this blistering afternoon in late July, the former Pink Floyd leader and his band are in the middle of the soundcheck for tonight’s show, at which they’ll perform Floyd’s classic 1979 double-album, The Wall, for 50,000 Italian fans. [Read more]

It’s hard to imagine a world without Slayer. But just two years ago that looked like a real possibility when the band was suddenly ripped in half. [Read more]

It’s rare that a band emerges and, with one inspired release, simultaneously launches and perfects a genre of music. Such is the singular case of Black Sabbath. [Read more]

We’ve been invited to Metallica's HQ to talk with Kirk Hammett about the 30th anniversary of their classic sophomore album, Ride the Lightning. [Read more]

The both started as cult heroes. Metallica's Kirk Hammett was a man of the people, and Tool's Adam Jones was a man of mystery. Join them as they compare notes on how they transformed their heavy metal into a worldwide religion... [Read more]

"Have you ever seen someone and the thought comes in your head that you just want to... kill 'em?” Coming from most any other human, this line of questioning might be surprising. But when the human in question is Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman, it’s par for the course. “But why would you do it? Why would I do it?” He continues, cracking open a second Corona. “I think about that more than I should.” [Read more]

2011 was well on the way to being one of the best years of Tony Iommi’s life. The guitarist was on a successful book tour to promote Iron Man, his revealing autobiography in which he talks about his life and his career with Black Sabbath.

At the same time, he was reuniting with the original Black Sabbath members—vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward—to write and record a new full-length album, the quartet’s first since 1978’s Never Say Die!

But celebration gave way to concern when Iommi discovered a lump in his groin. Doctors initially misdiagnosed the problem as nothing more than an infection, but when Iommi’s condition worsened, his doctor biopsied the mass. At a follow-up appointment, he told Iommi the result: We found lymphoma.

“Once I heard my doctor say that, my whole world changed,” Iommi says. “I thought, Bloody cancerous lymphoma? Well that’s it. I’ve had it.” [Read more]