Matt Parker

Liverpool, Manchester

Writer at Freelance

Features Editor at GuitarWorld

Words for @GuitarWorld / @MusicRadar/ @ElectronicMagUK / @ProgMagazineUK / @TotalGuitar. Run @CreativeMoneyUK. Views own/stolen and re-worded.

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Articles

“Everyone who met him will carry Chris’ enthusiasm and love for music of all kinds. It was impossible not to be affected by it”: Chris Bird, Guitar World Lessons Editor and former Total Guitar Editor, has died aged 48

4 weeks ago | guitarworld.com | Matt Owen |Matt Parker |Michael Astley-Brown

Guitar World is sad to announce the loss of Chris Bird, our friend and colleague, who passed away earlier this week, following his cancer diagnosis in 2024. A pillar of Future’s music-making titles for just shy of two decades, Chris spent the last 22 years lending his knowledge, personality, support and passion for guitar playing for his job to create lessons, tuitions, and content for Guitar World and Total Guitar.
“Alternative metal reimagined for solo acoustic? The results are quite mesmerizing”: April 2025 Guitar World Editors' Picks

1 month ago | guitarworld.com | Janelle Borg |Matt Owen |Matt Parker |Jackson Maxwell

Hello there, and a very warm welcome to Guitar World editors’ picks – our monthly guide to the guitar tracks that have captured the attentions of our editors over the past four weeks or so. With the aid of our Spotify playlist below, we’ve rounded up all our favorite new releases from the month of April, and put them under the microscope to wax lyrical on the playing, tones, and songwriting that have set our six-string senses a-tingling.
“The main acoustic is a $100 Fender - the strings were super-old and dusty. We hate new strings!” Meet Great Grandpa, the unpredictable indie rockers making epic anthems with cheap acoustics - and recording guitars like a Queens of the Stone Age drummer |

2 months ago | guitarworld.com | Matt Parker

Great Grandpa is a band full of surprises. They’re an indie rock group from Seattle, with a Berklee grad guitarist/producer in their midst, yet you’ll hear no ironed-out shred or impenetrable prog riffs. Their songs are full of lush left-turns, sliding transitions and melodic complexity, but their chief songwriter has had no formal training.
“The main acoustic is a $100 Fender - the strings were super-old and dusty. We hate new strings!” Meet Great Grandpa, the unpredictable indie rockers making epic anthems with cheap acoustics - and recording guitars like a Queens of the Stone Age drummer |

2 months ago | flipboard.com | Matt Parker

NowWhat to eat at the Boston-area James Beard finalist restaurantsSteph and Deehan here. We wanted to know what made our Boston-area James Beard finalists stand out. So we stopped by before these spots started …1 hour agoHow Contracting Work Became a Race to the BottomBen Whelan is not the kind of carpenter to wax poetic about the joys of framing a wall or redoing a roof.
“It’s always in the back of your mind saying, what can we improve on? What would I do? What would I dream of in an amp?” How Clapton collaborator and session great Nathan East is teaming-up with Laney on a signature amp unlike any other

2 months ago | guitarworld.com | Matt Parker

As one of the most-recorded bassists of all time – working across more than 2,000 sessions with the likes of George Harrison Stevie Wonder, and longtime collaborator Eric Clapton – Nathan East has a clear idea of what he needs from his gear.
“I used to give myself a hard time about imperfections - the challenge now is finding out what makes it human”: Guitarists need to change their approach in the face of AI. Just ask Charlie Cunningham, the acoustic virtuoso fusing Meshuggah and fingerstyle

Mar 19, 2025 | guitarworld.com | Matt Parker

In the past you had to be able to play to create any kind of music – but the arrival of AI has overturned that completely. Now you can go from a standing-start to streaming audio without touching an instrument or performing a note. So once you take away the mechanics of music creation, what’s left? UK guitarist and songwriter Charlie Cunningham is not your typical AI protestor.
“I used to give myself a hard time about imperfections - the challenge now is finding out what makes it human”: Guitarists need to change their approach in the face of AI. Just ask Charlie Cunningham, the acoustic virtuoso fusing Meshuggah and fingerstyle

Mar 19, 2025 | flipboard.com | Matt Parker

16 hours agoJulien Baker and Torres "Who needs excellence when you've got charisma?" Julien Baker quipped at Wednesday's SXSW performance with Torres. The pair both oozed charm and exuded greatness at their inaugural festival set, offering a sneak peek at their forthcoming album, Send A Prayer My Way. The duo's …
“There’s a tradition in country music where an older musician - in order to give respect to a younger musician - would give them his guitar. Dad gave Bob Dylan one of his guitars”: Rosanne Cash on her father’s six-string salute to Dylan | Guitar World

Feb 6, 2025 | guitarworld.com | Matt Parker

Country icon Rosanne Cash is interviewed in the new issue of Guitarist and discusses her involvement in “the family business”, alongside the release of two new Gibson signature guitars, based on her father Johnny Cash’s SJ-200 and her own J-185. Amid the discussion, she describes her father’s contrasting attitude to guitars and guitarists – pointing to the ready accessibility they had as children to even his most valuable instruments and his honoring of Bob Dylan as evidence of his thinking.
“That’s 15 less than I’m used to….” ZZ Top’s Elwood Francis was saddled with his 17-string bass after a joke appearance went viral - now he’s experimenting with a 2-string build | Guitar World

Jan 31, 2025 | guitarworld.com | Matt Parker

ZZ Top bassist Elwood Francis has posted an update, introducing the world to his new two-string bass. Francis was formerly the band’s guitar tech: the man tasked with maintaining their fuzzy guitars (“I hated dealing with keeping the fur clean – we got little brushes for it!” he recently told GW) and keeping one of rock’s most amusing guitar collections in operable shape.
“I gave him my Les Paul to use, which, just by him holding it, increased its value by like a million dollars”: In 1992, Steve Lukather was still getting over meeting his Beatles icon - then there was a knock on the stage door | Guitar World

Jan 30, 2025 | guitarworld.com | Matt Parker

Steve Lukather has had the good fortune of playing alongside three of the Beatles – and could even go so far as to call them friends. He has been a longterm member of Ringo Starr‘s All-Starr Band and recorded and hung out with Paul McCartney during the making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. However, the Toto man and session ace says it was a 1992 meeting with George Harrison that was the most rewarding for him.

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Matt Parker

Matt Parker @emptyparker

6 Dec 22

RT @vizcomic: Subscriptions >>> https://t.co/Isc83nX0Ve https://t.co/DTtA3AfSbQ

Matt Parker

Matt Parker @emptyparker

31 Oct 22

Editors: Commission Emma's golden words.

Emma Wilkes

Emma Wilkes @emmabwilkes

I'm trying to sort out getting some more work for the rest of 2022 so if you need to commission a rock/metal writer to talk to bands, go to shows, review albums etc., I'm your girl! My email is in my bio and my portfolio is below😊 https://t.co/k5rj3eZx2p

Matt Parker

Matt Parker @emptyparker

27 Oct 22

RT @lightintheattic: is this relatable or am i stupid https://t.co/T8AE0UzPwg