As the premier season of the show comes to a close, Richie Sambora sends it off with a fun, free-wheeling episode that looks at his high-drama fingerwork on “Only Lonely” from Bon Jovi’s second record, 1985’s 7800° Fahrenheit. (The song’s music video is everything you’d ever want from mid-’80s hard rock.)

Richie joins Shifty subterranean-style, from his mother’s basement in New Jersey, where he’s equipped with a reverse-headstock Charvel, complete with a Floyd Rose system. It’s a busy time for Sambora: His first new single in 11 years, “I Pray,” dropped in late April, alongside a brand new, four-part Bon Jovi documentary. 

For “Only Lonely,” Sambora recalls that he used just a 50-watt Marshall and a yellow Boss overdrive pedal to push it to the limit. Producer Lance Quinn captured the performance at the Warehouse in Philly in spring 1985, and Sambora hasn’t slowed at all since that day. Shifty takes a run at a few of Sambora’s blistering lead screeds before Richie takes the reins and brings it home. They don’t leave it at “Only Lonely”; as an added bonus, they run through Sambora’s famous licks from “Bad Medicine,” too.

Between solo runs, Richie talks about his current rig (no modelers for him, just old-school tube-amp goodness) and addresses the rumors: Will he rejoin Bon Jovi after 11 years gone?

See you on the next season of Shred With Shifty!

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

The Aerosmith axeman recounts how he ripped the blazing lead on the Rocks hit, dishing some critical history along the way.

Behind Steven Tyler’s unhinged howls, Aerosmith’s twin-guitar attack with Joe Perry and Brad Whitford cemented them as one of the greatest hard-rock bands of the ’70s. “Last Child,” the street-strutting, hard-blues hit off their breakout 1976 record Rocks, is one of the greatest demonstrations of this dangerous duo’s interplay. While Perry holds down the funky rhythmic chord stabs, Whitford burns through a volcanic, first-take solo. Did any pedals help snare that screaming tone? Nope. Just a ’57 goldtop Les Paul and a 100-watt Marshall.

That combo just “makes you play real good,” Whitford says with a grin on this week’s episode. Whitford gives Shifty the background story on how Rocks came together between the band’s Massachusetts rehearsal space and the Record Plant in New York. They dig deep on Aerosmith’s influences and the guitar players that shaped Whitford’s lead style, including the shredders that knew when to pause. “Whatever you play, you’re still replicating the human voice for the most part, and you have to take a breath,” Whitford notes.

Later on, Brad’s son Graham—an established player in his own right—joins the episode to talk about raiding his dad’s guitar and amp vault, and Brad muses on a big question: Will Aerosmith’s upcoming tour be their last?

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

The influential British shredder talks about how he formed his playing style and demonstrates how to rip one of his most iconic leads.

To hear Phil Collen tell it, he joined Def Leppard almost by accident. He had loaned the band one of his amps, and when they asked him to play some leads on their upcoming record Pyromania, Collen thought he was just doing his friends a solid. The rest is history.

He and Shifty talk through Collen’s formative years on guitar, where he soaked up the scorching playing of classic guitar heroes: Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Mick Ronson, Michael Schenker, and Gary Moore all played a hand in Collen’s high-flying fretwork. 

Collen’s solo on “Photograph” is a perfect example of the sort of “ear candy” that producer Mutt Lange encouraged the band to chase in the studio—and yes, he did record individual notes to build a single guitar chord on Pyromania. But there weren’t many tricks to Collen’s sound on the solo. His Ibanez Destroyer and a 50-watt Marshall were all he needed to get the job done for the slick, Blackmore-inspired solo. Tune in to see how he worked that two-piece setup to record one of the most influential guitar solos of the ’80s.

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

Being born into rock royalty doesn’t make you a rock star—you’ve gotta earn it with your own chops. And whether it’s the classical pedigree of his first name or the hard-rock infamy of his surname, Wolfgang Van Halen has a long lineage to live up to. As he displays on this episode of Shred With Shifty, he’s more than up to the task.

Wolf joins Shifty to teach the blistering, tap-heavy solo for his song “Take a Bow,” from 2023’s Mammoth II. It follows in his dad’s footsteps, sure, but it also shows Wolf has a voice and vision of his own—both of which are just as potent and theatrical as his father’s. 

Wolf treats us to a tour of his new signature semi-hollowbody EVH model, the SA126, with details from EVH managing director Matt Bruck. But he doesn’t hold out on the family jewels: Wolf shares the story of his father’s iconic Frankenstein Strat and brings it on the show, with some extra dirt on his dad’s journey from Marshalls to his signature Peavey 5150 amps. When Shifty asks who’s stewarding his father’s invaluable gear, Wolf eases our concerns: “If the world ended, they would still be okay,” he grins.

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

If you can’t figure out how to play Joe Bonamassa’s solo from “Blues Deluxe,” don’t worry. It all changes when Shifty sits down with Bonamassa for this special episode of Shred With Shifty. No surprise that both of them reach for their Les Pauls, and Bonamassa even reveals why he switched from Strats to Gibsons in the early 2000s.

Bonamassa is known for his dazzling collection of vintage guitars—which he says has become a target for haters—but he explains that you don’t need a ’58 Les Paul to get the goods. “It’s also the mystique,” he says. “If Jimmy Page played a Tokai, everyone would want a Tokai.” A guitar made two weeks ago, he says, is just as good as a classic.

Bonamassa’s lightning-quick soloing style, which conjures a hurricane of major and minor pentatonic notes with some phrygian flair, is the stuff of legend, and his tricks on “Blues Deluxe” are plenty. Even though he tries to adhere to a “divide by two” rule to simplify his phrasings, he still stumps Shiflett with a volume swell trick he learned from Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton.

This solo is no walk in the park. Any brave takers up for giving it a shot? Share it and tag us so Shifty can have a look! Most importantly, remember to have fun. “Do whatever you want with the damn thing,” says Bonamassa. “It’s just a guitar.”

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

It’s time for Chris Shiflett to rip another solo—solo episode, that is. During this first season of Shred With Shifty, our host has been keeping an eye on fan submissions of the lead parts explained in each episode, hand-picking sharp renditions to share. This time, he spotlights takes on the guitar theatrics from “Alive” by Pearl Jam, “Stay a Little Longer” by Brothers Osborne, and “The Waiting” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, plus a snippet of a Hendrix classic that inspired a listener to pursue lead guitar. The question on everyone’s mind: Will anyone be brave enough to tackle Brent Mason’s brain-melting shred on “Southbound Train?” Step right up, brave soul. It’s your moment.

Stick around for some choice cuts from this season’s interviews, including Mason laying out his signature pickup arrangement, Ace Frehley sharing how his bodyguard helped him recharge after days of partying, and Mike Campbell running down his old studio rig.

Stay tuned for the next episodes of Shred With Shifty featuring Joe Bonamassa and Wolf Van Halen.

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Brent Mason has picked for the biggest and best names in country music: Alan Jackson, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, Brooks & Dunn, Blake Shelton, and George Strait are just a few of the country stars on whose records you can hear Mason’s Fender-on-Fender fretwork. But his solo on “Southbound Train,” the closing track on Travis Tritt’s 2000 record Down the Road I Go, might be his hottest work of all.

As Mason explains, the song scoots along at his favorite country tempo—a Cajun two-step, Mason says—which provides the rhythmic framework for his face-melter lead. Mason says the melodic and structural components came in part from his familiarity with jazz, and the mixing of jazz and blues with his usual twangy conventions. In fact, Mason’s furious note barrages occasionally earned him some raised eyebrows (and some choice words from Conway Twitty) in the more traditionalist Nashville studio system.

This might be the toughest solo our host has taken on so far on Shred With Shifty. The key to wrestling it? “You gotta keep playing [it] til you wanna pull out all your teeth and hair,” says Mason. Which Nashville producers and stars would let Mason off-leash in the studio? How does a session ace deal with hand injuries? Listen on, shredders. And if you’re brave enough, send in your take on Mason’s solo.

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

Shifty’s biggest guitar hero joins the podcast to run down his unique lead picking on the 1977 Love Gun hit.

Ace Frehley is the reason Chris Shiflett picked up a guitar in the first place, so it’s only natural that Shifty invites his original tone teacher onto the pod to recap one his iconic solos. Frehley, saddled with a classic black-and-cream triple-humbucker Les Paul, shares that “Shock Me” was the first KISS track on which he took lead vocal duty. The first time he sang it live, he remembers, was in front of 18,000 screaming fans at Madison Square Garden. As Frehley explains, that was quite a step up from how he recorded the vocals in the studio for Love Gun: lying flat on the floor on his back, racked with stage fright.

Frehley recalls that he ripped most of his solos through a dimed Marshall stack, and always on the bridge pickup. Turns out, he never went for pedals or boards because he’d trip over them onstage. “Wearing those boots?” he snorts. “Forget about it. It’s like a minefield!” His signature sauce, he says, is in the way he picks the strings: He holds his picks loose, but plucks in such a way that his thumb often hits the string at the same time, producing a sound just shy of a pinched squeal, but more spunky than a regular strike.

Frehley drops tons of golden bits of KISS history: the engineering behind his famous “smoke bomb” effect, the time he woke up in Paris with his eyes swollen shut from makeup, how he accidentally roadied for Hendrix, the shared genealogy between his technique and Eddie Van Halen’s, and which KISS member smelled the worst after shows.

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ lead guitarist shows Shifty how he bottled an electric reaction to “The Waiting” on the song’s simple, iconic solo.

Mike Campbell knows how to write the perfect parts to a song, and records them with the perfect guitar, amp, and tone to match. That’s why Shifty has the Heartbreakers’ lead man on this episode to get a look under the hood at what drives Campbell’s solo on “The Waiting.”

The song, from 1981’s Hard Promises, was tracked at Sound City, where Campbell recalls the band had “every amp in the world lined up across the room, every amp you can imagine.” After miking and testing each, Campbell says they settled on a Fender Twin, which he brought to life with a white Les Paul he got from a pawn shop. Shifty notes the song’s music video led him to believe the solo was tracked with a Rickenbacker, but Campbell snickers that it was just for show: “I did that different just to fuck people up,” he grins. (“I hate that video, I think I look like a total idiot,” he adds.)

Campbell, who started playing guitar by ear at 16 on an “unplayable” Harmony acoustic, says he didn’t labor over the solo for “The Waiting,” favoring spontaneity and instinct instead. “I like to come in fresh and capture as I’m discovering what it is, there’s some electricity in that moment,” he explains. “The listener can hear that you’re discovering it as they’re discovering it at the same time.” That approach applies to his songwriting experience in general, too: “I don't even wanna talk about it too much, because its mysterious,” he says. “It comes to you when it wants to.”

Later, Campbell lays out how he and Petty balanced their guitar parts, and why Campbell favored “droning” open notes over complexity for many of his leads. And stick around to hear how he figured out Lindsay Buckingham’s guitar parts for Fleetwood Mac’s 2018 tour, the difficulty of backing Bob Dylan, and why original Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch almost got in a fight with Johnny Rotten.

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.

“I think it’s safe to say John Osborne is a fuckin’ beast!”

That’s how Chris Shiflett kicks off this episode of Shred With Shifty, featuring bearded Brothers Osborne shredder-in-chief John Osborne. Osborne joins Shifty to dissect his blistering country-rock ripping on the band’s breakout single, “Stay A Little Longer.”

Osborne tells Shifty about failing miserably at guitar in college, where he learned to read and play bass clef but never got the hang of the treble clef. It’s no surprise when Osborne admits he’s taken notes from players like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dickey Betts, Eric Johnson, and Skynyrd shredders Allan Collins and Gary Rossington, but his very first guitar influence? Kurt Cobain, and the Nirvana frontman’s anxious energy. “I’m a little bit awkward, and I have social anxiety, but I can talk to people through music,” says Osborne. As far as technicality, though, he and Shifty agree that bluegrass guitar playing is “the Usain Bolt of musicianship.”

To recap the “Stay A Little Longer” leads, Osborne plays a stock blackguard 1953 Fender Telecaster that he scooped from Carter Vintage Guitars. (Listen in to learn why it and some other Fenders from that era have an abnormally thick “Friday neck.”) He explains that he wanted the solo to have the same philosophy as legendary solos like those in “Free Bird” and “Hotel California”: hooky, repetitive, accented, and not too shreddy. Plus, he reveals the “un-Photoshopped” blips in the solo that stayed on the record.

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Website: http://www.chrisshiflettmusic.com

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan

Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.