Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Artist news
  • Guitar Amps
  • Guitar Pedals
  • Synths
  • Guitars
  • Drums
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Software & Apps
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • "Worst rap album in history"
  • Superbooth 2025
  • Eilish vs Radiohead
  • 95k+ free music samples

Recommended reading

Tunerette Guitar Tuner
Guitars “‘Would you like to tune your guitar?’ ‘Oh, no thanks, I’m trying to give up’”: The Tunerette is the healthy option for Clapton and Keef fans looking for that cigarette on the headstock look – and it tunes your guitar
Joby Hobbs and Luke Hobbs of Gardiner Houlgate with two five-necked Hutchins guitars
Guitars “Hutchins make boutique and retro guitars, often creating instruments that, by Gary’s own admission, ‘should never have been made’”: How many necks are too many necks? Hutchins’ epic five and six-necked electric guitars go up for auction
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai fistbump onstage during their show at the Valley Center, California in May 2024. They have their signature Ibanez guitars. Satch has the Chrome Boy JS1. Vai is playing his Daphne Blue PIA in Powder Blue
Artists “It is an absolute phenom for us to be able to present to you now our teenage aspirations in this song”: Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are living out their teenage dreams in the video for their new single featuring the ‘Voice of Rock’ Glenn Hughes
Yngwie Malmsteen: the Swedish guitar maestro holds his trusty Fender Stratocaster aloft and screams onstage in Oakland, California, on a stage lit in red.
Artists “Those arpeggios... That was the sickest thing I ever heard”: Yngwie Malmsteen on why guitarists should take inspiration from players of other instruments if they want to develop their own style
The Harley Benton DIY guitar kit challenge is judged by a panel of experts and offers Thomann vouchers for top three builds.
Guitars “This time it’s all about creativity… Go crazy. Do whatever you wanna do with it”: Budding luthiers, assemble! Harley Benton’s DIY Kit Challenge is now open and there are prizes to be won
Claudio Sanchez
Artists “There’s a tape delay on one song - Van Halen used it on Eruption”: The weird old gear inside the new album by Coheed And Cambria
Fender Player II Advanced FSR
Guitars “With locking tuners and hard-tail bridges, these are built to play hard”: Fender stealth-launches limited edition Player II Advanced – an HH Telecaster and HSS Strat with ebony fingerboards and loaded with Seymour Duncan pickups
  1. Artists
  2. Guitarists

10 guitar hero hobbies

News
By Total Guitar ( Total Guitar ) published 16 January 2013

Guitarists do the strangest things...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Angus Young

Angus Young

After duck-walking, writhing and feigning electrocution, AC/DC’s 57-year- old schoolboy retires from stage to hotel room for a more conservative pursuit. Landscapes are his speciality, but as Young once said: “I’ll have a crack at anything. I’ve even been given a paint brush and told to do a little bit of wall painting.”

Page 1 of 10
Page 1 of 10
Jack White

Jack White

The art of ramming sand into dead animals gained its first poster boy when Jack White appeared on US television haggling over an elephant head. “I’ve got a zebra head,” he proudly told one interviewer, “two gazelles, an eland, a kudu, a giant white elk...”

Page 2 of 10
Page 2 of 10
Ronnie Wood

Ronnie Wood

In snatched moments between Russian cocktail waitresses and three-day Guinness benders, the Rolling Stone unwinds with the world’s geekiest leisure pursuit. Wood started his stamp collection post-rehab to “stay on the straight and narrow”.

Page 3 of 10
Page 3 of 10
Neil Young

Neil Young

Young’s 750ft setup in a 2,800ft barn on his San Francisco ranch is the ultimate. No attic-room collector, the Canadian rocker was part-owner of the Lionel model company and patented seven inventions, including the CAB-1 remote control.

Page 4 of 10
Page 4 of 10
Dave Mustaine

Dave Mustaine

Megadeth’s main man was appointed goodwill ambassador by the World Taekwondo Federation in 2007. “Taekwondo helped me to eliminate a bad lifestyle of drugs and alcoholism,” says the first dan black belt. “It helped me to find the strength in myself that I never knew that I possessed.”

Page 5 of 10
Page 5 of 10
Rivers Cuomo

Rivers Cuomo

The Weezer guitarist’s über-geek credentials were given a boost by the tweeted confession that he spends his downtime knitting in bed (it “couldn’t be cosier”, apparently). He’s not the only one: Kelley Deal from The Breeders has written a book titled Bags That Rock: Knitting On The Road.

Page 6 of 10
Page 6 of 10
Slash

Slash

We know about Slash’s early ‘hobbies’ – the smack, the spirits, the strippers – but in his 30s, he fell for the silver ball, co-designing the official Guns N’ Roses machine and still boasting a 10-strong private collection. “There’s something very rock ’n’ roll about pinball,” he notes. “There’s energy in it...”

Page 7 of 10
Page 7 of 10
Steve Vai

Steve Vai

Dubbing himself the “bee whisperer” and flogging his colony’s Fire Garden Honey for charity, the shredder learned not to remove his veil the hard way. “One time, I was capturing a wild swarm,” he told Spinner. “A ball of bees the size of a basketball fell on my head and stung the piss out of me!”

Page 8 of 10
Page 8 of 10
Lemmy

Lemmy

Pick your way through Lemmy’s Hollywood pad, and you’ll find his Nazi weapons collection, taking in everything from Hitler Youth daggers to Luftwaffe swords. “Just because you collect something doesn’t mean you are one,” stresses the Motörhead man. “It’s a collection: that’s it.”

Page 9 of 10
Page 9 of 10
Ted Nugent

Ted Nugent

“People who don’t hunt don’t realise how spiritual it is to hunt with a bow,” roars the veteran lunatic on his one-man crusade to cull our furry friends. “I’ve got a message for all those people who think that hunting is so terrible. They can kiss my ass!” We’ll pass thanks, Ted.

Page 10 of 10
Page 10 of 10
Categories
Guitars
Total Guitar
Total Guitar
Social Links Navigation

Total Guitar is Europe's best-selling guitar magazine.

Every month we feature interviews with the biggest names and hottest new acts in guitar land, plus Guest Lessons from the stars.

Finally, our Rocked & Rated section is the place to go for reviews, round-ups and help setting up your guitars and gear.

Subscribe: http://bit.ly/totalguitar

Stay up to date with the latest gear and tuition. image
Stay up to date with the latest gear and tuition.
Subscribe and save today!
More Info
Read more
Tunerette Guitar Tuner
“‘Would you like to tune your guitar?’ ‘Oh, no thanks, I’m trying to give up’”: The Tunerette is the healthy option for Clapton and Keef fans looking for that cigarette on the headstock look – and it tunes your guitar
Joby Hobbs and Luke Hobbs of Gardiner Houlgate with two five-necked Hutchins guitars
“Hutchins make boutique and retro guitars, often creating instruments that, by Gary’s own admission, ‘should never have been made’”: How many necks are too many necks? Hutchins’ epic five and six-necked electric guitars go up for auction
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai fistbump onstage during their show at the Valley Center, California in May 2024. They have their signature Ibanez guitars. Satch has the Chrome Boy JS1. Vai is playing his Daphne Blue PIA in Powder Blue
“It is an absolute phenom for us to be able to present to you now our teenage aspirations in this song”: Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are living out their teenage dreams in the video for their new single featuring the ‘Voice of Rock’ Glenn Hughes
Yngwie Malmsteen: the Swedish guitar maestro holds his trusty Fender Stratocaster aloft and screams onstage in Oakland, California, on a stage lit in red.
“Those arpeggios... That was the sickest thing I ever heard”: Yngwie Malmsteen on why guitarists should take inspiration from players of other instruments if they want to develop their own style
The Harley Benton DIY guitar kit challenge is judged by a panel of experts and offers Thomann vouchers for top three builds.
“This time it’s all about creativity… Go crazy. Do whatever you wanna do with it”: Budding luthiers, assemble! Harley Benton’s DIY Kit Challenge is now open and there are prizes to be won
Claudio Sanchez
“There’s a tape delay on one song - Van Halen used it on Eruption”: The weird old gear inside the new album by Coheed And Cambria
Latest in Guitarists
Frank Zappa in a top hat
"Window or aisle, how would you like to return home?": Dweezil Zappa on how his dad ran his band
EVH in 1986
“He went into this trance state as he played. I’d be sitting there at the console and he would lean on me while he was playing. And it was kind of weird – it was like it was coming through me”: A close encounter with the genius of Eddie Van Halen
Scott Ian of Anthrax introduces his new X Series signature King V in black with gold hardware, and the original Jackson logo on the headstock.
“The old-school Jackson logo, that’s pretty much the pièce de résistance! And it plays even better than it looks”: Jackson gives its metal thrashing X Series Scott Ian King V a super-classy makeover
Brad Paisley wears a white cowboy hat, burgundy jacket black jeans and cowboy boots as he sits with his new Fender Lost Telecaster from the Custom Shop.
“I like the real thing that happens when you dig in a little bit and the amp starts to cry for mercy”: Is the compressor pedal a country guitar essential? Brad Paisley doesn’t think so – and here’s why
Status Quo Performing in Hyde Park, 2001
“We used to work with Fleetwood Mac a lot on the uni circuit. You could sit down beside the stage and they’d start playing - der-der, der-der - for an hour and a half. We wanted to do that”: Francis Rossi on how Status Quo developed their 12 bar boogie
Michael Jackson
“It’s not technically hard - a third-grader can play these bits. But on the spot? That’s kind of the difference”: The guitarist on Michael Jackson’s I Just Can’t Stop Loving You on how he found the right moments to play his “little earworms”
Latest in News
Frank Zappa in a top hat
"Window or aisle, how would you like to return home?": Dweezil Zappa on how his dad ran his band
Bruce Springsteen performs during the first night of 'The Land of Hopes and Dreams' tour at Co-op Live on May 14, 2025 in Manchester, England
“In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict”: Springsteen issues rallying cry against Trump at Manchester gig
microlab mk3
Arturia upgrades its MicroLab MIDI keyboard with new keybed, sustain input and USB-C - and slashes the price
Dire Straits Brothers In Arms
"Everybody was going 'Does anybody know how to work this thing?'”: How Guy Fletcher and a classic ‘80s synth became Dire Straits’ secret weapon on Brothers In Arms, and helped to turn it into one of the biggest albums of the decade
Fortin Fourteen Dual Boost Overdrive: the new tricked-out green stompbox from Mike Fortin packs two Tube Screamer OD flavours in one housing and is packed with features.
“Each of the three modes represents a milestone in pedal history”: Fortin triples down on modded-TS tones with the Fourteen – an boost/overdrive pedal representing the “apex of Mike Fortin’s modification philosophy”
Andy Bell and Liam Gallagher 2005
“I’m in and I’m really looking forward to it”: First non-Gallagher member confirmed for Oasis reunion line up

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...