Today, internationally acclaimed guitarist / composer, and Firewind mastermind, GUS G. is proud to release his new single "Nothing Can Break Me," taken from the upcoming new studio album 'Steel Burner,' set for release on April 24th via Metal Department.
"Nothing Can Break Me" features the metal queen herself, Doro Pesch, and arrives alongside an official lyric video, available below.
GUS G. comments:
“Doro is an icon, the Metal Queen. Everybody knows that. Having the opportunity to collaborate with her on a track is something I have wished would happen for a long time. 'Nothing Can Break Me' is a powerful Metal anthem about perseverance. I'm really proud of this one.”
Doro Pesch adds:
"It was awesome to work with GUS. We've been friends for a long time. He's such an amazing guitar player. We always planned to do something together, and now it finally happened. I'm totally excited about the song."
- YouTube
Following an extended period of post-pandemic touring, 'Steel Burner' represents a renewed creative focus on GUS G.’s solo vision. The album showcases his signature guitar style - combining technical precision, melody, and intensity - while expanding its emotional and thematic range through collaborations with some of the Metal scene's most legendary and respected voices.
The album’s title track, “Steel Burner,” was the catalyst for the entire project. Originally commissioned for a company that manufactures industrial machines used to shape metal, GUS G. drew inspiration from a machine fittingly named Steel Burner. The track’s energy became the foundation for the album’s concept and ultimately its title.
While instrumental tracks highlight GUS G.’s evolution as a composer and guitarist, 'Steel Burner' also features several standout vocal songs. Doro Pesch appears on new single “Nothing Can Break Me,” a powerful metal anthem focused on inner strength, perseverance, and resilience.
“No One Has to Know,” featuring Dino Jelusick, delivers a modern hard rock approach while addressing the artificial lives and personas often portrayed through social media.
Matt Barlow (Iced Earth, Ashes of Ares) brings his unmistakable intensity to “Dancing With Death,” an epic metal track with a contemporary twist that explores the darker theme of addiction.
Additional collaborations include Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), whose work with GUS G. originated from their recent joint world tour and resulted in two tracks on the album, further shaping its collaborative direction.
Reflecting on the upcoming release, GUS G. comments:
“This is my first solo album release in 5 years. As I’ve been pretty busy in the post-pandemic world with heavy touring, I always had the idea to put out another solo album at some point. This time around, I felt I wanted the best of both worlds - being able to explore guitar instrumental music, but also collaborate with singers I love and am a fan of.”
'Steel Burner' was mixed and mastered by acclaimed producer Dennis Ward (Helloween, Pink Cream 69), delivering a clear, powerful, and contemporary sound that complements both the album’s instrumental complexity and vocal performances.
With his 5th solo album, GUS G. delivers a confident and forward-looking statement - an album that honors Metal’s roots while embracing modern themes, production, and collaboration.
MONO has expanded its M80 Classic Ultra lineup of cases with two new models: the M80 Classic Ultra Dual Acoustic/Electric and M80 Classic Ultra Dual Semi-Hollow/Electric. Both bring MONO's existing dual mixed-instrument configurations onto the Classic Ultra platform, adding the patented Freeride® Wheel System, expanded storage, and enhanced build quality.
The Dual Acoustic/Electric and Dual Semi-Hollow/Electric have long been among MONO’s most popular configurations, and are designed for musicians who regularly travel with mixed setups, switching between acoustic and electric or semi-hollow and electric across sessions, sets, or tours.
The Ultra upgrade brings them in line with the rest of the Classic Ultra range launched in August 2025, adding rolling transport via Freeride® wheels, Headlock® neck suspension with a tracker-tag-compatible pouch, 1680D ballistic nylon with waterproof zipper tape, reflective detailing, an expandable front pocket, and compatibility with MONO’s Tick 2.0 and Tick+ 2.0 Accessory Cases.
Key features include:
● Dual instrument capacity: Carries an acoustic and electric guitar, or a semi-hollow and electric guitar, in a single case.
● Freeride® Wheel System: Patented attachable wheel system for rolling transport across any terrain.
● Enhanced Headlock® system: Independent neck suspension for each instrument, with a discreet tracker-tag-compatible pouch.
● Expanded Smart Storage: Dedicated internal compartments and an expandable front pocket, offering ample space for tools and gigging essentials.
● Tick-ready: The cases are fully compatible with MONO’s Tick 2.0 and Tick+ 2.0 Accessory Cases for maximum gear flexibility.
● Military-grade build: Water-resistant 1680D ballistic nylon, waterproof zipper tape, and reflective detailing for the ultimate in protection and visibility.
The M80 Classic Ultra Dual Acoustic/Electric and Dual Semi-Hollow/Electric cases carry a street price of $459.99 USD. For more information visit monocreators.com.
Back in 2007, Vermont’s Kyle Thomas recorded an album under his new moniker, King Tuff. It was called Was Dead—as in, King Tuff Was Dead—and Thomas cut it on a Tascam 388, an 8-track reel-to-reel recording and mixing machine. He’d traded in an Ibanez electric to buy the Tascam at a music store in Keene, New Hampshire, in 2003. (Thomas didn’t know it then, but at the same time, his garage-rock contemporaries Ty Segall and the Osees’ John Dwyer were experimenting with the same machines out on the west coast.) He stuck an SM57 on his amp, and hit record. No outboard gear, no processing. It was the heart of the lo-fi revival’s heyday.
Thomas moved to Los Angeles, the heart of the genre’s new American boom, signed to Sub Pop, and released 2012’s King Tuff and 2014’s BlackMoon Spell, both collections of unrepentant, gnarly garage-rock music. Then came 2018’s The Other and, in 2023, Smalltown Stardust. These were more manicured, high-fidelity endeavors. The arrangements were softer and slower. Production was clearer and more considered. When it came time to take the albums on tour, Thomas faltered. “When I would play the older songs that were more straightforward rock, it was just so much more fun,” he says. “I wanted to make a record with that in mind: What’s going to be fun to play live?”
Moo, King Tuff’s seventh record, is what he came up with. Recorded before departing Los Angeles for good, Moo is Thomas’ return to the Tascam 388, and to the earworm musical dirt-baggery he first traded in. Opener “Twisted on a Train” announces this proudly. Its an A-major foot stomper, led by the perfectly muffled snap of Thomas’ guitar, that recounts a disturbed, weed-gummy-fueled train ride from Tucson to Los Angeles. The cheap-beers-on-the-beach groove of “Stairway to Nowhere” keeps the ball rolling while Thomas looks back on his years in L.A.: “I’m so tired of spinnin’ my wheels / Negative numbers, dead-end deals / Wined and dined in paradise.”
“I really just wanted to get back to how I used to do things, more DIY,” Thomas says of the recording and release plan (Moo is coming out on his own record label). “I just feel more connected to the work that way, and I feel more connected to the fans if I’m actually giving them something that I made personally.” Vermont is a good place to do things yourself, surrounded by weavers and woodworkers instead of influencers and industry dependents: “It’s nice to be somewhere where not everyone’s trying to make it. I think cities trick people into thinking that you have to be there for shit to happen in your life, and I don’t think it’s true.”
Thomas with his Rickenbacker 660-12TP. Behind him on the desk, the secret weapon of King Tuff’s recordings: his treasured Tascam 388.
Wyndham Garnett
Kyle Thomas’ Gear
Guitars & Bass
1995 Gibson SG Standard (with bolt headstock repair by Reuben Cox)
Reconnecting with the Tascam made Thomas realize how important the machine is to his work. Maybe it’s the tone the Tascam imparts that endears him to it, or maybe it’s the particular workflow it demands. Regardless, working with the 8-track device, Thomas felt like himself again. He didn’t sing his vocals a hundred times and comp the best bits together, or overwork his guitar performances until they were flawless. There’s noises—hissing and buzzing and popping—plus other peculiarities and variances from one riff to the next. “It’s all about the performance and just capturing something, and not doing it to death. You can get good results doing things the new-school way,” he admits. “But you might feel sadder at the end.”
So why did it take so long for Thomas to return to his beloved Tascam? “I finally got it fixed,” he shrugs. “That’s really all it was. It was broken.”
The self-proclaimed “freak from the woods,” Kyle Thomas a.k.a. King Tuff.
Wyndham Garnett
Given his recording philosophies, it probably isn’t a surprise to hear that Thomas doesn’t like players who are “too good”: “It’s boring. I don’t think rock music should be perfect. I think rock music suffers when people make it on the computer and fix everything.” Wipers’ Greg Sage and Dead Moon’s Fred Cole are key inspirations for Thomas, alongside imperfect shredders like Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. “I like shittier guitar players better than really good ones, usually, or guitar players that are rough around the edges,” he says. “They can be good, but they fuck up a lot.” The continued pull toward imperfection is, of course, colored by Thomas’ estimation of his own playing. “I’m not a slick guitar player, I’m not smooth,” he explains, then grins. “My hands are shaky. They’re like bald eagle talons.” The influence of more polished players like Tom Petty and Mike Campbell are in frame on Moo, too, especially courtesy of a Rickenbacker 660-12TP—Petty’s signature model—that Thomas acquired just before making the record.
“I think rock music suffers when people make it on the computer and fix everything.”
Thomas is an SG player first and foremost, and he’s played his beloved late-’90s Gibson SG Standard, named Jazijoo, for more than two decades. It’s been thrashed and colorfully decorated over the years, and its cracked headstock kept breaking until Reuben Cox, of L.A.’s Old Style Guitar Shop, put the problem to rest—by driving a bolt through the headstock, Frankenstein’s-monster style, to secure it. Because of its fragility, Jazijoo doesn’t come out on the road these days, but teamed up with a Mu-Tron Phaser that Thomas scored in a thrift store for five bucks in the early ’90s, it’s created the King Tuff sound. To round out that pairing on Moo, Thomas borrowed a brown-panel Fender Deluxe 6G3, which handled most of the guitar tones on the record, along with a small Supro combo and an early-’80s Fender Super Champ.
Almost 20 years after Was Dead, Thomas is back living in the forests of Vermont. His neighbors don’t know or really give a shit about his music, and that’s a good thing. “It’s fucking paradise,” Thomas says, straight-faced, on a video call from a room in his home crammed with music gear. “Obviously L.A. is supposed to be paradise, and it is in some ways, but I don’t know. I really missed the seasons. I get ideas and feelings here that I just didn’t have out there. I do love L.A., but I’m a freak from the woods.”
Trace Elliot® introduces the new Dual Band Compressor™. By extracting the compression circuit from the TE-1200 bass amplifier and dropping it into a pedal format, classic dual band compression is readily available for any bass guitar application. The sturdy, compact pedal gives bass players control over their tone under any circumstances. The pedal is now available worldwide online or at local retailers.
Whether in the studio or live on stage, compression is critical to a bass guitar signal. The compression enhances consistency in dynamics and allows the instrument to simply sit better in the mix. With separate LO BAND and HI BAND controls, the Dual Band Compressor allows the player to adjust the amount of compression separately for the best results. Built in make-up gain is applied after the compression to maintain the original volume level or desired loudness. The separate INPUT LEVEL allows the player to adjust the input volume of the instrument while the OUTPUT LEVEL adjusts the volume of the output leaving the pedal. Having the individual controls makes this pedal adaptable to all types of signal and line level scenarios. And with its true bypass operation, this pedal integrates seamlessly into any signal chain.
With its ¼” input and outputs and black domed knobs, the Dual Band Compressor is built to endure any hard-hitting performance with a rugged die cast enclosure and top shelf components. Bipolar 18v internal supply is achieved from any standard 9VDC power supply or battery.
On our last episode, we had Joe Satriani join us to talk about his long history with his old pal Steve Vai. In celebration of the new SATCHVAI band, we've made this a two-parter, and Vai is here to return the favor.
www.premierguitar.com