What's New: April 7, 2026

Robert Pollard, the Guided by Voices frontman known for his economical alt-rock compositions, believes his longtime bandmate, guitarist Doug Gillard, does not wank. “Doug is original and also diverse in technique,” the singer told a reporter recently. “He shows restraint, and his playing compliments the songs.” But Gillard himself disagrees. “I think I do wank!” he says. “Sometimes you can’t help it. I try not to. I try to wank melodically.”

Gillard, 60, is not above endless jams on his black 1976 Gibson Les Paul Custom. After growing up in tiny Norwalk, Ohio, he began his career with a punkish Cleveland band called Death of Samantha, and from 1984 through 1989, “I was nothing but nonstop leads, and diarrhea of the fingers and stuff,” Gillard says, on a Zoom call from his home in Queens, New York. “That band had songs that lent themselves to that.” Gillard did his best not to step on the vocals, by John Petkovic, but it wasn’t until the mid-’90s, when he formed Gem and became its principal songwriter, when he “probably started playing more chords and wanted to serve songs more.”