British journalist Joel McIver, author of the newly issued The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists book, is featured in a new interview with Robert Gray at Ultimate-Guitar.com. An excerpt appears below:

Q: Could you provide an introduction to your twelfth book 'The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists', and how the project ultimately came to fruition?

A: "I’m a geek who makes lists, and while I was driving around one day it occurred to me that no-one had really made a definitive list of the most accomplished guitarists in heavy metal. It’s been done in a kind of half-assed way by a few magazines, but the compilers usually confuse rock with metal and fail to take into account the techniques that the musicians require to do the job. It felt like a fun book to write, but one which would serve a serious purpose - and that proved to be the case on both counts."

Q: Works for 2009 include GLENN HUGHES autobiography, which you're helping him to co-write. What other book projects are currently slated, and how far in the development stage are all these respective works?

A: "Glenn’s book will come out in 2009 and will be amazing, I kid you not. The TOOL book comes out in April on Omnibus Press and then a biography of a major metal icon is coming out in June. No, not Dimebag. There will be press releases nearer the time. I also have a sci-fi novel brewing that I want to get out before too long, but finding the time to do all this stuff in between family, gigs, sleep and a reasonably debauched social life is tricky."

Read the whole interview here.