FATHER'S DAY Gift Guide and the New Sound of DAD ROCK (Updated for 2025)
Published on 29 May 2025
Friends, it’s time to celebrate your dads!
Father’s Day is fast approaching. Is your dad a guitar fan? If so, we have some inspired gift ideas that might just win you the title of ‘Child of the Year’ in your father’s eyes!
On top of that, check out the New Sound of Dad Rock, our take on what ‘Rock Dads’ are into these days.
Have a scroll through and see if guitarguitar can help make this Father’s Day one to remember for all the right reasons!
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Father’s Day Gift Guide
You don’t have to spend much on your ol’ da to let him know you care. We have a large range of guitar accessories that will make his day, including some cool artist-related things. Check these out, and apply according to your dad’s taste...
Jacquard Straps
Straps say a lot about the wearer, so make sure your old daddio puts his most stylish foot forward with this selection of tasteful yet badass jacquard straps from Ernie Ball and Dunlop. Regal, Imperial and Tribal are just some of the adjectives used on these designs, so you know they are worthy gifts for Father’s Day!
Now, a word of advice here: start with the colour of the guitar and then choose your strap accordingly. No strap will look great on every guitar, so put some consideration in! It’s your Dad, after all!
Dunlop Pick Tins
We have a nice range of pick tins to choose from (Motorhead, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix etc) so whatever your dad’s taste in music is, there will be a nice - and very giftable - pick tin that’ll suit him. The picks inside are Dunlops too, so they are the best in the industry.
You’re spoiled for choice if your dad likes Metallica: there are a number of ‘Tallica tins featuring either Kirk Hammett or ‘Papa Het’ himself. Choose from White Fang Heltfield picks, Hammett ‘Monster is Loose’ picks (including a very cool Ouija board pick, just like his guitars) and a couple of others. Hey, why not REALLY show how much you care by getting the full set?
With Metallica just announcing a world tour for 2026 (including UK dates!!!), a well-chosen Metalli-pick tin could be the perfect Father’s Day gift, not to mention a thoughtful one.
Positive Grid RIFF
If your old dad likes to do a spot of recording on their laptop, why not reward his fatherly love with this fun gadget? The Positive Grid Riff is guaranteed to be a hit, since it’s an easy plug-n-play way to record amazing guitar tones into any recording software. It’s an audio interface that works with Positive Grid’s BIAS FX 2 software to give your dad access to world-class amp and pedal sounds, all without the fuss of having to connect endless bits of gear! It’s a foolproof way of obtaining amazing guitar sounds for recordings.
It’s also worth mentioning that, if your dad doesn’t record his guitar playing into the computer, then this might well be the gift to get him into it!
Headphones
How many dads don’t need headphones? Exactly. Proper big cans as well, not little fiddly ear pods. Dads want to clamp a nice big closed-back set of headphones on and enjoy the sound quality, don’t they?
Annoyingly, headphones can often be stupendously overpriced, but we can help you here: check out the Ordo sets that we’ve recently taken stock of, particularly the Ordo PMH40 set. They have a 50mm driver - so they sound nice and detailed - plus the build quality is decent, so they won’t snap in two after 5 weeks. Best of all, the price is very affordable indeed, given the quality on offer. Dads love value!
The New Sound of Dad Rock
Dad rock is a funny one: it’s not really a genre as much as a generation identifier. It used to be that you’d never listen to the music your dad liked, because it was from an earlier, stuffier era when things sounded more polite and so on.
It’s never really been true, to be honest, but we still do like to pigeonhole things. Dad rock used to be bands like Pearl Jam, U2 and Guns n Roses (all great bands), but things have changed. Here’s the new generation of Dad Rock:
Creed
Nostalgic post-grunge is a huge thing for the dads out there. Hark back to your dad’s teenage years, when the sound of somewhat safe hard rock would soundtrack seminal 90s shows like Dawson’s Creek and Party of Five. There was no time like it, and bands like Creed and Nickelback are still here to remind us of those halcyon times. They rock hard -but not so hard that it’ll cause your dad to drive too fast or look out his old flame-graphic bowling shirt. Rock on, dads of the world!
Foo Fighters
Whilst it’s a fact that everybody likes the Foo Fighters, it’s even more the case that dads love them. Not quite heavy enough to be ‘heavy’, but harder than Coldplay by a solid margin, the Foos deliver a mix of melody and rock spirit that galvanises hard rockin’ daddies everywhere. Dave Grohl’s impeccable past as one third of Nirvana stops the Foo Fighters from ever being less than relevant. For rocking acceptably, no one band competes.
Coldplay
For some dads, the Foo Fighters are just too long haired and metal adjacent.
These dads are therefore Coldplay Dads.
An alarming amount of people really like Coldplay. They are catchy enough to snare millions, but have zero edges to their sound, so nobody overly objects either. The safest of safe bands, Coldplay are the rock band to like if you don’t normally bother with rock music.
That said, such a huge number of people can’t all be wrong, and at the end of the day, it’s still human beings playing guitars and drums, so if that’s reaching enormous audiences, I’m all for it.
Tool
On paper, Tool shouldn’t be as enormous as they are: tricksy time signatures, 12 minute tunes, subject matter that goes from the puerile to the mystical, a lead singer who seems to take a gleeful pleasure in being difficult... None of it at face value screams ‘huge success’, but there’s no denying the quality on offer: it’s epic stuff, delivered by some astounding musicianship from drummer Danny Carey.
If you are a male musician and aged between 40 and 55, then you are highly likely to be a Tool fan. If your dad has a beard and wears Vans, he’s a Tool fan. Indulge it!
Happy Father’s Day
Fathers are precious - even if they don’t play guitars (there’s always time!) - so however you choose to spend Father’s Day, all of us here at guitarguitar hope you have a wonderful time.
