heavy-metal-musicians

"We won’t know the full impact of a band like Avenged Sevenfold and a player like Synyster Gates for several years, but this is a band that moves the needle with young people in a way most of the players on the list just don’t have the ability to do. No other band on Rock radio is as unafraid as A7X to flex their chops. They helped open doors that huge gateway bands like Black Veil Brides and Asking Alexandria continue to expand. They are one of the biggest metal bands around the globe, and their image may turn you off, but Synyster is a world-class musician who has trained in Classical and Jazz. His style is somewhere between other list selections John Petrucci, Slash, and Marty Friedman, but he does have a special commodity that is truly his own. Slash inspired me to pick up a guitar, and without a doubt, thousands of kids decide to pick one up everyday because of Avenged Sevenfold and Synyster Gates. That should be commended and respected."

"Vinny is amazing. His style is very much like Bonham, and he has the coolest fills."

"When it comes to rock icons, there is certainly a place for Phil Lynott. In addition to his talents as a brilliant singer/songwriter and rightfully praised for his role as frontman of Thin Lizzy, it’s often forgotten just how good of a bass player Lynott was during his career. He earned acclaim for his pick work on the instrument and those hard-charged solos made popular during the band's exhilarating live sets."

"Bill Ward's incredible work in Black Sabbath features the best mixture of jazz and rock drumming out there. He has been defined as the mastermind behind the unholy birth of heavy metal drumming."

"He sings, he writes songs, but above all Brann Dailor fucking drums. Like a many-limbed and many-brained beast, he drums."

"When it comes to characters within the world of music, Primus' Les Claypool is among the best. Quirky and eccentric, Claypool is one of the more versatile bassists. He slaps, taps, and wails while having a good time. Perhaps Claypool's shining moment is still his performance on the Primus classic "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver." In a well-told story, Claypool auditioned to be Metallica’s bass player following the aforementioned Cliff Burton’s death. However, the band thought he was simply too good for the job, and Claypool knew he would not be able to showcase his true talent."

"An import from Sweden, Yngwie J. Malmsteen specializes in what many regard as “Bach and Roll,” or neoclassical rock—a style of music that features furiously fast scalar and arpeggiated sequences reminiscent of the Bach and Paganini virtuoso organ and violin works written in the 18th century. [...] Yngwie’s staggering virtuosity, as exemplified on the track “Far Beyond the Sun,” inspired countless guitarists to refine their alternate-picking and sweep-picking chops. Some even went as far as to scallop their fretboards, carving out the wood between the frets in a crescent, as Malmsteen does, to facilitate playing with a lighter touch. The mass appeal that Yngwie achieved among guitarists in the mid-to-late Eighties opened up the market for other burning shredders like Vinnie Moore, Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert and Jason Becker, among others."

"As the singer, guitarist and spokesman for progressive metal powerhouse Gojira, Mario’s big brother Joe gets most of the attention, but the younger Duplantier is earning an increasing share of the spotlight as fans become more aware of his jaw-dropping skills. Simply put, Mario can do it all — from extreme-metal blasts to jazzy fills to huge stomping beats that rule the mosh pit. All that and he’s a talented visual artist whose work has adorned Gojira album covers and merch."

"Tool’s Danny Carey has long been revered as one of the world’s great drummers, but with the prog-metal titans’ 2019 comeback triumph Fear Inoculum and the psychedelic live shows that have followed, he’s made a case for being the group’s true frontman and, certainly, the rightful heir to the mighty Neil Peart’s throne. In his hands, percussion isn’t just a musical undertaking — it’s a vehicle for opening the doors of perception."

"Dave Lombardo is my biggest influence, of course. If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. He's the king of thrash, double bass and all that, so as a teenager, hearing him play in the mid-'80s, obviously I wasn't playing at that point yet — I [was] just starting out — so that really solidified me wanting to play the way I play today, what he was doing and still is doing."

"When it’s time to turn up the volume, Black Sabbath’s Vinny Appice is your man. Appice has developed a reputation as a hard-hitter who has contributed to some of the most noteworthy songs in the metal genre through his work in both Black Sabbath along with his time in Dio. His sound is instantly recognizable and contagious."

"Really, we could just refer you to the drum fill in Slayer’s “Angel of Death” and rest the case at that. But the so-called “Godfather of Double Bass” has so much more to offer. Endlessly innovative and tirelessly prolific, the Cuban-American virtuoso has played with everyone from Suicidal Tendencies, Testament and the Misfits to more avant-leaning rock bands such as Fantômas and Mr. Bungle — which doesn’t even cover his totally left-field collaborations with classical musician Lorenzo Arruga and fine artist Matthew Barney. Lombardo is the master and your clear pick as No. 1."

"What can I say about Joey that hasn’t already been said? He reinvented metal drumming for the modern era and brought with him an energy that I have yet to see anyone match, ever. Like someone threw a drum set down a stairwell and it magically sounded good as fuck. His style was so unique, you just know exactly when you are listening to him play. Nothing makes me wanna run through some drywall more than Joey’s drumming. RIP to another goat."

"Without a doubt the best metal drummer on the planet! His speed and footwork completely set him apart from all other drummers from early Slayer to present day. I’ve been lucky to witness him playing close up, and nobody else comes close to his drumming. In my opinion, he is the kingpin of the way metal drummers play today."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"Look, I can get into anything I write about. I can write about serial killers; I can be a fucking Satanist. I’m not a Satanist, I’m an atheist, but I write the best satanic lyrics on the fucking planet. And it’s great entertainment. And religion is the funnest thing to make fun of. [...] I remember back in 1990 during the Clash Of The Titans tour [with Anthrax, Megadeth and an unknown Alice In Chains], we had this religious talk-show guy Bob Larson out doing a special story on us for Spin magazine. Me and Jeff [Hanneman, fellow Slayer guitarist] have always been very similar in how we think about religion and atheism. So we’d listen to this guy – as I believe you should; you should always hear people out. But whenever I tried to question his beliefs, he’d go on the defensive and say: ‘It’s because the Bible says so.’ So then I’d ask: ‘Who the fuck wrote the Bible?’ Because to me it’s like a fairy tale that has been translated many times. And that’s when I realised these people are just fanatics. That’s when the seed got planted in my head to write about them. Because they really are out of their fucking minds."

"As far as where we’re going in the future, I think we’ve gone as far as we can with the ‘gods of speed’ thing. We’re starting to get into slower stuff, going for longer songs, as opposed to the blast aspect. Also, the noisy, industrial stuff is coming more to the forefront. If you’re familiar with our latest album [Harmony Corruption], I think you’ve got a good idea as to our new direction. We’re getting into real painful noise; I just want to annoy people at the moment."

"The speed and aggression [in Slayer's music] came from Hanneman’s love for hardcore punk such as Minor Threat, TSOL, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Germs and more. This influence had an impact on [the band's] primitive sound which was the blueprint for all thrash metal bands to follow. Hanneman played and wrote music on every single Slayer album and is responsible for so many classic hits."

"Even though [Hanneman] was at the heart of the [Slayer's] creative force musically and lyrically, he shed away from the public eye mostly and usually avoided interviews, leaving the talking to Kerry King of Tom Araya."

"When it comes to the driving lead force amid the longtime triple-guitar assault within [Iron Maiden], Smith is the king above kings. Complete with his usual headband, Smith is a groover — meaning his playing has a undeniably blues feel to it. While it's never really been about speed with Smith, when it comes to legendary solo work ("Heaven Can Wait", "Powerslave), he continues to bring it at a level that others only wish they could pull off."

"Meshuggah is probably one of the heaviest and most brutal bands of all time. A lot of that is due to Mårten Hagström and his huge sound and riffs. It's really scary what comes out of his 8-string Ibanez."

"Adrian Smith incorporates all the classic metal guitar player's techniques: alternate picking, legato, hammer-ons, and pull-offs, sweep picking, slide playing and more. What separates him from the rest of the pack is that he uses all of these techniques in a musical context with no exaggeration. He is heavily influenced by blues, so he uses the pentatonic scale a lot, but he also enjoys ripping a fast phrase in a Phyrigian mode from time to time."

"The founder and leader of Bay Area thrash stalwarts Exodus, Holt isn't always listed among the metal greats. Perhaps because Exodus never enjoyed the consistent mainstream success like other bands of its ilk -- notably its buddies from Metallica. Still, Holt is one of the most severe metal guitarists around (especially when it comes to his solo work)."

"One of my philosophies about playing drums is if you really break it down, there's probably only about 10 or 12 percent of the people in this world that are actually musicians that understand what goes into making a song. The other people are just listeners and they feel the groove and they feel the beat and that's what makes them move and that's what makes them go, 'That's a fuckin' kick-ass song.' As a drummer, I always approach things as, 'I want to play just enough to keep other drummers interested, but not enough to go over the average listener's head.' That's where I think a lot of these guys today are just, 'I'm the drummer, man. Check it out. Here's my lick. I just learned this new drum lick. I'm just gonna blast all over the place.' It's like, 'Man, you've got to let the song breathe.'"

"The late, great Vinnie Paul was the man who put the groove in Pantera’s crushing, captivating “power groove” brand of swaggering heavy metal. As hard as the Texan firebrands’ music hits, it always has swing, and Paul’s unique talent behind the kit was one of the group’s great secrets. That he was also a big part of their songwriting and record production only adds to his bona fides."

"[Murray and Adrian Smith] are the OG’s of the twin axe attack (and thus to blame for inadvertently causing melodic death metal)."

"How to improve melody... I get this question a lot. I think people kind of make something too complicated out of that. There's a lot of rules. You can [read] books about the melodies... But [if] you have great songs all around; if you have a nice chord progression, you can just follow [it] and play the notes of the chords, and it's gonna work. Then, sometimes, you deviate and come back, but you don't need to think much about it. [...] You can also just pay attention to melodies... and play melodies. Get the guitar, and play melodies. I think guitar players, in general, at least from my generation, learn scales, the pentatonics, the shapes of the modes, the triads, this and that, and we don't play a lot of melodies. So that's something that I was paying more attention to later [in my career]... I just try to play the melody. No fancy arpeggios, no nothing. Just a singable melody."

"What was happening down in Gothenburg and Stockholm didn’t affect us at all. [In Umeå], there weren’t that many bands trying to do stuff that was extreme. And, if you’re isolated, if you’re an inquisitive and experimental person, and you meet up with other people who have the same passion, it forces its own bubble. We didn’t get exposed to whatever cool band played at the pub the other night."

"I can tell you where it's from. There was this guy called Tim Stevenson. He had a forum called Tandjent Forum. He was an old-school fan. Me and Fredrik [Thordendal] were really drunk after a show, and we were talking to Tim. Fredrik was trying to explain his guitar tone. Tim asked, 'Where do you get that chug from? What is it that makes it so special?' Fredrik said, 'You gotta make it go DJENT! DJENT! DJENT!' He was slurring and spitting all over the place."

"Start looking around, and then just learn how to play the melodies from songs you like. It can be traditional songs from your country, pop songs, modern, whatever — melodies from songs you like. Classical music, right? You can play exactly the same melody in so many different ways. That's what creates this emotion, mainly when you play instrumental music. But [also] in any music, of course, because the singer will do the same. In classical music, this is mandatory to develop that sense of how to interpret the melody. Because you're playing songs [where] you cannot change any note, but the only thing you can change is how you interpret those notes, right? So we can learn a lot from classical players."

"Ben Koller is an absolute unit. Remember the first time you heard “Dark Horse”? The “holy shit” moment still resonates on every subsequent listen, as the quickfire drumming kicks off perhaps the strongest A-side of Converge’s career thus far."

"Chris just called me and said, “Hey, we need an emergency bass player. Do you want come jam?” So, I learned the songs, practiced with them a few times, and knocked out the album. I had history with Chris and a long history with Eric Cutler. We really knew each other. It was all smooth. I consider myself lucky to have been a part of Autopsy and all the history around them."

"In high school, if you were playing any kind of music that wasn't dance, or just something that was really different—you know, rock, metal or hard rock, anything like that—then you needed to look like it. You needed to look like a bad dude, and we just looked like normal dudes....It wasn't about trying to impress everybody, because we looked at those types of people as weenies trying to do that stuff ... We just wore our normal stuff and we didn't really think about it. It just kind of happened that way and I think because we were searching for an extreme style, coupled with this no image, who-cares-what-we-look-like thing, then I think we fit in to that new movement that we discovered a little ways later, the whole Bay Area thrash scene."

"His guitar tone is both beefy and filth-ridden, setting a bar in 2004 that many hardcore bands have still been attempting to clear over the last 20 years."

"Burning from the inside out Bloody foam spews from your mouth Smell the putrid stench of flesh As it burns you to your death [...] The rancid smell of burning hair Screaming in excruciating pain Blood boils over, warping veins Burnt skull collapses onto melting brains Spontaneous death, up in flames Twisting and writhing as life burns away Until nothing is left but charred remains"

"It may sound crazy now, but at the time we couldn't find band members around here to save our lives. The quest for at least a bass player turned up blanks. I guess you can say we didn't fit in with what the Bay Area was churning out, being a total death metal band in a strictly thrash environment. Fuck it, we couldn't let that stop us, so we didn't."

"Here I sit surrounded by white My arms wrapped around my back real tight What did I do that was so wrong that I had to pay I don't think anyone's gonna miss her anyway I just couldn't take any more shit So with the swing of my knife her stomach was split Putrid guts and bile all over the floor Couldn't help but laugh at this vision of gore Severed flesh began to expel blood Stench of defecation as I cut Shoved my hand into the gaping slice As you tried to emit gurgling cries Intenstines on the ground Guts removed Disembowel Twitching violently Dying in agony Blood comes flowing forth Eyes no longer see"

"My parents were academics and not thrilled about me joining a thrash metal band. They were older than most of my friends’ parents so didn’t even have that rock’n’roll background. Their wishes for me were to get a PhD, just like them. There were a few points that convinced them I hadn’t made a terrible choice, though. The first was when Testament supported Judas Priest at the Oakland Coliseum [in 1990], which showed that this was more than just a neighbourhood band. They were also happy when I started writing columns for guitar magazines, because they always respected writing."

"Finger on the trigger Back against the wall [...] So, you thought you could escape without a fight That we would lose the scent of your despair"

"I spent many Saturday nights in grade school and high school watching MTV's Headbanger's Ball. I was very fortunate that my parents had one of those old, massive, ugly giant satellite dishes that took up half our front yard and also made a great bird's nest and lightning rod. Because we had MTV and also Canada's Much Music channel since the early 1980s, I was able to discover many of my favorite bands through these TV channels, including Death. I remember the first time I saw the video for "Lack of Comprehension" and I was completely blown away. This song was the perfect mix of brutality and melody. Sean Reinert's drumming also blew my mind. As a drummer, I was fascinated by his playing and I immediately wanted to learn more about Death. I also couldn't believe that this song had brutal, guttural vocals, but was also very melodic and catchy — to me it sounded like the perfect mix of a band like Iron Maiden, and a band like Possessed. I immediately tried to learn the drum parts for this song and I have to humbly say that it took me about three years to do so. Almost every day from the time I purchased the Human album in 1992 until I joined Death in 1997, I practiced drums to the Human album because I loved the music and drumming so much. Fortunately, when I auditioned for Death in July of 1997 I knew the Human album like the back of my hand and the first song Chuck Schuldiner and I played together was "Lack of Comprehension." Chuck was very impressed that I knew the whole Human album and many other Death songs and this led to me joining my favorite band in the world and making friends with the most talented musician I've ever met and one of my heroes, Chuck Schuldiner. I miss Chuck so much and think of him every day and pretty much still listen to Death every day. When fans ask what drumming performance of mine that I'm most proud of, I always say The Sound of Perseverance album by Death. It is the highest honor as a metal fan and a dear friend of Chuck's Schuldiner's to say that I got to be in Death, my favorite band in the world."

"Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi is without question the greatest metal guitarist of all time. There would simply be no metal without Iommi’s monumental riffs, beastly tone, and more importantly his revolutionary approach to the guitar. [...] Iommi’s sonic brilliance speaks for itself, and the fact the vast majority of the metal scene has remained unwavering in their admiration for him not only cements him as the godfather of metal, but it further establishes him as the greatest heavy metal guitarist of all time."

"I have heard Slayer's first and a few from bands such as Sodom, Destruction, Wimphammer / Celtic Compost, and I think they all suck. I don't even listen to black metal, death metal, satanic metal, or thrash metal at all. It's mostly crap."

"It's not often that an artist’s solo career outshines the output of their primary band, but as controversial as it might be to say, that’s what Emperor co-founder Ihsahn has done in the eyes of many prog fans. To be fair, he's released twice as many full-length records as Emperor, and listeners looking for a purer black metal ride will probably prefer what they’ve done. Yet, those who’re interested in a significantly more progressive/avant-garde and wide-ranging palette will find Ihsahn to be among the greatest modern prog metal acts period. Rather than become uninspired and predictable, Ihsahn has becomes more of a visionary as the years pass."

"There was this chemistry between me and Adrian that went beyond the music."

"Rhoads brought a new level of virtuosity to metal guitar. [...] Carefully trained by his music teacher mom, Rhoads had a flair for modal improvisation, tapped arpeggios and meticulously doubled leads, and set the stage for the Eighties shred boom."

"Murray is known for his smooth play, especially when it comes to transition and chord progressions. [...] Though he may not play with the fury of his bandmates, Murray is one of the best melodic guitar players in the metal genre."

"Rhoads infused the explosive, fleet-fingered, yet largely blues-based guitar style of Eddie Van Halen with classical music–inspired melodies and runs and an advanced knowledge of music theory. His playing on Blizzard of Ozz classics like Crazy Train, Mr. Crowley and I Don’t Know raised the bar for guitar shredders in the Eighties and beyond."

"As the darkness creeps over the Northern mountains of Norway and the silence reach the woods I awake and rise"

"Most heavy metal is not very melodic in nature. It’s often minor in tone so you can use a lot of minor thirds in your lead breaks. That automatically sounds classical. Leslie West was one of my favorites because he used classical ideas with feeling. He was melodic but mean."