00:00Favorite metal man of all time.
00:07Hi, this is Alex Skolnick of Testament, and these are my five favorite riffs.
00:14First pick, let's go with Van Halen, Mean Streets.
00:20I know I'm not the first one to pick this riff, but to me it just captures everything
00:25that's great about a riff. It's angry more than was expected for a band like Van Halen,
00:31which had a lot of very pop melodies, especially in the vocal tune. But that whole tune captures some
00:38aggression and intensity, and I can't think of any metal players that weren't influenced by that
00:46riff in one way or the other. I think Van Halen sometimes gets overshadowed by his own brilliant
00:52lead playing and shredding, or whatever you want to call it, because there's so much more to him.
00:59Timing, swing, tone, and especially riffs. And Mean Street really captures the best of the riffs.
01:08Second pick is Sinsukt by Rammstein. And for some reason, that riff just hits me really hard.
01:19I don't hear that song talked about quite as much as some of the others, like Duhas. But when I
01:26hear
01:27that, I can't stop moving. It's just a riff in E. It's just a few chords surrounding E. I wouldn't
01:35say
01:35it's the most clever or unorthodox, yet it manages to be familiar, but sound really unique at the same time.
01:48I think Rammstein's another example, kind of like Eddie Van Halen. Riffs are not entirely what
01:57they're known for. They might be known for lyrical content, keyboards, strange moods, and other things.
02:06Fire. Yeah, crazy show. But I think some of the riffs are right up there, and they excite me.
02:16My third pick, it's going to be Into the Void by Black Sabbath.
02:23I think they really wrote the book on riffs. You know, riffs were part of rock and roll, for sure.
02:32And, you know, you think of great riffs by, you know, Cream and The Beatles, parts that came before
02:40Black Sabbath. But they just took it to another level. Tony, as far as tone, came up with
02:49Into the Void, and it's just a perfect example of a riff that fits the tone. He had a tone
02:57unlike
02:57anybody else at that time, and came up with this part that was perfect, and also dropped tuned. Yeah,
03:05which is, that's something very common now. It's hard to find a heavy band that doesn't experiment
03:12with that tuning or something like it. But at the time, it was really rare. Number four,
03:19it's hard to pick favorite riffs and not think of Jimmy Page. There's another person that just did so
03:27much and rewrote the book. But along the way, had so many great riffs that are essential. And it's
03:36really hard to pick just one. I'm going to go with Black Dog.
03:44It's not a simple riff. You know, some of the other ones I've made, you could learn them and you
03:49don't have to be that advanced on guitar. But to play the riff from Black Dog, right,
03:55it's tricky. It's all single notes, got really interesting timing. It's so unpredictable.
04:03It might be hard for somebody to hum it, who's not a musician. So it's challenging,
04:10yet it's instantly recognizable. It's very familiar. And it draws people in, whether they're
04:17musical people or just the average listener. It's hard to imagine without, you know, the band and
04:24Robert Plant and the whole package. But just on its own, that riff, you know, really stands out.
04:32Okay, final one. This is totally left field, off the beaten track, as far as metal riffs,
04:39because it's not a metal riff. But Chameleon by Herbie Hancock, which was originally played on
04:47the clavinet, which has a very guitar-like vibe and sound. And at the time, there weren't a lot of
04:57riffs like that. I have to think that Stevie Wonder's Superstition is around the same time period,
05:06and it's the same type of riff, that it's very guitar-like, but not played on the guitar. You can
05:14hear it over and over, and I don't know how many times it happens in the song, but it never
05:20gets old.
05:21It's such a good riff and such a good hook that you just want it to keep going.
05:26Favorite metal band of all time? I'm going to go with ACDC. If this was top six riffs, the next
05:36one,
05:36for sure, would have been ACDC. If it was the top ten, they would have more than one entry.
05:43Not only some of the greatest riffs, some of the greatest licks. Underrated, I think, in a way,
05:50because it came kind of in the shadow of Van Halen and Blackmore before that. But when you
05:59look at Angus on his own, I mean, it's just such perfect lead guitar playing, perfect rhythm guitar
06:06playing by Malcolm. Amazing riffs. It's tempting to say Black Sabbath because they invented the rules.
06:17You know, they created the playing field. But you can't deny that Black Sabbath had some difficult
06:26periods. You know, they had this initial era where they came out bigger than life and
06:33changed the game. But it was so intense that even they couldn't survive it. And then there was another
06:41version of Black Sabbath with Ryan James Deer, which was great. There are some versions that we could
06:48debate about whether they were up to the standard. ACDC, you know, to their credit, never veered far from
06:57what they do best. They've only had two vocalists, to my knowledge, unless you count Axl Rose filling in
07:05on some of the live shows, which is also great. But you know what to get with an ACDC album.
07:11Yeah,
07:12some of them may be more definitive than others, but they always hold up. Everybody does what they do.
07:18There's not one where you say, oh, you know, Angus just doesn't sound like himself or, you know,
07:25Malcolm just didn't riff enough. They're consistent. So for, I don't know how many decades now,
07:31they've been delivering. I think because of their consistency and their overall output, as well as
07:39their individuality, ACDC, to me, is the greatest metal band of all time.
07:43This is Alex Skolnick of Testament, here for Metal Hammer, and this has been my top five riffs.
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