This video is bonus content related to the May 2015 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the guitar world online store:guitarworld.myshopify.com/coll...
Back in the Eighties, during the heyday of metal, bands like Van Halen, Judas Priest and the Scorpions were releasing incredible, killer albums packed with amazing guitar playing.
Today, I feel that the majority of metal is more focused on rhythmic parts with less harmonic movement than what I think of as the approach representative of Eighties-style metal. It is from that perspective that I put together the three “classic” metal-style riffs featured in this month’s column.
During the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) days of the late Seventies and early Eighties, bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were forging blazing, melodic metal earmarked by powerful and memorable song riffs.
FIGURE 1 is indicative of Iron Maiden’s style: above the progression of three different pedal tones, shifting two- and three-note chord shapes create the melodic content that keeps this part interesting and moving forward.