Randy Rhoads
SIGNATURE SONG: “Crazy Train”
Blizzard of Ozz (OZZY OSBOURNE)
Metal’s martyred boy-child, Randy Rhoads embraced the tapping, divebombing innovations of Edward Van Halen and brought these techniques to a new plateau in the early Eighties. He came out of Quiet Riot and the Hollywood hair-band scene to find fame with Ozzy Osbourne, but his life was cut tragically short before he had time to realize his full potential. During his brief yet stellar career, he played with the blazing intensity of a man who somehow knew he only had a few short years to share his gift with the world.
Joe Satriani
SIGNATURE SONG: “Satch Boogie”
Surfing with the Alien
Shred was born in 1987 on the day Joe Satriani released Surfing with the Alien. Satch took all the rock guitar virtuosity that had gone before—Hendrix, Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, etc.—and brought it all a giant step further, adding a few new tricks to the lexicon of hot guitar moves and upping the land speed record for notes-per-nanosecond. But where earlier ax heroes employed techniques like tapping and dive bombing to dazzle and astound, Satriani’s mastery lies in his ability to subsume daunting technical maneuvers into beguiling, seemingly effortless melodic statements that appeal to guitar geeks and the general public alike. His secret? Satch is one guitar virtuoso who never lost touch with his rock and roll heart.
Chuck Schuldiner
SIGNATURE SONG: “Pull the Plug”
Leprosy (DEATH)
Chuck Schuldiner passed away in 2001, but were he alive, he would almost certainly be amused by the new legion of metal guitarists inspired by him that emerged in his absence. During the rise of his band Death, Schuldiner’s outstanding solos—which featured playing as melodic and precise as that of anyone who put out a record on the Relativity or Shrapnel labels—were often overshadowed by Death’s jackhammer rhythms and dark lyrics. However, anyone taking a look back at his work would instantly realize that Schuldiner could tap as tastefully as Eddie Van Halen and rip up a fretboard as well as anyone else. Eleven other guitarists shared the spotlight with Schuldiner in Death, including James Murphy and Andy LaRocque, but none shined more brightly.
Alex Skolnick
SIGNATURE SONG: “Practice What You Preach”
Practice What You Preach (TESTAMENT)
You simply have to admire Alex Skolnick’s dedication to the guitar. Right when Testament were ready to hit the big time, Skolnick bailed to pursue his love of jazz, preferring to make music in San Francisco clubs with players like bassist Michael Manring and eventually making his way to New York City to study jazz at the New School. Most players have trouble mastering one style of music, but Skolnick impresses whether he’s blasting out thrash metal solos with Testament (which he has since rejoined) or tearing up the fretboard with his jazz band, the Alex Skolnick Trio.
Timo Tolkki
SIGNATURE SONG; “Speed of Light”
Episode (STRATOVARIUS)
Maybe the harsh Scandinavian winters are the reason why Europe’s northernmost countries boast the most neoclassical shredders per capita. Finland’s Timo Tolkki and his band Stratovarius released their first album in 1989, about the time that shred mania reached its peak, and fortunately for them they established a huge following in—where else—Japan by the time grunge took over in 1992. Like Malmsteen, Tolkki’s ambitions reach far beyond power metal into classical music, and his precision fretwork is inspired more by virtuoso violinists than other guitarists. This year he completed work on his “metal opera,” Saana—Warrior of Light.
Herman Li & Sam Totman
SIGNATURE SONG: “Through the Fire and Flames”
Inhuman Rampage (DRAGONFORCE)
When the first Dragonforce album came out in 2003, critics were convinced that Herman Li and Sam Totman’s outrageously fast guitar solos were the product of studio trickery. However, Li and Totman later proved that they were the real deal both onstage and under the scrutiny of skeptical editors right here at Guitar World headquarters. Individually, Li and Tottman boast jaw-dropping speed and precision, but when they lock horns in tightly synchronized harmonies they can make heads explode from sonic overload. Who needs amphetamines? Just put on a Dragonforce’s Inhuman Rampage to jumpstart your day.
Steve Vai SIGNATURE SONG: “Passion and Warfare” Passion and Warfare
Steve Vai can do things with a sustainer and twang bar that surely ain’t natural and certainly indicate a high tantric mastery of all documented and undocumented alien love secrets. Discovered by Frank Zappa and fostered by David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, Vai emerged in the Nineties as a solo artist and guitar hero of major stature. His astounding technique defies categorization. In his graceful hands, the guitar becomes a cosmic antenna, channeling other dimensions and parallel universes. His best work combines the swagger of a lifelong rock and roller with the romantic soul of a poet. As if this weren’t enough, he’s also a first-rate composer and has great cheekbones.
Eddie Van Halen
SIGNATURE SONG: “Eruption”
Van Halen
Though numerous players have surpassed Eddie Van Halen’s speed and precision, Ed deserves credit for developing and perfecting the techniques that have become essential elements of the shredder’s vocabulary ever since Van Halen’s debut in 1978. Eddie’s tapped triplets helped players with sloppy picking technique double and triple their speed, but his incredibly precise tremolo picking showed that you still needed excellent right- and left-hand coordination if you truly wanted to impress. Although players like Night Ranger’s Jeff Watson took tapping to ludicrous eight-finger extremes, no one ever sounds as good as Eddie when he’s in the groove.
Ben Weinman
SIGNATURE SONG: “43% Burnt”
Calculating Infinity (DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN)
Who says that hardcore punks can’t shred? The Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman pioneered a style known as mathcore, which isn’t as nerdy as the name suggests but certainly requires an IQ above 100 to be fully appreciated for its unique blend of punk intensity, technical precision and the anomalous jazz melodicism. Still think punks can’t shred with the best of them? We dare you to try and figure out one of Weinman’s solos. Go ahead, tough guy.
Johnny Winter
SIGNATURE SONG “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo”
Johnny Winter And
Long before Stevie Ray, Johnny Winter was the original white-guy-from-Texas blues guitar demon. Critics have often remarked on the irony that a pale-skinned, crosseyed albino turned out to be one of the greatest interpreters of America’s seminal black musical idiom. Winter has the hardlivin’ outsider’s perspective that it takes to play the blues for real, but it’s matched with the rockera chops of a guy who came up alongside immortals like Eric Clapton and Mike Bloomfield. The best of Winter’s phenomenal playing is imbued with both fire and fluidity. Flurries of notes crawl all over the 12-bar grid at every conceivable angle, like a hoard of spiders fanning out in search of prey. In the whole vast river that is the blues, nothing quite possesses the eerie intensity of Johnny Winters’ best work.
Honorable Mentions
Our list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning a few other speed demons, most notably Eighties neoclassical shredder Tony MacAlpine, Outworld guitarist and shred instructor Rusty Cooley, Shrapnel disciple (and current UFO guitarist) Vinnie Moore, Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt and, of course, the mighty Zakk Wylde. If you think there’s anyone of the fleet-fingered variety who was unjustly left off our list, feel free to let us know at soundingboard@guitarworld.com!
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