Sick Riffs #56: In support of their latest album Rewind, Replay, Rebound - released back in August 2019 - multi-platinum Danish/American rockers Volbeat were intent on hitting the road on a five-week tour across the US, with shows slated country-wide from Tempe, Arizona to New York City. Unfortunately, the unprecedented restrictions that followed the coronavirus outbreak led to the cancelation of the entire run.
The hard-rock four-piece have been keeping busy in the meantime, however, holding competitions encouraging fans to upload their covers of the band's music, with the potential reward of appearing on their massive social media accounts.
And now, lead guitarist Rob Caggiano joins Guitar World to teach you how to play the record's lead single, Leviathan - which, incidentally, just got its own official animated video.
And what's more, he's even included the full tab! You can view that below, or download it from Volbeat.com.
In addition to teaching the track, Caggiano also offers up some serious eye candy, repping his latest signature guitar, the Jackson Rob Caggiano Shadowcaster with DiMarzio pickups, which he runs through an Antelope Audio Zen Tour Synergy Core interface and a Neural DSP Granophyre digital amp modeler.
"The coronavirus has obviously been a very weird and horrible thing for the entire world in many ways, but I'm realizing now there have also been a lot of positive things that have come out of it," the guitarist says. "I'm starting to really cherish this time out to be honest. It definitely brought me closer to my family and that's been a really great thing.
"It also forced me to be creative in some different ways that I never even thought about until now. In fact, it's a perfect time to be creative! We all have a lot of time on our hands to focus on whatever our passions are. There's no excuse. If you're a guitar player, for example, and you're passionate about it, you should absolutely come out of this a better player, and I think that's a beautiful thing."
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Sick Riffs is a Guitar World video series designed to help guitarists affected by the coronavirus. Self-isolating players around the world have each filmed a lesson where they teach you one of their own guitar riffs, up close and personal. If you dig the lesson, we encourage you to buy music and merch from the artist or stream their music.
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Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.
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