Guitarosaurus Rex - The Dying Breed

The arena lights go off and tension rises, a surge of emotions pull towards the stage and the voices of thousands of fans scream in unison... Curtains drop and there he is! The lone cool guy in the one shining spotlight, wide stance, Les Paul below the waist line... Crowd goes wild... He starts churning out the signature riff of everybody's favorite song and everybody loses their freakin' minds. After all... The Guitar Hero has spoken...

Once upon a time there was a phenomenon called "Guitar Hero". He (or she - but c'mon, let's be honest... there weren't that many) was probably along with the singer the most important ingredient in a rock or metal band. If you had a good looking singer and a kick ass guitar hero you were set...

Some guitar heroes were amazing virtuosos on their instruments, lacing the drabbest song with spices and edge, reviving the deadest of tunes with kick ass adrenaline... Other Guitar Heroes were not really that great instrumentalists but they would instead rule the stage, either by wild antics or by just being cooler than the rest.

Well, those days are gone... The few guitar heroes we have left are remnants from that past age when guitars ruled the world.

I read an interview once with the guy from Staind, Mike Mushok, and was surprised to find out that he grew up being influenced by quite prominent and also very technical guitar players (he studied under shredder Tony MacAlpine) and that he started out his career playing all kinds of wild stuff. Now in Staind he was settling into the role of background player and he was OK with that... The reporter asked him if he missed not actually playing the guitar like he really could and he said something like "Yeah, well... It's not in style anymore."

With that attitude it is no wonder the Guitar Heroes have died off. There is no new blood WILLING to pick up the torch. They’re too damn concerned about what’s “in style”.

Having met and played with a lot of today's young guitar players and having heard them off stage playing stuff that they CAN and REALLY WANT to play I think it's a fucking shame that they don't incorporate this into their music. What happened to us that we have removed the guitar, the most important component in rock, from the very music it is the trademark for?

Riffs today are not riffs but muted power chords statically accentuating a drumbeat or a rap style vocal line. Gone are the days when you would recognize a song after the first few seconds of the opening riff blasting out of your car stereo. There is no mistaking "Black Dog", "Back in Black", "Motorbreath", "Ain't talking 'bout love" or even friggin' "Unskinny Bop" for that matter... The riff was the core of the song, the very essence, and the guitar hero was the messenger...

Today's riffs don't stick in our memory because the songs are not based upon them anymore. Today rock and metal is based upon sales, sales and sales and thus the music has to be formulated differently in order to appeal to a bigger audience that is used to the catchy chorus vocal oriented stuff. All that was already dealt with in a previous article...

The few guitarplayers we have to day that stick out are the ones that stuck out even 10 years ago: Slash, Zakk, Petrucci, Satriani etc...

Then we have the ones that have been around since forever but never got the recognition they deserved: Jeff Waters (Annihilator), Jeff Loomis (Nevermore), Steve Morse (solo), Andy Timmons (solo) and Michael Amott (Arch Enemy).

And then the ones who were aboslutely amazing but just slid back into oblivion for whatever reasons: Jake E Lee (Ozzy and Badlands), Vito Bratta (White Lion), Harry Cody (Shotgun Messiah) and Ronnie Le Tekro (TNT).

And even worse… The ones who were once great but have now chosen not to play with any conviction or tone ever again, but still mock us by sticking around like ghosts haunting the halls of past fame so to remind us what we are missing out on: James Hetfield (should get back to drinking) and Eddie Van Halen (should lay off the drinking)...

So let's look at where we do have guitar heroes still.

As far as technical proficiency goes they are sadly mostly to be found in the Power and Progressive Metal genre. A brand of metal that appeals to but a few worldwide and virtually nobody here in the states. Maybe the vocals are too high pitched, the lyrics to cheesy and the melodies too gay... Whatever... The fact still remains that the few remaining technical guitar heroes belong to this "forgotten" genre.

10-15 years ago these guys would have been stars and now they play for bus money in bands you have never heard about. You don't know who Jorn Viggo Lofstad, Tore Ostby, Luca Turilli, Rafael Bittencourt, Kiko Loureiro or Daniel Antonsson is... and neither will you ever hear them play. It's a shame...

And when it comes to the quintessential guitar hero... The guy with the attitude, the chops, the style, the charisma and the originality... Forget about it.

Where is the new Eddie? The new Yngwie? The new Vai? The new SRV? Hell... Where is the new Page or Keith? I’ll settle for a new goddamn CC DeVille just to shake things up a little. (And no… I don’t mean that literally so shut up.)

Where is the guy that will show us something new and exciting and not be ashamed to flaunt it?

Fuck... the best young guitar player to come around lately and actually incorporate it into his music is John Mayer! John Mayer is kicking all rock and metal guitarists' asses right now and that should be a wake up call if anything. It’s fucking John Mayer… C’mon…

I am not only missing the playing, but almost more so the player. The one who lit up the stage and dazzled us all by just being the epitome of cool.

I have friends who I know for a fact can play in circles around anybody, and they play in bands that don't even have solos or riffs. These guys will never ever be heard and never ever inspire somebody to pick up the goddamn guitar and THAT is a crying shame! (Bill, Paul and Totte... You know I'm talking about you.)

I picked up the guitar because I thought that Andy La Rocque was the coolest guitar player in the world and I wanted to be a guitar hero too.

What kid will pick up the guitar because of anybody in the rock circus today?

Guitar solos are the stuff dreams are made of. Without dreams, rock and metal will fade away into that big gray mass of all the other boring genres out there.

Play that fucking guitar!