After a four year hiatus, our popular Riff of The Month feature returns this month! This short monthly feature explores the history of guitar riffs, whilst inspiring and challenging you to progress with your guitar playing. We begin with my personal guitar hero Slash, a guitarist that inspired me to begin playing in 1989, after hearing the opening guitar riff of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. A riff that Slash had originally written during a jamming session.
In an interview with Q Magazine some years ago, Slash said "Writing and rehearsing it to make it a complete song was like pulling teeth,". He also wasn't happy that the song developed into a ballad, since Guns were more about having a bad-boy demeanor. Fast forward 36 years, it’s hard to believe that the band's debut album Appetite For Destruction took the best part of 12 months to get off the ground, after debuting on the Billboard 200 at 182.
For our first feature I’ve chosen ‘Back From Cali’, a punchy riff that featured on the 2010 self-titled debut album from the former Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist. The album is a collaborative masterpiece, featuring Ian Astbury, Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie, Myles Kennedy, Chris Cornell, Andrew Stockdale, Adam Levine, Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Duff McKagan, Kid Rock, M. Shadows, Rocco DeLuca and Iggy Pop. Here, it’s the Alter Bridge frontman Myles Kennedy that takes the lead. Slash was so impressed with Kennedy’s vocal performance on album tracks ‘Back From Cali’ and ‘Starlight’ that he later asked him to front his solo touring band.
Back From Cali’s opening guitar riff is made up of trademark double stops, a style consistent from this influential iconic guitarist, and it rocks hard! Learning to play this riff properly will help improve your guitar playing techniques, including the use of double stops, finger strength, timing, phrasing, melody and slide guitar playing. I hope you all enjoy learning to play this one!
