Rockers Play Their Favorite Riffs on Acoustic Guitar

They say at times you can’t hear the sheer brilliance of a song until it’s broken down on acoustic guitar, so for this edition of Gear Factor, you’ll get a lot of brilliance from some of rock and metal’s greatest guitar players.

We kick off this compilation with Ghost‘s Tobias Forge shouting out one of his greatest guitar influences, Metallica‘s James Hetfield, and getting laugh out of what he’s hearing when he breaks down “Master of Puppets” on acoustic for the listeners. “That’s a funny riff,” he remarks, imagining that Hetfield had a great time writing the song.

Speaking of metal riffs, Alter Bridge‘s Myles Kennedy reveals that the time in his youth when he was taught a Judas Priest classic on guitar was “outside of the first time I had sex, that might have been the best moment of my life.”

Kennedy later tests out the Van Halen classic “Eruption,” with John 5 and Lamb of God‘s Mark Morton also offering their takes on songs from the Eddie Van Halen catalog.

READ MORE: 10 Greatest Acoustic Metal Songs

Simply put, there’s some masterful work from the aforementioned Tobias Forge, John 5, Mark Morton and Myles Kennedy, along with Zakk Wylde, Bumblefoot, Mark Tremonti, William DuVall, Frank Iero and Bayside’s Anthony Raneri and Jack O’Shea and their picks are some of the most well-known guitar songs stripped down on acoustic guitar. Have a look below.

Rockers Play Their Favorite Riffs on Acoustic Guitar