This is what started it all for me with pinch harmonics-
I couldn’t have been playing longer than a year, the vid came on MTV and particularly during the chorus I just thought the guitars sounded fucking wild. That was the only way I could describe it, I didn’t know what pinch harmonics were, I didn’t even have distortion on my shitty beginner amp then. It just sounds like a wall of guitars trying to fight their way out of the bounds of the song. I don’t think it was until 3 years later I even knew Zakk Wylde’s name.
I know I was listening to a lot of Van Halen’s Live: Right Here, Right Now and “316” was always a big favorite- (3:58)
I think I had my uncle show me how he was doing that and I’ve been ripping it off ever since, I just haven’t written it into a song yet. When I eventually start posting live footage, it comes out mostly then. Hahahah Ed looks rather elegant doing it, I just slap the shit out of the fingerboard
Around that same time I realized how pinch harmonics were made by cupping the whammy bar and ring finger knuckle hitting the strings when I picked them. That was the only way I did pinch harmonics for the next decade and it’s still how I hit half of them. I can nail one 99% of the time hitting them that way, opposed to 90% of the time with my thumb.
Then I saw this in 9th grade, I already knew the song from my uncle teaching me but hearing Zakk’s take on it, that was it, I was a pinch harmonic fein after that-
And as if I needed any more reason/influence, this came along very shortly after-
They seem to wane in popularity, or people are just burnt out because Zakk’s overdone it, but IDGAF. I fucking love pinch harmonics. I was stoked when Killswitch started shamelessly throwing them in their music, because what fucking fun is playing metal riffs if you can’t throw a shitload of pinch harmonics into it?!?!
