{"id":901309,"date":"2026-09-22T13:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T13:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901309\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T13:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T13:06:15","slug":"james-hetfield-says-this-legendary-metal-guitarist-is-the-ultimate-riff-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901309\/","title":{"rendered":"James Hetfield says this legendary metal guitarist is the ultimate \u201cRiff Lord\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

On any list of the world\u2019s most influential guitarists, few players deserve a place quite like James Hetfield<\/a>. A walking riff factory with the most relentless right hand in the game, the Metallica<\/a> frontman has largely shaped the world of heavy metal as we know it today.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s always a bigger fish, as they say\u2026<\/p>\n

Every guitarist, no matter how successful they become, was first inspired by someone. And for James Hetfield, his hero comes in the form of legendary Black Sabbath<\/a> guitarist and heavy metal forefather Tony Iommi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iommi is widely regarded as the guitarist who gave birth to the entire genre of heavy metal, his riffs in such Sabbath classics as War Pigs, Paranoid and Iron Man influencing generation after generation of aspiring players.<\/p>\n

And in a new episode of James Hetfield\u2019s Riff Life on SiriusXM\u2019s Maximum Metallica \u2013 a 24\/7 station dedicated to all things Metallica \u2013 the frontman waxes lyrical on his adoration for Tony Iommi, and how he has shaped him as a guitarist all these years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTony Iommi is the Riff Lord in my mind. He is the one that has inspired me the most out of any guitar player for my rhythm guitar playing and songwriting,\u201c Hetfield says.<\/p>\n

Citing the riff of Black Sabbath\u2019s Children of the Grave, he continues: \u201cObviously, Tony is the Riff Lord and everyone starts the song together on the one riff\u2026 You know, basically Tony plays off that riff, goes in to hit the big giant chords, which opens the song up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really love the drum overdub that they did to help with that percussion of the riff and the real cool ghostly guitar sounds at the very end.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At 78 years old, Tony Iommi is still very much an active riff machine. Next month, he\u2019ll release his third solo album \u2013 and first in 21 years \u2013 From the Dark<\/a>. The album, which arrives a little over a year on from the death of his Black Sabbath bandmate and friend Ozzy Osbourne<\/a>, will comprise eight tracks, and even feature some Iommi acoustic playing\u2026<\/p>\n

He said of his decision to grab a strummer for the new album that it largely came down to wanting to push himself outside his comfort zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to do something you don\u2019t really expect. And to be honest, I hate playing acoustic,\u201d he confessed. \u201cI\u2019m not very good at playing acoustic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out Maximum Metallica on SiriusXM<\/a>. Watch the full clip with James Hetfield praising Tony Iommi as the ultimate \u201cRiff Lord\u201d below:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of Guitar World, Total Guitar, Metal Hammer and MusicRadar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On any list of the world\u2019s most influential guitarists, few players deserve a place quite like James Hetfield.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4624,64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-901309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-artist","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}