Slash's 10 Favorite Guitar Riffs of All Time

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For the first time in Slash’s career, the long-locked and top-hatted ex-Guns N’ Roses/current-Velvet Revolver guitarist will be releasing a solo album (which features a reunion of four out of the five original GNR members—we’ll let you guess who isn’t showing). He also could help you cut an EP, if you win the “Guitar Center Presents: Your Next Record With Slash” competition he’s hosting. Since riffs are his specialty, and he’s certainly playing a lot of them these days, we figured we’d give the guy a call and pick his brain for his 10 favorite guitar riffs of all time:

1. “Black Dog” – Led Zeppelin
“This one seems obvious, I guess. This song is just fuckin’ monstrous. Real, real heavy.”

2. “Over Under Sideways Down” – The Yardbirds
“You can’t not love the blues on this one, how it kinda bops back and forth with the beat. But its also a little bit menacing too. I like that.”

3. “Purple Haze” – Jimi Hendrix
“You take it for granted because you’ve heard it so many times, but this is just such a well-structured, almost perfect riff. It’s very unique, just in terms of structure and technique. Very original for a rock ‘n’ roll riff.”

4. “More of that Jazz” – Queen
“Brian May wrote amazing fuckin’ riffs all throughout Queen’s career. When I first started playing guitar, Jazz had just come out, and this song blew me away. It’s almost completely overlooked too.”

5. “Life in the Fast Lane” – The Eagles
“Killer riff, absolutely killer. God, I must have first heard this song when I was in elementary school. Shit, was it really that long ago?”