The St. Vincent riff inspired by Pantera
It says a lot about a guitarist’s talent when they can stand out from the mass of notable contemporary players and carve out a space for themselves. One of the most distinctive and lauded figures in this small set is undoubtedly St. Vincent, who fuses an artful predilection with an ever-so-subtle dash of metal.
St. Vincent has hit such immense heights that not only has she performed live with the surviving members of Nirvana, but has torn through ‘Nothing Else Matters’ alongside Metallica and even worked with former Talking Heads leader David Byrne on the 2012 album Love This Giant. Loved by fans and peers alike, St. Vincent has continued to cement her cultural legacy over her career in a way that only the greats do.
Whilst St. Vincent has many different influences, one figure who made a profound impact on her was the late Dimebag Darrell, the lead guitarist of groove metal pioneers Pantera. Not only was she raised in Texas like Darrell and the ‘Walk’ quartet, but when speaking to Guitar World in 2014, she explained how Darrell’s two-handed tapping technique inspired her and how 1990’s ‘Cowboys from Hell’ might have inspired one of her riffs.
It was put to St. Vincent that she’s one of the only guitarists employing two-handed tapping that’s not in a metal or shredding context. “Yeah, that’s just a little bit of a party trick,” she told the publication. “It’s a little more like showmanship for me than pure sound. I mean, I like it; I’m into it. It’s not like I’m doing it for laughs. But it does make me smile, because it reminds me of being 13, being in the guitar store and picking up the Dimebag signature guitar and trying to figure out how he gets that crazy sound from ‘Cowboys from Hell.'”
Continuing, she added: “What is that? I’d watch tutorials on YouTube. So tapping makes me smile a bit because it is that super-athletic zone of guitar playing that I totally love. But sometimes you have to do a delicate dance to put everything together in a way that doesn’t just feel like too many notes just for notes’ sake. That’s a big thing that I’ve learned in life. In order to serve the song, maybe it’s best to strip it back as opposed to adding more.”
Later in the discussion, after the mention of influences such as Sonic Youth, Marc Ribot and Arto Lindsay, St. Vincent admitted that the riff from ‘Bring Me Your Loves’ from that year’s self-titled album might be similar to that of Pantera’s indomitable ‘Cowboys from Hell’.
She revealed: “Yeah, there’s a riff on my song ‘Bring Me Your Loves’ that’s so ‘Cowboys from Hell’ that I feel like I’m going to be sued…just in my mind.”
Compare ‘Cowboys From Hell’ and ‘Bring Me Your Loves’ below.
