If you’re a rockstar, it’s simple to let the ego take over. Nevertheless, as tempting as it’s to indicate off all of your most interesting licks and tips, Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden insists the important thing to being an incredible guitarist is understanding when to wind your neck in.

In a latest interview with Guitar.com, Madden explains why he’s by no means wished to be seen as a “guitar god”. As an alternative, he is aware of {that a} stable riff is an integral cog in Good Charlotte’s sound; exhibiting off can compromise the integrity of a monitor, so he tries to have a look at the larger image. Whereas “everybody’s bought an ego”, he insists that “in case you are serving the track, that guitar half goes to be memorable.”

With that in thoughts, he additionally argues that every one good guitarists know to belief their bandmates and fellow songwriters. “If you’re a guitar participant, your abilities go utterly to waste should you’re not working with a fucking nice songwriter,” he provides. “Your second to shine will are available these moments of nice songs.”

“Serve the execution of a track, and make it a fucking traditional!” he concludes.

It’s an analogous ethos held by loads of legendary “guitar gods” – know your house, play your half and let the track do the speaking. Eddie Van Halen notably hated being referred to as a “shredder”, as a result of he believed that shredding was usually only a approach to “showcase”.

Chatting with Guitar Participant journalist Jas Obrecht again in 1991, the Van Halen guitarist defined: “Lots of people simply do every kind of loopy shit [but] enjoying as quick as you possibly can doesn’t actually maintain a lot water for me… To me, a solo is to focus on track. It’s to not showcase.”

“I used to be like that again then [when I was younger],” he added. “However the entire band factor, the songs… that’s what’s vital.”

Marty Friedman has additionally expressed his distaste for guitarists who solely lengthy to ‘showcase’ onstage, notably “shredders”. He associates the time period with gamers who solely need to stroke their egos, indulging in velocity for velocity’s sake and infrequently missing musical depth and flexibility.

“That’s what I at all times related the phrase ‘shred’ with,” he defined throughout a February episode of Masters of Shred’s Pages In Time. “So when folks say, ‘Marty Friedman, he’s a shredder,’ I’m like, ‘Please don’t, please don’t!’”

Elsewhere, Queen’s Brian Might has additionally acknowledged that guitarists want to think about the track as an entire, fairly than inflate their very own ego. Throughout a 2024 Q&A on the The Pink Particular Guitar Podcast’s Pink Particular Meet Up, he defined how the track ought to at all times be a precedence, not the guitar solos.

“I feel the guitar, to me, is at all times secondary to the track,” he mentioned [via Ultimate Guitar]. “It’s not an excuse to go in and showcase. It’s a manner of enhancing no matter materials you’re utilizing. So I’m at all times attempting to coax completely different textures out of it – completely different sounds, completely different strikes.”

Good Charlotte’s newest album, Motel Du Cap, is out now. The band have additionally simply launched a festive cowl of Fairytale Of New York, proper in time for Christmas…