Although I’m a lead guitarist, I’d say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm. Consequently, it doesn’t matter how great y… - Kirk Hammett

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Although I’m a lead guitarist, I’d say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm. Consequently, it doesn’t matter how great your lead playing is—if your rhythm work sucks, you’re not gonna go very far. When you’re playing rhythm in a band like Metallica, what your right [picking] hand does is really important. Obviously, what your left hand is doing is pretty darned crucial too, but, as a lot of our riffs involve syncopated open-string notes and relatively simple-to-finger power chords, it’s often the right-hand picking and muting techniques that can make or break a song.