No, Kiko Loureiro Hasn’t Been Playing Megadeth’s ‘Tornado of Souls’ Wrong
Despite theories and criticisms to the contrary, Megadeth's Kiki Loureiro has not been playing "Tornado of Souls" incorrectly. Earlier this week, the guitarist took to his personal YouTube page for a brief but detailed breakdown of how he plays the track from the iconic Rust in Peace album.
"Do you think I would be playing wrong a Megadeth song in front of [frontman] Dave Mustaine for over three years, or over 300 concerts?" Loureiro begins in the good-humored video titled, "Am I Playing a Megadeth Riff Wrong?" which can be viewed above. "Well, I don't think so, but some guys were commenting that I was playing wrong the riff of 'Tornado of Souls.' A while ago I did a video of playing the entire song, and I was reading the comments and some guys were saying that I played wrong and it should all be down-strokes or stuff like that. So I decided to do a video explaining why I don't do down-strokes all the time."
Loureiro goes on to explain how the concept within Megadeth is not to play down-strokes all the time, and then demonstrates the two different ways that "Tornado of Souls" can be played; one is by downpicking the riff, while the other is an up and down motion, alternate picking. It's the latter which the guitarist prefers due to it being "more groovy" and allowing for different accents.
"That's it - that's the answer to the comments that I was playing wrong," a smiling Loureiro says at the end of the video. "I think it's a great tip, and now we can listen to all the Megadeth riffs and now we're going to realize when it's the down-strokes and when it's the groovy, shuffling, pushing, up and down kind of pattern."
In a recent chat with Full Metal Jackie, Mustaine said Megadeth are "wrapping up the music" for the band's next album, which will be the follow-up to the Grammy Award-winning Dystopia LP that came out in 2016.
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