If you want to make it big as a guitarist, it’s pretty important to have your own quintessential style. Just by a quick listen to the greats, you’ll be able to instantly recognise who’s behind the axe in no less than a few notes via an trademarked medley of sonic signatures, whether its excessive whammy bar use (Kirk Hammett) or neck bends (Slash).
One guitarist who is an expert when it comes to perfectly differentiating between such styles is Kyle Norris, who, while being a ridiculously nifty axe-slinger, is also wonderfully imaginative and has a whole TikTok account full to the brim of rock/metal content that attempts to answer the questions that only the brave would ever think to ponder. For example, if you’ve ever found yourself thinking “what would it sound like if Prince played guitar for Metallica?” you’d be very much in luck, as Norris has the imagination and the chops to make it sound somehow totally real.
In his creation, the musician, while pretending to be the Purple Rain legend in a lavender-coloured coat, white ruffle blouse and a vivacious black wig, ‘interrupts’ the band practice of ‘Metallica’, formed of Norris in more wigs most likely pillaged from his local fancy dress shop.
During the session, the San Francisco metal heavyweights are playing through Nothing Else Matters, as their soon joined by ‘Prince’ who lets out one face-melter of a solo, complete with neck slides and a cascading, euphoric melody.
Meanwhile, ‘Metallica’ watch the performance in awe as the nimble-fingered legend showers them in flawless riffage, much to the shock of their own guitarist ‘Kirk Hammett’.
In his other videos, Norris brings to life a number of similar rock/metal scenarios, such as the late Dimebag Darrell playing for Slipknot, a collaboration between Taylor Swift and Slash, Eddie Van Halen jamming with Guns N’ Roses and much more.
So far, the video has amassed a huge 1.1M views. Check it out below:
@thekylenorris (opens in new tab)
♬ Nothing Else Matters – Metallica (opens in new tab)
