Thrash Musicians Play Their Favorite Riffs

During this week's Gear Factor episode, we have a compilation of thrash musicians playing their favorite riffs.

We've had a lot of musicians featured in our Gear Factor series, so to make it easier for fans, we started making compilation videos. A few weeks ago, we shared our episode of Metalcore Musicians Playing Their Favorite Riffs through the years, but for this week's installment, we gathered clips of thrash metal guitarists playing their favorite riffs.

In the episode, you'll see clips of some of the "Big 4" thrash musicians playing, including Anthrax's Scott Ian, Slayer and Exodus' Gary Holt and Megadeth's David Ellefson, as well as musicians in bands that aren't part of the "Big 4."

Riffs are one of the most important elements of thrash metal. They're big, they're fast and they're heavy.

Ian, for example, has come up with a bunch of guitar parts for Anthrax. But, his all-time favorite was written for a song on their 1987 album Among the Living.

"I didn't think much of it. At the time, I knew we needed a bridge... and I said, 'I got this riff, it feels like a really heavy mosh part,'" Ian said in the video.

Watch the video below to find out which song he's talking about. You'll even get to see Pustulus Maximus play his favorite GWAR riff!