Why shred guitar died in the ’90s, according to Polyphia’s Tim Henson
Polyphia’s Tim Henson has offered his take on why shred guitar fell out of fashion in the ’90s, noting how an overload of copycats had watered down what made it exciting in the first place.
In a new interview with The Music Zoo, the 31-year-old guitarist explains how the ’80s ‘shred boom’ ultimately sabotaged itself. He says the era became oversaturated with players chasing technical fireworks without the feel that made the original innovators – from Jimi Hendrix to Eddie Van Halen – so compelling.
READ MORE: “Playing as fast as you can doesn’t really hold much water for me”: Eddie Van Halen pours scorn on shredding in unheard 1991 interview
“I guess the thing is, when somebody does the cool thing, and they do it so well – you think about Hendrix and those cool licks, that came from that awesome, incredible generation, and probably even before Hendrix, where they were probably doing those kinds of licks too… And then, everybody wants to sound like that,” says Henson [via Ultimate Guitar]. “But [only] the 1% are hitting the feel, and everything else is falling flat. And, you know, that’s kind of just what happens, I guess.”
“Like, when somebody like Eddie comes out and does the thing, and it’s the cool thing, and then everybody else wants to sound like the cool thing, but they’re kind of — I don’t want to say bastardising, but they’re watering it down a little. But it takes that; that’s needed, because it pushes things forward.”
According to Henson, the scene had reached a breaking point by the late ‘80s.
“I feel like, around the ’80s, all the shredders kind of ganged up together,” he says. “And when that happened, it was so heavily weighed on the shredder side, that the universe needed to balance itself out and pop out Kurt Cobain. And then, all of a sudden, it’s not cool to shred.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
