(Unprocessed/SPV)
“Dark. Heavy. Technical.”
Manuel Gardner Fernandes details his unique take on thrash metal
How would you sum up this album?
It’s pretty dark and heavy with a technical taste that we haven’t lost throughout the years. The previous record Goldwas a bit more poppy and more shiny. This is like the heavy, dark brother.
You’ve become known for your ‘clean shred’ sound, so it’s cool to hear this heavier side.
From the YouTube and social media perspective, it’s quite new. But for me, and as a band, it’s back to the roots. The stuff I’m doing on YouTube and social media, I wouldn’t listen to. It’s just easy for me to write these little guitar pieces and put them online, but I grew up on metal.
Who are your favourite metal guitarists?
I was always into the rhythm side of things. As a child, I never played any solos. I just played the riffs, the rhythms and that was it. So, James Hetfield was the main inspiration for me.
Where did you get the ideas for your hyper-fast rhythmic strumming and harmonic tapping techniques?
I get a lot of inspiration from clips of other people playing. I have more of a metal approach than the usual Instagram guitarists. I like darker chords and melodies and I combine that with my own ‘chickchick-chick’ percussive strumming thing. I take my influences from all over the place – even the percussive thing was from flamenco.
How would you break down that technique?
I do it with a pick, but I take the flamenco approach with the dead notes and put it into more of a metal version. A lot of people ask me how to play really fast and there’s no answer because I didn’t force myself. It just happened, probably because I played a lot of thrash metal back in the day.
What guitars do we hear
