Guthrie Govan is surely one of the greatest living guitarists. A master of rhythm and lead across all genres – but, crucially, with an ear for melody that keeps all his contributions highly musical – the UK virtuoso can tackle absolutely any material that gets thrown his way… and, somehow, make it better.
Case in point is his late-Noughties collaboration with UK rapper Dizzee Rascal, then riding high on the success of monster single Bonkers. Govan was seemingly given free rein with his guitar parts throughout his time in the Rascal band, during which the curly-haired maestro played some of the UK’s biggest musical stages.
One of the highest-profile shows of his session stint took place at iconic London venue The Roundhouse for the BBC’s Electric Proms, a televised broadcast that played host to a particularly mind-blowing cover of Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade.
Footage shows Govan playing the alt-rock classic’s rhythm parts relatively straight, bar the occasional tasty harmonization of the track’s opening riff and wah-wah breakdown. But naturally it’s the guitar solo that plays host to his zaniest contributions, as he reimagines Tom Morello’s trademark toggle-switched DJ scratches in his own idiosyncratic image.
Whipping out a glass slide seemingly from thin air, Govan begins tapping on his Suhr’s pickups, emulating the original solo for all of a bar, before he ingeniously uses the slide to two-hand tap notes off the fretboard while his left hand delivers some blinding legato runs.
The overall effect of his slide-enabled vibrato on those tapped exclamation points is quite simply jaw-dropping, and it’s all rounded off with a descending flourish and one final lightning-fast left-hand run.
It’s worth noting that Tom Morello frequently experimented with slides to achieve a pitch-modulated DJ-style effect – clock the solo in RATM’s Fistful of Steel – but it never formed the basis for quite such a virtuosic display.
Dizzee Rascal’s full Electric Proms set showcases Guthrie’s staggering versatility, as he deploys everything from metal chugs to hyper-clean funk and country hoedowns, while the full-scale orchestra set the scene for the guitarist’s future session gigs alongside superstar composer Hans Zimmer.
“At any point in time you have a spectrum of notes to choose from, with the ultimate right note at one end and the ultimate wrong note at the other,” Govan told Total Guitar of his unique solo approach. “It’s all about what kind of note you want right now. It would be boring if every note you played felt right, without tension or release.
“It’s better to ask yourself at what point in this gradient is the note interesting enough, but not so ugly it will ruin what you’re trying to say. I like that idea of weaving around predictable and surprising notes, because it’s the balance between the two that makes a melody compelling.”
