4 Legendary Rock Guitar Riffs That Were a Complete Accident

The greatest works of art in history have been very much intentional. Every once in a while, though, an artist will create something of legend, completely by accident. That’s exactly what happened to these four rock bands that penned a few incredible and memorable guitar riffs entirely by accident. Let’s take a look! You might not be familiar with a few of these stellar riffs from rock history’s past.

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1. “Highway Star” by Deep Purple

Being a famous rock star and hearing the same questions over and over in interviews isn’t exactly a fun experience. During one instance of mind-numbing questions in the middle of one of their tours, Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore decided to answer a question about songwriting by demonstrating his guitar-riff-writing process. He proceeded to disassociate out a window and strum his guitar, fully intending to mess with the interviewer for fun.

Ian Gillan heard a few of the notes he played and immediately got inspired. He wrote the lyrics to “Highway Star” and the riff Blackmore had absent-mindedly strummed became the heart of the song.

2. “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica

Rock guitar riffs rarely happen by accident, especially for certified guitar kings like James Hetfield. However, on one rare occasion, Hetfield wrote the riff for “Nothing Else Matters” completely by accident.

While chatting on the phone with someone with his guitar in his hands at home, Hetfield struck gold. All he did was absent-mindedly hit a few open strings. Once he was off the phone, he played around with the run for a minute before putting together the whole of “Nothing Else Matters”. 

Surprisingly, Hetfield didn’t plan on using the riff for anything. Lars Ulrich had to push him to work on it a little bit more with the band.

3. “Life In The Fast Lane” by Eagles

With their careers on an upward trajectory after a couple of massively successful tours, the  Eagles didn’t have time to pack their then-WIP Hotel California with filler. Each song had to be memorable. 

During one particular session, Joe Walsh whipped out a crazy riff that he only ever used as a warm-up exercise. That riff, with a few tempo changes, ended up inspiring Don Henley and Glenn Frey to write “Life In The Fast Lane”.

4. “Everlong” by Foo Fighters

Incredible rock guitar riffs can happen by accident, and even whole careers can happen by accident. Dave Grohl didn’t really intend for Foo Fighters to become as massive as they did, especially after the breakup of Nirvana. Still, fans were into what he was dishing out. He started taking things more seriously in the studio because of that response.

While recording “Monkey Wrench”, Grohl was messing around with different chord progressions and tuning. In drop-D tuning, Grohl hit a particular chord that stuck with him. He ended up writing the entirety of “Everlong” around that very guitar riff.

Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage

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