My junior year of college I spent winter term at Birkbeck College, part of the University of London. I lived there for about 3 months. In my journies around town, I made friends with a couple of local guitar players I met at various shows and guitar clinics. One of them was this Asian dude named Herman Li. He was THE shred guitar fanboy – super long hair, big collection of autographs, said “dude” all the time and his nickname was “Shred.” He was a great guy. We kept in touch sporadically over the next few years as he started his first real band, a group that eventually evolved in Dragonforce…the band of his dreams: the fastest-playing, highest-singing, most Dungeons & Dragons metal band I’ve ever seen. And kids, I’ve seen a lot.
Today, Herman is a bona fide guitar hero. I’m seeing him in guitar magazines in the States now. It’s amazing how good he’s gotten – he’s so fast you just have to laugh yourself silly. Just watch this, a solo section where he trades licks with his bandmate Sam Totman. For the full song, click here.
Metal like that doesn’t wind my particular clock the way it used to, but I still marvel at Herman’s will to power – he has fulfilled his goal of becoming the shred monkey guitar hero he always wanted to be. Here’s to you, lad.
You know, I get some good laughs at HomestarRunner.com, especially from the type of D&D obsessed metal band that Strong Bad makes up. I thought that the fictional bands like “Limozeen” were a throwback to Iron Maiden and the like. I had no idea that stuff like Dragon Force really existed. Wow.