Open-Source Guitar

Besides collaborating with Marty Friedman and Marcus Asato, MEGADETH shredder KIKO LOUREIRO is taking a breakthrough community approach on his new album: He’s uploaded all the stems online — from beats to guitar solos — so that anyone with internet access can concoct their own epic remixes

- GREGORY ADAMS

“IMPROVISING WHILE READING THE COMMENTS IS MY new late-night practice routine.”

This is a somewhat comical but certainly zeitgeist-tapping caption to a recent Instagram post from shred king-cum-social media influencer Kiko Loureiro. The accompanying video is the kicker. If you’re a longtime fan of Loureiro — who first rose up in the Nineties with Brazilian metal icons Angra — you know his painfully scrunched brow has nothing to do with his chromatic waggling, or the outsized bends he’s stretching across the sunburst Ibanez AZ on his lap. That’s just him trying to keep up with the mile-a-minute scroll of messages from eager fans, likely chiming in with anything from a “Sick lick, Kiko!” to “Check out my band at the link.”

This is all to say that the internet is a hell of a place, but at least Loureiro’s having fun with it. Though he may be best known these days as the current lead guitarist for Megadeth, the past couple of years have clearly also found the Brazilian-born Loureiro making a home for himself on social media. Especially during this past year of lockdown — with Loureiro grounded in his current base of Helsinki, Finland — the guitarist has turned to his Instagram profile and YouTube channel as sounding boards for song ideas, places to teach the occasional string-skipping technique, and just as a way to connect with other players, since meet-and-greets are off the table until Megadeth’s COVID-delayed tour with Lamb of God kicks off this August.

Getting back to those Instagram comments, it’s that free exchange of ideas that taps into the central theme of Loureiro’s latest instrumental solo album,