In a new Guitar World exclusive, British guitar sensation Sophie Lloyd takes you behind her rhythm and lead techniques on her single, "Do Or Die", and shares her tips on how to hone your skills. Following is an excerpt from the feature, check out the video below.
Sophie: "In writing 'Do Or Die', I was looking to create an ’80s-style classic rock song. I love that kind of music, so I knew I wanted to go in that direction. Nathan is one of my favorite vocalists and I had him specifically in mind for this song. The mindset for the style and direction of the song was along the lines of Iron Maiden, with some gallop-y palm mutes in the rhythm part."
Read more and check out the guitar tabs here.
Lloyd recently dropped her brand new single and video for "Runaway" (Feat. Michael Starr). Teaming up with the Steel Panther frontman, the collaboration tells the story of a young girl born to rock and her metalhead parents, who goes on to pursue her destiny as a shred superstar.
Watch the music video below, and stream the single here.
“'Runaway' is one of my favourite songs of this album,” declares Sophie. “It’s inspired by all the high energy, super fun 80s rock that I absolutely love. Eddie Van Halen was an especially big influence for the guitar work throughout the song. And to have Michael Starr feature on the song is such a ‘pinch me’ moment. I’ve loved Steel Panther so much growing up and they were such a big influence on my playing style. He really is a rock legend and I’m so honoured he wanted to collaborate in this. I absolutely love the story he tells in this song and I can relate to it a lot myself, and I had so much fun recording guitar lines to go along with the lyrics and help tell the story.”
“What a killer experience getting to work with Sophie,” comments Michael Starr. “She’s a great guitar player and loves metal just like me. This song came out awesome. Enjoy!”
The song is accompanied by a colourful, sexy video that brings the spirit of the song to life in a vivid and powerful way.
“The music video was probably one of the craziest days I’ve ever had!,” says Sophie. “We wanted to have that 80s nostalgia in the video, however this time it’s the girls taking the power back and showing that you can be a powerful, sexy boss babe! We invited loads of people down to a local rock bar in London and things got crazy, everyone was so into it and just having so much fun and I think this really translates in the video. It was inspired by one of my favourite movies, Coyote Ugly, and follows the story of a dive bar where the staff are also the in-house band. Michael applies for a job but is pretty useless at the tasks he’s given! However when the staff overhear him singing, this leads to Michael being brought on stage and wowing the audience. Loki films did an incredible job at bringing our ideas to life and capturing the energy of the whole day. We are so grateful to everyone can came down to be in this video, it was amazing to unite a bunch of rockers together from all different walks of life and have an amazing day.”
