10 Best Grunge Guitarists

For most of grunge’s tenure, the focus was less on the flashiness of your playing and more on how well you emoted through your instrument. These bands did still have solos in most of their songs, but the actual bite was more than just the ability to play really fast. Even if someone like Stone Gossard never played a lead, his contribution to Pearl Jam’s sound cannot be overstated.

When you talk about rhythm guitar players, most people tend to bypass them as just a friend of the other musicians who are lucky enough to play with them. Stone’s a completely different story though, with his writing being all over the band’s classic songs. While Eddie Vedder is known as the band’s de facto leader, Pearl Jam was Stone’s band from the beginning, with him coming up with the main riffs for “Alive” and “Even Flow.”

Gossard also was a gifted musical thinker, using atypical tunings to craft hypnotic passages like the acoustic guitar in “Daughter.” Though he’s not one for soloing, the riffs Stone made when reaching for higher notes could leave you in tears, like the bell-like tone on “Indifference.” You can make all the rhythm guitar jabs you want, but if Stone Gossard weren’t in the picture, Pearl Jam would never have existed.