10 Greatest Rhythm Guitarists In Rock Music History

Everything about the grunge movement in the early '90s seemed all about going back to basics. In the wake of Nirvana making the slacker generation seem like the coolest thing in the world, the entire mindset behind a guitar god changed on a dime, with bands looking to explore the darker corners of what the six string could do. You can call grunge more natural if you wanted to, but Stone Gossard might be the king of weird sounds you can get out of your guitar.

While the first batch of songs that Pearl Jam would write would come out of Stone, you tend to forget how strange they sound, like the weird open tuning that was used to record the song Daughter or the strange circus like atmosphere that comes on some of the deep cuts like All Those Yesterdays. Being a student of the early days of rock and roll, you can also hear echoes of Jimmy Page's writing in Stone's riffs, making musical pieces that sound great playing over a stadium of people while also never being afraid to toy with what he can do.

There's also a versatility to Stone's playing that has kept the band on their toes for the past few years, always giving Mike McCready a run for his money for how much power he can put into every one of his licks. It can be part funk, part rock and roll, and part avant garde within the span of a few seconds, but when you have Stone pumping things out, everything seems to actually make sense.