Riff Playbooks: Tim MacMillar | Protest The Hero: Wretch

Tim MacMillar
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Introduction

Riff Playbooks column is designed to make you a better player. By gleaning some insight into the technique, composition, and execution of these fine riffs by fine SH artists, you are bound to make headway in your own playing. We cordially invite you to steal a page from our books in order to expand your own diabolical playbook of musical wizardry (not literally though, the books are expensive to create).

Back in 2018, while cruising along with Protest The Hero on their Fortress 10 year anniversary tour, we had the opportunity to sit down with guitarist Tim Macmillar, who graciously ran us through a section of the song "Wretch". Tim explains some of the thought process regarding the section as well as the song at large. His summary of the riffs may seem diametrically opposed, citing tech death band Gorod as well as Blink 182 in the same sentence, but if you know anything about Protest The Hero, you know that they are masters of bringing together disparate musical ideas. Pop Punk and Death Metal don't often cross paths in one song, but in PTH and Fortress, even the most outlandish and opposing ideas are pieced together in a way that sounds natural and wholly its own. 


Now that "Fortress - The Complete Collection" is available, it seems the perfect time to share Tim's Riff Playbook for Wretch. In the newly reissued guitar book we are looking at bars 53 - 73 on pages 102 - 104. 


Grab this FREE tab for Wretch here, from the "Fortress - The Complete Guitar Transcription" reissue if you want to rip along! 



And of course, we had Tim answer the usual line up of questions for us. 



Want to learn more? Check out Fortress - The Complete Collection! And if you'd like to listen to Wretch in its entirety, head to one of the links below:

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