Before last night, Bradley Cooper was probably the least metal actor in Hollywood. And yeah, a sizable portion of Neil Young’s output is the antitheses of metal. But Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is not in that category. The record is one of the great rock albums of the late 60’s, and features some of Young’s most fun and entertaining guitar playing. How many of our shredders were inspired by Young’s solos on “Down By the River” or “Cowgirl in the Sand,” songs that drove home the power that guitarists could wield by yanking on one note, or by aggressively attackin the strings (Young was notorious, FYI, for his one-note solos)? Or rocked to the killer riff from “Cinnamon Girl“?
Jimmy Fallon has flirted with the metallic before on his program (hosting Mastodon in 2009 and Priest in 2011), so when Bradley Cooper was on the show promoting his new, Clint Eastwood-directed film American Sniper last night, Jimmy wasn’t averse last night to cranking up some tunes. The second Cooper began to play, I yelped. Cooper is like, good, man. He wails. He nails. He beats that air guitar like it owed him money.
I’d like to see what Coop could do with like, a Dillinger Escape Plan tune.
