Back in the ‘60s, the Kinks were tonal pioneers, playing their rock n’ roll with so much aggression that many have hailed them as a pivotal precursor to heavy metal. How they achieved that sound has gone down as the stuff of legend.
On their 1964 hit, You Really Got Me, famously covered by Van Halen 14 years later, guitarist Dave Davies achieved a hairy, distorted guitar tone that propelled the track. But he didn't have the luxury of using overdrive pedals at that time. Instead, he slashed the speaker cone of his amplifier to give it such a gritty sound, and he’s now shown how to do it firsthand.
