How Keith Richards’ Clever Guitar Trick Helped Aerosmith Create This Iconic Guitar Riff

While there are certainly notable exceptions to this rule, most iconic riffs in rock ‘n’ roll history come from 60% talent, 30% gear, and 10% clever tricks that you don’t know until you know, you know? Such was the case for a classic Aerosmith guitar riff that Steve Perry came up with using a clever trick he stole from Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

What Richards (and then Perry) did with their guitars to make them sound a particular way isn’t necessarily groundbreaking. Anyone can manage to pull off their trick, whether a novice or professional guitarist. As any guitarist can tell you, it’s what you do with the trick that counts.

Keith Richards’ Clever Guitar Trick Inspired Aerosmith’s Joe Perry

In a November 2024 interview with Guitar Player magazine, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry explained the inner workings of some of his most iconic riffs, from “Walk This Way” to “Back in the Saddle.” When he got to a late-era Aerosmith track, “Let the Music Do the Talking,” from 1985, he name-dropped the Rolling Stones as his main source of inspiration.

Perry explained that he’s always enjoyed writing in open tunings, à la Robert Johnson. However, he struggled to find a way to do it without sounding like he was blatantly ripping off the Rolling Stones, who also centered much of their musical repertoire around open tuning. “It’s genius,” Perry said. “I really like that tuning. I heard here that Keith liked to take the low E string off, so he had just five strings, which made it easier to play barre chords up and down the neck and not have to worry about the E string getting in the way.”

“But I was thinking, ‘Well, that’s kind of a waste of a good tuning peg,’” Perry continued. “So, I took a bass string, put it on the guitar, and tuned it in unison, only an octave lower on the A string, so I’d still be able to lay with all six strings. It really sounds pretty amazing. I sat down and wrote some riffs and a lot of songs around that, like “Let the Music Do the Talking.” I had that riff for Aerosmith, but by the time I’d left [in 1979], it had never gotten on the list.” 

The song first appeared on Perry’s first solo album of the same name in 1980. When he returned to Aerosmith, they included the track on Done with Mirrors.

Another Iconic Rock Band Deviated From The Standard Guitar Setup

For straightforward rock ‘n’ rollers like the Rolling Stones (and, later, Aerosmith), removing the low E string to improve accessibility to barre chords without having to worry about muddying the notes on the low end is a simple but highly effective guitar mod. But these rockers weren’t the only ones taking different approaches to the classic guitar setup. Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour did the same thing so consistently throughout his career that string company GHS actually released a set of Gilmour-specific strings.

Typically, a pack of strings will follow a specific gauge pattern. But to achieve Pink Floyd’s soaring, bendy highs and booming, foreboding lows, Gilmour opted to mix and match his string packs. The Pink Floyd guitarist would use heavier strings in the bottom E, A, and D strings and lighter gauges on the G and B strings. The high E string would be standard, allowing the same flexibility you’d expect from the thinnest string on the guitar without having to worry about constantly bending the strings out of tune.

Pink Floyd obviously made an entirely different genre of rock ‘n’ roll than the Stones or Aerosmith, but it just goes to show: if your guitar isn’t singing the way you want it to, maybe it’s time to change your idea of what an ideal setup looks (and sounds) like.

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