Last week, Corey Feldman caused a stir on social media after his guitar soloing went viral and fell victim to accusations of “fake playing”.
Currently, the child actor-turned-musician of The Goonies and Stand By Me fame is opening for Limp Bizkit on their Loserville tour, and over the past seven days footage from his shows – and of his guitar playing – has surfaced online.
Some commenters on TikTok were quick to take issue with Feldman’s playing, claiming that, when he was letting loose for his solos, he wasn’t even playing his electric guitar.
Despite some individuals doubling down on the accusation, it was quite clear to anyone who watched the clips that Feldman was not faking his playing, and that he was in fact shredding everything that could be heard in the now-viral guitar solo.
However, Limp Bizkit’s frontman Fred Durst was keen to see for himself what all the fuss was about, and took to the stage during one of Feldman’s fretboard freakouts to closely inspect his, uh, unorthodox shredding technique, and to determine once and for all whether those solos were real.
“Word on the street is Corey Feldman is not playing this guitar solo,” Durst can be heard saying in a clip that shows him interrupting the guitarist mid-flow. “I want to know if Corey Feldman is really playing this solo. No tricks, no tracks, no nothing. Straight up, right?”
On Durst’s command, Feldman begins to solo and, to the surprise of no-one, it’s quite clear he is playing everything that can be heard. It might not be very coherent, nor very structured, but it certainly is real. Satisfied with what he sees, Durst then exits the stage.
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Was there ever any doubt that Feldman’s playing was genuine? Not from guitar players. Despite a handful of TikTokers strangely intent on writing off the viral solo, all it took was one cursory viewing of the clip to see it was entirely genuine.
As YouTuber KDH explained in his own reaction video to the solos, Feldman’s playing is by no means very polished, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t genuine. Rather, the guitarist seems to be indulging in some “gateway shredding” that can be achieved by just… hammering away at the strings. Musical? Not especially. Real? Absolutely.
