It's safe to say Zaria's kicked off 2021 with a bang. After silencing trolls by tearing through Metallica's Master of Puppets, One, Enter Sandman and more, the TikTok star quickly secured herself an endorsement deal with Texas-based Sully Guitars.
Until her 'Tallica clapback, Zaria had built her social media following posting hip-hop covers and short, topical comedy videos. But ever since, her profiles have been awash with killer guitar clips, and rightly so.
Naturally, we've been dying to find out some of the guitar riffs that help comprise her eclectic musical taste, and fortunately, she's shared some of her favorites in a new video with Loudwire.
In the clip, Zaria reveals how her first exposure to Metallica came in the fifth grade, when her teacher showed footage of the Virginia Tech Hokies football team with Enter Sandman as its soundtrack.
"I just remember hearing the [hums riff] and my little ears just perked up and I thought this is the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life," she says.
“Slowly, from eighth grade,” she continues, “I just became more and more interested in it, and I think by ninth grade, literally the whole year, I only listened to Metallica and that is not a joke.”
She continues to play through Ride the Lightning classic Creeping Death and once again – because it simply cannot be played enough – Master of Puppets before sharing her love of Megadeth.
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“That should be the first riff you learn if you want to play metal,” she says after whipping out Symphony Of Destruction.
The Prince of Darkness Ozzy Osbourne also makes Zaria's cut, as she names Crazy Train as the second lead she learned to play.
Be warned: she is wearing a Tool hoodie throughout the video, but we strongly advise you not to challenge her on it...
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Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.
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