Mrs. Smith – the electric guitar-shredding alter ego of actor and musician David Hanbury – has recorded a humorous cover version of Metallica's mega-hit, One.
The accompanying music video – in which Mrs. Smith is kidnapped by a mysterious Satan-worshipping “Scandinavian rock 'n' roll group”, and held to ransom for $5 million – sees the guitarist play with near-surgical precision, showcasing a beautifully dialed clean tone that's pretty close to that of ...And Justice For All, and serving up a solo so drenched in wah Kirk Hammett must be jealous.
Gear-wise, Mrs. Smith uses a pair of custom-painted Ibanez RG550s: a gold flake model with a maple fretboard and a Cosmic Black model with a rosewood fingerboard and custom cat eye inlay.
Explains Smith: “I've been performing One at my live show for years and when I started hearing all these fabulous covers come out I thought it would be a great time to finally record my version and create a video for it.
“I see it as a timeless masterpiece – One is to Metallica what Guernica is to Picasso!” she continues. “I could never improve on this iconic song, it’s perfect. I only tried to adapt it to tell my story. However, there is a glaring lack of wah in the guitar solo so I remedied that.”
Mrs. Smith is, of course, known for her prowess with a wah pedal, famously beating Kirk Hammett himself – the most wah-happy guitarist in the history of the instrument – in last year's Cry Baby Battle Royale.
During the face-off, Mrs. Smith ran her guitar through an impressive four wah pedals at once, beating Hammett's record of using three simultaneous wahs in Metallica's Hardwired.
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Upon forfeiting, Hammett said: “I think I’ve just been out-wah’d, people – a moment in history has just occurred.” Mrs. Smith replied affectionately: “I learned it all from watching you.”
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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