Herman Li

Herman Li — born in Hong Kong in 1976 — is a founding guitarist of DragonForce and one of the most recognisable players in 2000s metal. His technique is the band's mark. Li built a vocabulary of his own from two-handed tapping, extreme use of the whammy bar and harmoniser effects that produce sounds associated with video games — a device he embraces deliberately, and one that gave DragonForce a sonic identity nobody mistakes. It is played at tempos beyond 200 beats per minute, which makes the precision as notable as the invention. That combination brought the group an audience European power metal had never reached: "Through the Fire and Flames", from Inhuman Rampage (2006), became the hardest track in the game Guitar Hero III and was, because of it, heard by millions of people with no connection to the genre. Li also has a second career unusual for a metal guitarist: he became one of the most-watched musicians on Twitch, where he plays, teaches and analyses technique live — an activity that earned him a reach of his own, independent of the band. Before DragonForce he played with Sam Totman in Demoniac, a black metal band — an origin that explains the extreme speed the two carried over into melodic power metal.