Dan Donegan of Disturbed records guitar riffs on his phone

The phone is a handy gadget for musicians because it allows you to quickly record song melodies and guitar riffs. But as with all technology, it also has the potential to fall victim to technical problems.

Many will remember how Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett lost his mobile phone in 2015, with 250-300 riffs recorded on it – just before the band were due to start work on their next album.

Now, guitarist Dan Donegan of metal band Disturbed says in a recent interview with 99.7 The Blitz radio station that he recorded a lot of new riffs on his mobile phone.

When we’re out here [on the road], we just have to switch gears. Right now it’s been focused on the tour and the shows and the production. I do have probably a thousand riffs in my phone because I’ll just record stuff in the moment. I won’t get too married to it. I’ll just kind of put it in the vault. I’ll revisit it later — if I’m having a dry moment when I’m writing, I might revisit it and see if something strikes me again — but we’ll start out, a lot of times, of just going back to improvising and trying to capture something new in that moment. So I’d rather wait for that to happen first. And if I need to grab a riff here or there, if something’s not coming together, then I’ve got something to fall back on.