This guitarist lost part of two fingers in a "work accident", and it seemed the band was over. However, he managed to continue playing using a device which made his two stump fingers "longer", and tuning the guitar three steps down in order to loosen the strings and bend them more easily.

Tony Iommi, Black Sabbath's guitarist, lost the tips of his middle and ring fingers in an industrial accident. He created thimble-like prosthetics to play and tuned his guitar down to loosen the strings. This innovation helped create the heavy metal sound. Joe Elliott is Def Leppard's singer, Steve Clark was their guitarist, and Eric Clapton had no such injury.