Motley Crue Style

Hi GMC!

How are you guys? Are you ready for rock and roll? It’s time for 80’s hard rock, usually called Glam Rock, Glam Metal or even Hair Rock. This first lesson is based on one of the biggest and most influential rock bands from the 80’s. I’m talking about the legendary hard rock band called “Motley Crue”. They were formed in 1980, in Los Angeles, California, by Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars and Vince Neil.

Music Style: 

Motley Crue sound is pure rock and roll. Their songs combine powerful riffs, big tone guitars and sounds that come from early hard rock bands like Kiss, Alice Cooper, New York Dolls, Ramones and Sex Pistols. They not only took the punk rock and hard rock sound from their influences, they also took the image from their heroes like Kiss, New York Dolls and Alice Cooper into their concerts.

In this lesson I tried to create a song that combines their early materials with their newer ones. This lesson is inspired by songs like "Shout at the devil", "Wild side" and "Kickstart my heart". If you have never listened to Crue, and you like this lesson, go to youtube and check out the songs!


Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales: 

This lesson is in A. The overall feel and tonality is based on Mixolydian mode. This could sound a bit weird to beginners or those that don’t know too much about modes, but for your surprise this mode is very often used in blues and rock and roll. The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Zakk Wylde, Guns & Roses and many other rock bands with country and blues feel use this mode so if this is something new for you, let’s start exploring it! Just send me a message and we can start. You can find all the backing track chords used above the tabs.

Techniques: 

This is basically a rhythm lesson so strumming and palm muting are the two things that we will concentrate on in this lesson. You must play this one tight with the drums, but giving it a groovy feel. Practice it over my playing if you are not sure about your timing.

Sound: 

I used my Pod HD 500 to record this lesson. My guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Studio.

Click HERE to download the patch. 

Tuning: 

I used standard tuning. 

Tempo: 

160 bpm 

Ok guys – it’s time to practice!