Social Distortion Style

Hi GMC! 

Welcome to this punk rock lesson inspired by the Californian band Social Distortion, formed in 1978. The members of the band are Mike Ness (Lead vocals & lead guitars), Jonny Wickersham (rhythm guitar), Brent Harding (bass) and David Hidalgo Jr (Drums).

Music Style: 
They are considered to be in Punk Rock genre and they started playing that style and combined it with Hardcore punk. Some of their early influences were Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, as well as punk classics like Sex Pistols, Ramones and The Clash. They also incorporated styles like country an classic rock into their music and during the late 80’s and 90’s they found their niche and people started to define their style as rockabilly and cowpunk, but always with a melodic punk sound. This lesson is based exactly on that sound, the style which combines rockabilly with punk rock.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales: 
This tune starts in G major, but then modulates in the chorus to E minor (the relative minor scale). We will analyze the chord progressions used in the slow parts and how I took some of their songs as the guide to create my own Social Distortion style track.

Techniques: 
The techniques used in this lesson are strumming, alternate picking, bending and vibrato.
The lesson includes punk rhythms, guitar melodies and classic rock licks.

Sound:
I used my Pod HD 500 to create a tone based on the rock side of JCM800 amps.
The drums have been recorded using SSD 3.5 and the bass with Trillian.
Click HERE if you want to download the patch used on this lesson for Pod HD 500. 

Tuning: I used standard 440 tuning

Tempo: 160 BPM 

Ok guys – it’s rock & roll time!