Band of Skulls

by Gabriel Leopardi

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  • Hi GMC!

    Welcome to my new lesson in the style of Band of Skulls, an English rock band from Southampton, consisting of Russell Marsden (guitar, vocals), Emma Richardson (bass, vocals), and Matt Hayward (drums). More info at wiki:

    Music Style:
    Their style is blues rock, with elements from Indie, Stoner and Hard rock. There is a quote about their music that says that it’s “gritty, ferociously heavy indie rock & roll out of the mist of blues history”. In this lesson I’ve tried to emulate their most rocker side that connects all those influences. This tune is inspired by some their most popular songs and it’s based on a up tempo groove for the intro, verse and chorus, followed by a mid tempo blues rock riff in the end. They usually make this type of aggressive rhythm changes in their songs.

    Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
    As I’ve said that their style can be described as Blues Rock, you can suspect that their favorite scale is our loved “Blues Scale” which is basically a Pentatonic minor scale with the addition of the b5. This tune is in A minor and combines A Aeolian with A blues scale. Most of their songs are based on this scale, but you’ll also find a strong use of Mixolydian mode.

    Techniques:
    This lesson will put you into a real music situation so you’ll have to combine different techniques as alternate picking, only downstrokes, palm muting, legato and vibrato. The groove combines 4th notes with triplets so you’ll need to be familiar with these rhythm patterns, and it’s also essential to be able to mute the strings that are not being player.

    Sound:
    I used Fractal Ax8 with a JCM800 amp emulation with the following settings:




    I used Cubase to record audio and midi, superior drummer for drums and Trillian for bass.


    Tuning: Standard Tuning

    Tempo: 150 BPM

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