Incubus Style

Hi GMC!

Welcome to my new lesson in the style of Incubus, an American rock band from California formed in 1991 by vocalist Brandon Boyd, lead guitarist Mike Einziger, and drummer Jose Pasillas. The current line-up includes bassist Ben Kenney and DJ Kilmore.

Music Style:
Their style has evolved through the years combining elements from funk rock, nu metal, and alternative. Their early albums are more funk metal and alternative metal oriented while the new stuff has most elements from alternative rock. This lesson combines ideas from songs like “Ana Molly”, “Drive”, “Pardon Me” and “Megalomaniac”.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
One of the things that makes them different is the fact that their guitarist, Mike Einziger has strong influences from jazz. He took all his chord knowledge and adapted it to alternative rock/metal but with a great sense of taste, making the songs sound richer but not weird. This lesson is in E minor key and the chords are borrowed from the songs that I’ve listed before. Notice the use of 7ths in chords which is not very frequent in this style of music.

Techniques:
This lesson combines rhythm work with some lead arrangements. The techniques used here are strumming, palm muting, alternate picking, sliding and legato.

Sound:
I used Fractal Ax8's Dual Rectifier emulation with low drive settings, Cubase 9.5 to record audio and midi, Addictive Drums II for drums and Trillian for bass.

Tuning: Standard 440 hz