Offspring Style

Hi GMC!

In this lesson I will cover the style of Offspring, a Californian Punk Rock band formed in 1984. This band is credited for popularizing and reviving mainstream interest in punk rock in the United States during the 90’s. In this lesson I will show you their more classic style based mostly on their first albums like Smash and Ignition.

If you like this lesson you will also like my Punk Rock Lessons: Classic Punk Series, Pop Punk Series, Skate Punk.

Music Style:

Offspring is considered a Punk Rock band, however they also have influences from styles like Grunge, Ska and Pop. Their first records also can be considered Hardcore Punk. In this lesson I tried to re-create their faster side based on songs from their popular album “Smash”.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:

This tune is in D minor. Minor tonalities are the most often found in Offspring music but you will also find some tracks that sound more “happy” and that have been composed using major tonalities. Some of their biggest hits are in major tonalities. This is something that usually happens with pop punk bands like Green Day, Blink 182, Sum 41, etc.

Techniques:

This is a very fast lesson so it requires being able to play fast rhythms that are close to Power or Thrash Metal. You will notice that I shared both lead and rhythm guitars. The techniques used are palm muting, alternate picking and only down strokes.

Sound:

I used my POD hd500 to build a sound based on Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier amps and 4x12 cabinets.
I used Cubase to record audio and midi, SS 3.5 for drums and Trillian for bass.

Click HERE if you want to download the patch used on this lesson for Pod HD 500.

Tuning:

I used standard 440

Tempo:

175 BPM

Ok guys – it’s time for punk rock!