The Hellacopters Style

Hi GMC!

Welcome to my new covering the style of the amazing Swedish garage rock band called The Hellacopters, formed in 1994 by Nicke Andersson (vocals & guitars), Dregen (guitar), Kenny Hakansson (bass) and Robert Eriksson (drums). This band was one of the most important Swedish bands in the garage rock revival and also a very influential band in Sweden. The other band that is always connected with them is The Hives (Check my lesson covering them HERE).

Music Style:
The Hellacopters music is defined as Garage Rock ,and they are usually included on the list of Post-punk revival bands. Their biggest influences are: MC5, Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Stooges, The Heartbreakers and early Kiss. In this lesson I created a tune inspired by many of their biggest hits as “by the grace of god”, “I’m in the band”, “Carry me home”, and “Toys and flavors”.

Tonality, Chord Progression & Scales:
This tune starts in D major (Mixolydian) and modulates to Bm in the pre chorus. The riff has that classic rock feel thanks to the use of Mixolydian mode which is one of the most frequent choices in southern rock, classic rock and blues rock. The pre chorus and chorus modulate to Bm, and combined with the mixolydian intro/verse riff, it’s one of their composing tricks to make powerful songs with catchy choruses.

Techniques:
This lesson combines lead and rhythm guitar. It’s not a tricky lesson but as it combines many techniques in a rocker atmosphere, it’s a good lesson for late beginners who want to start exploring trickier rhythms and licks. We will be covering techniques like alternate picking, bending, vibrato, palm muting, down picking and legato.

Tuning: I used standard 440 tuning.

Tempo: 155 BPM

Sound:
I used LePou plugins to create the guitar tone. These are free amp emulators that are extremely recommend. The head used for this guitar tone is Poulin HyBrit which is a Marshall Emulation. Here you can check the setting that I used:



For the solo, I added this tube screamer emulation:



Download the free plug in HERE.

Click HERE to download the patch used.

Ok guys – let’s start rocking!