Tom DeLonge's Guitar Techniques Are More Clever Than You Think

Tom DeLonge is often written off as a fairly simple guitar player, but this is often due to a lot of misconceptions and assumptions about how songs are actually played. To understand why this is the case, let's take a closer look at a few songs to better understand his key techniques. Drones play a huge role in many of his guitar parts, and it's one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of them. But what's interesting is the many different ways he employs droning notes throughout his playing. Arguably, the two most well known examples of this can be found in Feeling this and I Miss yous. When you watch various lessons and covers of these songs online, they often sound slightly different from the studio recordings. The reason for this is that many people play the two lead riffs as octaves, and when in reality there is a droning note throughout both parts, a single note that's sustained throughout the entire riff. This drone is crucial as it creates the much thicker sound heard on the recording and adds a lot more harmonic complexity to each part. Something that doesn't quite come across when the parts are played simply as octaves. If you've ever played these riffs in isolation and wondered why they didn't sound quite right, that was probably what you were missing. Many people often wonder why he uses a capo on certain songs, and this is the reason why. The droning notes used tend to be, but not always, the root note of the key the song is in. For Feeling this, that's E major. And the capo allows both the low string, which is tuned to drop D to move up to an E. But while the open D string also becomes an E which is then used as a drone note alongside the octave shape, moving up and down the fretboard. The same idea applies to I miss you as well, but this time the song is in B major and the capo is placed on the second fret, moving what would normally be an open A string up to an open B. You can hear Tom explaining this idea during the tracking process. For Feeling this, We can do something. We can do a third track just going. Letting one ring out. That sound fucking cool. Yes, it would. It'll sound like all those notes will bring out together, right? There won't be any rubs. No, they're all just one holds on that E. They're all Es. It's like all like harmonics of each other. One of my favorite uses of this technique can be heard in Boxcar Racer's song Sorrow. During the verse, the bass and lead guitar drop out, leaving just the drums, Tom's vocal, and a pair of guitar tracks. I need you more. As a way to compensate for the bass dropping out. The guitars use this same droning technique to add a darker, thicker texture to the octave shapes. It's a simple descending octave progression, but that single open note drone adds a lot to this one part. This is also a great example of why isolating individual elements of a mix can be so useful when analyzing songs. A lot of these smaller production and arrangement choices are easy to miss when you're only listening to the full master track. But once you can separate the instruments, you can start to hear exactly what each part is contributing. This is where tools like Sound Boost can be really helpful. You can drop in any track of your choice, then extract the individual stems from a full master. You can then listen to the guitars, bass, vocals, and drums separately, making it much easier to break down these subtle techniques and understand how they work within the arrangement. Because I need you more. The other way Tom often employs pedal tones is by using one or two fretted notes instead of an open string. He holds these positions while moving the root note around them. This technique is really useful for creating extra tension as a harmonic relationship between the drone notes and the changing root note shifts throughout the progression. This is really good. Brian Baker, this guy, I worship playing guitar, you know, he played a Dagnasty and Battle Religion, these two gigantic punk rock bands that I worship. And so I was showing. He had this riff where this one note just stays the same the whole time, but then the root note changes, You know, and it sounds different when the distortion's going and it's like. But the idea that there's a. There's a descending root note or ascending root note and whatever. I went up to him, I said, that riff taught me everything. And he looked at me and he kind of like squinted his eyes. He's all, that's it. He's all, that is it. I've done it in everything I've done, I did it and that's my age, Gain and Blink. We did it in Damn It, Did it in Steady Go for Kids, you know, we did it everywhere and we do it in magic. A great example of this can be found in another Boxcar Racer song. This time in their track There is. It chooses a very common four chord sequence, but the difference lies in the voicing. Instead of playing traditional power chords or major and minor barre chords, the part uses a moving root note sequence where the F and B notes, starting on the fourth and third strings, sustains throughout While the root note moves through the familiar progression of B, F, G and E. This same song actually has a few more techniques that are key to a lot of Tom's writing and playing. During the instrumental hooks, you get this up front octave track sitting in the centre of the mix. From what I've read, this is a common trick Jerry Finn liked to employ where he'd often use a third guitar track down the centre of the mix to create that expansive LCR sound. Sometimes it's a triple tracked rhythm guitar, other times it's simple octaves or single note lines. While it's not the most unique arrangement choice during the instrumental hooks, this idea comes back during the final chorus to add a new element to what would otherwise be another repetition of the same section. The final chorus actually has a nice four part arrangement happening where alongside the drums and vocals, those wide rhythm guitars continue along with the simple arpeggio panned to the right side of the mix. However, a slightly altered version of the octave hook from earlier reappears during the final chorus. Just as Jerry Finn often like to do, it bounces between two different octaves, adding one final layer of harmony and movement to the arrangement. Listening to the isolated guitar stem extracted from the master track, you should be able to hear exactly when this final centered octave part comes in. These kinds of misconceptions don't just happen with Tum's playing either. The bass line in Feeling this is another part that countless people get wrong. If you want to hear what almost everyone misses, including Mark himself, watch this video next.