Guitar Songs, Tabs & Lessons

Bastille

1 guitar song · Tabs, Lessons & Tone Guide Alternative Rock

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Pompeii - Guitar Cover

YouTube Stats: 215K · 4.5K

Band Overview

Bastille emerged from London in 2010 as a synth-pop and Indie Rock band fronted by Dan Smith, establishing themselves during the 2010s digital pop era alongside acts like Chvrches and Disclosure. While the band is primarily keyboard and production-driven, they employ guitars as textural and rhythmic anchors rather than as lead instruments, making them an interesting study in modern production-conscious songwriting. For guitarists, Bastille represents a shift in how electric guitars function in contemporary pop: they're layered as atmospheric pads, processed through effects and compression, and deployed for specific emotional impact rather than virtuosity. The guitar work you'll encounter is rhythmically precise, heavily produced, and designed to complement electronic elements rather than dominate them. Learning Bastille songs teaches you constraint, serving the arrangement, and how to play with space and dynamics in a synth-forward context. Will Farquarson (lead guitarist since their commercial breakthrough) handles most of their live and recorded guitar parts, delivering clean, effects-laden playing that sits perfectly in their synth-pop framework. If you're looking for complex fingerpicking or lead shredding, Bastille isn't your destination; if you want to understand modern pop-rock production, layering, and how to make simple riffs feel sophisticated through tone and effects, they're invaluable.

What Makes Bastille Essential for Guitar Players

Clean, single-note riffs processed with subtle reverb, delay, and compression to create space within dense synth arrangements; think minimalist counterpoint rather than traditional lead guitar, focusing on serving the song's emotional arc instead of showcasing technique.
Heavy use of palm-muting and staccato rhythmic patterns to lock with programmed drums and sequencers, requiring tight timing and an understanding of quantization; this is rhythmic precision over expressive vibrato.
Layered guitar textures achieved through overdubbing and studio effects: arpeggiated chords played clean and repeated with slight timing variations to create a sense of movement without adding melodic complexity.
Sparse, strategic use of distortion and saturation in specific moments for textural contrast; when guitars do get gritty (often in choruses or breakdowns), it's a deliberate production choice, not a default tone, teaching you when not to play and when subtlety hits harder.
Integration of atmospheric pitch-shifted and time-stretched guitar samples as sonic elements rather than traditional leads; understanding how the guitar is treated as a synth-like texture through post-production is key to their sound.

Did You Know?

Dan Smith primarily plays keyboards and sequences, meaning most guitar parts are collaboratively arranged and can shift between band members live versus in studio; learning their songs means understanding that the guitar part you hear on the record might not be exactly what the live guitarist performs.

The production on Bastille tracks involves significant studio layering: a single guitar note or phrase might be recorded 4-6 times with slight variations in timing and effects to create width without obvious doubling, a technique borrowed from progressive pop and electronic music producers.

Will Farquarson uses a combination of vintage Fender Jaguars and modern offset guitars, instruments typically associated with shoegaze and indie rock, bringing a lo-fi sensibility to a high-production pop sound; the gear choice itself is counter-intuitive to their polished aesthetic.

Many Bastille tracks feature guitars recorded directly into mixing consoles without a traditional amp, then processed with digital reverb and compression, meaning tone is entirely dependent on pickup selection, playing dynamics, and post-recording EQ work rather than amp character.

The band's early EPs featured more guitar-forward arrangements before they fully committed to the synth-pop direction; comparing early demos to their breakthrough album 'Bad Blood' shows a deliberate shift in how much sonic space they allocated to guitars versus electronic elements.

Bastille often records guitars slightly out of time or with floating tempo variations that are later corrected in production, creating an intentional human-versus-machine tension that's central to their sonic identity; perfect timing isn't always the goal.

The guitar tone on 'Pompeii', their breakthrough hit, was achieved by running a clean electric through a vintage Neve mixing console's EQ before any amp simulation, bypassing traditional guitar amplification entirely and treating the instrument as a pure signal source.

Essential Albums for Guitarists

Bad Blood 2013

Their debut establishes the blueprint for Bastille's guitar philosophy: layered, rhythmically tight clean tones that sit in the mix without overwhelming it. Songs like 'Pompeii', 'Things We Lost in the Fire', and 'Flaws' teach you how to build tension with minimal notes, use studio effects as compositional tools, and lock guitars with electronic production. This album is essential for understanding how to play in a synth-pop context without turning into background texture.

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Wild World 2015

Here the band pushes guitars slightly further forward, adding more rhythmic complexity and occasional harmonic depth while maintaining their clean, controlled aesthetic. Tracks like 'Send Them Off' and 'Good Grief' demonstrate how to layer guitars for impact without overdoing it, and the overall album is technically more accessible to guitarists learning modern production techniques. It's the sweet spot between showcasing your playing and serving the arrangement.

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Tone & Gear

Guitar

Fender Jaguar and Fender Jazzmaster (offset body electrics), chosen for their bright, slightly jangly single-coil tone and vibrato systems; these instruments provide natural presence in the midrange without muddy lows, perfect for sitting in a mix full of synths. Will Farquarson favors these over traditional rock guitars specifically because they cut through electronically-dense arrangements without gaining excess mass.

Amp

Most Bastille recordings bypass traditional guitar amplifiers entirely, running guitars directly into mixing consoles or audio interfaces with digital amp modeling and impulse responses applied in post-production. Live performances use solid-state combos or smaller tube amps set clean with moderate volume, relying on effects and compression to shape tone rather than power-tube saturation. The studio approach gives them absolute control over every frequency; the live approach prioritizes reliability and tweakability on stage.

Pickups

Single-coil pickups in the Fender offset guitars deliver bright, articulate attack with minimal compression, allowing playing dynamics to remain clear even when heavily processed with reverb and delay. Single-coils are noisier than humbuckers but offer the transparency required for their production aesthetic; you hear your fingers, your pick attack, and your timing with brutal honesty.

Effects & Chain

Heavy studio use of reverb (often algorithmic, sometimes convolver-based), moderate delay (to create rhythmic space without wash), and compression (to control dynamics and glue performances into the mix). Live setups use compact pedalboards with these effects plus occasional modulation (chorus or flanger for texture). The key philosophy: effects are compositional, not decorative. Nothing is added just for color; every effect serves a structural purpose in the song.

Recommended Gear

Guitar

Fender Jazzmaster

Will Farquarson's Jazzmaster delivers the bright, jangly single-coil tone that cuts through Bastille's synth-heavy arrangements without muddiness, letting every pick attack and dynamic detail remain transparent even under heavy reverb and delay processing. The offset body's natural midrange presence and vibrato system make it ideal for electronic pop productions where guitars must sit cleanly alongside dense digital textures.

How to Practice Bastille on GuitarZone

Every Bastille song page on GuitarZone includes a built-in Practice Toolbar. No app to download, no account needed. Open any song, then use the toolbar to slow the video to 0.5× speed, set an A/B loop around the exact riff you're working on, and jump between song sections instantly.

The toolbar appears automatically on every guitar tab, lesson, and cover page. Pick a song below, hit play, and start practicing at your own pace.

Practice Pompeii - Guitar Cover