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Staind

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Outside - Guitar Lesson

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Band Overview

History and Guitar Legacy

Staind emerged from Springfield, Massachusetts in the mid-1990s, achieving massive mainstream success during the post-grunge and nu-metal era. Built around vocalist Aaron Lewis and guitarist Mike Mushok's songwriting partnership, they blended heavy down-tuned riffing with emotionally raw acoustic ballads. Their 2001 breakthrough 'Break the Cycle' debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, featuring the iconic 'It's Been Awhile.' Staind represents a masterclass in dynamic range for guitarists, demonstrating when to deliver crushing distortion and when to retreat into delicate clean passages.

Playing Style and Techniques

Mike Mushok powers Staind's distinctive guitar sound through thick, de-tuned power chords in Drop C# and Drop B tunings. His approach combines textured clean arpeggios, melodic lead lines that serve songs, and tight rhythm playing built on palm-muted chugging and open-string drones. Dissonant chord voicings create their signature dark atmosphere. Mushok's lead work remains tasteful and vocal-like, favoring simple pentatonic phrases with expressive bends and vibrato over flashy shredding, always prioritizing emotional impact over technical display.

Why Guitarists Study Staind

Staind teaches essential skills in dynamic control and emotional restraint. Learning their catalog strengthens command of drop tunings and how lower tunings reshape the fretboard for rich, resonant chord voicings impossible in standard tuning. Their material demonstrates writing guitar parts that complement rather than compete with vocals. Songs like 'Outside' showcase how gain staging, controlled strumming, and precise palm-muting pressure create emotional impact. Staind is invaluable for developing feel and restraint rather than speed-focused playing.

Difficulty and Learning Path

Staind songs sit in the beginner-to-intermediate difficulty range with generally accessible chord shapes. The real challenge lies in mastering dynamics: transitioning smoothly between whisper-quiet clean sections and wall-of-sound distorted choruses. Success requires understanding gain staging, controlled strumming technique, and precise palm-muting pressure. This makes Staind an excellent study for guitarists developing dynamic control and emotional expression. The material builds foundational skills while introducing alternate tuning concepts that expand overall fretboard knowledge and versatility.

What Makes Staind Essential for Guitar Players

Mike Mushok's rhythm style relies heavily on palm-muted power chords in drop tunings (Drop C# and Drop B), creating a thick, grinding low-end foundation. Practicing his parts will sharpen your right-hand muting control and teach you how varying palm-mute pressure changes the emotional weight of a riff.
Staind songs frequently shift between clean arpeggiated verses and distorted, wide-open choruses. This dynamic contrast is central to their sound, learning tracks like 'Outside' trains you to manage gain transitions smoothly without losing rhythmic feel or timing.
Mushok's lead playing is melodic and restrained, favoring expressive string bends, slow vibrato, and pentatonic phrases over technical fireworks. His solos teach the valuable lesson that a well-placed, emotionally resonant note can be more impactful than a flurry of 32nd notes.
Many Staind songs incorporate open-string drones alongside fretted notes, creating a haunting, almost modal quality. This technique works especially well in drop tunings where the low open string provides a constant tonal anchor beneath moving chord shapes.
Aaron Lewis frequently performed acoustic versions of Staind tracks, and Mushok adapted his electric parts accordingly. Learning both the electric and acoustic arrangements of songs like 'Outside' and 'So Far Away' is an excellent exercise in understanding how to translate heavy guitar parts into stripped-down fingerpicking or strumming patterns.

Did You Know?

Mike Mushok was recruited by nu-metal pioneers Limp Bizkit in 2012 to temporarily replace Wes Borland, showcasing the respect his playing commands among peers in the genre, he even recorded material with the band during that period.

Staind's breakout hit 'Outside' was originally performed as a spontaneous acoustic duet between Aaron Lewis and Fred Durst during the 1999 Family Values Tour. The raw live version became so popular that the studio recording had to capture that same stripped-back emotional intensity.

Mushok is a devoted PRS guitar player and has been using Paul Reed Smith instruments for virtually his entire career with Staind, favoring their thick humbucker tones and extended-range capabilities for the band's low tunings.

The guitar tone on 'Break the Cycle' was achieved largely through Mesa/Boogie amplifiers, with Mushok layering multiple rhythm tracks with slightly different EQ settings to create the album's massive wall-of-guitar sound, a studio technique worth studying for any aspiring producer-guitarist.

Despite their heavy reputation, some of Staind's biggest hits, 'It's Been Awhile,' 'So Far Away,' and 'Outside', are driven primarily by clean or lightly overdriven guitar tones, proving that heaviness is about emotional weight, not just distortion.

Mushok uses heavier gauge strings (typically .012-.056 or heavier) to maintain tension and clarity in the band's low tunings, which is essential knowledge for any guitarist wanting to replicate Staind's chunky, defined tone without flabby strings.

Aaron Lewis's solo country career led to Staind incorporating more acoustic textures into their later work, and Mushok adapted by developing a hybrid approach that blends acoustic picking patterns with electric power chord punctuation within the same song.

Essential Albums for Guitarists

Break the Cycle 2001

This is the essential Staind album for guitarists. 'It's Been Awhile' teaches dynamic clean-to-distorted transitions and arpeggiated chord work, 'Outside' is a masterclass in building emotional intensity through restraint, and heavier tracks like 'Fade' and 'Pressure' deliver crushing drop-tuned riffing that will tighten your palm-muting technique. The album covers virtually every element of Mushok's playing style.

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Dysfunction 1999

Staind's heaviest and most aggressive record, 'Dysfunction' is where you'll find Mushok at his most riff-driven. Tracks like 'Just Go' and 'Mudshovel' feature relentless down-tuned chugging and angular, dissonant chord voicings that will challenge your rhythm accuracy. This album is ideal for guitarists wanting to build stamina and precision in drop tunings.

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14 Shades of Grey 2003

This album pushes Staind's melodic side further forward, making it great for learning how to craft guitar parts that support vocal melodies. 'So Far Away' is a must-learn acoustic/electric hybrid track, while 'Price to Play' and 'How About You' offer tight, groove-oriented riffing. It's the best album for studying Mushok's approach to layering clean and distorted guitar textures.

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Tone & Gear

Guitar

Mike Mushok is a long-time PRS player, most associated with PRS Custom 22 and Custom 24 models, as well as PRS Singlecut guitars. He has favored models with thicker mahogany bodies for their warm, dense resonance in drop tunings. In later years, he's also been seen with PRS SE signature-style setups and 7-string guitars to accommodate the band's progressively lower tunings. The 25-inch scale length of the PRS platform paired with heavier string gauges gives his tone clarity and definition even at Drop B.

Amp

Mushok's amp of choice has been Mesa/Boogie, primarily the Dual Rectifier and Triple Rectifier heads running through Mesa 4x12 Rectifier cabinets. The Rectifier's high-gain channels provide the saturated, scooped-mid distortion heard on albums like 'Dysfunction' and 'Break the Cycle,' while the clean channel delivers the glassy, articulate tones used in verse sections. He typically runs the gain around 6-7 on the high-gain channel, enough saturation for thickness without turning into uncontrolled mush in drop tunings.

Pickups

Mushok relies on stock PRS humbuckers in many of his guitars, which typically sit in the moderate-to-hot output range (around 9-12k ohms). These pickups provide a balanced tone with enough output to push the Mesa Rectifier into heavy saturation while retaining enough clarity for clean passages. The bridge humbucker handles the heavy riffing with tight low-end response, while the neck pickup delivers warmer, smoother tones for lead lines and clean arpeggios.

Effects & Chain

Mushok keeps his pedalboard relatively minimal, the core of his tone comes from the guitar-into-Mesa Rectifier signal chain. Key effects include a Dunlop Cry Baby wah for occasional expressive lead accents, a Boss DD-series digital delay for ambient clean sections, and a chorus pedal (often a Boss CE-5 or similar) to add shimmer to arpeggiated clean parts. He's also used a noise gate to keep the high-gain tones tight in drop tunings. The philosophy is function over flash, every effect serves the song's dynamics rather than drawing attention to itself.

Recommended Gear

Guitar

PRS Custom 24

Mike Mushok's signature PRS Custom 24 provides the warm, dense mahogany resonance that defines Staind's heavy yet articulate tone across drop tunings. The 25-inch scale length and moderate-to-hot humbuckers deliver clarity and definition even at Drop B, essential for keeping his riffs tight and defined.

Amp

Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier

Mushok's Dual Rectifier head generates the saturated, scooped-mid distortion heard throughout 'Dysfunction' and 'Break the Cycle,' while its clean channel delivers the glassy tones for verse sections. Running gain at 6-7 on high-gain channels provides thick saturation without losing control in lower tunings.

Pedal

Dunlop Cry Baby Wah

The Cry Baby wah allows Mushok to add expressive, emotional accents to his lead lines and solos while maintaining his minimalist pedalboard philosophy. Every wah sweep serves the song's dynamics rather than becoming a flashy distraction from Staind's melodic songwriting.

Pedal

Boss DD-3 Digital Delay

Mushok uses the Boss DD-3 to craft ambient, shimmering textures on clean arpeggiated passages that contrast with the band's heavy riffing sections. The delay adds spacious depth to quieter verses without cluttering the mix in Staind's dynamic song arrangements.

Pedal

ISP Decimator Noise Gate

The ISP Decimator noise gate is critical for keeping Mushok's high-gain Mesa tone tight and controlled when playing heavily detuned guitars at lower frequencies. It eliminates feedback and hum while maintaining sustain, allowing him to nail clean riff articulation in Drop B tuning.

How to Practice Staind on GuitarZone

Every Staind 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 Outside - Guitar Lesson