Stray Cats - Rock This Town Pt.3 - Guitar Solos - Guitar Lesson

About Rock This Town Pt.3 - Guitar Solos

The guitar solos section of "Rock This Town" is where Brian Setzer's rockabilly technique gets put fully on display. Running at 180 BPM in E Standard, these solos demand a clean, snappy picking hand and a confident grip on the kind of double-stop bends and slippery single-note runs that define the genre. The challenge is not just speed but feel: every phrase needs that behind-the-beat swagger that separates real rockabilly from straight rock playing. Stray Cats were a key force in bringing this style back to wide audiences, and Setzer's phrasing here pulls directly from the well of 1950s electric guitar vocabulary. If the turnaround licks are giving you trouble at full tempo, use the Practice Toolbar to loop them slowed down until the fingering is automatic. Punk Rock energy meets vintage twang throughout, so your tone and attack matter as much as hitting the right notes.

• At 180 BPM in E Standard, the solos require a well-drilled picking hand to keep rockabilly double-stop bends clean and rhythmically tight.
• Setzer's phrasing leans heavily on single-note runs and behind-the-beat timing, so use the Practice Toolbar to isolate tricky passages at reduced speed.
• A bright, clean or slightly overdriven hollow-body tone is essential to matching the snappy, percussive attack these solos need.