How to play Freaks by Surf Curse
Sounding like they just found a long lost Punk demo-tape, Surf Curse take you back to the 1970s with the ridiculously catchy Freaks. More surprising still, this track recorded in 2013 has become a Spotify Billion-streams lister in the post-covid 2020s. Freaks is a classic electric guitar punk thrasher - perfect for developing electric players and wannabe punks. Rock out!
Power-chords : A5 in the 5th fret, F#5 in the 2nd fret, D5 in the 5th fret ; Yep, a classic three-chord Punk song!
Pick or Fingers? Pick, or go home! Freaks is max punk energy and needs the strong rhythm tone a pick makes on electric guitar strings.
Acoustic or Electric? Electric guitar, for sure. Although you could play it on steel-string acoustic, the tone will not match the energy of the original recording. The electric guitar is designed for this kind of chord work; acoustic guitars are not.
Does the lead guitar continue the same riff? Yes, the same four-bar riff continues throughout the whole recording, like a loop. Playing the same four bars over and over can get boring and in a performance it would be likely to have some variation, so play around with it. Double-pick some notes, try some passing notes, or some simple fills in the fourth bar of each loop. Jam with the recording to work on this.
How does the timing work? Punk rhythms are relentless, steady quavers. Keep your pick playing down - up - down - up the whole way through, and keep your strumming arm loose and free moving. Count this rhythm as “1 2 and 3 and 4 and“ and so on. Some variety in a rhythm like this is good; some bars have a one-beat strum on the 1st beat and some have quavers through the whole bar. Also, in a few bars on the recording it sounds like the guitar misses the 3rd down-beat, making the “down down-up - up down up” rhythm (but this is a bit difficult to hear as the bass and drums keep the constant quaver going throughout).
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 2 : to learn more about the power-chords and rhythm techniques used in Freaks go to pages 4 - 5 and 7 - 9.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 2 is a must-have guide to Electric guitar chords and rhythm styles. It teaches you how to read the rhythm slash notation used in our charts (as used in professional theatre & studio charts) and is specially designed to build your strength and stamina with bar-chords, and extend your moveable chords vocabulary. An excellent tutor for the developing electric guitarist.
