10 Rock Songs With Weird Instruments

Rock music tends to be a genre with no real bells or whistles. The unspoken rule of rock instrumentation is to get the job done with only guitar, drums, bass, and maybe a piano if you're feeling feisty. Then again, rock music also means rules are meant to be broken.

As you keep pounding away on the same melodic hunk of metal, there comes a time when you want to hear something more than just the same effects going into the same guitar. Across the many subgenres of rock music, songs have emerged that have featured instrumentation that was a bit more unusual than your standard six-string. Rather than pull from the blues tradition, these instruments brought elements of classical, jazz, and even avant garde music and fashioned them into the rock style. Sometimes the instruments weren't even meant to be used as instruments, with some of the sounds coming from items found in non-musical spheres.

Instead of trying to tear the song apart with a rock and roll assault, the subtle sonic spice added by these instruments give each song a unique character that isn't found in the band's other material. The sound may be unexpected, but they are intense musical leaps nonetheless.

As the 2000's started, Green Day were already shaking up their sound with their new release Warning. Rather than the two minute pop-punk anthems, these songs borrowed a lot from folk rock with acoustic guitars, which made the music feel incredibly organic. Midway through the record, "Misery" came on sounding like something out of a twisted carnival.

Opening the track is a Farfisa organ played by Mike Dirnt, which provides a sound that feels like being transported into a silent cartoon. Given the subject matter of various teamsters living dangerous lives, the organ plays a key part in getting the listener in the mood for the demented journey that lies ahead.

That's not where the weirdness stops though. Looking to find even more off-the-wall sounds for the interlude, the band hired a mariachi ensemble to come into the studio to provide a more exotic flair to the track. After weeks of studio time, the song had gone from a plain acoustic ballad to a sonic ride through the seedier sides of American life. Given the final product, "Misery" is certainly an oddity in Green Day's catalog whose sound has aged like fine wine.