This style of singing has always fascinated me since my singing style is way different. I'm almost always chest, little mixed voice here and there and then some head voice screams ala Ian Gillan. But to sing like that all the time in the head voice register, I just can't do that. :D I read somewhere that a friend heard Axel sing a Nazareth song in that style and said that he should sing that way all the time. So he did. But the first guy I think was Nazareth's Dan McCafferty. The came Bon Scott, Brian Johnson, Blackie Lawless, Joe Elliot, Udo Dirkschneider. Another Scottish born Australian singer that comes to mind is Jimmy Barnes but he is a high tenor and uses more high, very chesty mixed voice unlike Axel who sings mostly in head voice register while doing that distorted style. It's true that this style of singing is very, very demanding and hard on vocal cords. Like any extreme style of singing. You have to take it almost like top athlete. No drinking, definitely no snorting, eat healthy foods, sleep well, hydrate and practice your technique and exercise your voice weekly, cause if you don't use it, you lose it. Just like any other muscle. I'm 33 and being singing since 18y and it takes a lot more effort to warm up before show or just to maintain my voice. And rest is very important, just like with sports. Gotta have rest days as well. Singers have the hardest jobs after drummers by far. Just playing the guitar lol. Easiest thing in the world. :D
Bad Brad! I've been digging your videos. I love to hear your war stories (same with Tim Pierce, also very interesting). I also feel like you're authentic, no fake act. Thanks for that. True story: I'm 56. Back in the day I was in the Army in Germany. Late July '88 I had just gotten back to my company after a 3 week rotation on the East German border. Anyone remember the Cold War?... Anyone? Anyway, another soldier, a fellow cheesehead, comes in our room and says something like "You guys gotta hear this" and pops a GnR Appetite cassette into the deck. We were like "What is that?" Never heard anything like it before. They definitely took the rock world by storm. As a side note, over the last few years I've gotten into Slash in Velvet Revolver and his solo/ Miles Kennedy & The Conspirators work. I have to say, I like his post GnR playing better than I do his GnR stuff. I just think it's on another level. Might be heresy to dis the old school stuff, but there it is. Keep on rockin'.
Thanks Palmer! I think Slash honed his skills when he cleaned up his act. GnR was a force to be reckoned with but they were a chemical mess. Slash has improved with age.
Time also takes it toll on a voice. I am sure that is why a lot of these legendary singers are having the band tune down to a more comfortable level for them in order to still perform the songs.
I was a lead singer in local bands . I took vocal lessons for a year all classic rock some hard rock like Judas Priest and a couple of AC DC Scorpions anything that played on the local rock station here in St. Louis KSHE 95. All great music but working practicing and playing 3 nights a week really takes a toll on the ole vocal cords . Thanks for the video Brad very cool😎
This reminds me of when I was gigging in cover bands around KC in the early 80’s….smoky bars, alcohol, in addition to other parking lot libations….and we were covering songs like Beat It, Turn Me Loose, Whole Lotta Love, etc. It wasn’t just the range of songs we were expected to cover; it was what we did to our voices in between sets and the environments we were expected to perform them in. The bartender that was threatening to fire you if you did not play Beat It a 3rd time in the 5th set was the same bartender that, when you ordered a Kamikazi, would insist on making you a pitcher….
Billy Corrigan has a great sounding low baritone speaking voice in his interviews. Then when he sings, it sounds thin and screechy. Dude can definitely sing well, emotes well and is very expressive. Would love to hear him sing with his natural voice though.
A guy I know mid60yr old been singing in rock bands since teens had a series of massive heart attacks and strokes doctors told him the main cause was decades of singing in that style without any kind of vocal training. True story.
I am a Contralto singer, and I have always wished that I naturally had that upper range "screech". But I always knew the value of keeping within my natural vocal range when singing. This has paid off over my many years of singing. Regarding popular vocalists who are known for their unnatural screech: Sam Smith and Geddy Lee (Rush is one of my favourite bands... hometown proud!) come to mind. 🤘🏾
The thing is, back in the 80's they would tour the big bands to death to try and capitalize on them and those guys burned their vocals out pretty quickly. If an 80's vocalist could last five years it was great, but to last 10 to 15 years was a miracle. What sounds amazing on the record can destroy your vocals when you do it night after night. And you are correct, the only cure is time, which unfortunately, a young band doesn't really have much to spare.
Yeah singing like Axl or Brian Johnson is a tall order because their natural talking voice is low and they sing way high in their falsetto range and their signature tone is adding that screechy thing instead of a clean falsetto. Guys like Robert Plant and Bon Scott have a naturally high talking voice so it isn't as much of a stretch for them to sing because their voices are already in that register. Mick Jagger has a low talking voice but he always sings low live and modifies the vocal lines to be simple and in his comfort zone unlike the studio versions where he can use studio trickery to sing in higher registers(compare the studio version of 'beast of burden' which is way high and how he sings it low live for example). That's why Jagger has maintained his voice after all these decades.
I always thought that style originated from early Robert Plant, who of course was the greatest! Robert’s voice started changing in 72 and he was no longer able to pull it off in the same way that he was on the first four albums. Due to smoking, singing while he was sick, constant touring, etc.
I dealt with nodes when I was younger. Didn't feel my voice fully matured till my 30's. 57 now and sing 2-3 times a week. Never could sing the Axle high falsetto style and like Lou said I could feel it taking a toll on my overall performance when I tried.
Towards the end of my gigging years, I saw what stage volume and a bad monitor mix could do to a singer’s voice….if the drummer lacked the ability to control his volume and the guitar was cranking the 1/2 stack to keep up, that was usually bad news for the singer we expected to sing 4-5 sets.
Guns don't sound the same without Adler and Izzy Stradlin . What is really cool about Izzy's tone in Guns is that he played a full hollow body . He played an ES 175 live.
Yeah for me it’s always been the screams/distortion that are difficult. I can sing really high or low any day but high pitched screams are always so challenging and seem to take a lot of effort to achieve. I believe I’m doing them correctly and not causing damage or pain but they are taxing. Axl definitely wore himself out doing too much. It’s tricky to find balance.
I remember in the early 2000’s when Axl reappeared with his new GnR at the MTV awards. Back then i was shocked by how weak his vocals were, I remember thinking Axl sounds like Mickey Mouse. Watching that performance back now, and compared to today, it’s actually still similar to his prime screech vocal style. I’m not a musician or singer so I haven’t a frame of reference, but I assumed his vocal deterioration was due to him actually NOT singing enough during the bands inactive years, as in if you don’t use it you lose it. Having said that, Axl’s current singing voice is still totally fine, just don’t compare it to what it was.
I understand bands wanting to continue on with a replacement when an original can't cut it anymore, but after a while, you realize that when you change one ingredient, you change the whole flavor of the soup. Case in point. DLR-era Van Halen sounds like a much different band than Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen.
Dan McCafferty was the king! Nobody rocked that style better than he and Nazareth. He kept his chops up in age too. Let me hear somebody cover Bob Seger'°s lucifer well just one time! Nobody even tries. Axle impressed me live far more than I thought he would.
You don't want to turn into a Mickey Mouse that's for sure, but on the other hand, he put that killer original voice on vinyl forever so we can't complain too much that he blew it out. It is what it is.
Ive always wondered how bryan johnson can still do it at his age the way he sings. And if you listen to him speak, he has a pretty low piched speaking voice so its hard to fathom how he can hit those notes in the first place much less night after night.
I used to laugh, in my younger years at guys complaining about their shoulder slingin a heavy Les Paul. Watch the deteriation of the shoulder tendons surrounding this amazing joint in particular, As you get older maintaining strength at later life is key ! You know what has been offered as the number one factor considered for longevity ? Grip strength , I say, play guitar !
Your bass player friend who had thr rotator cuff problem, i would bet money he didnt develope that issue from playing. It was more likely carrying around that bass cab, loading it on and off a van or pickup, setting it up on stage, and then putting it back on thr truck, taking it home.... I played bass for awhile, in the 80s, and i had this massive peavey bass cab, was heavy as hell.
Blackie Lawless is a guy who has that style naturally, I feel like Axl forces it like crazy. Ripper Owens and Ian Gillan can do clean or rasp as well, but Axl sounds to my mind much more forced than anyone else I've heard.
Robert Plant found this out the hard way. Becasue of Led Zeppelins relentless touring schedule for the first 3 and half years he damaged his voice early and developed nodules on his vocal cords . By December 72 his high range was mostly destroyed and on top of that he put off having surgery to remove his nodules for a couple of years because Zeppelin were on the rise and the rise and getting bigger and bigger and they didn't want let of this gas or loose any momentum . By the time Plant had the surgery his upper range too far gone to be salvaged .
That is what got me out of GNR so fast, was Axl's voice. It's irritating. Same with Tom Keifer of Cinderella and Mark slaughter. It's sounds fake and like they are straining. Bruce Springsteen is another one. Always sounds like he is agony when ever I hear his voice, I have to change the radio station. Just hurts my throat to hear these "singers". Now Lou Gramm, that's a vocalist and a legend! Great video Brad and hope all is well ! 😃🤘🤘
GNR's fans love Axl's "rasp" and when he doesnt use it he gets criticized. Check out the band message board, they rag on him something awful when he isnt "rasping". Thats got to kill his vocals cords!
The reason I never saw KISS again after 2012 was mainly because of how damaged Paul's vocals became, never to come back to what I remember him sounding like in the 80s/ early 90s.
I made really great money doing A G&r, Nazareth and Alice Cooper cover band. But I blew my voice out after about 10 years. Fucking totally ruined. If I stretch it at all, instant coughing like a megaton bong hit
Believe it or not, I’d put Steve Perry in the same category. Listen to Infinity, and then listen to Raised on Radio. By 1986, Steve is putting a ton of distortion into his voice and pushing his chest voice way too high without putting in enough head. So by 1994, his high range is pretty much gone. Guys who didn’t use that much distortion like Jon Anderson, Dennis Deyoung, and Mickey Thomas still pretty much have the same voice even today.
I asked my kids and their friends are these guys from Guns n' roses AC/DC Etc Do they sing cool or good all said with a big NO! One kid said they sounded like there are in pain like a wounded animal, then I would play Elvis for them and ask them what they thought they thought he was a great singer! But very OLD! and out of all the kids I have asked nobody knew who Elvis was! I should add they're all in the alpha generation.
If you look at Appetite for Destruction, the songs are all very unique and don't sound like anything else, especially the first half. Like where did the inspiration for It's So Easy come from? It's not metal or thrash, you can hear some elements of early punk but the song takes huge steps forward on it's own and doesn't follow staples of any genre.. show me another song where the verses are fast and the chorus is slow.. And half the songs were like that, every measure of every song was recorded on it's own and nothing reused.. compared to everything else before or since, it's hard to know where that album came from..
I'm thinking of Steve Walsh from Kansas, he definitely pushed his voice in the upper register, and had some ups and downs in his ability to perform. He sounded amazing on those Kansas albums. Also, when you think of bar bands doing 5 sets night after night, it's not just the singing, but the yelling over loud break music in the clubs, many being smoke filled, you can imagine the damage to vocalists from that club scene era.
More the trend these days is the distorted singing style you hear in metal core etc, which has it's roots in black metal. Honestly I'm tired of it bc so many bands are doing it and it all sounds kind of the same.
I think David Lee Roth would fit into this category, he had that "train whistle" kinda' thing to his voice and it was totally kick ass and it's what made him l, but...I think it really trashed his ability to sing?
guys that sing through there nose and upper throat have vocal problems, just look at Steven Tyler all that high pitch Curly woo woo woop woop yah yah yah stuff gets painful, I'm sure its a similar case with Axel Rose too, while a lot of older blues singers that use their belly and diaphragm have voices that sound better with age. Certainly the whiskey and booze and diet adds also try to avoid getting any acid reflux. I don't sing lead but I sing backup and acid reflux causes larynx to spasm, dry throat, inflammation and can cause damage to your vocal cords too.
Cinderella, Britney Fox, Salty Dog, Kix, Dangerous Toys, Dirty Looks, Rinobucket, Faster Pussycat all used that trash rock screechy lead vocals. I just thought that's how their voice sounds when they belt it out not a false alteration of a singers voice
It’s what they call falsetto which is an upper range of a male voice and they add the grit to it to make it more rock otherwise it would sound like Prince on the song Kiss… that’s a clear falsetto.
Thanks Brad! No sir, I never tried to sing like Axl. Thanks for the stories, especially the one with Randy O. and Shelly Ann. Thanks for the shout out, Brad! I'm humbled! IMO, I think it's time to hang it up. Cheers, sir!
Axl Rose took a lot of his "Vocal Stylings" from Jim "Dandy" Mangrum of Black Oak Arkansas... not to mention some of his stage mamnnerisms... but more like a C+ level rip off...
So many of you musicians are workaholics. All motor, no brakes. Eddie Vedder, love him or hate him, he was no fool. He never got into screaming and it never seemed to hurt his career.
This style of singing has always fascinated me since my singing style is way different. I'm almost always chest, little mixed voice here and there and then some head voice screams ala Ian Gillan. But to sing like that all the time in the head voice register, I just can't do that. :D I read somewhere that a friend heard Axel sing a Nazareth song in that style and said that he should sing that way all the time. So he did. But the first guy I think was Nazareth's Dan McCafferty. The came Bon Scott, Brian Johnson, Blackie Lawless, Joe Elliot, Udo Dirkschneider. Another Scottish born Australian singer that comes to mind is Jimmy Barnes but he is a high tenor and uses more high, very chesty mixed voice unlike Axel who sings mostly in head voice register while doing that distorted style. It's true that this style of singing is very, very demanding and hard on vocal cords. Like any extreme style of singing. You have to take it almost like top athlete. No drinking, definitely no snorting, eat healthy foods, sleep well, hydrate and practice your technique and exercise your voice weekly, cause if you don't use it, you lose it. Just like any other muscle. I'm 33 and being singing since 18y and it takes a lot more effort to warm up before show or just to maintain my voice. And rest is very important, just like with sports. Gotta have rest days as well. Singers have the hardest jobs after drummers by far. Just playing the guitar lol. Easiest thing in the world. :D
You know your singers mate. One thing you said reminds me of s Neal Peart quote "Singing is the worst job, drumming is the hardest job"...lol
@DanielC__ Haha so true!
It is just now people are in their older years. Heavy Rock/Metal. These guys weren't thinking about singing this way in their 40's and older.
Man that is the trooof!
Agreed
Bad Brad! I've been digging your videos. I love to hear your war stories (same with Tim Pierce, also very interesting). I also feel like you're authentic, no fake act. Thanks for that. True story: I'm 56. Back in the day I was in the Army in Germany. Late July '88 I had just gotten back to my company after a 3 week rotation on the East German border. Anyone remember the Cold War?... Anyone? Anyway, another soldier, a fellow cheesehead, comes in our room and says something like "You guys gotta hear this" and pops a GnR Appetite cassette into the deck. We were like "What is that?" Never heard anything like it before. They definitely took the rock world by storm. As a side note, over the last few years I've gotten into Slash in Velvet Revolver and his solo/ Miles Kennedy & The Conspirators work. I have to say, I like his post GnR playing better than I do his GnR stuff. I just think it's on another level. Might be heresy to dis the old school stuff, but there it is. Keep on rockin'.
Thanks Palmer! I think Slash honed his skills when he cleaned up his act. GnR was a force to be reckoned with but they were a chemical mess. Slash has improved with age.
Almost 10K subscribers!!...you are really doing great,Brad!!
Appreciate it!!!! It’s still a slow steady climb….
All it takes is a single thing you post to go a bit viral and it’ll be like a rocket. The trick is nobody knows what video that might be.
Time also takes it toll on a voice. I am sure that is why a lot of these legendary singers are having the band tune down to a more comfortable level for them in order to still perform the songs.
Yes indeed!
Let's not forget Arthur Brown & the singer from the Dutch band Focus , quite a vocal range ! Thanks Brad
I was a lead singer in local bands . I took vocal lessons for a year all classic rock some hard rock like Judas Priest and a couple of AC DC Scorpions anything that played on the local rock station here in St. Louis KSHE 95. All great music but working practicing and playing 3 nights a week really takes a toll on the ole vocal cords . Thanks for the video Brad very cool😎
Thanks so much Brett. Great to hear your perspective.
A lot of tea,😂 a lot of honey and for me no cough drops because most of them contain alcohol and it dries out your throat. Good video 🤘
It's so easy. Duff definitely helped back up vocals
There ya go!
This reminds me of when I was gigging in cover bands around KC in the early 80’s….smoky bars, alcohol, in addition to other parking lot libations….and we were covering songs like Beat It, Turn Me Loose, Whole Lotta Love, etc. It wasn’t just the range of songs we were expected to cover; it was what we did to our voices in between sets and the environments we were expected to perform them in. The bartender that was threatening to fire you if you did not play Beat It a 3rd time in the 5th set was the same bartender that, when you ordered a Kamikazi, would insist on making you a pitcher….
Omg man I know!!!
great show brad!
Thank you
Doood great video!
Thanks! Duuuuude
Billy Corrigan has a great sounding low baritone speaking voice in his interviews. Then when he sings, it sounds thin and screechy. Dude can definitely sing well, emotes well and is very expressive. Would love to hear him sing with his natural voice though.
I hear ya! He has lasted a long time.
A guy I know mid60yr old been singing in rock bands since teens had a series of massive heart attacks and strokes doctors told him the main cause was decades of singing in that style without any kind of vocal training. True story.
Wow 😮
I am a Contralto singer, and I have always wished that I naturally had that upper range "screech". But I always knew the value of keeping within my natural vocal range when singing. This has paid off over my many years of singing. Regarding popular vocalists who are known for their unnatural screech: Sam Smith and Geddy Lee (Rush is one of my favourite bands... hometown proud!) come to mind. 🤘🏾
Right on!
Rip Bon Scott🙏
My favorite in that band.
The thing is, back in the 80's they would tour the big bands to death to try and capitalize on them and those guys burned their vocals out pretty quickly. If an 80's vocalist could last five years it was great, but to last 10 to 15 years was a miracle. What sounds amazing on the record can destroy your vocals when you do it night after night. And you are correct, the only cure is time, which unfortunately, a young band doesn't really have much to spare.
Man you know it….
But that’s why you shouldn’t try to replicate what you do on the record every night. You have to pull back and be more realistic on tour
illusion tour was massive
like 2.5 years
Yeah singing like Axl or Brian Johnson is a tall order because their natural talking voice is low and they sing way high in their falsetto range and their signature tone is adding that screechy thing instead of a clean falsetto. Guys like Robert Plant and Bon Scott have a naturally high talking voice so it isn't as much of a stretch for them to sing because their voices are already in that register. Mick Jagger has a low talking voice but he always sings low live and modifies the vocal lines to be simple and in his comfort zone unlike the studio versions where he can use studio trickery to sing in higher registers(compare the studio version of 'beast of burden' which is way high and how he sings it low live for example). That's why Jagger has maintained his voice after all these decades.
I dont think Brian Johnson is doing much if any falsetto.
I always thought that style originated from early Robert Plant, who of course was the greatest! Robert’s voice started changing in 72 and he was no longer able to pull it off in the same way that he was on the first four albums. Due to smoking, singing while he was sick, constant touring, etc.
He def wore it out
@@scottrap call me weird and an old fuddy dud, but I prefer Plant when he sings in his normal voice sans screaming.
I dealt with nodes when I was younger. Didn't feel my voice fully matured till my 30's. 57 now and sing 2-3 times a week. Never could sing the Axle high falsetto style and like Lou said I could feel it taking a toll on my overall performance when I tried.
I hear you !
Song-It’s So Easy… I love Axl’s baritone. Yes, the original 5 Axl, Slash, Izzy, Steven & Duff.
Yes!!!👍🏻
Towards the end of my gigging years, I saw what stage volume and a bad monitor mix could do to a singer’s voice….if the drummer lacked the ability to control his volume and the guitar was cranking the 1/2 stack to keep up, that was usually bad news for the singer we expected to sing 4-5 sets.
Man you know it!
Johnson had vocal cord surgery sometime in the 2000s or early 2010s
Wow
Guns don't sound the same without Adler and Izzy Stradlin . What is really cool about Izzy's tone in Guns is that he played a full hollow body . He played an ES 175 live.
I hear you and agree.
As a vocalist with a lot of range I’ve always worried about this. Interested to see what you have to say
Got to watch how many miles you put on the engine.
Yeah for me it’s always been the screams/distortion that are difficult. I can sing really high or low any day but high pitched screams are always so challenging and seem to take a lot of effort to achieve. I believe I’m doing them correctly and not causing damage or pain but they are taxing. Axl definitely wore himself out doing too much. It’s tricky to find balance.
Hit it hard with the primal scream all night, and then you lose your voice and sound sick the next day 😂
I remember in the early 2000’s when Axl reappeared with his new GnR at the MTV awards. Back then i was shocked by how weak his vocals were, I remember thinking Axl sounds like Mickey Mouse. Watching that performance back now, and compared to today, it’s actually still similar to his prime screech vocal style. I’m not a musician or singer so I haven’t a frame of reference, but I assumed his vocal deterioration was due to him actually NOT singing enough during the bands inactive years, as in if you don’t use it you lose it. Having said that, Axl’s current singing voice is still totally fine, just don’t compare it to what it was.
I think it comes down to self abuse for the most part. You can’t pack your beak and not sleep for days and keep your voice. See; Whitney Houston.
does anyone know from experience what all went down at the viper room and river pheonix. ive heard a few different stories
Don’t know the specifics have heard a lot tho.
I understand bands wanting to continue on with a replacement when an original can't cut it anymore, but after a while, you realize that when you change one ingredient, you change the whole flavor of the soup. Case in point. DLR-era Van Halen sounds like a much different band than Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen.
So true!!!
tom keifer from cinderella and paul stanley, to some degree, had that voice tone too.
Yes!!!👍🏻
Every song on AFD is a banger, very rare for any album but I think this one is on that list
It is a banger
Dan McCafferty was the king! Nobody rocked that style better than he and Nazareth. He kept his chops up in age too. Let me hear somebody cover Bob Seger'°s lucifer well just one time! Nobody even tries. Axle impressed me live far more than I thought he would.
You don't want to turn into a Mickey Mouse that's for sure, but on the other hand, he put that killer original voice on vinyl forever so we can't complain too much that he blew it out. It is what it is.
Ive always wondered how bryan johnson can still do it at his age the way he sings. And if you listen to him speak, he has a pretty low piched speaking voice so its hard to fathom how he can hit those notes in the first place much less night after night.
It is pretty remarkable
Tommy keifer of Cinderella is another one. I know he had to learn to sing again in the 90s
"Tom"
Oh ya!!!
"So fucking easy"
I used to laugh, in my younger years at guys complaining about their shoulder slingin a heavy Les Paul. Watch the deteriation of the shoulder tendons surrounding this amazing joint in particular, As you get older maintaining strength at later life is key ! You know what has been offered as the number one factor considered for longevity ? Grip strength , I say, play guitar !
@jimhankins3865- good comment.
I'm concerned because my PRS is too heavy for me,😢
Your bass player friend who had thr rotator cuff problem, i would bet money he didnt develope that issue from playing.
It was more likely carrying around that bass cab, loading it on and off a van or pickup, setting it up on stage, and then putting it back on thr truck, taking it home....
I played bass for awhile, in the 80s, and i had this massive peavey bass cab, was heavy as hell.
That’s part of it but if you saw this guy play you would understand
William Bruce Rose Jr. and it’s so easy is the song🤗
Right on...
Blackie Lawless is a guy who has that style naturally, I feel like Axl forces it like crazy. Ripper Owens and Ian Gillan can do clean or rasp as well, but Axl sounds to my mind much more forced than anyone else I've heard.
Mitch Ryder famous for those nodes
Oh yeah
Robert Plant found this out the hard way. Becasue of Led Zeppelins relentless touring schedule for the first 3 and half years he damaged his voice early and developed nodules on his vocal cords . By December 72 his high range was mostly destroyed and on top of that he put off having surgery to remove his nodules for a couple of years because Zeppelin were on the rise and the rise and getting bigger and bigger and they didn't want let of this gas or loose any momentum .
By the time Plant had the surgery his upper range too far gone to be salvaged .
It's a tough gig for sure.
That is what got me out of GNR so fast, was Axl's voice. It's irritating. Same with Tom Keifer of Cinderella and Mark slaughter. It's sounds fake and like they are straining. Bruce Springsteen is another one. Always sounds like he is agony when ever I hear his voice, I have to change the radio station. Just hurts my throat to hear these "singers". Now Lou Gramm, that's a vocalist and a legend! Great video Brad and hope all is well ! 😃🤘🤘
Loud gramm is soulful!
Mr brownstone he sang most of the song with his normal voice.
Yes!
In other news, the sky is blue
Whomp whomp
GNR's fans love Axl's "rasp" and when he doesnt use it he gets criticized. Check out the band message board, they rag on him something awful when he isnt "rasping". Thats got to kill his vocals cords!
Oh man tough spot to be in.
The reason I never saw KISS again after 2012 was mainly because of how damaged Paul's vocals became, never to come back to what I remember him sounding like in the 80s/ early 90s.
I heard that.
It makes me hurt just hearing Axle sing. Today he doesn’t even come close to the range he use to have.
FatherTime is undefeated
High falsetto? I remember Paul Stanley had a nice one. Now his voice is toast.
It happens.
I made really great money doing A G&r, Nazareth and Alice Cooper cover band. But I blew my voice out after about 10 years. Fucking totally ruined. If I stretch it at all, instant coughing like a megaton bong hit
wow!
Believe it or not, I’d put Steve Perry in the same category.
Listen to Infinity, and then listen to Raised on Radio.
By 1986, Steve is putting a ton of distortion into his voice and pushing his chest voice way too high without putting in enough head.
So by 1994, his high range is pretty much gone.
Guys who didn’t use that much distortion like Jon Anderson, Dennis Deyoung, and Mickey Thomas still pretty much have the same voice even today.
Yeah man he wore it out….
Yeah Axl had vocal surgery in the 90s. The doctor found a dead cat in his throat.
😆
G&R hasn't been the same since Izzy left .
I agree
I asked my kids and their friends are these guys from Guns n' roses AC/DC Etc Do they sing cool or good all said with a big NO! One kid said they sounded like there are in pain like a wounded animal, then I would play Elvis for them and ask them what they thought they thought he was a great singer! But very OLD! and out of all the kids I have asked nobody knew who Elvis was! I should add they're all in the alpha generation.
Wow
If you look at Appetite for Destruction, the songs are all very unique and don't sound like anything else, especially the first half. Like where did the inspiration for It's So Easy come from? It's not metal or thrash, you can hear some elements of early punk but the song takes huge steps forward on it's own and doesn't follow staples of any genre.. show me another song where the verses are fast and the chorus is slow.. And half the songs were like that, every measure of every song was recorded on it's own and nothing reused.. compared to everything else before or since, it's hard to know where that album came from..
I'm thinking of Steve Walsh from Kansas, he definitely pushed his voice in the upper register, and had some ups and downs in his ability to perform. He sounded amazing on those Kansas albums. Also, when you think of bar bands doing 5 sets night after night, it's not just the singing, but the yelling over loud break music in the clubs, many being smoke filled, you can imagine the damage to vocalists from that club scene era.
Oh man I feel ya there!
More the trend these days is the distorted singing style you hear in metal core etc, which has it's roots in black metal. Honestly I'm tired of it bc so many bands are doing it and it all sounds kind of the same.
I hear ya there.
I think David Lee Roth would fit into this category, he had that "train whistle" kinda' thing to his voice and it was totally kick ass and it's what made him l, but...I think it really trashed his ability to sing?
I agree...that scream was awesome but I imagine doing that every night...took a toll.
guys that sing through there nose and upper throat have vocal problems, just look at Steven Tyler all that high pitch Curly woo woo woop woop yah yah yah stuff gets painful, I'm sure its a similar case with Axel Rose too, while a lot of older blues singers that use their belly and diaphragm have voices that sound better with age. Certainly the whiskey and booze and diet adds also try to avoid getting any acid reflux. I don't sing lead but I sing backup and acid reflux causes larynx to spasm, dry throat, inflammation and can cause damage to your vocal cords too.
So true
Janis Joplin maybe
Need to be careful though, you don't want to cut off your nodes to spite your face.
😜
Cinderella, Britney Fox, Salty Dog, Kix, Dangerous Toys, Dirty Looks, Rinobucket, Faster Pussycat all used that trash rock screechy lead vocals. I just thought that's how their voice sounds when they belt it out not a false alteration of a singers voice
It’s what they call falsetto which is an upper range of a male voice and they add the grit to it to make it more rock otherwise it would sound like Prince on the song Kiss… that’s a clear falsetto.
Thanks Brad! No sir, I never tried to sing like Axl. Thanks for the stories, especially the one with Randy O. and Shelly Ann. Thanks for the shout out, Brad! I'm humbled! IMO, I think it's time to hang it up. Cheers, sir!
You rock bro!
Eddie Vedder abused the hell out of his voice but after decades of singing, doesn’t sound much different.
Perhaps so.
Axl Rose took a lot of his "Vocal Stylings" from Jim "Dandy" Mangrum of Black Oak Arkansas... not to mention some of his stage mamnnerisms... but more like a C+ level rip off...
I know Miles had throat surgery and it made his voice very raspy, sounded cool as shit but, wouldn't be good if he was a singer...
Oh ya!!!
So many of you musicians are workaholics. All motor, no brakes. Eddie Vedder, love him or hate him, he was no fool. He never got into screaming and it never seemed to hurt his career.
True!
EV does have more time scheduled in between shows, when possible this year & last year.
He brings it, and I Like Pearl Jam Live very much.
It’s so easy to
Seemingly not so easy