The success and failure of getting a new Vocalist...

To me this is a rather interesting topic especially since I myself had experianced this very closely when I became the new singer of Jacobs Dream. Here we can look at a few examples of both success and failure at replacing an original and ussually well loved front man. I will list a few that comes to mind. You may list a few as well.

The part that gets me the most is this...How much of our "disslike" for the new guy is actually based on nastalgia rather than talent?? I mean if a new guy comes in and he just tottally sucks I get that. However in most cases we see a guy(or girl)come in who is also talented but just different than the original singer. My question to you is this...what if Tim Owens had been the first singer of judas Priest and Halford was the new guy??Whould the fans have treated Halford like he will never replace Owens?? I believe the answer is YES. To me it all comes down to who came first PERIOD. Or in a few cases such as Iron Maiden "who was singing during the bands hey day" that is what it all boils down to.

Here are a few of my examples

Judas Priest - Tim owens replaces Rob Halford = Failure

I think that Tim was a perfect match for this band but yet many of the faithfull refused to accept him and move forward with the band. Dont get me wrong it is OK to MISS a well loved member BUT a TRUE FAN of the BAND should be extatic that they have found a way to continue making records.

Iron Maiden - Bruce Dickinson replaces Paul Diano = Success

In this case I feel that Bruce was a much better singer but at the time there were die hards who didnt like him at all. Lucky for him the band didnt take off to the big time untill he arrived.

Motley Crue - John Whathisname replaces Vince N = Failure

Sorry guys but Vince is more of a known voice than he is a good singer and that is exactly why the other dude failed. It didnt matter who you would have brought in the fans whould have hated him.

Iced Earth - Tim Owens replaces Matt Barlow = Failure

This is a perfect example of what Im talking about. Matt is a good vocalist no doubt but he CHOSE to leave. The fans should have considered it a good thing that somone as good as Owens was comming in. Both vocalist equal out to be just as good as the other but different. But once again the fans complain and never come to accept Owens. Again I ask...What if Owens would have made all those albums instead of Barlow and Barlow was the new guy all the sudden???? I think you catch my drift....

I think it's a combination of factors on whether the "new" guy is accepted or not.

-stylistic changes, both vocally & musically (ie Motley w/Corabi)
-popularity of the band or singer at the time (ie Van Hagar)
-overall song writing (ie Maiden w/Blaze)
-death (ie AC/DC w/Johnson)
-longevity of original singer (ie Maiden w/Bruce)

Probably some other facors I'm forgetting too. These are the ones that immediately come to mind.

Far more failures than successes in my book.

Metal Church
Is it just me, or did Metal Church change styles when they changed vocalists from Wayne to whoever that other guy was? For me, Metal Church with Wayne was absolutely killer. After him it seemed the music was less dynamic and more boring.

Exodus
I loved Bonded by Blood so much, and anticipated the next Exodus album a ton. I was really disappointed with Pleasures of the Flesh. If I had heard Pleasures as the first release of some other band, I might have been fine with it (though still much preferring the vocal style of Balloff to Souza, generally speaking).

Iron Maiden
This is a pretty unique case IMO. DiAnno's vocals were so perfect on the first two albums, and they are my favorite Maiden albums. Bruce's vocals fit perfectly on his Maiden albums, which I heard just slightly before hearing the first two.

Iced Earth
Whatever. I am not sure I care which vocalist is on what release. My first favorite was Stormrider. The vocalists sound similar to me, and I like a couple of their albums.

Priest
Halford is just unique and was with the band so long, it would be hard to please anyone with any other singer. There is good, and there is what something is supposed to be. It's like:

Black Sabbath
Is Dio a better singer than Ozzy (assuming there is an objective "better", which I am not sure I agree with)? Yes. But there is no way that the Dio years of Sabbath were more important or influential than the Ozzy years.

I think it depends on the band, how die hard the fans and even the musical climate at the time changes happen.

IMO Motley Crue with John Corabi was a stronger line up and had more musical muscle but for most fans the change was too extreme, Corabi sings, looks, and writes nothing like Vince Neil does. Not only that a band that was known for singing about chicks suddenly starting singing about child abuse etc did not sit well with a guy who wanted party tunes.

In the case of Judas Priest, Tim Owens is a great vocalist but he was never (IMO) allowed put his own identity into the band. He was not allowed to write and the songs where not as good as the previous Priest efforts.

Genesis changing vocalist from Phil Collins to Ray Wilson was such drastic change that fans had hard time expecting someone who again was the complete opposite of Phil Collins.

In the case of Iron Maiden, Blaze a talented vocalist but he did not have the range or the charisma of either Paul D'ianno or Bruce Dickinson, and let's face it those where the weakest albums in the Iron Maiden discography.

I will agree with Chaz and say that our nostalgic memories and preferences play a huge part.

And from what I can gleam from my memory, as hazy as it is, a lot also depends on the whole band and how they write new material with/for the new singer. Chris brought up some excellent examples (which I disagree with on all of them , especially Metal Church) , but since a new part is added to the whole, changes will occur. Unless the singer is just a hired gun and the material is already in the can, like in the case of Warrior - Parramore McCarty -> Rob Rock -> Marc Storace .

Yeah when I first joined Jacobs Dream I pretty much hasd to just come in and learn what they wrote for my first album with them(Drama Of The Ages) but over time they began to allow me to leave my own mark on the music which played a huge role on the latest album "Beneath The shadows".

Chaz, you can rest easy in terms of your work in Jacob's Dream being unfairly judged by me.

manny wrote:

In the case of Judas Priest, Tim Owens is a great vocalist but he was never (IMO) allowed put his own identity into the band. He was not allowed to write and the songs where not as good as the previous Priest efforts.

It really didn't help that Priest was entering their lowest period in terms of quality music, same with Blaze and Iron Maiden. And Owens also had the same problem in Iced Earth - his performance was fine but he never really became a part of the band. He was never more than Jon Schaffer's hired gun.

MetalChaz wrote:

Motley Crue - John Whathisname replaces Vince N = Failure

Sorry guys but Vince is more of a known voice than he is a good singer and that is exactly why the other dude failed. It didnt matter who you would have brought in the fans whould have hated him.

Sorry, Chaz. I must respectfully disagree

John Corabi is probably a better vocalist than Vince. I know I'm going to get massively flamed for this one, but as a vocalist myself I am confident in saying this. John has a natural gravelly voice that just sounds great. Once Vince had destroyed his voice w/ too much substance abuse (& age, to an extent), he just sounded bad. I haven't heard that many live clips of the band (even from early on) where Vince sounded that spectacular, either. Most of the stuff I've heard where John was doing vocals live he sounded pretty on-point. He didn't have the same range Vince had early on, so some of the earlier songs he struggled with, but otherwise he sounded great. Especially on the stuff he recorded w/ the band. If MC had put out the album they did w/ John under ANY other moniker, I think it would have been well-received. The fact that the quitessential party band released a "serious" album was the 2nd big strike against them. Personally, I think the album w/ John Corabi is brilliant, and was a much needed shot in the arm for the band, despite all the negativity they got from "die hards" over that release. I still think it's quite possibly the best thing MC ever put out, w/ the possible exception of "Too Fast For Love".

I guess it depends on whether you're talking success/failure in terms of artistic success, or in terms of financial/record sales. Some bands release great albums with new singers out front (I'm a Tim Owens fanboy so I loved Priest's JUGULATOR and Iced Earth's GLORIOUS BURDEN, for example) but in many cases the fan base simply doesn't take to the new guy and the record doesn't sell. So even though the album may be a victory on the artistic front, it's considered a failure because the album tanks.

In the case of the Crue's Neil vs. Corabi, it's pretty much accepted that Vince Neil has never been considered a great vocal talent. (I've always thought he sounded like a pre-pubescent girl, actually.) But the fans loved him because he was a character and a great frontman. THAT'S what they latched onto. Corabi, though I don't know much about him, always came off as rather vanilla to me. It's probably no coincidence that since his Crue days (other than his stint in the short lived "Union" with Bruce Kulick) he's been doing a lot of sideman work in other bands (i.e. he played guitar in Ratt for a couple of years) rather than being out front.

I've actually never heard the Crue album with Corabi on it but it does seem to have a cult following nowadays and gets a lot of raves. On the other hand, it sold about twelve copies upon its initial release. I've been curious about checking that one out for a long time now, but have never gotten round to it.

Here's another one and I'm probably gonna get flamed for it, but in my book, VAN HALEN - David Lee Roth replaced by Sammy Hagar = failure.

The original VH had a character and attitude that couldn't be beat at that time. Then Dave leaves, they replace him with Sammy, and the sound changed from the crunching, sleazy hard rock that VH were famous for to poppy semi-hard (tee hee) rock (that verged on damn near AOR at times) without any of the 'tude or swagger that the Dave era brought to the table. My distaste for this era could be merely due to the fact that I was never a Hagar fan before he joined VH, and none of the stuff they did with him out front did anything to change my opinion of him. They were just too damned slick for me after Dave left.

But of course, they sold about a million zillion more records with Sammy than they ever did with Dave, so what do I know, huh?

We won't even discuss the ill fated Gary Cherone VH album...massive failure on BOTH counts.

I have to agree with MetalFRO I think the self titled Motley Crue album they did with John Corabi is the best thing Motley Crue ever released, on a purely artistic level I would say this album was a success.

While I do not believe that Genesis with Ray Wilson on lead vocals 'Calling All Stations' was the best thing Genesis ever released I also feel it was good starting ground for the next era of Genesis. Sadly due to the album's commerical failure that line up went belly up after the tour.

Frontman changes often bring style changes. Priest went very heavy with the Owens albums and it threw many people. I love Jugulator but it really is different.
Corabi should have stuck with The Scream. That's a better album then any Motley Crue album though his album with them is very good.

Tim Owens in Priest woulda been perfect had been singing the way he did in his Priest cover days and in Iced Earth. Instead, much of his vocals tended toward the horrid nu-metal sounds of that day. That is why people hated it so much.

Iced Earth fans not accepting Owens never made any sense to me. The Glorious Burden is on my personal all-time classics list.

Quote :

Iced Earth fans not accepting Owens never made any sense to me. The Glorious Burden is on my personal all-time classics list.

Oh yeah.

manny wrote:

I have to agree with MetalFRO I think the self titled
Motley Crue album they did with John Corabi is the best thing Motley
Crue ever released, on a purely artistic level I would say this album
was a success.

Thank you. You said very succinctly what I was trying to convey

TheNazgul wrote:

Frontman changes often bring style changes. Priest went very heavy with the Owens albums and it threw many people. I love Jugulator but it really is different.
Corabi should have stuck with The Scream. That's a better album then any Motley Crue album though his album with them is very good.

I loved "Jugulator" quite a bit too when it was first released. I've never been a major Priest fan, though, so that may be part of my acceptance of him as a replacement. I did think it was a natural progression from "Painkiller", and made a good re-entry for the band in the metal world.

I never got into The Scream. The guitarist in my old band was a major fan, in part because Bruce Bouillet was one of his all-time favorite guitarists (in addition to being from or near his hometown), and he had the cassette but I never bothered to borrow it. I might have to look into that, though, because between Bruce's guitar talent & my love of Corabi's vocals I think I'd probably dig it. I liked Corabi's stuff w/ Union as well, so I guess I should poop or get off the pot on this one

It is real easy to blame a new vocalist for the failure of an album, but the truth is most of the time the new guy has very little say in what musical direction a band is going to take.

And some vocalist are irreplaceable, if Aerosmith insists on the insanity of replacing Steven Tyler in Aerosmith, that to me is doomed to failure. Steven Tyler is not just another run of the mill hard rock vocalist. When The Doors attempted to continue and recorded two albums after Jim Morrison's death, fans abandoned ship. When they tried to revive the band tried to revive The Doors with first Ian Astbury and later the guy from Fuel, it not only was a just glorfied tribute band but they got for the effort.

Very few bands have replaced singers successfullu for better or worse, it is the voice we identity with.

manny wrote:

It is real easy to blame a new vocalist for the failure of an album, but the truth is most of the time the new guy has very little say in what musical direction a band is going to take.

So true and that fits perfectly with the Van Halen comment from Fat Freddy. Hagar was not a major songwriter for them and even Ult points out in NLTM, in 1984 Eddie was already introducing the pop elements (which IMO was toned down in F.U.C.K.-but that of course doesn't mean anything if you didn't like Hagar to begin with)

BTW Chaz, I prefer your vocals in Jacob's Dream over the other guy. It's good to hear a bass/baritone in non-goth metal. Apart from Barlow and Conklin (Jag Panzer) it seems you need to be a tenor to do metal. You guys give people like me (whose range doesn't get very high) hope-though I'm far from being as good as any of you.

Yep, there are not many of us but we are out there. I used to wonder a long time ago what was up with my voice because I couldn't sing this and that high song.....


I can get used to a new vocalist, it really just depends. The Iced Earth thing is easy for me since I prefer Ripper to Barlow about x43564763766326, even though I don't much like IE. I thought Bayley's tone was PERFECT for Maiden, I honestly thought a lot of things about his voice fit them wonderfully, it was just the fact that his range is different than Bruce's, that messed things up, IMO. But he still brought the dark dramaticism that is a Maiden trademark. I take him over Di'Anno.

Deris in Helloween I'm not positive about to this day, not because they don't still put out good music, I've enjoyed some of the stuff as much as the Kiske material, and I don't want a Kiske clone.......... I just... I don't really like his voice very much most of the time...and the old stuff..forget it..

Imo most of the time the first singer is the best one, although there are some notable exceptions (Iced Earth, Iron Man, Journey, Solstice).

I have to admit though that I like the first Jacobs Dream vocalist the most, but then again, the first LP is also my favorite in a musical sense, so no offfense meant dude.

I got into Tourniquet with the "Vanishing Lessons" album. At the time they just got a new vocalist in Luke Easter. I actually resisted the old vocalist and didn't give the older material a chance because it wasn't Luke Easter. Over the years however, I came to think that the original vocalist, Guy Ritter, had more talent. Though it wasn't true at first, over time I came to prefer the original singer.

With Maiden, I actually like all the singers. I prefer Bruce Dickenson, but Blaze and Paul are cool to. Though I have to admit, some of the material from albums X and XI seemed sleepy to me. A little investigation reveals that the new singer, Blaze Bayley, had little to do with the music as it was primarily Steve Harris (the primary songwriter) and Janick Gers who wrote most of the music. And that produced some good songs. I've always dug "The Clansman" and "Sign of the Cross," and I like to mood of those albums. Personally I felt like Maiden was having some trouble before Bruce left and Blaze joined. Look at "No Prayer For The Dying," and "Fear of the Dark." While they were decent albums with some killer songs, they were clearly struggling. "The Assassin" is little more than filler IMO, and you can't tell me that "From Here To Eternity" competes with anything from their previous efforts. Well, pre-"No Prayer..." anyway. Don't get me wrong, I love the aggression that "Fear of the Dark" has, but I feel like the songwriting falters a bit, as if foreshadowing.

I actually like the edge that Tim brought to Priest and I agree that those albums were a natural progression from "Painkiller." In fact I am beside myself as to why people didn't like "Jugulator" and "Demolition." The only thing that comes to mind is they were upset by a "carbon-copy" guy... C'mon, how can you not like "Metal Messiah?"

As with Iced Earth, I prefer Matt Barlow to Tim Owens, but I liked Tim also. As others have stated, "The Glorious Burden" is one of my favorite IE albums.

All that said, I grew up with Tourniquet. I was not allowed to listen to secular music, and didn't till about a decade ago. So I discovered Maiden and Priest well after the fact. So I have no nostalgic views in that sense. Iced Earth was one of the first secular bands I discovered.

I was into Jacobs Dream with the self-titled album in 2000. I was also familiar with Biogenesis on Rowe Productions. While I was upset that the old JD vocalist left, I was kind of excited about the change.

At least for me, nostalgia does have a lot to do with it, though clearly it is not the only factor. I think my views have changed since my youth. When I was young I wanted everything my way, whereas now, I'm more open.

I had a friend who was in a band. Whenever the vocalist of the band left, they changed the name of the band. lol. They went through several names. I thought it was pointless considering they were just a local band and nobody cared. But they honestly felt that if their sound changed at all, they would lose their fan base anyway, so they might as well get a new name... Go figure...

I think Iced Earth's best period is with John Greely behind the mic. Night of the Stormrider is one of my favorite 1990s albums.

I think IE has done a good job with all their singers. I'm fairly easy though, there are a few singers I can't stand but mostly if I like the music I can put up with the vocals.

I dont know for me it is very different from my point of view. I have been able to experiance BOTH sides of the coin here. With my original band Biogenesis, I was the only front man and so if you loved the band chances are you werent griping about vocals. It was nice to be in a position where I was never being compared to another person. Infact, Ironically many of our fans were attracted to Bio because of the vocals being unique.

When I first joined Jacobs Dream at first I sort of wanted to stutter step because I wasnt sure if i wanted to be in a role where I was trying to replace another guy who sounded nothing like me. However I admired the bands music and found it hard to say no at the same time. On my first album with JD I always felt like "that new guy" but after putting in nearly 6 years and 3 albums with the band I no longer feel that way.

I will always respect what David Taylor did with JD and he is a good friend of mine. However from my point of view it sometimes gets kinda old when some fans just wont let the past be the past and the future be the future. He and I both see ourselves and each other as worthy front men in our own right. There are things I can do that he cant and vise versa. There is and always has been mutual respect between he and I. So he sounds more like Veni Domine and i sound closer to Jimmy Brown meets Maiden or somethin. So what? He and I are alike in some ways only he sings in a high range constantly and I do not. I can undersatand "attachment" to a point but as far as JD goes I have now done one more album than he has and it would be nice if more fans could get on board with the future.

Also in another ironic twist I have had many newer fans approach me who had discovered the band during my era and its funny but many of them dont like Taylor as much as me for some reason. Infact just at the last show one guy said he had no desire to purchase the early stuff simply because i wasnt on it lol soooo.......again my point is.......it ussually comes down to who your FIRST LOVE was when you discovered a band. For some a new guy will never be accepted no matter how good he is. For me, as long as the dude is a good vocalist and he doesnt make the band suck then Im good.

MetalChaz wrote:

it ussually comes down to who your FIRST LOVE was when you discovered a band.

Not always though. The first Maiden LP I ever heard was Number of the Beast, but ever since I knew the LPs with Di'Anno I've always prefered him.