An acquired taste....

Metal seems to be a genre where you don't have to have the prettiest voice to be a vocalist. There are plenty of vocalists who have a "unique" sound. Some of these guys are very love/hate. Name some you find to be unique and a bit oddball.

My choices are:

Attacker's Bob Mitchell
Sacred Steel's Gerrit P. Mutz
Agent Steel's John Cyriis
Stormwitch's Andrew Muck

I like all those vocalists but they can be an acquired taste.....

Raven's John Gallagher's vocal style is definitely a "love or hate" kinda thing. Some people can't handle the squawks. I love'em.


The first time I saw Raven years ago, John was onstage before their set started, tuning up his bass and testing out his wireless mic, he let loose with one of those classic "WAAAAAA-AAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" screams and a girl standing behind my brother and I covered her ears and said "Oh, my GOD! Shut UP!" ... my bro looked at her and deadpanned "Boy, did YOU come to see the wrong band."

Udo, King Diamond, & Tom Warrior are definitely an acquired taste as well.

Roger Martinez is another "acquired taste." Though I dug them musically I could never get into Vengeance Rising because the vox annoyed the hell out of me. Ditto for Guy Ritter from Tourniquet.

King Diamond
John Connelly

No disrespect intended, but I thought ult was a bit of an acquired taste when I first heard Ultimatum.

Rock 'n' Rolf - Runnig Wild
Peavey Wagner - Rage

SpectreFate wrote:

No disrespect intended, but I thought ult was a bit of an acquired taste when I first heard Ultimatum.

Me too. But now I think he sounds awesome. Go figure.

Chris Bothedahl is definitely a candidate!

The early Bride lps

Because I'm currently listening to it, I'm gonna go with:

High on Fire's Matt Pike

I held off buying anything by these guys for the longest time, just because I wasn't sold on the gruff vocals. Now that I've got 2 of their releases, I can wait to get the rest of the discography. His vocals fit in well with the music.

I've only recently been warming up to Kind Diamond as well. He used to be like nails on a chalk-board to me, but I'm really digging the Mercyful Fates discs I picked up a few weeks ago.

Yes, Scott Waters's vocals are a little strange at first, but once you have heard the album Puppet of Destruction, you see why he's a great fit for a snarling thrash band!

Guy Ritter from Tourniquet - pretty much my favorite metal vocalist of all time, along with Bobby Ellsworth and a few select others.

Surprised no one has mentioned:

Sean Killian from Vio-lence

And another I found to be strange on first listen, but have come to like:

Paul Gleneicki from Savage Steel

Good subject and very true. How many vocalists make or break it for many thrash and power metal bands?

Dave Mustaine is one who I hear a lot of people say this about. I love his voice but many can't handle it.

Lemmy

And Andrew Muck is why I don't listen to Stormwitch 'cause I love the music.

TheNazgul wrote:

And Andrew Muck is why I don't listen to Skeletonwitch 'cause I love the music.

You sure you got all that right?

Doh. I was thinking I needed to add Skeletonwitch to the list and typed it there. Hey, i'm old.

Thats strange that some of you guys think Andrew muck is an aquired taste, in my opinion his voice is pretty normal sounding.

I'll say the guy from Manilla Road...cant remember his name right now. First time I listened to manilla road I thought kermit the frog was their vocalist.

The singer in Lordian Guard (forgot her name)

James LaBrie

I'll have to say Ozzy Osbourne, love his stuff but could you imagine him singing for anyone else. He has a unique voice that isn't amazing but his song writing skills and the musicians he surrounds himself with make him amazing....

Thorsten Kohlrausch of Dark At Dawn.

Tim Baker of Cirith Ungol.

Cookie Monster who has fronted many of my favorite death metal bands.

manny wrote:

Cookie Monster who has fronted many of my favorite death metals.

That dude is busy as hell, how does he find time to record all those albums AND appear on Sesame Street?

detuned wrote:

manny wrote:

Cookie Monster who has fronted many of my favorite death metals.

That dude is busy as hell, how does he find time to record all those albums AND appear on Sesame Street?

Sometimes he does both at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWac5UT80no&feature=related