Hello guys this is Leo and you're watching Hellscream Vocal Stars #1
Hello Dan, how are you?
Feeling very good today thank you for inviting me
Yeah it's really great to see you here. I heard that you're opening your vocal school
but let's start from the scratch. So when you have started singing screaming and
doing all this interesting stuff with your voice?
I'll be very honest. I've been on a quite a long journey it's taken me a good 12 or maybe 13 years to really
find my voice and I'm trained to the point where I feel quite comfortable
in my own skin as a thing but I've always been I've had a natural gift to sing.
I would say some some people are more naturally gifted than others in my experience
that doesn't necessarily mean that ungifted people can't sing.
Anyone can sing is just about learning to master your craft.
But I started to take professional lessons at the age of 21 before that I used to sing without any
guidance and make all the mistakes that you would expect someone to me and I had
I invested in my voice it was very expensive and I had traditional input
from the classical sense of singing for about half a year but it got to a point
when I... it just didn't gel I didn't understand how learning to sing
theatrical and classical would translate into rock and metal because I ultimately
wanted to be a rock and metal singer so very naively having learned the basics
of traditional singing I then left and went to my own journey of development
seeking out advice from different artists different vocal coaches around
the world online so there was a kind of cherry picked as I've gone along.
But it got to a point when I joined Tesseract and you know, for any metal band
that's starting out you know you have to find ways to survive you know to earn some money.
So I ended up giving guidance and teaching, you know, fans and other
aspiring singers and also you know liaison with other
artists like I remember you know sitting down for two hours with Spencer
from Periphery when we both first started you know trying to describe the
way that we sing and how to make it easy half how to develop our voices and it is
in interaction like that is is excellent I think and one of the best ways
to learn as a singer is to have as much perspective as possible and the main
reason for that is that the study of the human voice is still ongoing and it
changes all the time people's you know the top-end of vocal science people
still differ to a degree on how the voice operates in certain ways so that
gives people and coaches around the world essentially a free license
to say this is what you should do don't do this don't do that I have the best
program this is what you should there's so much of that online and I think you
have to be very careful with the information that you receive and trying
you know really dig into where people have you know learned their craft and
got their knowledge. So yeah I mean for me I've I've done a lot of my my own
studies and I've liaised with different people around the world and again being
a performer and touring it's the hands it's the hands on the floor feet on the
floor kind of ground experience that I've had for the past twelve years
which has really brought me to where I am.
I had the same story I mean collecting pieces from different people and trying to decide what's right
and what's wrong what I should do and what I should not
You have to be very careful what you're listening to but also at the same time it's very easy to
find out where people have studied where people get their information from
I mean for me there are some really excellent books that have been written in the last
five or six years which have really helped me as a vocal coach as well
so you have books like the vocal athletes the dynamics of the of the singing voice
and there are some Berklee material from the States which is quite good as well
so sorry about the music it's so loud out there apologizing and you can get
where you need to be just making you to find the right vocal coaching for you
and understand that every voice in the world is different and the way that you
respond to certain exercises and different stimulus is going to vary from
singer to singer so it's about catering for the individual and finding out
what exercises work well for you what exercises work well for you this is what
you need to work on you: it singing is so subjective that's how it works
What was the most interesting breakthrough in vocals for you and maybe some kind of position or feelings in your vocal tract.
I think within rock and metal singers are prone to vocal abuse because of the genre and the competition with the you
know the sound of being in a metal band especially when you're on stage you're
competing with natural acoustics distorted guitars loud drum sounds and
it can be quite hard so singers without the appropriate in air
monitoring and etc can push very easily and that's where a lot of or that's
where all vocal fatigue stems from is the onset of too much subglottic
pressure so within the vocal tract underneath the vocal chords as we expire
air flows through the trachea underneath the vocal cords and we have
an element of subglottic pressure that builds up and without this pressure we
can't speak and sing so it's always there it's always present and the
breakthrough for me was actually understanding that you can manage this
pressure when I say manage I mean make sure that it doesn't develop to a point
where it was going to interact with the muscles surrounding your vocal cords and
cause them to contract and tighten and that's what happens because
within the mucous membrane of the vocal cords we have mechanreceptors and
these receptors are very susceptible to pressure so we have too much of that
pressure build signals are sent to and from the brain to the muscles
surrounding vocal cords and they contract and tighten and as soon as you have this
contraction within or tension within these muscles then the voice breaks down
and it's very hard to reverse that effect so you have to become
hypersensitive to the the first signs and feelings that develop when
you get focal fatigue so tightening in the throat hoarse listening to the voice
tonal changes hoarseness developing etc and as soon as you identify those issues
it's about addressing them either with vocal silence with using semi occluded
vocal exercises so recirculating a bit of air back into the into the larynx
exercises that essentially would carry a fricative consonant so anything that has
a "mmm", "zzz" all these kind of sounds the air is partially blocked as you expire
the air with a closed mouth and some of that air will recirculate back into the
larynx and that will alleviate some of the pressure.
The liprolls?
Exactly! So liprolls are... I think one of the questions that I I can see written down
is what are the one of your favorite vocal exercises well for me
it's not about the most extravagant scales or the most bizarre sounds
it's about keeping, it very simple but actually understanding what you're
trying to achieve by making those sounds it's very simple so a lip roll is one of
the most universal go-to exercises for any singer in the world
because of that very same effect that it has as soon as you create a liproll you
can feel the relaxation within the larynx
Have you ever described or imagined liprolls or singing like holding your breath
while you're making the sound just compressing the air and pushing it
a little bit with less speed like a lip roll for example you're not doing it like "hard pressure sound" you do it like "low pressure sound"
One of the right ways to do it I would say that actually
with the liproll you can also think about the position of your larynx
because we can either make a nasal sound or we can make a very throaty sound
there are benefits to both I mean if I was going to make a nasal lip roll "nasal liproll sound"
it's got a lot nasal resonance but if I yawn into it "throaty liproll sound" now I'm accessing a very different area of
resonance and they have benefits so depending on how I feel on
every on every day because granted that the voice will will change day in and day out
depending on how conditioned you are and and what habits you
have what country you're in how well you feel you know you have to kind of know
what exercises to do to cater for certain problems that you might to say
Have you studied for somebody?
yeah I have studied from you know
different artists I mean I've taken some great advice from Devin Townsend and he
helped me out quite a lot
I tried to catch him here in Moscow but we had no time to prepare
She's very excellent good friend of mine but
also am a lady in the states that I'm actually sings in one of my projects is
a vocal coach he teaches at University and she's we bounce off each other a lot
and she has actually helped me a great deal in terms of vocal pedagogy and
vocal science and understanding how the voice works and her name is Amanda Muntin
and she works at the University of New Hampshire and she's connected to
the National Association of teach and singing and we she's and the great thing
about her is that she's a she's a traditional or classical forward slash
contemporary singer and you know as you know if you know anything about singing
those two worlds are very separate you know they were sitting over the
traditional singer there are hard and fast rules that you shouldn't do
shouldn't break with a contemporary vocal coach it's a bit about thinking
outside the box and trying different things that you wouldn't necessarily do
in the other world so to hear that she was a traditional contemporary you know
singer that's one of the reasons why I approached her in the first place because I find that very interesting
That's right I call that Universal vocals that's why I like Devin Townsend. That was the first time
I was watching YouTube and there's so Tuska show in finland and
there was some bands... saw the man in the cap and let's see this one and he just started singing super crush song
what da hell?
I've ever been on tour with Devin on his first ever headline run in the States that is the first time
tesseract played with him and you know being out in the crowd every night and
listening to him sing that it was like one of the first times that I'd actually
you know I would say that I would had a true vocal Idol I mean I don't actually
believe in idols I don't believe that we should have them at all but as an
aspiring singer he was a guy that I looked up to quite a lot in the way that
he kept not just sang but also cared for his voice as well so again he helped me out quite a lot
Maybe you can tell anything in this think about developing
vocal range for mixed voice how you feel those low notes in the second and third octave
and in the fifth one for example that's notes in the phonics song
I think holistically regardless of singing low or high what we have to realize is that
we all will have physical limitations as to how high or how low we can sing
there won't be a limit physical limit well the problem is is people
don't realize that they have to kind of like grow on a muscular level in order
to reach that limit so it is possible to increase your range very easily but one
by you know learning to sing in the mixed voice so my advice to any singer
that wants to increase their range is to sing in head voice frequently as much as
possible because if that CT muscle can be as strong as it possibly can you can
have an easier time trying to draw your full voice over your bridge
therefore increase your chest range if you like it's a mixed voice book so yeah
singing in head voice is actually for me what I've learned over the years is the
key to unlocking all of your voice you want to actually strengthen your voice
you again think of your muscles your vocal cords and as as muscles so any
sporting athlete will warm up the muscles get the blood flowing stretch
out those muscles make soft and pliable and stretchy then have there
period of sporting intense exercise and then at the end of that warm them down
your vocal muscles are no different to any other large muscle group they're
just very small so we have to go through the same process and the more that you
can stretch them out and relax them over time if you can couple that with really
good eating habits sleeping habits lifestyle habits stress management habits
you know drinking habits you will increase those muscles for example
if I was to go on stage and sing tonight which I'm going to do and if I've got a
good high protein diet and I get enough sleep tomorrow I'm going to recover a
lot quickly so do that over the course of weeks and months and you'll grow very strong on a vocal level
That's why many people don't understand when they doing
something not good getting stretching the their voice or doing screaming with
vocal cords not using false chords just a lot of pressure on vocal cords day by day
taking messages from different people
oh I sang for five six years like that it's okay and the first question I asked
them have you ever toured with your band if you had no tours you just don't know
anything about singing because every day show by show you must sing the same
parts and if you're dying on the second song on the first show...
which I have done when I started and again I made all the mistakes going and I would go to America
the end of the first week I would have no voice and I would panic and feel
stressed and then it would be a downward spiral and by the end on tour I would
just feel so I would have had such a negative experience from a vocal
perspective that I just I fell very down and I wasn't looking forward to the next
one but like say that the biggest epiphany that I've ever had
is learning to balance pressure and not push
being relaxed on stage is one of the the most important things that a singer
needs to understand and a really good example if you want to talk
about extreme vocals for a second so Yens from Meshuggah if you ever watched
him on stage it has a very interesting technique now I wouldn't necessarily say
that he has correct technique but what he does do which is exelent
is that when he so many screams don't just look at his face
look at the rest of his body his arms are loose and just dangling by his side
and everything else just sounds very brutal but how does it make that sound
by relaxing every other part of his body is relaxed
You're not using a lot of screaming vocal in your parts but maybe you can say a few words about that
distortion sound and the false chords how you developed it
I think for me if you compare the two tesseract albums that I've sang on the first one was very
aggressive and you can actually hear the strain in my voice so what I what I did
in the period of being involved in interacts in the early years and
stepping away for a little bit as I went away and developed my voice because I
wasn't happy and so when I came back I was a vocal coach I was a much more
experienced singer but that's why that album sounds very different because
I needed to reset rethink my strategy so there was a lot of singing on Polaris
and the tiniest little bit of screaming I'm not going to suggest that on the
next album there'll be no screaming because they're very may well be
screaming on the next album again but you can't know that just
yet well there's a little hint in there and the reason for that is rebuilding
and resetting myself so that if I do want to add screams I can now do it in
the most effective way possible so that might be a possibility in the future but
in terms of the way that I scream myself I use
a very carefully positioned balanced scream
Saw that in your yestersay video from your home studio yeah they're like
So if you listen to if you listen to my
live version of I don't know concealing fate or concealing fate part three
you can hear me screaming that and that is obviously you can hear that there is
vocal fry' there is there is grit and rasp well there's also pitch in there
and in order to have that effect I'm having to sing in a mixed voice
coordination to start with I'm adding vocal fry' into that but I'm also having
pitch behind it as well and to have that sensation it feels like there is a lot
of pressure but in actual fact there isn't it balanced so I kind of teeter on
the edge if I go too far I'm gonna hurt myself if I go if I take the pressure off
I can't maintain the pitch
I'm using to scream so I run along a very thin line and I now know because
I'm quite an experienced singer when how not to go over the edge when we phonate
and make mix sound there is a mucosa wave which occurs on the edge of the
vocal cords which is the vocal cords touch at the top roll down and then let
go so it's that kind of wave-like motion and those those vibrations happen
anywhere up to a thousand plus times to second depending where you're singing in
what pitch but when you make a pure vocal fry' sound that is not an internal
vibration of the false cords or the walls inside your larynx that is simply
a second vibration on the vocal cords it is not top to bottom second vibration
that occurs there's a dual vibration on the vocal cords and that's how we
generate that pitch and that is the initial way that you should start to
develop and learn how to scream is find that sound and play
with it as much as possible totally shift it up and down you add phonetics
in there yeah oh yeah do it with as little effort as possible because
screaming shouldn't involve really any effort it should come naturally and be
quite free when I scream I have to a little bit add more pressure but again
it's a balance and that's when the pitch comes in and again I'm not gonna do it
now because I'm not warmed up and I don't want to damage my voice and that's
a good rule is don't don't force things be warmed up for it but go online and check it out
the most scariest thing for the vocalist is losing his voice have
you ever had the problems with your voice
the only actual serious problem or
relatively search problem that I've had is a vocal edema which is basically
swelling through overuse and that's I've encountered that on tour in the early years
where I had to have steroids to get me through the rest of the tour
luckily I've never had ... I never had that again since discovering had to
balance subglottic pressure so that's again that was another reason why that
was an epiphany for me when I learned that the whole concept of pressure and
I've never had polyps never had nodes or cysts and hopefully I won't ever
what microphones you use in studio life at home if I remember right you use
conditioned mic for home recording and life in the studios
yeah I mean I have
various different microphones it depends on what sound I'm trying to create what
part of my voice I'm singing in is taste at the end of the day I mean everyone's
voice responds differently to different microphones but in in the studio my
go-to microphone is the AKG c12VR I don't have just the normal seat or
I have the vintage reissue cause it's an old I believe it's a late seventies mic
tube mic very sensitive very bright and I call that where the way it's not
extremely bright but I all that with a Neve 1073 and I've also
got preamp and I've also got a a Phoenix DSR-1 preamp that I'd like to use live
a minute... I'm just gonna be using today
yeah live it I've got a live condenser
oh it's live condenser it's nice
this is a sure KSM 8 its own it's quite a new model that's been brought out by Shure
dual cardioid microphone essentially it's it's a bit like
the kms 105 which is the Neumann microphone but the benefit to this is that it picks up
less background noise and because I'm you know when you've got a live
condenser in front of a drum kit you're essentially miking up the drum kit
because it's so bright but this has less it picks up less of the cymbals which is
a real benefit so it has all the detail I need but it isn't as distracting you
You can see from here just sing from here
it is directional that's... proximity is fantastic I can hold it in any position and nothing changes, the condenser mic is brilliant
What inairs you use for live shows and rehearsals what do you like to hear in the mix
So we're quite self-sufficient
within tesseract and we have our own desk we have our own core we use the
behringer x32 series which comes with a really cool feature where we can network
that we're able to download the app onto our devices iPhones iPads Mac books
laptops whatever and we can essentially have our own in-ear mix and we mic
everything off drums cymbals the effect the guitars the laptop the samples
everything were able to control the levels of each which is fantastic
in-ears I just use standard short to one-fives the rest of the guys on stage
used five three fives and there little bit more bassy I just used the
two on fives the court no the cheap and durable but have more high-end presence
so for a vocalist I like like my vocals to cut through without them being overly
loud because you don't want them too loud in-ears and what I like to hear is
kick and snare my mic will generally pick up all the cymbal that I need all
the simple channels are muted I don't get much room sound we do have mics that
are picking up the room sound I have none of that
metals changes guitars at a quite level they're fairly present and I have
backing vocals and samples which are probably the same level as the guitars
bass is fairly quiet and that's essentially all that I need
I use just the same mix who is your local Idol
I generally don't have idols at all
I think I have I have people that I admire and so Devin Townsend I've already
mentioned Maynard James Keenan at all
Dustin Kensrue from Thrice there were so many though I mean any vocalist that
takes care of their voice and sounds like they've really worked on their tone
I'm going to appreciate but they are the few people that I tend to revisit and
and listen to the most I think in terms of just greatness
I know about you guys
love to do backing tracks and MIDI controlled effects and such things for
guitars and everything so how do you mix your live vocals and what effects you
use very little very little I mean I have compression that's really important
I change the settings according to the venue you know I don't just have one
universal setting that would be silly a little bit of EQ and the tiniest bit of
reverb and maybe a smidgen of delay and literally that's it our front-of-house
guy is is amazing his name's Aidan O'Brien
he controls all the effects he creates them send sends them to my mixer and I
just make my levels how I wanted to be but essentially I find singing a lot
easier when I'm not masked with reverb and delay because I find that can
get in the way of pitch I deliver far better performance when I just have a
relatively clean vocal sound coming through my in-ears
So it's just a separate
signals and you are listening for a clean voice right here with a small
reverb and compress and the front house guy mixing it
with a lots of delays everything he uses delays and reverb for front of house we
also have some elements of distortion here and there but essentially you know
( Leo: it's just separate) and he's changing the tempo of those constantly as you mix
us through the set
Just separate mix for monitoring it's like people why
I came here because people that are standing in the front of the stage they
just don't know what's happening on the stage just can hear anything for example
that was a big thing for me to understand how to mix my in airs because
different people tell me different things somebody use only the voice in
their nails because they play in a jazz band another metal for example some guys
from black metal bands using the whole mix with only the bass drum triggered
and listening base for the guitars and everything so just different things yeah
that's why it's really interesting for other musicians because people in the
front of stage just don't know what's happening in they don't hear for example
I heard tons of people's screaming from the hole to me that they don't hear
their left guitars all right I don't hear what's happening up there not at all
it just depends on the sound guy
If you want to come to a Tesseract gig don't come to the front because you're
not gonna hear anything because we don't have monitoring we have no amps on stage
no onstage monitors so you're not going to hear anything unless you're in a nice
space in the middle of come and stand next to the sound desk
that's where you're gonna get the best possible sound
yeah that's what I'm talking about so are you're not using any pedals for now I mean the guitar players
know it so they sold MIDI controlled
jonno changes
with a metronome
yeah
as you can see Alex they don't use any pedals this you know this guy's like telling us we you need to play with the
lamp preamps with the heads and the cabs okay you can get it
it's just a lot it
kind of became a necessity for the band because no travel costs,
flying and hiring just hiring cabs that kind of stuff so no and again
Devin Townsend does the same thing as well
yeah there's axe Metallica plays with axe
It's nothing on stage at all completely empty now and also that makes
us you know in terms which we don't always headline we sometimes have to be
quite quick kind of festivals to set up our gear on stage off stage
10 minutes we're competing
you need to set up on the drums
exactly get it I could put it on everything. So let's see the question from your friends from in my
youtube channel the first question is they are asking why you're not using
screaming life a lot in such songs like you said already Concealing Fate Pt. III
The impossible deception part 2 and Eden
Oh we don't we don't play Eden so that's
the first one gone but I do actually scream and if you come to the show
tonight you'll you'll hear me scream so there have been times in the past when
perhaps I haven't and that's been a smart choice and again all depends you
know due to illness or whatever which can happen it might be detrimental to my
voice to scream so a moss will step up and he'll do the screaming but if I'm
healthy and I'm strong screen
Music is the main thing in your life right now do
you have any hobbies on what do you do when you're not busy with a band
I'm always busy with the band I mean I'm involved in lots of different
music so when I'm not writing and working with Tesseract I'm writing for
myself and you know or writing for white moths black butterfly which is my other
solo side project I've got some solo releases that I'm working on as well
I do I mix my world like the question says is is full of music and sound of
the minute which is a beautiful place to be. But I also have two children and the
wife and I I teach so that is that is my life is music teaching singing and being
a dad and that's all that I need a minute in terms of fitness and sport
I run quite a lot I love running five five and ten K runs and events but I also
play play squash actually play for it for a team in my local town and I'm sure
many people know what squash is and some people might may not but it's a very
intense sport actually
squash check it out. You just got to be committed you got to want you got to
want to do it and you have to be passionate and dedicated I mean luckily
my partner has been very supportive and you know in life we have relationships
with it with people and we want to grow in those relationships and not all
people have the best partners so that can be an obstacle not not all people
have the opportunity not not people have the finances all I would say is that
take a risk but be honest with yourself if you're not step outside
you know give it a go I mean I I left a very stable career I could have
retired at the age of 49 and been comfortable for the rest of my life but
I stopped followed being a mental singer and earn very little for the first you
know three four years but you have to find a way to survive you know but I
won't say that being self-employed and finding a way to survive has been one of
the most liberating things that I've ever done
yeah that's how it works for me too because I have tons of mails from
different people that are asking me about how I earn money from music but
they don't know that I have a music shop I have a school I have a studio I
produce bands and - all this stuff
yeah it's very unrealistic to think to
yourself I want to be a singer that's all I want to do and you know people are
like you know how do I do that you can't just be a singer these days you have to
even the top singers in the world have other revenue streams they're involved
in different things you know I mean you take someone like I don't know
Maynard James Keenan he makes wine and he makes a lot of money from making wine you know
it's like people do different things you know all the singers are involved in
mute mixing services music software you know engineer and all that kind of stuff
well yeah you know surround yourself with music find your way yeah that's how
I tell it to everybody that you should be a musician an artist booking agent
tour manager just just a manager and everything like that that's the
unfortunate reality
yeah so thank you for being here with us thank you from my
colleagues from Hellscream Academy so thank you for being here in Moscow
best of luck and good luck to all your students as well yeah okay
see you soon guys
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