The ballad of the singer auditions

[Ostinato Rubato]

So me and the band dudes are starting to put together some singer auditions. We're using Cochise (Audioslave) and Would? (Alice in Chains) as the audition songs. Had out first guy come try out last night.

I wish I would have recorded the performance. I took my little tascam iphone condenser mic but totally forgot to use it, cause I'm stupidly absent minded sometimes . Anyway, it was like the muppets version of each of those songs. Apparently me and the band are really nice guys cause we didn't laugh our asses off. Dude was singing in a strangled falsetto to try to hit the pitch while sounding gruff but obviously the whole audition was fail sauce. Meeting the guy and talking to him my gut said "guy's a douche", which is a bummer cause he had the total front man look. This guy was stupidly good looking and he had "the look" nailed but had no redeeming anything in his performance. Inexperienced, nervous, no voice, and no charisma to make up for it.

I'm used to interviewing people and whatnot so as soon as he was done I cut it short, thanked him for coming out, explained that we just started this singer audition process and over the next few weeks would be meeting with some other guys but that my initial first impression is that we're looking for a different sound. Shook hands, audition done.

Moving on

[JiveTurkey]

Singers are, hands down, the most difficult piece of the puzzle. So many factors can make or break the candidate. Good luck dude!

[Ostinato Rubato]

Yeah I'm anticipating it taking some time. I have a good rock voice myself and the guys would be willing to let me handle it but I have a really hard time playing guitar and singing at the same time. I'd like to hone that skill a bit, but for backup vocals. I have a good voice, not a GREAT voice, and it's limited into the middle-high and high tenor range. We're looking for that next level.

[jnurp]

back in 1989 I had a band where the drummer bassist and myself were all competant musicians and had great chemistry. We had this singer who looked like the lead singer of the bullet boys, he was gorgeous but couldnt sing for shit. It didnt matter we had so many chicks at our shows it was unreal and I was 15 years old playing around with 20 year old metal skanks. I love that guy to this day.