Hey kids welcome to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy. I'm Ken Tamplin and I am doing a
series called What Makes This Singer Great and next up is Layne Staley from
Alice In Chains. So I like to think of this not only what makes this singer
great but what kind of first comes to your mind when you think of this singer.
So for me power, he's a very powerful singer, that comes to mind. His tone, he
had a very unique, very distinct tone and you can't, I mean you hear Layne you go
boom that's Alice in Chains right. His range, he had a pretty decent range and
that was really cool. A very interesting approach to singing and the songs were
very interesting, a little on the dark side you know, very melancholy, kind of a
little depressing to be honest. A little kind of you know evil, dark you know kind
of thing right. He was a troubled guy you know very depressed and so that came
through his music but the desperation of that and that happened with a lot of
people that you know have experienced depression or really you know music was
all they had and when that was gone, you know they either killed themselves,
overdosed or you know whatever happened. So you can really hear and sense that in
the music especially. So we're gonna talk about that a little bit more hopefully. I
think of he kinda reminded me more like a little bit of like a modern metal
or grunge Jim Morrison. I know that sounds kinda weird but it kind of comes to my
mind for some reason when I think of him. Drugs come to mind unfortunately, like
I said depression. I think of him leaving it all on the field I mean I've seen him
twice and both times it was just like I felt like he, every.. he gave it everything
he had and he left it all on the field. There was nothing left when he walked off that
stage, they practically could have carried him off on a stretcher because he gave
it everything he had, So now I've got "Love Hate" and some other stuff. Now "Love
Hate," this song is kind of interesting "Love, Hate, Love". The verses remind me a lot
of "Kashmir". You know (sings). You know right that kind of thing.
So a very "Kashmir" related. Now by the way I have a singing course it's called
How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else. You can find it here at Ken Tamplin Vocal
Academy.com and we discuss how to get to all these
different places, distortion, range, pitch control, endurance, diaphragmatic support.
All of this I have in my course and I have a free singing forum. You can also find
it at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com or you can just kind of check out and you
know tip your toes into the water and see if it's for you and if it's
something that um you're interested in and doing to learn how to sing. So I'm putting
together a little montage of him and let's check it out now. Here we go.
Very unique.
There's that covered sound.
That sound that different singers use right.
Good strength in his abdomen, good power.
Now I covered this song with my student Gabriela so check this out now I, this
is actually a girl doing it. We did take it up a few steps for her to sing it in
her range but it may sound like an easy tune to sing, it's actually not that easy
because when you do the (sings) and you're kind of singing
heavy on the low end, it's hard to relax and release to go up to sing some of the
distorted stuff that he does. Now the range isn't that high it's not like Chris
Cornell which I just covered in one of my other What Makes This Singer Great
series but very unique and certainly at the top of the heap for the grunge movement
for his sound. So very unique sound, good songwriting, good band. Like I said dark
lyrics, you can feel the angst and the frustration and like I said the
depression and desperation in his voice when he sings so.
Big, fat sound.
But before we go on something else that comes to mind with Alice in Chains that is kind
of separates, and that's true for Chris Cornell and and maybe a little bit
of Pearl Jam too not kinda in the same way but you know they really
appreciated musicianship and unlike maybe Cobain and some of the other bands
that were coming around that time, didn't care so much about you know great guitar
playing or you know big anthemic stuff so much though Kurt was obviously Kurt
was sort of the Beatles of the grunge era. So I'm not in any way saying bad
things about him I'm just saying that this, they weren't so concerned about the
musicianship whereas Alice in Chains was, you could hear it right and so was like
I said Cornell and all the bands Audioslave and you know Temple of Dog
and just different bands he was associated with which everything he did
turn to gold which was really interesting but so in this case yeah so
notice the musicianship which is really cool and we're gonna move on to the next
tune, here we go.
See what I mean.
It's that tone.
There's that tone again.
Now I gonna gonna keep hammering this home to you singers out there because
it's really important. Again notice. When he sang the verses, he sang it like a
grunge era, modern rock singer guy. He closed down his vowels and the second he
goes up, he has to open up those sounds or he's gonna get locked down in the
throat and he's not going to be able to get up to those rangy sounds. Now the
other interesting thing about distortion is, if you notice in his era we talked
just now about Chris Cornell. Chris has a very different kind of sound when he
distorts his voice so everyone has a sort of a fingerprint, a very unique
sound when they distort. His is very different in his approach to it and it's
it's pretty cool like I said, it's just real tensious and anxious and you know
like I said you can feel the desperation when he sings and I think people
appreciated that cause a lot of people are going through a lot of stuff especially in
this era and drugs contributed a lot to that.
Okay so if you guys can see what I'm saying. Now if I missed something and what
comes to your mind when you think of Layne, please put that in the comment
sections cause again I want to expand and broaden our horizons, it's not just my
opinion and my viewpoint. I'd love to hear your viewpoint of what you think of
whether it's songwriting, if there's specific songs you like or didn't like
or you know different nuances about Layne that was cool and also too guys I'm doing
this by request for the most part so if you have someone that you want me to
cover to talk about what makes them great, please put that in the comment
sections and I've got another kid..kid.. killer video say that 3 times fast.
Another killer video headed your way , check this out.