i first started listening to corey taylor and slipknot when i was also starting to get really
serious about my own vocal exploration man wait and bleed the iowa era stuff so incredibly brutal
and what i initially heard from those recordings was power push angst and muscles
i didn't really know what to do with it my natural reaction based on some of the other
singers i had explored erroneously was just to push harder and harder until my voice started to
to my ears sound sort of like what corey taylor was doing but that didn't work at all in just
a few minutes of experimenting with that level of intensity i remember tasting blood and going
really hoarse and going this this can't be it if cory taylor can do this for extended
periods of time and sound like he does i'm doing something really really wrong then i heard this
well it wasn't the first time i heard it but in light of what i was experiencing
with my own voice and listening to slipknot i heard it a little different
the way darren breaks up with his voice the way he sounds desperate i didn't
hear that in corey taylor's voice i didn't hear the desperation i do now but at the time i
didn't it took listening to system of a down and hearing the way those two vocalists interacted
that pointed out the desperation and vulnerability in corey taylor's voice
and i put what corey and darren were doing together that was the point that i was able
to start experimenting with my voice for longer periods of time and in ways that didn't totally
trash it within a matter of minutes or seconds and i began to realize that the key to great
screaming and distorted vocals is not more and more power it's vulnerability it is abandoned
these two words have stuck with me from that point all throughout what i've been doing as a
vocalist and they are key and when i started to get into singers like john mess sam carter and
spencer sotelo my methods and suspicions were confirmed even more my name is john
when you're vulnerable you're leaving yourself open to being attacked
you're a bit defenseless your voice might quiver
you might exhibit signs of fear and showing emotions you don't necessarily want others to see
when i began to start with the vulnerable side and then lean into the vulnerability it all
clicked i began to feel my false cords engage as an unconscious method of self-protection from my
body rather than me having to force engagement of that area based on more and more pressure
and then when i started to lean into those raw emotions when my body had already reacted
to the vulnerability and anxiety i was feeling that's when the magic really started to happen
i was able to revisit the style of corey taylor and some of my other favorite vocalists around
that time and really have success do things that felt great sounded great and were really fun to
work with in my own voice and those led to other self-discoveries but it wasn't about being this
it was about being this being real and vulnerable and letting myself
experience emotions and letting those come out in a genuine way
and then observing how my body reacted to me being genuinely vulnerable
and experiential by the way if you want to develop your aggressive and harsh
vocals click the link below and join my free voice course and i'll help you discover the
fundamentals you need to start doing some of these things with your own voice see for a
long time i thought these guys were getting their sounds simply by being angry and powerful and big
that didn't work for me i had to go the other direction and let this stuff happen as a result
for more on how to sing like corey taylor and get your screams whipped into shape try these videos