Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm doing a really interesting series and the series is called
Replacement Singers- Who Did it Better. Next up is Stone Temple Pilots. Before we get started if you
wouldn't mind, please like and subscribe to my channel that'd be really cool. I have a singing
course if you're interested in singing, learning how to sing, you're already a good singer. You can
find it right here at KenTamplinVocalAcademy.com it's called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else
where I also have a free singing forum over there with over 25,000 singers all talking about how
to get good at singing so. Now I want to dive right into this of course we know Scott Weiland
and Chester Bennington so we're just going to kind of dive into that. Now we have again a, sort of
playbook, a rule book I should say where we're not going to just blast people and say oh he's better blah, blah, blah
we want to really look at the criteria of why someone is better so the first thing is that
you know were they a good showmen, did the replacement singer come in, come in out of
nowhere or were they already from an established band. Did they contribute significantly creatively
to the band, did they write new music for the band and how long did they last in the band when they
came in to replace the original singer. Was the songs that that they wound up having to sing,
songs that were really dominant or signature songs for the original singer
as opposed to stuff that maybe they would be better off, better served writing stuff on their
own and moving on. We've talked a lot about this with David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar and Van
Halen and stuff like that so. I want to dive right in here we go. You know the song, let's do this.
Okay now I want to make some comments along the way and they're going to be a little
odd in the way sometimes I make these comments because it's just sort of how I see things right.
I think that he's a really quirky but mysterious and interesting performer. Now a lot of
that was drugs and a lot of that was just a lot of stuff but he's kind of quirky weird guy right.
So he, he brings me in to the intrigue of this just from being kind of strange you know what I mean.
I know we're going to get to Chester Bennington in a minute he certainly has his strengths and
of course obviously with Linkin Park where did they go so. So again the criteria is is when they
stepped into the, you know to fulfill the shoes of the original singer, did they raise the bar and
then did they go on as a singer and continue on or did they just after this replacement, their careers
were done and that was it. So we already know how that all plays out especially with Chester but, so
you have this, this thing where these guys are, are reinventing rock in sort of the modern
rock, dare I say grunge because they hate to be called that but the modern rock era and really
pioneering and cutting new territory, so to ground, new, new horizons so to speak. So let's continue.
Now I can't grade everyone's performance on just the footage that I've been allowed to you by
publishing company use, by publishing companies on YouTube so but this was a pretty good example of
him, other stuff he gets a little crazier and he's you know pretty wild and a lot of this I'm very
convinced was obviously drug induced so he, but he's spot on. I mean his vocals are spot-on, he's,
he, the audience likes him so you know he has a really good connection with his audience
and he's working the stage in his way that he does his, kind of creepy little you know things that he does
but in the end I mean hey man he's pulling it off, he's recov, they wrote some great songs,
the audience are singing the music without him doing this you know. They're just singing
along because they like the stuff so there's a lot to be said with what Scott has done here.
Okay now we're gonna get into Chester. This is a little different because I like to get apples
to apples so I really tried to find stuff that was the same song so it wouldn't, one
song isn't like this epic piece that's you know the replacement singer does and and the other
one is maybe some obscure thing I really wanted to get that but the only footage I could get is,
is the one that starts out acoustically but it's still kind of cool so let's check this out.
For me personally, Chester's a much better singer than this
and he's kind of weak on it but it does pick up spoiler alert.
Okay cool. Great guitar playing by the way. So he's stepping into something that's not totally
his thing but he's doing a really good job and he's you know sucking it up and he's just kind
of really digging in, we're gonna hear some more in a minute. The thing that I really want to bring up
about this is that Co, and Scott moved around in some other projects as you know too and, and
you know did some stuff with Slash and you know a few things but when I think of Chester Bennington
i don't think of him as this kind of singer okay, I think of him as being incredibly innovative and
when I think of Linkin Park, extremely innovative for what they did and how they literally owned
planet earth. I think one of their, one of their stream's just come up on a billion views or
something so he was a little bit of a fish out of water here in my opinion. You know correct me
if I'm wrong like you guys post in the comment sections, you tell me what you think, this is
sort of my observation and then but he held his own in this and it sort of bought him the right
to continue to be creative and innovative and, and move forward with some different pioneering kinds
of things. Let's listen to this some more and then I want to talk a little bit more about his styles in a minute.
Okay now I haven't seen much of him in Stone Temple Pilots, I have seen him in Linkin Park.
His persona and his taking ownership of the band is more like taking ownership
like a replacement singer and not dominating with the band like owning it like when you know when
Ripper Owens came in you know for Judas Priest or when you know like just different people that
have stepped up to, Sammy Hagar stepped into Van Halen, these different you know big personality singers.
So he kind of hides behind the microphone in this environment but not in Linkin Park he's
a completely different singer and he has kind of his little boy voice thing and his crazy scream
growl thing and his unbelievable command of breath control. So very, very different personas and let me
give you kind of a silly example of this okay. I'm a soccer guy I love soccer and I've seen a lot
of Lionel Messi he's one of my favorite players and I love Barcelona it's one of my favorite teams. I
love Argentina or South American teams, Argentine teams and Brazilian teams as well particularly I
like, just like that kind of game and so whenever I've seen Lionel Messi out of his element, even in
World Cup which you'd think that he'd be really comfortable with his own team, his own country and
stuff and World Cup, he's a fish out of water and he hardly ever scores and you kind of hardly ever see
his prowess on the field or his ability and his authority on the field. When you see him
in his element in Barcelona it's like wow it's a completely different guy. So it's interesting that
as these guys kind of move around from band to band, how they shine differently in different situations
and I just wanted to make those annotations along the way because he's a force man, especially that
one concert he did with Chris Cornell and they'd, gosh I don't know man. Okay next up is Jeff Gutt
and the thing of it is is like I said I couldn't get a lot of really good footage so this was the
best footage I could get of him. Let me get past, out of Chester here and we'll move on. Check it out.
Okay guys if you're really honest there's really almost no fire here at all he's, he's a pretty
boy guy, kind of reminds me of an Orange County guy, maybe he is I don't remember or not but
there's no fire, there's no authority, there's you know, there's a lot of like you know swooning of
the girl, girls kind of stuff but I really just don't see this as the front guy for STP I just
you know. I mean I don't know how you go from Scott Weiland to that,
pretty tough call. I know that they needed and I, and by the way I know that, before I go too
far in this there's, there's been other people that have kind of dabbled in the singing so I'm
just staying focused on the main people but if you really listen to this it's just lackluster,
there's no energy. It's almost like he's kind of punching a clock, he's kind of too cool,
too cool for school as far as I'm concerned, just not wowed.
Yeah there's just no authority in it so I think my vote still would be Scott Weiland personally.
I think Bennett, Bennington stepped in in a cool kind of way but it wasn't really the right gig for
him and Linkin Park certainly was and Gutt for me is just ah, very non-pressing so tell me what
you think guys I, I want to be really really fair about this maybe I'm missing some performances
or you guys, I'm not, don't have the right song you know and that could happen too. Please put your
comments in the comment sections let me know what you think and definitely check out my next video.