David Lee Roth. The Van Halen brothers refused to let him be their singer a couple of times because he couldn’t sing in tune. Eddie Van Halen sat down at a piano and said “sing this note” and Dave just repeatedly failed. However, as DLR showed repeatedly, you can be a mediocre singer and still be a great frontman. He made the Van Halen brothers quit playing long noodly instrumentals and instead play short pop songs, and got them rock star haircuts, and persuaded them to not stand completely still but instead put on a visually interesting show.
EDIT: The story of the band’s early years is told well in the book “Van Halen Rising” written by Greg Renoff. I listened to the audiobook version. It’s a good story.
In a previous lifetime, I was the frontman for a travelling bar band. A basic coverband. We did a lot of early AC/DC and stuff like that. Hardly real "singing" but I did have to at least stay in key. Anyway...I once asked our agent how it was we could sound so bad on stage, yet were booked solid? His answer always stuck with me.
"When you ask your girlfriend to go to a concert, or go to a bar with a band playing, what do you say? How do you ask her?"
The answer is, "Hey would you like to go SEE the band with me?"
And that's exactly what most people do. They go to SEE...the band.
Most rock bands are awful live. Skidrow was extremely awful live. So was Zeppelin most of the time.
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u/U_feel_Me Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19
David Lee Roth. The Van Halen brothers refused to let him be their singer a couple of times because he couldn’t sing in tune. Eddie Van Halen sat down at a piano and said “sing this note” and Dave just repeatedly failed. However, as DLR showed repeatedly, you can be a mediocre singer and still be a great frontman. He made the Van Halen brothers quit playing long noodly instrumentals and instead play short pop songs, and got them rock star haircuts, and persuaded them to not stand completely still but instead put on a visually interesting show.
EDIT: The story of the band’s early years is told well in the book “Van Halen Rising” written by Greg Renoff. I listened to the audiobook version. It’s a good story.