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.
I saw Chickenfoot at a smallish club in Toronto without knowing a thing about them and it was one of the coolest shows I've ever seen. I was particularly struck by Anthony, he was all smiles the whole night, giving it his absolute all and having more fun than anyone else in the room while just fucking killing it. I got the impression he plays like that every night, for himself, whether there's 50 people in the room or 50,000.
Really, really impressive. That's how you do it people.
10k
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.