I was wondering if there is anyone who knows what kind of techniques James Hetfield from metallica employs in his singing, for example his powerful growl... he might have done something wrong because he blew his voice and he doesn't sound the same any longer...i'm just curious thanks :)

E.g. he drank tons of alcohol since then and the thing is that the alcohol is passive killer so his voice degradations weren't obvious from the first moment and he never used vocal classes.
He doesn't use technique of any special kind, except some rasp, grit effects with nasality which he got naturally(he never studied singing, he just did it).

hey powervocalist thanks for replying,

yeah i thought it might have had something to do with the alcohol, he eventually started to grow nodules.

but i read that his mum used to be an opera singer and that she enrolled james (when he was a kid) to take light opera singing lessons, i'm trying to figure out if that had any type of influence in his singing. Specially in the black album his voice sounds very powerful, is this a result from very strong breath support? or was he just overdoing it?

As far as I knew, James always talked about how he blew his voice out in the Black Album sessions and had to go away to do lessons with a vocal instructor. He has also noted that he uses these practice scales until this day.

I think this is why his voice was at its peak power and control on Black Album. I think he naturally built up his style with bad technique up until this point and the instruction taught him how to maintain it. He is a very consistent singer and always sounded amazing live.

yeah,he did.if you watch "some kind of monster he says that he blew his voice out on the reload album and HAD to get a voice coach and you see him doing vocal exercises before every session on it.

Didn't he blow his voice out covering 'So What?'

I made a video on tackling Hetfield's work in a healthy way that won't destroy your voice.

rules: least amount of air and feeling the sound in soft palate!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6l_4edP36Q&feature=c4-overview&list=UUc0IfmOTRYLb_pJx-O-FZiw

A nice video Phil, though the distortion that Hetfield is using (false folds) is not exactly what you teach, but still a nice video.

Extreme Scream 2 (screaminglessons.com) explains it.

Extreme Scream 2 is awesome and will teach you to get the grit.

The problem with Hetfield is old Metallica in the 70's is very falsettoish and easy to do. His later stuff with the power requires grit plus belting to actually get the proper tone, otherwise your voice will be too high or low or falsettoish.

So of course learn the grit in Extreme Scream 2 and it's fun, but then you need belting. Don't blow-out your voice. My experience with belting is it's easier to do with a a slight smile/smawn like if you're doing a piercing tone.

As for Hetfield's current voice health don't know/doesn't really matter--just don't screw up yours.

Yeah, it was when he sang that part about an old man.


If I were going to cover Anti-Nowhere League, there are much better songs, like Queen and Country or Out on the Wasteland from the "Out on the Wasteland" E.P. Metallica just picked "So What" because it got banned. (I loved the Anti-Nowhere League back then, and I still have this stuff on vinyl.)


Skullsplitter

No it's a natural result primarily because of his natively developed soft palate which is a very big support indicator of Russell Alen's vocal performance but he blew it after Black album as ppl on their posts already mentioned. Breathing was an important part!

In CVT terms (Complete Vocal Technique) he mainly uses Overdrive with a dark sound color and distortion.