Chris, ha-ha, I love it, you came up with some great questions, and so I shall soon steal them for future interviews;) Yes, I need to start posting this stuff on here, so I do apologize. We started a new series and will continue to interview and promote singers who use my methods. We only came up with it after I watched those two videos Alkis posted on here a few weeks back. So, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Alkis was GREAT and fun to interview...it was the first interview of hundreds to come:)

Hi Chris!

Blank minded is an understatement! I was too happy about it to think of any questions beforehand... :-P

> 1) What parts did you struggle the most with your covers and why?

First and foremost, getting the right sort of performance. For me it's more than just learning what sort of technique to do where, what type of grit, et cetera, I have to get into the head of the singer and do what makes sense. Secondly, rhythm. I have terrible rhythm, sometimes I can pull off the timing alright, other times lots of hair-pulling is involved.

Range and tone can also a problem, but generally not on songs I'll ever put on YT... I've done plenty of covers that no-one should ever hear... for good reason. :-P

2) What's your highest note full voice, falsetto, and with vibrato?

Hm, hard question, because I always get confused when trying to figure out what octave stuff is in, I can obviously tell vocally, but working it out on the guitar I usually end up with an octave error. Also, working out what my higher *full* voice note is is non-trivial, as I tend to shift to mixed voice past a certain point. I'll give you what I *think* they are and you decide if I'm right or not... :-P

As far as I can tell, my top note that I *think* is full voice, as it sounds the same as any other not in my high range before switching to falsetto, is a very crap sounding D5. The top note on YT is a C5 at 1:24 here, on "enRAPTURE me". It feels like full voice but it's possible it's mixed, so I'll let you decide.

Vibrato, in full voice, hm, probably a couple of semitones lower than that. The B4 on "enrapture ME" has vibrato but it's quite shallow, so perhaps a little bit lower than that.

Reinforced falsetto, the highest comfortable note is prolly about G5, I hit several of those on my Victim of Changes cover. I've managed a the G#5 at the end of Priest's Dreamer Deceiver before but that wasn't easy or comfortable, not counting it.

3) What's your loudest/strongest middle and or low note?

I honestly have no idea whatsoever. I could try and find out when the neighbours are less likely to kill me... :-P

4) What's your most effective techniques for doing covers? Do you first practice trouble spots over and over in pieces or just run the whole way through?

I run the whole way through to identify the problem spots, then work those until I've got them down. I always record these, ending up with a, sort of, studio track, to see which bits I like and which bits I don't and identify any bits of the overall performance that don't work. Finally, I try to put all of that together and do a live cover in a single take.



Oh, BTW, as a bonus, here's a very not-live cover of Maiden's Wasting Love. I can't pull this off live yet, each section was recorded individually and I had a cold, which made me sound quite a bit unlike myself.

https://soundcloud.com/alkis-tsapanidis/iron-maiden-wasting-love-vocal

Hi Alksis--thanks for taking the time to reply!

I haven't been able to check out that Wasting Love for about a week now. Did it ever get uploaded?

Sorry about opening up the 'what is full voice' can of worms. I just go for consistency in timbre and volume or in other words, that the voice appears to be 'fully engaged' regardless of the note or resonating physiology. That C5 seemed pretty spot on.

I've noticed you doing quite a bit of jaw vibrato. There's a lot of different ways to get vibrato I'm sure you know. My opinion is that as long as you aren't abusively goaty or machine gunnin.

Argh, yes it did... And it got deleted due to copyright infringement...

Here it is on Dropbox instead. If you have any trouble getting it from there, lemme know and I'll email it to you or upload it somewhere else.



I generally aim or a pitch vibrato with stomach vibrato combo, which comes out pretty naturally for me but I always end up with some jaw there as well. I can pretty much completely eliminate the jaw movement if I open my mouth wider but never found it causes me any problems, so I just let it be. At least it's not like Tim Owens', his whole head moves when he does vibrato... :-P

Ah, copyright--that explains it.

I don't have anything against jaw vibrato. Sebastian Bach did it plenty and managed to look suave and badass at the same time. I think belly vibrato is probably is my least favorite because you have to be careful/limited with how you move when you're doing it. It has a lot of potential for power I think though.

So your cover is sounding good. That's Dickinson, right--the original?

I think he adds some subtle grit that brings in some edginess and tension at certain points. Other times he seems to add some breathiness to create a muted tint or overtone of some kind. It's really subtle, but I think that's the point and feeling of the song.

What do you think?

Not entirely sure what you mean by that, when I do stomach vibrato I just "will" my voice to fluctuate in volume, as well as pitch, and my belly automatically moves accordingly, it doesn't take conscious movement and I certainly don't have to be still at the time.



Yep, the original.



Absolutely, grit is quite important in Bruce Dickinson's vocal delivery.



I am not entirely sure what you mean by breathiness, he goes quite soft and changes the way he places his voice throughout the performance but could you give me an example of a bit that sounds breathy?

All these subtleties are indeed the point of the song. Without them it just sounds like a dry performance. I never got far enough into doing this song to try and interpret this stuff, either Bruce's way or my way, it doesn't even have any grit anywhere. I decided that I needed more work before my voice is ready for this song.

Hi again--how's the cover going?

I think there's breathiness in most if not every softness (I don't think breathiness has to be intrusive).

For instance, when Dickinson sometimes sings the second syllable of "Broth-ther" it sounds like he is applying breath to create more of a soft, dream-like quality.

So in this song we have softness, angsty grit, or more anger-tinged grit.

I think it's important to have fun.

Have you ever thought of like a painter, making 'mood sketches' of covers. That way you can have fun and just play with the mood and not worry about notes, timing, etc.

Sorry if that doesn't work, I'm just trying to help out--keep up the great music!