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Why didn't Axl's voice deepen as he aged?


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Alright, so long story short, I was listening to this Stern interview:

I had forgotten how deep his voice was back then.

Compare it to this:

Usually as men age, their voices deepen - but the opposite happened to Axl.

I don't want to go Full Miser, but any theories? Did the damage to his singing voice also affect his speaking voice?

Also, what size shoe does he wear? #nevergofullmiser

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I remember discussing this a while back, around the time of the Kimmel interview.

I did some googling at the time and came up with two medical theories other than the surgery one. Firstly thyroid issues, they can cause a very deep, slow drawly voice (my father had this and it's true) treatment with medication resolves it. I find it unlikely though because it would be unusual to have thyroid issues that young, it's usually the other way around.

The second possible cause is a bit more controversial, prolonged bouts of bulimia. Seeing as there's no evidence of this it's probably unlikely too.

Unless it was some sort of vocal surgery I'm actually inclined to think it was just an affected voice he put on because it sounded cool. As he's got older he can't be assed doing it anymore.

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First time i heard his voice, which was after a great many years listening to GnR i remember being shocked at how deep his voice was. I guess cuz he sings high pitched so it throws you first time. I got that problem, terribly deep voice, all rumbles and that.

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On a side note around 2001/2002 I noticed his speech patterns were a little more affected, it almost sounds like at times he was trying to sound more "hip" or something. It is really hard to put into words but I just hear a different cadence in how he says things versus back in the day

Edited by WhazUp
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Long-term vocal cord damage; unspecified illness that might have been serious, giving up smoking, getting rid of adenoids/tonsils, treated inflamed sinuses...there are tons of reasons his voice could have changed.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology notes that a higher pitched voice in men can occur with advancing age. It doesn't seem to be an uncommon problem. Interesting that a number of other issues Axl seems to have had also appear to be on their list of "common problems with the voice and age." Considering that Axl used his voice far more intensively than the average man would have since he was a singer, it's understandable that some of this degeneration might have been a little accelerated for him.

After several decades of relatively stable voice, noticeable change can occur in the later years of life. As our bodies age, we lose muscle mass, our mucous membranes thin and become more dry, and we lose some of the fine coordination that we had in younger years. It is no surprise that these changes occur in the larynx as well, and this leads to changes in our voice. Your doctor may call these changes vocal cord atrophy or bowing, presbyphonia, or presbylaryngis.

Below is a list of commonly reported voice changes as we age:

  • Higher pitch voice in men

  • Lower pitch voice in women

  • Reduced volume and projection of the voice (or thin voice)

  • Reduced vocal endurance

  • Difficulty being heard in noisy situations

  • Tremor or shakiness in the voice

http://www.entnet.org/content/voice-and-aging

Edited by stella
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His "onstage" speaking voice hasn't changed that much, and I liked a lot of the '06 boots when I started getting into GNR because I liked hearing the Appetite songs with a deeper voice. I think sometimes he speaks with a deeper voice, sometimes he doesn't, I do the same without realising it sometimes.

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Fuckin' hell, started getting into them in 06. That made me feel really fuckin' old :lol:

Even later, '08 :lol: I was on my year abroad as an English Assistant and stuck in a small town 65km from Bordeaux so I'd just fanny about on the school computers between classes. Was reading a review of Rock Band 2 and it mentioned Chinese Democracy and I remember reading about that album the year before when I looked up Buckethead after liking Jordan in Guitar Hero 2. So really GNR have Harmonix's Guitar Hero and Rock Band to thank for me becoming an obsessive fan of theirs.

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Fuckin' hell, started getting into them in 06. That made me feel really fuckin' old :lol:

Even later, '08 :lol: I was on my year abroad as an English Assistant and stuck in a small town 65km from Bordeaux so I'd just fanny about on the school computers between classes. Was reading a review of Rock Band 2 and it mentioned Chinese Democracy and I remember reading about that album the year before when I looked up Buckethead after liking Jordan in Guitar Hero 2. So really GNR have Harmonix's Guitar Hero and Rock Band to thank for me becoming an obsessive fan of theirs.

So you was like 20 when you got into em? Fuck me, i was like 10. Quite literally, i remember the year and everything, first band i ever went mental about, GnR, mostly cuz they had swearing on the albums and I'd never heard that before. My mate Carls sister Julie made us a copy of this tape and we'd just listen to this fuckin' thing over...and over...and over...and over...and over. Certain we'd literally link up and just listen to this shit ALL day, i can't tell ya how many times I've heard Appetite and the 2 Illusions and Lies, it'd make you sick. You know what my favorite track was, this is gonna make you laugh. Shotgun Blues :lol: Probably would've been Get in the Ring but Julie didn't copy that onto the tape cuz we was ten years old and she thought it'd be a bad influence. Odd considering Its So Easy was on one of the others :lol: But yeah, used to LOVE Shotgun Blues, the speed of it, the aggression, the foul-mouthed lairyness. Nothing but a fuckin' pussy :lol: Thinking back i think this band was responsible for fucking up my life, majority of my childhood i spent just wanting to walk around looking dazed with long straggley hair in my face and a top hat, smoking Marlboros :rofl-lol:

So what was you into before all that, 20 is late man, usually you've got like...an established musical identity (what in GODS name am i talking about?!? :lol:) by then.

Edited by Len B'stard
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Fuckin' hell, started getting into them in 06. That made me feel really fuckin' old :lol:

Even later, '08 :lol: I was on my year abroad as an English Assistant and stuck in a small town 65km from Bordeaux so I'd just fanny about on the school computers between classes. Was reading a review of Rock Band 2 and it mentioned Chinese Democracy and I remember reading about that album the year before when I looked up Buckethead after liking Jordan in Guitar Hero 2. So really GNR have Harmonix's Guitar Hero and Rock Band to thank for me becoming an obsessive fan of theirs.

So you was like 20 when you got into em? Fuck me, i was like 10. Quite literally, i remember the year and everything, first band i ever went mental about, GnR, mostly cuz they had swearing on the albums and I'd never heard that before. My mate Carls sister Julie made us a copy of this tape and we'd just listen to this fuckin' thing over...and over...and over...and over...and over. Certain we'd literally link up and just listen to this shit ALL day, i can't tell ya how many times I've heard Appetite and the 2 Illusions and Lies, it'd make you sick. You know what my favorite track was, this is gonna make you laugh. Shotgun Blues :lol: Probably would've been Get in the Ring but Julie didn't copy that onto the tape cuz we was ten years old and she thought it'd be a bad influence. Odd considering Its So Easy was on one of the others :lol: But yeah, used to LOVE Shotgun Blues, the speed of it, the aggression, the foul-mouthed lairyness. Nothing but a fuckin' pussy :lol: Thinking back i think this band was responsible for fucking up my life, majority of my childhood i spent just wanting to walk around looking dazed with long straggley hair in my face and a top hat, smoking Marlboros :rofl-lol:

So what was you into before all that, 20 is late man, usually you've got like...an established musical identity (what in GODS name am i talking about?!? :lol:) by then.

Yeah, 20, turned 21 in April '09. I liked SCOM growing up, though more for Slash than Axl, couldn't stand Axl's voice back then :lol: Though November Rain was always one of my favourite songs. I think I listened to the LALD and KOHD covers as well. For some reason I didn't really hear WTTJ until I saw an advert for GTA San Andreas and thought "Whoa."

Shotgun Blues is fucking awful, man, even at the height of my obsession when I'd listen through the UYIs almost every day (something I haven't done in years), I'd skip that track most of the time :lol:

First album I ever bought on cassette, back in '97...

b72b3d40402bdd155212e3ea8d638a3c_1292815

A masterpiece, I'm telling you! I even bought Millenium...

My dad'd always listen to classic rock and disco, so I kind of went through the decades of rock music, '60s Stones stuff, '70s Zeppelin, etc. My dad and my best mate at the time were big fans of Deep Purple so they were my favourite band up until I was about 13 or 14. Around then I was introduced to metal by a couple of kids in Iran when I'd spend summers there, they were obsessed with Maiden and GNR (more Slash specifically). When I was 14 all the school metal bands in Abu Dhabi would play The Trooper and Run to the Hills, so Maiden became my favourite band for a while. I remember having Black Sabbath's Paranoid on my first MP3 player for years because it was only 32MB so I mostly put short songs on there. I even listened to some prog, Jethro Tull was the first band I ever saw live! Gig was in Dubai and an Indian flautist was on first, me and my dad were the least brown people in the crowd for once :lol:

There's a couple of bands my dad would listen to that I ended up liking more than he did, like Queen and ELO. Dad listened to a lot of Free and Bad Company, so when he and my mum went to see Queen + Paul Rodgers it was more for Rodgers than Queen.

At uni my social circle wasn't really into rock apart from next-door dorm neighbour who was into Maiden, so I got into Daft Punk and Justice and MGMT (I was already a bit of a fan of Daft Punk because of Aerodynamic).

I still love disco, though, and that was why Random Access Memories was my favourite album of 2013 and one of my Top 5 of all time, the album I've been waiting to listen to for years.

And this will always be one of my favourite songs (partly because of The Full Monty):

Back on topic...

Axl's voice definitely sounds deeper here than it did back in '87, I love it:

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Axl's voice was so deep because he was raspy on a daily basis. Try singing in a raspy style for two hours daily...You'll notice your voice will deepen too. Add in smoking A LOT (Axl was addicted to cigarettes and did weed) to the mix as well as drinkin.

Then when Axl left the spotlight, he stopped singing for at least 18 months (according to one person who worked with him between '94 and '00), and gave up smoking.

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I always thought Axl's lower voice was forced, especially when you notice how quiet he spoke back in the day.

compare this... much like his voice now.

to this.

his entire way of speaking is totally different... People generally sound like they have a deeper voice when they talk in a quieter voice.

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I always thought Axl's lower voice was forced, especially when you notice how quiet he spoke back in the day.

compare this... much like his voice now.

to this.

his entire way of speaking is totally different... People generally sound like they have a deeper voice when they talk in a quieter voice.

Oh use your loaf for chrissakes, hes onstage in one and sitting in a garden in the other, hmmmm, wonder why he might possibly be speaking louder and clearer onstage :lol:

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First time i heard his voice, which was after a great many years listening to GnR i remember being shocked at how deep his voice was. I guess cuz he sings high pitched so it throws you first time. I got that problem, terribly deep voice, all rumbles and that.

A lot of pro wrestlers get that from yelling their promos all the time, if you hear them try to talk normally, their voices are deep beyond recognition.

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I always thought Axl's lower voice was forced, especially when you notice how quiet he spoke back in the day.

compare this... much like his voice now.

to this.

his entire way of speaking is totally different... People generally sound like they have a deeper voice when they talk in a quieter voice.

Oh use your loaf for chrissakes, hes onstage in one and sitting in a garden in the other, hmmmm, wonder why he might possibly be speaking louder and clearer onstage :lol:

That's the point.

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