Bach: Why Axl Acts the Way He Does

[Orsys]

I think Bach should shutup and not try to help Axl.

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[Salman Rushdie]

Everybody has all these theories as to why he acts the way he acts. And there's no big mystery. He tells me the source of all of the insanity — it's his voice. It's his job to sing like that, and sometimes that sound is hard for him. And a lot of singers, you know, to sing in that range is just not an easy thing to do. And he does what he can, and if it takes him forty-five more minutes to warm up his pipes so he can sing 'Sweet Child O' Mine'.

Why not start warming up earlier?

[Best Regards]

I think Bach should shutup and not try to help Axl.

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In alot of ways Baz is exactly right. We don't know what it's like to be Axl Rose. The public and the media always wanting something from you. And if they don't think it sounds interesting enough, they'll lie to portray you in a way that sells.

[Orsys]

Tracii Guns speaks too. Hmmm, folks wanting in the spotlight?

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[Brodie]

Someone ask Baz about his favorite song on the the other records.

He's like a kid who had too much sugar, there's no way he's not going to say something awesome.

If the whole rock band thing doesn't work out he has a bright future in Public Relations. Hell, he should work for GN'R.

[SunnyDRE]

Everybody has all these theories as to why he acts the way he acts. And there's no big mystery. He tells me the source of all of the insanity — it's his voice. It's his job to sing like that, and sometimes that sound is hard for him. And a lot of singers, you know, to sing in that range is just not an easy thing to do. And he does what he can, and if it takes him forty-five more minutes to warm up his pipes so he can sing 'Sweet Child O' Mine'.

Why not start warming up earlier?

I can buy this.

Anyone ever Boogie Nights.

All Dirk has thought he had was his d**k. What if it didn't work anymore?

What would he be left with?

[Salman Rushdie]

Tracii Guns speaks too. Hmmm, folks wanting in the spotlight?

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=145603&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blabbermouth+%28Blabbermouth.net%27s+Daily+Headlines%29&utm_content=Twitter

"I think if he had a solid partner — music partner — in his life that not only that he listened to but somebody that he truly respected musically and somebody that he had a great time with and somebody he believed in, I think that it could go more the way of the rock that the fan base would prefer, I think. But you can't do it on your own and a lot of people in Axl's position think they can do it on their own. And that's the only thing I can criticize about him is that he doesn't have that great partner — Elton John's got a partner, McCartney's got a partner, Lady Gaga's got a partner, everybody's got a partner. And that's the only thing missing from Axl's life — a great partner."

[Encore]

oh, yea i heard him on the radio talking about it

[Orsys]

Yes, I think Izzy was that partner.

[ManetsBR]

Yet another excuse. If true though, there's a simple way of solving the problem. Start to warm up earlier.

[dalsh327]

There's more to it than just warming up his voice. It's not fun waiting in an arena for the show to start when there's a long wait in between opening act and headliner. Just a lot of people eating and drinking more and getting irritated. Yes he's been doing this long before Al Gore invented the internet.

[axlskAmpf]

I can diggit, and get it. I used to sing long live sets and warm ups can be tricky, especially if you want to eat first (breakfast in Axl's case) as you can't warm up soon after eating. You also have to look at did he cool down enough if he had a show the prior night, or did he go backstage and talk up a storm? All this affects you, and even more at 48 ish, and it's easy to have nothing the next day and all you can do is sing softly in falsetto for an hour until it's back.

As to warming up earlier again it may be something as simple as choosing between going on stage starving, or eating instead , waiting, then going off to warm up.

[Orsys]

I can diggit, and get it. I used to sing long live sets and warm ups can be tricky, especially if you want to eat first (breakfast in Axl's case) as you can't warm up soon after eating. You also have to look at did he cool down enough if he had a show the prior night, or did he go backstage and talk up a storm? All this affects you, and even more at 48 ish, and it's easy to have nothing the next day and all you can do is sing softly in falsetto for an hour until it's back.

As to warming up earlier again it may be something as simple as choosing between going on stage starving, or eating instead , waiting, then going off to warm up.

or descreasing time spent partying, going to bed earlier, getting up, eating, and getting ready for work - like everybody else.

[Fun n' Games]

Tracii Guns speaks too. Hmmm, folks wanting in the spotlight?

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=145603&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blabbermouth+%28Blabbermouth.net%27s+Daily+Headlines%29&utm_content=Twitter

"I think if he had a solid partner — music partner — in his life that not only that he listened to but somebody that he truly respected musically and somebody that he had a great time with and somebody he believed in, I think that it could go more the way of the rock that the fan base would prefer, I think. But you can't do it on your own and a lot of people in Axl's position think they can do it on their own. And that's the only thing I can criticize about him is that he doesn't have that great partner — Elton John's got a partner, McCartney's got a partner, Lady Gaga's got a partner, everybody's got a partner. And that's the only thing missing from Axl's life — a great partner."

That's actually a pretty smart comment, Guns seems to be quite smart in general.

[(t)]

I haven't spoken to Axl since 1988, but we still have a lot of mutual friends. I don't wish him ill, but it's hard because he never stops saying bad things about me. He was on my MySpace page doing that very recently.

?

[Orsys]

I haven't spoken to Axl since 1988, but we still have a lot of mutual friends. I don't wish him ill, but it's hard because he never stops saying bad things about me. He was on my MySpace page doing that very recently.

?

Yeah, I didn't see anything either.

[Guest Apollo]

Why doesn't the "warming up" thing effect all other singers? I'm not being sarcastic, just asking. Other hard rock singers in Axl's age bracket are able to properly figure out a warm-up schedule or system so they aren't late for 90% of their shows.

[Orsys]

Why doesn't the "warming up" thing effect all other singers? I'm not being sarcastic, just asking. Other hard rock singers in Axl's age bracket are able to properly figure out a warm-up schedule or system so they aren't late for 90% of their shows.

but not many of them are screamers like Axl. I can see how that might get tougher the older you get.

[zepsun]

Why doesn't the "warming up" thing effect all other singers? I'm not being sarcastic, just asking. Other hard rock singers in Axl's age bracket are able to properly figure out a warm-up schedule or system so they aren't late for 90% of their shows.

but not many of them are screamers like Axl. I can see how that might get tougher the older you get.

Sammy Hagar, Steven Tyler, Andrew Stockdale, Myles Kenndy, Ozzy, Freddie Mercury (while alive), Justin Hawkins, Jeff Martin (Tea Party), Ian Thornley.

It's not about him singing high or anything else... If that is his range, that is his range and he should be able to hit it unless he is having an off night.

Everyone has their vocal ceiling. I'm betting Axl doesn't hit is '10' on every song... just as most singers don't.

If Axl's highest note is a C2 and Robert Plants highest note is a F1... they both find it equally difficult to hit their respective highest notes even tho the differ greatly.

plain and simple... if Axl spends 1 hour warming up his voice (more than enough), the he shuold prepare to start warming up an hour before show time.

I personally got sick of waiting through 4 terrible opening acts and dying of thirst as a hardcore fan in the front row... I skipped the last two shows.

[ManetsBR]

"Nobody has helped me more in the music industry than Axl Rose," Sebastian said.

Actually that's not truth. Jon Bon Jovi helped much more

If Jon Bon Jovi hadn't kicked Dave Snake from Bon Jovi, he wouldn't have founded Skid Row.

If Jon Bon Jovi hadn't introduced Sebastian Bach to Dave Snake, Sebastian wouldn't have gotten in Skid Row.

If Jon Bon Jovi hadn't called Skid Row to open Bon Jovi's concert, almost no one would know them.

So clearly Jon Bon Jovi helped Sebastian much more in his career.

[Mastodonny]

Why doesn't the "warming up" thing effect all other singers? I'm not being sarcastic, just asking. Other hard rock singers in Axl's age bracket are able to properly figure out a warm-up schedule or system so they aren't late for 90% of their shows.

but not many of them are screamers like Axl. I can see how that might get tougher the older you get.

Rob Halford seems to make it onstage at a reasonable time.

[ChristianGNR]

I haven't spoken to Axl since 1988, but we still have a lot of mutual friends. I don't wish him ill, but it's hard because he never stops saying bad things about me. He was on my MySpace page doing that very recently.

?

Yeah, I didn't see anything either.

There was a long time since i've laughed so hard

[axl8302]

I haven't spoken to Axl since 1988, but we still have a lot of mutual friends. I don't wish him ill, but it's hard because he never stops saying bad things about me. He was on my MySpace page doing that very recently.

?

Yeah, I didn't see anything either.

There was a long time since i've laughed so hard

Haha, so some impostor went on there as axl and told him to go fuck himself (or something) and he thought it was real! lol

[ColdHeartBreaker]

Lady Gaga's got a partner?

Go more in the way of the rock that the fan base would prefer. <- WTF?

[Nick83]

Actually I think there is a lot of truth from both the comments, from Tracii Guns and Bach.

I believe it is hard to get his voice in order, more than anyone can understand. I can imagine it's extremely tight and restricted, and he has to loosen it, bit by bit, until it starts to open up. After loosening it, he needs to stretch his range, high and low, pushing notes on both ends slowly until it really starts to open up. Then he needs to warm the whole voice up in clean range until his range is fully accessible, and then he needs to start working on the grit/rasp, getting bits and pieces of it slowly applied to the clean voice, then the grit/rasp gets thickened up to the perfect level, so he can access that sound easily, and so he can sing the way everyone expects

No doubt it takes a lot of work to warm up and fine tune his voice for the show. I sing also, and there are times I can do everything with my voice with no warming up, but most times I have to really push it with the warm ups to get it operating properly. I can go from my voice being so closed up I can barely get any sound out of it, to having it completely opened up and elastic, but it takes time, patience, and being very careful. If you rush it, you'll close your voice down pretty quickly.

Axl's range is so wide which makes it harder. He's got a super deep speaking voice, which means he's got to really stretch out his voice in order to get that high range operable. Once it gets elastic, he then needs to warm up the grit and get it into a position where he can add it with his singing voice. The problem with the grit/rasp is that you can easily bring too much of it into the voice and go overboard. There's a very fine line here. If he just accents his voice with some elastic shred elements, and can keep it in that form, then he will maintain his voice. But if he isn't properly warmed up, or he gets too deep into the rasp, his range will start closing up. He won't be able to do the things he does, and he won't sound good. Going tom far into the rasp/shred too often it will break his voice down over time, which results in him sounding like he did in some of the Use Your Illusion tour parts, where he was forcing sound out of a restricted, battered voice, and it just didn't sound good.

And don't go comparing what Axl does to anyone else. It's very different. There's no one out there that sings in his range with that tone/rasp.

As far as the Tracii Guns comments go, they sounded pretty accurate. I think he knows "Axl" quite well as a person, even if he may currently have no contact with him. Axl does need a partner. Someone who understands his vision and can complement it, and really be an equal, without having en ego problem. Unfortunately, Axl's hasn't had a chance to find that. And that is not a knock on anyone in the new band. They are all great and capable.