Axl’s voice change from late 1987

[Neider]

I don’t know if this has been talked about, but…

Listening to shows from 1986-87, demos from ’86 and of course Appetite, you can tell that Axl’s voice was young and “tender”, without much scraping and so on. Even on the Marquee show (June ’87) and Whiskey (August ’87, WTTJ video recording), his voice remains the same as on the album, demos, or LA club shows; But then at the Ritz show (October ’87) his voice is rougher, scrapedier, and less high-pitched (but still very good). Then in ’88 he kept singing that new way, and all the shows are incredible in terms of his voice (except Ritz ’88, which doesn’t sound very good even if it’s epic.)

Does anyone know why his voice changed in such a short time? It seems to me something very curious, because except for the acoustic show in October ’87, his voice never sounded like it did in 1983-87.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Neider

[Ixtlan]

8 hours ago, Neider said:

I don’t know if this has been talked about, but…

Listening to shows from 1986-87, demos from ’86 and of course Appetite, you can tell that Axl’s voice was young and “tender”, without much scraping and so on. Even on the Marquee show (June ’87) and Whiskey (August ’87, WTTJ video recording), his voice remains the same as on the album, demos, or LA club shows; But then at the Ritz show (October ’87) his voice is rougher, scrapedier, and less high-pitched (but still very good). Then in ’88 he kept singing that new way, and all the shows are incredible in terms of his voice (except Ritz ’88, which doesn’t sound very good even if it’s epic.)

Does anyone know why his voice changed in such a short time? It seems to me something very curious, because except for the acoustic show in October ’88, his voice never sounded like it did in 1983-87.

I assume he was still exploring his range and expression as an artist. 

[LAGuns87]

He blew his voice. Significant change in 88. At the start of the UYI tour he was a wreck, managed to find a way out of it in 92 but by the mid 90s he was a shell of his former self. Spent the last of it on Live Era and the CD sessions before surgery and forever Mickey Mouse. At his peak he was burning his voice like firewood. That's why it's so good.

[Alexmee239]

9 hours ago, LAGuns87 said:

He blew his voice. Significant change in 88. At the start of the UYI tour he was a wreck, managed to find a way out of it in 92 but by the mid 90s he was a shell of his former self. Spent the last of it on Live Era and the CD sessions before surgery and forever Mickey Mouse. At his peak he was burning his voice like firewood. That's why it's so good.

Explain 2010 then. 

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

2 minutes ago, Alexmee239 said:

Explain 2010 then. 

And 2006 and Axl/DC!

Edited September 26, 2021 by Basic_GnR_Fan

[chester]

Axl sounded great and versatile in 2006, sounded great in 2010 and with AC/DC… As he stated in the China Exchange interview he purposely decided to sing differently on many songs during the Chinese Democracy recording era and that bleed into the 2001/02 shows but I believe the press backlash led to him changing his style in 2006… He definitely struggled to maintain at points during the illusions tour but overall for that style of singing really maintained his voice relatively well… Not saying he hasn’t had really bad showings in the last decade and maybe the AC/DC tour was the last time he was ever really going to risk his voice and push it that far.  

[nightrain86]

21 hours ago, Neider said:

I don’t know if this has been talked about, but…

Listening to shows from 1986-87, demos from ’86 and of course Appetite, you can tell that Axl’s voice was young and “tender”, without much scraping and so on. Even on the Marquee show (June ’87) and Whiskey (August ’87, WTTJ video recording), his voice remains the same as on the album, demos, or LA club shows; But then at the Ritz show (October ’87) his voice is rougher, scrapedier, and less high-pitched (but still very good). Then in ’88 he kept singing that new way, and all the shows are incredible in terms of his voice (except Ritz ’88, which doesn’t sound very good even if it’s epic.)

Does anyone know why his voice changed in such a short time? It seems to me something very curious, because except for the acoustic show in October ’87, his voice never sounded like it did in 1983-87.

He went on tour. That's it, it's pretty simple. You can't have a voice like Axl's and not have continuous shows impact it. Vocals get worn out, also there were probably shows in 87' that he forced it a little too much or his vocals weren't up to it but he performed anyway - stuff like that just adds to vocals being damaged and/or strained. That "tender" sound you're talking about is because it hadn't been put through the ringer yet with the appetite tour. No doubt he was discovering new ways to sing and express his range and perhaps he did alter his style somewhat to make it through tours but going through 87' to 88' had an impact on it.

Edited September 27, 2021 by nightrain86
expand on what I mean.

[Alexmee239]

18 minutes ago, chester said:

Axl sounded great and versatile in 2006, sounded great in 2010 and with AC/DC… As he stated in the China Exchange interview he purposely decided to sing differently on many songs during the Chinese Democracy recording era and that bleed into the 2001/02 shows but I believe the press backlash led to him changing his style in 2006… He definitely struggled to maintain at points during the illusions tour but overall for that style of singing really maintained his voice relatively well… Not saying he hasn’t had really bad showings in the last decade and maybe the AC/DC tour was the last time he was ever really going to risk his voice and push it that far.  

Most likely he did alot of training ahead of the AC/DC shows, preparing for that tour every single day. We all know how much it meant for Axl, so for sure he try harded it. With GNR he doesnt even show up for one soundcheck before tour starts.

[Blackstar]

Axl talks about his voice in an interview from 1988:

-------------------------------------------------------------------

AXL ROSE Explains How He Has Guns N’ Roses By the Throat!

EXCLUSIVE
By Arlett Vereecke

BLAST!: Could you give us a brief explanation of what happened with your voice and why Guns N’ Roses had to cancel the Iron Maiden tour and, subsequently, the Japanese tour?
 
AXL: Well, basically, driving over the mountains over and over again to get to the last five shows we did with Iron Maiden caused my ears to clog up in such a way that I couldn’t hear that well, so I would yell twice as loud and overstrained my vocals on the tour. Plus, getting back to the West Coast shows, there were more GNR fans, and it was real hectic and a lot more fun, so we were yelling twice as loud. We were slamming onstage, and, basically, I overused my throat, and the doctor told me if I didn’t take some time off, there was a good chance I’d never sing again! I went to four different specialists, and I was told I needed surgery immediately. I went to the top specialist in the world, who treats severe throat problems like I had - a guy named Hans Von Laiden, and he said I didn’t need surgery, but what I did need was a lot of vocal rest and then proper training to bring the voice back. So, rather than take a risk of coming to Japan and not being able to give a good show or only being able to give, like, half a show and not guarantee that we’d be able to make all of the dates we promised, we thought it best to postpone and do the shows at a later time when we could give the people exactly what they pay for.
 
We never cancel a show just because we don’t want to play the particular show. That’s not the reason. I believe that when the people pay the money to see a show, they should get exactly what they paid for and everything they came to see, and unless we can do that, we don’t want to play any given show. Now the Japanese tour is planned tentatively for December because we really do want to come to Japan. It’s a major, lifetime goal, and we’re doing anything we can do to get there. We toured with Aerosmith for two months from July 15 to September 15. We also did a couple of odds-and-ends shows here and there in-between those, and we’ll be going into the studio to work on the new record. We’ll be going into pre- production, and then, maybe right before we record, we’ll be coming over to play Japan. We should also be re-releasing the Live Like A Suicide EP and releasing the new GNR EP, Lies, Sex, Drugs and Violence: The Shocking Truth, hopefully around December or January. That’s what’s happening.
 
BLAST!: You said you did a couple of warm-up shows (in Arizona). Was that to get ready for the Aerosmith tour or just because you had to cancel dates there before?
 
AXL: With Phoenix, it was both. There were a lot of things that had to do with Phoenix... When we played there with The Cult, they cancelled the Phoenix dates. We were to play in a really small place, and we’d already done a certain amount of shows in a row, and my voice was trashed. With the way I sing, I use a lot of dynamics, and I use a lot of weird sounds with my voice that if you do for a long period of time, it’s very damaging to your throat. It’s not like Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. He sings a certain way, and he sings that way most of the time, and that’s not damaging to his throat. Some of the screams and the types of things I do are very damaging, so you can only do, like, two shows in a row. To do really good shows, then you need time off. I learned that from talking to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. He doesn’t like to do over two shows in a row because of the way he sings. It’s damaging to him, and he can’t hit the high notes, and he doesn’t feel he’s giving the public what they paid for.
 
Back to the Phoenix dates... We cancelled our last show there because I was late, and the band thought I wasn’t gonna show up, and when I got there, they had already cancelled the show, thinking I wasn’t gonna show up. So, we wanted to go back and make some amends with the fans and the people there, and the money from those shows went to charities. We did a benefit because we felt that was another way of showing we were trying to make amends for things. One of the promoters involved had a child who died, I believe, from leukemia, and we felt that would be a good cause because one, he was a promoter who worked the shows in Phoenix, and two, it didn’t necessarily have anything to do with money going into his pocket. It had to do with a cause he believes in, and it’s also a cause anybody should basically believe in. These shows were also to get warmed up for the Aerosmith tour and to get used to playing live again so that by the time we got out with Aerosmith, we’d have a couple of shows under our belt. I had no idea of what to expect from the Phoenix, Arizona shows, but I had hoped they weren’t going to be so much smash-crash-boom type of shows... at least, not on my part. I was just going to try and take it a bit easy and try to have a good time. I gave it everything I’ve got. It was basically to get the feel of things back together and play with some new songs in front of a crowd I thought deserved to see them.
 
BLAST!: Do you have to work with a vocal trainer to see if you can do something differently?
 
AXL: I work with a guy named Ron Anderson, and I’ve worked with Ron since we got signed. I worked with a woman, Gloria Bennett, for a little while, and then I worked with Ron Anderson, and he’s very, very good. I haven’t been to him for a while, and I don’t work on, like, how to sing the songs or the melodies or the words or anything like that. I mainly just work on the muscle control in my throat and stuff. Since it’s not something I’m practiced at doing continually, your mind forgets how to do it, and then you go out there after... on your fourth or fifth show, after driving over the mountains... You can’t hear well, and the monitors aren’t that great, and you just yell loud and forget how you’re supposed to sing because you’re not used to it. That’s it. See ya, Japan! That’s the new, big, hip clone phrase now, but we do mean it!

https://www.a-4-d.com/t4361-1988-11-dd-blast-axl-rose-explains-how-he-has-guns-n-roses-by-the-throat

[LAGuns87]

9 hours ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

And 2006 and Axl/DC!

He has never matched his 90s vocals since. Forget about 80s. Ac/Dc is easy to sing, that's Axl on half power.

[JimiRose]

Getting slammed here https://metalwani.com/2021/09/fans-on-axl-roses-poor-vocal-performance-in-chicago-he-has-joined-vince-neil-don-dokken-club.html?fbclid=IwAR1IAxmVq1NUicmHEeiWpEwJ3E3E4Zb7RBPfWNtrmZt-4yyVWcCskdkOIUM#comment-14384 

[Cory Trevor]

On 9/27/2021 at 5:13 AM, LAGuns87 said:

He has never matched his 90s vocals since. Forget about 80s. Ac/Dc is easy to sing, that's Axl on half power.

AC/DC is NOT easy to sing, especially the BiB standard tuning stuff for a bass like Axl. He gave 110% and it's why his voice cracks nowadays.

[Tom2112]

On 9/27/2021 at 10:13 AM, LAGuns87 said:

He has never matched his 90s vocals since. Forget about 80s. Ac/Dc is easy to sing, that's Axl on half power.

Half power🤣 Sorry but you're really wrong. What he did with AC/DC is only comparable to the early 90s. He was going for it 100% and he didn't do that since the 90s although he was fantastic in 2007/07 and he sounded very good in 2010

[Neider]

26 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

Half power🤣 Sorry but you're really wrong. What he did with AC/DC is only comparable to the early 90s. He was going for it 100% and he didn't do that since the 90s although he was fantastic in 2007/07 and he sounded very good in 2010

Although I agree that Axl/DC was difficult for him to sing (and it was great), 2006 and 2010 were much better. Specifically, I think 2006 is his most COMPLETE voice because he was able to sing with the classic low voice, with a clean voice, with a raspy voice, reached the high notes of 2001-02 and still had his vocal midrange.

Edit: And compared to the early 90s, his voice in 1991 sounds a bit ugly to me, although 1992-93 was already god-level. But I still think 1986-87 and 1988-89 were better years for his voice than on the UYI tour.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Neider

[W. Axl Kev]

On 9/26/2021 at 10:10 AM, LAGuns87 said:

He blew his voice. Significant change in 88. At the start of the UYI tour he was a wreck, managed to find a way out of it in 92 but by the mid 90s he was a shell of his former self. Spent the last of it on Live Era and the CD sessions before surgery and forever Mickey Mouse. At his peak he was burning his voice like firewood. That's why it's so good.

What surgery are you referring to?

[We love Axl Rose]

37 minutes ago, Neider said:

Although I agree that Axl/DC was difficult for him to sing (and it was great), 2006 and 2010 were much better. Specifically, I think 2006 is his most COMPLETE voice because he was able to sing with the classic low voice, with a clean voice, with a raspy voice, reached the high notes of 2001-02 and still had his vocal midrange.

Edit: And compared to the early 90s, his voice in 1991 sounds a bit ugly to me, although 1992-93 was already god-level. But I still think 1986-87 and 1988-89 were better years for his voice than on the UYI tour.

What are the disadvantages of the 2010 voice compared to 2006, to you ?

 

[Neider]

On 9/26/2021 at 10:10 AM, LAGuns87 said:

He blew his voice. Significant change in 88. At the start of the UYI tour he was a wreck, managed to find a way out of it in 92 but by the mid 90s he was a shell of his former self. Spent the last of it on Live Era and the CD sessions before surgery and forever Mickey Mouse. At his peak he was burning his voice like firewood. That's why it's so good.

2001 was not Mickey Mouse. In that year he still had hints of his voice on the UYI tour, but it really was a CLEAN voice and reached higher notes than in the time of the classic GNR. That 2011-14 and 2017-21 are really Mickey Mouse is different, but in 2001 his voice was good and it would have been better with more physical preparation. In addition, in 2006 he could do any voice (low, medium, clean, raspy and super high notes) and in 2010 he always sang with a raspy voice, so your argument does not take into account that 2001-02 had good things and that 2006 -10 was a peak for his voice.

But I do agree that his voice has undergone many changes.  I think we could divide Axl's voice by epochs:

• 1985-87. “Tender” and quite high-pitched voice with little scraping. AFD was recorded around this time.
• 1988-89. Voice less high-pitched than in previous years but already with full rasp and more powerful.
• ¿1990? Probably around this time the voices of the UYI were recorded. On the album, Axl’s voice doesn’t sound much different than it did at the opening shows with the Stones or at Farm Aid. Pretty flawless voice.
• 1991. Extremely raspy voice, out of tune on many songs. The truth is that I don’t like his voice on that year.
• 1992. Raspy voice but less than in 1991. Axl already had control of the rasp and I think his voice in that year sounded incredible. His best year of the 90s.
• 1993. Not very different from 1992 but already his voice sounded somewhat weakened. I think this year he made a lot of use of his mid vocal range. It is natural that after two years of touring his voice would sound like this.
• 1994. Sympathy for the Devil. I think his voice sounds great on that song, but it’s no longer raspy, and it’s higher than on the UYI tour.
• 1996. The West Arkeen band song where Axl and Slash collaborated. It is already much higher and cleaner than in Sympathy, it even has some traces of his voice on the 2002 tour.
• 1998-99. Some re-recordings of Axl’s voice for Live Era. It’s already a much cleaner voice, it doesn’t sound similar to the UYI tour but I think it was pretty good. Those highs were of good technique, and they would help him later to record the voices of Chinese Democracy.
• 2001. He still had airs to his voice ten years earlier, but it is mostly high-pitched and clean. Those high and long notes that he made were incredible. The only problem is that he was short of breath, but with good physical preparation and rehearsals, he would have sounded so much better.
• 2002. I think it’s weaker than 2001 (but he made brutal high notes just like the year before). Although he sounded a bit bad at the VMAs, at the end of the tour he was improving a lot. Albany, Boston and MSG were good shows.
• 2006. No words for that year. His most complete and versatile voice. It was brutal and incredible.
• 2007. His voice in that year was weaker than in 2006, but stronger than in 2002 so it is a middle point between the two.
• 2009. Even though he was probably the fattest Axl we’ve ever seen, his voice was amazing. A lot of rasp but he also did some songs with a clean voice. I listened the entire Osaka show and it seems brutal to me.
• 2010. Better than the previous year, very powerful and scratchy voice 100% of the time. I think it was the last year where Axl sang well from start to finish on every show.
• 2011. Here the decline began, although I think that in some shows he sang a little like in 2010 but the damage was already done.
• 2012-13. Axl in autopilot mode. His voice is already the real Mickey Mouse but he still sang well some songs like WTTJ or Nightrain.
• 2014. A little better than the previous ones, especially the shows with Duff. Yes, his voice was Mickey but again in some songs it was acceptable.
• 2016. A pretty good year for Axl's voice. Sitting on the ‘throne’ I think he sang very well, with a raspy voice and airs to his 2010 voice. Then with AC / DC he took it out of the stadium—he sang perfectly during the tour with them. And then with Guns, he also did incredible but somewhat uneven; songs like ISE, WTTJ, Nightrain, TIL or Better were brutal, but SCOM or NR very weak, with the same voice from 2011-14.
• 2017. I think it was OK until July of that year (on the Apollo show it sounds like his voice from 2016), but it went from more to less across the rest of the year.
• 2018-21. Much weaker, more Mickey in his voice, but I think that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that he is out of breath, he can’t stand singing the verses and he gets too tired. As I said in another post on the forum, if he had good cardiorespiratory endurance and rehearsed, even Mickey’s voice would sound good.

9 minutes ago, We love Axl Rose said:

What are the disadvantages of the 2010 voice compared to 2006, to you ?

 

I love his voice from 2010, but the plus of 2006 is that he could bring out his super raspy voice but also his mid vocal range or the high notes of 2001-02. But still 2006, 2009 and 2010 were an incredible thing, I like them more than 1991.

[IncitingChaos]

I thought Izzy was one of the first to recommend Axl use more rasp and distortion in his vocals after they were messing around on a song. I think i read that a long time ago and always assumed that’s why Axl got away from his early clean vocals 

[snoman]

correct

Just now, snoman said:

correct he heard him singing in the shower i believe and suggested he sing that way

 

[Neider]

1 hour ago, IncitingChaos said:

I thought Izzy was one of the first to recommend Axl use more rasp and distortion in his vocals after they were messing around on a song. I think i read that a long time ago and always assumed that’s why Axl got away from his early clean vocals 

Yes… that makes sense to me. Axl’s voice between 1985-87 was quite clean and young, but with the constant touring, Izzy’s suggestion, and how wild the GNR concerts were, that may explain the change in Axl’s voice in late 1987.

Just an opinion from me: Ritz 1988 does not define Axl’s voice in 1988. I think the USA tour in the middle of the year, Donington, VMA and Japan at the end of the year, are what really define his voice in that year. His voice that year was not clean (but it was much, much less raspy than in 1991) nor was it as high and tender as in previous years, but that year and 1987, 1992, 2006 and 2010 are my favorite years of Axl’s voice.

[Coma16]

I'm glad he moved away from his Rapid Fire voice.

[Neider]

4 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

I'm glad he moved away from his Rapid Fire voice.

Just a doubt, do you think Axl’s voice in Suicide, AFD and maybe Lies, is like in Rapidfire? I think his voice at that time (1985-87) sounds closer to Hollywood Rose’s Axl (I’ve heard practically nothing from Rapidfire) than to Axl from the UYI tour, for example.

[Coma16]

5 minutes ago, Neider said:

Just a doubt, do you think Axl’s voice in Suicide, AFD and maybe Lies, is like in Rapidfire? I think his voice at that time (1985-87) sounds closer to Hollywood Rose’s Axl (I’ve heard practically nothing from Rapidfire) than to Axl from the UYI tour, for example.

No, his voice in Rapid Fire nearly rasp-less. I think there's something like 4-5 songs floating around out there. Nothing special imo

[Neider]

39 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

No, his voice in Rapid Fire nearly rasp-less. I think there's something like 4-5 songs floating around out there. Nothing special imo

Well, Axl’s voice on Suicide and AFD is mostly clean, really. Even live between 1985-87 his voice sounded like this, and he rarely sang with rasp. As I have said in the main post, the rasp in his voice started in 1988 or late 1987, and then it was excessive in 1991, and then it was balanced in 1992.

[mikeman5150]

2006 was my favorite. I thought it was over around 2012, but he was better in 14’. Didn’t expect much in 16’ but I thought he was great and Axl/DC was on another level. I think the constant touring of that year is what led to his downfall. This year he started rough, but got better. I think he ended somewhere around 2017 levels by the last show.