Justin Hawkins reacts to the live debut performance of 'The General'

[DeNfr]

17 hours ago, Mendez said:

I don't believe he would bad mouth Axl anyway, seeing as his band has opened for GNR before

yeah, it never happened. 

[Rindmelon]

19 hours ago, adamsapple said:

So let me get this straight that dude is a singer but instead of singing himself he rather be a music journalist talking about other singers that actually do sing, right?

How long until people start making reaction videos to reaction videos? Or is that a thing already?

 

Since Chidem was released the Darkness have released 5 albums. They may not be GN'R level but they have sold millions, Justin Hawkins knows his stuff. His falsetto is insane.

 

Not only are reaction to reaction video's a thing. There are also reaction to reaction to the reaction video's now. 

[evilfacelessturtle]

10 hours ago, meadsoap said:

Axl also maintained his voice well, otherwise his lower register wouldn't sound as powerful and full as it does now, and he wouldn't be able to do 3.5 hour shows at his age. The main difference is that Axl is 13 years older than this dude. Axl also showed no signs of slowing down vocally in 2010, but then aging kicked in. It's natural and could easily happen with Justin too.

You're basically admitting his high register has not been maintained. It's no slight on Axl to admit that the singing style he became famous for was not a healthy technique, and that has taken its toll. To say that Axl showed no signs of damage by 2010 is just silly. He could barely pull off any rasp at all in the 2001-2002 shows.

8 hours ago, DeNfr said:

yeah, it never happened. 

LOL confidently incorrect.

In 2017:

And in 2006:

 

[meadsoap]

1 hour ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

You're basically admitting his high register has not been maintained. It's no slight on Axl to admit that the singing style he became famous for was not a healthy technique, and that has taken its toll. To say that Axl showed no signs of damage by 2010 is just silly. He could barely pull off any rasp at all in the 2001-2002 shows.

LOL confidently incorrect.

In 2017:

And in 2006:

 

Axl's voice sounded great in 2010. I can pick out a ton of videos, but they're all on YouTube if you're curious. His higher register has obviously suffered, but the fact that he was able to maintain it well into his 50s is a testament to how well he did in maintaining himself. 

It's pretty much the same as a pro-gymnast not being able to do backflips when they get older. Just like bodies be one more stuff with age, so do vocal cords. 

Listen to Chris Cornell or Robert Plant in their later years. Plant in particular had the same problems as Axl. Both of them had to rework songs to fit into the natural  changes of their voice. Axl's only real poor choice is not doing the same with gnr songs for some reason.

[evilfacelessturtle]

10 minutes ago, meadsoap said:

Axl's voice sounded great in 2010. I can pick out a ton of videos, but they're all on YouTube if you're curious. His higher register has obviously suffered, but the fact that he was able to maintain it well into his 50s is a testament to how well he did in maintaining himself. 

It's pretty much the same as a pro-gymnast not being able to do backflips when they get older. Just like bodies be one more stuff with age, so do vocal cords. 

Listen to Chris Cornell or Robert Plant in their later years. Plant in particular had the same problems as Axl. Both of them had to rework songs to fit into the natural  changes of their voice. Axl's only real poor choice is not doing the same with gnr songs for some reason.

Yes, because Plant had a similarly unhealthy technique. Compare that to somebody with a healthy technique like Bruce Dickinson, and the contrast is stark. Axl should have seen a vocal coach once he started losing his rasp in the '90s and learned how to sing in a healthier way. Of course, hindsight is 20-20. Cornell is a perfect example of what Axl should have done; he re-learned his technique so that he could still use rasp without damaging his vocal cords.

2010 was an improvement over 2001-2002 (thanks to a long period of rest, surely), but you could tell he was still struggling and doing it in a forced way, which is why he did not sound so good as quickly as 2011. Same happened in 2016-2017. Most singers do not have radical changes in their voice like that over the course of just one year.

[Nintari]

On 11/6/2023 at 2:11 PM, adamsapple said:

So let me get this straight that dude is a singer but instead of singing himself he rather be a music journalist talking about other singers that actually do sing, right?

How long until people start making reaction videos to reaction videos? Or is that a thing already?

 

 

I've actually called him out on this. I accused him of basically just finding people to shit on for clickbait. He responded by denying it. Then, literally less than twenty-four hours later, he made another video, shitting on people with a provocative title. After that, I was out. I haven't watched another video since.

[Gordon Comstock]

1 hour ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

He could barely pull off any rasp at all in the 2001-2002 shows.

 

How do people still post shit like this? Listen to the Live Era vocals, If The World, The Blues, IRS... he never lost the rasp in the CD era. He nailed the raspy vocals when he went for them, the problem was that he rarely went for them. The LALD screams never sounded better, he could pull off the rasp effortlessly on songs like The Blues and OTGM... but of course he used the clean voice most of the time. Which is why it's weird that you say he should've seen a vocal coach - he probably did, and was probably told that the 01-02 approach was the key to longevity. That was literally Axl singing with a healthier technique, but it didn't translate well to songs like WTTJ, YCBM, etc so he changed it up in 2006.

2006 was rasp-heavy, and the 2007 shows were weaker but still good. 2010 was UYI-levels at times, and obviously he went cleaner in 2011 - but he could still seemingly flip the switch and nail the rasp. The late 2014 shows sounded as good as the 2016 shows. The only time he really pushed himself too far (at least in the last 25~ years) was the AC/DC tour followed by constant NITL touring, and we all saw the damage that did.

And really, you don't have to look beyond the AFD tour to see the damage he was doing. I love the 1991 shows but he sounds just brutal on some of them, plenty of UYI shows were cancelled because he blew his voice out, and he was working with Ron Anderson back then. The way he abused his voice coupled with age meant it was probably only a matter of time until he ended up sounding like he does today... But we wouldn't have got the AC/DC tour if he hadn't maintained his voice at some level for a long time. Unfortunately these days there's just not much left to maintain.

[Subtle Signs]

I only know IBIATCL but that song rips. If Adam Lambert leaves faux Queen then Hawkins should step in. I have no opinion on his opinion of Axl . I'm gonna need that sweet sweet Team Brazil cash to swing swing from Axl's nether region as many do on here but it's a moot point unless Fernando grants you party passes.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Subtle Signs

[Free Bird]

2 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

How do people still post shit like this? Listen to the Live Era vocals, If The World, The Blues, IRS... he never lost the rasp in the CD era. He nailed the raspy vocals when he went for them, the problem was that he rarely went for them. The LALD screams never sounded better, he could pull off the rasp effortlessly on songs like The Blues and OTGM... but of course he used the clean voice most of the time. Which is why it's weird that you say he should've seen a vocal coach - he probably did, and was probably told that the 01-02 approach was the key to longevity. That was literally Axl singing with a healthier technique, but it didn't translate well to songs like WTTJ, YCBM, etc so he changed it up in 2006.

2006 was rasp-heavy, and the 2007 shows were weaker but still good. 2010 was UYI-levels at times, and obviously he went cleaner in 2011 - but he could still seemingly flip the switch and nail the rasp. The late 2014 shows sounded as good as the 2016 shows. The only time he really pushed himself too far (at least in the last 25~ years) was the AC/DC tour followed by constant NITL touring, and we all saw the damage that did.

And really, you don't have to look beyond the AFD tour to see the damage he was doing. I love the 1991 shows but he sounds just brutal on some of them, plenty of UYI shows were cancelled because he blew his voice out, and he was working with Ron Anderson back then. The way he abused his voice coupled with age meant it was probably only a matter of time until he ended up sounding like he does today... But we wouldn't have got the AC/DC tour if he hadn't maintained his voice at some level for a long time. Unfortunately these days there's just not much left to maintain.

He sounded like shit live. Better than today but for our standards 20 years ago he sounded fucking awful.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Free Bird

[evilfacelessturtle]

20 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

How do people still post shit like this? Listen to the Live Era vocals, If The World, The Blues, IRS... he never lost the rasp in the CD era. He nailed the raspy vocals when he went for them, the problem was that he rarely went for them. The LALD screams never sounded better, he could pull off the rasp effortlessly on songs like The Blues and OTGM... but of course he used the clean voice most of the time.

Was Live Era recorded in 2001-2002? Read the comment you're responding to.

Anyone who still thinks he was not using rasp out of a deliberate choice at this point is just deluding their self. You can hear his rasp cleaning up already in the Live Era recordings. If there was any place to make a deliberate choice to sound as raspy as he used to, that was it; he was trying to pass off new vocals as live performances from 1987-1993. And what was the result? Dead obvious cleaner vocals. The higher he sang, the cleaner it got on Live Era. By 2001, there was hardly any left, but you could hear him still trying. If it was a choice, why would he randomly stop using it in the middle of a line in live performances? If it was a choice, why did he keep the raspiest takes he could manage on the final cut of Chinese?

The LALD screams just happen to fall on the right note for him to sustain them with rasp. You're focusing on the exception to the rule. Listen to the entire rest of LALD. Nothing like 1992.

Quote

Which is why it's weird that you say he should've seen a vocal coach - he probably did, and was probably told that the 01-02 approach was the key to longevity. That was literally Axl singing with a healthier technique, but it didn't translate well to songs like WTTJ, YCBM, etc so he changed it up in 2006.

No, he was clearly still trying to sing raspy and just couldn't. At some point though, he realized that he needs to conserve his rasp. That's not a choice, it's a concession to the reality that he cannot sustain rasp anymore.

Quote

2006 was rasp-heavy, and the 2007 shows were weaker but still good. 2010 was UYI-levels at times, and obviously he went cleaner in 2011 - but he could still seemingly flip the switch and nail the rasp. The late 2014 shows sounded as good as the 2016 shows. The only time he really pushed himself too far (at least in the last 25~ years) was the AC/DC tour followed by constant NITL touring, and we all saw the damage that did.

Gee, I wonder why we see a trend of recovering his rasp after breaks in touring and the rasp fading away as tours go on? Because he physically can't sustain it. That is not a choice.

Quote

And really, you don't have to look beyond the AFD tour to see the damage he was doing. I love the 1991 shows but he sounds just brutal on some of them, plenty of UYI shows were cancelled because he blew his voice out, and he was working with Ron Anderson back then. The way he abused his voice coupled with age meant it was probably only a matter of time until he ended up sounding like he does today... But we wouldn't have got the AC/DC tour if he hadn't maintained his voice at some level for a long time. Unfortunately these days there's just not much left to maintain.

And back then he only used a coach when he'd seriously fucked up his voice, just to get it working again. Not to learn a better technique.

I'll give you this: he began maintaining his voice in a sense by using rasp sparingly, but only started doing so when it was already too late.

[Kickingthehabit]

Justin's videos are fine. He's cool.

When Axl's at 100% he's the best. Duh. This is a strange time as his voice sounds dramatically different. He's still trying his hardest so props. HOWEVER these recent songs are fucking downers. All this pussy full of maggots daddy don't I'm sorry... holy fuck. I'm listening to the new Stones and Blink 182 and it's fun and energetic with innumerable hooks. New GNR not so much.

[BreakDown2014]

 

21 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

How do people still post shit like this? Listen to the Live Era vocals, If The World, The Blues, IRS... he never lost the rasp in the CD era. He nailed the raspy vocals when he went for them, the problem was that he rarely went for them. The LALD screams never sounded better, he could pull off the rasp effortlessly on songs like The Blues and OTGM... but of course he used the clean voice most of the time. Which is why it's weird that you say he should've seen a vocal coach - he probably did, and was probably told that the 01-02 approach was the key to longevity. That was literally Axl singing with a healthier technique, but it didn't translate well to songs like WTTJ, YCBM, etc so he changed it up in 2006.

2006 was rasp-heavy, and the 2007 shows were weaker but still good. 2010 was UYI-levels at times, and obviously he went cleaner in 2011 - but he could still seemingly flip the switch and nail the rasp. The late 2014 shows sounded as good as the 2016 shows. The only time he really pushed himself too far (at least in the last 25~ years) was the AC/DC tour followed by constant NITL touring, and we all saw the damage that did.

And really, you don't have to look beyond the AFD tour to see the damage he was doing. I love the 1991 shows but he sounds just brutal on some of them, plenty of UYI shows were cancelled because he blew his voice out, and he was working with Ron Anderson back then. The way he abused his voice coupled with age meant it was probably only a matter of time until he ended up sounding like he does today... But we wouldn't have got the AC/DC tour if he hadn't maintained his voice at some level for a long time. Unfortunately these days there's just not much left to maintain.

Thank you for this post, I was about to say the same thing... Just listen to the 2001 HOB Show, one of my favourite GN'R shows for sure. Axl nailed every single line

[Gordon Comstock]

52 minutes ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

Was Live Era recorded in 2001-2002? Read the comment you're responding to.

Anyone who still thinks he was not using rasp out of a deliberate choice at this point is just deluding their self. You can hear his rasp cleaning up already in the Live Era recordings. If there was any place to make a deliberate choice to sound as raspy as he used to, that was it; he was trying to pass off new vocals as live performances from 1987-1993. And what was the result? Dead obvious cleaner vocals. The higher he sang, the cleaner it got on Live Era. By 2001, there was hardly any left, but you could hear him still trying. If it was a choice, why would he randomly stop using it in the middle of a line in live performances? If it was a choice, why did he keep the raspiest takes he could manage on the final cut of Chinese?

The LALD screams just happen to fall on the right note for him to sustain them with rasp. You're focusing on the exception to the rule. Listen to the entire rest of LALD. Nothing like 1992.

 

Of course there's moments on Live Era like Rocket Queen or UTLH where it's the totally clean CD era voice, but the re-recorded vocals on songs like WTTJ and Estranged sound like classic Axl. He could absolutely still nail the rasp. I'm not gonna attempt to figure out his reasoning for making those choices, but it was clearly a stylistic choice.

He was pulling off raspy 20-second screams in LALD but that just happened to be the perfect note for him to do it? Do you really think that's more likely than choosing to sing in a cleaner voice? That fact that he wasn't singing like 1992 is the whole fucking point!

 

Quote

No, he was clearly still trying to sing raspy and just couldn't. At some point though, he realized that he needs to conserve his rasp. That's not a choice, it's a concession to the reality that he cannot sustain rasp anymore.

 

Can you give me an example of where he attempts it and it doesn't work? Because that did start happening in the NITL era, and of course there's shows like Rio and Bridge School, but I can't think of any 01-02 shows where his voice just fails him.

 

Quote

Gee, I wonder why we see a trend of recovering his rasp after breaks in touring and the rasp fading away as tours go on? Because he physically can't sustain it. That is not a choice.

 

I don't see your logic on this one. He had the biggest break of his career between the UYI and CD tours, and could obviously still pull off rasp in the studio, yet somehow once he hit the stage he couldn't do it? Except for the moments when he did do it, and it sounded good? Almost like he was... choosing when to sing with rasp?

As far as the rasp fading, the opposite happened in 2002 and 2011. But again, he was being selective. The show I saw in Seattle in 2011 is a good example, he sounded amazing on WTTJ then weak on YCBM. Street Of Dreams was clean but Better was near 2010 level. Estranged was weak but Civil War was incredibly strong. That was about 2 weeks before the tour ended, and I'm pretty sure you can still find all those videos on youtube if you care to look.

 

Quote

And back then he only used a coach when he'd seriously fucked up his voice, just to get it working again. Not to learn a better technique.

I'll give you this: he began maintaining his voice in a sense by using rasp sparingly, but only started doing so when it was already too late.

 

He'd known Ron Anderson since the AFD days and worked with coaches throughout his career. His singing style was undoubtedly destructive but he wouldn't have made it past the 80s if he hadn't maintained his voice to some degree. Maybe he didn't have the greatest technique, but it's not like he didn't know what he was doing.

[Gordon Comstock]

21 hours ago, Subtle Signs said:

I only know IBIATCL but that song rips. If Adam Lambert leaves faux Queen then Hawkins should step in. I have no opinion on his opinion of Axl . I'm gonna need that sweet sweet Team Brazil cash to swing swing from Axl's nether region as many do on here but it's a moot point unless Fernando grants you party passes.

 

Love On The Rocks With No Ice and Black Shuck are good ones from the same album as IBIATCL. Open Fire (from the Last Of Our Kind album) is another one of my favourites.

[bumcheecksmcghee]

Love Justin hawkins rides again videos... I think he was being very kind here to gnr/axl .. as he is friends with a few of them an have toured with them many times over the years. Also a phone captured video an audio is always going to be sub par to professionally filmed show, but even he can see axl is struggling like hell singing songs live... he's not gonna come right out an say, "geez that was shite then" Lol... 

I agree with him re: axl, dude.. stop running around on stage, heck sit down in that throne chair again, breathe properly an try an sing that way... cos what he does now ain't working, and the band (despite being paid well) would be pissed he's the weak link in every performance... that's a fact..

When he broke his foot an was seated, he sounded better than now... not great sure, but fark me, was better easily...

Anyways... 

Juuuuuuustin hawkins rides aaaaaaaaagaaaaaaaainñnnnnnnn...

 

Againnnnnnnnnnnn....

 

[Route66]

FFS. Justin is a HUGE GNR fan. I'm not a HUGE fan of the Darkness. Falsetto vocals does not get my jizz bubbling. W Rizz or whatever

Edited November 9, 2023 by Route66

[evilfacelessturtle]

23 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

Of course there's moments on Live Era like Roket Queen or UTLH where it's the totally clean CD era voice, but the re-recorded vocals on songs like WTTJ and Estranged sound like classic Axl. He could absolutely still nail the rasp. I'm not gonna attempt to figure out his reasoning for making those choices, but it was clearly a stylistic choice.

Those moments align with what I said; his voice got cleaner as he sang higher. UTLH has some added lines that are laughably high to be pretending they were from 1992, and that's why they're so clean.

WTTJ is clearly different form how he sounded in 1992 (which is why the lines that remained from the actual performance are so obvious). Right off the bat, it's a thinner and more fine rasp. And then on the line "we've got everything you want", his voice goes clean on "thing". Mid-way through a single word the rasp fails on him.

Again, why would he choose to go clean on some random lines if he was trying to pretend it was all live from 1987-1992? You didn't answer that question.

Quote

He was pulling off raspy 20-second screams in LALD but that just happened to be the perfect note for him to do it? Do you really think that's more likely than choosing to sing in a cleaner voice? That fact that he wasn't singing like 1992 is the whole fucking point!

Do you really think it's more likely that he chose to make his voice completely unrecognizable from the sound that made him famous and chose to get mocked as Mickey Mouse?

Yes, obviously the LALD scream falls in the right spot for him, or else he wouldn't be able to do it so consistently unlike literally every other song in the set. And obviously it's much easier to control your voice with a single note than across multiple notes in a melody. 

If it were a matter of choice, why would his performances be so inconsistent? You seem to be avoiding all my direct questions.

Quote

Can you give me an example of where he attempts it and it doesn't work? Because that did start happening in the NITL era, and of course there's shows like Rio and Bridge School, but I can't think of any 01-02 shows where his voice just fails him.

Well as early as 1999 with Live era you see the line I pointed out in Jungle.

Let's see... 2001 at the HOB show. All I had to do was listen to the very first line of the first song to find that. He starts off trying to rasp with "you know where you" but then loses it completely with the word "are":

2002, same deal at 3:20, he starts raspy but loses it at the word "scream"

I could go on and on, but it's just silly to even bother. Anyone who listens to the band at all knows this. 

Quote

I don't see your logic on this one. He had the biggest break of his career between the UYI and CD tours, and could obviously still pull off rasp in the studio,

The damage from the UYI tour was so severe that the real recovery period was more like 1994-2005. He could manage short bursts of rasp still, but could not sustain them. In the studio, he can piece together those short bursts into a full song. It's a very common practice called comping. That's why all the stuff recorded around 1998-1999 like OMG and Live Era have that fine, thin rasp, whereas the later stuff with more classic sounding rasp was likely done around 2004-2005.

It's quite simple, if a singer cannot sustain their style of singing consistently, they are not maintaining their voice properly.

Quote

yet somehow once he hit the stage he couldn't do it? Except for the moments when he did do it, and it sounded good? Almost like he was... choosing when to sing with rasp? 

Use your head. A studio is a controlled environment with as many takes as you need that can be pieced together. Live performance is where your true voice gets exposed. And of course the regular use of touring will wear it down faster. The very fact that you admit he could only do it "in moments" proves my point. Why would he deliberately choose random places that change every night to suddenly go clean or raspy? This is delusional.

Quote

As far as the rasp fading, the opposite happened in 2002 and 2011. But again, he was being selective. The show I saw in Seattle in 2011 is a good example, he sounded amazing on WTTJ then weak on YCBM. Street Of Dreams was clean but Better was near 2010 level. Estranged was weak but Civil War was incredibly strong. That was about 2 weeks before the tour ended, and I'm pretty sure you can still find all those videos on youtube if you care to look.

What did I say? "a trend of recovering his rasp after breaks in touring and the rasp fading away as tours go on"

How much touring happened between 2002 and 2011? Three friggin years of that 9 year span. And again, even by 2007 he was not sounding as good as 2006, same goes for 2010-2011. You said it yourself, "near 2010 level".

Quote

he wouldn't have made it past the 80s if he hadn't maintained his voice to some degree. Maybe he didn't have the greatest technique, but it's not like he didn't know what he was doing.

What's your evidence for this claim? The voice of a 20-something is incredibly resilient. After the UYI tour, he was in his 30s and not so indestructible anymore. Plus, by 1990, that was only 5 years of abuse. Because the clock doesn't just reset, that is added on to every year after that. By 2000, it was 15 years of abuse. Of course something you might be able to get away with for 5 years would start catching up after 15. Look at athletes. They can get away with poor technique while they're young, but eventually it catches up to them.

You're telling me that Axl knew he was destroying his voice from 1987-1993 and that he would sound like Mickey Mouse for the rest of his career and just didn't give a shit? Come on.

Edited November 10, 2023 by evilfacelessturtle

[DoMw94]

Another thread hijacked by an Axl voice debate and people endlessly banging on about "rasp" 🙄🤦‍♂️

[BreakDown2014]

I searched  the word "rasp" and found 68 results on this page alone.... 

[W. Axl Kev]

It irks me this guy thinks he has the right to provide commentary on rock singers like he's doing it from a position of expertise or generational skill (like the people he opines on). It's been more than 20 years since The Darkness had a moment of fame and it was almost exclusively in the UK and lasted less than 1 year. Even then, mainly because of their music videos, they were considered almost a parody band in the style of Tenacious D. I was there. I remember it. Justin Hawkins is an okay singer but that's it.

He has this weird obsession with GN'R and seems to make endless videos about them. I don't know what motivates this endless criticism of a band in their 60's but it helps no one. Review up and coming rock/metal bands. We don't need your opinion on legendary musical acts.

[Blackstar]

42 minutes ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

Those moments align with what I said; his voice got cleaner as he sang higher. UTLH has some added lines that are laughably high to be pretending they were from 1992, and that's why they're so clean.

WTTJ is clearly different form how he sounded in 1992 (which is why the lines that remained from the actual performance are so obvious). Right off the bat, it's a thinner and more fine rasp. And then on the line "we've got everything you want", his voice goes clean on "thing". Mid-way through a single word the rasp fails on him.

Again, why would he choose to go clean on some random lines if he was trying to pretend it was all live from 1987-1992? You didn't answer that question.

Do you really think it's more likely that he chose to make his voice completely unrecognizable from the sound that made him famous and chose to get mocked as Mickey Mouse?

Yes, obviously the LALD scream falls in the right spot for him, or else he wouldn't be able to do it so consistently unlike literally every other song in the set. And obviously it's much easier to control your voice with a single note than across multiple notes in a melody. 

If it were a matter of choice, why would his performances be so inconsistent? You seem to be avoiding all my direct questions.

Well as early as 1999 with Live era you see the line I pointed out in Jungle.

Let's see... 2001 at the HOB show. All I had to do was listen to the very first line of the first song to find that. He starts off trying to rasp with "you know where you" but then loses it completely with the word "are":

2002, same deal at 3:20, he starts raspy but loses it at the word "scream"

I could go on and on, but it's just silly to even bother. Anyone who listens to the band at all knows this. 

The damage from the UYI tour was so severe that the real recovery period was more like 1994-2005. He could manage short bursts of rasp still, but could not sustain them. In the studio, he can piece together those short bursts into a full song. It's a very common practice called comping. That's why all the stuff recorded around 1998-1999 like OMG and Live Era have that fine, thin rasp, whereas the later stuff with more classic sounding rasp was likely done around 2004-2005.

It's quite simple, if a singer cannot sustain their style of singing consistently, they are not maintaining their voice properly.

Use your head. A studio is a controlled environment with as many takes as you need that can be pieced together. Live performance is where your true voice gets exposed. And of course the regular use of touring will wear it down faster. The very fact that you admit he could only do it "in moments" proves my point. Why would he deliberately choose random places that change every night to suddenly go clean or raspy? This is delusional.

What did I say? "a trend of recovering his rasp after breaks in touring and the rasp fading away as tours go on"

How much touring happened between 2002 and 2011? Three friggin years of that 9 year span. And again, even by 2007 he was not sounding as good as 2006, same goes for 2010-2011. You said it yourself, "near 2010 level".

What's your evidence for this claim? The voice of a 20-something is incredibly resilient. After the UYI tour, he was in his 30s and not so indestructible anymore. Plus, by 1990, that was only 5 years of abuse. Because the clock doesn't just reset, that is added on to every year after that. By 2000, it was 15 years of abuse. Of course something you might be able to get away with for 5 years would start catching up after 15. Look at athletes. They can get away with poor technique while they're young, but eventually it catches up to them.

You're telling me that Axl knew he was destroying his voice from 1987-1993 and that he would sound like Mickey Mouse for the rest of his career and just didn't give a shit? Come on.

Axl said in China Exchange that he made a conscious effort to sing cleaner both in the studio for recording CD and live during that time (I suppose he was referring to those early 2000's performances).

Audience: Hi there. Big fan. Did you ever feel that your voice was- your voice is obviously a natural fit for rock and that kind of genre, but did you ever feel that you want to branch out a bit more maybe collaborate, maybe join a jazz band, who knows?

Axl: I like Frank Sinatra. I like a lot of Elvis, I like a lot of 70s Elvis though as well. I like a lot of different styles of things. I don't know about a jazz band. It really just kind of depends on the song. For a while, like with Chinese, I was trying to get my voice a lot clearer. I feel like that maybe fans didn't necessarily respond to that so much as well, sometimes, at shows and things but I think it was very good for me to be even better at what I am doing right now.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t2686-2016-06-07-china-exchange-an-evening-with-axl-rose

So maybe those "inconsistencies" and switches from rasp to cleaner voice at the shows of that time were actually the result of the opposite: the "raspy" lines were the ones that were random because of muscle memory and the way he used to sing, but then he was bringing himself back to singing clean, as that was his choice.

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Blackstar

[Blackstar]

And regarding technique, there's this interview from back in 1988 where he talked about his singing style and working with Ron Anderson:

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!  [....] 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.  [...]

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

He had been taught how to apply techniques to preserve his voice early on, but most of the time he "forgot" to use them while performing in the 80s and early 90s, probably because of muscle memory combined with getting crazed and fired up while on stage.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Blackstar

[Powderfinger]

On 11/7/2023 at 9:33 PM, Free Bird said:

He sounded like shit live. Better than today but for our standards 20 years ago he sounded fucking awful.

 

I saw 1992 Axl & 2006 Axl and he was just as good in 06. 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Powderfinger

[Powderfinger]

1 hour ago, W. Axl Kev said:

It irks me this guy thinks he has the right to provide commentary on rock singers like he's doing it from a position of expertise or generational skill (like the people he opines on). It's been more than 20 years since The Darkness had a moment of fame and it was almost exclusively in the UK and lasted less than 1 year. Even then, mainly because of their music videos, they were considered almost a parody band in the style of Tenacious D. I was there. I remember it. Justin Hawkins is an okay singer but that's it.

He has this weird obsession with GN'R and seems to make endless videos about them. I don't know what motivates this endless criticism of a band in their 60's but it helps no one. Review up and coming rock/metal bands. We don't need your opinion on legendary musical acts.

I didn’t care then and I don’t care now but Hawkins always seemed to have an ego beyond his talent. The Darkness had some great tunes and were great live but they were also a bit of a shit Spinal Tap. AC/DC riffs, Thin Lizzy guitars and a Freddie Mercury vocal style.. they just seemed a pastiche of the great bands before. I think Justin believes his band have a place at the big table but they’re at the kiddies table in reality. I guess it’s the worst thing you can say about someone but he’s just such a fucking idiot that I cant be annoyed by him. 

[Gordon Comstock]

8 minutes ago, Powderfinger said:

I didn’t care then and I don’t care now but Hawkins always seemed to have an ego beyond his talent. The Darkness had some great tunes and were great live but they were also a bit of a shit Spinal Tap. AC/DC riffs, Thin Lizzy guitars and a Freddie Mercury vocal style.. they just seemed a pastiche of the great bands before. I think Justin believes his band have a place at the big table but they’re at the kiddies table in reality. I guess it’s the worst thing you can say about someone but he’s just such a fucking idiot that I cant be annoyed by him. 

 

I like The Darkness but I'd put them in the same tier as a band like Buckcherry. They're fun live and they have some good songs, and they're better than some other bands of that era like Airbourne, but they're not an A-list band or anything. I think they when I saw them in 2015 it was a sold out show, but they played the Commodore (1000 capacity). I watch Justin's youtube videos occasionally, a few weeks ago he interviewed one of my favourite singers (Eric Nally), he's entertaining but that's all his commentary should be taken as...