Sound Off: Wanted Lead Singer
November 27, 2009
Written by Michelle Brockman
So the latest gossip floating around is that Aerosmith band members Joey Kramer, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford and Tom Hamilton are considering hiring a replacement for uber-famous lead singer Steven Tyler. Steven is rumored to have recently fallen back into bad habits in addition to hurting his shoulder recently at concert and is taking a two year hiatus from performing. Not surprisingly, the rest of the band doesn’t want to sit around and twiddle their thumbs (or other things) for the next two years. After all, their…clock…..is ticking. But for as long as this band has been around, 39 years to be exact, you would hope they would’ve taken some mental notes on ‘famous lead singer’ replacements. And if they haven’t, well, I have.
Let’s start with Black Sabbath. This classic rock band was fronted by legendary babbler Ozzy Osbourne from the band’s inception in 1968 until he was forcedly replaced in 1979 by Ronnie James Dio. While Dio is a rock legend in his own right, popular opinion is that he didn’t do much for Black Sabbath. This is a key lesson in Lead Singer Replacement 101: People want what they know. You can not just take a great musician and put him in front of your band and expect the fans to accept it. That voice is your band’s meal ticket. The same can be said of the Van Halen replacement where Sammy Hagar took over for David Lee Roth after his 11 year stint as front man was over. There probably wasn’t as much damage done in this transition but suffice it to say fans weren’t happy and it ultimately did affect album sales.
Front man replacement isn’t always a bad thing though. Peter Gabriel was the lead singer in the band Genesis from 1967 until 1975 when band member Phil Collins left his place at the drums and moved up to the microphone. Peter Gabriel went on to have a successful solo career and Genesis went on to have multiple chart toppers. Now that in my opinion is a win-win! Another success story can be found in AC/DC. Singer Bon Scott (who had himself replaced previous lead singer Dave Evans before their commercial success) died suddenly and tragically due to alcohol related pulmonary aspiration in 1980 right when AC/DC was becoming a household name. The band was considering quitting altogether when the realization that Scott would want them to go on prompted them to search for a new lead. This search produced Brian Johnson which was apparently a very good choice as the bands new front man. Johnson went on to claim many more chart toppers for AC/DC and helped seal their fate in the world of hard rock as legends.
It seems though that there are more tragic tales of lead replacements than fairy tales. Take for example the Steve Perry replacement by Journey band members, the postmortem replacement of INXS front man Michael Hutchence, or the replacement of Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. None of these bands had the same commercial success that they had with their original ‘voices’. There are many more examples of this but I think you get the picture. So maybe it’s wishful thinking but I really hope that the Aerosmith ‘mates realize what they’re up against. You can not replace Steven Tyler’s gritty-pretty vocals and they really shouldn’t even try to. I mean, would it really be so bad to spend some of your millions on an awesome two year vacation? I don’t think so….
References:
Wikipedia
People.com
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