Without assuming the paternity of these lines (I found them on the internet at one point, I just don’t remember where) here’s the…

Funny Top 10 List For A Successful Power Metal Band

1. In a power metal world, everything steel is good, and anything good must be compared to steel.
2. You are allowed to be blonde.
3. Pick a theme and stick to it. Manowar are warriors of true metal, and they don’t get to sing about anything else. Rhapsody has their Algalord chronicles. Hammerfall has their steel, hammers, and templar. Running Wild has pirates. Blind Guardian has Tolkein. None of them are allowed to sing about anything else.
4. If at all possible, be Michael Kiske. If this is not possible, pretend to be Michael Kiske.
5. Your album cover should include at least one of the following: fire, steel, weird glowing magical items, irregularly muscular men, fists thrust into the air, weaponry, magic creatures (preferably dragons), or bright beams of light around somebody/something.
6. 16th notes are the only notes. Unless you’re singing, in which case you are not permitted to hold a note for any less than 2 bars. By the way, you need at least two guitar players. How else are you going to have dueling guitar solos?
7. If you can’t be Michael Kiske, you can at least be Timo Tolkki. Actually, don’t be Timo Tolkki.
8. Wizards! You need wizards!
9. Wear armor if at all possible. Hammerfall can give you an idea of the variety of acceptable armors, ranging from leather to ring-mail.
10. Never leave Europe.For purposes of the above, Japan may be counted as part of Europe. Oh, and South America was colonized by Europeans, so it can count too.

Just as a note to those of you already angry at me for publishing this list: guys, please keep in mind I am a fan of power metal. I lived on Helloween rhythms, I love Michael Kiske’s voice and used to fall asleep with Eric Adams (Manowar) screaming into my ears. When being 17 years old I remember I fell asleep and the phone started to ring and I remember thinking (in between sleeping and waking up) what’s that sound that I have never managed to hear before…

It was my phone ringing and my mother screaming at me to turn the stereo down…

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I am sure that a lot of you (rock fans) admire voices such Bruce Dickinson (Of Iron Maiden, of course), Michael Kiske (ex Helloween, “the silver throat” as some used to call him - by the way, I am a big fan of you, man!!) and others with similar abilities. I know I do. I love this kind of voices. What I didn’t know is that you can actually study this kind of vocal technique and that the way they sing is not just pure talent or God given voice but also studied technique. Here in Romania, I am not aware of someone teaching this kind of things. Of course we have all kind of music schools and a lot of great vocal trainers, but, damn, I don’t think we have something similar to this.

Here’s a movie of a guy singing a Queensryche’s song. He is a student of this private rock class. Of course, lead singers like Dickinson or Kiske are not born every day, but admit it, he’s there!

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Personally I consider a musician should be good in what he does from a technical point of view. I mean, if you put an electric guitar in the hand of a guitar player he should know his way around it. This is because I listen to bands that have skilled musicians. I like Joe Satriani, I like Vai and I like bands like Helloween, Dream Theater, Iron Maiden, Vanden Plas, etc and the music they play is sharp, clear, with elaborated musical phrases, with a lot of instruments and a lot of those speedy glitters that we all love.

But this is just a point of view. If you take Kurt Cobain for example and his almost famous out of tune notes and his proverbial lack of technical skills and judge him by this scale, then there would be have no place for him on stage, but if you judge by the fact that he was part of a movement that totally changed the music in only a few years then we should pay him the respect he deserves.

The only observation I could make here is that I am not convinced that Kurt Cobain was aware of his creative process, I just think that he did what he felt and it all probably came naturally to him, without thinking too much about it. I think that this is the essence of the music he made and of the feeling he transmitted. Actually if you think about it, the feeling is what really counts when you consider music such as Nirvana used to play. When you take a band such as Dream Theater there is so much you could appreciate so even if you find that a song doesn’t quite transmit a strong feeling you can always find some technical thing that makes you love it.

So, is Dream Theater better than Nirvana? Is Steve Vai better than Cobain?

I think there is no way to compare musicians. There is one for every one of us. That is what makes the music so beautiful, the fact that you find at any moment something that moves you, depending on your mood. Do you think that Joey DeMaio, the bass player of Manowar, well known for his passion for “true metal” and his disrespect for
”posers” doesn’t listen blues? My personal opinion is that he also has his moments when Steve Ray Vaughan or BB King put him in that state where nothing else counts but blues.

I posted this because I had a discussion with a friend of mine some time ago about a band here, Vama (Veche) is called, and about the lead singer which is an actor before being a singer. Or is he a singer before being an actor? Well, personally I think that exactly this duality gives him the possibility to express himself the best on stage; he has the potential and the training to express a large scale of feelings and this makes it easy to communicate with the public even if sometimes he can not control his voice very well.

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For today’s post I will go a bit back in time, before joining a real rock band. I was about 18-19 at that time I think. I was playing the guitar with a very good friend of mine, Mihai, who plays in the same band with me even today. So I was doing the solo guitar while he was doing the rhythm and also singing, but we decided to find a lead singer that do only the voice part. So we got together and tried to agree on what we will be looking for. Because we both loved the same music, it came naturally. We put up an announcement and it sounded like this:

“Rock band is looking for lead singer able to sing Manowar, Helloween and Iron Maiden. Call – number here”

Well, as you see, we didn’t ask for much, we just wanted a lead singer able to sing like Eric Adams, Michael Kiske and Bruce Dickinson at the same time. Well, how hard could it be to find such a lead singer? Did I mention we were about 18-19 years old?
Well, keep that in mind, please.

Tune up your electric guitars; we are going for the kill!

So we started to print these flyers with the announcement and glue them to anything we could find in our city. For a few days, nothing happened. But one day, the phone rang. A guy told me that he phoned for the open position in the band, as a lead singer. Well, what do you know?!!! We have a candidate. So, on the phone, I started to ask him a few things, you know, have you seen what we ask for, can you sing Manowar and Helloween? Yes, no problem, he says. Well, what do you know, he sings Manowar and Helloween. And can you also sing Iron Maiden? Of course, I can, I can sing anything, I can sing Elvis, I can sing…and he named a few bands that were strangers to my ears. Well, what do you know, he plays all those things. Let’s meet the man!

So we agreed on a meeting the same day. I met my friend and we both went to meet this wonder singer that God sent to us in only a few days.

To not give room for mistakes, let me draw the whole picture: we were 2 18-19 years old, long hair high school dudes in worn out jeans that were looking like the clothes of the homeless guy you see on dark streets, ear rings, with heavy metal in our brains and of course, we had guitars with us. Acoustic guitars that is, since we wanted to hear the clean voice.

So, we were waiting for a guy close to us, with same heavy metal culture, crazy for electric guitars and screaming voices, our lead singer!

And there he was, in all his beauty! A 45-50 years old dark skinned guy (gypsy that is), with a crazy colored shirt! I felt earth should open and eat me right that very moment. I was looking at my friend; he was looking at me and both to this guy before us.

…it’s you? Yes, it’s me. And you said you can sing Helloween?! Helloween, how you call it, Elvis, anything, I can sing anything, anywhere, at weddings, parties…
Well, that was it. Thank you! You know, we are looking for a lead singer that sings heavy metal, at about 18-19 years old…

Well, I don’t know if the man knew what heavy metal is, but he really understood what I meant, it was clear that he was also confused to see us and we were not quite what he was expecting, so he was probably happy to leave also.

After this, Mihai’s mother told us that she saw us with that man, she was passing by and she was a bit scared, what do with do with that man?! She knew him from the neighborhood…Of course, anything but playing hard rock!

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