The Ongoing History of New Music, encore presentation: 18 bands who successfully changed lead singers
When someone in your band decides to leave, gets fired or, heaven forbid, dies, you have a problem. It’s an issue if any member leaves, but if we’re talking about your singer, that’s a hurt on an entirely different level.
Your frontperson is an integral part of your sound, the voice of your music. And there are few things more important that than. And it gets worse, too.
Your frontperson often provides the central image of the band. That person is out front. That’s the person who is centre stage when you play live. That person is the one the camera follows in a video. That’s the person on whom photographers focus. And chances are, that person’s name comes to mind first with fans.
So what do you do when that person bails?
You have two choices: Fold your tent, go home, and maybe come back in a different form with a different name and a different…everything. Or you can suck it up and risk replacing that singer with someone else.,
That’s insanely hard on so many different levels. Again, I go back to the notion of your band’s voice. You could find a soundalike (like we’ve seen with Journey, a period of time with Judas Priest, and perhaps Queen. But it’s more than likely fans will realize that you’ve just plugged that hole with a reasonable facsimile at best or at out-and-out fake at worst.
Instead, it’s probably best to focus just on skills and chemistry, Maybe they bring something new to the table, some, tangible talent that not only dresses the wound but makes the body as a whole stronger
That’s really hard–but it can be done. And here are 18 such examples of bands that have taken on the challenge and succeeded.
Songs heard on this show:
- Alice in Chains, Check My Brain
- Faith No More, Epic
- I Mother Earth, Not Quite Sonic
- New Order, Blue Monday
- Audioslave, Cochise
- STP, Meadow
- Sublime with Rome, Wicked Heart
- 3 Days Grace, Infra-Red
Eric Wilhite has produced this playlist.
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:
- 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7
- Q107/Toronto
- Live 88-5/Ottawa
- 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener
- FM96/London
- Power 97/Winnipeg
- Sonic 102.9/Edmonton
- The Zone/Victoria
- The Fox/Vancouver
- Surge 105/Halifax
- WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown
We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s, and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.
