Vocal Analysis DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT Deadhead Live at Royal Albert Hall

[00:00:00]Welcome back to Rock Reacts. You guys told me I had to check out Devon Townsen Dead Head, so that's what I'm doing. Um, and in looking up Dead Head, I saw a couple of different versions. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at the first version, which is seemingly the the popular one, the live at Royal Albert Hall. It seems to be like kind of I don't know about the most recent but I've seen other other reactors react to it but I'm going to do vocal analysis mother right. It's I'm a vocal coach and a professional singer for almost 40 years. Like I think I'm only a year older than Devin Townsen and I've made absolute f all with my life and he's created like 30 albums or something like that. It's insane. But so I watched um oh my god every time I say I I did a vocal analysis on um every time I say I want to say home alone it's like home at home at night.

[00:01:06]Anyway, yeah, but it was like kind of this oporatic kind of weird theatrical thing which was like and somebody's like that's not like all of Devon. Not that any any one song or video can control all of Devon or can Cap. Anyway, let's just get into this. I'll talk about him as we go because like I I've just been like totally watching a bunch of like podcasts with him and stuff like a total like fan girl and like god he's I don't know why but I think he's like such a cool dude. Anyway, leave me alone.

[00:01:55]What a guitar tone, man.

[00:01:58]What kind of guitar is that?

[00:02:01]Fra framy. Frammy.

[00:02:07]Frammy. Frammy. I don't know what it is.

[00:02:10]Whammy.

[00:02:13][music] It's cool guitar, though.

[00:02:17]I feel like I should clap. You should clap, too. Don't be a >> [music] >> I feel like they know what the song is going to be and I don't.

[00:02:38]>> What this song is called Dead Head.

[00:02:45]This song is called Dead Head. You know what? You want some [ __ ] heavy? What the heck?

[00:03:05]So heavy like that.

[00:03:31]Is he going to [ __ ] sing or not? I don't know. How long are we into this thing? 139. Hopefully I didn't curse between YouTube has like a watershed moment in the whatever. They don't like you to curse. But I can't stop cursing, man. I love it.

[00:03:49]So there. Is he going to sing? You know, I like his kind of laidback attitude.

[00:03:54]Look, the drummer, he's like, I don't like this music. I'm going to listen to I don't want to hear it. Maybe I don't.

[00:04:00]Maybe he's got autism. Those are the autism headset. Don't freak out. Like I know a bunch of people have autism. Just a lot of this is comedy. Like I'm amateur. This amateur comedy hour. Like super super amateur. If you have any fun laugh or whatever, like you probably won't. You guys is just a jerk. But I'm just trying to be like kind of lightly humorous. Slightly lightly. Slightly light. But is he going to sing? Come on, man. Get this. Oh, I like No, what I was going to say is I like his uh kind of dressed down kind of He's just wearing a black hoodie. Like that's my kind of dude. Just he's like I don't care. I'm going to wear a hoodie. Yeah, I like it. Come on. Sing.

[00:04:55]That sound is like this wall of you.

[00:05:05][music] There's a little bit of that oporadic you [singing] kind of that openness that up similar to the other thing I saw.

[00:05:31]>> Oh, great control of that. You save me.

[00:05:36]He's really controlling his vocal track.

[00:05:39]>> [music] >> Oh, away from me. Away from you. He's really like pinching off that closing up and away from me. Oh man.

[00:06:02][screaming] >> [screaming and groaning] >> There's that arithinoid cartilage in there. Oh, now the rain [music] comes. The rain it.

[00:06:30]It's kind of the shape. He's going from here to the rain. He's got such control. And what's weird is like I watch these podcasts and it's funny like he's like I don't know what I'm doing. Like I don't and he's like and I it's weird. He's like I don't like watching the um cuz I watch him with the charismatic voice and she's like yeah she's so sweet isn't she?

[00:06:56]She's like smiling and stuff and everything and she's so pretty and like no wonder people don't watch me. Like I could go watch somebody that's pretty.

[00:07:04]Why watch an ugly middle-aged guy? Like you know like it's your choice. Like I thank you for being here but like I mean I know why you wouldn't. But um so she was talking with him. He was talking with her and he was like, "I don't like watching those things because like then it's like I don't want to like know what I'm doing and then like I'll go and like maybe I won't be able to do it then if I like kind of know too much or something." It was really weird. But also he said he doesn't like watch him because he doesn't like he's just like he said he's such a weird dude man in a gray way. He's like, it's kind of like watching somebody watching you do a poop or something. He's like watching you, analyzing you to poop or something.

[00:07:47]Like, okay, it makes sense. I suppose some But this is insane.

[00:08:08]>> [screaming] >> Oh my god, dude. This is like, oh man, he has like such control of his voice and like he talks about like never taking lessons or like not having any technique. Now, I did I didn't I thought first like he didn't warm up or anything, but he does have a warm-up routine and stuff that he does, which kind of makes sense because of this sort of stuff that he does. But, excuse me. Um, man, like I got to talk about this like here because it goes he totally shapes everything.

[00:08:50]He goes through this open space.

[00:08:54][screaming] like kind of I mean like I'm not doing it justice at all. I probably sound like a complete fool. Listen, >> YOU ARE [screaming] LIKE [screaming] SELFISH.

[00:09:23][screaming] LIKE, OH, how the does he do that?

[00:09:28][screaming] SICIOUS.

[00:09:35]All right.

[00:09:37]Yeah, I think like Yeah, that's my this career over now. My my career.

[00:09:46][screaming] >> I mean, like I really have to like try to like if I was going to do that. It's like just seems like there's so much force like to push into the false folds to get that because you can really put a lot of force into your false folds. But uh like yeah, I'm just not willing to do that right now. too much of an ass out of myself.

[00:10:21]>> Oh, he's going from this. It's all [screaming] in the heat of the moment.

[00:10:30]Moment.

[00:10:31]And then he goes into kind of like tightens the vocal track down.

[00:10:39][screaming] [screaming] moving it up the kind of higher part of the false folds, the brighter part of the wa. [screaming] [screaming] So hard to do that stuff. Ah, insane.

[00:11:12]Is that it?

[00:11:14]Oh my god. It's not even halfway through.

[00:11:18]God, >> the [ __ ] for sure.

[00:11:35]>> What >> you feel like at any point though, you know. Pick a tempo.

[00:11:39]>> Pick a tempo.

[00:11:42]Is he saying that? Because they're like clapping like like people are clapping out of time. And like some you could see some of them are like clapping the wrong like look at that.

[00:12:10]Wow.

[00:12:27]He's been in this game for a long time.

[00:12:28]Like he he's he's so good. Like I with the crowd like he's kind of just he kind of really like commands the crowd. I heard him talking about like he's like a ham and stuff and he could do like MC and all this kind of stuff. like he's like and he's been doing it for a long time. Like I I saw like an old video of him on stage where he had the long hair and it was like, you know, he's like balding back here. But before I even like ever knew that like he had hair back then in that band. Um what was it called? Uh something I can't remember the name of that. Oh god, you guys are probably Devon Dev fans are going to be killing me now in the comments. Um, strapping young lad.

[00:13:13]Yes, sorry. Yes, it's just a elderly brain here. I got anyway.

[00:13:26]He's trying to get them [music] to clap in time.

[00:13:37]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:04]I was going to say there's like it's a really like long kind of sy part, but it's almost like the way that's orchestrated.

[00:14:15]It's kind of like it's like almost wants you to call to move it. It's like almost it's like this epic like sort of like I like like a movie soundtrack or something and then it goes into this other part just when I'm thinking like you know hey that's enough like just move on. Then it goes into this that it goes into another long epic kind of not ever going to change anywhere part.

[00:15:02]Okay. But it is like still epic. It's like still it's very it got it got you on the edge of your seat. You know what I'm saying? He's going to back sing. Is he going [music] to sing? No. Water.

[00:15:22]Got to have the pinkies up.

[00:15:32]You [music] was coming.

[00:15:48]Oh yeah.

[00:15:50][screaming] Oh. Oh man. I was getting So I was getting so into like trying to go like what is he doing? I want to like try that. Every time I hear like a great singer, I'm like I want to try what they're doing and like try to see can I do that? I'm obsessed with trying to do things like trying to copy trying to figure out how somebody's doing something. It helps me out a lot with my own voice and it helps me out with students to so I can go okay this is what you do do that. It's like this weird trick because like I'm a crappy like I'm not a natural singer at all.

[00:16:22]Like been a crappy singer for most of that career. like well not most but well maybe half probably until I started like getting the hang of everything and like kind of going okay this is I figured it out like 20 years ago when I started teaching well over 20 years ago and started teaching blahy blah but I had to like figure out little things I'm like here you have to do this thing with this and blah blah blah and all these kind of things but but like Devon is like just does it pisses me off to no end that he just does it like he just but he says something like where there's There's a will, there's a way, there's just do it. But like when he writes something, this is really boring.

[00:17:20]>> Oh, you know what? Like one of the things is about this, right? And this is something I really really believe in um wholeheartedly is that some people just have natural physique that allows him to do stuff.

[00:17:37]His neck, if you look at his neck, his neck is about as big as his head. So when your neck, you got a neck noggin ratio of one one, unlike me. Um I'm just looking at my Is this thing like out of time? Is my mouth out of time? Don't tell me I like changed this.

[00:17:58]But uh on this [music] watch his neck.

[00:18:17]So on that like look look at it. Look at the size of neck his these these um these muscles on the side here.

[00:18:27]Okay. Look at the muscles on the side of his neck. Those like those muscles there are helping to open his throat from the inside to pull everything open.

[00:18:41][screaming] But he's constricting up here. The open is it's open down here and it's constricted up there which gives him this like insane ability to get this like crispy massive distortion here.

[00:18:56][screaming] [screaming] That's hard. Oh my god. So hard to do.

[00:19:14]Okay, that's enough of that.

[00:19:16][music] me to the heat of the moment.

[00:19:52][screaming] >> Oh my god, that is so like That is so hard to do to get that constriction. And obviously you see like I made a complete bowls out of that. A complete dog's dinner. But oh my god.

[00:20:06]Wow. I got a lot of practice to like Yeah. A lot of practice to get that.

[00:20:12]That's man. Oh, I'd love to really work on that to try to get that. That's That's my new thing, man. That's my every once in a while I get like I hear some singer and I'm like that's insane.

[00:20:23]Like I want to be able to sing like that. He is like so underrated.

[00:20:28]I can't believe like I can't believe I've gone all my years and not known about him cuz he's like somebody I would have like Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments below. Um you can join me on Patreon down below for some special perks. You can like and subscribe and all that cool stuff. Only if you're cool. And uh thanks for watching. Big ups. Take care man. See you. Love you.

[00:20:49]Night.