I have noticed that fat people are better in the harsh and heavy vocals. Why is this? The lead singer for Crimson Thorn comes to mind, also Chris Barnes is fat.

There's no real correlation. The vocalist from Denial is skinny as fuck and has a ridiculously brutal voice. Ross Dolan from Immolation is built like Glenn Danzig and he's one of the deepest growlers out there.

I could go on.

I couldn't help but post and say, this has to be the best thread title I've seen in a long time.

Now to actually contribute: I've noticed this too, not only people such as James Lee (Origin, Vile), but a lot of my fat friends took to death growls very easily. Its like they didn't even have to practice to get that resonant sound out of their growls. I had to practice a bit more, but it also came easy to me (I'm a bit chubby). Another friend of mine, who is only a few pounds off of being emaciated, had to work his ass off to be able to get a reasonable sound.

Nah Dolan is pretty fat.

If he is now, he wasn't when I last saw him. But it really doesn't matter, since he was still pretty skinny back on Here In After days and sounded pretty much the same.

For other examples, look at Craig Pillard back on Onward To Golgotha, or Frank Mullen before he started hitting the gym - back in the Effigy days. Couple of skinny fucks.

Peter Tagtgren's not a fat shit, and his growls are fucking brutal with Bloodbath, as well as his screams. He's one of my favourite harsh vocalists.

Will from Mortician is pretty fat. SikkoMikko from Torsofuck is big.

Mikko is a bodybuilder. Looks like Jack from Tekken.

Hah, I wish some of these Torsofuck haters would say some of their shit to Mikko. He'd rip them apart.

Or, he might buy them a beer because not many people would have the balls to come up to Mikko and talk shit about Torsofuck. And Mikko is really nice as well.

Perhaps there is a correlation between body size and lung size which could improve duration.

A friend of mine who used to growl for an old death metal band 5-6 years ago used to be (and still is) kind of chubby and fat and he's considered to be the best growler around these parts. He can go very low but his highs are a little off. Another friend of mine who's ultra skinny also growls but his tone isn't very 'death-y', kind of core-ish, really, if that makes sense, and I don't think he can go that low as well.

I always thought it was because of their weight.

When Chris was at his prime he was fairly skinny. He's fat now, but he can barely let out a decent growl.

None of the old school swedish death metal bands' singers was fat, at least at the beginning of their career. Than, well they became flaggy but the on the first releases they were already great!

Dismember's frontman is fat and he's a great growler.

as I said above, he was not fat when they released the first albums...I also know the Mind Snare growler and he's thin...

He wasnt fat in the beginning, but I prefer the growling on the recent Dismember albums to the first two, really

Glen Benton wasn't that big on the first few Deicide albums but he's a fair size now. And Frank Mullen was a stick on Suffocation's first album, although he's built himself up over the years. Also, John Tardy was again pretty thin on Obituary's first few albums and he's now got a wee bit larger.
I agree Matti from Dismember has always been slightly portly but on Indecent and Obscene he had clearly lost a fair amount of weight.

Simple, they have the double chin for the vibration effect. DUH

This thread is pure gold.

I myself have always suspected some sort of correlation between the two. Heavymetalbackwards seems to have the right idea.

Last time I checked, Chris from Autopsy was pretty skinny, and he's one of my favorite growlers.

Skinny guys like petri lindroos, alexi laiho, jari maenpaa can't growl.

20 comments and no corpsegrinder?:scratch:

Tomi Joutsen from amorphis is quite skinny, and he's my favorite growler.

Maybe good growling is linked to a gene which makes you fat later in life.

I always thought his clean vocals are far better than his growls.

well arent the best opera singers fat aswell?

Chris Barnes was actually a real small dude back in the day, when he was doing his most guttural vocals.

Martin van Drunen is soooooooo fat.










Not.

Corpsegrinder is a big dude, but he was pretty thin when he was in Monstrosity. He was a great growler then, but it seems like the bigger he got, the more powerful his growl became.

I cant believe anyone would even make such a ridiculous thread.

For those that mentioned lungs, I just want to clarify:

Lungsize does not have anything to do with it. Contrary to what most people belief, fat people dont have bigger lungs than skinny people, and the size of your lungs doesn't have much to do with your ability to sing. Resonance does not come from the lungs.

Actually, the louder you want to sing, the less air you have to use. The higher notes you want to reach, the less air you have to use.

This has nothing to do with the voice whatsoever either.

His growls are brutal, but they aren't what I would necessarily call gutteral

He's the prime example of a skinny person being able to growl. People couldn't believe he was the vocalist.

He was a whole lot better back then, too.

i am sorta padded, but I do better black metal vocals. That said it is the lower end of the spectrum. More Abbath than Pest.

I'd like to make mention of Paul Kuhr of Novembers Doom. The man is a rotund beast with vocals to match.

There really is no correlation.

This goes along with another misconception a vocalist comes across in a very different place... Choir.

I'm a tiny pieceashit... 5' 6", 135... yet I've been in three choirs in two states and all three directors told me I had the fullest, richest bass tone they had ever heard. They played audio of my singing to other directors, and they said they all pictured a really big fat guy.

I can also do Devourment-style ultra lows.

It just varies i guess.

Will Rahmer isn't fat, he's jacked.

Mohammed from Necrophagist has some of the most guttural live vocals I have heard, I was very impressed, and he's not fat nor big.

I'm 6'10", huge frame, and a bit overweight, and my voice is very deep, but I prefer mid range growling as it doesn't tire my throat out as fast, and the sound I get is simply more unique and fitting to my voice.

Fat people aren't any better at grunting, despite any porcine appearance. The ability to pull off death growls is all about the makeup of your throat and your diaphragm control.

Corpsegrinder is built like a truck, not fat.

Lori Bravo wasn't fat, and she was a chick, and she could give most modern DM vocalists a run for their money.

She's definitely better than that stupid cunt from Arch Enemy.