General Questions

1^st. Luis: Most of great singers of classic rock never studied singing and always sang in an intuitive way. 
Have you had any kind of teaching or training?

Joe:  Yes, I have.

Glenn: No, I sang in a choir (from high school) and I learnt how to play music in high-school, but I learnt to sing by myself. 

Joe:  I had a professor ….., a man called Martin Laurance, he is already dead and he used to warm up the voice with Pavarotti, you know? And we were with everybody from New York.  He taught me to show feelings.  I have never had a high-pitched voice and he taught me to focus and to push from below, what I mean is that it’s a technique that has helped me to take the voice up. I am a deep singer, I can sing very low. 

2^nd. Luis: Most professional singers throughout their career have sometimes suffered from problems with their voices, such as nodules, polyps, or aphonia.  Have you ever suffered the loss of voice?

Glenn: No, I have never had those problems with my voice. I have been very, very lucky that I haven’t suffered from those problems in my voice such as nodules, polyps or something like that.  I have suffered from laryngitis and maybe I have sung wrong but I have never had that kind of problems. 

Joe:  No polyps, but of course the voice gets tired. It weakens and gets tired when you don’t sleep.  The most important thing for a singer is to sleep. A lot of water and sleeping. If you don’t sleep, you can’t sing.  

Glenn: (The next question is amazing.)  That’s right, sleeping is the most important thing.

3^rd. Luis: I’m sure you take care of your voice.  I guess you don’t smoke nor drink, or you drink in moderation, though some students tell me that when they drink a little they sing more easily.  What do you think about these habits with alcohol?

Glenn: Let me tell you something, it is individual, it’s an individual question and that is why I am going to answer it differently from another person.  When someone asks me how come that I sing better now than twenty years ago, it is very simple: I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, and I don’t take drugs.  For me it’s like that , and that is why my voice is better than never.  So it is just my opinion, it is only the viewpoint of a man. 

Joe:  Yes. I think it is better not to do any of this.  I smoke a little and drink a little and I try to look after my voice. I don’t do it in large amounts.  I don’t think that drinking alcohol helps with your voice, it helps with your attitude. 

Luis:  There are singers who say that a whiskey sip, for instance, is ok…

Joe:  Well, I sometimes…, you know..I

Glenn: Bullshit, it is psychological. 

Joe:  Not always, it’s true, because sometimes it’s ok to drink a bit of cognac, it’s nice, hot inside and it can relax the muscle though it also dries, it is what alcohol does, it dries you.  You’ll be ok for an hour and then you’re dry and you can’t sing the next day because you don’t have water in your body.  So, you have to keep it wet, always, constantly.  But that of singing ....., there are too many singers that sing from here (throat) and you have to sing from your diaphragm.   That’s why I have a voice, I don’t sing with air in my lungs, no, I sing with my  diaphragm full. I let air out of my lungs, I push from below and I blow.  And that doesn’t stresses and forces the vocal cords.  

4^th. Luis. How do you warm up your voice minutes before a concert?

Glenn: Here with the main sound check.  It warms and awakens the voice in the afternoon and since then I’ll be constantly singing. 

Joe:  He speaks a lot, that is what I see. 

Glenn: I don’t sleep before going on stage and I keep on warming up the voice from now up to ten thirty. 

Joe:  I used to do exercises with a tape recorder that my teacher gave me “On Di Fa Diche…” and different vowels such as “DAY” and “night”..
I used to warm my voice up but not anymore.   As Glenn says, it is like riding a bike, maybe I warm my voice up a little earlier and then I let it come.  You have to stretch it as a muscle.  You should warm it up and someone who is starting should warm up their voice. 

Luis:  Would you advice it definitely?

Both of them: Yes.

Glenn: It’s important.

Joe:  It is like playing football.

Glenn: My vocal range is so large that if I don’t warm up my voice, the first 6 songs are difficult and then latter live…., my voice is done.
It has been really hard improving that. 

Luis to Glenn: Did you use to warm up your voice twenty years ago?

Glenn: No, never

5^th. Luis. Some students think that a concert isn’t well performed when you sing every day on tour, because you try to control your voice for the following day because it is possible you don’t have a good concert. 
It is said that there are three ways of singing on tour. 

1^st. Intelligently, choosing a repertoire which is not on the limits of your voice in order not to have problems. 
2^nd. Controlling yourself live every night and singing less than in albums. 
3^rd. Changing voice melodies at difficult parts.  Which method do you apply and what do you do when you don’t have a good night?

Glenn: I find it now.  It is a very good question for me. I like singing every night because at last, sincerely, for the first time in life I’ve learnt how to be on tour and sing.  The key is in the air you breath and you let out of your lungs.  I’m singing the same as always but I’m not pushing.  I’m really breathing longer and pushing less air out.  So I can sing almost every night and I’ll tell you now that it is a blessing, the truth.  I’m really excited about that. 

Joe:  It is difficult to sing every night if you’re singing hard.  

Glenn: That’s right.

Joe:  I sing hard and then it is more difficult, it is an effort for the body like everything else.  Like if you work out every day and you rest one day .  It is difficult but you can do it.  We have done four or five nights in a row and the last nights we were great, you even feel an amazing sensation when your voice is in good shape.  I have been afraid of singing four nights in a row, saying…. “I can’t” .....the fourth night I thought that would be fatal, but it wasn’t.  If you’re not drinking alcohol, partying, taking drugs and all that, if you look after your body and you are in shape there are no problems.  Although not everybody needs to sing hard, I know many people who sing weakly even when they should be singing hard.
I can’t, I sing very hard all the time. If you sing quietly, I guess it may help. 

Luis:  In this tour you perform four or five nights in a row, don’t you?

Joe: We’ve performed four nights in a  row but you have to take into account that we don’t sleep much.  We sleep three hours and somebody wakes us up, we take a plane, we are in cars, we travel, we do interviews, we speak with journalists, we go back to the hotel, we have a shower and we play.   It is really tiring...., when you are tired …., I was tired in London and I couldn’t do what I wanted, I was doing what I had to do.  There were certain things I couldn’t do due to tiredness.  But when I asked another singer about that night, Doogie White, Rainbow’s singer -for instance - told me that I had sung very well, better than the previous day.  You sometimes think that it is not going well, and you are better than you think because you take everything easy, you sing with more melody and emotion.  I think you should ask something about emotion..

6^th. Luis: During your careers as singers have you ever taken cortisone or anti-inflammatory for the voice or vitamins for flu, for several concerts or anything else?

Glenn: Everybody does it. 

Joe: If you go on tour for a long time, you have to take something. 

Glenn: Cortisone is an injection ....in case you have laryngitis.

Joe: I’ll be honest We have taken it sometimes when we are on tour for a long time. 
The anti-inflammatory helps with the inflammation and I didn’t know till Glenn gave it to me years ago. 

Glenn: Ozzy gave it to me ten years ago. 

Joe: I never did it and I told the boys that they had surely been doing it during that time, I had never taken anything.   Now everybody does it.  Everybody has taken “flomase” or what ever, everyone.  I went to my doctor for he give me a kind of medicine (medule,) and he warned me about cortisone, it helped me against inflammation.  If you also take....., I don’t know its name here in Spain, but it’s a legal product and you can buy it and it helps against inflammation. You take two every night before sleeping and it helps. 

7^th. Luis: We believe that the voice changes, that it is an elastic instrument which gets used to a repertoire or to a way of singing, but on each tour the repertoire changes.   Have you noticed that after a long tour it is hard to sing something that you sang before and that it’s been a while you don’t sing?

Joe: Yes, that happens. You have to get used to notes and changes again.  Suddenly you say: “Damn I haven’t sung this song for a long time and it goes from high-pitches here to lows here and”…..you know….., but after two reviews you’re fine.  

Glenn: Once or twice and it looks easy for me. 

Joe: Yes, because you are clean….

Glenn: For me there were certain songs that I couldn’t sing for years, because they were too hard and I couldn’t reproduce them.  Now I can sing almost anything that I recorded in the past, and it is an offering, I’m really thankful for that.

Joe: He has good heath and his voice remains well, drugs haven’t damaged him. 

Glenn: I’m the kind of person who shows he is really enjoying his art. 

8^th. Luis: We are discovering that every singer has a different resistance on tour. How many days in a row do you think that you can sing perfectly and singing in the same way that on the album without the voice getting tired?  

Joe: Well again, the voice gets tired without sleeping. 

Glenn: I think I have answered this for the two of us, we don’t perform more than five nights in a row.  It has everything to do with the muscle’s rest, we are not Pantera, we don’t go “gggrrrgggggrrr,” we are melodic.  We are rock singers with a broad range.   So it is important to control, some singers may answer differently, but for us five days in a row and I need a day off. 

Joe: You have to make it rest, it is not good if you don’t do it.  You’ll break anything if you don’t let it rest.  So, what you ask here: How many days in a row do you think you can sing perfectly, singing like in the albums without the voice getting tired?  It depends on how you rest on tour.  It depends on the circumstances of the tour. Some people sleep on a bus and others in a four star hotel. It all depends, some people sleep ten hours every night, I have only had two hours last night, three hours the night before and when we arrived in London I was sleepy, but at the same time I took a dose of B12 and Medule and I had no problems.  But the following day you have to rest the voice and the body. 

9^th. Luis: What advice would you give a student to be fit on tour singing every night?

Joe: I am going to say this way, we have partied, alcohol, drugs, women, you know…., it’s very funny but you can’t sing in the same way. 

Glenn: You are going to be exhausted. 

Joe: Yes, you exhaust yourself, your body collapses from exhaustion and the voice as well, of course. You know.....guitarists, bassist can play dunk, it doesn’t matter, but with the voice …, it is a personal instrument and that’s why it is said that being a singer is something more delicate, you know, as when there is pipi under the bed and you can’t sleep. 

Glenn: I can’t be near smoke. 

Joe: Well, I don’t like being near smoke before singing, but after that I like smoking a cigarette. 

Glenn: Look Ronnie Dio…

Joe: He is one of the best singers and he smokes a lot, many of our singer friends smoke. 

Glenn: Great if it works for them!

 Joe: Yes, one, three packs a day….I think that everything is related to moderation but alcohol dries you, planes dehydrate you and you tell the difference in time, you tell between Japan and here, The USA, what ever….I propose exercise, physical condition.  Glenn walks ten miles a day, you know, being in shape…

 Glenn: It has everything to do with breathing for Glenn Hughes. Breathing.

Specific Questions 

10^th. Luis to Joe: Some students think that some years ago, you started singing at a higher range than before, and with a voice more cracked in some passages. Is this transformation something unconscious or a change in your voice that you have set out?

 Joe: That’s right.  It is a wanted and conscious change.  I wanted to change because in Rainbow I was not allowed to sing like that.  The “Ritchie” didn’t allow me to do that, he wanted it clean, clear.  So it’s a completely conscious change.  Yes, I’m definitely singing higher now than in the past because now I can sing what I want.  Ritchie had a specific idea in his mind and though I had a big part in that I had to limit myself a little to the melody.  He doesn’t like shouts, he likes melody, Paul Rogers, is an emotional commitment.  For me it goes from tone, emotion, commitment and feeling the song, the lyrics, it is not only technique.  All these questions about technique are great but without soul.....soulless. 

11^th. Luis to Glenn: Your voice, we believe, works with a  technique that at school we called “Belting,” where the sound is projected forward with a broader opening of the mouth and the larynx higher and that is completely different from the technique of Classic Opera where it is projected from behind and with higher opening of the mouth and the larynx lower.  How would Glenn define the principal differences between his way of singing and the classic singing’s ones?

Glenn: For me it means something different.  I’ve just read your questions and I’ll answer it.  I sing spontaneously from my soul, truly, though it’s been just a short while, honestly, it’s been just a short while I learnt to sing well live every night.  I sing directly, I don’t think I’m singing.  I sing something different every night and you can call it whatever you want, Belting or whatever, but I don’t know what that is, no offense to anyone, I’ve never learnt that. 

Joe: What he’s telling you is that you open your mouth in a way and not in another.  (Joe explains the question and opens his mouth horizontally and vertically.)  He means the timbres on “Aaaah” instead of “ liiie.”  That’s what I understand about this question and, since I have had classes and I have sung in a choir. I remember they said that with the mouth open we never laughed when we were singing.  Luis to Glenn. : Glenn likes improvising... 

 Glenn: Oh God… Yes, a lot. 

12^th. Luis: The super-high-pitched falsetto is an overused  technique in rock, but there are two completely different ways of doing it.  One of them is really used by most of Heavy singers. There is another falsetto technique but different, used by Ian Gillan.  Listening some Joe’s albums we think we sometimes find this kind of unusual falsetto as well.  Was it a falsetto that you had more developed in the past, in your adolescent’s years or do you remember having it before your voice change at puberty?

Joe: Yes, it’s true.  I had an amazing falsetto.  Now I have to sing everything with chest voice, when I do something high-pitched I’m thinking.  It was always like that and they never let me use it. And as Glenn knows because we have talked about this and I don’t agree because this has become too big.  My way of singing depends on: tone, commitment, and emotion.  You know…, I like putting sex in my music.  It’s all about how you commit yourself to it.  Frank Sinatra wasn’t a fantastic singer but he could commit himself.  Glenn has talent, whatever, but I’m sure I have something else, my voice comes somewhere else. 

13^th. Luis to Glenn:  One of the comments that we do when we listen to your voice throughout your career is that your voice remains incredibly stable and it hasn’t changed lowering its range during these years.  Most singers change their voices with years.  Your answer is really important.  You are 55 years.
What is the reason you think your voice hasn’t changed? 

Glenn: It’s a good question and we have already answer it.  I’m not afraid of any note.  I go for the feeling rather than the note.  As you’ll see tonight, it’s all about feelings and then I’m not afraid of notes because I’ll reach almost all of them.  It’s crazy sometimes.  I can go higher than high C (Luis: We guess DO5) but I don’t do it much.  Notes are so natural for me, and every night I’ll sing a bit differently to include my creativity. I’m not like Joe, I’m more spontaneous in my singing.  I don’t sing as I used to but I do extraordinary things, like when I imitate Mariah Carey, because she was always doing this and people waited that from me. 

 14^th. Luis. To both of them:  Who are the singers who influenced you and who are the ones you like the most and why? 

Glenn: This is easy for me, very simple, four.  Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Picket and Otis Redding.  Those four and Paul.  If you listen to my style the four of them are there.  If you ask Paul Rogers, he will tell you the same, or Rod Stewart, people from the sixties like me, we all listened to black’s Motown.  Even better than rock singers who come from the sixties, they are the best and the four of them have influenced me.  So I’ve pick them out and with my style I’ve taken them to British hard rock. That’s why I’m called “the funky of rock.“ it’s true, I’m a rocker but I totally understand the funk, R & B from North America.  That’s what I am. 

Joe: I grew up with black singers, besides Elvis Presley. My cousins were older and they gave me pop albums but I didn’t like them.  I listened to Wilson Picket, Sam Cook and Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding was the best, what I listened to the most. When I listened to Paul Rogers I thought “this guy is a white man with black style and I was able to do this. I followed his example. Then I listened to Glenn singing in Trapeze in a similar way, and I said that he was like Paul Rogers. He has a lot of soul and I’m a soul-man.
 I’ve never gone so far in my career as Glenn, I call him the white Stevie Wonder, he can really do this.  

 Glenn: Yes, it’s true, it’s a complement. 

Joe: It’s true, it’s a complement. He is the white Stevie Wonder (he sings a little.)  I’m more like Otis Redding «sitting on the dock of the bay…», you know? It’s the same, we are here for this, because we are soul and rock singers.  We call it rock and soul music, not rock and roll.  Some men sing, I apologize for the expression “white,” they don’t have darkness, they are white, it is not chocolate milk, just milk. They crack too much, notes are ok but they don’t have emotion.  

15º. Luis to both of them:  I try to explain my students that what is important for a singer is to show feelings with their voice and that the technique is just a tool to get it, but they are only interested in singing notes as high-pitched and loud as possible.  Do you think that you can be a great singer without singing high-pitched notes?

Joe: This is very well. 

Glenn: ....I’ll answer like this.  Recording an album basically I choose…, you know lower and live, I like improvising. That is who I am. I think that the answer is, I think that it is ok to have…

Joe: Both things. 

 Glenn: Both. It is better if you have both. I’m a high-pitched singer but I love melody, tone.  Paul Rogers is the king of that question. 

Joe: Paul Rogers doesn’t sing high-pitchly.

Glenn: He is the king of that question. For me..., I’m a spontaneous singer, improvised.  Joe has a more standard tone. It’s a good question because I try to sing lower but I get excited and…

Joe: I think this is a ridiculous question, what do you mean by being a great singer without singing high-pitched notes? One of the best singers of the world, Paul Rogers, never sang high-pitchly. Never. So, it’s not only possible but it is also the best way.  He is not damn Rob Halford! I think you should improve your range but this is the technique. It is like playing from here with a guitar up to here, the whole neck, you shouldn’t use it if it’s not appropriate. I think that too many people sing things in the wrong time. In other words, it is fine to shout high sometimes and sometimes it is not.

Glenn: I learn every night, I’m a student. 

Joe: I know guys who I call “shouting men” and I know singers.  Singers who sing very well, who can sing high but they know when to do it. Eric Montpu or Mike Renal from Loverboy are examples and they can shout very high, it’s unbelievable and they can use it when they want but they only do it at the right time, you know? It’s incredible. They do it at the right time and it’s incredible. 

16^th. Luis to both of them:  Some students ask me how you do to crack or rasp the voice, what we call “overdrive.”  Kevin DuBrown from Quiet Riot, explained us that it cracks by itself from certain volume or pitch. I explain that it is giving more air pressure than the necessary for that note I sing.  Hughes and Turner also know how to do it very well. How would you explain it? 

Joe: You can’t explain it…

Glenn: I like that of the air pressure, the person who wrote it, it is perfect for me. You have to put pressure on the note I think.

Joe: You know you can get a gritty sound, is it this what you mean? “great gritty sound” (singing grittily) using your throat.
Opening and closing the throat and with pressure.  

Glenn: It is a good question...

Luis:  He explained us that he doesn’t warm up his voice any more. 

Joe: He doesn’t, you can hear it.  I’m sorry but I don’t consider Kevin Dubrow a great singer from this world. I think that he sings and I’ve told him this to his face. Singers are men like Steve Clarey, Lou Grahm, these boys sing, Limmy Bronx is great….more singers.  

Glenn: Chris Robbinson is very good, Chris Cornell (Soungarden.) 

Joe: Chris Cornell is very good.  Look, Vince Neil from Motley Crue is not very good…

Glenn: He is awful, horrible, he only shouts! You can count the good ones with the fingers in one hand. 

Joe: It is to sing rock and roll.  Have you heard the Christmas album by Glenn,
 “love on an open…., “ that is singing. 

17^th. Luis to both of them:  Almost every great professional singer of mature years explains that they sing better now than when they were 25. Some students think that it is about a psychological perception, since it is known that with age you loose range, resistance, air, strength, agility, and the larynx cartilages ossify loosing elasticity.  Do you think that thinking you sing better when you are older is a psychological phenomenon or is it in your mature years you chase other objectives easier to get with the voice?

Joe: Yes

Glenn: Yes, sure, because of obvious reasons, and you Joe?

Joe: I think that singing yesterday night someone told me that I have improved my range or something like that and I sing better now as if there were a difference.  I don’t know if it’s better, maturity takes you to another level.  Because I wasn’t singing wrong before, you know what I mean? If you listen to Rainbow or Odyssey, in Odissey I sing truly, damn well, unbelievable.  

18º. Luis. Some students believe that the art of singing Rock is dying and that it is becoming classical music, because new singers don’t appear, such as the ones in your generation, who innovate, besides, there appear tribute albums and groups interpreting classics.  Do you think that there are no more singers who have something new to say or simply they have arrived late to an industry that only focus on selling fast and easily without taking risks?

Glenn: There are no singers of the new generation, none has feelings because during the past years the only good singers who have something to do with us are Chris Robbison and perhaps Chris Cornell in the nineties.  We are talking about the decade up to now, the nineties, there is no rock improving our time.  There is nobody you can tell “damn! He is really beating us up. They are still the guys from the sixties and the seventies. 

Joe: Everything seems the same to me. 

Glenn: There are no feelings, everything is the tone …there is no soul, there are no rock stars.
The “against the rock stars” thing still works my friend. 

Joe: Yes, it is really against talent. There are no good guitarists, the new guys I mean, tell me a new group with a  good guitarist , there is none.  I know there is none because my daughter has the albums.  I don’t listen to anything good. I listen to interesting things, innovations and changes, with Kurt Cobain’s Darkness something was starting but I don’t listen anything rock-and-roll style. 

Glenn: R’nR is changing...

Joe: Yes, industry is focused on selling fast and without risks….

19^th. Luis.  Speaking of doing things fast and easily as record companies… During the last years that I have been teaching, I’ve seen that many students don’t have patience to study and to investigate about the voice. They suffer from anxiety and they need fame and the audience’s recognition fast. I think that the guilty one is the media, TV with programs and singer contests, and they become famous and sell millions of albums confusing young people, making them believe that the objective of music is being famous, making money and having power. The question is.... What do you think I can tell my singing students when they see mediocre and bad quality singers succeed on television?

Joe: Well, ask them if they want to be millionaires or singers. 

Glenn: That’s right, this is something artistic. 

Joe: Do they want to be artists or famous?

Glenn: Joe and I have had a thirty-year-old career. 

Joe: Committed artists or someone who wants to be famous, move the ass a little and look pretty.

Glenn: In the end that had to happen, we go back to the sixties with the guitar, the bass, drums, a singer, like Led Zeppelin will come back. There is too much shit and that. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple have to return with younger groups. I hope that happen soon. 

Joe: The old is still new. So, what you can answer is that if they want fame, more money more celebrity, or if they want to commit themselves to art and be famous… You can be famous just to be famous, anything, you get married to any famous person and if you are surrounded by famous people you end up being famous.  So you can be serious or not.  There are two kinds, and whoever it is they have to choose what they want, but those who are serious are going to have a long and good career. 

20^th. Luis: To finish....., for the students who try to be good singers even when nobody listens to them … What advice would you give them to be good singers?

 Joe: It depends on the commitment, your dream, to what extent they want it. Advices are dangerous because they are something personal. 

Glenn: Singing for me is bliss. For great singers it is a gift from God. 

Joe: The only advice I can give is inside your heart and look how deep it is. 

The question is: to what extent do you want it? And Don Healey answered: I don’t reach it, you have to fight, bleed and die for it, otherwise, you don’t want it enough. Like the other questions about being famous. Look Madonna, dreadful, I have never liked her voice though she has been entertaining, peaks and changes.  Please..., what people do with singers these days... We go in, we record and that’s it.