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Metal Vocals: Wailing With Wes Horton
It’s All In The Form
The effort you’re willing to put into your craft is what you can expect to get out of it, and Wes Horton learned this early in his music career.
For a Massachusetts metal-head, long-haired lyricist, and screaming vocalist for metalcore band The Worst of Us, the effort comes from deep within the diaphragm.
Heavy Metal Vocals, Heavy Metal Hair
This multi-talented musician with a mane that slays the game has taken heavy metal vocals seriously. Years of effort and practice and many hours of frustration have taught him that the voice isn’t like a flute, a manufactured instrument which sounds the same every time you blow into it.
It’s a biological instrument, sensitive to countless external influences from air quality to body hydration. Less predictable than a brass or percussion instrument, the voice requires organic care and maintenance, and being in-tune with your body, and great patience.
Wes Horton Wails
Kicking off his career on YouTube at the age of 18, Wes Horton has grown from a kid singing in his parents’ bedroom into a professional, touring musician. With six years of dedication to his craft and multitudes of heavy metal headbangs, he’s even perfected his headbanging technique for optimal stoke with minimal stress to the spine and vertebrae.
You can hear his insights on headbanging, and what it takes to be a metal vocalist, and being honest with yourself in the pursuit of a career in music, when you listen to Wes Horton on Let It Ride.
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Watch Wes Horton on The Longhairs podcast.
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This episode of Let It Ride is brought to you by The Great Cut 2024, where The Longhairs will attempt another world-record charity hair donation for Children With Hair Loss.
Bros On This Episode
El Moreno
Co-Founder, President & Chief Follicle Officer for The Longhairs, El Moreno is a husband, father, athlete and creator. He makes most of what you see and interact with on The Longhairs websites.
El Garvinski
Video Producer for The Longhairs, El Garvinski is a media solutions expert and active health advocate. He directed/produced the iconic Hair Ties For Guys commercial in 2014, and continues firing off heavy content for The Longhairs.
Name your top three metal bands in the comments.
Comments
This episode was badass. Considering the voice as a biological instrument subject to external factors was fascinating, especially as a kid who used to lose his voice WEEKLY!
Great listen! Eternal Sickness bangs.
Garv, loving the video editing!
Vocals are LEGIT! Awesome read.
Wes, we were pumped to finally have you on the show!
bros, before singing metal without braking your voice, you need a few classical song lessons, as Tarja Turunen, who, before she sang the Phantom of the Opera, was a classical soprano at Helsinki sf Opera House…lol: https://my.mail.ru/mail/irynaksk/video/937/948.html
to deal with waist length hair, you can tie ( out of the theater for the metal performers) it in usually feminine buns: at this address, it doesn’t take hours: https://www.youtube.com/user/isaetno ( by two french rapunzels)
i use often the ” chignon boucle” or the lazy wrap bun with an asiatic restaurant chopstick
Thank you for your insight, Chamane!
Great episode for creatives and musicians alike, I enjoyed hearing about Horton’s experience in the metal scene.