NEW SINGERS, SAME TUNES
Five bands that switched frontmen
Nobody expected Queen to continue after Freddie Mercury died from complications of AIDS in 1991.
Born Farrokh Bulsara in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, Mercury is still regularly voted one of the greatest singers of all time, as well as one of the top entertainers. In 2016, a pan-European research team concluded he had some of the fastest vocal cords around, and that had a lot to do with his jaw-dropping range and technique.
Mercury is a hard act to follow, which is why seeing Queen + Adam Lambert on tour is somewhat surprising.
The Season 8 American Idol runner-up is a far better choice than Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers for a fill-in frontman.
As anyone who has endured the Queen + Paul Rodgers The Cosmos Rocks recording or live album can testify, all the hits in the catalogue can’t fix what doesn’t work.
At least Lambert is more in line with Mercury’s range, and the Queen + Adam Lambert Live in Japan record sounds like a pretty killer Queen cover band.
Being a second singer (or third, in Lambert’s case) is usually a pretty thankless job. Lucky for Lambert, he has an incredible catalogue to perform. But the global demand that exists for the Queen brand is going to keep on lining the surviving members’ pockets as long as guitarist Brian May wants to keep up his ’70s guitar hero histrionics and Roger Taylor and family (his son is in the touring band) feel like banging the drums.
Taylor also has a hand in The Queen Extravaganza, subtitled The Official Queen Tribute Show. It seems Bohemian Rhapsody will indeed carry on, carry on.
While some classic rock units just seem impossible to imagine without their signature singers — The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith both come to mind — there have been a surprising number of successful transplants over the decades.
Here are five that achieved greater gains or revived a legacy with second singers:
1. AC/DC
If you really want to start an argument on a pirate ship, just offer a firm opinion of which of this Australian hard rock act’s lead singers was better: Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott or Brian Johnson. Scott was a rowdy, party-hearty growler who died after a night of heavy boozing in 1980. Johnson previously fronted a second-tier hard rock act from Newcastle, U.K., with the inspired name of Geordie.
Serious fans are divided over the choice. Back in Black, Johnson’s first recording with the band, has sold 50 million copies and counting and took the band from solid popularity to superstardom. Most recently, Johnson left the band due to complications from hearing loss. In one of the weirder replacements of all time, Axl Rose took the mike on a temporary basis. Who knows where this goes now.
2. GENESIS
When Peter Gabriel left this bastion of British prog rock in 1975, the band and the scene it was part of were at an all-time high. But after one final performance of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in Besancon, France, the singer departed.
Drummer Phil Collins (around for the previous three albums) took over as lead vocalist. Not as immediate as the Back in Black explosion, it took a few releases before 1978’s And Then There Were Three and the single Follow You, Follow Me broke the band into the big time. Collins also became a superstar solo act, eclipsing Gabriel in that role, too.
3. JOURNEY
A spinoff act of Santana members Neal Schon and Greg Rolie, Journey was a pretty middling rock band until it hired part-time turkey rancher Steve Perry in 1977 and shifted to commercial arena rock. From 1978’s Infinity on through the 1980s, the band racked up multiple top-10 singles — including the epic and enduring Don’t Stop Believin’ — and sold gazoodles.
Perry also had a successful solo career and separated from the band before the Trial By Fire tour. Since then, the band has been through three singers, the most recent being Filipino frontman Arnel Pineda, who was discovered from his YouTube videos.
4. LYNYRD SKYNYRD
The plane crash that killed original singer Ronnie van Zant and two other band members led this bastion of southern rock to call it quits in 1977. The band returned about a decade later with Johnny van Zant. The youngest brother of Ronnie and .38 Special singer Donnie van Zant, Johnny put out a few solo recordings before joining the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and carrying on his late bro’s legacy. While never to top the charts as it did in the ’70s, the band remains a big concert draw across the U.S.
5. VAN HALEN
If you thought the Bon Scott/ Brian Johnson debate was heated, try comparing David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar.
“Diamond” Dave certainly left his bandmates in a great position when he departed in 1985. The album 1984 was a huge hit, but Roth’s solo EP Crazy From the Heat was, too. Along came former Montrose member and solo artist Hagar to assume lead singer duties, and 5150 and the single Why Can’t This Be Love clearly established him as the one to continue the hard-rocking records through the mid-’90s.
Extreme lead singer Gary Cherone came on board for the unlistenable Van Halen III (1998) until the members could reunite with Roth again for 2012’s comeback, A Different Kind of Truth.