James LaBrie Hates Lip-Syncing, But Says Backing Tracks “Can Be Very Enhancing”
If there’s one thing metalheads dislike, it’s people being fucking fake; especially when it comes to live performance. Unlike pop stars that can get away with lip-syncing on TV or in front of their audience, metal acts thrive on authenticity. So whenever a band is caught doing either of those things *cough*Mötley Crüe*cough*, it’s met with ridicule and derision.
While speaking on the matter with YouTube channel Syncin’ Stanley (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie suggested that lip-syncing is a cardinal sin among metal vocalists.
“Okay, first of all, yeah, I’ve never lip-synced in my entire life, so let’s just get that out of the way. That’s bullshit. I don’t agree with anybody lip-syncing to their music. I say that if you do it, you should be able to reproduce it live, or at least try to reproduce it live. I mean, every singer has their fricking bad nights, man, for sure.
“And it’s hard to reproduce or replicate exactly what you did in the studio at times, just because it’s human nature. band with so much virtuosity behind it as Dream Theater, it’s hard to believe they’d be lip-sync thing or anything like that.
But what about backing tracks? We’ve seen some backlash on those in recent months, with incidents like Falling In Reverse getting absolutely roasted for not playing a show because their laptop was broken. In LaBrie’s mind, however, using backing tracks isn’t as big a deal.
“I think it comes down to when you utilize the studio’s environment to be able to create something within that song that is glorious and multi-layered vocals or instruments that are beyond the core instruments used within that band, I think it’s cool because it can be very enhancing. And so when you decide to play those particular songs, you have to either ask yourself, it’s gonna be the bare minimum and it’s gonna be a little more raw than it was in the studio or the studio’s version, or you’re going to wanna give your audience everything that they’ve come to familiarize themselves with while listening to that song. They associate all those other elements that the only way to sometimes reproduce it would be by backtracks.
“So I think if it’s done intelligently and creatively and artistically, it should be acceptable. I think that if it’s a vice, so that someone isn’t singing what they did in the studio or someone isn’t playing what they did in the studio, that’s a different deal. I don’t agree with that.”
What are your thoughts on backing tracks and lip-syncing? Let us know in the comments.
