Did Tom Waits ruin his voice?

Alois

Is it possible to sing like this in a safe way or did Tom simply sell his sweet voice to satan and got a killer growl in exchange?

highmtn

I haven't heard a lot of clean singing from Tom Waits. Have you?

Alois

In this one he still has som kind of pitch to it i wonder if he can still pull it off.

So if i want to keep my voice, no Waits covers?

highmtn

You can do all the Waits covers you want to, as long as you use Ken's methods to get your distortion, and you go back and clean up your vocals right after you use the distortion.

Tom made such a name for himself by using that overt distortion of his, that it became a kind of self-made prison, vocally. At least he made a living doing it, but it kind of put him into one classification that forced him to keep sounding like that in order to keep getting work.

Lots of people like his sound. He's just a bit rough on the voice.

Bob

Alois

Thank you! i am doing some Waits covers now but without the rasp woudl be awsome to add it

highmtn

When you get through Volume 3 and begin to apply Ken's safe distortion properly, you will be able to apply that to your Tom Waits songs, and that will be the icing on the cake. It won't sound exactly like Tom, but it will be a healthy and viable enhancement to those songs over how you are presently doing them.

Bob

Alois

Thank you Bob for the encouragement !