Atreyu frontman calls "whiny," "annoying" metalcore clean vocals "a sh*tty direction"
Atreyu frontman Alex Varkatzas has not been a fan of the clean vocals in metalcore throughout recent years, calling them “whiny,” “annoying” and “a shitty direction” in a recent interview with Banger TV, (via Team Rock).
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“Since our break, the way it’s evolved, it’s got really whiny,” he said. “The melodic vocals are super-fucking whiny and annoying in a lot of bands. I think that’s a shitty direction. I like a Killswitch Engage vocal, like Jesse [Leach] or Howard [Jones]. You can sing and have clean vocals, and make it really fucking powerful.”
He goes on to acknowledge Atreyu’s venture into the more melodic side of things—most specifically on 2007’s Lead Sails Paper Anchor, which peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Top 200 and spent 11 weeks on the chart.
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“When you go to a major label, they’re like, ‘We need to do this, we need to do that, you’ve got to change this.’ You have to try to get your record done no matter what.” He later added, “I lost my way a bit. Our band had gotten kinda bigger and I was reacting weird to it. I wasn’t comfortable with our music as much.”
You can watch the full interview below. Atreyu released their comeback album, Long Live, in 2015. It features a return to the band’s aggressive roots.
