First, as a bait, but a real one: Daniel Johns has the widest vocal range I've ever heard through rock scene besides Mike Patton. He, Daniel, hit publicly from a low Eb2 to a stratospheric high C#6 -yes, that so called "whistle register" which was popularized by Mariah Carey and the same which only (as far as I know) Patton can hit besides him in rock music-.
So, here I am because I think is fair the world to know about how gifted and beautiful and raw and powerful and soft and ultra low and ultra high and versatile and ultra agile voice full of so many different vocal techniques Daniel Johns has. And that's just one of his virtues/talents, so, if you you wanted to know about other musical skills of his or his geniality as a composer you'll need a whole different and dedicated post, happily we had en entire podcast about that matter, I'll tell you later...
As I was saying, about his vocal skills, that's something (one of the things) that totally fascinates me about Daniel. I love how he can do almost whatever he wanted with his voice (which particular timbre had captivated me since the beginning as well).
As a brief insight, here I'll mention some of my fav Dan live vocal performances:
- His beautiful vocal arrangements with some melismas and belting throughout "After all these years", Live at Faraway Stables concert in Newcastle, 2003.
- His awesome C#6 in some "Emotion Sickness" live performances, my fav one in Sao Paulo, 2003. Yeah, that's the whistle register at the 6th octave, but he didn't do that whistling, he hit that only with his powerful head voice, I mean, head voice is SO MUCH more powerful than a falsetto and than a whistle singing, something that's not usual to hear even for female singers, and even when not even woman can usually sing in that high stratospheric octave.
I'm totally amazed by the fact he hits that 6th octave and with no falsetto or whistle singing at all! but doing that all with all his powerful head voice instead, which is even more difficult than doing it with those two mentioned techniques ...and he did it, and more than once.
Ohhh and of course, his incredible feeling through this song at Rockfest 99 (sorry but I can't leave out of this post that intense feeling he cast over his audience through his usual guitar jamming through this specific and magnificent song. My fav ones in Sao Paulo as well and Rock am Ring, 2003).
- His incredible kind of "vocal guitar solo" in "Young Man, old man" with his side project The Dissociatives, live at Enmore, 2004. BTW, there he did again a very VERY crystal clear C#6 again, my gosh!!!
- His incredible whole performance of "The greatest view" in Across the great divide DVD, where he replaced that "I'm watching YOU" which originally was made with his chest voice, but in this case, with a softer head voice instead (something between his head voice and falsetto really). Then, that awesome belting at the ending of the song, my gosh!!!! What a GREAT alternative ending he'd created!!!
- His super awesome and totally raw performance of Fat Donuts, live at the Cabaret Metro, 1995. What a powerful raspy and amazing job he did!!!
- This is just a personal fav, I love that Frogstomp song and performed at the Cabaret Metro, in 1995 as well, was even better to me, I'm talking about Faultline. Look at his very first falsettos, his rawness, his great clean and raspy voice. One of my facs definitely, so much feeling!
- His kind of "alternative" version of "Across the night" at TEDx, showing that awesome and clear E2, and his awesome raspy belting, my gosh!!!!
NOTE: That said, we can see a vocal range that goes from that E2 to C#6. Yep, he showed publicly he can hit a wide range of almost 4 octaves and maybe he can go even further, lower or higher, who knows! specially if he can manage that throat singing technique as Patton does to vocally access to the first octave. So, I think you can perfectly compare their vocal ranges as very similar, impressive and wide (I'm not meaning similar vocal techniques, throat singing included; not similar voice timbre nor vocal training; please notice that), and Dan's voice use to remind me, somehow, Patton's vocal virtues actually.
- His crazy powerful strongly sustained and solid 26 seconds note in the outro of "Ana's song", also live, and also more than once. My fav one in Rock am Ring, 2003. And the heaviest thing, he always doing it in the difficult version, without any help of vibrato, not at all and even though with tons of incredible vocal support. I'm not amazed just for the time and the air so well managed during 25 seconds sustained note, but because of the solid support of the tone itself.
- His beautiful performance and vocal arrangements in "Miss you love" at the Big day out, 2002 (I don't particularly like that song but I loooved that performance and really liked that version he created that day, even when he was in pain, so ill and medicated while performing in that concert. My respects Sir!).
- And last but definitely not least, in fact one of my fav Daniel vocal performances of all times: that one live at a TV show, "Rove" I think. I definitely even prefer that live version above what he did on studio. I'm talking about that performance of "Somewhere down the barrel", once again with The Dissociatives. Overnight, in a glance, it became one of my fav live performances of his, and that's because that specific performance, to me, shows Daniel's voice at his best, I mean, it shows a big baggage of so many different vocal skills and techniques used by him at its best, all in just one song: Head voice, chest voice, mixed voice, raspy voice, fry vocals, falsetto, growling; and all of that, changing through his different vocal modes, without even having a "passagio" cut, as if his voice was just simply floating free... I think that's a really great GREAT performance! - Maybe in that performance there were only left aside his great belting, his vibrato and those "whistle" stratospheric high tones, you got examples about that before-.
And here, some studio amazing vocal performances:
- His flips, comes and goes, "flourishes" and awesome vocal arrangements in songs like "After all these years" or "Point of view".
- His incredible screams in "Emotion Sickness" (to me, his MASTERPIECE 🖤)
- His screams in Israel's Son and here and there some great and cool raspy, head and chest voice in "Faultline" and vocal "cherrys" on "Cicada".
- That great "chain a waterfall, to a burned and withered skin" vocal mode. Don't know how it's called 👀
- Then, listen to his raw voice in Lie to me, a total TOTAL change of vocal technique! (technique I loved when he used it in their cover of Black Sabbath's Paranoid in Santa Monica, 1997; that just blew my mind!), or Spawn again, another vocal technique, again.
- His beautiful vibratos and so crystal clear and full of vibratos chest voice in "Reclaim your heart". I'm not really fond to his solo works but I have to admit that his voice improved even more -even when he, (to me, sadly) overuses almost only his falsetto voice-. BTW, it's another level of search and vocal reinvention what he did with his solo albums, but I particularly love his full, solid voice in Reclaim Your Heart, another new nuance but now, with full vibrato. So many different nuances actually, ohhh that man!!!
Yeah, that's what I can write for now... I have many more but this could become endless... (All of that performances are available on YouTube, but you can ask me if you can't find some of them).
Do you have another great performances in mind that you wanted to add to the list?
It seems to me that among all of that different vocal techniques he manages (which I've already mentioned) singing with and without vibrato, tons of support to sustain notes even without vibrato, trembling and/or or breaking voice to add drama when he consider it, melismas, airy voice, full and clean voice and much more, and as the cherry on the cake, he, reaching from the 2nd octave totally clear and powerful to the sixth with the same clearness and power.... 🤯 just blows my mind!!!
And in SO MANY of those vocal colors/nuances/techniques he totally nailed it!, in my opinion, as a singer, amateur, I mean, without specific studies but with some experience about that matter; even so, I barely stayed in my head voice and that's all, end of story...
In summary, Daniel's voice rules!!! 🖤 Even when he wasn't classically trained as it was, for instance, the great Patton. Anyway, I honestly think that he and his former band definitely deserved better!!!!
I leave you here a personal playlist I made with some of my fav Dan performances, all live ones I talked you about are there (you can find all studio versions on Silverchair's official YouTube channel or Spotify)... Said that, just enjoy it!
Finally, as I told you before, I suggest you to listen the podcast "Too much of not enough: A Silverchair podcast" if you wanted to dive and surf into some Silverchair gems through their music and composition skills.
Sorry for this long long text... I got excited 🫣 and yeah, obviously, I'm totally obsessed with their totally great music and with that totally awesome Daniel's voice! I should've started this with some LONG TEXT ALERT!, but now it's too late XD
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