Fire these frontmen – ASAP!

Fire these frontmen – ASAP!
By DARRYL STERDAN, QMI Agency
Posted 10 hours ago

NORTH BAY - It's the singer, not the song. For better or worse.

Just as a stellar vocalist can elevate a mediocre band, a lousy set of pipes can make an otherwise decent group fall flat on their face harder than Axl Rose in France. Axl notwithstanding (and somewhere Slash is still chortling), it sadly seems there's more of the latter than the former going around lately. Here are five bands that need to fire their frontmen ASAP:

Van Halen

David Lee Roth has always played by his own rules. But on VH's latest tour, it seem Diamond Dave isn't even in the game anymore. He changes melodies and lyrics, ad libs ad nauseam, scats over solos and generally acts like he can't be bothered to sing on time or in key. Nobody expects him to be a robot. But if he can't even pay lip service to the material, maybe it's time for a change. I'm pretty sure Gary Cherone is available.

Mötley Crüe

If you didn't know better, you'd think Vince Neil has been taking lessons from Roth. He also plays fast and loose with lyrics and melodies, his voice is surprisingly thin, and he seems to have difficulty sustaining notes or staying on key. Unlike Dave, however, Neil's problems seem to stem less from a runaway ego and more from a simple lack of talent. Maybe it would help if he stopped bolting around the stage like a ninny.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers

I've said it before and I'll say it again: RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis is truly one of rock's most visible triple threats. He can barely hold a note, he's an abysmally amateurish rapper and his lyrics are little more than gobbledygook and hippie gibberish cobbled together from rhyming dictionaries, atlases and any other reference book he apparently happens to have handy. And that's not even taking his porn-star mustache into account.

Nickelback

Another repeat offender. Singer-guitarist Chad Kroeger may not have invented that post-grunge moose-in-heat bellow he relies on, but nobody does it better. And by better, I mean worse. Trouble is, even if his bandmates fired him, it wouldn't help: Since he's the group's leader and main songwriter, they'd instantly be dead in the water, while he would just make solo albums. At least this way their combined lack of talent is confined to one band.

Limp Bizkit

To say Limp Bizkit have been ruined by Fred Durst's aggressively wretched rapping, sub-moronic lyrics and mook-thug antics is obviously silly; after all, it's not as if they'd be Led Zeppelin without him. Still, these guys must have developed incredible pain thresholds over the decades just to cope with the day-to-day horror. Perhaps they could share their secrets with young soldiers to help them survive torture at the hands of the enemy.