Have you ever tried to sing heavy metal and subsequently shredded the shit out of your throat, wondering how those black metal people can shriek on pitch, night after night? Well, Kelsey Luo can help. An extreme vocal coach at Pleasant Mountain Music, Luo helps train vocalists to sing—er, “sing”—like their favourite heavy metal vocalist, whether it’s grindcore, death metal, metal core, or anything in between.

How’d you get into this?

I started learning during Covid, only three years ago. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, but there just weren’t a lot of extreme vocal instructors around. It’s now something that we incorporate into our metal choir.

Metal choir?

Yeah! At Pleasant Mountain Music, we have a class called the Metal Choir—think of a choir, but with metal music. We transcribe sheet music and do the four-part vocals, but we’re just learning metal songs. And then we have a short extreme vocal portion at the end where people learn how to apply the techniques of extreme vocals.

How would you describe extreme vocals?

Extreme vocals are a vocal stylization that came from heavy music—I’d say classic heavy metal. It’s basically the same placement as clean vocals, it’s just coming from a lower placement. You take deep breaths, you engage your diaphragm, you keep your body straight—nice and relaxed. That’s the same technique that you use for extreme vocals, but you start from a place called vocal fry, then you just push more volume into that.

There are seven or eight different types. Once you master the false chord, which I’d say is the healthiest and the easiest technique to learn, you can incorporate the other styles, as well. With deathcore, it’s more known for gutturals, like pig squeals. With metal-core, it’s that classic mid-high pitch scream. Thrash metal’s more like the low gutter rolls, low to mid-pitched. So I’d say it’s like singing, but it’s more aggressive and it’s more shouty.

I first teach the basic metal scream technique, then teach pitches where we can make the tone higher or place it lower, depending on the style of music.

There are many stories about vocalists who have completely ruined their voices from screaming. How do you teach good technique to help prevent this?

It comes from the same placement as clean vocals. So if you can sing healthily without strain in your larynx, without tension, that’s the same technique that you’re using for extreme vocals—you just push more volume. So you really have to engage your whole body. It’s like doing cardio.

How do you do those high-pitched black metal screams?

It’s utilizing the same technique I described, but you’re curling your tongue. If you curl your tongue higher, you’re going to pitch the scream higher and feel like that vibration in the uvula. That pitches the scream as high as it can possibly go for your vocal range.

Do most professional metal vocalists do it properly?

I think they do, definitely. I think it depends on the style, but from everyone that I listen to, yeah, it sounds like they’re doing it the healthy way. You can tell when the tone or just the projection gets caught in the throat and they’re not pronouncing clearly—that’s how you can tell that they’re not using the right technique. But pretty much everyone I listen to sounds pretty effortless.

I really love Courtney Laplante from Spirit Box. She has a very consistent purr. It’s just that classical metal-core-type scream; it sounds like it’s done in a way where she articulates the words very well.

Chester Bennington’s vocals, even today, are so unique. He popularized pitch screams. It’s a technique where you utilize build screaming and singing at the same time, placing them together. It’s hard to do. You have to be good at both singing and screaming to be able to do that properly, and he’s one of the best vocalists in terms of the various types of vocal techniques he utilizes.

What sorts of people are coming to you for this kind of vocal coaching?

A lot of my students are either my age or older than me. They tend to be an older crowd. I feel like that’s the way with metalheads in general. They’re well educated people—a lot of them have corporate jobs and they’re very smart. I’d say there’s no one under the age of 18. The genre is not very popular for younger kids. I teach mostly clean vocals, but my adult students that want to learn metal are more interested in extreme vocals. It’s something they haven’t done before, because I feel like with the adults, a lot of them have learned singing before. So extreme vocals are next up. GS

Reach Kelsey Luo at pleasantmountainmusic.ca.