The Glorious Sons – Brett Emmons Interview – The Vocal Files
Transcript:
Hi, I’m Mitch Seekins, the vocal coach, and welcome to The Vocal Files.
Today, I’m talking with Brett Emmons, lead vocalist of The Glorious Sons. [Music]
Hailing from Kingston, Ontario, The Glorious Sons over their 12-year history has hit some pretty amazing milestones. To date, they’ve had 13 top 10 Canadian hits as well as two US number ones, and have two Rock Album of the Year Juno Awards. The group tours the world playing huge venues, and has even opened for the Rolling Stones three times. I talked to Brett about his journey and the trials and tribulations of being lead vocalist for one of Canada’s top rock acts. If you enjoy this, give me a thumbs up and follow for more.
Mr. Emmons, good morning. Good morning, how are you? I’m doing fine, how about you? I’m good. It’s bright and early on a Saturday morning, thanks for doing this. No problem, thanks for having me. Excellent. So I’m just going to kind of fire off some questions and just, you know, give me your thoughts and let me know how things work for you.
Yeah. Okay, so how old were you when you began this whole insane journey of making music and singing for a living?
When we started getting, I guess, relative success, I was 19 or 20. When you started getting relative success. But what was the build up to that? Like, how did you begin this whole thing? Did you start when you were a kid? Yeah, well, I started early and then quit for a while. Okay. Yeah, I started guitar lessons and I think I was just too young.
I was the kid who was always singing to himself in the bathtub in the shower and kind of wanted to be a superstar even when I was like nine years old. Yeah.
And I quit for a while just because I, you know, I think the focus wasn’t there. And then in high school, I was hanging out with this guy and basically said, you seem crazy enough to be a frontman.
And I said, all right, cool. And I joined this punk band and we started jamming in his friend’s basement.
Stuff like what’s that band called? The song is called Skulls, The Misfits. And I was kind of like exposed to all the music that I’d never really even knew existed. I was probably a great nine or ten and I was really a classic rock guy. Right. And anyways, long story short, that lasted for about two months and then they kicked me out of the band because I wasn’t a good enough singer.
And yeah, and I didn’t I like I started to like some more punk stuff, but mainly I am like a rock and roll guy. That’s I love the soul and the swing of rock and roll. And, you know, I love the voices, obviously. And so I started my own band with my best friend, Shane Doubleman, and a guy named Richard Storms, who is like a savant at this time. I’m telling you, he was like so fucking good at playing guitar in high school. It was he wasn’t just like good at playing other people’s songs. He was creating amazing riffs as a as a guy in high school. And Shane love John Bonham. So he like actually got pretty good at the kick pedal thing. And we started a rock and roll band. And I took I took the song We Kings by the Tragically Hip and my brother’s acoustic guitar and I played it probably.
I would say probably over 500 times until my voice until my voice sounded good to myself singing.
So OK, good. Because I’d sing it and it wouldn’t sound good. I wouldn’t know what I how to do it. And I just basically locked myself in my room and got slowly better and better and better and better at singing. And that was a song that I developed some kind of voice to as a kid. Yeah. And then we went to Battle of the Band and I got Beth Singer and we ended up beating them out and the band that kicked me out. And from there on, my journey was created and I was just addicted to it. Like after that, it all started with a little bit of spite and a little bit of, you know, I really wanted to prove I wanted to prove somebody wrong. And now me and the guy are still kind of good, not good buddies, but buddies. He hangs out with my best friend. Yeah. And I see Jordan who kicked me out of the band. I see him like, you know, six or seven times a year and we have drinks and hanging out. Well, I mean, you were kids and now you’re adults. And, you know, I mean, it was a lot the same for me. You know, don’t tell me I can’t do something. And then I mean, I got I got addicted to it like at an early age as well. Like it was just it was just such a yearning for me to do that. Yeah. And it seems like the same thing for you and for a number of other people that have interviewed. There’s that thing. There’s that urge to do that. So like in the beginning, so you were kind of doing a punk thing. Was there anybody in particular that was like a real influence vocally for you? None of that punk stuff really influenced me vocally. Like it didn’t hit me enough to really want to like emulate Johnny Rotten or something like that. No. No. That’s the thing is, I think even I couldn’t sing it necessarily because I was trying to emulate it. But there was no soul attached to what I was trying to do. So really the stuff that actually the people that I when I joined started a rock and roll band, the people that really kind of kicked me into gear was Lane Staley. I would put on Alton Chains and try to get my voice as heavy and as strong as his. And I’d sing I’d sing the rooster and I could never quite get it, but I would just scream it as hard as I could. And that that helped me a lot. And I think that helped me develop a pretty strong voice.
I think also you get used to the pain, like because I wasn’t singing properly, but you get used to a certain amount of pain that that’s you can then withhold. Do more. It’s a shape thing. It’s like it’s an athletic thing. So you’re getting in shape. Yeah. The more you do, the more you can, whether it’s proper or not, there’s you still increase your endurance, your stamina, what you can do tonally, texturally.
Yeah. Yeah. Ronnie. Ronnie Van Zandt. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who else? I mean, I was as a child, gigantically and ACDC. By this point, I wasn’t as, you know, trying to emulate Von Scott or Brian Johnston. But yeah, and a lot of soul like the guys that stole and scratching this in their voice, Bob Seger. Yeah. I just those are the voices that I always like, gravitate to. They were the ones that blew my mind, like how it made. I told my buddy once, like, singing to me is like measured pain. And that’s how I hear voices, too. It’s like when you can hear the pain in their in their in their singing. Like, not exactly throat pain, but, you know, soul, the soul. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So now when you when you started, so you went from there and the glorious sons just kind of organically happened. Like you started writing songs or like that. How did that all come about? Well, there’s much more to it. So the dream for we were called Stone City Limits, that bands. Yeah. And our dream was to move to Toronto together and then after high school and just try it. But, you know, life ended up happening. You know, people stuck around town. Everybody went to different schools, whatnot. But Jay and I, my brother, would obviously Jay had a band as well. So Stone City Limits would open for him. Oh, yeah. And his band, the Sauce. And we played all these bars when we were like 16 and 17.
Me and Jay were always around each other playing music. Yeah. And our dream was always, you know, to be in a band together, too. Yeah. So then we started a band called the Stone Ponies and that was a kind of a rock thing. And we did about three or four songs, recorded them. And then we started a band called The Ranchers Together. And this was during summers or whatever. I was living with him and his buddy, Scott. I think me and my parents were fighting or something at the time, I forget. And what ended up happening was I went to school, introduced Jay to Adam, who was our drummer now. Yeah. Yeah. And they started jamming. And I would come home and I would hear how good they were. And at first they’re calling me to come join the band. And I’m like, yeah, fucking right. Like I’m out here on the East Coast. I’m hardly doing school. I’m trying to pursue music out there. Yeah. And I’m going I’m not I’m not going home like that’d be crazy. I wanted to do something on my own. Right. And I came home on Christmas and I heard them. I said, what the fuck is this? Like, what am I doing? Like, this is so much better than anything I’m doing. And I went back to school. I got into a little bit of trouble and I just called my brother and I said, hey, man, can is the option still open for me to come join the band? And he was like, yeah, I’ll get you a job. You can come work for me and we can start jamming. And I came home and started working for him as a contractor during the days. And we’d go and play gigs at night. And that’s how Stone or the Gloria’s son started. Wow. When the Gloria’s son started recording, like, was there I mean, your vocal sound, did it just kind of grow organically with the tunes that you were doing? It was just you in the studio? Or did you kind of think, okay, I don’t want to do that because that sounds like so and so. Like, how did you create your own sound like? Well, there were three singers in our band at first. Okay. And for me, I started kind of as a hype man in a way, like I’d be smashing a tambourine and I would do certain vocal parts of the song like that would stick out. Yeah. And I always had a voice that was balls to the walls. Like, right. I didn’t know how to temper anything. I couldn’t sing harmonies because I couldn’t pull back. Yeah.
Stuff like that. And basically, what happened was we just kind of decided with our producer, John A, when we went to record the first time that my voice was the most effective. And he and he basically told us like,
I’m not going to be the only singer. And wow. And that created some band problems, obviously. Yeah. And I was, at the time, too young to address any of it. I didn’t really didn’t want to have the conversations. And none of us really did want to talk about it. So we just went with the flow. And I ended up singing the album. And, you know, I think naturally, I was never like,
I’m a very.
The wrong word is good, but I was never a good singer in the sense I never had great range or control over anything, but I always had fun. Yeah. And I and and I always you could, like I said, hear the pain or the soul. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. In my voice. Yeah. And it just worked out in that sense. So that was the first album in it and first EP and in it and it did well for us pretty much right away. As far as developing a style, I think I developed that style ever since I was a kid, because I never knew how to do anything 50 percent. So I would just go to sing and it would come out as really thick, really loud.
Yeah. And gravelly. Yeah. Great. Then you guys started touring. Like tell me about your, you know, your experience vocally touring. So as soon as we started touring, any time that we would go and play like three or four shows in a week. Yeah. My voice had just started to just disappear and obviously that was a worry for me. So I went to this vocal coach named Molly in town here and she taught me actually how to breathe and support my voice properly. Yes.
And we beat it in the shape and it it was like probably a five month process before our first like real big tour across Canada. And I ended up going on tour and pretty much sounded great. But it took a lot of work because it would just disappear on me. And as soon as it started being real, it started to just disappear. And I think that’s kind of the journey of every vocalist. To be honest, you hear everybody’s story is kind of like that. Like, yeah, I think they reach a they reach a point in the road where their natural their natural instincts don’t actually help them anymore. Don’t save them anymore. Once you did some studying, it helped a lot and and you were able to sustain stuff. Yeah. Talk to me about, you know, vocal recovery, like how do you how do you how do you manage, you know, those issues from, you know, back then to now like what do you what do you do? Is that has anything changed? Well, it’s all I think age aging. Yeah. When I was 22, I wouldn’t have to do much for vocal recovery at all. I could I could stay out till six in the morning and get up and sing. And I mean, that’s kind of, I think, also a genetic thing. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just had a stronger voice maybe. Yeah. But that started to disappear probably around three or four years ago. And now it’s kind of I drink pretty much enough water to wake up basically twice in the night and pee.
And, you know, I basically I start doing little warm ups as soon as I wake up in the morning. Yeah.
You know, you got me on the air humidifier humidifiers. Yeah.
Yeah, I think like the main thing is just don’t use it too much, you know, but then we’ve talked about this our schedule to we will jam for an hour and a half at soundcheck and then do VIP and stuff. And you always kind of laugh at me and do that. You grimace. Exactly.
So it’s a it’s a bit of a moving target for me. But basically, when I’m doing it right, the vocal recovery is just a lack. Don’t you don’t use it as much. Yeah. Drink as much water as possible.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rest and, you know, you try to get as much rest as you can drink lots of water. And that’s not the working part. That’s almost the part where you know what I need to know when I’m going to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rest and you know, you try to get as much rest as you can drink lots of water. And that’s not the working part. That’s almost the part where you need to know when not to work. Yes. Yeah. And that’s kind of more with the psychological thing. You have to get to know when not to fake yourself out. Yeah. I would even sing this the same song that’s down check to try to get my voice better for a song. Yeah. And what I’d end up doing is actually spiking myself out for the show. Yeah. So now I’ve realized when it’s day of show, don’t worry about that song that’s causing you a problem. Just go out there and sing it that night and have fun. And do less during sound check. Yeah. So that’s another thing. Yeah. I mean, I’ve only learned that over the last four or five months, I’d say. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is it is athletic. Right. So if you know, if you if you go and work out,
during a sound check, essentially, you know, work out vocally during the sound check, you’ve wasted all the energy that you need to, you know, have for the show. You know, there’s a time of recoup where you can recoup between sound check and showtime. But sometimes it’s just not enough. You know, if you’ve completely, you know, expended everything in the sound check. So I mean, sound check is not a workout. It’s a warm up and
you know, check things out and make sure, you know, you can hear everything in the room. And then I mean, you know what it’s like, you know, doing a sound check in a room, but then the room fills everything bloody changes anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, Oh my God.
How long does it take you like, what’s your preparation for, you know, recording or like going on a tour? So you know, you got something coming up. What do you what’s your regiment for that? Like, do you do you? What do you do? Well, we’re I’m learning to do a little bit less, like I said, you know, and be confident in myself. Yeah. But you still have to get vocally into that. But you still have to get vocally in shape. So like if you’ve had three months off between tours or, you know, the end of the album cycle, you finish the touring cycle, you’ve got three months off. If you’re going, you get a shape. If you’re going on a tour, if you’re going for me, if I’m going on a tour again, it’s like a good two weeks, like two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. But not overkill. Like it can’t be two weeks straight.
Because that happened this last tour, the first tour for the glory tour when it started. We’d lost a member and we did three weeks every day trying to learn these songs. And my voice down it’s pretty amazing a weekend. But after, you know, two more weeks of damage by the time I get on tour, I sing really well. The first three nights for the show. I remember it was the third show. I went to sing this high note and my voice just kind of disappeared. Right. And I knew, OK, here, here it comes. So and then I sing the rest of the set. And then by the fourth show, it was getting like it was going from being this big to like,
you know, this small. And then the only thing that we could do is I had to get some steroids, hold up in a hotel, cancel a show, drink a ton of water. Yeah. And it held up for the rest of the tour, but not in a way where it sounded like me. It sounded like I was hitting the notes. Yeah. But it was it was light, very light. Yeah. Was this before we started working together? Yeah. This is why we started working together.
OK. Right. Yeah.
Ah, yeah.
When here’s something slightly different. So when you when you when you’re writing tunes, how do you approach that? Do you approach it voice first or do you kind of get a structure and then figure out what you’re going to do vocally afterwards or does it just the whole thing just kind of morph as it as it develops?
In the studio and you know, from writing to the studio to the finished product. It depends because it generally it can happen any way, really. But it generally happens three ways either. I need to get something out lyrically. So I’m writing kind of like a fake poem. Yep. And then up, sit down and thinking about it. And the melody will come kind of with the guitar and then the other way is this is the most normal way is basically I just sit on this couch every evening for.
Anywhere from.
Two to sometimes 10 hours. Wow.
And I just sit there fiddling away with my guitar on something on a riff and.
As soon as something feels like it’s catching a little magic, I start to, you know, explore that, explore that crack. And that’s generally the way it does. And then the other way is if I’m walking or fishing or doing anything active, a lot of times I’m just singing, playing around with my voice. And then I’ll start to sing, you know, something in the air and then I’ll come home and put the guitar to it. But that stuff generally tends to be a little bit more soulful. Yeah. Your imagination is just going because it’s yeah, it’s spontaneous. It’s not thought out. There’s no limits to it either. There’s another thing, whereas if I’m sitting with the guitar, generally, that’s when you find more of the folky kind of stuff that I’m doing. And it’s harder for me to really muster up the courage to go high and hard. And I’m, you know, I’m slouched over on a couch. I probably have two or three glasses of wine in me. You know, had a little bit of a joint or something. So I’m like just sitting there chilling. So I like to really get up and do the thing is like, God damn it.
Yeah, I those are the three ways I would say. And then the other way is I guess there’s four in the sense that in the jam room when we’re all together with the band, with the band. But generally, I have a hard time coming up with melodies with so much going on around in my ears. Yeah. So it’s easier for me to work out a melody and a thought on my own. Yeah. And then bring it into the jam room afterwards and let it kind of organically grow from there. Yeah. Cool. So you’ve been you’ve been doing this for a lot of years now, like 10 10 years now. The glorious sons is 10 years. No, no, it’s more than that. What’s how old I’m like.
I was 19 and I’m 31 now. So 12 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of, you know, studying voice, because I mean, that’s what we do. But, you know, any thoughts on studying voice and how it’s helped your craft, your ability.
What it actually is, it helps in a really in an unconscious manner, I think a lot of the times.
Because if you’re when we’re doing scales or whatnot, the first thing I noticed when we were working when we were doing scales and I was using my voice, you know, practicing with you to two times a week, sometimes three. What would happen was when I went to sit down on the guitar, I would go to notes that I wasn’t going to before. Yeah, because I’m hitting them and I’m using them before. So they become more, they become more natural. Yeah. For you. Yeah. And you’re not scared of them anymore. Yeah, it expands your instrument. What you’re what you can do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And another thing is obviously singing high. And like, and not too high. That’s the other thing is giving yourself kind of more confidence in that mid range, which always I used to think of that mid range is high for me because it was powerful. Yeah. But I can actually sing way higher than that. Yeah. Yeah. And now after practicing, I’m realizing that mid range is actually the sweet spot where I can actually do things that, you know, my voice sounds like me and like nobody else. Yeah. And it’s allowed me to kind of shoot for that more in songs rather than just going for the big thing. Because now that I, once you get better at singing going for the big thing is higher than it was before. But it doesn’t mean it sounds that good. Oh, I know. I know. And that’s I tell everybody, just because you can sing those notes doesn’t mean you should. Yes, you know, exactly. And the thing is, but if you if you if you work on those notes, it makes everything below that. It makes everything below that sweeter and easier and easier and it sound with more control and, you know, and yeah, it is. It’s a sweet spot. Yeah.
Is there anything you know that we’ve particularly worked on that sound that that stands out as a game changer? Is it like blending or is it breathing? Is it support? Like what? What? The breathing, the breathing is huge. The breathing is really huge. And then the blending obviously is huge because and false that I think is probably actually the most important one because now I can sing harmonies when I’m in the studio. Yeah, even to myself and I can have control, control over these ranges that I thought that I would just have to basically belch out and see what happened. And now I now I feel like I can, you know, sing it confidently. And I don’t have to scream it. Yeah. Is another thing. Yeah.
Yeah. And like, again, it sounds less ugly. So that’s nice.
That’s always good. Yeah. Yeah. So do you have any personal tips that you want that you may want to share with any, you know, vocalists, whether they’re just starting out or or, you know, be gigging for a while, like any kind of nuggets of wisdom that you can go, well, this journey is, you know, that kind of thing. Anything you think of?
I think. I think you got to listen to your body and you can go online and look up a ton of stuff and they’ll tell you what’s good and bad for you. And, you know, basically, you can confuse the hell out of yourself as a singer. And I managed to do that in the worst way, probably four or five years ago. And it didn’t it didn’t stop till this year and singing became a relationship that I didn’t even like. I didn’t even like singing. I used to tell people I like to song, right? I like to perform. I hate singing. And it’s a real shame because I actually have a good, unique voice and I never I never let myself actually just I did let my youth let myself and I stopped letting myself just go explore and be me and make mistakes. Yeah. And I’d be worried if I eat cheese, I’d be worried if I didn’t if I drank too much water. Somebody told me if you’re drinking too much water, it does nothing for you. You know, you can go and confuse the shit out of yourself. And really, I think that for about three or four years that I didn’t allow myself to have fun. And now I’m just finding my voice again. So don’t confuse yourself. You know, do listen to your body. Do the things that you think you should to thing. Go get help. I would recommend everybody finding a teacher, a vocal coach. Don’t go to five of them like me. Don’t try five different teachers in a year. It’s the dumbest thing you can do because they’ll tell you all different things. Different things I know. So find somebody that you like. Yeah. And one thing that helped for me too as a male was finding a male vocal coach, too. Right. I don’t I don’t know necessarily why but I think we do maybe think different than females. So it is it is slightly different. Although what I teach women to do is actually sing like a guy. Okay. Sing like a tenor because that is how pop and rock and punk, you know, is done. The voice is different structurally. But, you know, the approach is the same. But and every teacher is different. You know, I teach what, you know, I know and I’ve learned over the years and tried over the years and I’ve been practicing over the years, you know, so but yeah, no, you’re right. The you know, the internet can be incredibly confusing. And if you do try five different teachers, man, you’re not gonna settle on anything, you know, that’s gonna stick with you. So like that. So just have fun. Yeah, mainly and, you know, practice. But don’t kill yourself about it because really people just want to hear you be yourself. And that’s right. They don’t they don’t they don’t think of the athletics of what you’re doing. They don’t think of they just want to see somebody go on the stage, be themselves and, you know, have fun. That’s always what’s translated. It’s never changed. Ever since popular music has started. That’s what’s translated. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, for the tech guys out there, like, do you have a preference for a microphone that you use in on the road or like on stage or versus studio or do you just kind of, I’m gonna, I’m gonna tell you what I tell people all the time. Wrong, wrong guy.
I got I got Peter in the band helped with that sound guys. Brendan, Brendan JB, who was our sound guy before they got me on to stuff that they think is best. And I stay the hell out of it. I don’t I don’t ever. Perfect. Yeah, perfect. Because I mean, that’s really not your job. But some guys do have a preference and I like the phone, you know, but sometimes I wish I had more of an knowledge about it. But anytime I started to do a microphone, I started to think about it.
I started thinking about the technical things, my brain starts to get overloaded. And any of the creative thing just starts going like this and getting squashed, which is which is your job. The creative side is your job. I tried. I tried getting logic during COVID. Oh, yeah. I was gonna record myself and learn how to do all this stuff. It was a big dream and stuff. And I must have did the same acoustic track take like over 100 times. And I switch up the strumming a different way. And all this stuff like, oh my god, like, have I been strumming it wrong? And then it’s like, it literally all it does is just my brain just starts going like this and it confuses the shit out. I mean, by the end of it, I can’t even I can’t even I can’t just turn if what I had was actually ever good in the first place or anything because I yeah, yeah, I had the same experience. It’s just ended up twisting knobs way too much and not singing, which is what I wanted to do. It’s like, Oh my god. I was like, somebody to do that. You know, like when you learn the power of reverb for the first time in a duty and you want everything to sound like it’s in a canyon. Yeah, I know. I know. Well, thank you so much for doing this man. I really appreciate it. That was awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks, man. And looking forward to the next record and the next tour. I’m seeing you this summer. That’s gonna be great. Thank you very much, man. Thank you, Mitch. All right.