My name is Brandon K (you know this), and I love metal in all forms (you know this too), and many of you have read my posts about the brutal bands I love (and many of you don't). And I give NUN F*CKS.

So I've featured many of my favorite bands in those blogs, but I haven't talked as much about many of my favorite frontmen for some my favorite bands. And no, not all of them front brutal metal bands. I know, shocking.

A great band is pure excrement without a great front man. Just look at the Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington. Pure shit. He belongs in Linkin Park and he needs to stay there. STP is not STP without Scott Weiland, but he's now deceased. As Mr. Macke would say, "Drugs are bad, mmmkay." I liked Scott Weiland in STP, but that was about it. Together, they made some great songs.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand: my favorite frontmen. Obviously, I won't list them all in this blog, but I'll at least get off to a start. I will most likely require additional blogs to get through the list of frontmen that I call my favorite. And just because they are MY favorite, does not necessarily deem them the greatest of all time, so before you hunt me down and threaten to kick my ass because I said I like this guy more than this other guy, and how the f*ck could you leave this guy out.....CHILL! This is MY imperfect list, meant for yours and my entertainment. So Kit Kat and give a guy a break.

My favorite frontman is, drumroll....Vincent Bennett. He's the only remaining original member of The Acacia Strain and they f*cking rule. He kind of looks like a badass version of Eric Wareheim (high fives if you know who he is), covered in tattoos and growling his way through the band's sets and engaging his audience. While I liked many of the members of The Acacia Strain, without Vincent, there is no band. He's also straight edge, so he's better at treating his body as a temple than I am. He likes double cheeseburgers (maybe) with water or soda and I like double cheeseburgers with water and soda and beer and liquor. Because Vincent is my favorite, you get an interview and a turrible quality live song with some fat guy who is not on my list of favorite frontmen doing part of the chorus:

Now that Vincent is out of the way, I'll list a few more frontmen I like in no particular order. How about Scooter Ward, from the band with two of my favorite albums of all time, the self-titled Cold and 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage, Cold. These guys have been around for a long time, hence the shitty video quality of the clip below. Scooter has a unique sound and quickly became one of my favorites many years ago. Their later work isn't as great as their first two albums, which are primo shit. Here's one of my favorites from about 15 years ago:

Chino Moreno!!! Chino f*cking Moreno! This guy is one of the all time best frontmen for me, along with the Deftones being one of the most solid, consistently badass f*cking bands around. I have a friend that met Chino on the street in Minneapolis and had her picture taken with him. I'm so jealous...that bitch! Chino sings, screams and plays guitar in between better than nearly anyone else around. Once I was introduced to the band with "Bored" I was totally sold. For me, White Pony is the band's best work, but their entire body is excellent. This is definitely one of the bands I want to see before I die or they quit playing. Bassist Chi Cheng was involved in a serious car accident and died of cardiac arrest in 2013 after being in a near comatose state for like four years---that news was like a baseball bat to the gut. But the Deftones carried on. Chino's side projects are dope as well and definitely deserve some attention.

One more for this blog. More to come...I can't limit my favorite frontmen to just 4 dudes. But it is a blog, not a novel. It's already probably too damn long as it is. So, here's my fourth and final for this edition: Isaac Brock. This guy is beyond unique. His style is raw, aggressive, jarring and transcendent. I lived on the song "Cowboy Dan" in college, perhaps sometimes under the influence of a certain plant, which made the song at loud volumes with speakers as tall as a power forward in the NBA even that much better...more like a life altering experience...if it was the good shit. While "Cowboy Dan" is my all time favorite tune by Isaac Brock and the boys, "The Whale Song" is a close second. Hearing the craziness in his voice along with the building to a frenzy guitars, it sends chills down my spine every time. And Isaac is crazy, having battled substances and alcohol along with cutting himself onstage with a pocket knife at one point, his soul bleeds for his music, literally. He's cleaned up now and Modest Mouse are chugging along, making new music. But for me it's all about the cowboy.

 

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