How Today’s Top Singers Are Trained w/ Eric Vetro

20:34Eric Vetro:Absolutely. And then there's other people that that's just how they sound. That's their tone. That's how they sing and they're fine, you know, but the better you take care of yourself, the better you take care of your voice, the longer it's going to last and the better it will sound. Yeah. OK, so I mean, I've heard before that, you know, taking a shot of whiskey or taking a shot of tequila before you go on stage helps loosen up your vocal cords. Don't do it if you're listening. Don't listen to her. Ignore this lady. She's crazy. OK, so that's a myth. It sounds like. You know, yeah, in a way it is a myth because, yes, I know if you talk to someone who does that, they say it loosens me up, it relaxes me.

21:13Eric Vetro:The problem with it is, well, first of all, alcohol in general can dry out your vocal cords. It can cause acid reflux. There's a lot of things. Yes, it does relax you, but it might relax you to the point where you're not supporting as much now because your body's kind of too relaxed. But sadly, often those habits lead to more and more because that one shot doesn't do the trick anymore. You know, after a few months, you might need a shot and a half or maybe two shots and then three shots. And that's the problem. And that's a syndrome that we've all watched and seen or read about or watched biopics about where it just gets out of hand.

21:49Eric Vetro:Yeah. So I don't recommend that. I say, you know, deep breathing techniques, meditating, all of the healthy things that you can do is so much better than something like that. One thing that I find really interesting about the voice is that it's so intrinsic to who we are. It is part of our body. Our body is the instrument when we're talking about the voice. But at the same time, there are trends with voices. There are certain ways of singing that are popular in one era versus another. I'm wondering if you can kind of explain some of the trends that you've kind of seen cycle through and where you think the trend is today.

22:23Is there a certain way that pop stars are singing that, you know, feels very of this moment to you?

22:28Eric Vetro:It's had so many changes as life in general. It just keeps evolving and changing. You know, I mean, I remember a time when every singer was putting in as many riffs as they possibly could. Oh, yeah. And then there was a time when they weren't. There was a lot of singers. As a matter of fact, there was an article I read years ago. I think it was called The Death of the Melisma Singing. You know, it was over, which wasn't really true. But yes, there were a lot of singers not singing with as many riffs. And then it came back and a lot of singers were again. I think we're living in, I believe, a kind of a golden age of vocal singers or singing in a way.

23:05Eric Vetro:Because almost everything now, if it's done well, is not only accepted, but applauded. You know, so for example, Rosalia's brilliant album Lux, I don't know if just a few years ago that would have been as embraced or appreciated as much as it is now. I don't know if people would have really appreciated the work that went into it, the skill for her to be able to sing all those different styles of music, classical, very operatic in some points, the orchestrations, those beautiful orchestrated songs. I don't know if that would have been as appreciated, but now it was totally embraced. but so is every other kind of singing there is, you know?

23:44Eric Vetro:So I feel like we're in a really great period right now because if you decide you want to sing jazz or if you want to sing blues or hip hop or whatever it is, you can do it. If you do it well, there's going to be an audience for it, which it wasn't always like that. So I think we're in a really great place right now, which I'm thrilled to be a part of it. Yeah, well, Lux is one of my favorite albums of last year. It's just gorgeous. I think, didn't you say there was like 13 languages or something crazy like that? Yeah, yeah. A ton of different languages. How does one prepare an artist to sing through all of these different languages, especially when those are really not, you know, maybe languages she's ever tried to sing in before?

24:23Eric Vetro:Right. Well, she was already, I think, pretty skillful at doing different languages. And, you know, she will always make jokes about her English not being perfect, but it's great. You can understand everything she's saying. and I've always never even thought twice about it. She has a really, really great ear. She has a really good ear for language. She has a good ear, obviously, for pitch and for music, for tone, all of that. So I think when you have that gift, then doing 13 different languages, it's not easy, for sure, not easy. And she worked really hard on it, but she did have an aptitude to do it.

25:00Eric Vetro:And she also is one of the hardest working people I've ever known in my life. So she's one of those people when she decides she's going to do something, she's going to make it happen. Yeah. She's just going to do it. Yeah. I imagine there are certain languages like maybe German or something that are really consonant heavy where you have to maybe adjust to that kind of style. Well, we worked so hard. I've worked with her for quite a long time. And there were times when we would go every day for months. I would FaceTime her wherever she was in the world, different countries, different places. and we worked a lot on vocal placement, healthy vocal placement, so that even if she was going to sing a language that might be considered a little bit more guttural, she still understood where she had to place her voice to keep it healthy and to sound its best.

25:46Eric Vetro:So if you understand that and have that technique, then you can try a lot of different things and still sound great and not worry about hurting yourself. You mentioned that you have FaceTimed with her to do some of these vocal lessons. I imagine you have clients that are just all over the world. Maybe it's for a world tour, or maybe they just live in a different country. World tours for years, but Ariana was all over the map. Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, all of them, Rosalia. And at times living in different cities. I have four or five people right now I work with in London who are regular students.

26:19Eric Vetro:I just see them on FaceTime. One I've worked with for probably about seven years, and we've only seen each other three times in person. Really? Yeah. Wow. And I love it in person. I prefer it, of course. But, you know, sometimes that's just the way it is. Is it hard to do a vocal lesson over Zoom when, you know, you can't see their full body and like the way that they're holding themselves? Well, yes, you can. We're constantly adjusting the camera. I'm always saying back up, tilt it upwards, do this, do that. I'm constantly having to move it around. But I've been doing it for so many years. I started with Skype, you know, that was how many years ago?

26:56Eric Vetro:12, 14 years ago. And I'm sure it was laggy back then. Oh, it was not good. But in those days, I was able to know the person's voice enough to know what they needed to hear and what they needed to do. Now the sound is so good. You really can hear them. And especially, you know, I don't want to go that the one person I was talking about three times in all those years. That's not optimal. I love it when I hear someone in person. But the sound has gotten so good. It really has. And they also, we don't just use the FaceTime. They'll send me voice memos. They'll send me recordings. I'll hear them in the recording studio.

27:30Eric Vetro:I'll make notes. Then I'll tell them. Then they'll do it again. They'll send me another voice memo. There's all sorts of ways of doing it. And I've done it for so many years now that I know how to do it. That's why when people during the pandemic were like, oh, I don't know how to do this. Oh, Zoom is so hard. I was like, what are you talking about? I've been doing a form of this for the last 10 years. There's nothing difficult about it. You make it work. Well, I imagine that means that your day starts really early and it's really late. It can. Yeah, it can. Because I might be doing a lesson to someone in Korea.

28:00Eric Vetro:One of my students lives there in Korea. So I might do that at 11 p.m. at night or midnight, you know. And then also when you're starting with people in London, Paris, France, all different places, that could be really early in the morning, you know. Or working on a movie set, doing it by FaceTime, even if they need to warm up at 9 a.m. on the East Coast, that means that's 6 a.m. for me. So I have to be up by at least 5 a.m. to be awake and ready to go at 6 a.m. Oh, my gosh. When did you wake up this morning? This morning, I didn't have to wake up that early. So it was great. I slept until 8, and it was fantastic.

28:38Eric Vetro:Oh, my gosh. If 8's your late morning. No, very late. We need to get you a vacation. That was great. I imagine that, you know, at this point, your schedule is really full. So how do you decide what projects to take on and which to pass on? That's a hard question. It's a juggling act. It's a constant, constant juggling act. But I try to work with people who I really think I can make a difference with. I try to work with people that I'm inspired by, often not just inspired by their talent, but by their work ethic. And I can tell right away that people have a really strong work ethic and I'm really drawn to those people and I get very excited by them.

29:15Eric Vetro:It inspires me to work harder. So that's part of it. And, you know, I mean, there's certain artists that I think I might not be the perfect person for them. So let me recommend somebody else that I think might be better. So it's just on an individual basis. I don't have one, you know, a list of, you know, pluses and minuses or anything. I just feel it at the moment, what I think. One thing that I wanted to ask you about is the National Anthem. Do you work with Charlie Puth? I do work with Charlie Puth for years. And he did the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. Yes, he did. That is just about the biggest stage you can think of.

29:54He's described it as like his take on Whitney Houston's National Anthem. No Easy Feet. Well, he was very inspired by her. Yeah, very inspired by her. So I'm curious. People say that the National Anthem is one of the hardest songs that a singer can be singing. Do you feel that that's accurate? It is a difficult song. I mean, it does have a wide range. I think what makes it more difficult than people realize is a lot of the held notes.

30:21Eric Vetro:There's a lot of held notes. So for someone who's been on Broadway or grown up with that type of music, then holding long notes is all part of it. But most pop songs don't have a lot of long held notes or notes that might have a lot of vibrato in them. The Star Spangled Banner, the highest notes are held for quite a long time. And that partly makes it difficult. And then, of course, you know, a lot of times, depending on the venue and the skill of the engineer who's working with your in-ears, if you're hearing yourself through in-ears, that can be very challenging getting to be able to hear yourself correctly because there's a lot of echo and reverb and all of that.

31:00Eric Vetro:And then, like you said, a huge stage and that can be daunting even for someone who's been performing their whole life. That is a huge crowd and that crowd is not there for you. They're there for the game. So, you know, because people say, well, they've sung at stadiums before and arenas and I go, yeah. But for audiences who were there for them, who came to watch them because they love them, not because they were there for a baseball game or a football game or whatever. And these aren't your crowd. So you're trying to win over that crowd or trying to please them or make them happy. Man. Yeah. That echo would really get to me.

31:35I know they have in-ears and everything, but still, I feel like it could very easily go wrong. Yeah. And the slightest adjustment in the in-ear can throw you too.

31:44Eric Vetro:I've had people come off and say, I couldn't hear myself. I could only hear the track or I could only hear the audience. I could hear people screaming. That was so many different things. Yeah. I think it might've been Alex Warren who performed at the Grammys this year. And he said that there was something going on with his in-ears. And there was, I think maybe like a weird echo thing that was going on and he really could not figure out where he was. And it's interesting. He pulled it off well. You couldn't even tell that anything had happened. It could happen at any time to somebody, you know?

32:09And the goal as a performer is just to keep going. Fake it till you make it. Yeah. Well, it's not even so much fake it. It's just never let them see you sweat. Do your thing because, you know, I learned a great lesson years ago. I took a lot of classes at NYU and also some at Juilliard. And one of the professors would say to us all the time, the audience doesn't really care if your dog died that morning, your mom died, your brother, if somebody was in a car accident. All they care about is getting their money's worth. They have come to see a great show. Now, I don't believe that's necessarily true in today's world.

32:47I think the audiences are very, very attuned and emotionally attached to the artists they love. So I think they do care. But I do think that that was something to think about. That, you know, if you're tired, you have a headache, got cramped, got constipation, whatever it is, the audience doesn't want to know about that. They just want a great show. And you have to do it. A performance of Ariana's that I really loved was when she was on The Ellen Show and singing Thank You Next. And she kind of slipped for a second. You could hear it in her voice. and afterwards they said, oh, we can do it again.

33:19And she's like, no, it's okay. The rest of it was great. It's real. I was live. I'm singing live, you know, things happened and it was all part of the performance. And I love that she did that because it made it so much more human. And I think that's why people react so strongly to her and love her so much. Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, there are so many tools now that you can use in the recording studio when you're recording a vocalist to make them sound better, better, like Melodyne. and autotune. I'm wondering how you feel about those as a vocal coach. Can you hear it when you are listening to a recording?

33:54Can you feel like, it feels like they shifted the pitch on this a little bit? Yeah. You know, my feeling has always been the degree of which they're using it.

34:03Eric Vetro:I mean, a touch here and there is different than changing an entire note. You know, like, I think that when someone says, oh, we'll fix it in the mix, but the note was wrong. Oh yeah, we can change that. Well, now you're really, well, you're really doing a little black magic here, you know? Why not? Let's just do another take and get it right. You know, why should, so I think it's the degree in how much it's used. And then with some artists, it's all part of the, their vibe. It's all part of their sound. That's true. Some people use autotune as like part of what makes their voice characteristic.

34:37Your T-Pain, for example, Drake. I never sit there and really judge it. I just like listening to the artist and if I enjoy their music, the sound of their voice, the motion they're putting into it, the lyric, I'm fine with anything. Yeah. So, I mean, how do vocalists that you work with approach recording something differently from performing live? I don't think they do. I think it's, they're just doing the very best they can at the highest level they possibly can in both situations. Got it. I mean, there's a lot more prep that goes into singing live. Often people will write a song and record it that day.

35:13And sometimes that day is the magic take. You know, so many times I've been involved where they'll go back to redo it to make it quote better.

35:22Eric Vetro:And then they can't recapture that spark that was there the first day. And they go, let's just use that original take. Yeah. Sometimes it's just the emotion in the moment. Yeah. It just makes something perfect. Exactly. One of my favorite things to do is to look at old songs and hear the vocals separated out. You know, it's pretty easy to separate stems these days. And so I've done that with vocalists like Michael Jackson or Freddie Mercury or whatever. And hearing the perfection that they were able to achieve with no tools like we have today. Right. And it's really remarkable. I mean, obviously, Whitney Houston, you know, the list goes on of people who can really nail it.

36:01But I mean, do you think that the bar for a vocalist has lowered given the tools that we have today? Or is that not the right way of looking at it?

36:09Eric Vetro:I think that it depends on the vocalist. I think that there are singers who they work as hard as they possibly can to be as good as they possibly can. And they want to perform at the highest possible level that they can. So those people know it's not affecting them at all. And they're not leaning on that or relying on it. There's going to be other people who do. They just don't work as hard or they don't have that work ethic as a part of them. Or maybe they just don't care as much and they're lazy. I don't know. You know, but I think it all really depends on the person. Because when you go way back, I remember years ago, I knew someone who knew, what's his name?

36:50Eric Vetro:Well, they knew Judy Garland. And because of her, they knew Tony Bennett. And they said that Tony Bennett would just rehearse it over and over and over and over. So when he hit the stage, he knew that music cold. And, you know, you could see it in the very last performances that he ever did that, you know, he had Alzheimer's. I believe it was Alzheimer's and sometimes didn't quite know where he was. But when the music started, when the intro started, he could sing it, you know, and that's why, because he had worked so hard. Or Frank Sinatra, you know, one of the greatest vocalists that he knew that music so well, he was known to go in and do it in one take.

37:27Eric Vetro:He would go in and do it in one take, you know. That's wild. And that's very unusual. Most people do a lot of different takes and then you comp it into one performance. But he just went in, did it, left. Just perfectly. But someone like that, you know they worked hard to get there. You know that they really rehearsed it. Yeah. Well, I want to learn more about how you got into this because I imagine you have a wonderful voice as well. So how did you decide that you wanted to be a vocal coach? Oh, gosh. Well, you know, it's funny because it started in grade school, believe it or not. Wow. Yeah. When I was in grade school in the third or fourth grade, I had a teacher who every morning we would sing some kind of patriotic song like The Star-Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful.

38:13And she did not have the gift of music. I mean, really, her piano playing was just, oh, my God. It was very upsetting to me. Even as a child, I remember being so frustrated with her lack of musicality. And she would play wrong notes. And it drove me crazy. And I wasn't a bold or an aggressive child. But I stayed after school one day. And I said, you know, if you'd like, I could play those songs for you. And she said, you could? And I said, yeah. And I sat down and I played through two or three of them. And I could tell she was really impressed and actually happy about it. So the next day, she made an announcement.

38:48From now on, Eric Vitro is going to play the songs in the morning. Probably no one else remembers that. I remember it as being an announcement heard around the world that everybody knew that I was going to be doing this. Like not just the people in my class and the little city I grew up in, upstate New York, but everybody. Oh, yeah. And that just started me, started playing the piano. I would go to friends of mine, my neighbor's houses who had pianos. The kids would sing along. When I was in the fifth grade, the most popular boy in class, or at least who I thought was the most popular boy, I think he was, asked me to teach him a song.

39:22I brought him home. I taught him a song. It bonded us for life. We could not have been more different. He was very athletic. I was a theater nerd. And yet we were bonded by that experience. And it just gave me the feeling of having something special. And then in high school, I played the piano for all the musicals for years while I was in high school. And so I was teaching kids songs and I was taking voice lessons at the time. And then I would take whatever I had learned and pass it on to them. So if I learned a breathing technique, I would teach them that. If I learned drop your jaw, whatever it was, relax your tongue, I would pass it on to them.

39:57And I remember distinctly one day that two of the teachers who were doing the high school musical, and our high school musicals were quite grand. They really were great. They rented a piano that Liberace used at Saratoga for a former art center that he had signed. For those of you who don't know Liberace, for those of you my age or younger who have no idea. I mean, my age, everyone knows, but younger. He was a very, very flamboyant, flashing piano player known to be quite good. And he was sort of like the gold standard. He really wasn't the gold standard, but he was thought to be because he was really good at the piano.

40:35And so our high school musicals were great. And I remember they pulled me aside and said, can you teach this one, this song, and this one, that one, and will you rehearse them? and I don't think my feet touched the ground for months because I was like, wow, they're putting this really important task in my hands. And so I've just done it my entire life. I never have done anything else. Yeah, so you've preferred to do the teaching role rather than be on stage yourself. I tried it. I tried, I did a few things in New York. I did a couple off-Broadway things and then, or off-off-Broadway, I should say way off-off-Broadway.

41:08And then a few things, There was an operatic company called Light Opera of Manhattan. I did a couple of things, but I didn't really enjoy it. I had a certain amount of stage fright. But what I did enjoy, what I realized was, was helping the other people in the cast. I would say, oh, here, let me help you with this. Or let me teach you this part or whatever. And I thought, well, that's what I really love doing. So let me just do that. But I can honestly say I enjoy it more today than I ever have. And I've been saying that for years, which means I keep enjoying it more and more. Every year I do.

41:39You mean it every time you say it. I really, really mean it. I love it. I love it. I can't get enough of it. What was your first big gig? Oh, gee. First big one. I don't know because they just kept graduating. You know what I mean? It was just such a little by little. It was like I worked with a couple actors who were doing Broadway shows when I lived in New York. And that seemed big. They weren't the stars at the Broadway shows, but they had secondary leading roles. And so that felt really big. And then I remember out here in L.A., a few of the people had roles like that. And then there was some recording artists.

42:16Then for a while, I sort of got a bit of a reputation as being able to help actors who were going to sing in movies or television shows. And so then the majority of my business for a couple of years was doing that, you know. And so it was like early movies, movies made for television, like the remake of Annie with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. Oh, wow. or Geppetto with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Andrew Carey, you know. And so it just kept going and going from there. And then movies like Chicago and Hairspray, it just kept going on and on, La La Land. So I can't think of one that was the big one, the first big one.

42:55Just steps up along the way. Yeah, exactly. That's what you want it to be. Well, looking back, yes, for sure. I mean, I look back and go, wow, that would have been, I don't know if I could have handled it if it had come. some of these things that I've worked on more recently, I don't know if I could have handled it. It was nice that it was so stepwise. Yeah. And so I'm sure there's going to be so many more biopics in the years to come, and I'm sure you'll work on a lot of them. I hope so, because I really enjoy it. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting. Some of these biopics take different paths with vocalists, because some of these vocalists were absolutely astounding who they're trying to emulate.

43:31I think Michael Jackson, good example. The Michael biopic was interesting. They didn't just do live vocals, but then in A Complete Unknown, you know, playing Bob Dylan, Timothee Chalamet sang all of that just by himself. And Monica sang. Yeah, and Monica singing Joan Baez. So I'm curious, when you get approached about these biopics, are people tending to sing live on set more often these days? It started happening, it seems like, yes, it seems like it is happening more often because they can. You know, and I think that's the thing. I think that it's all dependent on do they sound good live or not, you know?

44:11Now, a lot of them do a lot of pre-records just to have them or in the thinking that they're going to use them. But then when they get there, they realize, oh, they don't need to. They can do it live and let's do it because it looks better. It sounds better. All of that. And technology has gotten better. You know, when I first started doing this 30 years ago when I was working on movie musicals, that they didn't have the ability to record people live as well as they do now. Okay. You know what I mean? So there might be a little echo or there is a little bit of a hiss or whatever. And now they have gotten much more sophisticated with it.

44:46The mics have gotten more sophisticated. Everything about it has gotten better. So they can do it more with that. But also, here's the thing. I always say to someone, even if you are going to, if you're planning on doing it live, and I tell the directors of movies this, still do the pre-records because they will get better doing the pre-records. Because when you go in the studio and you do take 10, 15, 20 takes, whatever it is, and then you hear yourself back, you do it again. And then I always say, listen to it. Listen, what do you think? How do you think you can improve it? How do you think you can do it better?

45:14And they do it again. When they walk out of there, they now sound so much better when they sing that song. That's given them a lot of experience. It's really jumped them up a few levels. So I always say, do the pre-records, even if you're planning on doing it live. That's interesting. And I really didn't realize that the reason why live seemingly has gotten more popular from my vantage point as an outsider is honestly tied to technology. Yeah. And that it just wasn't quite as possible as it is now to do that well. A lot of those older movies, and I don't know this for sure, and I should check before I say, but I remember talking to some of the people who did some of them because I'm so old.

45:51And they were old at the time. I was young at the time. I could talk to them about it. But it was, you know, hanging microphones. There was no such thing as, you know, the mics that you hide in a wig or hide it right here. And those things just didn't exist. Battery packs. I don't think they were even invented when they were doing musicals. Like the sound of music or musicals like that. So everything has just gotten so much more sophisticated. They didn't have the technology. I remember when people started using cordless mics, sometimes it would pick up the police cars or the fire engines you would get.

46:25Car 52, car 52, you know. Right in the middle of a show, you would hear that. And so all of that's just gotten so much better. Yeah, yeah. That's super interesting to hear that. Well, another thing that I find to be interesting is that there are certain arenas where vocalists tend to lip sync more. And I think it's just because of the difficulty and the logistics of things. I think Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade might be an example of this. Or maybe New Year's Eve, something like that. But do you think lip syncing is necessary even for some of the best vocalists in certain instances? It has nothing to do.

47:03It has, I shouldn't say, nothing to do. It has little to do sometimes with the person's talent and just the factual situation. For example, Macy's Day, it is almost impossible on those floats to get somebody to capture that sound, to broadcast it out, to get it to sound good. They want those people to lip sync. No one is saying, I want to do it. They are saying, you need to do it to make this work. Otherwise, the sound isn't going to be good. And same thing, New Year's Eve. You know, sometimes it's so cold, the cold can affect the weather. I remember one person I was working in particular, it was actually Camila Cabello, and she was singing on New Year's Eve.

47:45And she said, I don't care. I would rather, I'd rather not sound as good and sing live than lip sync. She insisted on singing live because she said, I just don't want to lip sync. I don't I don't like the way it looks. I don't like the way it sounds. And I I want it to be genuine. So it's fine if I don't sound my best. That's OK with me. But that's what I want to do. And so and I know a lot of people who feel that way, that they would rather not sound 100 percent, but not be lip syncing. But, you know, some of those venues don't allow it. They just go, well, then I'm sorry. You know, that Macy's Day Parade.

48:19I don't remember any in particular that I can tell you right now, but I do know that they have said to some people, if you don't do it that way, we're not going to have you do it.

48:27Eric Vetro:And then sometimes they are on the stationary things, on the stages that they have. Then sometimes those people can sing live. Interesting. Well, OK, as I'm bringing out our wheel, I think it's time for us to get into some games. So this is a game we call Spin the Record. But as I'm pulling this out, I'm wondering if you got to see Ariana. She just performed in L.A. like two nights ago. Did I get to see her? Yeah, I'm sure you were front row. Do you not think I was there the first night? Or backstage. First night. No, I was out there up front watching, applauding, screaming, yelling. It was the most unbelievable experience.

49:04It truly was. And, you know, for me, because I've known her for so long, I was getting flashes of the past. You know, because we weren't just student teacher, but genuinely I think of her and her family like family, like my family. So we've spent Christmas Eve's. We've spent Thanksgivings. We've done so many different things along the years, had dinners, celebrated birthdays, all of that. So that was all going through my head, which was making me emotional. And then, of course, that performance was spectacular. And so that was emotional, watching the performance. So yeah, it was great. I had to be there that first night.

49:43I'm going again, by the way. I'm sure. Well, I'm curious, out of all the songs in her set, what's the hardest one? Like when she's coming up to that song, are you like, oh, this is the big one? Well, there's never one I worry about. I've always said that about her. I have never once been in the audience holding my breath that she could do something. I just know she can. I mean, she just always has. I don't remember a time when she disappointed. so um i don't know you know different songs are difficult for different reasons i think the dangerous woman is quite a difficult song and i would say that i think that that's very rare that anybody could sing that song like she sings it you know i mean i think i could say no one else could really yeah um so i would say maybe that song but you know she sings a lot of high notes She throws them in here and there.

50:34She's ad libbing all over the place. You know, she's doing riffs and runs, which she's always done. She has that great ear. And so it's hard to say because one song one night might be a little harder to sing because she's added something to it. And then the next night it could be a different song. Yeah, that's a good point. And I mean, when you add in choreography, because not all good singers also try to dance and move around. She's moving around. And I don't know if you've ever seen the size of the shoes, the heels. Oh, they're crazy. Yeah. I don't know how she does that. And then she does a backbend in this show.

51:07And then even at the end, I'm not giving anything away because it's all over the internet. I know what you're going to say. Where she ascends to the heavens. And she's singing while she's doing that. Oh, she is? Lying backwards. Yeah. It's so amazing. I just saw a photo of that from someone who went to the LA show. And I assumed that she was not singing because her head is all the way back. Your neck is strained. You know, if you watch them, there's a live performance of God is a Woman where she lies down on the table and lies backwards like that. And she's singing. Wow. And there's also a performance of her on the on an exercise bike singing side to side.

51:42Wow. Yeah. She can she can do anything. That's amazing. And I have to also have to give credit to my friend and student Pink, who, you know, spins around upside down and flies across that stage. Yep. like she's completely airborne and singing up a storm too. I got to see her perform for the first time live last week because I was in New York. So you saw the Tonys? I didn't go to the Tonys. I wish. She killed that. I didn't know that she could sing in that style as effortlessly as she did. Well, if you look back, she actually sang on the Oscars. I was there with her. She sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow for a tribute to Judy Garland and The Wizard of Oz.

52:21but you know that's what I was saying about as far as today's world about people accepting people from different you know genres or any type of voice but who would have ever guessed you know a few years ago if you had said hey we're going to have a pop star host and perform on the Tony Awards and I don't think anyone would have believed and for my money the two best performances on the Tony Awards were Pink this year the opening and then of course her doing the song from Chicago.

52:53Eric Vetro:She just killed it. She killed both those performances. For me, like I said, for my money, she was the best performer there. Well, who would have guessed that a pop singer would be able to do that and be accepted and applauded for doing it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was funny. I was looking at the comment section of all these Pink videos because she was all over my feed. And all of her fans were like, oh, this is light work for Pink. She can do anything. And I just did not realize the magnitude of her voice, but I saw her at this kind of music industry event. It's the NMPA annual meeting. She was being given an award and she sang through So What and a few of her other big songs.

53:30I just thought she was great. Anyways, okay. We have the wheel out. This is called Spin the Record. Spin the record for us and then I will tell you what they say. Oh, I spin it? Yeah. There are just some fun questions on here. No music? I know. Hey, we don't have budget for that yet, but we'll get there. We'll get there. Don't worry. Season three. Okay. So the question that you got is, what is your biggest vocal pet peeve? Ooh, my biggest vocal pet peeve. Well, I guess it would be out of tune singing. I just, but I don't think anyone can stand out of tune singing, but that's probably the worst.

54:09Followed a close second with tense, tight, you know, vein popping out of the neck kind of singing. I don't really like that. Or tight, tight voices that are just trying to make it. Oh, yeah. Does it hurt you to hear when a vocalist is, maybe they're giving a very emotional performance, but you can tell their strain while they're doing it. That's different, though. Emotional, I totally am on board for that. I love an emotional performance. And if it gets in the way of their vocal technique or they don't sound as good, I'm totally fine with that. If it's a genuine emotion, I'm down to loving that.

54:42Yeah. But yeah, it's that constricted straining, singing too high in a key that's not really meant for them. And I always feel sorry for the artists because I go, maybe they were pushed into it. Maybe management or whoever, the musical directors pushed them. You can do it. I know you can do it. Your adrenaline, blah, blah, blah, all that. And so I feel bad for them. So I never judge a person for it, but I really don't enjoy it. You have the right to not enjoy it. Yeah. So that would be my biggest pet peeve. Okay. Give us another spin. Let's see what else we get. All right. What is the craziest place you've ever given a vocal lesson?

55:21Oh, well, I've done quite a few crazy places. I'm sure you have. In my day. I would say I was out in a field. It was making a movie with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. And it was called Geppetto. And she played the Blue Fairy. And we went out in a field. and so they set up my keyboard on a trash can because there was no stand. Somebody forgot to bring the stand. So it was on a trash can and they had long, long extension cord. And then at one point somebody came over and said to me, if you drop something, just leave it there because there's a lot of poison ivy here. And I was like, oh, thanks a lot. Like, first of all, now you tell me.

56:06Oh, my God. Oh, great. Yeah, he said, just don't, if you drop a pencil, a pen, whatever, leave it, or we'll come over with gloves on because there is a lot of poison ivy. And so then, right in the middle of our warmup, they were doing, they had, it was one of those smoke machines, but it started with like flames or something. I don't know. I think this, remember, this was like over 30 years ago. This might not be approved today. It started the field on fire. And then they had to put the fire out. They started a wildfire on accident. So this was like, yeah, this was one of the craziest. But there's been other ones.

56:45Recently, a few months ago, I did one, though, that I thought was really funny, where I was at home in my music studio and Charlie Puth was on a private jet flying over from Europe. So he's on a private jet over the ocean having a voice lesson. Wow. And I thought, we are truly in the space age. We are truly living. And I've done them where I've been. Oh, there's another one. I was warming up someone who had just landed in London. They were in a car on their way to a radio station to give a live performance. I was in my car on an iPad keyboard on my phone, FaceTime on my phone. I pulled over to the side of the road and I warmed them up from my car on Coldwater Canyon.

57:25And they were in London in the back of a car being driven to the radio station. Wow. How about that? You'll do anything. That is crazy. You gotta do what it takes. I don't think anything tops getting basically poison oak, poison ivy, trying to do a film set, though. Isn't that crazy? That one is wild. And I've been in a lot of bathrooms, too, because the echo is good, and it's the only place we can have privacy. And so sometimes you just gotta... Why is it that I sound so much better in the shower?

57:55Eric Vetro:Well, that echo, that reverb, it just... Okay, it's just the reverb. Oh, my God. It enhances your voice so much in so many ways. I sound really good in the shower. so well i you know i maybe you should not as much yourself there not not as much in real life my voice is good it's not spectacular but i'll give us i'll let him sing for me and i'll tell you what i think all right okay one more yeah it's been the opposite way okay okay um what is your advice for an artist who has to perform that night but they woke up with a sore throat freaking out and they call you and they're like eric help me what am i supposed to do Well, I tell them all the things, you know, do use a personal steamer, do that.

58:38Drink some warm throat coat tea or any kind of tea that is meant to help your voice. Chicken soup, you know, that has been proven to help people who have colds and flus and things, to help them feel better. I tell them to use all the vocal products I've given them that will warm up very slowly. and usually I say, if it's really bad, you give a call to your ENT, ear, nose and throat doctor immediately. Don't wait. Call them right now because they might be able to help you with either some kind of medicine or a shot of, you know, like a pregnazone shot, cortisone shot, or pregnazone pills, cortisone shot, whatever.

59:20You know, because sometimes you have to do it just because if you're really sick and your throat's not working, what are you going to do? I'm going to have you spin it one more time because I'm having a lot of fun with these questions. The wheel's going to break while we're doing it. Okay. Who is a client we'd be surprised to hear that you have? Yeah, there's a couple. I would say one might be, if you don't know him as a performer, a lot of people know Danny Elfman as a composer.

59:48Eric Vetro:and he's written theme songs to everything from The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives and all of those great movies by Tim Burton. Yeah, Nightmare Before Christmas. Oh my God, Nightmare Before Christmas. Yeah. So a lot of people know him as a composer and they don't realize that he was the lead singer of a band called Oingo Boingo. And he now still does performances. He's at the Hollywood Bowl every year, either with The Nightmare Before Christmas or with his own show. And so he sings a lot. So I think that would be surprising. It would be surprising, but oh, I'm going to forget his last name, but he was the Prime Minister of Canada and I gave him a couple of lessons.

1:00:25Justin Trudeau. No, Stephen. Oh, not Justin. I don't know who Stephen is. Stephen. Anyone? Anyone know who Stephen is? Breaking the fourth wall to ask if anyone is Stephen. This was about 15 years ago. So that probably would have been a surprise. Okay. I was going to say, I think you've worked with Katy Perry before. So if Justin Trudeau came through, then couples vocal lessons. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, I've known Katie for, gosh, a long time. Yeah. Almost 20 years, probably. Wow. Yeah, I love her.

1:00:54Eric Vetro:That was an interesting one when you say the strangest place given a lesson. When she was saying on the Oprah show the day after the Oscars, she had been in Austria and they got a special jet to bring her over so she could sing on the Oprah show the very next day. So she did her show in Austria, got on the jet, flew her over. they picked me up at around six in the morning on SUV. I met her at the airport. We put down the middle row of seats. We sat in that third seat in the SUV so I could have the keyboard in front of me and warmed up on the way to the then called Kodak Theater. I think maybe it's still Kodak.

1:01:27Eric Vetro:I always get so confused. It's changed. It may have been the Dolby. I think it was the Dolby at the time. Anyway, and we warmed up on the way so that when she got there, she would be warmed up and ready to do the sound check. Wow. And half her makeup was done. And I said, I thought you were sleeping on the plane and she said I was. They just did my makeup while I was sleeping. Sleeping while they put on the eyeliner. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Dedication. Well, okay. So our final game of the day is called, what would you cue? And so I'm going to give you some situations and then just pick one song to go along with that.

1:01:58So what would you cue to take you back to your childhood? Oh, gee.

1:02:05Eric Vetro:Well, Sound of Music was a big movie influence on me. Big movie musical that and West Side Story. And so probably the song from The Sound of Music would be a song called Climb Every Mountain because it's, you know, forward every stream, follow every rainbow till you find your dream. I just found that so inspirational. I still do to this day. I could get emotional listening to it because those lyrics about, you know, keep going, keep going to find your dream, to realize your dream, to make it happen, And that song always, I thought, was very powerful. Great picks. Okay, so what would you cue to represent your favorite era of music?

1:02:45So any time period.

1:02:47Eric Vetro:You know, there's so many for so many different reasons, but I'm going to actually say right now. I love it right now. Because like I said earlier, you can do any type of music right now and find an audience for it, and people will appreciate it. And I love that what's happening now, like, for example, with Rosalia's Lux album is a lot of kids who would have never listened to orchestrated music in that way or hear that kind of operatic singing are gonna now maybe even look into opera or try it themselves or be interested in it. So how great is that? You know, or Ariana doing Wicked. And so all of the girls and boys who loved her as a pop star who went to say Wicked will now go, ooh, theater music, it's beautiful, it's great.

1:03:30I'm gonna look into that. So I think what's going on today is beautiful. I love that. Okay, and then finally, what would you cue to remember your favorite concert?

1:03:39Eric Vetro:Oh, gosh. Well, there's so many favorite concerts. I mean, you know, Shawn Mendes mentioned me, gave me a shout out on the stage of Hollywood Bowl. So that's one of my favorite concerts. So any of those songs would be, I would have to go back to two nights ago. Okay. You know, Ariana's singing. It was just, and if you asked me to pick one song, oh God. Just one standout. It doesn't have to be your all time favorite. I think the standout probably would be Dangerous Woman because I remember when that whole song came about, I remember hearing about it before I actually heard the song, before I actually heard her singing it.

1:04:17Eric Vetro:And then when I did hear her sing it, I just thought, wow, that song is just such a great song. And I feel like it really epitomized her. You know, I've never thought about it so much as being a dangerous woman, as being a strong, capable, amazing, incredible woman. That's how I look at it. And boy, when she sings that song, she has all those adjectives. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned that you heard about it before you actually heard the song. Did everyone kind of know this was going to be a huge moment for her when they first heard that song? I think everybody had an inkling. I think her mom, Joan, was the first person to mention it to me.

1:04:50Eric Vetro:Like, wait till you hear this song. Because Joan heard it before I did. And she said, you're going to flip out. It's just an amazing song. And then when I heard it and then, of course, heard her singing it, I was like, this is incredible. That's it. Yeah. Just incredible. Yeah. Well, Eric Vitro, thank you so much for coming to On The Record. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. I appreciate it. Well, because you know music. I do. And I love that. And your questions were great questions. So I really enjoyed it. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much to Eric Vitro for joining me on this week's episode of On The Record to talk about all things vocal coaching.

1:05:28And thank you for listening to this week's episode of On The Record. If you like today's show, give us a follow on Instagram or on our brand new TikTok page at Billboard On The Record, where you can find new clips of this show every single week. We'd also appreciate it if you rated our show on your favorite podcast platform, because all these things help On The Record grow bigger and better than ever. Again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in next week for another peek behind the curtain of the music business. I'll see you then.

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