How Death Metal Singers Make Their Extreme Vocalizations

Vocal researchers are learning how death metal singers safely produce extreme vocal distortions, in hopes of improving vocal health care.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ira Flatow?

  Science Friday is supported by MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design. MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. Hey folks, Ira here with a quick reminder that as this year ticks slowly away, this is your last chance to make a tax deductible donation for 2025. We still have a dollar-for-dollar donation match in effect until December 31st, so take advantage and please, make your gift now. Remember, you're not just supporting Science Friday. Your tax deductible donation supports the whole public radio system and the

• 0:44Ira Flatow?

  millions of listeners like you who rely on programs like ours to stay informed. So please, go to sciencefriday.com/support. Each one of you can make a difference in our work. That's sciencefriday.com/support. And for everyone at Science Friday, I wish you a happy and healthy new year, and thanks.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  You're listening to Science Friday.

• 1:14Flora Lichtman?

  I'm Flora Lichtman, and you guessed it, today on the podcast, the science and art of death metal screams.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  AI, we go, uh. That's a standard false chord scream.

• 1:27Flora Lichtman?

  Keep going.

• 1:33Flora Lichtman?

  Being able to belt out a tune like Adele or Pavarotti, we know is not just about raw talent. We know that the best singers in the world work on their technique, how to control their breath and develop the stamina to hit note after note for a two-hour concert. But pop stars and opera singers, they're not the only vocalists who figured out how to harness their voices for maximum impact.

• 2:04Flora Lichtman?

  Death metal vocalists also train their voices to hit a unique guttural register. And that scream is not as easy to master as you might think. Vocal scientists at the University of Utah wanted to understand how death metal singers make their iconic screams. And what they found is not only insightful for metalheads, it might help improve treatment for people with some types of vocal injuries. Joining me now to talk more about this research are my guests, Dr. Amanda Stark, speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Mark Garrett, lead singer of the band Kardashav and a vocal coach based in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome to you both to Science Friday.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Thank you for having us.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, thanks so much.

• 2:48Flora Lichtman?

  Amanda, how did you get interested in studying death metal singing?

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, so these extreme metal vocalists use a completely different pattern of vocalizing than we see in other styles of music. They tend to have a lot more activation of the supraglottic structures, so the things that are happening, tissues, muscles, et cetera, above the true vocal folds. And so when we think of a singer, they use mostly this kind of pitch of their voice in their singing that is mostly just true vocal folds. Extreme metal vocalists use everything under the sun, including the true vocal folds, but they don't oscillate them in quite the same way that we see in a clean style of singing.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  And part of this work is if we can really hone into the structures that are being used for each of these screams, anatomical structures, tissues within the throat, then we can help better define these things for coaches, for the artists themselves, as well as the scientific community.

• 3:52Flora Lichtman?

  What does it look like when you bring one of these performers into the lab?

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Yes, let's give you the visual. First, we do a camera in the back of the throat. So we have a little camera that goes into the nose and then it hangs out in the back of their throat and we can watch as they do different vocalization. And so, once we kind of understand their profile, we call it their phenotyping, what their screams are, how they classify their screams, how they describe their screams, then we do the camera where we look visually at the throat and then we-

• 4:22Flora Lichtman?

  While they're screaming?

• 4:23Speaker 03

  While they're screaming. And then in some situations, they have electrodes in their muscles of their throats and the camera in their nose. And then I think the really kind of fun part for a lot of these artists was laying in the MRI scanner and being able to then come back out of the scanner to see the interaction between all of these structures of the vocal tract.

• 4:44Flora Lichtman?

  That's so fascinating. Okay, I want to do an experiment. So, one of the things you were doing was sort of like creating a taxonomy of death metal screams. So Amanda, will you give me some of the names and Mark for each one? I know, I'm putting you on the spot. Will you try to, will you demonstrate it for us?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's, we could actually just do some of yours. Mark, I think it'd be kind of cool for everyone, there are some overlaps in screams. I think a lot of people have used a term like a false chord scream. Do you want to try that one?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. False chord scream is a really great starting point. It's loose, it's open. Compared to other screams, it's very relaxed and it really builds on sounds we know how to make, you know what I mean? To create something new. And that sound is very similar to A, I, B, G, R. That, that's a standard false chord scream.

• 5:35Flora Lichtman?

  Keep going. I can't get it, please. I need like 10 more.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  You know what? Here, I'll, with all these screams, I'll say, "You're listening to Science Friday." How about that?

• 5:44Flora Lichtman?

  Oh my God, yes.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  So, here we go. False chord scream. You're listening to Science Friday.

• 5:51Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, so that's false chord. What's, give me another, another variety of scream.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  So, this is a lower tone. This is the tone that I thought was driven mostly by my arytenoids, but seems from what we can see so far, to have a lot of arytenoid and epiglottal activation. It's very low and it's like a R, B. Sort of sound. So that would be something like You're listening to Science Friday.

• 6:19Flora Lichtman?

  This is delighting me to no end.

• 6:22Speaker 03

  Oh, you should see, you know, it was so fun because these guys not only like you can't appreciate how intense in volume that these screams really are. We had like sound booths and multiple walls and we had some of our colleagues in other room spaces that came over and they're like, "You guys are really loud." And I just kind of laughed to myself as I'm like, you know, approximately four inches from their face with this camera and as their mouths are wide open and their tongues are rolling in their mouth and then they have this ability to use multiple tissues, multiple muscles within their throat to coordinate their sounds. Do you actually, would you want to do your Kermit?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a lot of these, a lot of these sounds, and this is one of the most useful things I think I took away from being part of this research is a lot of the way that we teach these sounds, not just me, but the other vocal coaches out here who teach extreme vocalization, is we'll start with a cartoon voice that helps us get into sort of this, as Amanda told me, anticipatory posture to create the sound. And so for me, I'll do like a hi-ho Kermit the Frog here, and then I'll throw a little distortion on it, hi-ho, and then from there I just lean into the sound, and it really all just comes back to Kermit the Frog.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I have, I have probably one of the more wild screams I do that would give you the low, mid, high gamut, but this one is like that cawing crow and it actually requires me to have a beard because I have to pull on my whiskers to make my mouth resonant enough, but I can do that one. Again, I'll say you're listening to Science Friday. Sounds kind of like this. Let me find it real quick.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 8:08Flora Lichtman?

  That's an amazing sound to make.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  It's a lot of fun. Yeah. And it builds on a lot of, it builds, you know, this is one thing that I think I also really enjoyed, and Amanda, I'm sure you can speak to this quite a bit, is the whole source filter model of looking at it because if I take away all the things I'm doing, pulling on my cheeks, curling up my tongue, which is a common technique in the metal vocal world called a tunnel throat, the sound behind that is actually quite simple. It's just.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  But when I add those filters,

• 8:41Speaker 01

  it changes the sound drastically without having to do a lot of extra work in my actual laryngeal muscles, which is a lot of fun.

• 8:47Flora Lichtman?

  I mean, I think what's, what's really hitting me, hearing you perform these different sounds is they, they are so intricate. I mean, Amanda, when you looked at what's going on in the vocal cords, were you surprised? What were the sort of big take home points?

• 9:01Speaker 03

  I think naively, I believed when I was just listening or hearing a song or watching stage performances, I think I didn't appreciate how sophisticated, again, how synchronized all of these things are and how decisions are being made by these artists, by these performers, to be able to manipulate their filter, that vocal tract's shape so beautifully.

• 9:26Flora Lichtman?

  Did these screams damage the vocal structures?

• 9:30Speaker 03

  I'm always hesitant to like globally say yes or no. For the people that we've looked at so far and from the literature, we know that the answer is really no.

• 9:39Flora Lichtman?

  Is there a benefit to understanding how this works? I mean, is there an application? I mean, it's obviously cool, but is there also an application?

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Oh, it's, it's huge. From how we are going to approach rehab and treating different voice disorders to swallowing Parkinson's disease, esophageal problems and swallowing, it really is going to be that extensive to be able to educate clinicians, ENTs, GI doctors, neurologists, you name it, about these vocal mechanisms and how these sounds, how this complexity of these sounds impacts the human body.

• 10:17Flora Lichtman?

  Mark, you're a vocal coach. Could you teach me a scream?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Flora, you could absolutely learn to do metal vocals. Now, can you learn how to do a perfect scream in the next minute or so? Probably not, but I can show you a good way to get started.

• 10:32Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm in.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:33Flora Lichtman?

  I'm in. Let's try.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Perfect. So we're going to start you off with a basic false chord mid because a false chord mid builds on sounds that we, we have to make to survive. And one of those sounds is clearing our throats. What I want you to do in, in as natural a way as possible, don't try to simulate the sound, but just, let's say you're watching TV and you absent mindedly.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Clear your throat like that.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Nice. Do you feel, I hear a little bit of rumble. Can you tell me where roughly you feel that rumble?

• 11:02Flora Lichtman?

  I, I feel it kind of closer to the top, the back. It's the back of my throat, but it's sort of closer to the back of my tongue than I would have thought.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Okay. So would you say it's on the back, above the back, or below the back of the tongue?

• 11:16Flora Lichtman?

  I think it's right on, on, on top of the ba, on the back.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, you want to know something? You're off to an amazing start. What we're gonna, what you would do at this point is you would want to take that throat clear. And you would want to think about holding it in the front of your face, as if that sound could be held right behind your lips, like you were eating a piece of candy. And that would create a sound sort of like this.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's pretty close. That's pretty close. Yeah. And then you could open up to a

• 11:51Speaker 01

  So we take that throat clear.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  You can think of it as like a game show buzzer, back from like the 60s and 70s. You can give that a try if you'd like.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yo, wow. Okay, let's, let's, let's give-

• 12:09Flora Lichtman?

  Am I getting there?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. So now what I want you to do is I want you to take this and I want you to gently bark it. You don't have to push too hard, but you're going to hold on to this sound of cargaria, the sound of throat singing. You're going to go low, low. It's the game show buzzer noise.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  With a little bit of a bark at the end.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Flora, are you, Flora, are you a metal vocalist and you're just not telling me? You could be doing false chord very soon. If, if I had you as a student, I'd be like, oh, this is too easy. This is too easy.

• 12:42Flora Lichtman?

  Please stop. It's embarrassing me and I don't believe you. And after, you know, so many horrible choir experiences as a kid, this is really like turning my whole life around.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  You found your space. You found your space.

• 12:54Flora Lichtman?

  I found my space.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  You can, you can, you can feature on the next Karteshav album. How about that?

• 12:58Flora Lichtman?

  Oh, my God. That would be such a joy. That would be such a joy. This was so much fun. Thank you both for taking the time to come on the show and teach us about this.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Oh, Flora, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to be able to talk with you about our work.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate you having me here. It was an absolute blast. And as I always say, many thanks, much love. I'm out.

• 13:21Flora Lichtman?

  Dr. Amanda, Dr. Amanda Stark, speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah, based in Salt Lake City, and Mark Garrett, lead singer of the band Karteshav, and a vocal coach based in Phoenix, Arizona. This episode was produced by Shoshana Buxbaum. Check out some of our other favorites from 2025 at sciencefriday.com/2025. Thank you for listening. I'm Flora Lichtman.