All language subtitles for zelezni 1922 (1)

This programme contains
some strong language.

What's the DNA
of a great rock 'n' roll band?

What makes bands great
is often the very element
that makes them break up.

All bands, when they first start,
it's us against the rest
of the world.

This job needs a wild man.

What makes bands work?

Don't be fooled.
Being in a band is sex.

That's the reason
people are in bands.

Everybody wants to stand out
in front of thousands of people
and be adored.

Rock music makes you manly.

How and why do they do what they do?
And why is a great band
more than the sum of its parts?

Let's hear from
the rock 'n' roll frontline.

The glory of rock 'n' roll,
long may it reign.

Tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star

Tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star

Tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star.

We are beginning
with the focal point,

the one at the front you can't
take your eyes off - the singer.

Singers, they are the instrument
and the musician.

A guitarist, you see, the thing
goes out of tune or string breaks,

just, "Give me another one."

In fact, the whole band is hanging
on those two little strips
of vocal cord down here,

which are colliding at the impact of
Muhammad Ali smacking George Foreman.

People have got no conception
of what the voice does.

What an amazing instrument it is.

The lead singer is like a god.

Equal parts visionary and mad man,
he is the head, heart and crotch
of the rock 'n' roll band.

Without him - or her - the rest of
the band might as well not bother.

But what
makes these exotic beings tick?

What does it take to get up on stage
and pour out your heart and soul?

What are these frontmen
and women really like?

Knobheads.

You've got to be a knobhead to be
a lead singer. You really have.

Your job as a front man is to
entertain, grab them by their nuts

and squeeze them really hard
until they say "encore".

You're out there naked.

In my case, literally.

The wonderful advantage for those
with the instruments

is that they've got the instrument
to hide behind.

Give me one more chance
and you'll be satisfied.

To be a really good frontman,
you've kind of got to have

a mixture of ego and insecurity.
You need a really

particular mix of those two things.

A fine little mix of narcissism

and just a touch of LSD -
Lead Singer's Disease.

We want our lead singers to be
sort of like superheroes,

in a way - bigger and louder
and messier than ourselves.

You're the real thing...

I don't want him to be like me.

I don't want him
to understand what I think.

I want him to be unattainable.

You've got to have
confidence or arrogance.

I would like to think
that I was just confident.

So is the art of being a frontperson
something that can be learned?

Are great lead singers born,
not made?

Is the itch to get up on stage
and let it all out for our benefit

indelibly etched into their psyche
from the start?

From the time I was a kid,
they handed me the microphone.

It was seemingly natural.

Anything to show off
when I was a kid. There was plenty

of, "Stop showing off,"
round the dinner table.

I suppose that's why I had the
confidence to get on stage

in the first place, yeah.

I wanted it for three reasons,
famously to get rich, to get famous

and to get laid.

I thought that was
hilariously original,

only to find out subsequently,

that's how Freud defined
the need of any artist.

When I first started, I wanted
to be it all, I wanted to be
the whole band.

In my case, I think I was born
to do it, quite frankly.

As soon as I got on that stage,

got the applause,
I knew that was for me.

Others weren't so much born for
greatness as stumbled through a side
door and found themselves on stage.

I always saw you
just before the dawn...

We decided we wanted to make
a band, you know?

Everybody was saying
what they want to play.

Remembering the
thing they used to say to me...

I didn't play bass,
I didn't want to play

the drums, and I didn't say anything
because I didn't want to have to
be like schlepping all this stuff.

So I said, "OK, I'll be the singer."

I never wanted to be a frontman,

you know? I wanted to be
a drummer or a bass player,

but I couldn't master any of them.

And there's one reason
I'm telling you this

I feels bad...

It's maybe not hard to understand
why some are reluctant to lead
from the front.

The singer's role is a daunting one.

Getting up there in the first place
to marshall the troops into battle

takes the kind of guts
that few possess.

Every time I walk on stage
and I'm confronted by an audience,

I have a mental picture
of a Bengal tiger that has
already eaten two villagers.

And I know that that's what I'm
facing, and I know that if I say

the wrong thing or make the wrong
move, it's going to eat me alive.

Getting on the stage is a nightmare.

I mean, I want to run away. Run away!

But once I'm on it,
you know, try and get me off!

It would be terrible
if it was no good.

You get nervous.

For me, being stationary on stage
came through fear more than a look.

Really out of my depth.

I was a very nervous
frontman, really.

I think that's why I always wanted
a big band around me, you know?

I think that's sometimes why I was
so bossy with the rest of the band,

because I was fear-driven
about my own performance.

I know most frontmen close their
eyes, and that's the reason

for the dark glasses, so you can
close your eyes and not look like
you've got your eyes closed.

And always nervous
when you could see the audience.

It's always best to work
to blackness, to darkness.

You only basically see the spotlight,

which can blind you. And that can be,

you know, quarter of a million people
there, half a million people, even.

It's actually more disconcerting
to stand in front of a pub crowd,

four or five people there, you know,
actually scrutinising you.

For even the bigger stars, all
that preening and posturing doesn't
necessarily come naturally.

When Sting first assembled his band
of blond brothers, he was still
Gordon the ex-schoolteacher by day.

But when the sun went down,
something changed.

Most of the stage performers
I know are not particularly
extrovert in real life.

When I walk on stage, I play
the role of the extrovert. I will

grab the attention of the room,
and hold the attention of the room.

Can't stand losing, I can't

I can't, I can't, I can't

I can't stand losing you

I can't stand losing you.

I think there's a certain amount
of self-belief you need
to walk onto a stage.

That can be construed as either
arrogance or immense courage.

And they're all scratched, I can't
see the point in another day.

I've always thrived
on Sting's arrogance.

You can call it lack
of confidence...

He's just got a force that
when he gets on that microphone,

comes out of him, that he
doesn't have at the dinner table.

I can't, I can't,
I can't stand losing...

I wouldn't have thought of him,
knowing him as I do, that he is

the most obvious natural performer,

so I really admire in him that
he does get up and do that.

I can't, I can't,
I can't stand losing...

Facing that lot down takes big ones.

Lights go down and I go back
to my normal, quiet self.

It's commonplace among performers
that they are not

the people they seem to be on stage,

something happens to them.

A big part of the transformation
from ordinary mortal

to rock god happens in the minds
of us, the audience.

We imbue these stellar beings with
mystique, allure and sexual potency.

We want to believe in them,
worship them, and desire them.

It's a chicken-and-egg
scenario really, because

d'you fancy them because they're the
front person and therefore fanciable,

or do they become the front person
because they're the fanciable one?

Sometimes it's difficult to tell.

If women don't want to fuck you
and men don't want to be you,

I don't see the point
of being in a band.

Sex appeal comes with being
in front of a band.

I think you could literally
have a huge, big, green bald head

and have pustules
coming out of your face

and people would find you sexy if
you were fronting a successful band.

I got shagged a lot.
But that's because I was the singer.
You know, but so did the other guys.

Frankly, sloppy seconds for them,
you know? I was the singer!

What we crave from a great lead
singer is not just sex appeal

but charisma, glamour
and unpredictability.

On rare occasions, these elements
combine and something extraordinary

happens, leaving all who
witness it changed forever.

Picture the scene:
It's 1966 and LA's Whisky A Go Go

is in thrall to psychedelic
scenesters The Doors, whose singer
Jim Morrison is just about to

get in touch with his Oedipal side
and take the job of front man
into new, transgressive territory.

'You got to turn those
lights way down...'

We're playing the end
of the Whisky A Go Go.

He's on acid.

Ah, what do we care?

We're not,
but we might as well have been.

This is the end
Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend, the end.

Little by little,
the place starts to stop.

The dancers stop.
The waitresses stop.

And they're just transfixed on
Morrison, who's become Dionysus,

and he has everyone under control.

Jim was not a Vegas act.

It was not a show. It was like
live theatre or something.

"What the hell is he going to do
next?" kind of thing, you know.

This comes out of the blue.
It came out of his head.

Whether he had worked at it,
I have no idea - and did it work?

Father?

Yes, son.

I want to kill you.

There's only one place
you can go with it after that!

Mother?

We're playing as loud
as we possibly can.

And he just says,
"Mother, I want to"...

The place explodes. Everybody starts
just whirling, they're broken out
of their hypnotic trance.

And it was an amazing moment
that we had no idea was coming.

We just followed him and he took
it to an absolutely brilliant place.

Saying the unsayable and voicing
our darkest urges to transgress,

Jim Morrison was like some
kind of Oedipal stormtrooper.

He made explicit what, up to then,
had only ever been implied.

But he wasn't the first to mine raw
sex appeal. That had been part

of the frontman's job from the
earliest days of rock 'n' roll.

Back in the 1950s, a whirlwind
of swagger, attitude and ambiguous

sexual energy was unleashed in the
flamboyant form of Little Richard.

Imagine hearing Little Richard
for the first time on the radio.
You would be scared, man.

That guy, I don't anybody's
ever beaten him, ever,

and I don't think they ever will
as a rock 'n' roll singer.

Tutti frutti...

Teenage fans were strangely aroused
by his incomprehensible lyrics,

which they suspected
were probably about doing it.

A-wop bop-a loo-bop, a-wop bam-boom.
What did the fuck did they
think that was about? Tutti frutti!

A-wop bop-a loo-bop, ow!

I think until I saw
Little Richard...

I hadn't really understood

that sex oozes out

of a proper rock 'n' roll performer.

A-wop bop-a loo-bop,
a-wop bam-boom.

Tunes? Yes. Moves?

Yes. Sex appeal? Most definitely.

But what stopped Little Richard from
being the first proper rock 'n' roll

frontman is that he didn't have
a proper rock 'n' roll band
backing him up.

Not his fault.
It hadn't really been invented yet.

Skip forward a few years
to the early '60s,
and the rock 'n' roll band truly

arrived in the besuited, befringed
and bewitching form of the Beatles.

Not that they would provide
the prototype rock frontman.

Largely because they had
two of them. At least.

Shake it up, baby now

Shake it up, baby
Twist and shout.

Lennon and McCartney, each
on their own, wasn't the Beatles.

C'mon, c'mon, baby, now...

They were very talented, and each
of them did great work on their own,

but it's only when
they came together.

The oil and the vinegar. They really
make a great salad dressing.

They look like they came
from the same Beatle mother.

They were almost brothers, weren't
they? Same DNA, same haircuts.

It felt like a complete statement.

There weren't any front
men in the Beatles, really.

The Beatles were front men. That
was the magic thing about them.

There was no passengers.
There was nobody you didn't notice.

Aah, aah, aah, aah...

You can trace a lot back to
The Beatles, but what they didn't do

was invent the frontman
as stand-out superstar.

Theirs was a band
where the limelight was shared.

So it was left to a bunch of
scruffy 'erberts from the South East
in the form of the Rolling Stones

to bequeath to the world that
greatest of British inventions,
the rock frontman.

I want to be your man...

The premier prototype
frontman was Mick Jagger.

Because he was the first guy
that broke away from the band

on a level
that he wasn't stationery.

All of a sudden, this guy was
everywhere on that stage.
He wasn't The Beatles.

He wasn't Paul McCartney and John
Lennon with a mic and a guitar.

He was free to roam that stage,
and he was an animal up there.

I was drowned, I was washed up,
left for dead...

That was a group where they
got behind one frontman,

as opposed to the Beatle set-up,
where everybody was a frontman.

But it's all right now...

If you were to put down
on paper your blueprint
for a perfect frontman,

you'd would probably say, "Good
looking, great singer, great mover."

Jagger, in the normal sense of
things, is none of these things.

He had these huge lips,
but he's got charisma.

That caricature you have
of what a frontman should be.

Mick Jagger is that. He's that
strutting cockerel that can sweat on
a girl and she'd faint in a second.

I was a butcher, cutting the meat

My hands were bloodied...

When I saw the Rolling Stones in
'98 at home in Dodgers Stadium...

how I lost myself, and understood
why women take their shirts off!

We love you, Mick!

His singing was an acquired taste.

Playing an instrument
wasn't really his thing.

He wasn't that much of a looker,
and his moves were mostly nicked
from soul legend James Brown.

No matter.
For Jagger the frontman is more

than the sum total of his parts, and
is for many the epitome of the

species, blending athlete, lothario
and chairman of the board into one
unfeasibly slim-picked package.

Showmen like Iggy Pop who have
followed the Jagger prototype
have discovered that while dynamism

and sexual energy are musts,
that's not the whole picture.

The great lead singer also needs
to be master of ceremonies.

A leader of men.

I am the passenger...

You're trying to pull
a sense of occasion together.

Usually from a bunch of...

sensitive, would-be louts,
basically!

People who are actually intelligent
and talented,

but have been waiting all their
lives to lay about and make trouble.

La, la, la, la, la-la-la la...

Whatever the era, or musical style,
one truth remains constant.

A driving force at the helm
is crucial.

I was 100% the leader and I was
100% the guy who felt responsible

for keeping everybody on board
and keeping them interested.

I used to make a joke to one
of the guys in the band early on.
Frontman, backman!

If you were a bunch of teenagers and
someone else comes onto the estate,

and suddenly you have to fight them,

you really want the
best man for the job, like,

up front in your team, you know?

You really want your singer to go
out and like, lead the gang, really,

and this idea that if the roof
falls in and the audience all flee,

or something goes wrong....

He's going to be there
and have loads of bottle.

So if he is the head man, hopefully
with the pre-requisite amount of

bottle to keep his band mates happy,
what's his style of leadership?

Rod of iron or more touchy-feely?

Jon Bon Jovi is a global superstar
who named his band after himself.

I wonder how it works in his outfit?

It's a benevolent dictatorship.

I welcome everybody's opinions.

I listen to them very carefully.

If there's something that I feel is
something I hadn't thought of,
I will add it to the mix.

Hence the band name instead
of it just being Jon Bon Jovi.

Jon is the leader, you know? In this
organisation, it's very simple.

That's it. And I'm like,

the general and the right hand man
on his side.

Shot through the heart
and you're to blame

You give love a bad name...

When I was making some film
I used to say, "In a movie,
I'm the bass player"."

I come, I do my part
and I'm told to leave.

In the band, I'm Tom Cruise. I'm the
director, the producer, the star,
the action hero, the whole thing.

And that analogy, people understood.

Calling the shots is just part
of the deal with these lead singer
types. In the case of the Police...

Would we really expect Sting
to just be a bobby on the beat?

Sometimes, the benign dictator
formula works.

Even when the dictator
is not so benign.

In my band, I didn't wear
a prefect's badge, you know?

But I wrote the songs and I sang
them. And I played in the band.

I was the leader of the Police.

Pretty influential in that group.
Was I the leader of the band?

It didn't matter.

Don't you know who you are?

You're, you're Sting!

They can protest as much
as they like, but make no mistake,

in the lead singer's mind,
he's in charge and the rest
just have to deal with it.

No wonder the band mates might
accuse him or her of becoming
a bit of a diva.

Oh, make me over

I'm all I want to be...

The problem with being
a lead singer is

you're actually at the front
and you're the focus of attention.

Which is great if you've got,

if you've got a big ego
and you're a bit of a show-off.

The lead singer is egocentric
and it's all about them,

and they think they're brilliant,
and sometimes their ideas are crap.

But you have to listen
to the lead singer.

Oh, and half the time
they know nothing about music.

OK, I felt that idea before.

Courtney Love of Hole is a singer
who's had to shrug off plenty of
criticism, casting herself

in the role of frontwoman
as loose cannon and force of nature.

But what's it like for her
band mates having to live
with that on a daily basis?

Most singers are exorcising

a very verbal, crazy monster
in their head that is screaming,

screaming to be let out.

And Courtney's very good at that.

Very good at that.

With your pound of flesh,
I'm second billing,
cos you're a star now.

LSD is known as Lead Singer Disease.

The lead singer thinks that they
can do whatever the hell they want.

They think that they get
to call the shots.

You'd better watch out.

The bass player and the guitarist

and the drummer all, you know,
laugh at singers who have LSD.

Some more than others.

Remember what I said.

Of all the relationships the lead
singer has with other band members,
usually the closest,

often the most creative,
and always the most volatile
is with the guy next to him.

The one who likes to wield an axe.

The lead guitarist.

Most singers and guitarists
kind of have a sort of symbiotic

relationship. They need each other.

I think they have to really love
each other.

You have to really respect
what each other does.

And really hate each other.

The thing I come out with, which was
quite common, was not only was it

the frontman, but usually there was
an axis with the guitar player,

who they either met early on,
or they went to school with.
People like the Rolling Stones.

U2 were the same.

The Smiths.
You know, it goes on and on.

But what I like about the axis
is when there's two of you,
you think everybody else is mad.

Two of you. It's just needs two
and you've got a revolution.

And two heads are still better than
one, according to Tom and Serge,

singer and guitar man
for Leicester's serial
stadium-fillers Kasabian.

It kind of makes it easy for you

playing when someone just takes it by
the bollocks. You know what I mean?

And goes, right, let's go.

You know, I think that kind of makes
everyone else feel ready comfortable,

and you kind of go, right, he's gone.

He's over the hill with a cannon.
Let's go.

I think Serge is a great frontman
in his own right.

What?!

You know, because he's like
my sidekick, man.

You know, like Batfink and Karate.
Remember them?

People try to put us down.

That's all very cosy,
but hardly what history
has taught us to expect.

Aren't the singer and guitarist
supposed to be at
each other's throats?

Well if you look at any ego clash
that's ever been in

any band, you know, you look at your
Daltrey, Townshend, Liam and Noel.

Guitarist and vocalist
are just like elbowing themselves,
each other out of the way,

vying for centre stage and the
spotlight. Pathetic really, isn't it?

You know what I mean?

Singer and the lead guitarist
have historically clashed

because each one is under the
delusion that they are the leader.

That's when tension starts to build.

They're all fighting for the crown.

And the biggest dressing room.

Why don't you all... fade away.

The dynamic between singer
and guitarist is a crucial one.

The Who's Roger Daltrey and
Pete Townshend have been jostling
for supremacy for five decades.

Although during that time, they have
hammered out who does what on stage.

It's my generation, baby.

We're singing, or I am.

It's always played straight
to the back row.

If the back row was half a mile away,
which it was at Woodstock, that's
where you were pitching the energy.

And Pete used to work the front.
He shoots them on the guitar.

He uses it like a machine gun.
And he swears at them a lot.

It's very difficult
to swear at the back row.

A power struggle on the bridge
is one thing, but if the rest

of the crew begin to get mutinous,
the good ship Rock 'N' Roll Band
can hit choppy waters.

I mean, I always think of a band
as like a pirate ship.

It goes on these journeys,
taking and giving whatever it can.

And the role of captain
has a misplaced significance.

If the rigger fails, we die.

If the cook fails, we die.

What that means to me is that
role envy is the worst thing
that can happen in a band.

Front men get the raw deal
from the rest of the band.

You should be called middleman.

You've got to keep those people
happy and these people happy.

And you've got your
back turned to these ones.
And they're the most volatile ones.

So all that jealousy comes in.

It's for nothing when you go,
"we're a team here".

But it doesn't. It doesn't work.
No matter how hard you try.

You're paid this,
you're on the same.

If somebody's jealous, then that
jealousy will ruin their life.

In the volatile ferment of band
life, one thing is for sure.

Band mates are never short of
accusations to level at the singer.

They're a bunch
of narcissistic bastards.

Can't walk past a mirror
without looking at yourself.

There's a poetic thing
to being a vocalist as well.
They are poets, in a way.

And poets have always been
a bit up themselves, haven't they?
A bit strange.

I don't have to sell my soul

He's already in me...

But then, the frontman's
the soothsayer, you know.

He's the guy who imparts the
knowledge or wisdom as he sees it.

He's already in me...

Lead singers are different. They're
special and they want to be adored.

After all, they are artists.

Lords of the dance.
Self-appointed leaders of mayhem

who see the world differently.

And looking down from that
particular misty mountain-top,

it's not surprising that they
start viewing themselves as
different to the rest of us.

See, the problem with fame
and being the lead singer

is you get
the indulgence of others.

Hey, Jim, Jim, you want some of this?

Jim, I want to be your buddy, man.

Here's this, and here's that and
here, take this, and here, take that.

And any time Jim did anything
outrageous, people would say, oh,

God, you're Jim Morrison,
you're totally outrageous.

No-one would say, hey, jerk,
cut it out, man. Just...boom.

Nobody ever hit Jim Morrison.

It wasn't just Jim Morrison
who didn't know where the
line should be drawn.

When every whim is indulged,
a lead singer can very easily

become an inhabitant of
Planet Unreasonable, population - 1.

The lead singer, they get that
kind of diva thing that goes on.

And you can understand why.
You know, they're out there

and they're singing and you've got
the guys and girls clamouring over
you because you're the singer.

Yeah!

When I get, high get high on speed

I feel funny
cos the drug for me...

Frontman of LA rock monsters
Motley Crew is the unpredictable
Vince Neil,

a man whose moods
even wildman drummer
Tommy Lee finds hard to call.

I think he goes through phases where
he'll just be wearing flip-flops

and a Hawaiian shirt and shorts.

I'm a typical surfer
California dude.

And then he'll go into full
rock-star mode and start smashing

everything up in the dressing room
because the mustard was not the
right kind. It's like, well, OK.

In recent years, one frontman has
taken the job of being a contrary,

demanding so-and-so to new heights.

Hello, is Mr Gallagher there, please?

Who is it? It's... Is that Liam?

Yeah. Hello, Liam, it's Jeremy Vine
from Newsnight here.

How are you doing? I'm BLEEP! sound.

How are you?
Not bad. Are you coming out?

Am I BLEEP! It's raining, mate.
Why aren't you going to Chicago?

Hello, Liam? Liam?

Step forward with a cocky swagger
and menacing stare,

Liam Gallagher, the frontman
who makes other frontmen nervous.

I could imagine sitting having a
beer with Liam Gallagher but I can
imagine being slightly on edge.

He's quite funny to chat to.
I chatted to him on a
couple of occasions.

You'd say something and he'd disagree
and then I'd agree with his point
of view, then he'd disagree back.

He'd go, like, how are you doing?
And you go, I'm pretty exhausted.

It's all this touring.
He goes, oh, I love touring.

And then I go, I love it too.
No, I hate it. And then you'd
be like, oh, God.

Liam Gallagher's whole thing has
always revolved around the idea
of being an ordinary lad.

You know, facing out the audience
in the same way as you'd stand

stock-still and kind of shoulders
back on the football terrace or if
you were in the pub

and spotted someone
you didn't particularly like.

The expectation that frontmen will
behave badly has become so ingrained

in rock 'n' roll culture
that for a younger lead singer
like Muse's guitar-toting

cyber boffin Matt Bellamy,
it's all got a bit Spinal Tap.

People definitely perceive
you differently and they
expect you to be diva-ish.

Before you know it, you start folding
up a little piece of bread and you

get really pissed off that the ham
doesn't fit in the little sandwich.

And you can lose it.
You can lost it up there.

This doesn't work
because then it's all...

Because it hangs out like that.

Look. Would you be holding this?

No, I wouldn't want to eat...
I wouldn't want to put that in
my mouth, I must say. All right.

A. Exhibit A. And then we move on
to this. You're surrounded by the
sort of people that are telling you

you're good all the time and all
this kind of stuff that it's easy to
fall off the rails and become a tit.

The lead singer is filling this role
of, "I'm the voice of the band."

Everything that the band has to say
is, of course, spoken through me.

Hundreds of years
before the dawn of history...

I am the message of the band.
I am the band's worldview.

I am the band's avatar.
The narcissism of, look at me.

The druids. I will suffer for you,

I will experience your pain.

Certainly the most melodramatic
figure in a band.

Help! I need somebody
Help!

Not just anybody
Help!

You know I need someone
Help!

They can be prone to the grandiose,

unpredictable or downright
belligerent, but is this
behaviour understandable?

An inevitable by-product of the
singer's high-pressure life in
the constant glare of publicity?

Everybody talks to the frontman.
They think he's got more answers
than the others. I don't know why.

People expect what comes out your
mouth to be engaging and valid.

And you spend ages thinking
about the things that you've said,

and you realise that they're all
complete and utter bullshit.

You do get all the attention, but
at the same time you get
all the pressure.

If it goes well,

you know, great, the
frontperson gets the accolades.

If it goes really awful, the
frontperson gets the dirt as well.

Only too ready to dish the dirt
are the newspapers.

They're poised, waiting for
the lead singer to trip up.

Or even to do
the tripping themselves.

Here follows a cautionary tale
of the dangers of playing
with tabloid fire.

I said, Dad, you're shabby

You run around and
groove like a baddy...

You out of the Melody Maker world and
the NME world and you know you're
sort of making a mark then,

when you're getting in
the Mirror and the Sun.

Pretty cool stuff.

And the good thing about it was,
if you ever put anything about drugs
in with us, that's what we wanted.

You know what I mean? It was like,
when they ruin our career,

the more we got that sort of thing,
the better.

There was nothing that they
could print in these newspapers
that'd put us on a bummer,

be embarrassed in front
of your mum and dad about.

Anything. It's so rock 'n' roll,
it's all money in the bank.

And then one day I get up and there
it is in my first News of the World.

I was a rent boy.

If it ever happened now, you'd go,
so what? It's a laugh.

More Press. Right, but then, I was
a youngster, and it was like, what?

It's a beautiful day.

The frontman's offstage life can be
fraught with potential pitfalls.

Accusation, infamy,
some even end up in jail.

You'd imagine that the
performance side of the job
would be more straightforward.

But sadly, no.

Because the singer has to get to
the show in the first place by means
of the unforgiving magnifier

of character flaws
and foibles that is the tour.

And you are? I think a lot
of people have this idea that
touring's really glamorous.

It is so unglamorous, you
wouldn't even believe it.

You go nuts. Everybody goes nuts.

And you're all going nuts at
the same time but in different ways.

The seemingly endless chain of
departure lounges and hotel rooms

can bring out the inner diva
in even the most level-headed.

I try to make sure I stay in hotel
rooms without air-conditioning and

that have open windows,
try to make sure there's no
air-conditioning on the bus.

I don't use swimming pools in hotels
because that dries the voice up.

A precious little flower.

You play up to it sometimes,
and I remember in Belgium
I demanded a travel hairdryer.

And I refused to do anything
unless I got my travel hairdryer.

I didn't really need one.

But I played up to it.

That's another thing.
The singers are always late. And they
always make you wait for them.

In fact, one of our sound guys
actually did tell me a great story of
once when they were all waiting and

they were convinced that
Barney used to wait on purpose.

So he was always last.

And I was going, no way, man,
who would do a thing like that?

And he went, you watch here.
Let's find out where his room is.

And he actually found out
where his room was in the hotel.

And we were all sat there by the bus
and he was about half-an-hour late,
three-quarters of an hour late.

And the window went, the curtain
went. And he was looking to see
if we were all there.

I know one famous singer
whose name I won't mention that
refuses to travel with the band.

And it's not because he's a
snob and he thinks he's Mr Big.

It's because he thinks the
band will last longer that way.

So he only sees the band
at the gig and then separates.

And there's a lot
to be said for that.

Tell me, how does it feel

When your heart grows cold
Grows cold

Goes cold.

Lead singers spend half
their lives on the move.

So what's to be learned from
observing them in one of their
most typical hunting grounds?

The airport.
On route to yet another show.

Is this a scenario where the
singer's liking of special treatment
might come to the fore?

I mean, I've seen it.
You know, when you're on tour

with some bands or you're
all doing the same festival,

you get on a plane and three walk to
the back and one walks to the front.

The old baggage carousel test -
who picks up the luggage.

There's no point
going for Louis Vuitton luggage

unless you've got someone to pick
it up off the carousel for you.

We're not quite there yet.

I've seen Chris Martin pick up
his own stuff off the carousel.

It had sponge in it!

It was a showpiece of luggage.

It opened up and French Revolution
gear spilled everywhere!

The frontman can be something
of a handful off stage,
but what about on it?

All manner of lead singer
shenanigans will be overlooked
if he delivers come show time.

How long must you wait for it?

In his most natural habitat,
up on stage,

what does he have in his arsenal?

How long must you wait for it?

One powerful weapon is the bond
he has with the fans and if he can
break down the boundaries between

on and off stage they will love him
even more, as Iggy Pop has learned
during his 40 years out front.

Iggy Pop is one of
the greatest frontmen of all time.

To me, because of a willingness
to risk body,

life and limb.

I'm not sure what gets
into me with the stage diving.

I did it last night in
Carnegie Hall.

I don't want to go
watch a bloody recital!

You know?

That's peanut butter!

All sorts of things have happened
down there, from kisses, on up.

So what else has the
frontman got in his locker?

In terms of actual equipment,
not much, more often than not
nothing more than a microphone.

So a little creative deployment
of that might come in handy.

I learned to swing the microphone

because I was bored of just standing
there singing a song.

I tried singing with a microphone
stand very early on in our career,

the mic on the very long, flexible
neck, and I used to do very, kind of,

innuendo stuff
with the microphone,

get a lot of girls' attention.

I got very bored of that and one
day I just started twirling it,

and it developed from there.

I think he does a damn
good job out there.

Personally, I would not go out there
up front with nothing to protect
me but a small microphone,

but he manages to revolve it so fast
that when people do throw things

he gets desiccated egg
and sliced tomato.

I'd and work the twirling in with
the music so it was always on timing,

but it became very balletic.

Yes, it's not just an electronic
advice for amplifying the voice,

it's a weapon in the lead singer's
battle to ensure all eyes
in the room are on him,

not the guitarist, or anyone else.

Getting noticed up there
is what it is all about,
and anything is fair game.

Slade's Noddy Holder had the antics
of guitarist Dave Hill to contend
with, but atop his shaggy barnet

was to be found his secret weapon.

I don't want to
Drink my whisky like you do...

That top hat with mirrors I had,
that was my own invention totally,
but it was a great stage prop.

I didn't even realise
what I'd invented there.

These huge beams of light used to
reflect off it and I could light
the audience up with the top hat.

Hats will do nicely,
but what about a flaming one?

'60s maverick Arthur Brown built his
career on such an item of headwear.

In those days, the act started
with me coming on the usually

carried on by someone or on a horse,
or swinging with the head on fire.

I am the god of hellfire
and I bring you...
Fire!

Then we'd go through the act
with different costumes
and end up with smoke coming out.

I'll see you burn...

The idea that you light your head

on fire and you do more than just
singing a song is what it's about.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown,
that one song,

spot on.
School's out for summer...

Others were keen to emulate
Arthur's theatrics

and maybe the ultimate
thespian frontman is rock's
pantomime villain extraordinaire

Alice Cooper.
Early Seventies America was agog,

especially after an infamous
onstage poultry incident.

The chicken story was real,
I didn't kill the chicken
but there was a chicken on stage.

The chicken was thrown on stage
and I threw it back in the audience.

The audience killed it.
They destroyed the chicken
and threw it back on stage.

The next day "Alice Cooper bites head
off chicken, drinks the blood..."

Frank Zappa called me
the next day and said, "Did you
kill a chicken on stage?"

I said no. He said, "Don't
tell anybody, they love it!"

It was America's first real horror
rock star, this guy's for real.

The funny thing is we did
worse things than that!

They're cutting my head off, blood
was squirting everywhere,

that wasn't the thing that got the
attention, it was a chicken,
of all things.

School's been blown to pieces.

And he's still going strong today -
Alice, that is, not the chicken.

I sit here and talk to you and
I'm like this and isn't it great,

everything's great, when Alice comes
on stage I'm back here, the curtain
is here and I'm talking to the band.

The curtain goes down and it's...

And I've got my cane.

And all of a sudden it's...

How dare you come here
to see me tonight!

Welcome to my nightmare...

The guillotine, of course,
that blade weighs 40lb.

It misses me by about
that much, so it's all timing.

Don't try this at home,
I'm a professional.

The hanging,

it's nice and tight
around your throat.

Garbage can goes, he gets it.

It gets a great reaction every
single night. Put Alice in the
spike machine and then...

This is the part of the show
where the audience get a little wet.

If you're in this thing,

when a regular artery goes,
it's going to splash.

That's perfect.

For Alice Cooper, being frontman
is a matter of life and death,

albeit in a schlock horror way.

The lyrics of Joy Division's
frontman Ian Curtis also touched

on mortality and suffering
but in a very different manner.

This wasn't theatre,
it was self-exposure,

as confirmed by his searingly
intense style of performance.

When I met Ian he just struck me as
being incredibly mild mannered, he
was really charming, nice to talk to.

You know, really pleasant.

When he did rehearsals he'd just sit
in the corner with a microphone.

Then when we did a gig, it was
like someone turned a switch on.

What the hell's going on? He's
like just turned into this lunatic!

I don't think people in the
audience could take their eyes off
him, what he was doing on stage.

He was an extreme focal point
to the band.

Ian just lived, breathed and
was so passionate about our music

and it made him feel like exploding
because there was a wonderful,
joyous moment, going out and playing.

Nobody looked at us!

Bernard just stayed perfectly still,

playing the guitar, and Hooky stayed
more or less still playing the bass,

and Ian just was everywhere.

He was kind of manic, he always
used the expression "manic".

And he meant every word that he sang.

Hunting by the rivers
Through the streets, every corner

Abandoned too soon

Sit down with due care

Don't walk away

In silence

Don't walk away...

Ian Curtis struggled to reconcile
what he became on stage with Joy
Division with the rest of his life.

He committed suicide in 1980,
on the eve of the band's first
planned trip to America.

After Ian died, I think he
was put up there on a pedestal.

But anyone when they die,
John Lennon, you know,

they go up a notch or two,
and the same thing happened with Ian.

I don't know, I guess people just go,
"Well, perhaps he did
mean what he said".

A frontman firmly in the Curtis
camp is Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.

"Keeping", "It", and "Real" could
have been his three middle names.

I understand the make-up and the
theatrics and wanting to step

on stage and become something
the larger than life, I get it.

But at the same time, I love
performers that walk upstage and

they don't necessarily
perform - they just be.

You know, they just sing and they do
their thing, and they are on stage
as they would be offstage.

In that regard,

Kurt was entirely that way.

Kurt would never pose, he would never
go out there and try to put on a
bad-ass face and talk

in a different voice
when he introduced his songs.

Kurt Cobain's every move
seemed to scream "I mean it".

His visceral performances
were totally without artifice.

Other lead singers might put on a
show - he was showing us his soul.

He was a mentalist. But he was so...
But he had something about him.

When he walked into a room you would
shit yourself, because of his eyes,

and the way he hit the guitar
and the intensity, you know.

Yeah. What Kurt Cobain
was doing was subverting

what the idea of a rock star and
a frontman had become, because it

had got to this point where it was
ridiculous kind of spandex-clad,

codpieced, hair all over the place,

Jack Daniels bottles and
groupies littered at your feet
wherever you went, hanging out

in the Rainbow Room every night.
And that had got really boring.

Cobain's star burned
intensely but briefly.

Tragically, he took his
own life aged just 27.

In his absence, it was left to
Nirvana's drummer, Dave Grohl,
to become his spiritual inheritor.

Forming Foo Fighters, Dave stepped
out from behind the drums to take
his first nervous steps as frontman.

I remember the Foo Fighters
did a festival with Bowie,

this was like
13 years ago in Switzerland.

There was like 30,000 people there,
and I was terrified.

We'd only been a band for like a
year and a half.

I went up there and
we played the set, and the audience

was like...
CLAPPING

"OK, that's cool, but, you know..."

What am I doing? I'm not a frontman!
And then here comes Bowie,

struts out on stage, the people
go bananas.

He just lifts a finger and the
audience like faints. I'm like,
"How in the hell did he do that?"

What any frontman worth his salt
needs is the will to stick at it.

Dave Grohl did,
and has blossomed into one
of rock's most natural frontmen.

Surprisingly, Dave Grohl's got a
really relaxed thing about being

a frontman, where he can like chat
to 80,000 people,

like he would chat to you, like
I am chatting to you now, quietly.

He's a good singer,
you know, but that's not really
what rock 'n' roll singing is about.

It's about
your ability to sort of connect with

a group of people,

whether it be a club
or a large stadium, and Dave can do
it, and there's not many that can.

I think he's one of the best,
I really do. I'd like to thank you

for making this the most unbelievable
Foo Fighters show we've ever had

in our lives, thank you very,
very much, all of you.

So, how does Dave do it?

It's almost like this responsibility

to be the Dean of this event.

To be the life of the party.

Which, to be honest,
I have no problem doing.

When I sing along with you

If everything could ever feel
this real forever...

I've always been that way.
If it's the barbecue in my back yard

with friends, or Wembley Stadium,
I'm the guy that is pouring whiskey
down everyone's throats and making

them sing along with me,
that's just the way it goes.

Us Brits have our own take on the
natural frontman, which involves
getting up on stage and...

not doing much at all, really - an
approach which is puzzling to a more

ostentatious American entertainer,
like Kiss's Gene Simmons.

Thom Yorke, poor guy, gets
tortured every time I say his name.

When he goes,
"I'm so miserable, I'm so..."

Do a flip, wear some leather,
do something exciting. Because we're
listening with our eyes.

If we give you all our money and
we come to see you live, give me

something, don't just go,
"I'm miserable..."

See, with a frontman, it doesn't
matter if you're tall, fat,

skinny, bald, got an Afro.

Whatever you are you've
got to have presence.

Thom Yorke and Liam Gallagher have
both got something, they deliver

the song in a way
that you're just like, phew!

OK, that's good for a song.

Now explode, spontaneously
combust, stigmata,

bleed through your ass, do something!

I'm not sure that the stand-off

between the UK indie and US shlock
rock is going to be easily resolved,

so it's probably best to move on
before any permanent diplomatic harm

is done to the "special
relationship".

Berated by his peers,
envied by his band mates,
what does the lead singer care?

Whether he's exposing his soul
or putting on a show,

he knows that, quite possibly,
he's got the best job in the world.

When it's working and you know that
you're on top form, and you know,

those people are with you,

and they're feeling it...

It is an amazing feeling.

I've always said, if you could wrap
it up in a box and give it to your

friends for Christmas, it would
be the best present in the world.

That moment when you're standing
on stage and the adrenalin is
pumping through your body so fast...

Because an audience are basically
just carrying you, they're literally

lifting you to this height
that you can't get anywhere else.

There would sometimes be moments,
you know, when you're performing and

you're just like, everything stands
still and you're really comfortable
and it's all working and it's great.

That's when life
really made sense for me.

The lead singer - he's not like us,
he is rock royalty,
a modern-day deity.

He's in a rock 'n' roll band,
and he's the star of the show.

Now it's over to you. A shortlist of
the 10 greatest lead singers ever,

as chosen by a panel of music
experts, awaits at our website.

We need you to pick your
favourite frontperson of all time

and all will be revealed in a
special live show next month.

While next week, it's legs spread
wide and volume knobs up to 11 for
a no-holds-barred look at the band

member who most merits the
title Hero, in his eyes
at any rate - the guitarist.

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