Former Judas Priest frontman Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens shared his thoughts on lip-syncing. During an interview with Chaoszine, the rocker, like many other artists, stated that lip-syncing is silly unless it’s used for back vocals only.
While chatting about singing, Owens was asked his thoughts about singers using backtracks. He switched the topic to Lip-syncing and replied with the following:
“I think it’s silly if it’s a main vocal, I mean it’s unfortunate that people have to do that, they must be singing pretty bad if they have to use of a main vocal track. I’m into backing vocals or choirs and all that kind of stuff. Having like backings, choirs and stuff like that or whatever, but if’s somebody’s up there lip-syncing, it’s pretty silly, really.”
He then recalled the Milli Vanilli incident and continued:
“So be it if they have to do it. I guess it’s their prerogative, but I don’t want to go see another Milli Vanilli up there on stage lip-syncing. Even if you don’t sound great, I mean there are some people that maybe were lucky they do have backing effects because it’s probably saving our ears, but I dont care if you sing it different and it still sounds cool; I’d rather hear that.”
Many artists were caught using backing tracks during their shows and were heavily criticized by their fans, one of whom is Milli Vanilli, as mentioned in the interview. The band was to perform to a crowd of 80 thousand people, and when they got on stage and started singing their hit, ‘Girl You Know It’s True,’ the same words kept repeating through the venue through a computer, making clear that the band intended to lip-sync.
This isn’t the first time the rocker shared his thoughts about using backtracks and lip-syncing. Owens addressed the bands who lip-sync in an earlier interview and stated that it’s silly when people lip-sync unless it is for a video or a TV show.
Below, you can see the interview with Chaoszine.
