Morbid Tales

David Vincent—the man behind the bass and/or vocals in Vltimas, I Am Morbid, and solo projects—has spent his career among the low frequencies. Here he explains how it all came to pass...

- David Vincent

When I was a teenager in the 70s, radio was much more diverse than it is today. What was considered pop music might be Carl Douglas’s ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ or Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’, and rock’n’roll radio had a much broader palette than it does today, when everything is so very calculated. The DJs would be actual disc jockeys who would play records. Musically speaking, bands such as KISS, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and the like cemented the foundations of hard rock, whose offspring would ultimately evolve into metal. It was a great time, culturally speaking.

My voice went low at a really early age, maybe even when I was seven or eight. My parents used to listen to a group called the Kingston Trio, who played a folksy, calypso style of music, with three singers who would do almost a barbershop trio. They’d sing low and high, similar to a gospel style. I would memorize all the parts, but I always liked the bass parts best. It was comfortable and natural for me, because I heard bass.