by Martin Popoff
"Johnny's a lot better," laughs Donnie, contrasting his and Johnny's vocal styles. "But I mean, that would best be left up to someone like yourself. When we did this Van Zant II album and even Brother To Brother, we really don't know what we were going to do. We just stick the mikes in there and sort of go for it. Whoever sounds the best on what, that's what we do. But he's just a great singer. I have all the respect in the world for him as a singer. I'll tell you what, he is just really great at melodies. That's what he's the best at. You can play him any chord pattern and he can come up with any type of melody, so he's great at that, but he's a great lyricist too. We just work off each other, you know? I think he goes into a lot of different directions whereas if I get one direction, I like to stay with it for awhile, not jump back and forth."
Johnny characterizes their two styles this way. "I would say Donnie is more rounded; he's got more of a thicker voice than mine. Mine is more of a tenor. But we're not an awful lot different, I think we have the same kind of inflections.
Do you have any rituals to take care of your voices? "Nothing really special. Hell, I smoke, which is bad for you, but Donnie has never picked up a cigarette. But we've never had no training, man. I think it was just us hollering at each other when we were kids (laughs), and it just turned into singing (laughs)."
Van Zant - Dueling Microphones! Page 3