Dragonforce Looking For Their Next Singer And It Could Be You

Dragonforce has announced that lead singer ZP Theart has left the band. The band is currently working on their fifth album, while simultaneously looking for a new singer.

“It is with great regret that DragonForce announce a parting of the ways with singer ZP Theartm” the band said in a statement. “This is due to insurmountable differences of musical opinion but the rest of the band sincerely wishes ZP great success with his future projects.”

While the band has a signature sound, I don’t think that Theart’s vocals are at the heart of it. I mean, he’s a great singer, but pretty much anyone that has a melodic voice could probably fill the void without there being too much of a difference. Including you! Anyone that wants to audition can go to their Web site and download a backing track to sing over. Then they upload it to YouTube, and go on to fame and fortune.

This is a good idea for Dragonforce. Considering they already owe a lot of their buzz to YouTube due to the viral awesomeness of the “Through the Fire and the Flames” video, it makes sense for them to go back for more. Tons of people will submit videos – some funny and some serious, and it will get people talking about the band again. However, if that doesn’t work out, here’s a few suggestions for who else might be able to replace Theart:

• Don Henley: The Eagles singer already sang on one of their biggest hits.
• Steve Perry: Speaking of Journey. He definitely has melodic vocals. Check. Then again, he already left his gig in another high profile band.
• Mega Man: Let’s be honest. Dragonforce music sounds like a video game in the best possible way. They could go the Gorillaz route and just have a cartoon be their frontman.

Could Hollywood Undead Have Saved MySpace Records?

We’re hearing rumors of major shakeups at MySpace Records, if not a complete shutdown of the label altogether. Information is scarce on the joint venture between the News Corp-owned social network and Interscope Records, but TechCrunch reports multiple sources confirm the release of a large chunk of the label’s team, as well as GM Jay Scavo.

TechCrunch also reports the label’s partnership with Interscope remains intact, and all the bans currently signed to MySpace Records will remain with the label (presumably to be moved around the Interscope system in the event of a shutdown).

While the label hasn’t seen a major commercial success since its inception in 2005, it actually had a future blockbuster for a first signing: Hollywood Undead.

The controversial rap/metal crossover act quickly caught the attention of the newly formed label after it accumulated 65,000 friends in three months, only to be let go shortly after over a censorship dispute. From this interview:

They wanted to censor us and we weren’t going to do it and they wanted us to take the profanity out of half our songs and change the other half, and we weren’t going to do that.

The band was then shifted to A&M/Octone, another label in the Interscope system, where it went on to sell over 600,000 copies of its debut album. So, could Undead’s Swan Songs have prevented MySpace Records’ swan song? Our (completely uneducated) guess says no, or at best it would have delayed the inevitable.

First of all, Octone did a tremendous job marketing the band, whose genre didn’t have a clearly defined, existing audience at the time. There’s no guarantee MySpace’s team would have been able to replicate that success, but even assuming they would, the profits might not have been enough to please their new corporate overlords. MySpace as a whole has been under extreme financial scrutiny since its acquisition, so a few million dollars from one division would have been of little concern to a company that was expected to bring in hundreds of millions. Even if the label managed to squeak out meager profits, it would likely still have been under the gun in News Corp’s streamline agendas to fix MySpace.