Todd La Torre | The Range Planet

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Todd La Torre Dec 19, 2020 0:19:06 GMT Zedd Squared, falsetokaiba, and 6 more like this

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Dec 19, 2020 0:19:06 GMT

Todd La Torre (February 19, 1974 - )
Years active: 1991-present
Country of origin: United States of America
Recorded vocal range: E1-B♭5 (E1-A♯5)

Band history:

1993-? - InfraRed (drums)
2010-2013 - Crimson Glory (lead vocals)
2012 - Rising West (lead vocals)
2012-present - Queensrÿche (lead vocals, occasional drums)
2018-present - Todd La Torre (lead vocals, drums)
2020-present - Bad Penny (lead vocals)

SPOILER: Click to show

{Questionable notes}
D♯2/E♭2: "Where Dreams Go to Die" - pitch-shifted passage that is impossible to discern the natural pitch of
C♯2/D♭2: "Man the Machine" - possibly pitch-shifted backing vocal that is difficult to discern the pitch of
B1: "Condition Hüman" - fryish note without much tone
A1: "Don't Look Back" - spoken clip with no musical context

.......................................................
*Blue marks soft falsetto notes.
*Green marks harsh distorted notes.
*Grey marks heavily fryish notes.
*Italics mark non-melodic notes.
*Underlines mark notes in backing vocals or otherwise muffled/obscured in the mix.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Detailed bio}Todd La Torre is a heavy metal drummer and vocalist who has risen to fame over the past ten years for singing in the bands Crimson Glory and Queensrÿche, taking on the hefty roles of replacing legendary metal vocalists Midnight and Geoff Tate in those respective bands, and doing nothing short of a stellar job with them. His performances with both of those bands have demonstrated not only incredible range, but have proven him to be a very skilled impressionist of those singers, with his highly faithful vocal renditions of their classic numbers scoring him lots of praise from their fans. In addition to this, other recordings of his have proven him capable of doing very accurate singing impressions of other famous metal vocalists as well, such as Jeff Scott Soto in his cover of Yngwie Malmsteen's "I Am a Viking" and Rob Halford in this snippet of him singing Halford's "Resurrection" in the studio. Though Todd obviously has the high note chops to soar well into the upper fifth octave (sometimes even singing that high in melody lines!), he considers himself a baritone and has a surprisingly extensive low range to boot, though he unfortunately demonstrates singing in that range far less often. Many of his lowest notes can only be heard in backing vocal parts or spoken passages (or sometimes background spoken bits), but on other occasions he's demonstrated some quality singing in the lower second octave that proves his capabilities in that range well, such as live versions of "Silent Ludicity" or the D2s at the end of "Don't Look Back". And yet on top of all those incredible vocal abilities, Todd apparently does not even consider himself a vocalist first and foremost, and rather identifies as "a drummer who likes to sing"!

Despite his current levels of fame, little seems to be known about the origins of Todd's music career, which apparently dates as far back as 1991. For 24 years, he played as a drummer in various local bands in the Tampa Bay music scene, though I have not been able to find further information on any of these apart from a band called InfraRed, of whom a couple of 1993 concert recordings have surfaced on YouTube recently. During this time, however, he did not perform any lead vocals, and limited himself to only singing backing vocals in the bands he played with, as he did not feel confident enough about his singing to serve as a lead vocalist. In 2009, he recorded what seems to be his first song as a lead vocalist, entitled "The Welcome Experience", as a collaboration with guitarist Matt LaPorte from Jon Oliva's Pain. Later that year, LaPorte recommended Todd as a vocalist to Crimson Glory guitarist Jon Drenning, who then invited him to perform as a guest vocalist with the band for their set at Progpower X. From what I understand, this set served as Todd's first time performing solely as a vocalist, but it went over so well that he was invited to join the band as their full time singer afterwards, and was publicly announced as a new member in 2010. As part of his introduction to the public, he recorded renditions of himself singing the Crimson Glory songs "In Dark Places", "Dragon Lady", "Eternal World", "Where Dragons Rule", "Masque of the Red Death", "Queen of the Masquerade", and "Angels of War", which were then posted on Drenning's YouTube channel, and were widely well-received by fans.

For much of 2010, however, Crimson Glory was not as active, and in the meantime Todd continued playing more small club shows in Florida with LaPorte. The two of them performed together as part of a trio with bassist Robyn Fisher, in which they played covers of songs like "Purple Rain" and "Perfect Strangers", with Todd dual-wielding drums and lead vocals. That same year, Todd also performed in a benefit event called the Florida Metal All Stars, which was also organized by LaPorte, and featured other famous Florida metal singers such as Jon Oliva and Zak Stevens of Savatage, and former Crimson Glory vocalist Wade Black. For this concert, Todd sang lead vocals on a cover of "Immigrant Song", and shared vocal duties with Stevens on a cover of "Heaven and Hell". Later that year, he performed his first concert as an official member of Crimson Glory at the Pathfinder Metal Fest, and embarked on a European tour the following year, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the band's first album. Later in 2011, it was announced that the band was working on new material with Todd, and had plans of releasing an album with him on vocals. However, the only studio recording that ever came of this was the 2012 single "Garden of Shadows", before creativity seemed to fizzle out in the band. Todd allegedly was eager to continue working together and write/record more music, but the band fell into a period of stagnation that left him frustrated, and eventually led him to quit in early 2013.

In 2012, during the aforementioned period of stagnation in Crimson Glory, Todd met Queensrÿche guitarist Michael Wilton, and the two began working together on unreleased material Wilton had written. Wilton was highly impressed by Todd's abilities and work ethic, and soon recommended him to his bandmates in Queensrÿche, who were also in a period of inactivity at the time due to singer Geoff Tate's focus on a solo album that he was recording. As a way of staying musically active and earning some additional income during this period, the Queensrÿche instrumentalists decided to join forces with Todd to form the short-lived band Rising West, which mostly played Queensrÿche songs off the first four albums, as well as a cover of Iron Maiden's "Wrathchild". This project performed two sold-out shows at the Seattle Hard Rock Cafe in June 2012, which received high acclaim from fans. Around this same time, tensions between the rest of Queensrÿche and Tate began to grow heavily, to the point that he was eventually fired from the band, and Todd was invited to serve as his full-time replacement. However, this ended up turning into a very messy band breakup, as Tate then filed a lawsuit against the rest of the band, claiming that he had been illegally fired. This resulted in a judge granting both parties rights to the name Queensrÿche, and began a confusing period in which two versions of Queensrÿche existed - one with Tate and the rest of his solo band, and one with Todd and the rest of the original band members. This continued until 2014, at which point Tate conceded to let the other version of the band continue with the name, and renamed his own project Geoff Tate's Operation: Mindcrime.

In the meantime, Todd has seen a highly fulfilling career with Queensrÿche since joining them in 2012. Much like in Crimson Glory, he made his introduction to the public in that band by posting a vocal cover of the song "Queen of the Reich" on his YouTube channel, as well as a sampler video of him singing snippets of the songs "En Force", "Eyes of a Stranger", and "Child of Fire". In 2013, Queensrÿche released a self-titled album with him on vocals, which received very positive reviews from fans and critics alike, many hailing it as a tremendous comeback album after an extensive period of weaker material from the band. Todd's performance in particular was a point of praise for many, as he managed to sound shockingly similar to Tate vocally while also still sounding original and natural. Since then, he has also recorded and released two other albums with Queensrÿche - 2015's Condition Hüman and 2019's The Verdict, which have also been received well. On the latter, he also had the opportunity to show off his drumming abilities in the band, as drummer Scott Rockenfield went on paternity leave in 2017 following the birth of his son. Though they hired drummer Casey Grillo to fill in for Rockenfield for live shows, the band elected to have Todd record all drum parts in addition to vocals on The Verdict, which in my opinion he did a fine job on!

Most recently, Todd has had two new projects going on outside of his work in Queensrÿche - the first being the hard rock supergroup Bad Penny, which features him on lead vocals, guitarist Mike Holtzman, and Blue Öyster Cult bassist and drummer Danny Miranda and Jules Radino, respectively. This band released their debut single "Voices in My Head" in August 2020, and has since been recording more music with plans of followup releases soon. Aside from this, Todd has also begun working on his first solo album, entitled Rejoice in the Suffering, which is currently scheduled for a release in February 2021. Just recently, he dropped his first single from this album, "Darkened Majesty", which features some very intense and impressive Rob Halford-styled vocals. Todd has spoken of this album in interviews saying that it showcases a wide range of his vocal abilities, so I certainly look forward to hearing it, as well as hearing what else he will continue to do with Queensrÿche!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Album ranges}Queensrÿche:

Queensrÿche (2013) - B♭1-D2-G5
Condition Hüman (2015) - A1-C♯2-F♯5
The Verdict (2019) - G1-F2-F♯5
Digital Noise Alliance (2022) -

Todd La Torre:

Rejoice in the Suffering (2021) - C2-G5

Original thread by Zedd Squared on TRP2.

Last Edit: Apr 1, 2024 21:14:11 GMT by Hennessy Macklemore III

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Todd La Torre Dec 22, 2020 21:19:13 GMT Hennessy Macklemore III likes this

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Post by Zedd Squared on Dec 22, 2020 21:19:13 GMT

Why are you counting a backing vocal A4 from Darkened Majesty when there are multiple higher lead vocal notes (and lead vocal A4s too for that matter)? Cool thread overall though, La Torre's been growing on me in recent months and I'm particularly interested to hear his solo album so as to hear him be more exclusively himself in a sense.

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Todd La Torre Dec 23, 2020 1:49:22 GMT

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Dec 23, 2020 1:49:22 GMT

Are there any spots where it has lead vocal A4s that aren't shortly followed by higher notes? I think that was why I included that note as a backing vocal note - cause it only appeared in backing vocal passages without going higher. Perhaps that was a bit excessive, but if you can point out to me any "only A4" lead vocal passages in the song I'll switch to listing it as that.

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Todd La Torre Dec 23, 2020 6:21:32 GMT

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Post by Zedd Squared on Dec 23, 2020 6:21:32 GMT

I'm mostly thinking of the melody at 1:37 on "IN THE DARK where you can see" where he then doesn't go higher than it for 10 seconds when he hits a D5 (but at that point it feels like a different line to me). Personally I wouldn't count A4 for the song at all but that's the lead vocal moment I had in mind where it's essentially the top note of the melody line.

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Todd La Torre Jan 3, 2021 0:09:06 GMT

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Jan 3, 2021 0:09:06 GMT

Yeah I'm pretty sure I was counting the D5 as part of that same passage, which is why I considered that the top note. Actually listening back to the song, though, I'm not entirely sure what notes I was even counting as backing A4s, maybe 2:31? Though those don't even sound that much like backing notes anymore. Maybe I'll just get rid of that note after all.

Also, sounds like the backing vocals might get down to A2 here, yeah?

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Todd La Torre Jan 7, 2021 5:58:50 GMT

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Post by Zedd Squared on Jan 7, 2021 5:58:50 GMT

I can see why you'd hear an A2 there but I thiiink it's an illusion? If not, damn is it mixed weirdly.

Also even though that low note studio clip of Propaganda Fashion gets to Bb1, the D2 he hits right before it is more tonally impressive to me. Still, really solid sustained Bb1 but damn the tone on the D2 before it is super rich.

Batfleck Vocal Adept Offline Posts: 172 Likes: 126 Join Date: May 2020	Todd La Torre Jul 22, 2022 21:05:22 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Batfleck on Jul 22, 2022 21:05:22 GMT D3s at 1:30 and 2:55 and a C3 at 1:50 and 3:15. B♭4s and B4s in the verses, G♯4s and C♯5s in the chorus, E♭5 at 4:25

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Todd La Torre Aug 11, 2022 3:31:46 GMT

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Aug 11, 2022 3:31:46 GMT

Whoops, sorry for the late response - got those notes added now. Didn't even realize Queensrÿche was releasing new music, so I guess I'll have to keep an eye out for more!

Jul 22, 2022 21:05:22 GMT Batfleck said:

D3s at 1:30 and 2:55 and a C3 at 1:50 and 3:15.

There's actually a bit more than that - 1:50 is an A2 and 3:07 (along with a few other points on the choruses) gets down to B2! Nice to hear him taking a more restrained approach to singing in this one and actually utilizing his low range more; he REALLY needed some more lead vocal second octave notes for how patchy that section of his thread looks right now. :sweat:

Hennessy Macklemore III Administrator Offline Posts: 1,998 Likes: 1,980 Join Date: April 2020 Favourite singer: Steve	Todd La Torre Oct 5, 2022 5:56:55 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Oct 5, 2022 5:56:55 GMT Another new Queensrÿche tune here, before the new album drops on Friday. Pretty standard stuff for Todd here vocally - lots of A4s and D5s with a C5 at one point. Good song though.

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Todd La Torre Oct 12, 2022 18:53:03 GMT

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Oct 12, 2022 18:53:03 GMT

Alright so the new Queensrÿche album is out, and as usual there are a handful of Todd's weird upper first octave/lower second octave lows on it (though at least they're not as faint as they have been on previous albums this time). Not much in the ways of actual low singing either, but there are at least the B2s and A2s that got linked above in "Forest", and then there's a cover of "Rebel Yell" at the end of the album that has lots of B2s and some G2s, so he's sloooowly starting to fill out his mid second octave a bit more at least. But there are definitely at least a dozen high notes for every instance of a note E3 or lower lol.

Anyway, here are the low notes that I'm not entirely sure about:

I think this gets down to B♭1? I was originally hearing A♭1 but I think that might be an illusion caused by the chord progression behind it.

Pretty fryish, but I think this is a G♯1. Then there are a couple other lows at later points in this song, like at 1:13 and 5:36. Pretty sure those are C♯2s? I'd actually even count the second one as sung, with the way it connects to the phrase leading up to it.

This one is a spoken passage that's less fryish but it's done with that megaphone-type of vocal effect over it. Pretty sure I hear it bottoming at D2.

Anyway, feel free to offer your thoughts on these if you have any that you'd like to share. :playball:

MrToddington Vocal Novice Offline Posts: 76 Likes: 66 Join Date: September 2019 Favourite singer: (!)	Todd La Torre Oct 18, 2022 13:23:58 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by MrToddington on Oct 18, 2022 13:23:58 GMT Agreed with all your assessments except the first one, which I'm hearing as trailing as low as F#1? But I too feel like I'm being illusion'd on it. Probably need to get up a spectrograph view to be sure.

Hennessy Macklemore III Administrator Offline Posts: 1,998 Likes: 1,980 Join Date: April 2020 Favourite singer: Steve	Todd La Torre Oct 20, 2022 6:36:29 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Oct 20, 2022 6:36:29 GMT Do you think they're legit notes? The first two sound like they could maybe be pitch shifted to me, especially that first spoken bit in "Nocturnal Light".

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Todd La Torre Apr 13, 2023 18:31:28 GMT slugger likes this

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Apr 13, 2023 18:31:28 GMT

Saw Todd live with Queensryche the other night, and they played a killer set! They played a handful of older songs that I haven't heard him sing live with them very often or at all, like "Deliverance", "Child of Fire", "En Force", and "Spreading the Disease".

"Spreading the Disease" was one in particular that i was surprised to hear, because at the time when I made this thread in 2020, I was only able to find one performance of that song with him online, and it seemed to be a rare case of him struggling live - having to skip the chorus E5s, and sounding pretty shaky on the sustained B4s. I couldn't find a video of that song from the concert I was at, but there are a bunch of uploads of it from other tour dates this year, and while it does sound like he still struggles on some of the B4s a bit, he seems to be nailing the E5s fairly consistently now! So that's pretty cool that he seems to have found a way to make that one work for him after all.

What impressed me the most perhaps, though, was when it got to the low spoken/rapped in the middle of the song. Listen to the amount of strength and projection he gets on those lows!

Most of it is done around some very boomy C2s, but I'm hearing it get down to G♯1 on "selling skin, selling GOD", and then even a G1 at 2:53 on "while we can pay for wars in south ameriCA"! These are way better first octave notes than most of what we've heard by him in that range on studio albums, and combined with those chorus E5s, it puts him at a few notes shy of a four octave span on this song performance alone!

Zedd Squared Moderator Online Posts: 564 Likes: 991 Join Date: September 2019 Favourite singer: Floor Jansen	Todd La Torre Apr 21, 2023 23:46:30 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Zedd Squared on Apr 21, 2023 23:46:30 GMT Geez it's kinda ridiculous how good his lows can be despite how infrequently they show up. "Selling skin selling GOD" could very well be a solid G1, though the "south AmericA" note you referenced sounds like an A1 to me.

Todd La Torre (6,293 views)

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Dec 19, 2020 0:19:06 GMT

Post by Zedd Squared on Dec 22, 2020 21:19:13 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Dec 23, 2020 1:49:22 GMT

Post by Zedd Squared on Dec 23, 2020 6:21:32 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Jan 3, 2021 0:09:06 GMT

Post by Zedd Squared on Jan 7, 2021 5:58:50 GMT

Post by Batfleck on Jul 22, 2022 21:05:22 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Aug 11, 2022 3:31:46 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Oct 5, 2022 5:56:55 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Oct 12, 2022 18:53:03 GMT

Post by MrToddington on Oct 18, 2022 13:23:58 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Oct 20, 2022 6:36:29 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Apr 13, 2023 18:31:28 GMT

Post by Zedd Squared on Apr 21, 2023 23:46:30 GMT