PHILADELPHIA — Local musician Tommy Petro, drummer and backup vocalist for metalcore band The Song of Sisyphus, admitted he feels the same sense of awkwardness you do every time he’s forced to sing, confirmed multiple uncomfortable sources.
“It’s unnatural. I don’t like it. And the fact he’s doing the clean vocals makes it even worse. If he was just screaming every now and again it wouldn’t be so bad,” you said, after sitting through three songs from the band. “The way he has to crane his neck to reach the microphone looks like a zoo animal trying to eat leaves from a tree just outside its cage. They need to hire a keyboard player immediately to do these vocals or I’m going to have to call the cops, because this is a crime.”
Petro himself echoed your discomfort while trying to avoid eye contact with fans between sets.
“You think I want to be this way? I’ve been to several healers to change my voice. I even tried contracting laryngitis to give myself an excuse to quit this Hell I’ve created for myself. At the end of the day, nobody in the band can sing as well as I do. Such is my curse,” said Petro, who admitted that his songs aren’t about heartbreak or addiction, as most fans assume, but about the agony of being a drummer who sings well. “Most days I pray for the show to end so I can go back to my apartment and be a normal human being —- though I know I can never be ‘normal.’ Other days I think fuck it, maybe we’ll just go by way of the Beatles and stop touring.”
Music historian Henry Gallo believes singing drummers are some of the most maligned musicians.
“The hope is that the band gets big enough to hire a legit drummer, some ugly bastard like John Bonham, who’ll disappear the moment he counts them in. That way, the singing abomination behind the kid can regain some human dignity and just stand there with a tambourine like Stevie Nicks,” said Gallo. “I mean, you don’t see Dave Grohl singing from behind a set anymore because he knows it makes him look like a monster unworthy of love. I encourage any drummer to move to the front of the stage pick up a prop-guitar, like Don Henley, if their vocal contributions are absolutely necessary.”
At press time, you were seen dry-heaving at the sight of Petro moving his mic stand over to a marimba.