PROUD TO BE LOUD.

Sorry Santa, but those Mariah Carey winter tour tickets that were nestled so nicely under the tree this Christmas are about to be scalped on the street for a couple front row seats to Jim Gillette! Besides being an original member of the band Tuff and co-founding the band Nitro in 1987, this glam metal hero was most famous for his extremely high voice, which he often used, with audio amplification, to shatter crystal goblets as part of his act.

The above clip is an excerpt from Jim’s vocal training video he released through Metal Methods in 1993. He is often cited to have had a range of over 6 octaves,though this has never been proven. An examination of his recorded output puts his range at 4 octaves, from E2[1]-D6[2] (which is still in itself quite an accomplishment) and on the Nitro song “Machine Gunn Eddie”. he was able to hold a soprano high B note (one semitone below soprano high C) for 32 seconds, whilst sliding between a high A and G in full voice. I hoped that these days one could find Jim still shattering crystal goblets, as seen in the picture below. Sadly, his days of ear-splitting have come to and end, as Jim is said to now be focusing on personal training, being a father and most importantly, being a husband and boning Lita Ford…Jackpot!