Overkill’s Bobby ‘Blitz’ Ellsworth Talks Influences, Cites Dee Snider
Overkill vocalist talks about his influences.
Here’s an excerpt (transcribed by Full in Bloom)
“With regard to inspiration, the best voice and presentation I ever heard was Freddie Mercury (Queen). I mean just hands down. He could create emotion with a single note. And I think that what you are trying to do, as a singer, is not necessarily…of course you want to sing but your real goal is to strike a chord with regard to emotion and he, I think, was the best at it. When it comes to being a frontman, one of the things that I always did…and I’m asked this by a lot of people. I didn’t invent this shit, all I did was steal the good stuff. And I think that that’s really the way that it should be passed on. And I’ve always looked at what I do is a combination of three very unique front guys, one of them being Freddie Mercury, the other being Iggy Pop and the third being Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. If you took all three of their kind of mannerisms and then I kind of twisted them to my own shape and form, that’s where I got my stuff from. But I do think that one of the best frontmen in the world, because he does so much more with less is James Hetfield (Metallica). He can command an audience with the tilt of a head and that to me is amazing.”
Overkill released their new album Grinding Wheel on 2/9/17.
