Hammerfall frontman Joacim Cans revealed his 30-year-old vocal warm-up regimen in a Heavy interview.
“I have my ritual,” Cans said. “I wouldn’t change what I’ve done for 30 years because it works for me. I’ll find a space with good reverb, like a shower or a bathroom, one hour before the concert. Do what you must.” He said, “I start with my warm-ups in that space.”
Cans described his process further. “After warm-ups, I get dressed, maybe have half a can of Coke, and then return to the warm-up room 20–30 minutes before the show. I test my high notes after waking up my voice with lower register workouts.
The singer added, “I don’t want to end up like some of my vocal heroes, who can’t sing anymore but still go on tour. It must be embarrassing and hard for them. I can’t image how it feels on stage, yet they can’t resign because they don’t know how.”
Hammerfall has been labeled power metal, however Cans says their music is more heavy metal. “Heavy metal is timeless music,” he remarked. “At its core, it represents quality. Although not everything in metal is amazing, the genre has always been about quality. In the late 1980s, the hair metal movement nearly sank the genre, he said. “I think heavy metal needed a hiatus to reinvent itself, and then it regained its core again, which we’ve carried since the late ’90s. The ’80s were only a few years before everything changed.”
Nuclear Blast Records released Hammerfall’s latest album, Avenge the Fallen, on August 9. All of the band’s label albums, from Glory to the Brave until 2014’s (R)Evolution, were certified Diamond for exceeding 1.5 million worldwide sales.