How Shadow of Intent’s Ben Duerr Learned to Scream

Our guest on this week’s episode of How I Learned to Scream is Shadow of Intent’s Ben Duerr.

The deathcore vocalist first heard extreme vocals at around eight years old (he was born in 1994) when his dad put Headbanger’s Ball on TV and Lamb of God’s “Laid to Rest” music video was on. “I remember not liking it at all the first time I heard it,” he says. “I never heard anything even close to it in my life.” About a year later, the music and extremity had grown on him and he liked it.

When he first attempted to do harsh vocals himself, Duerr says, “I remember whispering it out and kind of getting a feel for how to make the whisper sound of what I was hearing.” And he tried it out with a Slipknot song.

READ MORE: Chris Wiseman (Shadow of Intent, Currents) Plays His Favorite Riffs

In the “bonus room” in his family’s house, Duerr played video games and, naturally Rock Band was one of them. “I bought the Mayhem Festival track pack so I could learn the Cannibal Corpse and Whitechapel and The Black Dahlia Murder songs that were on there,” he continues.

He first started recording himself using Audacity as his software of choice and the Rock Band USB microphone. With this crude setup many future vocalists surely used at the time, Duerr tracked vocal covers of Bloodbath and Cannibal Corpse songs. Mikael Akerfeldt and George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher were his two primary influences.

Duerr eventually shifts into talking about his own career as a vocalist, from losing his voice, what his family thought of all this, breath control and what to never, ever do before going onstage.

Watch the full episode of How I Learned to Scream with Ben Duerr directly below.