A rock star is opening up about the challenges of getting older and struggling to sing his older catalog. Former Kamelot frontman Roy Khan says it is difficult to perform the songs he recorded more than two decades ago. He admitted that his voice can no longer handle certain high notes the way it once did.
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The 56-year-old Norwegian singer discussed his changing vocal range during a recent interview with El Cuartel Del Metal. He explained how modern technology allows him to continue performing classic Kamelot material without sacrificing sound quality.
He explained, "I just naturally came to the conclusion that my voice sounded better in a slightly lower range. Of course, there's a lot of people that will wanna hear me do the really high stuff still, which I can do, but I don't have that... It's more airey, it's more falsetto like than what it was on the very first CONCEPTION records."
Khan is currently touring Latin America with his The Black Halo and Beyond show, which features songs from Kamelot's acclaimed 2005 album The Black Halo, along with other selections from his career. However, fans attending his concerts might notice that some familiar songs sound slightly different.
Rock Star Makes an Adjustment
Khan revealed that his band now lowers certain songs by one or two semitones to accommodate his changing voice.
He explained, "You can't really hear it. What we do with the songs is we take some of them down one or two half steps, depending on how tricky they are for me to sing these days. And then it's like being back when my voice, my register was a little bit higher. So, that's how we deal with it. You have drop-tune pedals now that you can use on bass and guitars, and that's how it works. So a lot of the songs are not in the same key as back in the day, which before was a problem because you couldn't really tune guitars and bass, let's say 20 years ago, in a way that wouldn't mud up the sound and make things sound ugly. But nowadays, the technology is so good that you can do that, which is a big help. Otherwise, I would have had to structure the lines a little bit differently from what I used to do it."
His changing voice hasn't discouraged him from recording new material. Khan is currently preparing his first solo album, tentatively scheduled for release in 2027. The project reunites him with producer Sascha Paeth, who helped shape several classic Kamelot albums, including Karma, Epica and The Black Halo.
