Nairn rock band singer Toby Michaels faced the sound of silence when condition attacked his throat
CAN there be any worse feeling for a singer than going to sing the first note of a song – and finding no voice there?
That is how Nairn-based rock singer Toby Michaels – known as frontman with former bands The Broken Ravens and The Rolling Damned – discovered that a condition he had had since his early teens had seriously affected his voice.
“I had had a sore throat since I was 14 years old, but I never knew what it was.
“With every band I’ve been in there have always been issues with my throat. But I had always been able to sing through it.
“Almost exactly two years ago, I was practising new songs.
“I had left my previous band The Broken Ravens and had started working with members of Devil’s Queen and we were forming a new line-up.
"We formed the band in 2019 in March/ April time and had started practising then. By November, we had a full set and started recording with Iain McLaughlin, of IMOUT Records, – the very early stages. Then in November, preparing for a December show, that’s when my voice just went.
“We were preparing their old band Devil’s Queen final show and I was going to guest sing. We were going to introduce some of the new band’s songs at the gig and I went to sing one of them – but I couldn’t get the starting note out at all. I was really confused, but I just couldn’t get notes out, basically.
“I thought I had strained my throat or that I had cold or flu, but I had no symptoms.”
Toby went to the doctor who sent him straight to the ENT (the Ear, Nose and Throat) department.
“They had a camera down my throat and everything, they told me how badly enflamed it was and said it was very clear that I had LPR – or silent reflux disease – which means my stomach acid had attacked my throat.
“Until that diagnosis, everyone assumed that I had overdone my voice – my singing style is incredibly intense.
“But my singing is from my diaphragm and it has been for a very long time. It’s not related to that at all. It is that I have incredibly bad acid reflux, basically. Essentially since I was a kid, I’ve been a ticking timebomb.”
A long silence began for Toby, who didn’t know when, even if, his voice healed, would he still be able to sing?
“I was locked down from that November, 2019. I know that other than to the end of my road, I left my house only three times in five months. I couldn’t face being around people. If anything, it sounds almost morbid, but the pandemic almost came as a blessing because other people could actually understand what was going on.
"Losing your voice as a singer is not an easy one. It’s like you are a footballer and you are 25 but you are so severely break your leg that you’re told there is a good chance you will not be able to do the thing you love again. But there is a small chance, so you are always holding on to that little bit of hope.
I remember one of the times I attempted to go out to see a Nairn band. I love the boys with all my heart, but the Bad Actress boys were playing in Nairn and I was ‘Of course I will come down’ but they knew what was up with me as well. I lasted about two or three songs then I had to tell one of the boys on sound that I couldn’t stay. I was getting upset because it was seeing people doing the thing you don’t know if you are going to be able to do again.
"It’s kind of where the name Greater Than Fear came from.
"For me on a personal level it’s the idea of overcoming, and stuff. Before I had even lost my voice that was kind of the idea with it. About me getting past my fears about my voice as well."
And the new band stuck with him when Toby suggested they find a new singer.
“Will Crawford our bassist just said ‘If your voice takes two weeks to come back or two years, we’re doing this with you’.”
Slowly, song by song, at rehearsals over months, once Toby’s voice had started to improve, he has fought his way back.
Now Toby, electric guitarist Murdo McArthur, bassist Will Crawford, electric guitarist Liam Wood and drummer Franakie Haymer will be making their live debut, as that elusive voice makes its return.
Now Greater Than Fear will make their live debut at Mad Hatters in Inverness in a double-header gig with fellow new Inverness band Space Van, on Friday, November 5, at 9pm.
