Carl Bell of Fuel recently spoke with Alternative Addiction about the band's split with singer Brett Scallions in 2006. Bell, who has been tight-lipped about the issue for the past year, finally opened up and discussed the reasons behind Scallions' departure.
Bell did admit that creative differences played a role -- Scallions wanted to write more, whereas Bell had always handled the songwriting duties -- but he also said that Scallions' voice was shot.
He said:
When Brett up and left, it was kinda like ‘great, well what do we do now?'
He wanted to write more, and be [involved] a little bit in the writing, which was fine with me; I can't stop somebody from writing.
Brett had some voice issues...struggling with his voice at times. A lot of it was his voice to be honest with you; he had kinda lost a little bit of it.
Scallions recently said that he left because he was unhappy with Fuel's music and wanted to branch out. Both guys are probably telling the truth; that is, the truth from their perspective.
Bell went on to talk about new singer Toryn Green, as well as the band's forthcoming album, Angels & Devils:
We had to raise the keys of some of the songs to get it in a better range for him. I had written songs thinking Brett was going to sing them, and I kinda knew what Brett's range was, normally I would adjust my songs accordingly - basically if I could sing it, Brett could sing it. Now it's kinda like ‘I can't hit that note, but I know Toryn will be able to.' And he does, he just has an amazing set of pipes on him.
The one good thing about having a long time between records is you get the crème de la crème. A lot of the songs that I wrote and intentionally thought would be on the album, ended up getting replaced by even better songs, so I think it's as strong of a record as we've ever had.
Angels & Devils comes out on August 7th. Should be interesting to see how this album stacks up against the Scallions era.
