While Sydney metalcore favourites Northlane have not yet officially announced the name of the new vocalist recruited to take the place of Adrian Fitipaldes, the chosen singer’s identity may have inadvertently been leaked thanks to a few Instagram posts.
As pointed out by TheMusic, Sydney-based rocker Marcus Bridge, who was named by the band as one of the finalists in their search for a new frontman, may have outed himself as the newest member of the band when he posted a photo showing the same bright blue guitar seen in another image posted by band member Josh Smith.
Incidentally Smith’s picture, accompanied by the caption, “There’s a homeless man parking up for the night in our studio,” may seem to have captured Marcus Bridge but is in fact guitarist Jon Deiley. Upon seeing the two pictures, many fans have drawn their own conclusions.
Northlane have not officially confirmed who it is that will be stepping up to the frontman spot but have themselves taken to Facebook to confirm they are in the studio working on new single Rot and to address some of the circling rumours.
“The vocalist we chose was not picked prior to public auditions. We would never do something like run public auditions for mere publicity,” write the band. They also have confirmed that fans will recognise the chosen singer from the audition process.
“We won’t announce who he is until Rot is released on November 21,” continued Northlane in their post today. “He’s not going to ruin what you love about Northlane. We picked the person that we thought fit best and had the most versatile voice.”
In September Northlane announced the departure of vocalist Adrian Fitipaldes along with the news that they were opening up auditions for potential new frontmen. The audition process was a transparent one, with the band sharing the progress of potential candidates with fans along they way.
In one of the rounds, candidates were asked to share their own interpretations of the title track to Northlane’s 2013 album, Singularity, laying their own lyrics over the band’s instrumentation and thus giving fans the glimpse into what each of the potential frontmen will contribute to the band, in terms of songwriting.
Bridge’s cover was impressive both because of his clean vocal abilities and his uplifting lyricism. For his track, titled Grateful, the singer drew from personal experiences with losing his father to an overdose and managing to come out of that dark place feeling grateful.
When asked by one fan, amidst a comment thread about Marcus Bridge, about the new vocalist’s abilities, Northlane replied, “We said he was more than capable of handling the back catalogue ie he can scream. And he’s pretty good at it too.”
Watch Bridge’s audition video below, and check out all the other potential frontman candidates here.
Watch: Marcus Bridge Singularity interpretation – Grateful
