Step Up to the Microphone

The lead vocalist of a band steps aside to offer another band member (an instrumentalist or backing singer) A Day in the Limelight, singing the lead for at least the duration of a whole song. Usually occurs when the lyrics of the song in question were written by this particular band member.

In some cases, this can become a permanent promotion to lead singer: the lead vocalist departs, and rather than finding a new singer, one of the remaining band members takes the mic.

Compare and contrast with Vocal Tag Team.

Examples:

Promotion to lead singer

• A particularly successful example: after Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1974, the role of lead singer was filled by the band's drummer Phil Collins, who had previously done backing vocals on a handful of songs, after an extensive audition process resulted in no vocalists that the band found suitable.
  • Phil Collins actually stepped up to mike on lead vocals on at least two songs prior to this, "For Absent Friends" from Nursery Cryme, and "More Fool Me" on Selling England By The Pound.
    • He also sang the lines for Rael's brother John in "The Colony of Slippermen" on Lamb. The similarity of his voice to Gabriel's here is some nice Fridge Brilliance with regards to the Twist Ending.
• Another very successful example: when Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd, the rest of the band sans drummer Nick Mason took over on lead vocals; first, it was keyboardist Rick Wright, who sang back-up in their early years, than guitarist David Gilmour, who replaced Syd, and then bassist/lyricist Roger Waters, with him and Gilmour switching back and forth depending on the album.
• Another one: when Cazuza, leader of Brazilian band Barão Vermelho, left, guitarist Frejat took over the vocals.
• When Jens Ryden, the lead singer of Naglfar, left the group, bassist and backup vocalist Kristoffer Olivius took over on lead and a new bassist was recruited. Opinion is split on who is best.
• Tokyo Yankees vocalist Soichiro Umemura died in 2007. Instead of disbanding, guitarists Nori and Yoshi now share vocal duties.
• It's a little-known fact that The Doors continued on for two more albums after Jim Morrison's departure, with vocal duties split between guitarist Robbie Krieger and keyboardist Ray Manzarek. They only scored one minor hit during this period ("The Mosquito"). These albums have long since gone out of print, and Krieger and Manzarek disown them to this day.
  • From the Morrison years, Krieger has lead vocals on exactly one song: "Runnin' Blues" from The Soft Parade.
• After lead singer Ian Curtis' suicide, the rest of Joy Division carried on as New Order. Bernard Sumner had the most distinctive voice, but he also had to play keyboards and lead guitar, and found it unable to do three things at once. The band's first album, Movement (1981), had the lead vocals shared between bandmembers, with bassist Peter Hook singing the first song. By that time they had recruited Gillian Gilbert to play keys, leaving Sumner free to sing lead.

A Song In The Limelight

• Robbie Robertson sang lead vocal on only a handful of songs by The Band, including "Out of the Blue" from their concert album The Last Waltz. This is an unusual example, as Robertson wrote the bulk of The Band's material but rarely sang lead due to having a poor voice. He had improved considerably by the time he belatedly started his solo career in the mid 80s.
• Similiarly, Noel Gallagher of Oasis usually did not sing lead despite writing the bulk of the group's material. His brother Liam Gallagher was lead vocalist. Noel sings lead on only a few Oasis tracks, including the hit "Don't Look Back In Anger" and also "The Importance of Being Idle".
• The Beatles: Ringo got to sing one song on every album (except on "A Hard Day's Night" and "Let It Be"). George also sang at least one song on every album, usually his own compositions.
• Doves: Jimi Goodwin is the lead singer, but the twins - Andy and Jez Williams - have sung lead on assorted tracks throughout the years.
• Flogging Molly: "Cruel Mistress" and "Queen Anne's Revenge" were sung by bassist Nathan Maxwell.
• Five Iron Frenzy: "Beautiful America" and "Second Season" were sung by trombonist Dennis Culp.
• Kiss: "Beth", sung by Peter Criss and "Shock Me" by Ace Frehley.
• The Rolling Stones: Bill Wyman sings lead on "In Another Land" (which he wrote), while Keith Richards does so on a number of songs.
• The Who: "My Wife", "Boris the Spider", "The Quiet One" and others, sung by John Entwistle; "Bell Boy" and others, sung by Keith Moon; numerous songs sung by Pete Townshend.
• Arcade Fire: Win Butler sings lead on most songs, but his wife Régine Chassagne generally takes the lead for 2-3 tracks on each album.
• As Tall as Lions: Their last album had bassist Julio Taverez sing lead on "You Can't Take It with You" and "Duermete", while guitarist Saen Fitzgerald took the mic for "Sleepyhead".
• Court Yard Hounds are essentially Dixie Chicks Minus the Face, with Emily Robison on lead vocals, but giving Martie Maguire a song in the limeight with "Gracefully".
• Cream - "Blue Condition" and "Pressed Rat and Warthog", sung and spoken by Ginger Baker. Additionally, "Outside Woman Blues", "Strange Brew" and "Crossroads" were sung by Eric Clapton.
• Drive-By Truckers is fronted by the tag team of Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, but after Jason Isbell left, his ex-wife Shonna Tucker, the band's bass player, stepped up to the mic for a song or two per album.
• Guns N' Roses: "So Fine", sung by Duff McKagan. Also from those albums, "14 Years", "Dust N' Bones", "You Ain't the First" and "Double Talkin' Jive" are sung by Izzy Stradlin'.
  • Also, during Rock in Rio III in 2001, guitarist Robin Finck sung "Sossego", by Brazilian singer Tim Maia.
• Iona's songs are almost always sung by Joanne Hogg when there are vocals at all, but Troy Donockley sang lead during the vocal section of "Wind Off the Lake", with Joanne only providing backup and a wordless vocal section at the end of the song.
• You'd never know it due to the difficulty of telling his voice apart from Jason Wade's, but Lifehouse bassist bryce Soderberg sang lead on "Wrecking Ball", and also on "Bridges" when the band performs it live.
• Midnight Oil: Drummer Rob Hirst sings lead vocals on two songs from Red Sails in the Sunset.
• Meshuggah's Psykisk Testbild and Contradictions Collapse had lead guitarist Fredrik Thordendal perform lead vocals on half the songs.
• Pixies: "Gigantic", sung by Kim Deal. And "La La Love You", sung by David Lovering.
  • Kim Deal and David Lovering also took the lead on a pair of b-sides, "Into The White" and "Make Believe" respectively. Frank Black wrote the latter, but had David Lovering sing it because the lyrics are based on an in-joke about Lovering having a crush on 80's teen idol Debbie Gibson. And while Frank Black used to sing their cover of "In Heaven" during concerts, nowadays Kim Deal does instead.
• The Smashing Pumpkins: "Blew Away" and "Take Me Down", sung by James Iha, and "Daydream", sung by D'Arcy.
  • "Go" from the internet-only Machina II features vocals by James Iha as well.
• The White Stripes: "In the Cold, Cold Night", "Passive Manipulation", and "St. Andrew", sung by Meg White.
• R.E.M.: "Texarkana", "Near Wild Heaven" and "Superman", sung by Mike Mills. The latter has backing vocals by Michael Stipe, who refused to do the lead since he wasn't excited about covering the song.
• Most songs by the Strawbs were sung by Dave Cousins, but John Ford sang "Part of the Union" which he co-wrote with Richard Hudson. Cousins was slightly miffed when "Part of the Union" became their biggest hit.
• U2: "Numb", sung by The Edge (who is otherwise normally a backing singer). Also "Van Diemen's Land".
• Weezer's Red Album gave everyone a song in the limelight: Drummer Patrick Wilson sings "Automatic", guitarist Brian Bell sings "Thought I Knew" (a reworking of a song by his side-project The Relationship), and bassist Scott Shriner sings "Cold Dark World" and the bonus track "King".
• All but one children's album released by They Might Be Giants to date has included a song written and performed by bassist Danny Weinkauf: "Where Do They Make Balloons", "Number Two" and "I Am A Paleontologist". Guitarist Dan Miller also provided "Infinity" for their third one.
• Pearl Jam's "Mankind", written and sung by Stone Gossard. There's also "Whale Song", a Protest Song against whale hunting written and sung by drummer Jack Irons (with Eddie Vedder singing backup for the chorus).
• Relient K gave every band member - even brand new drummer Ethan Luck - a song in the limelight on their odds-and-ends collection The Nashville Tennis EP. Also, the hidden track "Good King Wenceslaus" on their Christmas album has each member imitating choirboys singing in falsetto, except for one who can't hack it and attempts to sing bass instead. Hilarity Ensues.
• Nirvana's "Marigold", written and sung by Dave Grohl - it's also the only officially released Nirvana song that Kurt Cobain had no participation in (Krist Novaselic played bass and Dave Grohl played everything else). Despite the fact that it was an obscure b-side, the song even started getting some radio airplay once Foo Fighters were growing in popularity.
  • Krist sings "Get Together" in the intro of "Territorial Pissings", but just for laughs. Though, when asked about it later, he said that it was meant to make listeners ask themselves what happened to the ideals of The Sixties.
• Likewise, once Dave Grohl got his own band, drummer Taylor Hawkins got to sing "Cold Day in the Sun" on the second disc of In Your Honor. He also sings it, while drumming, on several live DVDs and CDs the Foo Fighters have put out, and outside of the drum kit he performed Whole Lotta Love with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones on the Wembley Stadium DVD (Grohl took his place at the drum kit).
• Ann Arbor pop band Tally Hall has given the mic to keyboardist Andrew Horowitz once per album, with "The Whole World and You" on Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum and "You" on Good & Evil. He wrote both the songs in question.
• Eddie Van Halen sings "How Many Say I" on the album Van Halen III. Also in Van Halen, former bassist and backing vocalist Michael Anthony was known to sing "Somebody Call Me A Doctor" during concerts.
• Depeche Mode usually has Martin Gore singing lead on at least one song per album. ("Somebody", "Blue Dress", "One Caress", et al.) What's interesting is that he writes 99% of their songs; him singing is usually a stylistic choice rather than because the song was too personal.
• While Tim Armstrong (later of Rancid) had a pretty prominent backing vocal part in most Operation Ivy songs, the one time he got to sing lead was on "Bad Town".
• The Cure's cover of "Foxey Lady" was sung by then-bassist Michael Dempsey because Robert Smith was against the idea of doing cover songs at the time.
• Early Flaming Lips song "Can't Exist" was sung by former drummer Richard English. Much later Steven Drozd would sing "Pompeii am Götterdämmerung", although his part wasn't originally intended to be the lead vocal. Wayne Coyne was going to sing over Drozd's multi-tracked, choir-like vocal part, but the band decided the song would sound better without this.
• Lead guitarist Stu G of Delirious? sang the verses of "Inside Outside", although Martin Smith still sang the chorus.
• Wings:
  • Denny Laine sang "The Note You Never Wrote", "Time to Hide", "Children, Children", and "Deliver Your Children".
  • Jimmy McCulloch sang "Medicine Jar" and "Wino Junko".
  • Joe English sang "Must Do Something About It".
  • Linda McCartney sang "Cook of the House".
• Bjorn Ulvaeus sang lead on one or two songs on each of the early ABBA albums, though "Two for the Price of One" was his only lead vocal on any of the later albums. Benny Andersson had one lead vocal in the band's entire career, "Suzy Hang-Around".
• Queen: Brian May and Roger Taylor have sung lead vocals on several songs. John Deacon was always happy just doing backing vocals.
  • Only live, however. John never sang on their studio albums, and he always said in interviews that with three strong vocalists in the group, there wasn't much need for him to do any singing. His bandmates' favourite prank was to make his microphone louder than theirs during concerts.
• All four members of Sloan take turns on lead vocals, generally on the songs they themselves have written.
• Black Sabbath: "It's Alright" and "Swinging the Chain" are sung by drummer Bill Ward.
• Pink Floyd: drummer Nick Mason sings two B-sides, "Scream Thy Last Scream" and "The Merry Xmas Song". Rick Wright kinda qualifies.
  • Mason also gets credit for delivering the only lyric ("One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces") from "One of These Days".
• Green Day: for full songs,drummer Tré Cool sings "Dominated Love Slave" and "All By Myself", and bassist Mike Dirnt sings b-side "Governator"; for suites, American Idiot has one part of "Homecoming" sung by Cool ("Rock N' Roll Girlfriend") and one by Dirnt ("Nobody Likes You"), and Twenty First Century Breakdown has Dirnt singing half of "American Eulogy" ("Modern World").
• Adrian Smith sings lead vocals on "Reach Out" for Iron Maiden. Possibly parodied by an "attempt" at making drummer Nicko McBrain sing. It's hilarious. (the original song, just for comparison).
• Some Alabama album cuts feature bassist Teddy Gentry or guitarist/fiddler Jeff Cook on lead vocal instead of Randy Owen.
• Michigan comedic musical group Da Yoopers usually gives the lead vocal to the lead guitarist/main songwriter (originally Joe Potila; Jim Bellmore since 1995). If they need a female vocal, it's keyboardist Lynn Bellmore. However, several albums feature a lead vocal from one of the other members. Pretty much the only exceptions were original bassist Jim Pennell, third bassist Dave "Doc" Bradbury and current drummer Bobby Symons. Also, Bobby's predecessor Jerry Coffey never got a lead vocal until he gave up the drums to be just a singer, comedy skit actor and occasional conga player.
  • Taking this trope even further, they often let local musicians contribute, even to the point that some have sung lead. One such local musician, "Cowboy" Dan Collins, got a couple Early Bird Cameos before his rather short stint as an official member — but even then, he still got the occasional lead vocal.
• Country music group Blackhawk gave at least one song to Van Stephenson instead of Henry Paul (who is also the only person to be in the band from day one).
• Whitesnake: in the early days of the band guitarist Bernie Marsden got to sing lead on two tracks: 'Free Flight' and 'Outlaw'.
• Y&T: 'Squeeze' was sung by bassist Phil Kennemore.
• Blur: Guitarist Graham Coxon sings on three songs he wrote, "You're So Great", "Coffee and TV" and "Battery in Your Leg", while bassist Alex James wrote and sang on "Far Out".
• Havalina Rail Co. has done this a bunch over the years.
  • Drummer Jeff Suri sings "One Day", "Cajun Blue", "Bullfrog", and "Keep Smil'n".
  • Percussionist Lori Hoopes-Suri sings "Winter".
  • Saxophonist Nathan Jensen sings "Paper Moon", "Prelude and Blues", and "Nathan's Song".
  • Guitarist Mercedes Stevens sings "Carlos".
  • Keyboardist Dave Maust delivers a spoken-word bit on "Space, Love, and Bullfighting Suite".
• Red Hot Chili Peppers: the song "Knock Me Down" from the album Mother's Milk has guitarist John Frusciante and lead singer Anthony Kiedis singing in unison -- however, Frusciante's vocals are much more audible.
  • Also, Flea's song "Pea" from the album One Hot Minute.
• Country music band Trick Pony released only one single with a different lead vocal: "Just What I Do", on which Keith Burns sang instead of Heidi Newfield. Both Burns and third member Ira Dean got lead vocals on a few album cuts.
• "Hourglass" by At The Drive-In, sung by rhythm guitarist Jim Ward - Ward would go on to front Sparta, whose lineup mostly consisted of other former members of ATDI.
• Faces: Ron Wood sings "Ooh La La", while Ronnie Lane sings "Richmond", "You're So Rude", "Debris", and "Last Orders Please".
• While other members frequently wrote the lyrics and music to songs, the only time someone other than Mike Patton took lead vocals on a Mr. Bungle song was on "The Secret Song", sung/spoken by bassist Trevor Dunn. Strangely, this ended up happening because the band originally left Dunn out of the song entirely: The song was written and recorded without him, and when he stumbled upon the track on his own, he jokingly retaliated by secretly recording lyrics about how angry he was about being left out of the song. The rest of the group was amused enough to keep it in, then they furthered the in-joke by not listing the song anywhere on the artwork to Disco Volante.
• Fugazi mostly have Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto as a Vocal Tag Team, but bassist Joe Lally takes the lead for the song "By You".
• Madness. Suggs sings most songs, but Cathal Smyth and Lee Thompson also take the lead on occasion; the latter's usual live Song In The Limelight is Razor Blade Alley.
• The Mighty Mighty Bosstones' b-side "Chocolate Pudding" has saxophonist Tim "Johnny Vegas" Burton on lead vocals.
• Originally, the country band Lonestar had two lead singers: Richie McDonald and John Rich. They also split the vocals in slight favor of Richie over John, but only ever released one single with him on lead: "Heartbroke Every Day". (Coincidentally, this song charted at the same time that McDonald made a guest appearance on Mindy McCready's "Maybe He'll Notice Her Now".)
  • After John was fired from the band in 1998, he went solo and later founded Big & Rich with Big Kenny, where this trope cropped up again. Big Kenny got lead on the majority of their singles, and the only ones on which John Rich sang lead were "Never Mind Me" and "Lost in This Moment".
• Guster usually has a singing switching between Ryan and Adam. However, fourth member Joe has his own song, "I Hope Tomorrow Is Like Today", where Ryan and Adam sing back up vocals. During live shows, the band also occasionally does a "Chinese Fire Drill", where everyone switches instruments and roles and plays a song, badly.
• There's a couple examples of this on Steely Dan's debut album Can't Buy A Thrill: "Midnite Cruiser" is sung by drummer Jim Hodder. "Dirty Work", "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)" and part of "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again" are sung by David Palmer, who was hired as the band's "lead singer" for live shows because the band's actual lead singer/songwriter Donald Fagen suffered from stage fright. Fagen and his songwriting partner Walter Becker eventually completely took over the band and retired from public performance, and fired the auxillary members, which meant that after the first album, all other recordings in the band's catalog were sung by Donald Fagen.
  • Actually, Donald Fagen didn't want to sing as he thought the band would get more airplay with a professional sounding vocalist. This is proven by the fact they have guest vocalists on their early demos long before they played any shows, not to mention their first single "Dallas", sung by Jim Hodder (which doesn't appear on an album). Donald sang on all the songs from their second album onwards to give the albums a sense of unity, but he got David Palmer and Royce Jones to perform vocals on the Countdown To Ecstasy and Pretzel Logic tours. They only sacked the extra vocalists when they became a studio-only band for The Royal Scam.
  • Walter Becker, who didn't do much singing aside from the odd backing vocal as he was more involved with the band's instrumentation, gets a long-awaited lead vocal on "Slang of Ages" from 2003's Everything Must Go.
• Mercury Rev's "Hudson Line" had guitarist Grasshopper take lead vocals instead of Jonathan Donahue.
• Linkin Park is well known for its Vocal Tag Team of Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, although Shinoda himself became famous for his rapping in tandem with Chester's wide-ranged, versatile singing, which could range from anywhere from clean to Harsh Vocals to a full-blown Metal Scream. While 'Minutes To Midnight' featured much less rapping from Shinoda, he got an entire song to himself in "In Between" and has been singing quite a bit more on songs since then.
• The Goo Goo Dolls have John Rzeznik and Robby Takac. Rzeznik is known for being the voice behind hits like "Name" and "Iris", but until close to that point, Takac was actually the lead vocalist as the band had mainly punk influences, with Rzeznik getting a song - usually a ballad - in the limelight every so often. Since the band found more mainstream success, it's been the other way around. Rzeznik has taken over as the main lead vocalist, but Robby Takac still sings lead on at least two or three songs per album.
• Poison's song "I Hate Every Bone In Your Body But Mine" features lead vocals by guitarist C.C. DeVille.
• Original Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone sings lead vocals on several songs. (He was the band's lead singer in the early days, but bowed out of that role when he discovered he couldn't sing and play bass at the same time). After Dee Dee retired from preforming with the band, his replacement, C.J. Ramone, handled vocal duties on at least one song from each of their last three albums.
• The song "Can You Imagine", from Yes' 2001 album Magnification and the song "The Man You Always Wanted Me To Be" from their 2011 release Fly From Here feature lead vocals by bassist Chris Squire. Also, there are two bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of 90125 in which guitarist Trevor Rabin sings lead, and he does additional vocals for "Changes".
• Original Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams sang lead on the song "Move On Alone" from their 1968 debut album This Was. The two acts of their 1973 opus A Passion Play are separated by a musical spoken-word piece entitled "The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles", narrated (and towards the end, sung) by bassist Jeffrey Hammond.
• Motley Crue played around with this trope a bit on their Generation Swine album, which features one song sung by Nikki Sixx ("Rocketship") and another by Tommy Lee ("Brandon"). Also, Nikki's vocals are so prominent on the songs "Beauty" and "Find Myself" that Vince's contributions to those tracks could be taken for backup vocals.
• The Corrs is a four part band of three sisters and a brother. The two instrument playing sisters, one who plays drums and the other the violin, are both incredibly talented vocalists in their own right. The most prominent example of them singing lead is the song No Frontiers.
• Billy Howerdel is the founding member of A Perfect Circle, but mainly sticks to lead guitar and backing vocals. However, he does sing lead on their covers of Devo's "Freedom Of Choice" and Depeche Mode's "People Are People". There's an acoustic version of "Orestes" with his lead vocals that was released as a b-side, but that may not count, since it was a solo demo recorded before the rest of the band got together.
• Creedence Clearwater Revival's Mardi Gras was their final album and the only one to feature any members other than John Fogerty writing or singing songs. In fact, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford get three songs each, with Fogerty only contributing three originals and one cover.
• Bob 2 from Devo got their semi-cover of "Secret Agent Man". Jerry Casale explained that he was chosen for the song because he is the most everyman looking member of the group.
• Jamie Murphy did this on every Space album except Suburban Rock 'n' Roll; he had five songs on Spiders, three on Tin Planet (one of which he shared with Franny Griffiths), four on Love You More Than Football, and various B-sides. Yorkie sang lead vocals on 'Lost In Space' and 'Supersonic Jetplane'. Even Franny gets a vocal in the limelight, on 'I Am Unlike A Lifeform You've Ever Met'.
• Alison Krauss & Union Station sometimes gives Dan Tyminski or Ron Block the lead vocal. It can be quite disconcerting to listen to a song by a band with that name, then hear a male voice singing.
• Rascal Flatts has only done two songs where this trope fits: all three members (lead singer Gary LeVox, bassist Jay DeMarcus and guitarist Joe Don Rooney) split the lead on "Long Slow Beautiful Dance" and their version of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen". Also, on a 2011 Christmas special created by the Country Music Association, DeMarcus and Rooney sang most of "Mary, Did You Know?" by themselves.
• Keith Richards got two lead vocal showcases on The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main St. ("Happy" and "Soul Survivor"), and he's generally sung lead on at least one song on every album since. Meanwhile, "In Another Land" is the only Rolling Stones song to be sung by Bill Wyman.
• The Oak Ridge Boys. Duane Allen is called the lead singer, but the other three have gotten their turns. Most notably, tenor Joe Bonsall sang lead on their Signature Song "Elvira" and "I Guess It Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes", baritone William Lee Golden on "Trying to Love Two Women" and "I Wish You Could Have Turned My Head (And Left My Heart Alone)", and Basso Profundo Richard Sterban on "Dream On". All four take turns on "American Made".
  • Interestingly, the band kicked out baritone vocalist William Lee Golden in 1987 and replaced him with Steve Sanders, who got lead on almost every big hit during his tenure except "True Heart", which Allen sang. (Golden rejoined in 1995.)
• Brooks and Dunn released six singles with Kix Brooks on lead: "Lost and Found", "Rock My World (Little Country Girl)", "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone" (the only of their 20 #1's that he sang lead on), "Mama Don't Get Dressed Up for Nothing", "Why Would I Say Goodbye" and "South of Santa Fe". The last of those was released in 1999, a good 10 years before they split up, and supposedly withdrawn just shy of the top 40 because program directors were saying that they didn't want another Kix song. And on most of the other 44 songs, Kix is either barely audible (perhaps because they tended to use studio backing vocalists as well) or just plain nonexistant.
• The Velvet Underground had three lead singers on rotating duty - Lou Reed and Nico on the first album, Lou and Doug Yule on the last two - but bass/piano/viola player John Cale ("Lady Godiva's Operation", "The Gift") and drummer Maureen Tucker ("After Hours", "I'm Sticking With You") also got to sing two each.
• Noel Redding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience got to sing a song of his own on both Axis: Bold As Love ("She's So Fine", with backing vocals by Mitch Mitchell) and Electric Ladyland ("Little Miss Strange").
• Jonathan Cain of Journey has lead vocals on "All That Really Matters" on the Time3 box set.
• Sister Hazel is somewhere between this trope and Vocal Tag Team with Drew Copeland, who sings at least one song per album (except the first) at lead vocals. Also, guitarist Ryan Newell did all the vocals for "Christmas Time Again", on their Christmas album, Santa's Playlist.
• Aerosmith's Joe Perry sings lead vocals on a few of their songs. He also sings twinned harmonizing vocals with Steven Tyler in "Combination".
• OK Go's Tim Nordwind sings "C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips". So far this is the only song of theirs not to have Damian Kulash on lead vocals.
• On the first Dinosaur Jr album, J. Mascis and Lou Barlow actually had something of a Vocal Tag Team approach. All other albums featuring Barlow have him only singing lead on one or two songs, including the reunion albums Beyond and Farm.
• Johnny Hickman usually gets one to three songs on any given Cracker album, or else doesn't sing lead at all (though he also sings lead on various B Side or compilation tracks). Also, "What You're Missing" is notable for giving everyone in the then-current lineup a Piss-Take Rap style verse.
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have been known to do this, mostly in concert. Tom sings nearly all of the songs but on occasion he'll step aside and let one of the Heartbreakers sing lead.
• For the Max Webster song "A Million Vacations", lead vocals were provided by drummer Gary McCracken rather than usual singer Kim Mitchell.
• On Yeah!, Def Leppard's album of cover songs, the Queen song "Dear Friends" is sung, punk-style, by bassist Rick Savage.
• While most of their original songs are written by either Chris White or Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone generally plays the role of lead singer in The Zombies. Odessey And Oracle had some exceptions though: Rod Argent sang lead on "I Want Her She Wants Me", while Chris White sang "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)" and a verse of "Brief Candles".
• XTC are usually based around the Vocal Tag Team of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding. However, Go 2 had Barry Andrews, keyboardist for their first two albums, sing "My Weapon" and "Super-Tuff".
• Heart normally features Ann Wilson as the lead singer with her sister Nancy on the guitar. Nancy, however, has performed lead vocals on several songs, most notably "These Dreams", Heart's first #1 single.

Both

• The Newsboys. When John James left, their drummer Pete Furler took his place as lead singer. The first album with Pete on lead vocals was, appropriately enough, titled Step Up to the Microphone. Now Furler has left and been replaced by Michael Tait. Phil Joel has several "Songs in the Limelight" - a few of the band's hits such as "Woo Hoo" and "Entertaining Angels", as well as lesser-known tracks like "Breathe (Benediction)". Many American fans probably didn't know this ,as it was difficult to tell Joel's New Zealand accent apart from the Aussie accents of John James and Peter Furler (who themselves sounded quite like each other).
• Steven Page and Ed Robertson shared lead vocal duties in the Barenaked Ladies until Page left, but every other band member has had sung lead at one point or another - Andy Creeggan on a couple tracks from Maybe You Should Drive, Jim Creeggan on a few songs as far back as Born on a Pirate Ship, Kevin Hearn on "Hidden Sun" from Maroon, and even Tyler Stewart on "Allergies" (making Snacktime! the only album in which all 5 members get a lead vocal). The practice continues now that Robertson is the de facto lead singer.
• The Kentucky Headhunters have taken both versions of this trope:
  • Initially, Ricky Lee Phelps sang lead and played harmonica, while his brother Doug sang backup and played bass. Both Phelpses left in the 1990s over Ricky Lee's Creative Differences, with Mark S. Orr taking over on lead and Anthony Kenney as bassist/backing vocalist. Orr left after only one album (also over creative differences) and Doug rejoined because he didn't really want to leave in the first place; since Ricky Lee didn't want to rejoin, Doug took over as lead singer. After Kenney left in the late 2000s, Doug has also become a Lead Bassist.
  • The other side of this trope comes in on Songs from the Grass String Ranch, which gave one song each to brothers Richard and Fred Young (respectively the rhythm guitarist and drummer). Richard has since gotten lead on a couple more songs on subsequent albums, and is now the main backing vocalist after Kenney's departure (although lead guitarist Greg Martin sometimes sings backing vocals too).
• An odd variation came with Country Music band Little Texas. Initially, Tim Rushlow was the lead singer, but keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Brady Seals got some songs in the limelight (including their only #1 hit, "My Love"). Seals left for a solo career in 1995 and was replaced by Jeff Huskins, who never got a chance at lead vocal since the band only did one album with him before disbanding in 1997. The other four members (drummer Del Gray, guitarist Porter Howell, rhythm guitarist Dwayne O'Brien and bassist Duane Propes) reunited in 2004 with new lead singer Steven Troy, as both Seals and Rushlow had founded other bands at that point. Troy didn't last long as lead vocalist, so guitarist Porter Howell got promoted to lead singer. Although Howell had been in the group since day one, he was previously just the guitarist, and never contributed even a backing vocal.
• After lead singer Larry Stewart left Restless Heart, the band recorded Big Iron Horses with the lead vocals split among drummer John Dittrich (who got lead on their first post-Stewart singles, "When She Cries" and "We Got the Love"), bassist Paul Gregg and keyboardist Dave Innis (the single "Mending Fences"), with guitarist Greg Jennings as the odd man out. After Innis left, they recorded one album with just Dittrich, Gregg and Jennings (and several session musicians) before breaking up. When all five members got back together in 2004, their reunion album included Stewart on most of the lead vocals, but gave a couple songs in the limelight to the other members.
• The final track on Don Caballero's Punkgasm features two notable versions of this trope as the final track features drummer Damon Che on guitar and vocals. Notable as Che primarily plays drums and Punkgasm is the first Don Cab album to feature vocals.
• Steve Lukather, David Paich and (less frequently) Steve Porcaro occasionally provided lead vocals on some Toto songs. After frustrations relating to their inability to maintain a consistent lead singer after Bobby Kimball left the group, Steve Lukather decided it would be easier if he filled the position, and stayed there for close to ten years before Kimball returned to the fold.