If you like Disturbed’s cover of Sound of Silence, there is a good chance that you’ll love Dan Vasc’s take on Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace and The Sound of Silence have a fair bit in common. While Amazing Grace is much older (completed in 1779), both songs have a melodic, hymn-like quality and both songs are cornerstones of the folk music cannon.
Judy Collins’ folk/gospel version of Amazing Grace charted between 1970 and 1972. It was deemed worthy of preservation by the National Recording Registry in 2017. Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence received the same honour in 2013. Meanwhile, Dan Vasc’s cover of Amazing Grace has a most impressive 3.25M YouTube views in a little over a month!
Disturbed’s Sound of Silence and Dan Vasc’s Amazing Grace both feature full-bodied, controlled “rock” voices and both build to an orchestrated power-rock climax. In a blind reaction video, Sebs Duran comments “This is like after the first experience I had listening to the Disturbed do Sound of Silence. Just this beautiful voice, a similar movement starting in the baritone, moving into the tenor, bringing in the rocker growl. Even if it’s using the same formula, that was unbelievable.”
Dan Vasc’s most popular YouTube video is his cover of Toss A Coin To Your Witcher, a song written especially for the second episode of the Netflix series Witcher. It is sung by the character Jaskier, a bard. The song went viral soon after the episode was aired, and prompted a fan remix craze on YouTube. Vasc’s cover has over 27M YouTube views!
That was a great video for Music Man readers who were itching to hear what Dan Vasc can do over a full-on metal backing. No doubt about it, he can rock.
Brazilian singer Daniel Vasconcelos (b. 1989) decided to make a living out of singing after he majored in business after he left the army. After two years at college, he hated business studies and decided to concentrate on music. He explains: “It feels like I had no choice. People tell me, ‘Oh, you’re so brave!’ But I don’t see it that way; I had no choice. Music it was.” This was around 2007. Dan took classes in contemporary singing, classical singing, music theory, music composition, and piano. In time he became a singing teacher. He also joined the metal band Fearless.
Fearless released its first EP, Ancient Wisdom, in 2013. The publicity received by Ancient Wisdom lead to producer Juan Aneiros approaching Vasc to appear on The Omens Of Death, the second concept LP featuring the acclaimed actor Christopher Lee. Vasc was the character Oliver. Thereafter, Vasc and Fearless recorded their first album but failed to interest a record company.
In October 2017, frustrated by his lack of headway with the music industry and mourning his father who died of cancer, Vasc decided to try and build an audience for himself on YouTube. Two years later his audience had grown to the extent that he felt comfortable releasing the Fearless album, Chronicles of Ancient Wisdom, independently.
In 2021 Dan released the uplifting theme song for the weekly internet program Friday Night Tights. All Hail Friday Night Tights is a heavy metal homage to 1980s cartoon themes. 3 days after its release, the track took the top spot on the Amazon All Styles charts in both the US and the UK.
Dan Vasc has 18 videos with more than a million views on YouTube. 10 songs have more than 2M views.
Amazing Grace is a key tune in the repertoire of pipe bands, so one expects that pipers have heard it a lot. Two weeks ago Wayne Swindell commented on Dan Vasc’s cover: “I am A Scottish Bagpiper and that was ridiculously OUTSTANDING. Most favourite rendition ever. Made me cry.”
If you would like to see more from Dan Vasc, you can subscribe to their YouTube channel or follow them on Facebook . You can also visit their official website for more information.
