The big picture
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Hazbin Hotel
achieved record-breaking streaming success in its first season, thanks in part to its Broadway cast and talented veteran voice actors. - Radio Demon voice Amir Talai discussed with Lucifer the challenges of singing the fast-paced song “Hell’s Greatest Dad.”
- Talai’s evil laugh in Episode 2’s song “Stayed Gone” surprised fans and showcased his vocal instincts from his improvisational background.
Prime Video Hazbin Hotel Already in its first season, the animated musical for adults broke streaming records and dominated the Billboard charts, which was also due to the Broadway cast and the experienced voice actors. The voice of the Radio Demon Amir Talai sat down with Perri Nemiroff for Collider forces where he shared the most difficult song for him.
When asked if there were songs where it was difficult to hit the perfect note, Talai referred to the song “Hell’s Greatest Dad,” which he sang with Lucifer (Jeremy Jordan). “It wasn’t so much about getting the sound perfect, but more about the kind of patterns in the songs, how ‘Hell’s Greatest Dad’ is So fast. One day when I perform this song live, I’m going to have to work my ass off to get all those words in. Luckily, in the booth you can do it for four bars at a time and really get it down before you move on to the next one.”
Talai also credited his improvisational background when asked how he went from singing to evil laughter. He said, “I’ve always been a very instinctive singer, maybe to my detriment because after a while you pay for it. I think if I’d ever been on Broadway and worked on something for a year, I might have suffered, but because I tend to have quick hits, I was OK. But now I’ve got to get my act together and be smarter about it because I’m going to be in front of people a lot more. But no, just as Michael Winslow would go from one thing to another, I always enjoyed just jumping around because I come from an improv background.” Talai has an absolutely perfect evil laugh, although he himself admits that he would not have expected that of himself. “I was often told, ‘I love your laugh.’ I always laughed a lot and always loved laughing in character in different roles, but I would not have said, “Oh, I’m made for evil laughs.””
Alastor’s evil laugh shines in “Stayed Gone”
Although it may not have been the easiest thing, Talai was surprised by how many fans responded to the song “Stayed Gone” from Episode 2, which he performed with Christian Borle who plays Vox. “It’s funny. One of the laughs, I think it’s at the end of ‘Stayed Gone’, people really respond to itand I was surprised that they chose to do this because I thought: ‘I think I’ve had a better one, but okay.“Then people said, ‘We like that,’ and I said, ‘Okay!'”
When Nemiroff asked Talai which song he Thought would be the most difficult and which was ultimately the hardest to hit, the musical number from Episode 2 was the winner.”This. It was just this. “Stayed Gone” was interesting because I thought, “This feels really slow. Are people going to like it?” I didn’t have the foresight to understand that Vox’s verse was faster, and then Alastor is slowing down with the animation would actually be so captivating. To me it felt really legato and I thought – and this is just my kind of nervousness – ‘I hope people don’t get bored with me.'”
Hazbin Hotel has been renewed for season four. Watch the full interview with Talai below:
Watch on Prime Video
