British rocker Bernard Sumner quit singing lessons in the 1980s after his instructor urged him to emulate pop star Tony Hadley's vocals.
Sumner began his career as the guitarist for Joy Division but he was left to pick up the microphone after the band's singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980 and the group was renamed New Order.
The rocker admits he initially hated tackling frontman duties, and he refused to continue his vocal lessons after his teacher told him to look to Spandau Ballet's Hadley as a role model.
He tells Britain's GQ magazine, "I like singing now but I didn't at the start. I didn't think about singing, didn't know how to do it, so I hit the ground stumbling. I had four lessons, which helped. The teacher showed me that my breathing was wrong."
"I stopped going when he used Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet as an example of a good singer, that I should study his voice. It's experience. If someone throws you in a pool and you can't swim, you're going to struggle."