I have vocal trouble from time to time associated with sleep or wine! Or from sleeping in a bunk the size of a coffin and breathing in bus air conditioning all day.
It’s impossible to just come up with one thing that I could say to the world. That’s why I’ve spent my life in the pursuit of the opportunity to sing to it. Summing it up goes against what fuels me.
But now, with the last two years of touring and being on the road, I’ve learned that a live show should never sound like a record; a record should sound like a live show.
If I learned to play guitar it was so that I would have something to sing to, if I learned to write a song it was so that I would have something to sing. So the gut feeling you’re talking about comes from singing and communicating the lyrics and what it is that we feel.
I feel like a lot of the singer-songwriters in my genre and in my generation have gotten more and more snooty about covering other people’s songs. They believe that creativity is the intersect of expression.
There’s a lot of really inspiring music coming around the bend – we tend to believe that to sound classic or timeless is to sound vintage or retro. It’s a little bit dangerous, because you’ll really miss a chance to make your mark as a generation.
