With singing, you get lost in the music - I go into another world when I'm singing.
You know, I like playing around with my voice and trying all different types of kooky voices.
I'm trying to enlarge what I do with my voice, not through technique but just through the sounds. I think we all make noises, and particularly when we get involved or emotional about something, the colors and the tones of those noises change.
Singing is a limitless form of expression, and I love to experiment with my work.
My first album was me finding myself and my voice, finding how I sing. I was rolling with the punches because everything was new to me.
As I've gone along, I felt like I was discovering an aspect of my voice that I didn't know was there: an ability to interpret a song in a way that makes it more accessible.
As I've grown as an artist, I've gotten more and more in touch with my center, and that center is voice and guitar.
Usually when we go in to cut demos, one of us will lay down some mumbling sort of stuff for the vocal melodies because the lyrics don't come until later.
I have to be excited by a particular voice to consider it for a song. I am open to new voices. If I come across one that I like instinctively, then I would like to work with that singer.
With Mr. Bungle, I'd lay down a really rough demo of my vocals and then play them for the guys without telling them what I was saying. Our drummer at the time had the coolest takes on what he thought I was saying, so I'd ask him to write out what he thought the lyrics were.
In every song, there is a vocal element that doesn't have any words. I wanted to play around with how emotive and expressive my voice could be.
I'm kind of still learning my voice and learning my style.
I like to use my voice as an instrument and just play along with the music. That's really how I tend to my voice. The content usually comes after or during that process of just trying to be an instrument.
I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of, 'What else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?'
You are born with a sound; everyone is, less or more. And this sound has to be developed. I am not talking about vocal technique; I am not talking about how to sing. I am talking about how to produce a sound.
I can't talk about my singing. I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?
I started rejecting the proper way to sing and I started singing.
Every song asks to be sung in a different way.
I wanted to try a different way of making music. That's what made me try different things with my voice.
I never called myself a jazz singer. I just call myself a vocalist because I love to sing all kinds of things.
I think I have allowed my voice to experiment with the different genres. And I think that I have just really enjoyed the journey of getting to know my voice and seeing what it's capable of, what it's not capable of.
I don't like to hear myself sing. So to get comfortable hearing myself sing, I sang in another accent.
Find your voice and don't be afraid to explore it.
I like to experiment with my voice, besides music.
I seek out hard things. I tried to imitate other singers. It was a self-discovery for me to move from imitating others to me growing to sing in my own voice. The opera was difficult and it felt like a personal conquest.
