I went to church when I was younger, but it was never something pushed down my throat or anything, which is a good thing. I found out for myself where I belonged.
I've had problems with my throat over the years, playing with loud bands for years, and I've had bruised vocal chords and nodules.
I gravitate toward edgy, intense, dark films that just grab you by the throat.
I started feeling this little lump in my throat, like you would feel if you have swollen glands or something like that, like you'd feel if you have a cold, so I didn't really think it was anything.
I've been singing properly every day since I was about fifteen or sixteen, and I have never had any problems with my voice, ever. I've had a sore throat here and there, had a cold and sung through it, but that day it just went while I was onstage in Paris during a radio show. It was literally like someone had pulled a curtain over it.
I thought I was Superman until I experienced that life-changing anaphylactic shock. I was eating lunch and gobbled down a couple of bowls of gumbo. Then, 15 minutes later, I'm in my dorm room resting up. My eyes started itching and my throat was swelling up. I could barely breathe.
What is beauty, anyway? It's more than something pleasant looking. If it doesn't stop us in our tracks and make us unable to move for a moment, unable to put into words what's closing off the breath in our throats, then maybe it's pretty, but it probably isn't beauty.
When I was on the air a lot my throat and vocal chords got tired. If you don't vary your tones you can't get pretty tired of your own voice.
I went to one doctor who told me I wasn't exercising enough. I was so exhausted, I couldn't raise my arm. When this doctor called it psychosomatic, I was enraged. To think the constant sore throat and swollen glands were all in my head was infuriating.
It is such a cut throat industry where you get knocked down so much and get rejected so much. If you do not back yourself up, no one else is going to so you really need to learn to get up, shake the sand off your chest and keep going.
