Yeah. I have a lot of masks I wear as a singer. Born of insecurity. About my voice, about myself. About whether people will love me. Just human being stuff really but for performers that can be trouble. If I build a performance from my need for you to be impressed then I'm not really singing from the truth of the material am I? I might impress you but ultimately what am I really communicating about the song?
Producer Gavin Bradley helped me identify a habit I had of over singing to try and communicate the intensity of feeling in the material…like a stage actor who is a ham and goes over the top. He pulled me back to being more like a screen actor who feels the emotions in a scene and allows the viewer to go on the journey with him. Thats how we approached the vocals on "Domesticated"..and it was a real adventure of trust and faith for us.
Gavin asked me to trust him enough on one complete vocal to prove to me that this more vulnerable approach would suck the listener into my world in a more compelling way. We chose "I'm Coming Home" which was a real challenge because I had been singing that song for years before Daniel suggested we brush it off and work up an arrangement for this disc.
The experiment worked for me (you be the judge) and launched us into the rest of vocals which we recorded at Gavin's home studio "Afternoon Tea" where we could take our time to develop the approach that would work best.
I like long takes as much as possible..and although at the beginning Gavin had to work me hard to keep me naked and "open" in my performance we got to a shorthand by the end of the disc. By the end of summer 2010 we were flying along stacking those back up vocals sweltering in the August heat and surrounded by a Futon for sound baffling.At one point it was actually close to "naked" singing with me stripped down to my underwear having been caught in a rain storm while biking over. LOL
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