A Quote by James Blunt
As a singer-songwriter who gets up on stage and sings about those things that make me vulnerable is an amazing experience. You get up on stage and effectively take your clothes off in front of thousands of people.
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If you get up on stage and brag, I don't think that's very brave. It's braver to get up and take your clothes off. And I do that every night.
People run on and off the stage, but usually they're removed before they get to me. It's not really frightening. There's always the possibility that someone's going to take a potshot at you; you take that risk when you perform in front of thousands of people.
I think on a stage in front of thousands of people is a wildly invigorating and amazing experience, and it requires a certain skill set; then being in the studio, and being curled up in the fetal position under the piano, that requires another skill set.
I think after coming off of 'American Idol'... people kind of expect you to just be awesome all the time, and we're still learning. I had a lot of stage experience, but it was in a 200-seat theater, you know - it wasn't thousands of people in front of me.
If you're a lead singer, then you can't afford to be sensitive. On stage, everyone looks at the lead singer, even if you don't want them to - in America, they have those massive follow spots on you all the time; it does your head in. So, if you are a lead singer and you don't toughen up, you're in the wrong job, and you have to get out.
It was like I had evolved to a certain stage where I was stuck in this songwriter bag as an image. But basically at heart, I'm a rocker. And I still am. But I was caught up in the singer/songwriter bag and I wasn't really enjoying it.
When you go through a tunnel - you're going on a train - you go through a tunnel, the tunnel is dark, but you're still going forward. Just remember that. But if you're not going to get up on stage for one night because you're discouraged or something, then the train is going to stop. Everytime you get up on stage, if it's a long tunnel, it's going to take a lot of times of going on stage before things get bright again. You keep going on stage, you go forward. EVERY night you go on stage.
What I do on stage, you won't catch me doing off stage. I mean, I think deep down I'm still kind of, like, timid and modest about a lot of things. But on stage, I release all that; I let it
go.
Performing onstage is all about reacting in a grand way. You're playing an arena of seventeen or eighteen thousand people and it's your job to make sure the person at the back feels as cool as the person all the way in the front. Being on stage is a bit of a façade. You get to walk out there and be the coolest version of yourself that you could possibly have imagined and then you come off stage and you're just like everyone else.
I never know what I'm going to say as I walk up to the microphone. I try to be in the moment. I try to go deeper into myself. I discover things on stage that I don't discover off stage about me.
We get these overzealous young men and their girlfriends. It's happened occasionally where one of them will lean up against the front of the stage and the guy is behind her, and it starts off as just dancing and then it gets into something more.
I'm certainly not your typical front-man material. Some people love being on stage and really open up, and I'm sort of the opposite of that. I don't crave the spotlight. I'm still not comfortable even talking on stage.
I guess I prefer to play live, but I don't want to have only live CDs. I like playing live because there are alot of things that can happen. I can interact with the audience and say some things to get me in trouble. On the other hand, the studio is nice because you can really take your time and make something that you know is the best thing that you can ever do. But nothing beats being up on stage in front of all that energy.
You always get nervous on stage because when you get up there, you want to do great. The crowd has you pumped up so there are always a little bit of butterflies. That's all part of it. But as far as getting stage fright, clamming up there, not generally, I just enjoy it on stage and have a great time.
But I'd say recording and playing on stage are two completely different things. Being up there in front of all those people is like jumping off a cliff into icy water. The recording process is a totally different energy.
I think the idea of being on stage and playing for people, and being able to inject a little bit of joy into their lives is a really exciting concept for me. That's definitely why I make music. It's never been for any kind of materialistic reasons, so that thought of being able to be up on stage, and being able to give something to someone in a moment of need for them - that gets me up in the morning; that really excites me.
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