Before singing, I was acting. I was always more into acting than singing. It was the first thing I always wanted to do.
When I'm acting, I'm in a different place, singing is the last thing on my mind, and when I'm on stage, there's no acting at all involved, not even presentation, it's just who I am.
I was an extroverted kid and performed, like, acting and singing. Then, the older I got, I realized I enjoyed performing things that I came up with myself more and I enjoyed making people laugh more than making people cry or think.
I'd always enjoyed acting at high school, and I was all lined up to do an honours degree course in biology at a Canadian university, and at the eleventh hour the drama teacher I had said, 'You know, you'll get a lot more girls if you go into acting,' and that kinda sold it.
It was always difficult for me to listen to my singing voice for the first 20 years or so. I mean, I really enjoyed singing, and I enjoyed doing live shows, but being in a recording studio and having to hear my voice played back to me would really drive me up the wall.
There's nothing more fun than acting on stage with a live audience and that immediate feedback.
My mom helped me get started when I was younger. I started with singing. An agent saw me singing on stage at the Palm Springs Festival, and recommended I get into acting, so I was like, 'Oh, okay.' I just started from there, singing and acting.
I can never stand in one place on stage for more than a minute and am always singing, dancing and jumping.
There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed.
Early on I was a lot more unsure of myself on stage. When our band The Decemberists was getting bigger audiences I was more concerned about alienating them, so I wasn't as willing to take risks and do weird stuff on stage. But once you get more accustomed to it you tend to have more fun with it and not worry about being pilloried for acting out. Whenever you play in front of 400 or 500 more people than you're used to it's always a weird, transitional period.
I'm definitely interested in doing movies. I've always focused more on acting than singing because that's where my true passion lies.
That's what I always enjoyed about acting, the real adrenalin rush. My heart - still before I go on stage - crashing out of my chest. That's thrilling to me.
Establishing a style is important, it really is, but a lot of singers get so involved with their instrument, and more so than they do in what they're singing. I think you really have to think about what you're singing. You have to make the public believe what you're singing. And in order to do that, you have to believe it.
I majored in drama and theater arts at Columbia and was always in acting studio, but that was a liberal arts degree, not a bachelor of arts degree, so I didn't have a traditional conservatory training. There was a lot of reading and a lot of writing involved, and only about 30 percent of my classes were directly theater-related.
Singing and acting are very similar. Singing makes you reach into your deepest feelings. Singing is an extension of everything that you do when you're acting.
I've learned how to be a better performer on stage and interact with the fans, make it feel like a collective experience more than just me singing songs on a stage and feeling really detached.