I actually had a bunch of songs that I worked on with Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed, but they were too heavy for me because my voice sounds good when I sing clean. It sounds good dirty too, but when I hear my voice sing really clean, that's a special sound.
What's funny about my voice is, no matter what I sing, I sound like I'm really sad. I don't even mean to do it, it's just something my voice has. I think that's one of the reasons why Okkervil has been dubbed as really mopey - I have this tone to my voice that sounds like that.
I have this thing about my own voice on record. No matter what I sing, it sounds really serious, and I sound self loathing or whatever, which was just driving me nuts because that's not
what I was writing.
I have a really feminine voice, but I also feel quite powerful when I write. So my songs feel heavy, and that's how Banks sounds. It's a really short, powerful sound. It almost sounds masculine, and I like having that dichotomy.
Now I will do nothing but listen to accrue what I hear into this song. To let sounds contribute toward it. I hear the sound I love. The sound of the human voice. I hear all sounds running together.
Nobody who knows me would believe this, but I was always the life of the party. Oh, how I loved to sing and dance, and we had good times. Good clean fun it was, too.
There are certain recordings where my voice sounds good to me. Singing live I really enjoy, but I don't know how good it sounds.
God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, you piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
We listen too much to the telephone and we listen too little to nature. The wind is one of my sounds. A lonely sound, perhaps, but soothing. Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for-sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive, or quiet and calm... As a matter of fact, one of the greatest sounds of them all-and to me it is a sound-is utter, complete silence.
The text for me is the musical score. I'm the instrument. My voice is the instrument. My voice is articulating the sounds which are coming through the imaginings and visitations in my head, and I'm making these sounds but I've selected them from an ocean of sound.
If someone's got good, clean skin, with not too much make-up on, and good, clean hair that's bouncy, and the nails are clean and not overly done, then you can put anything on her and she's going to look good.
I always knew I couldn't sing, but I also knew I had a voice that isn't heard by many, and that I could learn how to stretch it and make songs sound good.
The one radio voice that I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I'd sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words.
It's a kind of de-familiarization in relation to the song: if she were to sing absolutely straight, right on the beat, because of the richness and intensity of her instrument - her voice - I think it could actually feel a little inhuman, too good somehow, separate from our concerns.
I hear so many of the young people today sing and I think they have a good voice, yet I wonder if they'll ever know that they sound alike.
Chucks are cooler when they're dirty. I actually stepped on somebody's the other day because they were too clean.
What I look for in a voice is for it to be unique. I don't really care if a singer sings well. Really, it's about emotion, or being able to sing the lyrics and actually mean it. A lot of singers sing good notes but forget about what words they use.