In my world, before I knew about Eddie Van Halen, I was playing piano, and at that point in my teenage life, I thought he was just a guitar player.
I've been in the songwriting circuit as well. I've been in a couple writing camps where there are seven top writers or whatever, and they're writing songs for a young girl or a young guy that are coming up, and they're kind of nuts.
I didn't know that women go through a vocal change, which is called 'thickening'. Basically, it's like when your body gets ready for childbirth, and so it just grows in a weird way. When I figured that out, I was frustrated with it.
We're so humbled and lucky to be in a position where we've been a four-piece for over 15 years. We're signed to a major label. We're on our fourth record on a major label. We've won a Grammy. We've toured the world.
As musicians, we are quite literally singing for our supper. Don't get me wrong, I love touring, but the reality is that our idols from the '70s and '80s never toured this hard. They'd do a record, have one big world tour, maybe two, then break to do another record.
Here's the breakdown: alcohol dehydrates you and stimulates acid reflux. Then, when you sing on dry, irritated vocal folds, your folds swell. When your folds swell, they cause hoarseness, which makes you feel like you have to push harder to get a sound out.
