I grew up with my dad's music, so my introduction to rock was Alice Cooper and Cinderella and Dio and Black Sabbath, so I was listening to a lot of dude bands - Guns N' Roses and Metallica, all that stuff.
I have always been 'small town.' I was born outside of Philadelphia, so we lived on a 20-acre farm and then spent two years in a log cabin on the Appalachian Trail. We lived outside of York in Red Lion, which is an amazing town. It's perpetually 1982 in that town.
One of the things that helps my vocal health immensely out on the road is stopping all my eating/drinking at least four hours before I go to bed. I actually set a timer after my last meal so I can't cheat. This is to prevent acid reflux when I lay down in my bunk at night.
When you have a relationship with music, and it's that deeply a part of your life, it's so much more than a career choice for me. It's an extension of who I am.
There's always a spot, any time we make a new record, where I literally go back to Judas Priest and Motorhead because you have to. You have to go back and understand where this all started for you and keep reminding yourself of that.
There's a misconception that, as you have success with a band for a long time, things get easier, and that's not necessarily true. It's harder to keep connecting with that fire that got you started in the first place when you're amongst all the politics in the business, and just having a little bit of that looming pressure.
I think that's one of the beautiful things about this genre is that everyone who's in it isn't in it to make a million bucks and be popular, because that's not always our M.O. Really, I think the last time that rock was truly in the mainstream was probably a point in time in the '90s when there was a lot of alternative that was on the pop charts.
I remember that when people started listening to what I had to say, I had a choice to set up a veil, even if it meant being something that I'm not. Ultimately, that's not the decision I made. I owned more of everything I am, which was a little nerve-racking.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
