This month Paul’s ‘One On One’ tour went stateside as he and the band performed nine incredible shows across the Empire State and nearby Newark – a real New York takeover! We can only imagine how exhausting it must be singing well around forty songs each night, never mind finding the time to hang out on and off-stage with long-time friends like Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Jimmy Fallon!
Paul often gets asked, “What’s your secret?” and, “Where do you get your energy?” to which the general response is usually good diet and exercise! Richard from England wanted to find out a little more detail, specifically in relation to Paul’s voice…
Richard asks, “How do you look after your voice, especially in the middle of a big tour?”
We caught up with Paul recently to find out:
Paul replied, “Thanks for your question, Richard. I have a couple of things I do before I go on stage, and I don’t even know if they work! But I do like – over a bowl of hot water – a steam. I do like a steaming before I go on, which I was told was probably the best thing to clear your larynx. I was taught that by watching Little Richard do it when we were kids in Hamburg. He used to do it before he went on. He’d get a kettle full of hot water in the sink, put a towel over his head, and [inhales] breathe in, get the vapours. So, I do that. It’s become part of my ritual and then I have a salt-water gargle. Again, I’m not sure if that does anything!”
PM.com: “This is all just before you go on?”
Paul: “Yeah, before I go on. Well, it’s in the hour before we go on. When I get told: “It’s time to go on!” I start that ritual and it involves those two things, which are specifically to do with the voice.
PM.com: “Have you done that ever since Hamburg?”
Paul: “No. But I remembered it since Hamburg and probably whilst I’ve been on tour with this band. So that’s like ten years. So yeah, the last ten years I’ve probably done it, and it’s become a routine.”
So there you have it, the now-not-so-secret rituals behind looking after one of the world’s most loved and recognisable voices!. Paul and the band certainly have a busy October ahead of them first heading to Detroit to end their North American run of shows, and then on to Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. We can’t wait to hear more of their wonderful voices, instruments and the deafening crowds, of course, over the coming weeks!