Living Dead Girl - PRESHOW RITUALS Ep. 534

Hey, this is Molly Rennick from Living Dead Girl and this is my pre-show ritual. I think first and foremost the most important part of any show is the vocal warm-ups. Especially when you sing the kind of music that I do that is so all over the place with such a huge spectrum of vocal styles. I go from singing really high to singing really low to growls to screams. To be able to transition seamlessly between all of them and make it sound consistently good every performance, you need to be properly warmed up because otherwise it just doesn't sound as good, it doesn't come out as easily, it requires more force, and the audience will hear that. I also try to prevent doing any damage to my vocal cords, obviously, so warm-ups are extremely important. Usually while I'm warming up I will drink tea, preferably lemon tea, or even just like boiling water with lemon, honey, things like that that are really good for the vocal cords and the throat, things that really lubricate it. It just helps keep your throat sounding really clear and everything coming out really nicely and easily. I also try to avoid dairy on the day of a show. I kind of avoid dairy in life anyways because it just, we aren't friends, like me and dairy aren't friends, but I just try to avoid it before singing because it does make you produce more mucus and you will hear that in your singing. Like you can feel the difference as a vocalist, if you like drank a glass of milk and tried to sing, your throat feels gunky, it feels kind of clogged up. So I like to just do the opposite of that and just like drink lemon and honey tea and just like really keep the throat nice and clear and really comfortable for performing. Also on that note for warmups, I like to do tongue trills and lip trills, like doing lots of different scales. I like to go super low at first and then super high and make sure I cover absolutely everything so once I get up there and start singing it's not like forced or anything. I like to make sure by the time I get on stage, like my throat is so comfortable and everything's going to come out super easily. I never want anything to ever sound, like, it's difficult. When I scream, I like how people compliment me after a show saying that I make it look so easy, like I don't even make a face when I scream, the sound just comes out. And that is definitely due to good warmups. Also with warming up, it is important to warm up your body as well. To be able to jump around and headbang and everything, I don't just run up on stage and start doing it. When I'm like backstage, I kind of pace around, march around a bit, do maybe a few jumping jacks, just kind of get your heart rate going up a little bit because performing really is a workout. It's kind of like cardio in itself between the singing and the jumping around stuff. You have to be able to just do all of that without making yourself super sore afterwards because if you're super sore, you won't be able to keep doing it. So you gotta keep yourself warmed up, both your voice and your body. I generally am a pretty healthy eater overall, but especially on the day of a show, I'm a lot pickier. I try not to eat anything super heavy, deep fried, nothing like pasta that's super carby because if I eat something really heavy, you know how you kind of just go into a food coma afterwards, you're just kind of lethargic and feel gross. I don't want to feel that way when I'm playing a show because with jumping around and everything, you don't want to feel food in your stomach. I like to eat right before I play, I don't want to be starving. But at the same time, I don't want to be groggy and lethargic from food. So I normally just eat something like a salad with chicken or rice and vegetables. Something that's just like healthy and will give me some energy, but not something that's gonna like weigh me down and make me feel like gross, you know? I try to perform every show sober. Sometimes it's hard to do that because sometimes it's like New Year's Eve and your friends and family are there and people are trying to buy you drinks and stuff. I will have one or two drinks before a show, but I think it's really important, not just in general obviously, depends on the artist, but I think it's really important for myself personally to perform sober. I have tried it before and I cannot scream if I have been drinking. I just don't have the same use of my diaphragm if I have been drinking a lot. So before shows, if people are trying to like buy me drinks, like friends and family haven't seen in a while and they show up and they're like, hey, wanna like do some shots? Like I will not do that before I perform. I'm not the kind of artist that goes on stage like with a beer in my hand, I always have like a bottle of water and like that's it. I'll maybe drink afterwards to celebrate, but I definitely try not to before a show because it just doesn't sound the same if I'm drinking and singing. Like it just doesn't sound as good as when I'm performing sober. I'm just a lot more focused if I keep everything under control. I also love doing my own makeup before a show. I just, I love doing my own makeup and I feel like it's self-expression. It totally is. Like the way that you look just kind of sums you up as an artist, you know? So like the way I do my makeup is I always do it so it looks really good on stage and that it's really big. It translates to the back of the room. So if people are like really far back at the show, they still look at me and see like a ton of makeup. That's always been my thing, is wearing tons of makeup. And when I'm sitting down doing my makeup, I'm kind of getting in the headspace, I get myself pumped up, I get in the zone. Because once you get all the creative stuff flowing, it's just so much more exciting to go up on stage after knowing like you've already been doing creative things throughout the day, if that makes sense. I like to pick my own outfits, I like to try them on and like walk around in different platform boots and see what each one looks like, and I'll like do my hair differently. Sometimes I curl it, sometimes I straighten it, do my makeup. Like you're just getting pumped up. It's the difference between like, alright I'm gonna go sing in front of some people and like, alright I'm gonna go be a rockstar, I'm gonna go perform. So I feel like just like getting all done up really gets you in the rockstar headspace. Before shows I'm usually setting up my own gear a bit, just like making sure everything is to my liking, everything is perfect, I'm ready to go. Because I have had technical difficulties at shows before, and as a very like, OCD, like perfectionist person, like that is my biggest fear, is technical difficulties and things going wrong. And I am admittedly a bit of a control freak, and I love to do as many things myself as I can. So I love setting up like my own in-ear monitors and everything and like just kind of being in control of my own performance so I'm not worried about someone else being responsible for my performance. That is my pre-show ritual. The day of a show I'm just like, in go mode. Like I write myself a to-do list, super organized, I cross everything off and it's like so satisfying. And yeah, I'm very focused and very organized when I'm getting ready for shows. Thank you for watching guys.