In 2010, America fell in love with “Jar of Hearts” after Christina Perri performed it on an episode of "So You Think You Can Dance." Next came her debut album, Lovestrong, and of all sorts of gems, like “Arms” and “One Thousand Years.” Then, just months into her budding success, Perri discovered she had a cyst on her vocal cords. With the help of Dr. Steven Zeitels and some changes in her daily routine, she was eventually back to singing. The sultry songstress has since made it her mission to learn all she can about the art of preserving her voice.
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GRAMMY.com caught up with Perri who told us all about overcoming her vocal cord scare and how it’s impacted her life as a singer. She also touched on songwriting woes and her method for tuning out the pressures of having to outdo herself when writing her second album.
You released your second album, Head or Heart, earlier this year. Tell us a little about that process.
Pretty amazing. I spent a year and a half making the album and trying very hard to make sure that I loved every single piece of it — every note, every melody, every tone, every sound, every lyric — so that when it finally did come out, I would just be okay with whatever happens. And that’s kind of what did happen. I just let it go and released it. I’m always on the Internet and I’m very connected to everybody on social media so I’ve been seeing wonderful things. I’m really proud of it.
You worked with some big names on this album, like Jack Antonoff from fun. What was it like doing that collaboration?
Well, that was really fun. I did probably about 40 writing session with all different people. I was home in LA and my manager who used to manage Jack said, “Hey. I put Jack in your schedule today for three hours. You only have three hours till he gets on an airplane and leaves on tour with fun. for a year. So you might not even write a song but I just want you to hang out with him because I know you both so well and I know you guys will be friends.” So Jack came to my house and we literally nerded out for probably two and a half hours about being OCD and being hypochondriacs and about my manager. We just kind of became friends over this time and then looked at the clock and were like, “Oh my God. We have 30 minutes; let’s just try and write something.” And within 30 minutes, we’d written “I Don’t Wanna Break” on a voice memo on our phones.
What about dueting with Ed Sheeran? How did that come about?
I felt really lucky to work with Ed also, because he’s one of my closest friends. So when I called him up and said, “Hey. I have one duet on this album. I don’t want anyone but you,” he loved it and he came in the studio. That was really organic and special. All good vibes. Making this album I have no bad memories and I think that’s a big deal. My first album happened in 33 days. It was so intense and stressful that all I remember is intense and stressful. But album two, I had the best summer of my life in the UK doing 9 songs with Jake Gosling and then I had all these fun experiences with my friends making the last 5 songs and boom it was done. And now my memory of it is so good and delicious and it feels like summer camp. Every time I think about my album, I feel like, “Oh yeah remember that one time?” And that makes it emotionally really sweet for me. When I’m on stage playing these songs, I have such a positive emotional connection to them.
You had some vocal cord troubles a few years back. After all that you’ve gone through, what did you learn from that experience and what do you do differently to protect your voice?
I learned so many things. I feel like what happened was the classic singer who didn’t have any training. I sang since I was 3 and when I was 23, I was like, “Oh. I should probably go to an ENT [Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor] and look at my vocal cords.” I had zero knowledge of vocal health before my record deal and before I started doing this professionally. So then the damage was already done. What happened was they found a cyst on my vocal cord in August 2010 but because of my schedule and because everything was booming and crazy and wonderful, I had to wait one year to get vocal cord surgery. I started reading speech pathology books. I saw a speech pathologist to change my optimal speaking range. I started doing all these warms ups and drinking these teas and these syrups and these sprays and I learned about everything you could possibly do. I didn’t speak in the morning before a hot beverage. I mean so many little things that maintained my voice for the year I needed it. Then I went in and I had surgery from Dr. Steven Zeitels. In my opinion, he’s the number one ENT in the entire world. I’ve now become a board member of the voice/health institute with Julie Andrews and Steven Tyler and Roger Daltrey. I have literally a lasered larynx next to my bed that I received as a gift. I’m so so nerdy about it now but it’s literally everything to me now. I almost lost it all so that is maybe why my appreciation for it is so large. I now do everything that I need to do to have the best voice I can that day.
You are currently out on the road with Demi Lovato. How is opening for a big name different from headlining your own shows? Is there more pressure to win over that artist’s audience?
I feel like the opposite. I just did a pretty big headlining tour in The States and that’s where I feel like a lot of the pressure is because everybody bought a ticket with your name on it and you want to be as wonderful as they are expecting and hoping you will be. Whereas, playing with One Republic and then playing with Demi, is just really fun. Since it’s their show, yes I feel like I have a job to do to warm up the crowd and prepare the audience for the artist that’s coming and that part is really fun, but at the same time I feel very chill about it. In those situations, I feel like it’s my band and I playing our 8 favorite songs. Hopefully, they like us and if they do, they do, if they don’t they don’t.
