Backstage Pass With Rachel Platten

Transcript

00:00Hi everybody, this is Rachel Platten and this is my Backstage Pass.

00:10So my craziest tour experience was singing on New Year's Eve in Times Square as the ball was

00:19dropping. I was singing Imagine by John Lennon. And a year before that, on New Year's Eve,

00:27I had been in a van in Ohio, trapped in snow, trying to get to a house concert to play to 15

00:34people. So the change in my life from one year to the next was wild. And as I looked around New York

00:40City and like saw the ball dropping and felt the crowd screaming and like, I just had this moment

00:46of holy cow, I can't believe I'm here. And I don't think it gets better than this. My ideal dressing

00:53room vibe is very warm and cozy. Like it's kind of like this with like fresh flowers and warm

01:00kind of furniture to lay on. I also like kind of an open door. I don't really like to be separate

01:06from my band. Sometimes they put the artist in like the star room and then the band's separate.

01:11And I just kind of feel like that's a bummer. Of course, I like it when I'm like, you know,

01:15doing a prayer and centering and getting ready. But after I've kind of gone inward, I want the

01:19band around me and like we laugh and reading chips and we're just doing silly stuff and

01:24kind of cracking up and not taking ourselves too seriously. My pre-show ritual is I usually do

01:31a voice lesson with my voice teacher, Breck Allen, of 20 years. Pretty amazing. We started working

01:37together when I was in New York City and I was 20 years old and literally like couldn't sing,

01:41not the way that I can now. And he helped me so much. So I do a voice lesson with him.

01:46And that's also really like diaphragmatic breathing. So it's kind of breathwork at the

01:51same time and it helps calm my nervous system. So I'll do my voice lesson and then I will do

01:57a centering prayer. I'll kind of spend some time alone. I'll usually, if I'm feeling afraid,

02:02which I still do sometimes, I'll journal out what I'm afraid of and then I'll just get it all out,

02:07you know, like so it's not trapped inside. And then I'll intentionally just give it to the

02:12universe. Give it to God. You do it. You do this show today. And once I've done that little

02:17process of kind of turning inward and loving on myself and acknowledging what's there,

02:22I will invite the band in. We'll turn on some music, maybe like gospel music or soul music

02:29or breakdance music. And my drummer will do like some dorky breakdancing or we'll just sit around

02:34and laugh. I don't know. Another thing I do, I forgot, is I'll call my girls and I'll FaceTime

02:39my daughters, Violet and Sophie, and they'll wish me good luck. And that's really, really cute.