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You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

I don't know why people are so surprised by my live performances. My approach is so simple; every song I sing, every story I tell, every move I make, must move the audience to laughter, tears or inspiration. Otherwise, why should I do it?

Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I'm trying to do more. When I'm singing, I don't want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling.

I think I have great responsibility, and when I do my music, when I try to relate to my audience, I just try to do it in an honest fashion, you know, just try to be as earnest as possible and sometime it may be self-effacing. Sometimes it may be finger-pointing. Sometimes it may be beautiful, and sometime it may be ugly.

Music is emotional. Your job is to make people feel something. The best way to do that is to sing and speak from something they've personally been through. That's where I write from.

No matter what as an artist that's always what you want to do, you want to connect to the audience, you want to be able to send whatever message it is that you're singing about, you want to be able to convey that - and not make them feel - you want them to feel it, you want them to feel what you feel.

That's the perfect audience: singing along to every word, knowing the songs, appreciating the non-hit songs, stuff like that.

Starting in music, where I get a chance to connect with the lyrics of a song, I learned so much about performing on stage and connecting to your audience and to what you're singing about. Singing is very emotional. Every song has its own purpose.

I enjoy singing the songs a certain way, but I don't even know how the writing even began. To me, it's work that is kind of invisible; it's a weird kind of work to have because you're not working, but it's not not work. Formulating your thoughts and making a melody that's catchy enough for people to listen to what you're saying is really hard!

When I sing, I have to live in that moment, so my audience can feel that. That is my reason for doing art.