Justin Jesso – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the singer-songwriter, Justin Jesso, reveals what he does before taking the stage. You can check out the story, after the break.

I try to almost always do the same thing before every show. Even if its a show from my living room over the interwebs, I try and prep the same way to make sure I am ready to give the best show possible.

I start with a workout. Usually something easy… 30 minutes. A p90x tape… something that gets me sweating a bit. Then I take a shower and warm up my voice to a pre-recorded vocal warmup that my vocal coach made me. I’ve been lucky to have had a bunch of fantastic vocal coaches over the years, (Winifred Brown, Jeff Morrow, Joan Lader, David Stroud), and I have been working off a tape in the morning for at least the last 10 years. Even if I don’t have a show that day, it is rare that I miss a day doing a shower warmup. I probably miss less than 10 days a year warming up… and that only happens on days when I’m not talking or on a vacation (which I don’t take too often). The current warmup tape I am doing lasts around 15 minutes.

I will then warm up again before a soundcheck. Then I like to take a bit of time to decompress… and will end up re warming up before I go back into show mode. I won’t eat if its within 45 minutes of hitting the stage. Right before I go on, I will re warm-up and stretch. I do this deep lunge yoga stretch thing (even though I am terrible at yoga) and twist my body all the way to the left/right in a lunge while bracing my elbow against my knee. Then I go down into more of a pigeon-esque thing. It ends in me jumping around to pump myself up.

I have the same hot water lemon honey ginger pretty much before every show. Sometimes I’ll drink it throughout the day if I’m having a rough or scratchy voice. Which unfortunately happens to me quite often.

If I have crew with me, I always make sure we say good show to each other, and we will pump each other up with an all-hands in chant. Every time it is something different or funny from the trip we are on. For example, one time I saw a sign that said “no diseased cats allowed in Finland” when at the airport. I was deliriously tired and asked my crew when they were arriving if they had seen it. They all said no, but Diseased Cat became a running joke for us… so before every show on that tour, we would put our hands in and chant “diseased cat” before raising them up and doing a show. We are super weird, I know.

Right before I go on, I try to center myself, control my breathing so I’m not already out of breath from nerves or excitement when walking on.

Diseased Cat!

Keep up with him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.