When I sing, I think mostly about the music. But I know that, through singing, my body shows everything that I am. I am a very passionate man and I suffer a lot and have a lot of joy also. In my opinion, it is very important for me to find this stimulus and motivation for singing.
My mother was the only one who encouraged and inspired me for singing. She was singing all the time in the house, playing records also.
Manchester was a fantastic place to go out in. There were 10 clubs with world-class cabaret and comedians. You'd go in and Tom Jones might be singing, or Shirley Bassey or Engelbert Humperdinck.
I wasn't looking at it like, 'I'm singing for AC/DC.' I was looking at it like, 'Y'know, if I can, and if they think I'm able to do it.'
Dad always encouraged my singing, so when 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' was a hit in the States, I flew my parents to New York first-class to see me, put them up at the Waldorf Astoria, then they sailed home on the QE2.
Singing is the thing apart from my family that gives me the most joy in the world. I don't ever spend a day without singing.
There's a lot more to success than just singing.
Ever since I was younger I wanted to be on stage, singing my songs in a glittering costume. And that happened and is still happening. I have to remember that this is what I wished for and be grateful because there are 500 other girls right behind me that are ready to snatch it up.
If I had five minutes to live, I don't think I'd be bothered singing a song. I'd be dead, so it won't really matter. I'd have a glass of wine and a cigarette.
I've been singing and writing songs only a little longer than acting. I really enjoy both.
Acting comes first. I would love to make an album. I was at an event... for Dionne Warwick, and we got to go in the studio and go crazy. I love singing, but it's very time consuming. I have to make time for it.
When I had my first experiences of choral singing, the dissonance of those close harmonies was so exquisite that I would giggle or I would tear up, and I felt it in a physical way.
I always say, 'Thank goodness 'Wimpy Kid' was a comedy because my singing in that was more humorous than professional.'
I've been singing my entire life. The guitar came to me later on down the road.
Every time I talk about this, I say: when the singer is singing, he must be respected, you must be able to hear what he's saying. You can't put a trombone and a drum up there, and a microphone on the drum, microphones on everybody. You can't hear what he's saying.
Writing is a very intimate thing, especially when you write lyrics and sing them in front of someone for the first time. It's like a really embarrassing situation. To me, singing is almost like crying, and you have to really know someone before you can start crying in front of them.
I definitely don't see myself as much of a singer, because my upbringing is really based around the guitar, learning chord progressions and that sort of thing. So the singing aspect of what I do has been a secondary adventure.
There is nothing cooler than to have them singing your words back to you. The last show I did, I was kind of nervous about putting the mic out there, because you're not sure how it's going to go. But I did, and they sang the whole chorus. I thought, 'Holy crap! That is the coolest feeling.' It's the biggest rush ever.
I'm slightly obsessed with drag queens and performers. Their quips and their one-liners, their style, their singing... I find it fascinating. And thoroughly entertaining. I'd love to play one.
When you're all singing together, it brings things together. I know the songs that my grandfather and my father sang.
We live in a crazily youth-orientated world nowadays. It's a trickle-down thing. We see pictures of lithe, attractive celebrity couples such as Brad and Angelina or the Beckhams cavorting around, covered in tattoos, stomachs as flat as the singing in early 'X Factor' rounds.
My dad took me for an audition once, to show me, 'OK, you want to be a child actor, this is what it's like.' I sang a folk song about donkeys on this West End stage with this big director, and there was a queue of 200 girls all singing 'Memory.' I was terrible. Terrible.
Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.
Whenever I've not known what to do, I've always gone back to the Carter Family because there was nothing like singing with my aunts and my mom to my grandma.
I've always been interested in singing, and I've always been singing and dancing since I was little.
Music's always been a big part of my life, but it kind of all happened in one big ball of storytelling rather than splitting acting and singing apart.
I grew up in the church. My mother was highly religious. I was singing at the age of five for big congregations.
I can't sing, like, I can't saaang. I'm no Luther! That to me is singing. Being able to hit a note doesn't mean you can sing.
Singing and dancing are the greatest emotional outlets you can have.
My body doesn't have any rhythm, you know. I've got quite good rhythm when I'm singing but my feet are very much two left feet.
What I like about singing is that, for me, it's a substitute for the psychiatrist's couch.
Being the Queen is not all about singing, and being a diva is not all about singing. It has much to do with your service to people. And your social contributions to your community and your civic contributions as well.
You'll never even catch me doing that 'soft atheist' thing of very softly singing along or just mouthing the words, looking down at a hymn sheet every few seconds to check the words. To state the obvious, as an atheist, the hymn sheet is no use to me. So I just stand there, looking straight ahead or up at the ceiling, and do nothing.
I came from a very musical family, so I grew up singing karaoke with the family. My family said 'do this' and brought me to singing lessons. I had always been writing poems and songs.
I naively thought I had to go door to door, find somebody who could record me singing some songs. I didn't know Music Row, I didn't know anything! So after six or seven months, I went back home and went to college.
I didn't go through the routine of singing in small clubs and doing open mics and working so hard the way a lot of people do and did. It was just an overnight kind of thing.