Jim Button – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the pop artist, Jim Button, shares what she does before every show. You can check out her rituals, after the break.

The Jim Button pre-show ritual starts with make-up. I’m not a girly-girl, I don’t really wear make-up at all privately. So just the process of applying all those products already tells my subconscious that something special is about to happen.

From that point on, I try to talk to as few people as possible. As a sensitive person and an artist, I tend to soak up other peoples’ energy into me when interacting with them. So it is a very dangerous thing to talk to anyone, it could always go either way. If I happen to have to talk to someone with a lot of bad energy, it can mess up my whole performance that night.

I know I should really warm up my voice more, but I can’t be bothered usually to do more than just a few little vocal chord exercises while doing my make-up and styling. Luckily, I have made peace with the fact that my voice is so low and now I write songs that are very comfortable for me to sing, especially in the verses. And to make sure I don’t fuck up the difficult parts, I arrange the setlist so that there is always something very easy at the beginning and I basically do my warm-up while already being on stage and having started the concert. It gives me an extra little thrill to be a tiny bit unprepared.

If somehow possible, I try to have sex as close to the show as possible. I can be so rational and too much in my head sometimes, and having sex puts me right back in touch with my body and my emotions, which is really all you need for a show. And it makes me feel confident, sexy and relaxed.

If you have to be at the venue quite some time before the show, it can be logistically difficult to have sex there, though. One time I had to smuggle my boyfriend past a 250-pound security person into the ladies bathroom of an arena while a football match was still going on.

I’m newly single now, though, so I’ll have to find something new to give me that extra little jenesaisquoi… maybe I should get a vibrator?

When I finally walk up to the stage I get into my diva mode and let my inner narcissist out. I’ve been brought up to always be humble, so it took me a while to appreciate that acting like a diva and a narcissist can actually be a good thing when it comes to being on stage. And now it is just pure fun for me. I feel the looks of the people around me and let them touch me as if they were caressing my skin. I tell myself I’m the most fascinating person in the room and everybody down there is lucky to be allowed to look at me. And the moment I have succeeded in making myself believe that, that’s when I sing the first note.

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(Photo Credit: David Guerre)