Mitchel Dae – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the pop punk artist, Mitchel Dae, reveals what he does before taking the stage. You can check out the rituals, after the break.

For the past couple of years, my pre-show ritual has been playing This is Gospel by Panic! At The Disco and singing/screaming along during my drive over to the venue! Something about the emotions in that song just makes me want to let loose and sing in front of people. I feel like a kid again screaming emo lyrics into a hairbrush while performing to myself as the audience in my bathroom mirror!

One time, I drank a lot of coffee before a show because I thought it would help get me pumped up. It DEFINITELY pumped me up, but it also made my vocal folds uncontrollably shaky. For the entire show, I couldn’t get the slightest bit of control over my voice. Every time I opened my mouth to sing, my voice either cracked or made a terrible shrieking sound. Somewhere out there is footage of this performance and I just pray it never resurfaces! From that day I vowed to never drink caffeine before a performance again.

When I first started performing, I would be deathly terrified to get on stage because I was so self-conscious. To keep myself from passing out, I would start my set by trying to break the ice by telling some dumb joke and hoping that people would laugh. It usually ended up making things super awkward but in a weird way, it was kind of comforting because I almost felt like I couldn’t go any lower from that point.. which freed me up to perform!

These days, I try to keep things as simple as possible. Make sure I do my soundcheck, give any notes to the person running sound, grab some water, and then hit the stage!

Keep up with him on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.