Mike Posner sometimes stays silent for days to preserve his singing voice, only communicating via his phone.
The ‘I Took a Pill in Ibiza’ singer takes special care of his voice if he is touring or recording new material and will cease using the spoken word and will only text people even if he is with them in person.
He said: "I’m weird, some days if I’ve been singing a lot I won’t speak, I’ll take days where I’m silent. I’ll just write to people on my phone, just to save my voice, I’m always scared I’m going to lose it."
Posner released his latest album ‘A Real Good Kid’ in January 2019 and many of the songs were written whilst he was living back at his family home in Detroit for two years so he could help care for his father who had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
Over a year later, in April 2018, Posner’s close friend Avicii took his own life at the age of 28, and the 31-year-old musician admits he was able to channel his feelings of sadness and grief into his writing to try and "find some beauty in all that suffering".
Speaking on the Sodajerker On Songwriting podcast, he said: "It’s been an interesting couple of years, I was riding the wave of ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’, which was this big hit song and I’m parading around the world and then I get a call from my mom who says, ‘Dad’s got a tumour the size of a tangerine.’ So I fly home, I sell my house in LA and basically move back to Detroit in the house that I grew up to help out with the family and then my dad eventually passed away. I went back to LA, I had a relationship that ended and then my friend Avicii died, the album is about all those things and finding some beauty in all that suffering.
"When my dad was sick I would go in the basement, I’d get up really early and I’d practice for four hours before helping out with the family and stuff, for some reason I found it easier to be productive when I actually had more to do."
Posner’s dad Jon died in January 2017 at the age of 73.
Mike Posner stays silent to preserve voice
