How The Funeral Portrait’s Lee Jennings Learned to Sing

Our visitor on this episode of How I Realized to sing is Lee Jennings of The Funeral Portrait.

The frontman takes us again to his childhood, how he first fell in love with singing, help from his household and the challenges touring presents for a singer.

How Lee Jennings Started Singing + Early Influences

When Lee Jennings was about 13 years previous, listening to Evanescence’s Amy Lee on the radio modified his life.

“She had this classical voice. Very operatic,” he describes, noting that he was lively in musical theater and choir on the time.

The theatricality of Lee’s voice was immediately interesting to Jennings, who then started to surprise, “Is that this my first crush?” He even obtained a fanboy second in after performing on the Aftershock competition and instructed her how a lot she influenced him. He remembers, “She was like, ‘I do not hear that always. It is so cool to listen to that from you guys.’ So it was an enormous particular second final 12 months listening to that from her.”

Faculty did not come naturally for Jennings and, happily, his choir trainer acknowledged his potential and inspired his mother to get him correct voice classes.

READ MORE: The Funeral Portrait’s Lee Jennings Talks About How Ivan Moody Wished to Assist out His ‘Little Outdated Band’

It was a turning level for Jennings, who was a little bit of an outcast within the faculty’s social hierarchy. “I lastly discovered the one factor in school that made me really feel comfy and made me wish to preserve going to high school as a result of, for me, I by no means needed to be there,” he continues. “I used to be bored with getting made enjoyable of. I used to be mainly six toes tall in elementary faculty. So, like, after all all of the bullies picked on me, you understand?”

His household was supportive of his expertise and inspired it. The automobile was a preferred place to sing and he has heat reminiscences of his mother driving round, listening to Blondie, Billy Idol and Queen. As he found his personal music, comparable to Evanescence and The Used, he discovered his true calling with music.

Lee Jennings on Beginning Bands

As a young person within the MySpace period, Jennings dabbled in all types of bands, from digital grindcore to “full on grindcore” and a “tremendous scenecore band.” He has an area group referred to as Make me Imagine that obtained common in northern Atlanta and he labored at a 200-capacity venue as effectively. From ages 14 to 21, he was reserving numerous bands, together with Circa Survive.

When it got here to forming The Funeral Portrait together with his greatest good friend, it was “only a joke.” He by no means meant for it to turn out to be as critical because it did, particularly contemplating they have been taking part in alongside to drum beats that they had programmed.

Whereas recording his personal music, Jennings additionally started recording different native bands and finally constructed a studio at his home with assist from his grandfather.

How Lee Jennings Maintains His Voice on Tour

Touring is at all times notably tough for singers. So many components earlier than and after a present will be damaging to the voice and what works for one singer could not essentially assist one other. It is all about understanding and trusting your voice and physique, recognizing the indicators they’re providing you with.

Since he is had classical coaching, Jennings says he is solely misplaced his voice twice in 10 years of touring.

To organize for a present, he says, “I positively heat it up. I positively make certain I am ingesting numerous water. I do some stretches as a result of I do numerous excessive kicks up onstage — I am an enormous mover.”

Dive additional into Jennings’ journey as a singer from a child via the current day and watch the complete episode of How I Realized to Sing under.

How The Funeral Portrait’s Lee Jennings Realized to Sing

The Funeral Portrait in 2025

The Funeral Portrait are on Ice 9 Kills’ Hell of a Summer season U.S. tour which additionally options Dayseeker and Kim Dracula. That run wraps up o Sept. 13.

5 days after that tour ends, The Funeral Portrait will stay on the highway from Sept. 18 via Oct. 24 on In This Second’s Black mass trek. That options Dayseeker in addition to Ded. Then it is off to Europe for all of November into early December, bringing the band’s complete to effectively over 100 exhibits carried out this 12 months.

For tickets and extra info, go to The Funeral Portrait’s web site.