I can’t lie, recording a song for the first time was pretty scary.

It was a little scarier than running out of gas on the freeway, but not as scary as finding Chucky under your bed. It was really, somewhere in the middle.

Growing up I’ve parodied songs, but never did anything with them. Whether I rewrote the lyrics to The Little Mermaid’s “Part of That World” to a song about prostitution or NSYNC’s “Dirty Pop” to a track about Christianity, my mind would listen to a particular song and change the words to something I liked. While I took some time away from it and ultimately thought that it would be something I would grow out of as I grew older, I didn’t. In the summer of 2016, I started parodying songs but making it about something I was always around: food!

This time around, I didn’t want to let a song I wrote remain on paper.

I decided that whatever stopped me before wouldn’t hold me back now. I would get into a studio and record this song! Only problem, I can’t sing. Falling in between Ice JJFish and Beyonce you’ll find my voice, hopefully with a closer lean to Mrs. Knowles. I’m fully aware that may be wishful thinking, but I’m going with it.

Regardless how my voice sounds, the idea of recording a song seemed like it would be incredibly fun and that I would get to be the truest form of myself–silly, goofy, and a bit sarcastic. With that, I ran with it. Sure the thought of being made fun of or the song going absolutely nowhere did cross my mind, and either of those would suck, but I had to do it. If I didn’t do it I imagined an older me regretting the chance to do something I could have loved. The least I could do was try. With little apprehension to failing I reached out to an old friend and producer, Sincere to help me with the recording process. I wrote a parody to Maroon 5’s “Don’t Wanna Know” titled, “Started a Cleanse” and he was the only person I knew who knew anything about music and recording. With him, I was able to practice singing, became familiar with the process, and he helped me feel less nervous about it all. I still didn’t sound like Beyonce, heck not even like LaToya, but I was more relaxed and that has to count for something right?

Sincere then reached out to Nick at Truth Studios to record the song. His studio was relaxing and felt welcoming. The energy of Nick felt just like his studio. With two hours at my disposal, I set out to record the track. That sounds simple but the first 45 minutes was a bit of a struggle! Trying to find the right key and note was like looking for the Lost City of Atlantis. “That’s not it. Nope not that either.”  There were points were I wondered if this was a good idea, but having Sincere who was encouraging made it a lot easier. Thank God Nick said he had seen his share of singers a bit worse than me. Wait, was that really a good thing? With a few jokes made, it felt even easier to sing. Then Nick did what seemed like it would have been the impossible. I asked if he could sync Maroon 5’s music video to my instrumental to help me better find the notes. A few seconds later and he had it ready. Hearing Adam Levine sing as I sang made recording a thousand times easier and faster. It was just a few minutes later of singing and the song was done!

When it was all over, it didn’t feel so bad.

Sure the start of it all wasn’t as smooth as I thought it would be, but once the ball started rolling and I sang alongside Adam it was much better. It was scary at first and I was nervous to do something so new and outside of my comfort zone, but looking back on it I can say that it wasn’t so bad. Actually, it was pretty fun and I already can’t wait to do it again!

To check out the behind the scenes video of my parody recording, click play below!

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