Music is my happiness, my joy, and when my body wasn't right I couldn't get into my music without being healed, without being healthy.

I'm grateful to be alive, because I really did not think I was going to be alive, onstage performing songs.

I can't eat processed food.

When I got sick this past summer, I couldn't - my mind just wasn't on music. The rest of the band understood. But once October came, I felt ready to get back again.

I've got these five-pound weights and a treadmill in the living room. I work out the other parts that have affected my voice: my diaphragm - doctors took mine out in surgery - and my lungs. I've got to build back my legs, too, so I can run across that stage. I've got a lot to do, but I'm going to get out, sing songs and tell the stories.

I miss my hair, but I feel like going out there with some fake braids wouldn't be right. I want to be the most genuine performer I can be.

I never took any kind of vocal lessons or teachings of how to - I never even took piano lessons. And a voice just came to me and said, go play the piano in the church.