And it forces me to do a better job. Performing with a band requires rehearsal. It's exciting because there's an adrenaline rush performing to music. Cutaia added that the band serves as his first audience, ready to tell him when they don't like something. Poetry, for Cutaia, is centered on the look and structure of words on the page.
Spoken word is about sounds and memorization of a work.
What I do is different than just reading over the music. I listen to the band and they listen to me. It's more similar to singing than to reciting because I'm projecting an emotive voice. John Cutaia himself is emotive. He has a smooth voice that floats through stanzas and pounds out refrains.