Deena Kamm, second from left, leads a song while leading the Public Rock Choir at Looking Glass Imports & Cafe on Feb. 13. (Andy Tullis/Bulletin photos)

Deena Kamm thinks everyone should sing.

“It’s just in our DNA as humans,” she said. “Our culture has set up this stigma about, if you don’t have this fantastically beautiful, perfect voice at birth, you shouldn’t sing. And I think it’s the exact opposite: I think everybody should sing no matter how bad it sounds. I feel like it’s good for you, it’s good for your brain, it’s good for your soul, it’s good for your development.”

Kamm understands that stigma first-hand. The Los Angeles native has been singing for close to 25 years, and spent the ’90s fronting the touring alternative rock band Unruly Helga. But when she was invited to join her first band in her 20s, she almost didn’t do it.

“My first experience in a band was my friend saying, ‘You gotta sing for me,’” Kamm said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t sing.” And I ended up singing, and within two weeks I was in the studio recording a full-length album with him, and I was like, ‘What am I — I don’t do this. I don’t even know what I’m doing.’ … Everything has always happened like that; one thing has led to the next.”

Since September, Kamm has helped people buck their preconceived notions about singing and talent through her Public Rock Choir and its counterpart Kids Rock Choir. For the past month, the groups have met every Monday evening at Looking Glass Imports & Cafe (the kids gather at 4:30; adults at 6). Before the current location, the choirs moved around to different spots but mostly practiced at 2nd Street Theater’s warehouse when it was available.

Taking chances

About 20 people gathered in the back room at Looking Glass on a recent Monday night for a Public Rock Choir rehearsal — a fairly typical turnout, according to Kamm. Kamm wanted the group to work on the harmonies in Bruno Mars’ R&B love ballad “Just the Way You Are.” True to its name, the Public Rock Choir focuses on popular music — everything from the Beatles (the group rehearsed “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” on this night, too) up to more modern fare such as Jason Mraz or “American Idol” Phillip Phillips.

After dividing the room in half and showing each section their part, Kamm began playing the song’s deliberate introduction on piano. Chris Huffine, her musical partner in the duo Lark, strummed pensive chords on an acoustic guitar. Voices filled the room — at first hesitant, quiet, searching for the notes. By the end of their first run-through of the short introduction, the harmony — though a bit rough — was more or less in place.

“OK, you guys all just did that,” Kamm said. “You guys did it in like 30 seconds.”

The choir ran through the song a few more times. At one point, a voice dripping with dramatic vibrato cut through the mix. The other choir members laughed and clapped, and Kamm handed the singer — 30-year-old Jonny White — a microphone.

“I strongly, strongly encourage throughout the night that people take chances,” Kamm said. “I always have a microphone or two available so that if anybody feels brave, they can try it. That’s happening more and more lately — the more comfortable people get, the more I just hand them the microphone and walk away. I basically just encourage you to have a good time and be loud and be big and be bold and try it out. And it’s not about sounding good, I really don’t care. I’m constantly saying, the worse you sound, the better.”

Keeping it low-key

White has been with the choir since the beginning. He started taking private vocal lessons with Kamm last summer.

“I’ve grown up singing my whole life with my parents, but I never really put in the effort or the time; I always set it aside in life,” White said. “But it’s such a part of what I love to do. And so now I’m 30 and I get to focus on whatever I want to do, so this is what I’m gonna do.”

The Public Rock Choir is open to adults of all ages, but has mostly attracted people in their 30s and older so far. Some members, such as Barbara Fink, 36, had never sung in an organized group before joining.

“I was worried that it would all be about music and studying,” she said. “… It might have a religious slant on it, or it might have a certain take on life, and we’re gonna sing about this particular thing. But here, it’s like, what songs do you want to sing? If it’s got a theme you like, we’ll sing it. If you don’t want to sing it, just sit that one out and we’ll find you one for next week.”

Others are more experienced. Nina Pfeiffer, 66, sang in a church choir for 15 years, but was looking for something more low-key.

“It’s a lot of fun; there’s no pressure,” she said. “I like that aspect of it, and also being able to sing a lot of different songs, because in choirs of course you have to learn a song very well, so you might have to take three or four songs that you just sing over and over again. Here, we’re singing a lot of different things.”

A place to sing

The idea for the Public Rock Choir grew out of Kamm’s teaching, which she began doing under the name Sing Bend when she moved to the city in 2010. The situation was similar to her experience joining her first band: “I had a lot of people after shows who would ask me if I was doing lessons, and I was like, ‘No, what are you talking about? No. I do not do that.’ And then it just kept coming up.”

As she took on more students, she realized they had nowhere to sing publicly, unless they were in gigging bands themselves. One of her student’s parents suggested she start a choir.

“The idea of choir, for me, was very — I was kind of repelled by it because I come from a very hard rock background,” Kamm said. “But I kind of thought about it a little bit, and I came up with the idea to do this choir to give my students an outlet to sing every week and actually implement the stuff I was teaching them.”

Initially the Public Rock Choir was all ages, but when the first group convened, Kamm realized she only had older adults and young kids. That didn’t quite mesh with the laid-back, almost party environment Kamm was trying to foster at rehearsals. Plus, she wanted the freedom to pick edgier material for the Public Rock Choir.

Kids choir

Kamm runs the Kids Rock Choir with the same guiding philosophy as the Public Rock Choir. A group of six kids — including Kamm’s son London — tackled Shawn Mendes’ “Stitches,” Katy Perry’s “Firework” and more during a recent rehearsal. Kamm led the group on piano by herself and offered encouragement from time to time: “I need to hear people!”

Angie and Travis Moore brought their daughter Addison, 5, to her first Kids Rock Choir rehearsal during the week of Christmas. She’s been attending ever since.

“Singing is something she definitely loves doing, and she’s having a blast with this and wants to come,” Angie Moore said. “It’s a long day going to kindergarten all day and coming straight here, but she loves it.”

Marina Burkett, 7, was at her third choir rehearsal. She said she loves to sing and dance: “That’s why I have a huge bed!”

“I think it helps them gain self-confidence,” Marina’s mother Tonya Burkett said. “I think it’s important that they figure out who they are and express themselves. Music is a great way to do that. And Deena does a really good job with the kids and encourages them to just have a voice.”

Caroling on the street

So far the Public Rock Choir has had just one public performance. In December a group of singers spent an evening wandering downtown Bend and singing some not-so-traditional Christmas carols (songs included Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Phillip Phillips’ “Home” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”). The choir wandered around Bond and Wall streets, crashed a corporate holiday party at 10 Below at The Oxford Hotel and sang for people huddled around the fire outside of McMenamins Old St. Francis School.

“I bragged about that for weeks — you know, I got a job and a life, so I’m just like, man, I’m going Christmas caroling this year,” White said. “… We had wine, we toured downtown, we sang Christmas songs. It was a great night; it’s an awesome life experience.”

Kamm said she’s interested in having the choir perform short sets — maybe two or three songs — between other acts at some of the street festivals in the city this summer. Like everything else about the choir, she wants to keep it low-key and fun.

“The main goal is that you’re totally safe there,” Kamm said. “You don’t have to be heard; you can blend in. You don’t have to stand out. You get to be whoever you want to be, and nobody pays attention, nobody’s watching you. And also what I’ve found, which is extra beautiful for me, is that people — everybody has become so supportive of each other. If somebody does break out a little bit, everybody is super encouraging. Even if it doesn’t go well, it’s like high-fives and everybody’s clapping and yelling and ‘Yays’ and like, ‘Awesome, good for you.’”

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com