Canadian singer/songwriter Feist nearly destroyed her vocal chords by spending years singing in a heavy metal band.

The 31-year-old, nominated four times at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, insists she came close to ruining her music career after the years she spent in a 1990s rock band screaming along to their songs.

Feist - real name Leslie Feist - insists it took nearly a year for her voice to recover.

She says, "It was all about aggression and volume when I was younger singing with a hardcore band. My voice eventually broke and I wasn’t sure if was going to come back.

"I had to rest for nine months and then learn how to sing again." But the star is convinced the experience helped her discover her new sound.

"The mechanics of recovery meant I couldn’t ever sing like that again. A different girl and a different voice came out. I started to learn the guitar and began layering my voice with a four-track recorder.

"I moved to a new city. It was a new leaf and a new life. It was an escape to melody."