Sam Smith spoke through phone app during vocal rest

British pop star Sam Smith used a speaking app on his cell phone to communicate during three weeks of vocal rest after his throat surgery.

The Stay With Me hitmaker had to cancel his tour of Australia and a slew of summer (15) shows after suffering a vocal cord hemorrhage and he later flew to the U.S. for an operation to fix his voice.

Smith was subsequently ordered not to speak for nearly a month, and he has revealed he communicated using a special program on his phone which vocalised the words he typed.

He tells British radio station BBC Radio 1, "It was horrendous. It was so bad. But I got through and everyone's been so amazing about it... I did use my phone, where you can type in what you want to say and it'll say it for you. But it doesn't swear a lot, which is really annoying!"

Smith goes on to reveal he has enjoyed his enforced time off, but is starting to practise his singing so he can get back on stage for his comeback show at a festival in the U.K. next month (Jul15).

He adds, "I just went to sing and something wasn't right, something was hurting in my throat. I had vocal hemorrhages on my cords. I'd just been singing too hard for too long... It's like a blessing in disguise to have this break, but at the same time it killed me to cancel all these shows... I've just been like singing in the shower and stuff. I'm just trying to take it slow. I've got two more weeks chill time. My first show is 3 July which is Thetford Forest (in England) and from then I'm back on the normal schedule."