There has never been a season quite like this on NBC’s Emmy award-winning music competition series “The Voice.”
And it’s not just that Season 18 is the first for Nick Jonas as a coach, joining Blake Shelton, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend in the iconic swiveling red chairs.
Being on virtual lockdown, self-quarantine or house arrest – whichever way you choose to term it—“The Voice” is a timely tonic during this coronavirus pandemic scare with its blend of riveting performances from the artists, the inherent drama of which ones will make it to the next level and the humorous bantering and strategic gamesmanship going on amongst the coaches.
There’s the added element of the expertise from the mentors that have come on board to assist each coach with their respective teams. Fans of the Jonas Brothers were thrilled to see Joe and Kevin join Nick in sessions with his team members to prep for the battle rounds.
One of those artists who really resonated with that brotherly love is Team Nick’s Roderick Chambers, who for many years performed with his older brother in a band.
We caught up with him Friday as he hung out in the backyard of his Southern California home with his three-year-old son and talked about his journey to date on “The Voice.”
Chambers said although from the very get-go there is an aura of anxiety during the initial auditions for the show– when thousands of people try out – the off-camera crew that viewers don’t see during this stage of the process is absolutely wonderful.
“There are a few auditions before you get to the blinds,” he said. “As you can imagine, there’s thousands waiting to get a chance. During those auditions, as you can imagine, you’re waiting, you’re anxious, and it feels like an eternity. The people you deal with behind the scenes are amazingly supportive and really awesome. It was as comfortable as it could be.”
Once he made it to the blind auditions, Chambers said another thing that really surprised him was how totally tight the band is.
“Working with ‘The Voice’ band is not like any other, they’re incredible. You practice with them and they sound exactly like what you heard on the record or on the radio,” he said. “That was really exciting.”
Chambers wowed the coaches with his blind audition rendition of Brian McKnight’s “Back at One,” a song he said reminded him of his high school days. Jonas was so impressed that he turned his chair around within 20 seconds of Roderick beginning his inspiring performance. Surprisingly, no one else turned and Chambers practically parachuted into Team Nick, as if that was the way it was meant to be.
We asked him what he had envisioned for the blinds and he said that obviously you’re going in to get a four-chair turn but that the more reachable goal is for someone–anyone– to turn around. Naturally, he had some ideas of who that would be.
“Initially for me it was John and Nick. I’m in John’s genre, R&B, and probably most familiar with his music. With Nick I would say the commonality is that he’s in a band with his brothers,” Chambers said. He reminisced about performing with his older brother Richard in a Florida-based band called R-Styl, something they did for 17 years until Roderick moved to California in 2015 seeking a solo career.
With Jonas being a brand-new coach, it was destined to be an experience that was fresh, without a track record from previous seasons.
“I didn’t expect it, but he has this energy that reminds me of my older brother, who’s been a huge influence on me,” Chambers said. “I feel comfortable and can relate. He feels the vibe. He’s definitely doing a fantastic job and he has a lot of really good feedback. He communicates really well with the band and has a lot of good ideas. I can’t say enough about working with him. It’s definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Todd Michael Hall it is also over the moon about his experience on Team Blake. Shelton, who never tires of reminding everybody that he’s the winningest coach on “The Voice,” with six crowns over the 18 seasons, battled it out with Legend to get Hall on his team.
Like Shelton, I like to brag. I’ve been a full-blown fan of the show since it premiered in 2011– and it’s doubtful I’ve missed very many of the episodes over the years.
But back to Hall. He was in his native Saginaw, Michigan when we spoke with him over the phone, at the office of his company, which makes bar equipment. It sounded like a perfect profession for a rock ‘n roller, the only rocker currently on “The Voice.”
Hall’s blind audition performance was Foreigner’s “Jukebox Hero,” and he’s pretty much an old hand at these sort of classic rock crowd-pleasers, as the lead singer of a band called Riot V.
Although he doesn’t look it, Hall is 50, which is probably twice the age of the typical artist on “The Voice.” This season, as has been the case in the recent past, there are a number of contestants who haven’t reached the legal drinking or voting age.
Hall’s journey on the show began with an open audition in Chicago for which he had been notified via an artist account he had set up with NBC. It was a process he went through with several thousand other people and after singing a cappella for 30 seconds he progressed through the stages, called in to a recording studio the next day. Show producers put together a montage of him singing three different songs and you know the rest of the story – he made it to the blind auditions at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Naturally, it didn’t go anything like the way he had imagined it. “I really thought Kelly would like me and I would pick her. I thought for sure she’d be all over me. She didn’t turn,” Hall recalled. “John Legend is picky, and he turned right away. Nick and Blake were wild cards. With Blake I felt like he was straight-up country, but he was up in the mix– and he says he likes hard rock.”
“I was really focused on hitting the high notes,” Hall remembered. “I thought, ‘Man I’m going to get a turn.’ I had a game plan on stage, and it helped that John turned right away. It made life easier.”
At the conclusion of their blind audition performances, the coaches actually talk to the artists for much longer than is shown on TV. There’s no shortage of one-upsmanship during this phase – or surprises when the artist makes his or her final decision on which team to join.
When the decision-making shifts to the coaches during the current battle rounds, the strategies change. Sometimes it’s clear that a coach will choose one artist knowing that the other one will get stolen. That seemingly is what went down when Blake chose Joei Fulco over Todd last week.
There are new rules in place that a steal has to be when the artist is still on stage and Kelly hit her button too late to nab Hall. It was Blake’s last-second save that prevented him from going home.
“She had to hit it fast enough. Kelly was not used to the new rules,” Hall told us. “What was funny during the filming was that I was equally confused. After walking off, the crowd erupted, the lights went on, and I look up and see Team Blake. He said he was rolling the dice on this.”
Now Todd goes into a four-way knockout with members from other teams, another new set-up on “The Voice.”
Hall said viewers might be surprised at the depth of camaraderie amongst the artists that develops during the run of the show.
“You won just by being there and that’s such a blessing and at every stage you want to have another opportunity,” he said. “We had a Team Blake group chat supporting each other. We had a Team Blake dinner before the battles and the morning of we got together in a prayer circle and each said our own. It’s very uplifting and there’s a lot of spirituality. Even though people are from different walks of life there’s a commonality–and soon you’re total buds – and friends for life.”
(“The Voice” airs Monday nights on NBC at 8/7c.)
