‘The Voice’ contestant hits the Vienna stage Wednesday to perform tracks off his latest albums.
The Texas pop/soul singer and contestant on season seven of NBC’s “The Voice” stops at Jammin Java this Wednesday as part of his multicity tour. We spoke with the singer about his experience on the show and what audience members can expect from his performance.
You were on season seven of “The Voice” and are now in the midst of a multicity tour. Tell us about the difference in experience of the performances.
It’s completely different. If you’re on TV, they have crowd warmers. They come out and get everyone excited and show everyone how they want them to cheer and go crazy.It’s kind of fish in a barrel in that respect, whereas live, people don’t know what to expect. You don’t know who you’re going to get in front of, what they’re feeling and what they’re looking for necessarily. Also, you never know if there’s going to be five or 5,000 people in the crowd.
Have you learned anything from your time on the show that you have used for your performances?
Absolutely. I learned a lot about what I’m capable of, what my strengths are and how I deal with high-pressure situations. I learned a lot about professionalism and production and presentation—all kinds of things.
You’re on a tour, playing with your band and playing original music. What will audience members at Jammin Java get to experience? How would you describe the show you’re going to play on Aug. 26?
It’s a six-piece band. It gets soulful; it gets funky. Ultimately, I like to take people on a journey. I like to have some emotional moments and just be as connected as possible. I sing about things we all think about and don’t necessarily talk about all the time. We do songs off the first two albums, songs from the season of “The Voice” that I was on and quite a few songs from our upcoming album that hasn’t been released yet, which I’m really excited about. I’ve been known to climb on things and run through the crowd. I’m pretty rambunctious on stage.
You’ve also been chosen to perform the song and music video for Susan G. Komen’s 2015-16 fundraising campaign. How did that come about, and what was the experience like?
I do a lot of work locally with a children’s hospital called Cook Children’s. I was with them at a thing called Healthcare Heroes in 2014, and there was a women there named Ann Louden from an organization called Frogs for the Cure. They do a song and video every year for Susan G. Komen, so we started talking about me doing it. We [Mia Z and I] ended up doing an amazing version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” that’s going to be coming out Sept. 1.
How does this performance and song differ from your own music?
I would say the difference is it’s very authentically Motown. It’s a classic song, and we just did our best to honor the original. We didn’t remix it or anything like that. We completely rerecorded it with a different band. My stuff is very authentically me, which is very eclectic and has a lot of different influences
Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?
Absolutely. Never wait for something to happen to be who you are. Some people think that someone’s going to come along and tell them that they’re good enough. For the most part, it’s way more likely that someone’s going to come along who doesn’t know what they’re talking about and is going to tell you you’re not good enough. Just go ahead and beat both of them to the punch and believe in yourself. Play music no matter what because you love it and because it makes you happy. If you keep doing that, you’re going to get better and better so [that] if you’re not good enough already, you will be. You just have to stay with it and believe in yourself.
