by Todd Betzold

 

Last night on The Voice, my love for this show was reaffirmed. These singers can sang and it shows with each and every audition. Christina added the country-singing duo of Hailey and Leland, a.k.a. The Line, and sideswipe hair twin, Lindsey Pavao. Meanwhile, Cee Lo added one of his own biggest fans, Jamar Rogers, and one of the military's finest, Angie Johnson. Today, we got a chance to speak all the singers in a conference call about their time so far on The Voice.

Q. What's going through your mind during the audition onstage?
A. Lindsey: The whole time the audition was going on I was trying in my head to turn nervousness into excitement. I kept saying this is really exciting, besides this is not the scariest thing you have done in your whole entire life. Jumping off that stage and onto those stairs it just starts to feel unreal. It feels like one of those really lucid dreams. Actually for musicians and I'm sure all of us have that thought in our heads: what if this ever happens? So, we have this vision and when vision meets reality it's a very, very bizarre situation.

 

Q. What's it like working with your mentors? You may have had a pre-conceived idea going into this what to expect, so what's the reality of that actually like?
A. Leland: It was incredible and Christina is amazing. She is super talented and super intuitive. She is one of those people who doesn't have to say a lot, but because she's so talented and done everything for so long she can say something so simple, but it means so much. I hope that makes sense and as usual, Hailey can clarify what I'm trying to say (laughs).

 

Hailey: I agree with Leland...what Christina would say would be really short and sweet, but really poignant at the same time. And for me, coming from that little girl perspective, I was that little girl in third grade who idolized Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, so to have her standing across a grand piano from me and telling me how to sing and showing me what to do, it was wild for me...for both of us.

 

Jamar: Like the show showed, meeting Cee Lo was probably one of the highlights of my life, but working with him has been even better because a lot of people know him as talented and eccentric but a lot of people don't know how wide he is. He'll work with life lessons...I feel like I should have a notepad and a pen when I'm talking to him because I don't want to miss anything...I want to take it all down. So, meeting him, he's just as cool as he appears on television.

 

Angie: The things Jamar just said are so true and about Cee Lo...he's got a stage persona where he's super out there and he's innovative and he's colorful, but then when you actually talk to him, he's almost like he's two different people. He's very quiet and soft-spoken and very tender and I don't know if that's a big part of Cee Lo Green that the rest of the world doesn't know and all those little gems of wisdom, it just feels like it comes straight from his heart.

 

Q. I know that you went to Belmont University, which I understand is music school. I'm just wondering how that experience helped get you to this point?
A. Hailey: It's funny you should ask that, because the way that I met Leland was actually at my internship I was doing through Belmont. I was interning for a small off-set label of Big Machine and Leland lived in L.A. at the time and was visiting Nashville and he came to the party that our label was having and I just happened to be there as an intern and that's how I met him. So, my experience at Belmont is very much to us getting to this point.

 

Q. Can you tell us more about your musical experience prior to being in the service?
A. Angie: Prior to being in the service, I really didn't have a lot of musical experience. I joined when I was 19 years old and I really just sang in school and had some solos in choir and sang in a little church group...I mean, that is the bulk of what I had done prior to joining the military. Once I joined the military and became a member of Tops in Blue is when I really started learning how to be an entertainer and how to be a performer and then that kind of positioned me to be able to audition for the Air Force band and all those years of entertaining troops was kinda where I learned to be a showman and I don't really have a lot of commercial experience at all.

 

Q. How did you feel getting through your audition and where does that leave your confidence moving forward in the competition?
A. Lindsey: Going into it, I think at every stage of the progress of getting to that blind audition I was just so amazingly surprised. I was just like singing in front of these people is going to be awesome. I really don't think anyone is going to turn around, but that would be amazing and when three of them did...it probably was the most beautiful affirmation I've ever had...kinda realizing that what I love to do people might actually like when I do do it. It was great and moving forward, it just seems like everything I've been wanting in life, I feel like I can really go for now.

 

Q. Coming into the show, how nervous were you about being a duo? And can you talk about the risks of being a duo on a show like this?
A. Leland: I think we went in with maybe a slightly different mindset than anyone else, because everyone else was kinda on their own. While you make friends out there, in the end it's just you and a microphone, so having someone to lean on...great. Having someone you can trust and can talk about stuff because sometimes it's hard to be your own sounding board and it was great to have Hailey there where we could say should we do this or how should we sing this. It's always better to have a second opinion and that's why I think it was an advantage for us going in.

 

Q. How did you go about revealing your HIV status and in the process, did anyone try to change your mind?
A. Jamar: You know, it's really funny. I did America Idol a few years back and I had already, at that point, been living with HIV for three years. I remember being completely petrified throughout that whole process that the producers would find out or my roommate would find out...I just lived with this massive cloud over my head. One of the things I wanted to do with The Voice was I came to realize that we need to have a national conversation about this because there are a lot of young people, especially in recovery, that are dying from this that don't have to and I want to get the word out there that if you take your meds and take care of yourself this is no different than any other chronic illness, like diabetes...that it's definitely manageable. I have now been undetectable for five years, which means I don't even get a cold and that's just by the grace of God. I decided to come clean because at some point you have to decide that you want to live for something greater than yourself and though I love singing and it's completely my passion...at times I was trying to become this super star, I felt like I had an obligation to give back to my community...to let people know that there's hope for them. I will say this that when I presented the idea to the producers and to my family, not one tried to talk me out of it...everyone was extremely supportive and the support has continued. It's actually been really overwhelming.

 

Q. How did you prepare to deliver your Trey Songz cover in your own style and did you have any reservations along the way?
A. Lindsey: Jamar, that was so beautiful...oh my god, I love you. Preparing...I guess I just sat down with the guitar and I listened to the notes and I learned the chords and I actually ended up changing the chord projection...there's different chords in there, but no one seems to care that I changed the progression, which is awesome. I thought I gave it a little bit more of smoody dynamic, but really I just sat alone and I see a lot of musicians trying to fit into what a pop singer would sing...maybe emulate it and I realized that I don't sound very well when I do that, so I kinda do the opposite where I try and take what they do and make it fit into what I do. You really won't ever catch me singing a pop song like a pop singer because it just doesn't sound good. I think it is amazing when people can do that and they are very versatile, but I'm not just that unfortunately.

 

The Voice airs Mondays at 8/7c on NBC.

 

(Image courtesy of NBC)

 

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