Blake’s Lessons from The Voice

Blake Shelton has been a recording artist for ten years.  He’s been in music since he was a kid.  He thought he knew himself pretty well, until he because a coach on NBC’s hit TV show “The Voice.”  In this exclusive interview with Country Countdown USA host Lon Helton, Blake talks about what he learned about himself, how the TV show changed him, and his thoughts about the second season. 

Go to our Audio page for highlights from the radio show.

Lon: I’m such a fan of the show and there’s so much I want to ask you about. The show was fabulous!

 Blake: Thank you. It was good for me personally. As much impact as it probably has had on my career, I’m happy about that but, I really think it, I mean it changed my life just working with those kids and getting to know them.

 Lon: How so?

 Blake: I learned a lot about myself, you know? And you find out, after you’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve been doing this for ten years, being around Xenia and Dia especially, just because they were the last two for me, just seeing that fire in their eyes, and it kind of awakened part of me that probably had gotten calloused over the years, and it reminded me why I love what I do.

Lon: I wonder if your being so close to Miranda, and really being close to her artistry through your relationship, helped you see something through Dia that you might not have seen.

Blake: Yeah probably so, because that’s probably what I mean when I say “I found out, you know, a lot about myself” besides that awakening of how lucky I am to be doing what I’m doing and seeing that passion in their eyes that they want this too you know? But the other thing is, I’ve been doing this long enough and I’ve seen enough artists come and go along the way that you start to learn maybe why that is, you know? Even though none of us can really control it, when a career comes and goes really quickly or never really took off it’s easier to look at it after the fact and go, “This right here’s probably why.” And after years and years of doing this, even though if you set out to do it you probably couldn’t, but if when you’re not thinking about it and you’re just going through the motions…I ended up with somebody like Dia, who to me is that person where you can go, “Well I can see why this will work because this, this and this”, you know?

Lon: Did you ever find yourself somewhere along the lines of, “I really want to win this!”?

Blake: Yeah I did. I mean I, that’s the only reason they probably even wanted me to be on the show, is to crack jokes. They knew I wouldn’t be afraid to rip on Christina, I don’t care if she likes it or not, you know, and I still don’t. But what ended up happening after more time went on is the four of us as coaches, and I hate calling us coaches, but the four of us actually became, we really did become friends, you know, and it was such an odd group of people, you know what I mean? I mean as far as…we are not, none of us, you know, are anything alike, but we all have a mutual respect for each other, and because of that we all have become friends, you know? And when that happened, then what normally happens with friends is, yeah we’ll argue, and we’ll bicker, and we’ll make fun of each other, we’ll get mad at each other, we do all those things, but at the end of the day there’s still a high-five and a hug and I’ll see you tomorrow, you know? And that was the first thing that happened, and then the next thing that happens is you get to know these people on your team, and it hurts when one of them has to leave, and it’s exciting when one of them moves forward you know, and next thing you know you’re down to this, it all pours into one person for you, you know? And even Adam who, he probably hadn’t cried in ten years you know what I mean, he’s a rock star, he’s a badass you know, he’s down there, he’s like…we had a commercial break after Javier and Stevie Nicks sang together and I went down there and man he’s like “Man I can’t do this. I mean this is really tough. I’m trying not to look like an idiot on TV you know?” And I was like, “Well if it makes you feel any better it’s too late. You look really stupid right now.”

Lon: I wondered at points if it really surprised you guys that, “Wow I didn’t know I was going to feel this way!” In this case, I think the thing that really got me was that this is fun! A lot of talent contests don’t have that fun.

Blake: Well that’s what we all…we had a meeting back in March, the very first meeting of all of us together, and with the producers and the network, and the one thing that Adam and I agreed on immediately and wouldn’t back down on is that we don’t want to make this into anything but fun and positive. We don’t want to have a singer on there that sucks and we make fun of them, you know what I mean? We want this to be positive, and we stuck to our guns about that.

 Lon: And that really came through.

 Blake: Well good because you know, we…no matter what the show wants us to do, or the network, when you go live, we steer the ship whether they like it or not you know? And, but I think, not that they were arguing with us, but is was just, there was no room, there was no room to negotiate there. It was, man these kids…I wouldn’t have had the nerve to get up there and do what they did and I’ve read a time or two, and you know me it’s all I can do not to fire back at somebody, but if like some critic saying, you know, ripping on one of the contestants, you know, hiding behind their laptop somewhere in their basement of their mom’s house where they work out of, and ripping on these kids, you know what I mean, for something they did or a cover. Man if I had…if you had half the nerve or knew what these kids go through you know, you wouldn’t say stuff like that you know, and so I know I’m babbling on here but there’s just, there’s just a lot that goes into that, and I think everybody comes out of it, including the coaches, having learned a lot, you know?

 Lon: Well is was great fun, and that’s what separated it for me, and things like Celo coming out in the wig and doing a 70’s song you know.

 Blake: The last two episodes, or the last two weeks, Celo was the only thing that got me through the show, especially the night that Xenia had to leave the show. Man I was, that was a rough night for me, cause I love that little girl so much and, Celo came out in the wig, and he was so excited about having bangs and he was not going, nothing would do  until those bangs came down in front of his forehead, and just watching him, you know, bobbing his head trying to get that piece of hair down there where he wanted it…me and Adam were both, I mean we laughed until we cried right there, I mean we just couldn’t stop ourselves you know. That guy is…we always say Celo lives in Celo-land, and if you’re ever around him, man you won’t do anything but smile the whole time.

 Lon: So you must really be looking forward now to season two.

 Blake: Yeah. Man I tell you what I’m looking forward to more than anything is those blind auditions. I mean, as goofy and cheesy as those chairs are with the button and you hit it and turn around, I mean it’s such a visual fun thing to watch, but it’s so much fun to do that, and now that we know what’s up it’s gonna be interesting this year cause now…

Lon: …well it’s gonna be up a level.

 Blake: Yeah it will be and now we know each other’s personalities, what each other is going to be listening for, it’s going to be fun, that is so much fun just because it’s just so goofy that it just works you know?

Lon: When it hit eight, I thought it would come down the way it did with those two. I don’t know if I knew for sure if it would be Javier and Dia, or Dia and Javier, but did you feel that early?

Blake: The only indication that I have about what’s going on is the same one that everybody else has, is that you get on your phone or laptop and look at iTunes and see who’s getting the most downloads, you know? And Dia was clearly getting the most downloads you know? But the difference I think is, you know, Javier is an amazing singer, but he’s also a heartthrob, and the people that are buying his music are probably more apt to stay up all night, you know little girls and stuff, and vote for him and he deserves it. I tell you what, you know Dia even told me at one point, she said, you know this is maybe the night before, you know, the results show, she said, “I think I would feel stupid if I beat Javier because I think he represents more what the show is than me.” And I can’t argue with her on that you know because Dia is a unique artist. Javier is, he is ‘the voice’, I mean it’s amazing you know, and Dia did everything she could do, she’s an amazing singer also, and she, and because she gave it everything she had and almost won that thing, she’s already had a number one song on iTunes, and she’s going to be amazing. She’s going to do everything she ever wanted to do, and she got to walk away from it knowing that she did everything she could, she’s happy, and she’s also really genuinely happy and relieved that Javier won that thing. I think she really is.

Lon: That’s really cool. It just seemed to be the way it should be. The blurb on New York Magazine says the winner of the judges show has been Mr. Shelton.

Blake: Well that’s cool. That’s nice. Well you know what? I probably had the most to gain, you know? I mean the other three are, you know, they’re pop and rock stars and they’re on TV and in magazines, you know, a lot more than country artists you know, so naturally it was either, I was either in a situation to not make a difference at all, which would have been expected, or you know to get up there and get out there and wave my arms and get noticed, you know? And I really appreciate what you said when I first sat down because, the one thing that was in the back of my mind the whole time, kept me probably from self destructing like I do on my own, is knowing what I was representing you know? It was beyond just me being on a show. It was about me representing a genre, and when I took that position on that television show and I felt a responsibility to country music and to Nashville to take it serious and to work as hard as I could on it because everything that happens in this genre on a stage like that on a level like that, it affects what happens back here you know? Whether it’s Taylor Swift being the mega world-wide star she is. I’ve always appreciated that about her, and if this show is that thing when it’s on, then I’m going to take it serious and you know, have fun with it, but also know that, you know, there may be people that never listen to country music that might go buy one of my records now because of that show, and when they buy one of my records, they’ll say “Well who’s Miranda Lambert,” and buy that one, and next thing you know they’re buying country records, and that’s important to me.

Blake on how the show made him appreciate his career 11-29 Blake1

Blake on the moment when Dia sang with Miranda Lambert: 11-29 Blake2

Blake on who Dia thought should win The Voice: 11-29 Blake4

Tags: Blake, TheVoice

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