Blaine Long, the Arizona singer, has been talking about surviving The Voice and releasing new music. A former contestant on the show, he recalled what it was like to take part. His run did not go quite as well as he had planned — but he did not let that bring him down.
The Audition Before The Audition
He spoke about the audition, and said the toughest part was not the blind audition at all, but the audition held before it, off the television. He revealed that it was only once the show was in full flow that people realised exactly how stressful it was; nobody told the contestants anything beforehand. They went in not knowing what to expect, because none of it was shown on television either.
"The audition before the blind audition is very hard — that's very stressful. They don't tell you until you're really thrown into the whole process of the show."
The audition came out of nowhere for him. He had been playing a CD at the Orpheum in Phoenix, where — unbeknownst to him — it was recorded and handed to a producer of The Voice.
"The producer set up a private audience from my performance at the Orpheum. I didn't think anything of it. I thought this was part of pushing the album I'd just done with Grant."
It was after that that he was called in for a six-day audition in front of the executives, before finally being selected to appear on the Blind Auditions.
Choosing Blake Over Adam And Miley
Long had a tough decision to make at the Blind Auditions, too. His dream coach, Alicia Keys, had not turned her chair — but all three of the others had. Faced with the choice, he picked Blake Shelton over Adam Levine and Miley Cyrus. He admitted it felt cool to have all three chase him, and went on to explain why he chose Blake. In a scene edited out of the actual broadcast, Shelton had told him he would advocate for Long to be an original artist. Long had always covered songs, but he wanted to sing his own — and Blake's words were literally music to his ears.
"'I will be an advocate for you as an original artist.' That was the reason I chose him. The whole Nashville thing isn't my vibe necessarily. I don't consider myself a country artist."
Life After The Show
A whole year after The Voice, Blaine Long released his album Scorpio. He talked about the experience in an interview:
"And then, making the record, you realise you want to set the record straight on… I call it a musical 'Price is Right.' I just made it onto a show. That's all it was — but to a lot of people, now I'm a 'Voice' singer. And a Blake guy. So I was fighting against some of that and going with some of it."
He explained having to sing on The Voice without even knowing the song in the Battle Round, while everyone else knew it. It was, he said, 'awkward' — and not really for an artist like him. But it was an experience, and experience is always welcome.