The Battle Rounds are now over for season 9 of The Voice. The coaches’ teams are set for the Knockout Rounds. But before we move on, let’s take a look back at the final night of the Battles, when there were only a handful of spots available and one more Steal left.
BuddyTV spoke with that final group of contestants during a conference call. Amy Vachal discussed what it was like to be paired with a duo for her battle. The singers who were relegated to the montage video gave some insight into what we didn’t get a chance to see on air. And Emily Ann Roberts and Morgan Frazier talked about going up against each other even though they’ve become friends — does Emily think that the youth versus experience argument made an impact on the coaches’ decisions? Read on to find out.
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Did Amy Vachal Find It Challenging to Perform with a Duo?
During the Battle Rounds, there were two duo acts. In our previous Voice interview, Chance Pena talked about being paired with Andi and Alex. Now Amy Vachal is speaking out about what was it like to be a duet partner with a two-person act, Jubal and Amanda. “At first, I was excited by it because I’m still getting used to this whole battle mentality that there’s a winner and a loser at the end of each of these rounds,” she said.
“And then once I started digging into it, I realized how challenging it was actually going to be, especially because not only are there two of them and one of me, but we come from very different backgrounds and our styles are very, very different.” In the end, though, Amy “came to embrace the challenge” after realizing that this was a great opportunity “to make something unique and new.”
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Nadja, Summer and Darius Reveal What We Didn’t See
As always, there’s not enough time to show every single performance during hour-long episodes, so some battles are shown quickly in montage videos. This conference call was a good opportunity for those singers from the final battles to give some insight into their performances.
Nadjah Nicole was paired with Cole Criske and ended up advancing. She said, “When I found out I was getting paired with Cole, it was pretty cool because I’ve never really done a duet before and I had to first learn how to really connect with my partner.” The two of them ended up working really well with each other. But the song, “Baby One More Time,” was a different matter. “It was surprising because not only was it a Britney Spears song, but to do the Ed Sheeran cover of it, it was a little awkward at first because I didn’t know how to approach it.” When asked why she thinks she advanced over Cole, Nadjah admitted that it’s probably because of her experience. “He’s 16, 17, and I’m 24 and I’ve been doing this a lot longer.”
For Summer Schappell, who was paired with Hannah Ashbrooke, “A lot of people thought that maybe because [‘Leave the Pieces’ by the Wreckers] was more of a country song, and it was more in my wheelhouse, that I maybe had more of an edge. … We really, really kicked some butt on that song and I wish you all could have seen it [in its entirety].” Aside from the song, she also believes that her confidence was what helped her secure the win for that battle: “In our rehearsals, Gwen had talked to us about how we need to connect more emotionally to the song, and I think my confidence showed more on stage.”
Finally, Darius Scott went up against Daria Jazmin on Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.” “We had a very simple song, but we all know that sometimes the simple things can make it really, really difficult,” Darius said. “And while the song only has three or four cords, it’s how to sing it and share it that me and Daria had the most fun figuring out.”
But Darius admitted that he’s shy and “didn’t have the same confidence level that Daria has, and that was one of the critiques that you didn’t get to see, that Pharrell really wanted me to dig in and connect more to the song.” In the end, though, he believes that he advanced because he leaned on his experience of having performed this song many times before, staying true to the melody and “being willing to break out of my little shy shell.”
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Did Morgan Frazier Predict Her Battle with Emily Ann Roberts?
The final battle pairing of the night was between Emily Ann Roberts and Morgan Frazier, who ended the episode with a really strong performance. It was mentioned during rehearsals that this pairing was youth versus experience. Emily believes that this did factor into the coaches’ decisions. “Morgan is incredible, and she is much more experienced than I am, just because she’d been doing this for so much longer.” But she believes that it helped her because she was able to learn from Morgan. “I think it made me go at it even harder just because it was a challenge.”
Neither one was surprised when they ended up being partners for the Battles. As Emily said later on, “I don’t think it was a huge shock to be paired with Morgan just because we both sing country music and we’re two blonde country singers.”
Morgan even predicted this pairing would happen. “Once I met [Emily] after the Blinds and we were both on Team Blake, I actually told her, what do you want to bet we’re going to be battled together? And she was like, oh yeah, totally.” They didn’t think about this performance as a battle, but rather how they could make it “the best performance that it could possibly be,” because as Emily added, “Me and Morgan have become so close over this whole experience.”
The Voice airs Mondays at 8pm and Tuesdays at 9pm on NBC.
(Image courtesy of NBC)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
Jeff Dodge, a graduate of Western Washington University, has been a TV news editor for many years and has had the chance to interview multiple reality show stars, including Randy Jackson, Nick Cannon, Heidi Klum, Mel B and John Cena.
