The Voice: Post-Battle Interview with C. Perkins – Now of Team Usher

C. Perkins competed against Kris Thomas with the song “It Will Rain” by Bruno Mars. Though Shakira ended up selecting Kris Thomas as the winner, Usher saw the talent in C. Perkins and stole him for his team – but, being Usher, he sure made C. Perkins sweat it out a bit first! After the battle round, we caught up with the New Orleans native via conference call to talk about the steal, the battle, and his first Twitter trend. Follow him on Twitter @cperkins504.

Usher really waited ’til the last possible second to push his button and steal you, so can you talk a little bit about what was going through your mind as you were saying bye to the judges and then when you reached Usher and he hit the button?

“Well, when I lost I kind of figured, you know, I was happy for Kris first of all… I was really excited for him – and I had told Kris before we had even went on stage I was like… I think somebody’s going to end up being stolen and it’s going to be a good show because we’re both good and… we had spoke it into existence. So when nobody hit their button I just was like okay this is it, but I still went out with a smile on my face and when I walked up to the coaches I didn’t even know that Usher had hit his button.

I just heard the crowd, I heard the noise but it didn’t process to me. And when I looked up I saw – Usher was looking at me, smiling, and I was like “Man, this is crazy!” – and that’s why I had the shocked face because I just did not know that he hit his button until it all processed. So yes it was pretty amazing.”

He said that he waited so that you would get that feeling of going home, so does that impact what you’ll do going forward – did it change anything?

“That definitely impacted me a lot more as a singer [and] as a contestant on the show because now it’s like, “Okay, you know how it [feels when you’re] supposed to go home, so now you have to work extra hard to get to the next round.” But, I mean, I think that since I had that in my head it kind of feels like – I kind of know how it feels to go home. I think I’m a little bit more prepared for anything now – I don’t just set my mind to one thing. I’m a little bit more prepared for anything and I’m just going to work hard throughout the show now.”

Tell us a little bit about what you learned about the process of putting a performance together during this round.

“The process is very hard working. It’s all about believing in yourself in the end, because a lot of times singers do have the ability to do things it’s just that they’re not trained enough to know how to do it, but if you tell your brain that you can do it… it just comes out that way.

Sometimes you just think too much, so I think that’s what it was in rehearsals is that… Kris Thomas – he just came off of a blind audition singing Whitney Houston in her natural key. And, you know, this little old guy who’s singing Because of You by Ne-yo in such a low key, you know, I was like, “this is a weird match-up, this is a weird battle.” I was a little bit – just a little bit intimidated when we were in rehearsals.

But, you know, when I really said to myself, “you know what you’re here for… she turned her chair for you for a reason, you can do this!” So I started putting everything else to the side – all the thoughts – and I just really started to feel the lyrics and, you know, just thought about a girl that maybe I would of lost – if I would have lost her how sad I would be – and I think that emotions really overcame everything. It’s tough though, it’s a lot of hard work but if you put your mind to it you could do it.”

Were you pleased with your performance?

“I was very pleased with my performance – I think that I did a fantastic job. I don’t think I would have wanted that to go any other way… I think it was perfect. I think even with the loss and the steal, I would do it the same. I wouldn’t want to win, I would keep it exactly the way it was, it was so perfect everything about it.”

Great. Finally – and I’m not sure if you noticed – you managed to get a World-Wide Twitter trend during the episode last night. Did you notice it and if you did what was that feeling like?

“I didn’t even know – thanks for telling me – I didn’t know I was trending. I’m honored to be trending on Twitter I guess so I thought Kris maybe would have been the trending man but I’m blessed to be trending and… all of this good stuff over there.  It’s a great feeling – I’ve never trended before, I’ve never even had 1000 followers on any social network -period. So, to just reach up for those numbers and [see] people finally recognizing and supporting me. I’m blessed, I’m so excited, I’m happy. I can’t ask for anything else – I mean everything’s perfect.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP_NXq3VoNI