The Voice: Post Battle-Rounds: Interview with Garrett Gardner of Team Shakira

Garrett Gardner was paired up with J’Sun for the Battle Rounds on The Voice. They sang “How Do You Like Me Now?” by The Heavy – and Garrett pulled out on top. We participated in a conference call with the young musician earlier this week to chat post-battle. Follow him on Twitter: @GarrettGardner2.

Garrett, what do you feel the difference is between your audition last year and making the show this year? How have you grown?

Well first of all, I mean I think it’s most of my voice has grown from what Blake said going from note to note. It’s helped me a lot in just controlling the amount of you know runs or lack thereof that I – you know, my voice can do. You know, picking and choosing when to go from a certain note to the next.

And it really just – you know, the experience of not making it on the show when you have such a big opportunity and to still have the confidence to come back, I think it really helped me grow as a person to show that you know, you’re not always going to make it in this industry. It’s a very – you know, very intense work ethic involved. And if you – you know, unless you keep going at it, it’s – you know, it’s something that you’re never going to overcome.

So it just helped me grow as a person and as an artist.

Sometimes it seems like they set up the viewers, make viewers think the coaches are going to go with another singer. Do you guys feel that at all when you’re working with your coaches, or is it more balanced than what we see?

As far as the way… I mean obviously, the show isn’t live yet and it’s edited and all that stuff. But you know it was interesting because… Shakira had a lot more corrections to make on me than Jason because he’s – first of all, he’s an amazing person. He’s an amazing singer. And you know, he’s been doing this for ten years longer than I have.

So to even hear him say that you know we’re toe-to-toe and I’m ten years younger than him, and – in fact, like I took that as a huge compliment. But yes, I mean it definitely seemed for awhile there like he was, you know, the shoo-in winner because he has so much more experience and I definitely had a lot more to do as far as improvement goes.

So yes, there was a lot… deep down, I hoped it was more balanced than everything, but I think it’s also a testament to how good of a coach Shakira has been, because she’s been able to improve those things that I was struggling with when we were rehearsing the song. So then to come back from that and for her to feel that I made enough improvement for her to keep on working with me past the battles was – you know, it was a – you know obviously, a dream come true the second time around.

But yes; for awhile I thought Jason had this one, and I think it’s just… it’s all about how much improvement you can make from here on out, and hopefully that can show in the Knock Outs that I’m going to keep on improving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhT6EzeUXqs