'The Voice' Season 17 Team Blake contestants Kat and Ricky talk Christmas music favorites, Thanksgiving plans and 'fan week'
Speaking to MEA World Wide (MEAWW) from the sets of Season 17 of NBC’s ‘The Voice’, Kat Hammock and Ricky Duran, who are both part of Blake Shelton’s team on the show, described what it was like to perform a fan favorite song on stage, looking forward to a ‘Voice’ family Thanksgiving dinner, and what holiday songs they’d love to sing, from Katy Musgraves to John Legend!
Fans were strapped in for some great performances during 'Fan Week' on Season 17 of the 'The Voice'. MEAWW caught up with Team Blake that dropped the deets on how it felt like to perform fan-favorite songs on stage. An obviously chosen family, they can't wait to enjoy a 'Voice' Thanksgiving dinner while they plan their holiday singing list.
Kat and Ricky readily shared how much their coach has helped them through their journey on the show. Ricky said, "I had never heard this song before. So for me, Blake helped me, you know, try new things and just continue to grow as an artist."
There was a slight change in gears for Kat as she shared what she felt changed, "Well, I got to sing a more upbeat song than I've sung on the show before. So that was really cool." Fans chose, 'I’ll Fly Away' by Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch for Kat, which she hadn't heard before. She talked about how it helped her engage with a different style of performance, "I really connected with the lyrics of the song and the meaning. So it was really cool to sing something that really, I felt personally connected to, even though I hadn't heard my song either before the show. And it was cool to kind of be in a different style and to be performing a little bit more. 'Cause I'm normally like sitting by the piano or like standing with a mic stand. So it just gave me opportunities to showcase other things."
With little time on their hands with practice and preparations for their performance, they don't get to watch TV as regularly as most of us do. On watching the AMAs, Ricky said, "I didn't watch it, I was too concerned with what was going on. You know, maybe I can watch that later."
Being on stage, not only performing in front of musical geniuses but an immense audience who now had a chance of picking songs for the contestants can get a little worrisome. When asked if they were worried about the songs or artists they might get, Ricky said, Oh, there's a whole list of artists that I would not really want to cover. Adele, Mariah Carey, Led Zeppelin and stuff like that."
Kat expressed her nervousness as well, "Yeah, there's definitely a lot of people. I would say like Ariana Grande would be really hard. Definitely, like any song that's like super belty and big, I'm like, 'Oh my gosh', I don't know what I do, so I'm glad. I'm really happy with what they gave me."
Holiday spirit and singing are one of the many things that go well together, and the contestants are also getting into the holiday spirit with thanksgiving dinner preps and holiday song choices. Kat talked about how they'll most likely spend the holiday with each other, "We'll probably just be eating dinner with each other and the artists. We'll just have a little Voice family dinner." For the fans, Ricky's favorite dish is simply, "mashed potato and gravy and turkey!"
Who doesn't love to belt out holiday classics? Team Blake talked about how they would love to dive into the relatable classics. Ricky started off by saying, "I love 'White Christmas' I love that song. I love to sing that," but then promptly changed his mind saying, "It'd be, 'I'll be home for Christmas' because it'd be so fitting because I haven't been home in so long and I'm coming home for Christmas. I'm going back to see my family in Massachusetts."
Kat went to jolly mode, "Kacey Musgraves has the song called 'Christmas makes me cry'. And it is just, the lyrics are so good. It's hard to find like an original Chris Christmas song. Also by Scotty McCreery, he has 'Christmas in heaven'. That song is so beautiful too, but I also like the classics, like probably 'Oh, Holy night' or something like that would be cool too."
Being part of TV's hit show and having immense talent has its perks - contestants have gained exposure and fan appreciation from around the world. When asked what was their fans' reactions to last week's show, Ricky said, "The reaction was generally very positive. I think last week's performance, I love to look back at this one, it was my strongest by far, like a perfect one, like hitting the notes. I didn't see any huge flaws in that performance. And, I just think it was really positive. I can't remember any tweets in particular."
Kat's positivity beamed, "I really loved my song, but I'm still learning about performing on this stage and using in-ear monitors, which have kind of thrown me off a little bit. I'm learning that I need to hold the mic right cause that also changes the sound. So I'm definitely still growing in that regard and learning about that. Definitely had a lot of positive feedback, some negative stuff too but that's part of the game."
'The Voice' on NBC airs on Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 pm. Don't miss out!