Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Clarissa Serna, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, sang “Zombie” by The Cranberries for her audition on The Voice. Her gritty and haunting vocal enticed Adam Levine to turn around early in her performance. If anything, Clarissa got stronger as the performance continued, eventually getting all four chairs to spin. “I’m in a dream right now,” Clarissa proclaimed. Blake said he tried to stay out of it, but that Clarissa “beat him down” with her superb vocal.

Her background: Clarissa had been working at her parents’ real estate company for about a year before The Voice came along. “As much as I love working here,” she said, “music is my passion.” She also volunteers with an after-school program called Chicas Rock, designed to help girls build confidence. As for her own music, she says she started performing when she was about 17, then got involved in a couple of different bands. “My friends are getting married and having children and settling down, and I’m over here, like, ‘When’s my next gig?'”

On choosing Shakira: “She has a beautiful presence about herself, the way that she carries herself knowing that she has this intense following all around the world. She’s just like wise beyond her years, she’s amazing, she’s like a genius and speaks all these languages, plays all of these instruments and she’s so humble about it and I really admire that about her. She comes off as a very humble, happy, outgoing person, and I vibe well with that type of energy.”

What the show didn’t show: Clarissa says she started belting out songs to a karaoke machine when she was 7. “I always wanted to be the star at every gathering and get-together my family had,” she recalls. Before she started working in her parents’ real estate office, she’d been performing with bands around Corpus Christi — including one called the Jolly Ranchers — for seven or eight years. She says she’s performed lots of different genres of music. And if you head to her YouTube channel, you’ll find a couple of songs in Spanish. In 2011, she released a six-track pop EP as Clarissa; the lead track from that album is embedded below. “I have versatility in my voice and it’s not like a one-song record,” she said during a recent conference call with the media. But she also says she’s looking to her time on the show, and Shakira’s coaching, for direction. “I’ve grown up doing different impressions of characters from TV and I find that when I sing, I tend to imitate the artist that I’m covering,” she says. “I’m really interested in discovering my own sound.” As it turns out, she was honored by the local Kiwanis Club for her work with the Chicas Rock program late last week. She told the local TV station she’s been going over new material with the other members of The Clarissa Serna Band, preparing to tour once the show ends.

On iTunes: Her audition song and the 2011 EP. You can hear full-length versions of some of her originals on the Clarissa Serna ReverbNation page.

Update: She defeated Jeremy Briggs in the first battle round; they sang Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice.”

Keeping up with Clarissa:
Twitter: @ClarissaSerna
Facebook
YouTube

Editor’s Note: For links to profiles of all the Season 6 artists on The Voice, go here. And check back for live blogging during every episode of Season 6.

“Hold Your Hand” (from 2011 EP)

“We Are Young” (FUN cover)

“Unthinkable” (Alicia Keys cover)