Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Blind audition: Andrew DeMuro, 25, of Chicago, Ill., auditioned with Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” He even sounded just a tad like Billy. Near the end of the performance Adam Levine and Blake Shelton turned their chairs. It turns out both Andrew and Adam have performed with Billy Joel. And Adam complimented Andrew on the character in his voice. Andrew decided to join Team Adam.

His background: He says both of his parents are teachers. “It’s sort of the family business.” So after college, he taught special ed for three years. “I decided I couldn’t give my students 100 percent. So I decided to leave the classroom and pursue music,” he says. Andrew is in a band called The Shades that performs around Chicago, doing folk-sounding music and old-school rock and roll. He’s also a big Billy Joel fan. Joel’s “Longest Time” was the first song Andrew ever performed on stage. And he got to sing with Billy when the singer visited his college campus.

What the show didn’t show:
* According to his bio on The Voice website, his teaching job came through Teach For America, a nonprofit program that places teachers in pre-K through 12 classrooms. Since his assigned school didn’t have a music program, Andrew formed their first extracurricular choir.
* Andrew has posted the video of his performance with Billy Joel to his Facebook music page. You’ll find the link below.
* The Shades describes themselves as an acoustic pop band on their Facebook page. The trio also includes Mark Jacobson on rhythm guitar and vocals and Phil Jacobson on lead guitar and vocals. Andrew handles percussion and vocals.
* According to the band’s Facebook bio, one of their original songs called “Take You Home” was featured in American Songwriter Magazine as a “Daily Discovery,” and was chosen as one of 10 finalists in NewSong Music’s International Songwriting Competition. You can check out the song below, as well as another original from The Shades.
* They’ve performed at a number of Chicago venues, including the House of Blues, Evanston SPACE, Mayne Stage & Uncommon Ground, The Shades are spending the early months of 2016 recording their original repertoire for an upcoming EP release.
* They’re planning their first performance since Andrew’s audition aired on The Voice at a Guitar over Guns event on Oct. 10 in Chicago.
* And they’ve been spending much of 2016 recording their original music for an upcoming debut EP.

Keeping up with Andrew:
Twitter: @andrewdemuro
Facebook
Website (The Shades)
YouTube (The Shades)