Idol Chatter & Voice Views

 

Troy Ramey accomplished his goal on The Voice.

Now he’s vowing to return to doing what he does best, traveling from show to show singing original songs he’s written about his life.

“My goal when I came to the show was to make it into the Top 12,” the singer-songwriter from Sea Cliff, N.Y., said during a conference call with the media on Wednesday, the day after his elimination from The Voice.

“And I did that. I was okay going home either way because I have a career in music that was there before I came to The Voice and it will always be there after this. I never hung my hat on this as like a last-chance opportunity.

“The Voice for me was a way to get more people to see my music that I wrote about my life.”

Troy, 32 when he auditioned for the show, was previously the lead singer for In Like Lions and released a pair of EPs with the band before going solo.

As a solo artist, he released an EP and a series of singles. More music is clearly on the way.

“Fortunately for me, I’ve been able to achieve a pretty good level of success on my own with no money, no budget, no team around me,” he said, pointing to thousands of iTunes downloads and millions of plays on Spotify as examples.

“So I’m just going to continue with what I was doing because it was working. People connect to my songs. And, you know, I’m so grateful to The Voice because I was able to reach a huge audience and now I have their attention.

“So, I’m going to continue to try to make everybody proud and be me and sing songs that I wrote about my life and songs that I love and put 100% of me into it and just see where it takes me. And I know that it’s going to continue to take me from stage to stage.”

On The Voice stage, Troy turned four chairs with his blind audition performance of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World,” then selected Gwen Stefani as his coach.

He continued to excel on the show, but needed Gwen’s save to make the Top 12. He landed in the bottom two in voting this week despite a performance of “Free Fallin'” that hit number one on the iTunes rock singles chart.

That pitted him against Team Adam’s Mark Isaiah for the instant save and a spot in the Top 11. Troy admitted he wasn’t surprised to be the one eliminated — partly because his fans aren’t as young nor inclined to be as active on social media, partly because of Mark’s popularity.

“I did know when I was standing up there next to Mr. Handsome, Mark Isaiah — I knew I probably had no shot, so I was kind of okay going home at that moment.

“It’s actually kind of funny because I became good friends with him,” Troy added. “He’s such a young, humble, talented kid that I dedicated my Instagram stories to being like a fake fanboy of him.

“It’s kind of like the funniest thing, because all day, every day I was just like teasing him and then we end up there on stage together, and it was kind of a cool moment. I’m happy that he’s the one that kicked me out.”

And Troy said he appreciated the lessons he learned from Gwen and her support, even if they didn’t always agree on the approach to covering songs. Troy said he tended to want to change the songs more dramatically than Gwen preferred.

Still, she was supportive until the end, approaching him after his elimination to thank him for selecting her as his coach and to assure him she’d be following his career from this point on.

I’m not going to lie, it was a pretty sad moment,” he said of being eliminated. “I feel like I got dumped on prom night. But like if NBC was my date, Gwen was the cool teacher that like pulled me into the teacher’s lounge to let me cry secretly. I’m proud that I picked Gwen (as coach). And I really know that I made the right choice.”

Fans can follow Troy through his Facebook page and website. On Twitter, he’s @iamtroymusic.‏