Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: JessLee, 26, of Stuart, Fla., performed “I’m With You” by Avril Lavigne. Her audition was montaged, meaning we saw just a few seconds of it. But she got chair turns from Blake Shelton and Kelly Clarkson and opted to join Team Blake.

What we missed: JessLee told Voice Views the chair turns came as she was holding out the last note of the song and that Blake told her “we need more rocking women in country music.” JessLee has been mostly a country artist, but said she chose her audition song because Avril Lavigne is one of the artists who influenced her writing style and “I’m With You” is a song that “resonated with me lyrically.” “I consider myself a country-rock artist and told Blake I’m basically a metal head who likes to slap banjo on my songs,” JessLee added.

About JessLee:

* JessLee grew up in a musical family in Florida. Her grandparents, Sal and Roger Rossi, a well-known bandleader, vocalist and composer, worked together as professional musicians. And she says she was raised by her single mom and her two sisters, also musicians.

* According to her bio on The Voice website, she wrote her first song at age 9 and won a local songwriting contest with it.

* She’s now a country artist based in Nashville and competed on Season 13 of American Idol, an experience she says taught her a lot about the music industry and gave her an extra push to pursue her dreams.

* She’s since released a good deal of music — a five-track EP called “Just a Kiss” in 2015, singles “Girls Codes” and “Christmas in America” in 2016 and “Burn” and “Apologize” in 2017. You can check out the video for the country rocker “Burn” below. “Apologize” is a very nice cover of the One Republic hit on which JessLee is accompanied by Chaz Mazzota.

* “Christmas in America” was dedicated to members of the military who can’t be with their families at Christmas because they’re serving the country.

* She also describes herself as a fitness activist who lives by the mantra “music and muscles” and also has a JessLeeMuscles site.

* On Facebook, JessLee says one of her favorite experiences was opening for LoCash, then being called up on stage to help perform their number one hit, “I Love This Life.” She recently posted a photo on Facebook looking back at the experience two years ago, writing “Shortly after, we finalized the evening with pizza and laughs in their bus then, they were off to Mexico and I was off to #Nashville …. life is so freaking cool.”

On picking Blake: For months prior to the blind audition, JessLee said she had a blinking photo of Blake on the back of her phone with the “I Want You” sign lighted. “It was something that I had actually pre-visualized,” she told Voice Views. “But I can’t lie, in real life, it was a tough choice (between Blake and Kelly). But Blake really locked it in when he said my performance reminded him of Cassadee Pope and he coached Cassadee Pope to a win on the show. That’s a big deal to me because Cassadee is probably one of the closest artists to what I want to do in music — that rock kind of country feel. For him to bring Cassadee up out of the blue confirmed that he was the right match for me.”

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