Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Kaleb Lee performs during Top 11 Week on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

In fact, he hadn’t performed for years before turning the chairs of Kelly Clarkson and Blake Shelton with his blind audition cover of “Never Wanted Nothing More” by Kenny Chesney.

That fact, Kaleb said, left him with “a lot of rust to shake off.”

You might say he did it pretty successfully, though a battle round save from Kelly Clarkson certainly helped.

Kaleb wound up advancing all the way to the Top 6 on Season 14 of The Voice. In the process, he hit the Top 10 on the iTunes country chart twice.

Here’s what Kaleb told Voice Views about his time on the show and his music moving forward.

Voice Views: What’s next for you musically?

Kaleb: I know the big thing is working on songs,and getting those — get in studio and get those out. I’d love to find some tour dates in the fall.

But right now, I’m really focusing on the music side of it, getting the product out there that people can latch onto and hopefully love to listen to and obviously stay in the country vein as well.

Voice Views: Before The Voice, you’d been away from doing music for a long time. You’re back in it full swing now?

Kaleb: I’m full swing. I’ve been in and out of music for a while, but this was exactly what I needed to propel me back into it. So I’m excited be here and this is my full-time gig even when the show is done and I’m back home.

voice Views: What was your favorite performance on The Voice and why was it your favorite?

Kaleb: The duet, Hillbilly Bone and Hillbilly Deluxe with Pryor Bair. After your performance — and every contestant is probably the same — you get so hyped up and you wait for The Voice to release the YouTube video so you can kind of go and watch and like verify if you did well or not.

And I think that night I watched my solo performance like once and I watched that duet that we did about 20 times, and it was so much fun — the most fun I’ve had onstage.

We (Pryor and Kaleb) went together with battles and we were back onstage together. But we were also doing music that we both love, and it was a really cool unique blend of the two songs as well. Just all the stars aligned and it was a lot of fun. We’d love to do that again.

Voice Views: And how do you come up with those two songs? Whose idea was that?

Kaleb: That’s the talented Paul Mirkovich from The Voice Band. He’s an incredible guy and he put those songs together for us and it just fit so well, and we were excited to be able to sing them.

Voice Views: Can you talk about something you gained from The Voice experience that’s going to affect you music moving forward?

Kaleb: One thing I’ve gained for sure was a close friendship with Pryor (Baird). We’ve similar paths of life and like-mindedness and spent a lot of time together on the show. But there are so many other folks that I’ve gotten to meet on different levels and in different capacities. The overall friendships of the show is pretty cool.

I would agree with Pryor about pursuing a duet thing. I’d love to continue doing that and see what we can do there. And, I would say one thing that I learned from a personal perspective … I would say (coach) Kelly (Clarkson) really just instilled in me some additional confidence that I feel like I needed after being out of music for so long.

And being around all of these folks like Pryor and Jackie (Foster), Rayshun (LaMarr) and so many others that are so, so talented at what they do. It’s contagious, you know, the confidence, the abilities. You push each other in a healthy and constructive way. And I think that’s probably the best thing and probably one of the best things I would say that I’ve took away from the show is just the additional confidence needed to move forward and to continue being successful, hopefully, at this thing we call music.

Editor’s Note: Kaleb, from Ormond Beach, Fla., was 31 when he auditioned for The Voice. For more on his pre-show music and why he walked about from performing for a while, head here. His social media links follow.

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Twitter: @kalebleemusic
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See also …
Ranking the Top 4 on The Voice
Britton Buchanan’s Voice performances
Brynn Cartelli’s Voice performances
Kyla Jade’s Voice performances
Spensha Baker’s Voice performances
Tuesday’s guest star lineup