Idol Chatter & Voice Views

His audition: Domenic Haynes, 18, Tampa, Fla., auditioned with “River” by Leon Bridges and got Adam Levine to turn almost immediately. John Legend soon followed, only to discover he’d been blocked by Adam. Blake joined them near the end of a very passionate performance. John praised Dominic;s tone. Adam called him his favorite singer in 16 seasons of The Voice. Dominic opted to join Team Adam.

About Dominic:

* His mom had aspirations of making the Olympics in track and Dominic followed in her footsteps until a hamstring injury sidelined him when he was a high school freshman.

* “I knew that I had to try new things,” Domenic told The Voice. “Music is one of those things I ended up trying, and I fell in love with music and want to pursue it for the rest of my life.”

* According to his bio on The Voice website, Domenic was able to run track again in his senior year of high school and made it to the state qualifiers.

* He had planned to run track in college while working toward a scholarship to USC (University of Southern California) Thornton School of Music, but those plans are on hold while he pursues music full-time.

* Domenic released a single in 2015 called “Blur” under the artist name Dom. He told Voice Views it should be available on Spotify soon. You can check out an acoustic snippet of the song on his YouTube channel.

* Asked how he would describe his original music, Domenic told Voice Views: “That’s a hard one. I would say a lot of my music is based on emotions. If I can form a story, and see it play out in my head when I’m playing, that really helps me to form and make music … so a lot of my original music is that. ”

* He said he started playing shows about a year ago and his biggest performance prior to The Voice was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Tampa.

* Domenic said his biggest musical inspirations are Jimmy Hendrix and Amy Winehouse.

* He hardly seemed upset by the block used against John Legend in the blind audition. “It was super sick,” he said, “a dope move in my opinion. When you think about the fact that the coaches can only use one block for the season, the fact that Adam used his on me really showed how much he wanted me on his team.”

* As for the praise he heard from the coaches, Domenic told Voice Views “it was really gratifying, It was a weird sense of reassurance that I was on the right path pursuing music as a full-time career.”

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