Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Kota Wade and Alex Kandel rehearse for the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

We got to see the showdown between male rockers Manny Cabo and Keith Semple Tuesday night on The Voice.

We didn’t get to see the battle between female rockers Kota Wade, front woman for Bad Wolf, and Alex Kandel, former front woman for Sleeper Agent.

And the very song they were given made for a nerve-wracking experience, said Kota, 23, of Hollywood, Calif.

The Team Gwen members were asked to sing “It’s My Life” by No Doubt.

And as she tackled a Gwen Stefani song in front of Gwen, Kota says she also had some very specific advice to follow, courtesy of her coach.

“She knows that I’m a trained singer, that I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Kota said in a Wednesday conference call with the media. “And she wanted me to try to let go of some of my technique and kind of tap into the passion and the energy of the song. It took me a while to figure out what she meant.”

She apparently figured it out. Gwen declared Kota the winner, meaning she advances to the knockout round. Alex was eliminated.

Kota said the preparation for the battle round was “probably the hardest I’ve worked on anything in my life. I was the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life. My strategy going into it was that I was literally going to leave everything on the table. I was going to show them everything I had.

“What you didn’t see was how crazy I was, running around the stage, just signing my lungs out,” she added. “And it apparently worked. The coaches all commented on the interesting way that I performed it. I think that pushed me a little over the top.”

For more on Kota, music club entrepreneur as well as singer, head here. For more on Alex, head here.

Keep checking back. I’ll be posting more recaps of battle round matches.

Kota Wade and Alex Kandel perform duringthe battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Kota Wade performs during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)