Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Riley Biederer and Evan McKeel prepare for the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

In a pre-battle round interview, we heard Riley Biederer say Evan McKeel is the one person she didn’t want to go against “because he is such a talent” — not to mention a guy who turned four chairs to her one in the blind auditions.

Her road to the knockout round only got tougher when coach Pharrell Williams asked them to sing “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder, one of Evan’s favorite artists.

Did she see herself as an underdog heading into their battle? Oh, yeah, Riley admitted during a conference call with the media.

As for Evan, he had a bit different perspective.

“I was very blessed to have four chairs in my blind audition, but it was also four chairs at the very last second,” the 20-year-old from Richmond, Va., pointed out. “My blind audition didn’t feel like a huge victory thing. It felt like for the majority of that blind audition performance I was fighting to get the first chair that didn’t even come until near the very end of the performance.”

And the duo had this going for them entering the battle: They’d been friends since executive call-backs in March and were determined to put on a battle round performance that would allow both of them to shine.

“That’s why we worked so hard to make that performance one that was going to highlight both of our strengths and our differences,” Evan said of their friendship. “And we were going to have some times to show off a little bit and some times to sing together and show a lot of different versatilities because we wanted to do everything we could to set it up so that we both got to continue (on the show).”

Riley said she knew she “couldn’t perfect Stevie Wonder like Evan did, but I could perfect certain aspects of the song. What I tried to do was just find things that I was really good at and just put them in the song — like the runs and the belting notes.”

It all worked out about as perfectly as they could have hoped. Pharrell selected Evan to advance to the knockout round. But Riley got to advance as well when Gwen used one of her two battle round steals on the 19-year-old from Atlanta, Ga.

Though Riley’s save came shockingly late. She had already thanked Pharrell for his coaching tips and was walking off The Voice stage when Gwen hit the steal button with a twist of her hip.

“Tt was very chaotic and, at first, I really didn’t even know who it was (who had used a steal),” Riley recalled. “And then I turned around and it was Gwen. From the beginning, going into the blind auditions, you always have which coach you would pick first and second and third. She was definitely either my first or second choice in the beginning.

“So it was really cool that I got to work with Pharrell and now I’m going to get to work with the second person who I just really wanted to work with on the show.”

To learn more about Evan and his pre-show music, head here. To learn more about Riley, who has a huge following on YouTube, head here.

For more of the stories behind the battles on The Voice, head here.

Riley Biederer and Evan McKeel perform during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Evan McKeel performs during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Riley Biederer performs during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)