Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Gary Carpentier from The Voice Season 13 has a new EP out.

Now he’s become the first Season 13 artist to release a post-show EP or album.

His impressive five-track EP, appropriately titled “My Time,” dropped last Friday.

“‘My Time’ was kind of obvious, but it really felt like a suitable name,” Gary told Voice Views. “I’ve been working and grinding at this music thing for a long time now and it’s only the beginning.

“With all this new confidence and exposure and experience, I want to start taking it to the next level and travel more, play some higher profile gigs, and really come into my own as a musician.

“The second I stopped saying ‘I can’t’ and listening to people who echoed that, I took off. So no better time than right now.”

Gary took off on The Voice with an emotional performance of Michael Buble’s “Home” that earned the then-26-year-old from Oswego, N.Y., a spot on Team Adam Levine.

Though he was eliminated in the battle round, Gary still considered his stint on The Voice a major success. After all, the video of that blind audition performance has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.

Gary said he’s been working on his EP for about a year and kept it local by having friends perform on the tracks and help with the production.

The title song and “Soul Set Free” are standout tracks. Another, “Riverside,” was inspired by one of Gary’s friends “who would fall super hard for someone and they wouldn’t feel the same way.

“So he’d be down in the dumps, but would immediately spring back up once another woman showed interest. It happened for a long time and I remember talking to him to try and help with his latest crush. I went home and started writing and it came out to Riverside.”

Gary’s debut EP has a singer-songwriter feel, but he says that might change a bit as he continues to grow as an artist.

“I mainly write in that style, but I’d like to see my music go towards more of a jazzy/swing feel once I start the full length album,” he told Voice Views. “The coolest part about being in the studio is watching your songs and yourself as an artist come to life.”

You can keep up with Gary through his Facebook page. On Twitter, he’s simply @garycarpentier.

Here’s the title track from “My Time.”