Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Johnny Bliss and Megan Lee perform during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

But we got to see him strip off his leather jacket as he and Megan performed Bruno Mars’ “Versace on the Floor.”

Johnny explained the crowd-pleasing and coach-pleasing move to Voice Views during a conference call with the media Wednesday.

“That jacket thing — where do I start?” Johnny wondered with a laugh. “You guys missed so much.

“First off, the jacket thing was because the jacket was so heavy. It was nice, but it was working against me (as he moved around the stage).

“And I’m just like, ‘You know what? I’m going to take this thing that’s kind of working against me and make it work for me.’ And I ended up taking the jacket off because I wanted the concept to be a Latin and Jazmin type thing.

“You have Megan Lee, who’s so beautiful and so sweet. You can see the purity and innocence in her. And then it’s such a sexy song. So I’m like, ‘Stay beautiful. Stay pretty. And I’ll turn up the heat.”

And so off came the jacket. The crowd cheered. The snippet of the montaged performance we saw showed Kelly Clarkson’s gleeful reaction. She wound up hiding behind her chair, Johnny said.

Alicia Keys, Johnny’s coach, praised him for his “phenomenal voice and huge personality.”

She also declared him the winner of the battle, meaning he now advances to the knockout round.

Johnny entered the battle a heavy favorite. He’d turned all four coaches chairs during the blind auditions; Megan had turned just one.

Still, there was that song choice …

“That’s a song that I was running away from,” Johnny admitted. “And I kept telling all of my fellow contestants the same thing — ‘Oh, my God, they chose the song I was running from because it’s such a hard song to sing.’

“It’s Bruno Mars. And it’s so high. And you’ve got to sing it as a duet? And I’m just like super nervous the whole time. But I loved the song. I’m obsessed with that song.”

The knockout round begins in two weeks on The Voice. In the meantime, you can head here for more about Johnny, including the show that helped prepare him for The Voice.