Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Former The Voice contestant Kristi Hoopes is working on a debut EP she hopes to release in April.

That would be Kristi Hoopes, and she’s launched an indiegogo campaign to help fund the project.

The campaign has already raised more than $6,500 and runs through the end of the month.

Kristi is planning a six-track country EP, but says her original music won’t sound quite like what you’d hear if you tuned in to a country radio station.

She’s promising country music served up with “honest, authentic songwriting, steel guitars, bell bottoms and a little less beer and truck.”

Adds Kristi: “The rhinestone-studded country sounds of the ’70s that inspired me as a little girl have all but vanished from the airwaves in 2018.”

Helping her revive that sound will be Biff Watson, who’s worked with Crystal Gayle and Don Williams; and Paul Worley, who’s worked with Lady Antebellum and the Dixie Chicks.

Kristi told Voice Views the EP will feature six brand new songs she’s written over the past year with co-writers like Kirsti Manna, who wrote Blake Shelton’s number one hit, “Austin.”

And she’s offering up all sorts of treats to those who donate to the campaign, including handwritten lyrics, autographed posters and retro baseball caps and t-shirts.

From Colorado and currently residing in Nashville, Kristi says she’s been singing since age 2 and spent much of her childhood traveling to country fairs and coffee shops to perform with her mother as her manager and her dad as her roadie.

She turned three chairs last year with her Voice blind audition, landed a spot on Blake Shelton, but was bumped from the show in the battle round.

Now 20 and a student at Middle Tennessee State University, Kristi said her time on The Voice paved the way to a number of memorable experiences since.

Over the summer, for instance, she said she got to perform with John McEuen — a renowned banjo player and a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band — and the String Wizards at the Franklin Theatre in Franklin, Tenn.

“To jam onstage with one of your heroes never gets old, and I feel grateful to have a country legend in my corner,” Kristi said.

And Voice fans might remember that Kristi auditioned with Trisha Yearwood’s “Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love.” A couple of months later, she says Clay Mills, the co-writer of that song, invited her to write with him and Mark Irwin.

“That was the first co-write I had ever been a part of in my life and I had no idea what to expect,” she told Voice Views. “By the end of the session, we had a killer song and I felt a sense of assurance that the music I’m making is going to take me exactly where I want to go.”

Here are the social media links for the self-described hippie chick with twang:
Twitter: @KristiHoopes
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube