Idol Chatter & Voice Views

His audition: Jake Wells, 23, of Kansas City, Missouri, auditioned with “When the Stars Go Blue” by Ryan Adams. He turned in a strong performance, but it wasn’t until the very final second that Adam Levine turned his chair, giving Jake a spot on the show. Adam complimented Jake on “the most unique tone” he’s heard so far in Season 15.

His background: He’s been performing with his family since he was a child. They traveled around the country — Jake says he’s been to 48 states — as part of a gospel group. But he was taking The Voice stage as a solo performer, and he called that “terrifying.”

On joining Team Adam: “Working with Adam Levine I think has taught me to step into the shoes of playing a bigger game and being a performer and finding confidence in my own skill set and in myself and really owning that at my core. I think that’s something that Adam does profoundly well.“

What the show didn’t show:

* According to his bio on The Voice website, Jake was 8 when his family hit the road as a touring gospel act. He was home schooled during that period until the family settled in Kansas City when he was 14 and he began living the life of a typical teen. In one interview, Jake says his family toured “almost Partridge Family style.”

* In a conference call with the media, Jake told Voice Views one of his biggest inspirations to pursue music as a solo performer came during a hitchhiking trip from where he was living, Fort Collins, Colo., to the northwest corner of Washington state and then down to southern California.

* Says Jake: “I just brought a guitar with me and had the songs that I knew how to play and the songs I knew how to sing and that was how I made money to eat while I was hitchhiking. And so that definitely kind of solidified for me who I am as a songwriter, who I am as a vocalist and who I am as a performer.”

* As for his musical style, Jake says: “I think historically what I tend to create when left to my own devices is very soulful influences with a lot of funk. And, naturally, I gravitate towards vocal harmony. So I’m heavily influenced by songwriters, like, Justin Vernon from Bon Iver and Alan Stone and Matt Corby — songwriters that tap into the soul of their voice and also know how to find a groove but can prioritize making something beautiful as well.”

* He released his debut single, “Roll Like Thunder,” in 2016. That tune has been streamed more than 1 million times on Spotify. In a Balconey TV espisode, Jake reveals the story behind the song. He moved to Kansas City in 2016 and it “rained — like monsoon rain — for a week straight. I lived downtown, and I had this beautiful front porch. I would go out there — it was covered — and there was just this image in my head of the rain coming down … mix that in with a little bit of personal relationship weirdness, and it was the quickest song I ever wrote.”

* In 2016, I Love K.C. selected Jake as the Best New Male Artist of 2016.

* Since then, he’s released a single called “Circle of Life,” a debut EP called “Orange and Blue” and a two-song sampler called “What’s Next KC.” The latter two came out earlier this year. Be sure to check out the delightfully different “Honestly / Girls.”

* When he’s not writing or performing music, his Voice bio says he works as a bouncer at a music venue in Kansas City.

His social media links:
Instagram
Website
Twitter: @JakeWells_Music
Facebook
YouTube