Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Gentry Monreal, Neil Morrison and Robert Easley of The Joy Reunion from The Voice Season 21.

The Voice returns to NBC on Monday, Sept. 20. Here’s more about The Joy Reunion.

* The group is a country songwriting trio from Southern California consisting of Robert Easley, Gentry Monreal and Neil Morrison.

* The group formed in 2017 and has released lots of music since, including a debut album in 2019 called “We’ve Come Too Far” that included their first two singles, “You’ve Got a Way” and “Living on the Edge,” both released in 2018.

* But according to their website bio, they’ve been performing together much longer than that, just not as a country trio. Robert and Gentry have been worship leaders at a church called The Packinghouse in Redlands, Calif., for 20 years. Neil joined the same worship team in 2011.

* They’ve each been involved in other musical ventures during that time. But in 2017, they began getting together every Sunday evening to write songs.

* “During that time we fell in love with the songs we were writing together and the way our voices sounded together as we sang these songs. We started playing some local open mic nights just for the fun of it and the response we got was amazing,” they told the Dixie Dee blog last year. And so a trio was formed.

* As for the name? In some of those previous ventures, there was so much striving to make it, it took the joy out of creating music. “The three of us found ourselves really enjoying our relationship as friends, really trusting each other as artists, musicians and songwriters, without the toxicity of striving to fit a certain mold. We were reunited with the joy of music,” they told the blog.

* Each brings different influences to the band, according to that website bio — pop /rock influences and ’90s country songwriting from Rob, classic country, folk and roots from Gentry and blues, southern rock and folk influences from Neil.

* They’ve continued to release music — songs “Offline,” “Suntan Lotion” and a Christmas cover in 2020 and a single called “Old Town and Country” in March. Check out the music video for the latter below.

* As for “Old Town and Country,” Gentry says the chorus came to them one night at the end of a songwriting session. They loved it, but didn’t have the rest of the song and it lingered for about two years. They eventually decided to create a fictional story around it of a man who wakes up one morning to find his loved one has moved out. “I feel like the song is kind of about the American dream, with heartbreak it in,” Robert adds.

Celebrating 10 years of The Voice
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