The Voice turns to its Showdown episodes next week, with four mentors joining the coaches: Kirk Pengilly , Megan Washington, Havana Brown and apl.de.ap of The Black Eyed Peas.
Washington is the only returning mentor, having worked with Keith Urban in the first season. They will each mentor the nine remaining artists on the four teams.
In each of the Showdown episodes, three singers on each team perform head to head for a place in the Finals. Their coach must decide who will go straight through, who will get a second chance in the Sing-Offs and who must go home.
The final Showdown episode is the Sing-offs where the three runners up in each Showdown will compete for the one remaining spot as a Finalist.
Team Kylie – Kirk Pengilly
Kirk Pengilly is a member of Australia’s all-time most successful rock band INXS, which still has a huge international following. INXS have sold over 30 million records worldwide, including number ones in four different continents. They are winners of numerous ARIA Awards, MTV Awards, Countdown and Brit Awards. They have a performance history of over 4000 live shows to over 25 million people across 50 countries.
As principal backing vocalist, saxophonist and guitarist of INXS, Kirk co-wrote with Michael Hutchence a number of the INXS albums and has written, produced and performed numerous singles.
Team Joel – Megan Washington
Megan Washington is a nine-time nominee and two-time ARIA Award winner, multi-platinum album seller, an APRA Breakthrough Songwriter, the inaugural Vanda & Young Songwriter of The Year and recipient of numerous other industry accolades for her debut album I Believe You Liar. Megan is a Triple J Unearthed artist and is an APRA ambassador. She also has a Gold Record under her belt. Megan has headlined the Sydney Festival to more than 40,000 people and sold out the Sydney Opera House Main Concert Hall with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Her stunning voice has been heard around the world on various television and film productions, from Girls to Boardwalk Empire. Her next studio album, There There, is set for release in September, 2014. Megan served as a Mentor for Keith Urban on the inaugural series of The Voice Australia and returns in season three to mentor with Joel Madden.
Team will – apl.de.ap
apl.de.ap is a leading hip hop musician, record producer, philanthropist,The Voice Phillipines Coach and co-founder with will.i.am of the multiple award-winning group The Black Eyed Peas. The pair met as teenagers when apl.de.ap was adopted from the Phillippines and moved to the United States.
The Black Eyed Peas have sold 31 million albums and 58 million singles worldwide and have won over 80 awards. They have also earnt over 100 nominations for the Billboard Music Awards, the Grammys, Teen Choice Awards, American Music Awards, as well as others.
Team Ricky – Havana Brown
Havana Brown has had four consecutive Number One singles in the United States on the Billboard Club Chart. Her double platinum single Warrior, which featured on Havana’s 2013 debut album Flashing Lights, proceeds previous hit singles Big Banana (Platinum), You’ll Be Mine (2 x Platinum) and We Run The Night (3 x Platinum), all of which also went to Number One on the USA Billboard Club Chart. Havana’s worldwide single sales now exceed 2.8 million and she has amassed over 59 million YouTube/VEVO video views.
Havana has toured the world from Tokyo to Paris to Miami and everywhere in between. She has supported the likes of Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Rihanna and collaborated with Pitbull, R3hab, Prophet, Afrojack and others. Havana has almost half a million Facebook followers and had her own billboard in Times Square. All this was achieved before her first album.
The Showdowns have been designed to give the artists one final shot at a place in the live finals. It’s do or die. The artists will sing solo again with a song they have selected and feel represents who they are. It’s time for them to prove to their Coaches that they have what it takes to go all the way.
For the Showdowns, each Coach will enlist their Mentor to help guide their artists. In a world first, the Mentor will listen to the artist “blind”. They will not have seen their original audition nor their Battle performance and will not see them in the recording studio until they have heard them in a run through of their Showdown song.
A few days after the studio mentoring session, Coach and Mentor will come together on stage with each artist to work through their on-stage performance. This is the first time the artists will be able to size up their competition and the audience has a window into their reactions.
Hosted by Darren McMullen , The Voice is a co-production between Shine Australia and Talpa Productions. The Australian series of The Voice is filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney.
Sunday, June 8, at 6.30pm on Channel Nine.