Daniel Passino – The Voice

By starrymag | May 5, 2016

Q)  Now that you have gotten all this exposure from The Voice I was wondering what is next for you musically.

 

Daniel Passino:   I’m not sure right now. I want to put out my own music but I don’t know, I’ve got to regroup I guess. I might go back to school right away and finish my degree or I might try to decide if this is something that needs to be pursued right now while the juices are still flowing and I’m still like I guess in the public eye for a second. So, I’ll have to reevaluate things and then try to go from there

 

Q) How do you think your time on The Voice will influence the type of music you eventually do release?

 

Daniel Passino:   I think my time on The Voice was really – went really well. Obviously there’s some things you would want to do differently and there’s some things that you wish happened differently but I think as a whole, at an open call audition not many people on the show are actually bad. But at an open call audition you never dream to even get an opportunity to audition for the show, like the real show. And to have made it to the top ten is just – it’s incredible. So I mean, I’ve been beating myself up over being eliminated last night but truth of the matter is I have been sick for the last couple of weeks, the last week pretty sick and I don’t think I could go on much longer anyway. It’s just very tedious. And so but to answer your question about music moving forward, it’s interesting because I want to do pop music, current pop music and the real struggle that we had was trying to find current things to do that can sing, that you can sing, you know what I mean?  The music out right now is not very singer oriented. It’s more about the background music, the beat. It’s more about the hook, you know what I mean? So you couldn’t really perform those songs on the show because it wouldn’t translate very well. So I think we did a good job with what we had and we’ll move on from there.

 

Q) So I want you to think about the first time you were eliminated compared with the time last night, being on Pharrell’s team versus being eliminated on Team Christina when you had to go up against Alisan Porter. I guess how do those experiences differ? Did you see either elimination coming? Like what emotions did you feel?

 

Daniel Passino:     I actually saw both eliminations coming because the first elimination, and Pharrell, he alluded to it a few times on the show but it just never made it very obvious.  And last night I knew that was coming as well just because of the comments that I received Monday night. And just kind of my own coach didn’t really – not that he didn’t stick up for me but he didn’t – and I mean, I think that was evident too on Tuesday with the results show. You had three coaches vouching for Nick [Hagelin] who did a phenomenal job by the way, he did a phenomenal job. But you had three coaches vouching for Nick, you had Christina standing out of her chair telling everyone to vote for Nick and then when it was my turn it was almost – my brother described it as a euology, you know what I mean? There was no – so it’s all right.

 

Q) Pharrell seemed to fight hard for a lot of contestants on his team, but he was a little bit subdued last night. I guess was that a little disheartening and could you talk about your survival performance of Uptown Funk? Like how did you choose that song? It was just a little surprising considering I don’t think it really showed off your vocal strengths but it was really fun and entertaining obviously.

 

Daniel Passino:     Yes so yes, it was interesting. Me and Pharrell have a wonderful relationship. He is one of the best human beings I think I have met here in the duration of my time on the show.  But even Monday night like Christina said there was intonation problems, but I didn’t think that was, I mean, you can listen to the performance and judge for yourself. But I think there have been multiple times on the show where there have been people with intonation issues that have never been said, never brought up and their actual performances were praised. And then we’re so far along on the show that never happens.  So it was just interesting that the coaches would even say that. And then when it got to my coach’s turn to kind of defend me I didn’t feel like he really did that. And then yesterday he didn’t – I didn’t feel like anyone was kind of vouching for me. But I mean, you can see the common trend on the show for the last couple of weeks. Like you can go through the eliminations and I’m sure the same thing will happen next week. This show is about positivity and it’s never about controversy and there’s no controversial things that ever happen on the show. So Pharrell is very respectful and I just think it was my time. It was the decision, it was my time to go this week unfortunately.

 

Q)  Did you think a lot of what you alluded to about backstage drama or lack thereof and song choices, that you can’t pick the ones that you want affected your performance? Like was it in your head when you got on stage?

 

Daniel Passino:     I mean, I didn’t understand the question fully but no, I think – there’s nothing that – everything that happened on the show is everything – the best I could do. There is nothing that could have been better, there’s nothing that could have been worse because what happened was what – you know what I mean? It was just such a wonderful experience and it was just so much fun. Everything happened for a reason. And like that was the interesting part about it, like everyone – people seem to be like so upset when people are going home but like in two weeks everyone is going home. The entire show is over and they will just restart next year.  So it’s just like it’s such – yes there’s just like all the criticism and stuff on the line and I have seen a really terrible article written about like some of the performances and my performance this week and it’s just like why? Like no one else, it’s very interesting. I mean it’s such a good experience.

 

Q) Just keep doing it. Music is within you and it is just unfortunate that, sometimes, online can be mean but like Pharrell said just don’t read any of it.

 

Daniel Passino:     Absolutely. I mean, it’s not even about the – yes I think that’s the biggest thing. I think that’s the biggest lesson for us all, it’s really not about music. We never really had in-depth conversations about like music and creating music because I think it comes very natural to both of us and we’re on the same page on that.  All the conversations and the growth that I had on the show was all setting me up for the – hopefully my future in music. And I think that was really great about our relationship with me and Pharrell is it was – he always – he would always just give me little tiny pointers whenever.  Like when we had our group song he would just like turn to me just like randomly and be like dude, like the stuff that you’re wearing on the show, like I know that they dress you but like – because we were in our street clothes. He was like dude, just wear that stuff. Like that’s what you should be wearing. Like be you. So it was always these pointers and tips of how to like improve whatever I’m doing and how to be unique. And Pharrell, he’s just absolutely incredible.

 

Q) Can you talk about what went into choosing the songs that you sang this week, like I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing and Uptown Funk?

 

Daniel Passino:     The truth, I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, that was – I wanted to do something current and upbeat and fun but after my performance of Time After Time which I thought was a very good performance, it just didn’t resonate well with people. And so I wanted to do something that was powerful and that was really a fun song. We actually had to lower the key for a couple – for the performance because like I said I wasn’t feeling very well and we were kind of struggling through it. But I mean, still that’s a powerful song, it’s a great song that was a wonderful thing. And then my ideology behind my elimination songs throughout the show was just have fun, you know what I mean? Like they’re supposed to be fun and like I said again we lowered the key the day of the performance of Uptown Funk. And I’m actually glad it was that song because it was more of a rap opposed to being sung. And like the person said before you, they alluded to the fact that it didn’t really show off my vocal ability because yesterday I was spent and today I’m spent, you know what I mean? There is nothing, you know what I mean? I just haven’t been feeling well and there’s nothing I really could have done more so that song was awesome and we tried our best.

 

Q) So what was the biggest lesson you took away from being on The Voice?

 

Daniel Passino:     The biggest lesson I took way from being on The Voice, I don’t know. I think the biggest lesson was just you need to be unique, you know what I mean? That is what Pharrell stressed to me the entire time. You have to find what is different from everyone else. You have to have that mystique about you, that mystical – that’s really what we talked about. That’s what I wanted to get from Pharrell. I know he had relationships with Justin Timberlake, I knew he had a relationship with Michael Jackson and those were all my questions the entire time. And I wish it could have been portrayed like that on TV, really showing how passionate I was on the show. I think that was one of my biggest regrets too from the show is that I didn’t feel like I had a personality per se on the show.  And I made it a really, really conscious effort to make sure I didn’t have any back story of anything that was tragic in my life because I’m sure everyone has tragedies in their life but I didn’t want that to define me. I don’t want it to define me moving on in my career.  So the biggest thing that I learned was just the small nuances of the music business and the conscious effort of all of the greatest musicians that you have ever heard of and you have ever seen that everything that they did was conscious and that they knew what they were doing but people don’t understand that. They don’t understand that it’s calculated. It’s a performance. It’s all a performance.   No one is interesting as a person because we’re all people, we’re all the same, we all are as one. But once you find that person that you believe isn’t just like everyone else, then you have that magic. And that’s what we talked about, Pharrell and me. I don’t know if they ever showed that on the show but the magic, it’s the magic behind it.

 

Q) How do you feel about the remaining contestants? I mean, you guys were probably close.

 

Daniel Passino:     Yes incredible, really – they’re really incredible. I’m so happy for Nick last night. What a great story really, and he’s such an exceptional – such a great dude. He was my roommate for a long time and such a nice guy. And I mean, I wish everyone the best. And I think the most important thing to take away from it, I was in tenth place and someone will be in ninth place and Owen who was absolutely incredible, the placing goes on forever. But once you get to the top 12 and even the top 24%, everyone is in their own category, you know what I mean? You have the female country singer, you have the male country singer. Everyone is in their own category so then it just becomes the taste of America at that point. So, we all won technically because there is no one left like us. So it was just an amazing experience and I wish them all the best of luck.

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*