Guy Sebastian isn’t the only member of his family to make an impression on The Voice.
In fact, his younger brother Chris Sebastian is a returning All Star and has become one to watch after blowing the judges away with his Blind Audition.
Chris, however, hasn’t had a totally positive experience on the show though. Here he chats to WHO about what motivated him to come back after his treatment on the first season plus, why it was “a good moment” when he brought Guy to tears.
WATCH: Chris Sebastian makes his brother Guy Sebastian cry on The Voice.
Welcome back to The Voice, Chris. What brought on this decision to come back?
I’d wanted to do it for a while. Going back on The Voice wasn’t really a thing – like I know a couple of people did it but for me The Voice kind of felt like the kind of show that you can only do once.
But then the All Stars format came back and I’d been recording and writing a lot and I’d been touring and singing a lot of other people’s music for a while but I wanted to bring it back and a show like that could be great to introduce new music and get people on board again.
That was kind of my motivation but I didn’t know how it would work and if people would like it so this year I was like ‘This is the year, I’ve got a baby on the way, it’s time to do my thing a little bit more.’
What was it like stepping out on that stage in front of the coaches?
I’ve never been more nervous in my life. I walked out on stage with full blown dry-mouth – I was the most nervous I’ve ever been. A few weeks earlier I did Fire Fight with Peking Duk which was an enormous audience but I can confidently say that that Blind Audition was a thousand times more nerve-wracking. I went out there and thought I closed my eyes the whole time. I remember opening them and seeing the four of them turn around thinking ‘Oh my gosh this is incredible, keep going and try not to stuff up’ so it didn’t really hit me until the end.
I was so nervous to watch the footage back because I had no idea what it sounded like. I remember chatting to Guy afterwards and he was like ‘No you did really good’ and I was like ‘Are you sure?’ I blacked out, I had zero idea what I sounded like. I was definitely not cool, I was packing it!
And did it feel good when you saw your brother tear up?
Yeah, that’s every brother’s dream isn’t it – to make the other one cry? It was a good moment.
You said that your first time on The Voice was a really crappy experience and they even played Guy’s song after your performance? Why would you want to come back after that?
I had a really rough time. The first time I did have a bit of a rough go and this is brutal honesty time, I was really worried about how it would go down.
But I think the show’s evolved and I think early on there’s pressure in TV to make it about the show and less about the people and I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think The Voice really is a celebration of talent and from what I’ve seen – and obviously I’ve chatted to Guy about this too and he agrees – everyone on the team is so sweet and just has great intentions.
I got that sort of impression from watching the last couple of seasons – they never go out with an agenda of trying to hurt anybody. I felt a lot safer this time around ’cause I felt like the show’s evolved a lot more. I felt like the objective was different and I didn’t think they would do that kind of thing again.
You picked Kelly as your coach but did you feel pressure on who to pick as your coach, especially as you didn’t pick Delta as your coach last time either?
I thought ‘Is that going to be a thing again, is she going to get upset if I don’t pick her?’
You do a fair bit of filming before you go out on the stage and there’s a lot of talk about who you’re going to pick and I felt like a jerk because they wanted an answer from me and I didn’t know.
Was Guy ever going to be an option?
I knew I wasn’t going to pick Guy – that was my thing from the start because people would obviously think it’s unfair and I didn’t want to have to put him in a position where he’d have to pick me over someone else who may be more deserving.
At the risk of saying this, I know he’d pick me – he’s my brother, we’re always going to have each other’s back so I wouldn’t want to put him in a position where he can get thrown under the bus for choosing family when the show’s about choosing the best singer. I didn’t want to put him in that position but also you become a family on the show. I became friends with so many people on the show and I would hate for them to think that I’m getting some kind of special treatment.
So from the start I was like ‘I can’t pick Guy’ and Delta is also one of Guy’s really good friends so I felt like that probably wasn’t a good idea either so I had to choose between Kelly and Guy. I’m a massive Destiny’s Child fan and then I was a massive Kelly Rowland fan so for me it made sense to go with Kelly.
So what’s it been like working with Kelly?
She’s very cool, hanging out with her has been great – she’s been so cool.
Kelly was great because I felt like she understood me really easily and we like the same music. I’m a vocal coach so when it comes to telling people how to sing that’s something I do on a daily basis so to be on the other end of it I was like ‘How’s this going to go down?’ But she only said things where I was like ‘I absolutely agree with that.’ It was such a huge help to have her advice. Hanging out with her has been unreal.
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