By Karen Moul

One thing fans and critics love about The Voice is the speed with which the show eliminates contestants, and the battle rounds are where the action happens. This week twelve people sang and six went home.

Some of the contestants struggled with nerves, a few had pitch problems, but everyone laid it on the line and a few even blew us away. The epic battle of the night was Jesse vs. Anthony, these guys are both incredible singers. It was a shame they had to face off so early, it would have been great to see them both in the finals. But this marvelous performance established Jesse as a front runner and at this point in the competition he’s the man to beat.

After the show, the contestants talked with SciFi Vision and other media outlets about working with their guest mentors and learning to sing a duet.

The Voice airs Mondays at 8 pm on NBC.

NBC Conference Call
The Voice

Team Christina: Jesse Campbell and Chris Mann
Team Cee Lo: Chessa
Team Blake: Jordis Unga, RaeLynn, and Brian Fuente
 
March 6, 2012 


QUESTION: I know you guys didn't get a say in the (set) you performed last night, but were any of you particularly surprised by who you were paired with?

CHEESA: A little bit. I was preparing myself to be paired with Wade or Jamar because I feel like they're more my style, but it was very nerve-racking. Angie's a beast. When I first watched her in her audition I wasn't expecting such a rock star, she owned the stage and she's such a great singer, so I was definitely intimidated and scared but, you go. She's a beast, that's all I can say.

JESSE CAMPBELL: I wasn't really expecting Anthony, for whatever reason. I just knew that they wouldn't put two Christian background performers together and when they did I'm like, "Oh well, it is what it is, so let's have fun with it."

CHRIS MANN: I actually thought I was going to get Anthony, who Jesse ended up battling. I don't know why I thought that. The other thing, being the classical [performer] on the show, I thought perhaps they were going to put me with Moses Stone, the rapper, purely because they didn't know what else to do with us.

RAELYNN: I actually wasn't that shocked because Blake always would [joke] with me and Adley because she was from Oklahoma and I was from Texas, and he would always say stuff about it and so I kind of in the back of my head thought that he would put me with Adley. But then I also thought maybe Jordan Rager because he's my age. So I was either thinking Adley or Jordan, but it wasn't too much of a surprise.

BRIAN FUENTE: I think that, looking back at it, for [Jordis and me] to be paired with one another, first of all we were surprised, both of us were extremely surprised at that moment when Blake chose us two. But looking back, I think it does make sense because we are the two rockers of the group so - like I said, we were both shocked, but it kind of made sense.

JORDIS UNGA: It was funny because Brian and I had become friends throughout this whole process, so I think as obvious as our pairing was, we were both hoping that our names wouldn't be called together. So on one hand we didn't want to battle each other. I think nobody wants to battle each other, but it was a pretty obvious pairing for Team Blake.

QUESTION: Jesse, I heard your a capella version online of “Amazing Grace” and it was just absolutely beautiful. And I read in your bio that you made a tough decision to at one time walk away from worldly success in music due to your faith. Can you tell me how the Lord led you back and how you served Him through music?

JESSE CAMPBELL: Well, it was really through this life experience and that's how I started to really hear the voice of God and as a result of a series of what I call fortunate events, I hit rock bottom and as a result of hitting rock bottom I made a choice to pull back and to continue to sing the safest thing, which I thought were hymns and such. I had a lot of faith that I put in man and the church and then they let me down, including going to the government to get welfare until I could find a job.

And it was like, “Why am I sitting out here, suffering for nothing? I have this talent that God has given me so let me step outside of the box.” So I chose to (unintelligible) and really do my work and when I looked within, I found that there was a serious issue of unworthiness, I didn't feel that I was worthy to have anything and it was due to superstition that came from misunderstanding certain scriptures in the Bible. And when I released those superstitions I was able to step outside the box. And in doing so I felt as though because of the circumstances of life, having to sing on the street, having to sleep in my car, that that was God's way of speaking to me saying, "Hey, there is more to life than what you've come to know inside the church."

So I believe that God's people are in and out of the church and my thing is to take the limits off of myself, therefore I can take the limits off of God and what He's willing to do in and through me and therefore reach people that are all over the world of all (unintelligible) and so forth and so on.

QUESTION: I was wondering if each of you could talk about what the guest mentor taught you that you'll be carrying with you.

CHRIS MANN: Speaking with Lionel was an honor for me as somebody on the show who's really trying to represent the male vocalist category, and who better than Lionel Richie? They didn't actually show a lot of what we talked about and we had one moment, I was really not in a good place that day that they showed. Mentally I was also very sick and wasn't singing my best and Lionel and Christina both said some very inspirational things to me that helped snap me out of it and give me a lot of confidence about how they handled singing when they're sick.

And Lionel said something in particular that I've taken away which is, "The you that shows up today is good enough." And I certainly was not feeling like that at all, but I remembered that and took that into the battle line for sure and I am very much thankful to him for saying that to me.

RAELYNN: I've been talking about Miranda Lambert ever since I first auditioned for this show in [Nashville] and she's been such an inspiration to me and for them to bring her out as an advisor, I almost had a heart attack. I told myself I wasn't going to cry because I didn't want her to think I was crazy psycho, but I almost did cry because she - I've been listening to her since I was like 11 years old and being able to meet someone that has inspired you so much in music was a dream come true for me. And for her to tell me that she loved my voice and for me just to say who I am and who I am is unique and all the compliments she gave me will be compliments that I will live with for the rest of my life and it was truly a moment that I'll never forget. And she's just an amazing person and…I can't believe that The Voice let me meet the person that I've been listening to my whole life, so that was pretty magical for me.

JESSE CAMPBELL: Christina and Lionel, they really gave me advice that I will remember for the rest of my life. They said don't overdo it, just do you and own the moment, but at the same time remember that you are singing with someone and the both of you have to sell the song together. And after you do you and make the most of your moment without doing too much, then gracefully hand it off to your partner. So that's something that I will take throughout the rest of my career.

BRIAN FUENTE: Walking through that door and seeing Kelly Clarkson was absolutely shocking. Just to be able to sit there in front of - or side-by-side with such amazing talent was just incredible. She's been through this experience before and she taught me so much about being confident and she was just complimenting me on my voice and she's like, "You've got it, you've got what it takes," and hearing that from her was - those words are irreplaceable. It was just mind-blowing that we were able to share that experience together.

JORDIS UNGA: I really loved working with Miranda and for me, the way I'm such a family girl and to be able to work with a husband and wife together, their dynamic was really disarming while we were rehearsing. And Kelly Clarkson (unintelligible) has experienced this before. And I think it's hard to show how much of a pressure cooker this experience actually is. I know I've been getting a lot of comments about being so nervous and I was. I was so nervous. But Miranda just kept on looking at me and going, "You can do this, you're professional - what do you want me to tell you? Just go do it." And that was invaluable. Mostly in retrospect now, I was so terrified when I hit that stage and still in shock when Blake told me to go on, but working with her was so much fun and I love Blake, too.

CHEESA: It was great working with Babyface, it was one of my dreams come true. He's responsible for a lot of artists making it, so it's not like (unintelligible) a lot of great songs and he's such a great artist and working with him was great. You know, it's great to hear one of your biggest influences telling you how great you are, that's such a blessing. And I was just so excited. I was so excited, I'm like, "Oh my God, oh my God it's Babyface, I have to remember his name, I can't remember his name," and I couldn't say it. I was really nervous but it was great.

He gave me [some] great advice which can go with music and with life, he said, "To know yourself, know yourself fully and rehearse every day and just be yourself so that when something strikes, you know where to go when you're in the dark." And I think that's such a deep thing, whenever something bad happens, you won't even have to worry about it because you're so prepared and so ready to get on that stage and just kill it. So it was great, I loved the experience.

QUESTION: Jordis, would you say that the struggle was more so with the platform or with the song, or where do you think you faltered a little bit with the performance?

JORDIS UNGA: To be honest, I haven't had time with that song. It's beautifully written, I love Atlanta all of that, but I think the style of that song was difficult for me. And Brian and I did it together, we had key issues. He's a male vocalist, I'm a female vocalist, there was a give and take of what we could do. So that paired with nerves of knowing one of us is going home, it's just not - that's part of it, the battle part of it, it's just not in I think any of our nature as musicians, we do things productively together and we learn from each other and all those things. And it felt like at any point of this performance was a dark place and I really didn't ever want to see the end of it. I'm really, really glad it's over and I really, really long to see my friends and go home at the same time, but I'm ready to move on and hopefully I get really, really far so at least when I went home to somebody that I went really, really far.

QUESTION: Cheesa, can you talk about how your confidence has grown over this process? You see a lot more confident then when we first saw you.

CHEESA: Oh, most definitely. Going from the blind audition, I didn't think that was one of my best performances. I don't think a lot of people knew, but I was sick. I got sick two days before and I missed my cue on stage so I was definitely prepared, I was preparing for the worst. It was crazy because both Christina and Blake were rooting for Angie and it's like, "Oh gosh, if you were going to pick me." Angie is such a beast on stage, it's crazy. But I definitely grew throughout the process and I'm getting more confidence from the old shows into live shows.

QUESTION: Earlier you had each mentioned what your mentors had taught you on the show, but did anyone - specifically those who weren't used to singing duets - what have you all learned from your battle partners?

CHRIS MANN: I dialed (Monique Menabou) and I said it last night and I believe it's true: I've never worked with a signer who displayed so much emotion in every note and every word and I love - I would get sort of lost watching (Monique) perform “Power of Love” knowing that I had to come and she would - I would get really self conscious because I would feel like such a dick, really, compared to her with so much passion. So if I learned anything from the battle round, it's that connecting and emoting every word and every note of every song you sing is extremely important and (Monique) is a genius at that.

JESSE CAMPBELL: Singing and working with Anthony, it was a joy because Anthony is such a great person and it made it so much more challenging to be in this part of the competition, because as (Joe) already said, we don’t do what we do to battle. We do what we do because we love it and it's from a place of love and it's a collaboration. And to work with Anthony, we both had to set aside what it was that we came here to do as far as the loving and stuff like that and going on and approach it from a competitive point of view. But Anthony always stuck to his guns and Anthony certainly sings with a lot of emotion and he didn’t let anything that I said or anything that I did affect him to the point where he did not deliver. And that’s what I appreciate and actually got from singing along with Anthony and he just kept his poise and his personality still came out regardless of whether we were practicing on stage or not. He was always Anthony and that’s what I loved about it.

QUESTION: Your hit of the note “baby” cinched it. Was that something that was planned or was that spontaneous on your part? And for the rest of you, were there any spontaneous moments in your performances?

JESSE CAMPBELL: No, it was something that I did in rehearsal and again, it was a competitive thing and I didn’t want to give everything because I did do that in the beginning and Anthony is a great singer too and we kind of did one another's runs and risks and dynamics one time each. So I was okay. Well, you know, if Anthony can do what I do better than I do it then he needs to stay here. So I just decided to keep it the same during rehearsal but then when it came time to the stage performance, I just took it in a different pitch, “bah, bah, baby” and did it differently.

CHRIS MANN: I wasn’t feeling like I had a total leg up going into the battle round so I, the night before, decided to add a higher, more operatic note during the bridge of “The Power of Love” and so I hadn’t done it in rehearsal and really hadn’t practiced it at all. And it's (unintelligible) watching it last night either but in my head I remembered that being a lot better. It was, like Jesse said, a competitive thing where I was like, “I got to do anything I can to get through.” So I definitely did some (improv).

QUESTION: Chris, do you anticipate any issues with the rest of the competition with your classical training and having trouble connecting with the emotions of the song? And Jesse, your confidence was on point immediately when you were paired with Anthony to the time you walked in on stage. Where'd you draw that from?

JESSE CAMPBELL: Thank you for saying it was on point because I literally went into some serious self-forgiveness when I started hearing some people from the Midwest and the East coast saying that’s not really who I am. But it is television and I wanted to give them a little bit of edginess for the sake of television but again,it is competition and I felt like…

Well, actually it was my daughter and my personal trainer who helped me because I had such a challenging time with this and one day I picked my daughter up from school and she said, "How was it, daddy? How was it, daddy?" And I said, "Well, baby girl, it was great." And she's like, "Well, what's wrong?" I said, "Well, it's almost like they want a little bit more than an edge from daddy and I'm having a little bit of a challenge." So when I told her, she said, "Well, ask me the question," and I asked her. She said, "Okay. Well, do you think you could win this competition?" And she said, "Well, yes. I think I will win it because I worked really hard at what I do and I'm just going to be out there and go out there and be the great artist that I am." And that’s what I said, just like I said it to you but they edited it like those were my words. You know what I'm saying? So my daughter gave me a really - a good edge and confidence - a push in confidence, rather, that kind of gave me an edge.

And my personal trainer said, "Hey Jesse, it's a competition. You got to go out there and fight because if you do not then you can get sent home and your ass will be on the outside looking in, so got to do what you need to do." So I hope I balanced it out (unintelligible)

CHRIS MANN: You asked about training and connecting with the lyrics and I have to be honest, I completely disagree with (Jewel) and I was pretty surprised to see that that information had made its way backstage to her. It was definitely that I was having trouble connecting with the lyrics. I was not having trouble connecting with the lyrics and Monique does certainly connect so much emotionally to the song and I think that I can learn a lot from her. However, just because you're classically trained doesn’t mean that you're void of emotion or unable to connect with words. In fact, if you're signing in a foreign language, it's your job to connect so deeply with the lyrics that you let your audience know what you're talking about when they don’t even understand the words. So I'm not worried about that going forward. It's something that I want to take note of but certainly don’t feel like it’s an issue.

QUESTION: Jordis, can you talk about what it was like to adapt to the battle format with two singers and how you feel now that it's behind you?

JORDIS UNGA: Well first of all, I'm like a sigh of relief that it's over. I'm so happy. It's nerve-racking. I mean the battles are - they're really scary. The entire Voice crew of contestants had been living and existing in this, I keep saying pressure cooker but the saddle's looming over our heads and knowing that we'd all worked so hard to make a team and the next step of this thing, half of everybody that is so elated to be there is going home already. So, I don’t even know that I actually did adapt to it but I got through it and I'm so thankful for that and I'm so ready to move on from this. I think…people are going to see a totally different person. When I'm watching this back, I'm like, “Why do I look like I want to throw up constantly?” I'm so nervous all the time. I'm taking a deep breath. I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to do what I do. So that’s over. I'm happy.

JESSE CAMPBELL: That’s okay Jordis. I feel the same way, same way. Gosh.

QUESTION: Brian, how did it feel when you heard Blake's disappointment about your performance and did he speak to you afterward about how he felt or explain a little more?

BRIAN FUENTE: You know, I was really pretty shocked by all of the coaches. I feel like they didn’t give us the right - I don’t know. I didn’t really hear any pitch issues at all. I think this song was, just like Jordis has before and I have said, the song was a difficult to tackle, especially for me being a male. I've never heard any male artist attempt that song and that was definitely a challenge for me but the comments, I somewhat disagree with. I think it was, it was a challenging song but I think we did it - overall did a great job and Blake, I did see Blake afterwards and he's like, "Man, I believe in you. Keep in touch." He's just an awesome guy and we'll be speaking for sure.

JORDIS UNGA: I think I listened to all their comments and really believed it 100%. I'm listening to them talk and I'm going, "Man, that’s been awful." And when I was watching it back last night, I'm not disappointed but I'm so - I wish I could go back and react differently just out of respect for Brian because you know what? When I watched it back, it wasn’t as bad as their comments led me to relive it in my head. It wasn’t bad at all. It was what we rehearsed and I just wasn’t allowed to be that disappointed in our performance when I'm watching a friend of mine go home. I felt really awful about that and I'm actually happy with the performance. So I loved working with Brian. It was a hard song. It's the battles. It is what it is. I don’t even know to say.

QUESTION: And what did Blake say to you after?

JORDIS UNGA: Blake looked at me and said, "What happened?" And I said, "I don’t know, Blake. Thank you." He's like, "Girl, please." I don’t - I mean, yes that’s what he said, "What happened," and then he hugged my mom. I was like, “Oh my goodness. I don’t even know what to do with myself right now.” My palms are sweaty. I can't talk. My brain isn't working. It was a mess. I'm a mess.

QUESTION: What's the most important thing you’ve each learned from your team leader, Adam, Christina, Cee Lo and Blake?

RAELYNN: One thing I can say I learned from Blake is I've never seen someone that - I didn’t think that he would believe in me as much as he does and to see how much he believes in me and believes in my voice and he likes - he loves my unique ability. Just to see someone you've looked up to your whole life believe in you, it's so amazing and to have him there to coach me and to tell me what direction I need to go and not to be so (stylistic) and just control it, to have him there is awesome and words can't really describe how much I've learned from him because he's an amazing guy and he's amazing talent. So it's been amazing.

BRIAN FUENTE: I would say the number one thing I learned from Blake is that first of all, he's so humble and that you can be at that status and still be humble and I will always be like and he just he proved that to me. And just be yourself and I learned somewhat - I'm now way more confident than I was before this show because of him and Kelly, and they both gave me so much inspiration that now I'm going to be able to do what I've wanted to do my entire life and I'm living out my dream now.

JORDIS UNGA: Blake has a way about him that is so, like Brian said, humble and honest and he comes from such a level of talent and experience. Like RaeLynn said, to have somebody like that look you in the eye and say, "You can do this. You know, you are deserving and talented and great," there's just a level of confidence that you get from him. He means it. He is an amazing coach, an amazing mentor and I couldn’t be happier.

JESSE CAMPBELL: Christina has really taught me to own the moment and in doing so, don’t be so structured [and] everything that I think that she said like, “Go off the cuff.” I still don’t know exactly what that means but I assume just let go and just have fun and yes, pretty much just have fun and just let go, not be so structured in all of the riffs and the dynamics and things like that. So that’s pretty much what I got from her, but it's not like we sit up having drinks every night either.

QUESTION: RaeLynn, I was wondering if you felt like you had an edge on Adley last night because you had Miranda Lambert as a coach or as a mentor.

RAELYNN: I don’t think I did because Adley's just as amazing as - I mean, all of us on this show are, we're all amazing. I think it was awesome that he brought in my inspiration to work with me and that [was] such a blessing. But Adley is just as amazing and I don’t think it gave me - it made me more confident to have Miranda behind me and have her mentoring me and just knowing that she was behind me made me 10 times more excited to do the battle. But I don’t think it really gave me an edge because she got mentored by Kelly Clarkson, who she absolutely adores. So I think we both did amazing. I love Adley and Adley is so amazing and Adley's going to great things and she's just as good.

QUESTION: You’ve been compared to Miranda Lambert several times and I was wondering what you feel separates you from Miranda as a vocalist.

RAELYNN: You know, me and Miranda are a lot alike. I've had lots of girls message me on Twitter and call me “little Miranda” and it's really funny because she's inspired me so much and I think me and Miranda are very similar in a lot of ways because we're both really country. I can't be anything but country. I can't sing anything but country. I mean, my whole team laughs at me when I talk,but it's awesome because they love me and I love them. But me and Miranda are a lot alike in a lot of ways but our voices are a little different. I think my voice is more of an old country sound. but she's inspired me and I love her rock-country sound and that’s what I ultimately want to be. So I think we do sound similar but we're very different also, so it's really cool.

QUESTION: Jordis, I was wondering if it was challenging for you to have a country vocalist like Miranda as a mentor when you specialize in rock music.

JORDIS UNGA: Well, I don’t think I necessarily specialize rock music and I actually had to have this conversation with Blake. I was raised on ja and blues and Motown and stuff like that and I think that’s where I get a lot of my instincts as a singer. Country isn't a far strength for me actually. I mean, if you talk about Ray Charles or Johnny Cash or anything, they all have a place in rock and I think when I get into my big high screamy notes or whatever, of course that sounds rock but I think in my heart I'm coming from a place that is very blues. It didn’t faze me at all singing with a country singer and she's such an amazing vocalist and when I walked into that [room] to meet Miranda, I actually was very nervous about the song and I walked in there thinking I have a lot of work to do. I just I hope I can get the work I need done, done and she was perfect. She was amazing. I loved singing with her and they gave me a lot of good tips. So the country thing has no bearing upon anything.

QUESTION: Jesse, I read in your bio that you found your voice at the age of 16 when you led songs at your dad's church. Was that St. James? And I'm wondering what your dad, Pastor Willie Campbell, thinks about your success on the show, how close you guys are and if you could just go into your Chicago Maywood background a little bit, about playing football and what high school you went to? Just give me a little bit of background on your Chicago roots.

JESSE CAMPBELL: Well, my dad he[was] a pastor of a Pentecostal church and the name of it is St. James Ministry. And it was on the west side on Roosevelt Road, but it's now on the far south side on 114th and (Low). And growing [up], we had a strict upbringing. We couldn’t listen to anything outside of gospel music and dad only wanted us to do church. Everything was about church. And I was on the football team. I was on both offense and defense starting and I loved it, loved, loved, loved it. But everything was church, so dad said I had to get off the football team.

So I gave that up and I just devoted everything that I had into church and began traveling with my dad. But at the age of 16, we would have - let me back up a little bit. We had a lot of different gospel and Christian celebrities would come to Chicago and they would come by our church. And then we had the Winans would stay with us at our home a couple of times and one of them heard me humming around the house and told me that Jesse could sing and my dad said, "No, Jesse's the drummer," because I started out as a percussionist. And then my dad made me get up and sing a song. So I was really shy. I was hiding behind the cymbals. So I got up and I sang my first song at 16 and then things just continued from there.

But that’s pretty much it in a nutshell and then stuff just took from that point as far as singing (tilos) throughout Chicago and then traveling with my father throughout the country, and then did a couple of off-Broadway play productions and from there I got noticed and just kept it moving from there.

QUESTION: Which high school did you go to and did you have a job here? And why did you leave?

JESSE CAMPBELL: I went to (Provival) East in (Maywood) and it was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful village to be raised in. And I moved to Los Angeles because I wanted a successful career in the entertainment industry and I just knew that either New York or L.A. was the best place for me, even though my heart was really in Nashville. So I made a choice to come out here and I also got married the month after. So I moved out here to get married and to have a successful career in the industry and when the career didn’t take off, the wife did, and as a result I began to have both challenging moments that led to some breakthrough, some “aha” moments to the place where I was able to step outside of that Christian box and allow God to use me in a way that I wasn’t even expecting. Therefore these experiences were like stepping stones and as a result, it led me to this platform of [The Voice] voice that I call a platform of infinite possibilities and I'm very grateful for it.

QUESTION: RaeLynn, I'm just wondering if you feel like your age you're at a disadvantage against the other competitors.

RAELYNN: I'm doing good. Being 17 and being in a competition with amazing signers like Chris Mann and Jesse and all these amazing singers who've been singing their whole lives and being so young, it is kind of nerve-racking. It's scary at times because I'm only 17 years old but I've got to think of it as the coaches see something special in me that puts me up there with them. So I have to just be confident in that and I'm so excited to be a part of this amazing show with all these amazing singers and I am still so blessed.

And I know that God has a plan for me on this show and I'm just excited to live out that plan and do what he wants me to do and I'm just so excited to be on this show. I love it and music is my passion and music is what I want to do for the rest of my life. So I feel like I just can't wait to show America what I can do in the live round, because it's going to be awesome.

QUESTION: How hard was it to keep it a secret how far you got on the show?

RAELYNN: It was pretty hard because I have a really big Texas family and they like to tell everything because they are just like that, and so to keep my family quiet was very hard. The last night they just had a ball telling everybody and my dad owns a tire shop so every customer that he talks to he's like, "You know my daughter's on The Voice," and he's bragging about it and my brother's like, "It's so annoying. I hear you about on The Voice probably about 100 times a day." So it's really cute how everybody knows, but it's funny. I'm just so glad it's out.

SCIFI VISION: Cheesa, I was wondering how you felt about the song choice, “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” That’s a hard song to sing and yet it's that song that everyone sings. You sing it at karaoke. You sing it in your car. You sing it everywhere. How hard was it and how much do you enjoy it or not enjoy it?

CHEESA: I'm Filipino and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is one of the biggest karaoke number one songs to sing. So the first time Cee Lo introduced it, he was like, "You might not know this song. It's a little bit too old for you," and I was like, "Okay. Try me." And he told me it was “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” I was pretty stoked because I knew the song and I knew I could potentially sing it really well, but it was definitely nerve-racking during rehearsal. We put it up one step higher, one key higher, and I was nervous as you could [see] because watching it last night, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to hit that note and if I didn’t, it would be a total fail. I'll be looking like an idiot for bringing it up a key step to higher but I definitely love the song. It's an epic song and I think both Angie and I gave a great performance with the song choice.

SCIFI VISION: All of you guys seem to be great friends but Chris and Monique, you seem to have really great chemistry singing together. Where's that coming from?

CHRIS MANN: We just became friends. Jordis has been calling us the pressure cooker, which is true. We're living together and we're spending every waking moment together. We're eating together. I was almost going to say something else. Monique and I actually met - we didn’t meet until a couple days before the battle pairings and we just clicked. We went out to dinner and we just became really good friends. So when you see our faces when Christina pairs us together, those are genuine “Oh, shit” reactions where we're bummed out because we were buddies.

So I guess I've talked about it before as well. Monique brought such emotion to that situation that you can't help but just feed off that and enjoy the beautiful song. It's a big ass ballad of love so you have to give in to that. We had a lot of fun singing together and it was really a shame that one of us had to go.

QUESTION: Jordis, I've been waiting to ask you this question. What is it about your Tongan culture and heritage that keeps you pushing through this competition?

JORDIS UNGA: Girl, my dad is going to be so happy you asked me that question. I'm so proud. My family is so proud that I get to be involved in something like this. I sat up all night last night with my dad talking about my grandpa. We wish he was here. You know, my grandma Ella is 98 years old.

I still have a lot of family back on the island. They're all watching from New Zealand and everywhere. My Tongan culture is so embedded in my heart and in my music and everything. I think there's a light in my heart that comes from the island girl in me that really gives me strength for something like this. Does that make sense to you? You know what I'm talking about, the “island girl” thing? Cheesa girl you know too. So when I see on my Twitter when I get comments about, team (Pauly), when I'm getting acknowledged from that side, it's really heartwarming to me because, you know, I grew up in Minnesota. I'm half Swedish. I can follow a onservation in Tongan but I can't talk back, you know? It's to get acknowledgement from the Tongan community has been absolutely overwhelming and I'm so glad that you're on this call today. During this break I just got a new tattoo on my hip for my grandpa, who was (unintelligible) means “slow but sure” and that is my motto through the rest of this thing as far as I go.

QUESTION: Wow. So your grandfather was on (Minerva Reef)?

JORDIS UNGA: Yes. He was one of the survivors.

QUESTION: He was one of the survivors. Wow, so that’s your motivation through this whole process, correct?

JORDIS UNGA: Absolutely. I mean we always have to talk about grandpa whenever we do anything that’s trying or difficult. If he could survive on that reef for as long as he did then we can do anything.

QUESTION: Cheesa, how does the Hawaiian culture impact you through this competition?

CHEESA: You learn to support everybody and be strong and good, (unintelligible) holy Hawaii, I was Hawaiian-ed out and I think that’s what people in the States do. Because I'm Filipino but I was born and raised in Hawaii and it taught me to be humble and just embrace all of the talent that’s there in the competition and just learn from the experience and grow. So definitely rooting and going for team Hawaii. Let's do it.