When it comes to music mentors, it can't get much bigger and better than having the Queen of Latin Pop Gloria Estefan on your side. Along with Joe Jonas, John Rich and Nelly, Gloria is mentoring upcoming talent on The CW's new singing competition, The Next.

The mentors travel the country helping out unknown singers prepare for a live performance where audience members vote on the winner. Then the winners in each city travel to L.A. for the live shows. 

Gloria sat down with Ology to talk about her decision to be a mentor, the best career advice she ever received and more!

|Related: Joe Jonas talks to Ology about being a mentor|

How did you get involved in the show? What made you want to do it?

It’s funny, I was familiar with working with Dave Broome on Biggest Loser’s Spanish version, so I had several opportunities to see how he does things and I already admired him very much as a producer. And he came with the idea and [Queen] Latifah, for a long time, we’d been talking about doing something together, so when he told me this was a Latifah project that also really sparked my interest. And then when he told me what it was about, what the premise was, what drew me to it was that I didn’t have to judge anybody. I hate that part, and I think artists find it difficult to do that. We know what it feels like up there, it’s tough, and I can use my psychology degree here a little bit. Because we get to spend a lot of time with people who we are mentoring for 72 hours. It’s fun. It’s supposed to be very light, despite trying to really help these people and really trying to find a new talent. So all those things brought it together.

Do you watch any of the other singing competition shows?

Oh yeah, of course I do. I love them.

You’ve mentored before, right?

On Idol, because I also didn’t like to judge. So I really liked that. It was a lot of fun and I watched the show. I’m a big fan of it. I thought they had amazing talent this year. They really had a lot of really good singers. I like The Voice a lot too.

People often talk about the chemistry between the judges (or in this case, the mentors). What's it like working with the boys?

That’s important. You got to have chemistry. At the beginning, I tweeted that I felt like I was the headmistress at a school for naughty boys, because I’m the only girl [laughs]. There are these three guys, really fun. We get along great. You know, you can’t make it up. We really do get along and we have fun. I did the pilot with John Rich back in October and he’s the only mentor that was locked in at that point and we really hit it off, so I was looking forward to working with John because he’s crazy. He’s a lot of fun.

Is it difficult when you mentor someone with a different style of music?

You know, I think when you’re a musician, you’re a musician. I don’t think any one of us is locked into any one [genre]. I think we all love music. The day when I was with John in October doing the pilot, he was in the dressing room next to me and he was playing all these songs on his guitar that were songs that I loved. And they weren’t particularly country songs. We love music, so yeah you might have a certain style, but I think that we could probably mentor anybody. I don’t think that’s an issue at all. I told Dave we really wanted to do some interesting collaborations, like stuff that’s unexpected. Joe Jonas and I did a Police song and we did the chorus in like a salsa mode. It was a lot of fun. I think I’d love to see the mentors do that kind of thing. Do more moments where you do unexpected stuff and fun stuff that people are going to be surprised to see. So far its been that. Its been great.

What was it like immersing yourselves in these people's lives for 72 hours?

Let me tell you, I’m picking up some skills [laughs]. I’ve been on a riding mower trying to cut someone’s lawn. I helped her clean up her yard, she had a lot of chores to do and I ended up doing them. I was able to use my boating skills, it was a lot of fun. I learned to make pizza. I flung that dough yesterday here [in New York]. That was great. So we do crazy stuff. It’s supposed to be all in good fun while trying to really give them some real advice among all the craziness. Spending time with their families was great because you know, on all these shows that I’ve seen, Idol and what not, you see maybe one minute when an contestant will go back to their home town and even then you don’t spend time with them at home. You see them being celebrated and given parades and all that, but we really got a chance. The girl here from New York, I was with her mom, her dad, her brother, and between shots and the stuff that we are doing, the fun stuff, you really get to spend time with these people. I don’t think it’s like anything I’ve seen out there.

Was there a point in your career that someone gave you really good advice that you passed on to other people? 

There was one bit of advice that one guy gave me one day. It really hit home. He had a big hit on a local radio at the time and he went out there and I was watching him from the side of the stage because I love to watch people perform and do their thing. And it was euphoric and he was so good with the audience. So he comes off the stage and I go, "How are you able to do that?" and he goes, "You know what? You got to realize that if you’re lucky enough to share your talent or make somebody happy for one moment, you better look into everybody’s eyes and you better enjoy that moment because you never know when you’re going to get that chance again." And two days later, he died. So that has stuck with me forever. I cant even remember his name, but he made a big impact on me. I realize that when you go out there, [the audience is] going to be nervous for you and they need to feel that you’re in control. That you want to take them on a journey. You don’t want them to feel like you’re iffy because they feel nervous for you and then it makes them uncomfortable. So you really need to be in control and even if stuff happens, you just got to have fun with it and go with it and let them feel that you can handle it. I’ll never forget that, ever.

The Next premieres Thursday, Aug. 16 at 9 p.m. on The CW.

Will you be watching? Let us know in the comments!

---

Follow on Ology: Sharon Tharp |  TVOlogy

Follow on Twitter: @sharontharp  | @TVOlogy

Comments (0)

ALSO IN...

TVOlogy