As part of the mentoring panel on The CW's new singing competition show The Next, country superstar John Rich prepares unknown artists for a live performance that could land them a deal with Atlantic Records. It's a lot of pressure on both the mentors and the singers, but the real experience comes in the 72 hours they spend together.
John sat down with Ology to talk about his experiences getting to know the talent and what we can expect to see on the show.
|Related: Our interviews with Joe Jonas, Nelly and Gloria Estefan!
You’ve done a lot of reality television, what about this how made you want to get involved?
Well, it’s pretty simple for me. The real way an artist has a career is by experience, building your own audience, doing it the hard way, the old fashion way, earning it, you know? These are artists that have their own fans. They’ve got their own band. They’ve got their own songs. They’ve got their own thing going and they just need that last little bit of tweaking to take them from their local scene to the national scene. It’s not like you’re creating something from nothing, it’s already something. You’re just trying to take it to the next level. I think the cool factor is being able to go to where they work and where they live and meet their friends and meet their family and see what they do day in and day out. It allows a guy like me or the other mentors to go in there and point things out to them that maybe they didn’t even realize because that’s where they live and that’s what they do everyday. It’s really been some eye-opening instances that we’ve had so far.
Did you learn anything or experience anything new while mentoring?
One thing I did is I shot a fish with a bow and arrow; I’ve never done that. Yeah, bow fishing down outside of Orlando. The first kid I worked with, Michael Ray, that’s what he does to kind of calm down and chill out. So I’m standing out there with the 50-pound compound bow shooting at something that's swimming by underneath the boat. Its pretty crazy.
Wow, did you hit one?
I missed. I’ll be honest, I missed. It was my first time (laughs).
What’s the hardest thing to teach these artists?
Well the one thing that everybody’s going to deal with is nerves. When you’re in front of your hometown audience that you’ve played in front of a million times, nerves don’t really play into your performance because you are comfortable. This is taking them out of their element. If it’s a country artist, they’re used to playing for a country crowd or if it’s an urban artist they’re used to playing for an urban crowd. This is a cross section of artists, so you’ve got all kinds of music fans and for me the one thing I try to impress upon the people I’m working with is you got to connect as much as you possibly can with everybody in there. That comes from the song that you pick, to how you sing it, to how you address the crowd, and just your overall presentation has to be dead on. I mean, Frank Sinatra connected with everybody. Doesn’t matter if you’re a cowboy or a rock and roll fan or whatever, Frank’s Frank. Elvis is Elvis. You know, it can happen and so I think that’s part of what our job is to find out what is a common charismatic thing about our artists, point that out and go, "Magnify that because that’s what everybody’s going to dig about you is that part right there."
How's the rapport between all the mentors?
We can’t stand each other. Fight like cats and dogs all the time (laughs). No, it’s really cool because, you know... the queen of Latin music, literally. I mean she’s royalty as far as I’m concerned, Gloria. Then you got Nelly who’s one of the most down to earth. You hear about rappers and they got this certain persona. Well, he’s got a big persona but this guy’s like a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. Then Joe Jonas -- when they go on tour they’re on a private 747 flying around the world. And there’s girls camping out here to see him and he’s completely unphased by it. He’s appreciative of it. I think everybody here, all four of us mentors have a real appreciation for hard work. We know what it takes to make it. We’ve all spent many years going at it and practice is something that you can’t fabricate. If you sit down and spend thousands of hours of your life practicing on something then you did that. Nobody can take that away from you. I think we all have that in common.
Do you guys get competitive at all?
Yeah, every now and then I’ll just put a little bug in Joe’s ear or Nelly’s ear and I’ll say "You know, my guy’s going to whoop your guy. You know that right? My guys going to win." They’re like "Is he that good?" I go, "Oh yeah, he’s that good." We’ll mess around with each other a little bit, but I think at the end of the day what makes The Next a really cool show is that there is no judging happening. I mean, we are going to be honest in our critiques and our opinions but it’s not up to us, it’s up to the room. It’s up to that hometown. The whole hometown vibe. It’s like a high school football. Everybody’s rooting for their town, their team, they want to win and to me, that’s a really soulful thing.
Was there any advice that you got during your career that really stuck out for you. Something you passed along?
Yeah, there was an artist named Eddie Arnold who was one of the very few artists that had a top-40 hit in six different decades. He’s passed away now recently, but I had a conversation with him one time and he said, "You’re a country singer for sure, you’re not a normal country singer, like you do it your own way, right son?" I said, "Yes sir." He said "Well, that’s the same thing I did, I’m a county singer too but I came out in a tuxedo and I had a string section behind me and I took a lot of heat for that." He said, "But I stuck to my guns and I’ve had a lot of hits." Yeah, in six different decades, no kidding and so he said, "You just keep doing what you do and let the fans decide who stays and who goes." Well, the fans decide who stays and who goes on this show and I think the greatest thing about it.
The Next premieres Thursday, Aug. 16 at 9 p.m. on The CW.
Will you be watching? Let us know in the comments!
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