Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with The Voice’s Andrew Marshall

Team Nick’s Andrew Marshall is surrendering all inhibitions as he heads to the live shows on NBC’s The Voice. The singer-songwriter has had quite the transformative journey in the competition and in life, learning to embrace all he’s been through.

At sixteen, his world was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia. While his classmates went to school each day, Andrew found himself staring outside a hospital window undergoing treatment, but found solace in his music. Now in remission, Andrew hopes his story will inspire those who face a similar battle.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to chat with Andrew about his experience on The Voice, how he’s preparing for the Lives, and what it’s been like being mentored by Nick Jonas and Blake Shelton.

PC: How did you discover your passion for music?
Andrew: This is probably a basic thing that a lot of people get enamored with as a child, but I discovered it when I saw some theater productions when I was younger. I saw a bunch of community shows that my friends were a part of. I was really enamored by the whole idea of performing for people.

I’ve also said this in the past, but the rise of Justin Bieber, even though I’m not the poppiest guy in the world. I loved the fact that he was so young and started from YouTube. It was one of the first stories that we heard about someone rising from social media. I thought that was super inspiring. I used to love to sing along to his music. I felt like maybe that could be me one day.

So, probably those two things. I always loved school band, too. I remember getting so excited to get into the fourth grade so I could participate in band, because that was the year that you could start taking classes.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Andrew: There are definitely a couple of influences that fueled my drive to do this for a living. John Mayer is a big one, but that story is pretty beat down. [laughs]

I would also say some of the teachers in my life. They’ve come in and nurtured my growth and saw something in me, whether it was my band teacher in the fourth grade and fifth grade pushing me to play the tenor sax instead of the alto, or my choir teacher in middle and high school saying that he saw something in me and really wanted to nurture what I was doing and made sure I stayed on this path.

Those are some of the biggest influences I’ve had. Same thing with my high school band teacher. A lot of the music teachers that I’ve had have seen something in me, which is really, really cool as a kid to have someone that you admire so much tell you that you should keep doing this. That’s priceless.

PC: After your Blind Audition, you shared how nerve-wracking but rewarding it’s been to be so vulnerable on television and to share your story. In a lot of ways, this experience feels a lot bigger than just a singing competition. What were your expectations heading into The Voice? What has it meant to you to see the response that you’ve seen?
Andrew: It’s been overwhelmingly positive and amazing. I’m so, so grateful for it. There are a lot of rounds that happen before you see what you do on-air, and you don’t know how things are going to get edited. You do these interviews and hope you said something that was good, but you don’t really know.

Especially during the Blinds, I was definitely super anxious. Even though I’ve talked about my story to a lot of different people, and I’ve been open about it with my close circle, and even my outer circle at school and stuff, it was like, “Wow, this is really the first time that I’m going to put this out into the world. I hope that I do good by it and I honor my story.” I’m honoring all the people that are going through the same stuff that I went through.

That was the biggest thing I was trying to grapple with. I remember when we did a family and friends interview because I cried during the Blind Audition interview. I knew I was going into that interview thinking, “What is it going to be like facing my parents, talking about what we’ve been through?” Pretty much every time that I’ve talked about this, I’ve been fine. You won’t get a tear out of me. I’m grateful, though. It’s not an experience that I’ve looked back on in a bad light at all; it’s something that’s brought me to be the person I am today. I’m proud of that person. I tell people all the time, “I would do it again if it meant I could be this person right now, standing here.”

But my family has been so supportive and incredible. We’ve talked about it obviously. More recently, I’ve realized, not only did I go through that, even though I was the one that had the illness, they went through it just as hard as I did. In the moments leading up to that interview with my family, I was like, “Oh God. We haven’t really faced this.” I know how they feel, and they know how I feel, but we’ve never really been face to face and been like, “This is what happened.”

I was super worried about that because you never know how things are going to translate. You question things, like, “Should I hold it in and be stoic?” I didn’t know how the message was going to translate.

I got a lot of really good advice from people. I credit my relationship with Anna Grace, who has gone through a similar life-threatening time in her life. We both had the same fear going into those interviews. We were able to rely on each other a lot and be like, “You know what? We’re going to go in there. Whatever emotions come out, come out. That authenticity is what’s going to help people connect.” I’m so grateful that it did.

That taught me a real lesson about being real and not suppressing how you feel, because we’re all human. We all feel. We all cry. We all laugh. We do all those things. I’ve had so many messages from survivors and people going through it and have been able to connect with so many different people. I never went into the show thinking that would happen; that was never the intent. You want to share and see if people can get something from it. It’s been so great that that message has been received and I can be a light for other people.

It’s been a wild ride, but I’m so grateful. This show has opened me up more than I could’ve ever imagined. I’m on social media, trying to be as open as possible, talking about not only the show, but also what I’ve been through, and connecting with people. It’s really, really beautiful.

PC: Speaking of that wild ride, you’ve had quite the journey already this season. When you look back, has anything surprised you? What’s been the biggest takeaway?
Andrew: Just being present. It’s incredible to still be going. This whole experience is a machine, in the greatest way. These people know what they’re doing. They help you out a lot in every step of this process. I’ve improved, not only growing as a musician, but also as a person. That’s not something that I ever imagined coming to a singing show like this. It’s invaluable: the friendships I’ve made, the connections, and the growth. I feel like a different person than I was. Being present at every single moment is so important. If you focus on the next round and you’re like, “Am I going to make this next round? Am I going to make it to the Knockouts?”, you lose the ability to grow and the ability to enjoy what you’re doing.

That’s something I’ve taken from my treatment as well: you only get one life—live it. That’s a pretty general thing that a lot of people that go through that type of thing realize, but you still forget it. Despite what I’ve been through, it’s still easy to fall into thinking about the future, thinking about the past. That’s the biggest thing I’ve taken from this. This experience is truly once-in-a-lifetime, as cheesy as that sounds. It is. When am I ever going to be put up in a hotel, have wardrobe picked for me, have my makeup done, all these different things again? Who knows what’s going to happen with my career after. There may be similar situations, but never a situation and experience quite like this one.

So, I just want to keep that mentality and try to surrender my anxiety and inhibition about things and keep growing. It’s so encouraging to see not only the reception that people have had to what I’ve done, but also just looking back and seeing how much I’ve grown.

PC: You’ve been in a unique position where you’ve gotten to work with both Nick [Jonas] and Blake [Shelton]. How do their styles vary? What’s been the best piece of advice each has given you?
Andrew: It all depends on the song and situation. With Nick, we worked on Harry Styles’ “Adore You”. The range is pretty high for me. It was something that I hadn’t really done before, so that was a challenge. Nick’s main notes for me were technical. They were really good notes. He and Darren [Criss] had similar notes, like, “Keep that air flowing throughout a phrase.” He told me to act like my head was on a string. When I tend to go for a high note, I lean and put my neck down, which ends up forcing my pitch to go flat. It’s a bad habit that I’ve developed. Nick’s given me a lot of technical tips, which has been great.

For Blake and “I Won’t Give Up”, which was my song, it was weird. My struggling points were at the beginning and keeping the pitch on. It’s a lower register, and it’s an emotional song. There’s a narrative involved, so you’ve got to make sure you’re taking proper breaths and stuff like that. His tips were more performance-based. He was like, “You got to get into the zone.” I felt really strong about the rest of the song. He told me that, too. He was like, “The rest sounds incredible.”

So, I think depending on what song you’re working on, they’re going to give you different pieces of advice. Blake was honing in on, “Where’s the performance going? Even though you’re still working on it, how are you going to perform this? How are you going to perform this to the best of your ability?”

That’s why I’m really interested to see how we can work on that performance aspect with Nick. One of my big focuses moving into the next round is to open my eyes more. I love closing my eyes; [laughs] it’s the singer-songwriter in me. I love closing them, but opening my eyes more and being more fun on stage is something I’m working on. I had glimpses of that in “Adore You”, but also still worked on the vocal stuff.

It’s really cool to hone in on the different aspects of performing, so it’s been great. They both had a lot of intention with what they wanted to tell me and the notes that they wanted to give me. It’s been invaluable throughout the whole experience.

PC: What can fans expect from you in the Lives?
Andrew: It’s going to be crazy. Live shows are a completely different animal. I hope that I can lean into the amount of live stuff that I’ve done in the past to get some confidence. I’ve played a lot of gigs. I have a sticky note in my room right now that says, “I will surrender all inhibition on stage.” I’ve been watching some of my favorite performers and how they jam out on stage and how inspiring and pumped up I get just watching them. I love watching Harry Styles’ Grammy performance of “Watermelon Sugar”. I don’t know what it is about it, but I’m like, “I want that kind of energy—that laid back, but also I love what I’m doing vibe.” The song that I’ll be performing can lend itself to that. I just want it to connect with people and show that I’ve worked on all aspects of my voice, and be like, “Here’s my performance.” I want to climb up the hill of improvement.

That’s my main goal. Like I said earlier, I’ve grown so much as a person and musician. I’ve learned to surrender that inhibition more. I’m less self-conscious about how I’m coming off to people. I’m trying to be myself, and I need to do that on stage, too. I can’t be worried if some hip shake is going to look weird. Every movement that feels natural to me is going to be natural to me; it’s going to be authentic. It ties back to what we were saying about the interviews during the Blinds, learning that authenticity is the way to go. There’s no reason to hide anything. That’s all I want.

Regardless of if I go to the top nine, finale, whatever, if I can have this performance where I feel like I let loose and I’m myself—not to say that the other performances weren’t myself, but I know that there was a bit of reservation in those, because you’re on such a big stage—I’ll feel like I succeeded. It’s scary to put yourself out there, but I feel like this process has allowed me to open up in ways that I’d never expected to. That’s my main goal…and to sing well. [laughs]

PC: Prior to The Voice, you’ve been steadily releasing music throughout the years. If you had to choose one of your songs that best encompasses who you are as an artist, which would it be and why?
Andrew: Good question! I’m going to give you two songs because I’m the worst at giving you exactly what you want. [laughs]

As for released music, I loved the song “Fate” that I wrote. It leans into my John Mayer influence a lot. I love the songwriting on that. I feel like I look back on those lyrics like, “What was I writing about?” I knew what I was writing about, but I could go back and get something from it now that I didn’t get two years ago, or however long ago I wrote it. I love that. I love the chord progression I did because it was one of those songs where I was jamming on the guitar and decided to put in this weird chord, like a diminished chord, which is something that you don’t hear in pop music. I thought it was so interesting, and it felt so creative to me.

But as for a song that I completely connected with that’s unreleased—I will eventually release it—is called “Rescue Myself”. I wrote it last year. I still stumble and fall like everyone else. I still go back into this headspace of, “I feel so alone,” and it gets to me. I was having one of those moments one day during junior year of college, and I sat down and wanted to write about it. I was like, “How can I fix this feeling of feeling alone and feeling like people don’t understand me?”

The song really digs into how I felt throughout the years in college when I was still going through treatment. I was acting like nothing was going on, but I was fighting this invisible illness in my head. I felt like I just came to a beautiful conclusion. Instead of saying, “I need a girlfriend, friend, or family to fix me,” I came to the conclusion that I needed to embrace what I’d been through and rescue myself. I still listen to that song and I’m like, “Whoa.”

That’s something that I think a lot of people that have gone through what I’ve gone through have to chase after and figure out for themselves, too. It took me years to figure it out, and I’m still figuring it out, but it’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written. It’s so honest. Those lyrics hit me. I don’t know if they’ll hit other people, but it’s a very common theme. A lot of people go through a lot of things that you don’t see on a surface level, but it’s the general idea of, you don’t know what people are going through until you walk through their shoes.

Those are two songs I love.

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

PC: A band or artist that fans would be surprised to learn is on your playlist?
Andrew: That’s a good question. Maybe the Bee Gees? I love the high voice falsetto stuff. It’s so good—also just the vibe of that music.

PC: First album you bought?
Andrew: I don’t know if I bought this or got it for Easter, but I got a Jesse McCartney album. I think it was the Right Where You Want Me CD. I used to jam out to it.

PC: First concert you attended?
Andrew: My first concert was a Kiss concert in Mansfield, Mass. It was in eighth grade, so I think I was thirteen at the time. It was pretty cool. I remember Demi Lovato was the closer, and I sat there and was like, “Wow. I didn’t realize Demi Lovato was that good of a singer.” I remember sitting there and being like, “I’m going to be up there next year.” Clearly, that didn’t happen, but we’ll be there at some point.

PC: An album that changed your life and why?
Andrew: John Mayer’s Born and Raised. That album got me through it. I have a signed copy of the vinyl up in my studio at home. When I met him, he signed it for me.

That album speaks to going through adversity and getting through on the other side. It’s all the feelings that you go through when you’re doing that isolation: the feeling of, “Am I not enough?” and all that kind of stuff. I highly recommend everyone listen to it because it’s so authentic. Regardless of what you’ve been through, you can connect to the words that he’s saying.

It helped me through my biggest battles with treatment. I was listening to that all the time in the hospital and stuff like that, knowing that, although it’s tense right now, it’s going to get better.

PC: A venue on your bucket list to perform at?
Andrew: I’ve always wanted to play Boston’s House of Blues. It’s really, really cool. I love the vibe. It’s a big venue, but also very intimate at the same time. You could play with a full band or you could get away with playing an acoustic set. That’s why I think it’s really cool. A stadium tour would be really cool as well.

PC: A must-have on the road?
Andrew: A good playlist…or a good co-pilot. I love having someone in the passenger seat with me and they’re picking music, because I don’t know what they’re going to play. That’s such a good opportunity to get exposed to new music. Oftentimes, I’m listening to the same two or three albums over and over again, so I love that.

To keep up with Andrew, follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, and Apple Music.

Photo Credit: The Wong Lens