‘The Voice Australia’ Mentors: The Black Eyed Peas’ Apl.De.Ap Reunites with Will.I.Am
“The Voice Australia” is reuniting The Black Eyed Peas members will.i.am and apl.de.ap. The mentors for this season have been announced, with apl.de.ap joining INXS’s Kirk Pengilly, DJ Havana Brown and indie pop star Megan Washington.
Will and Apl, whose real names are William Adams and Allan Pineda Lindo respectively, have a long history together. Even before starting their Grammy-winning mega band, the two bonded with their love of music.
“From the beginning, when I first got to the U.S., he’d say ‘you’re from the Philippines?’ looking at me like I was from a fish tank,” apl was quoted by news.com.au as saying, recalling the time when he moved to the country in 1999 as a child.
“He was like ‘what do you do there?’ I was like ‘I break dance, I do the running man...’ And he was like ‘what, you do the running man? Show it to me.’”
He continued, “From then, we formed a dance group that evolved to being signed to Easy E and then came The Black Eyed Peas.”
Apl will be Team Will’s mentor. For Team Ricky Martin, he has enlisted DJ Havana Brown, while Team Kylie Minogue will be getting help from Kirk Pengilly. Joel Madden has brought back ARIA-winner Megan Washington, who also mentored in Team Keith Urban in season one.
Unlike the previous seasons, the mentors will be assisting the coaches on the Showdowns stage of competitions.
During showdowns, the coaches will enlist their mentors’ help in preparing each singer for their performance. The mentors will be listening to each artist “blind,” having not seen the artists’ original audition or even their Battle performance.
After a few days of studio mentoring session, both the coach and the mentor will then take the stage together with their artists to work through their onstage performance.
The Showdowns will begin on Sunday, June 8.
Meanwhile, the last of the Battle rounds was aired on Monday, with a few more contestants receiving the axe.
The final members of each team before the Showdowns include:
Team will.i.am: ZK, Mat Verevis, Anja Nissen, Louise van Veenendaal, Julian Simonsz, Chita Henneberry, Jacob Lee, Gabriel & Cecilia and Carly Yelayotis
Team Kylie: Robbie Balmer, Kat Jade, Megan Longhurst, Rosie Henshaw, Johnny Rollins, Candice Skionnemand, John Lingard, Jhoanna Aguila and Lionel Cole
Team Joel: Isaac McGovern, Holly Tapp, Frank Lakoudis, Blake Leggett, Taila Gouge, Doug Williams, Laura-Leigh Smith, Soli Tesema and Jess Berney
Team Ricky: C Major, Elly Oh, Fely Irvine, Sabrina Batshon, Brandon Duff, Matthew Garwood, Josh McDonald, Jackson Thomas and Thando Sikwila