Aritst of the Week: Riley Biederer’s Reflection

People always talk to me about how cool it must be to work in music at the scale that I have. From the outside, the music business really does seem like a glamorous thing to be a part of until you actually get yourself into it. Once you learn about everything it truly entails, you realize that the picture of the industry that you have in your head is probably wrong. I’m not really someone who truly likes any of the business aspect, to be honest. I like to block it out and focus as much as I can on the more enjoyable parts.

When I decided to audition for The Voice, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. There’s a lot of rungs you have to climb before actually getting on the show. You meet all of these new, random people who end up becoming your best friends for the length of the show. You live together for months at a time and, you don’t see it all on the show, but when we say “we’re like a family,” it’s 100% true. It was a super long ride with all kinds of emotions. I think even though it’s a competition show, you truly lean on the bonds you make with the other contestants to survive it with all of your sanity still intact.

People always ask me if the coaches were actually nice and if we actually got to spend time with them and my answer is yes yes yes! The coaches were all a blast to work with. I went into my blind audition wanting Pharrell as my coach and the fact that I got to work with him was so dope. He was my first choice not only because he works largely on the pop side of things, but I love how he’s a producer and a writer as well. I respect this greatly being someone who creates their own music. I also worked with Gwen Stefani while I was on The Voice. She is just overall fabulous. She was so invested in helping the people on her team embrace what made them different and cool. I’m really happy I got to work with both of them as coaches. Thanks to The Voice I also got to meet Rihanna. Obviously, the highlight of my freaking life was meeting her. She’s one of my idols and it was a total dream.

My least favorite part about my entire experience being on show, 4AM lobby calls and all, was surprisingly the element of completion. I hated how the music sort of got turned into something that it isn’t. I think for me, I started worrying more about what the coaches would say and whether I would get to move on to the next week and less about enjoying performing and singing music to inspire people. Sometimes the competition just took the fun out of it. At the end of the day it is a TV show and a lot of the time they weren’t focused on the music or the passion. They were focused on the ratings and entertaining the viewers. I love making music and sharing it with people. It’s an experience that I’ll never truly be able to explain to anyone. That’s exactly how I feel when people ask me how I feel about the music business. It’s totally unexplainable. It’s a cut throat, crazy industry that can make you absolutely insane, but if you don’t let it, the pay off can be so worth it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.