OCSA sophomore takes her shot on ‘The Voice’

When Hanna Eyre stepped onto the stage of “The Voice” for her blind audition, the 15-year-old from Laguna Niguel had a serious case of nerves and not a little bit of self-doubt.

After all, who was she but an unknown sophomore from the Orange County School of the Arts, and here she was about to sing Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” for music superstars and show judges Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani and Alicia Keys.

“I never thought I could be on a show like this,” Eyre said by phone on her way home from school recently. “But when I was on stage singing, and the first coach, Adam, turned around? Oh, my gosh, I was so excited.

“Once Adam started turning around, and Blake and Gwen went after, I didn’t even feel like I was on a stage anymore,” she said. “I kind of felt like I was watching it on TV.

“It felt so surreal.”

Eyre’s blind audition aired on NBC on March 13, and over the next month she sang three more times as part of the team assembled by Levine, the singer for Maroon 5, whom she picked over country star Shelton and Stefani, another Orange County girl, who first found fame in No Doubt.

“My choice was very in the moment between the judges,” Eyre said. “Going in I really had no idea who I wanted. I love Alicia Keys as an artist” — she’d sung Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” for the producers during her initial audition in May 2016 — “but when she didn’t turn around I had to make a choice right there.”

While all three judges who invited her to join their teams complimented her mature-beyond-her-years voice, her smile, and how cute she was at 15, Eyre said Levine did something that attracted her to him as a mentor.

“What really struck me about Adam was he talked about where I messed up and how I could fix that,” she said, describing how that struck her as a bold but enticing quality in a would-be coach.

Eyre said she’d always loved singing, and that in turn led her to watch singing competition shows such as “The Voice” and “American Idol.”

“When ‘The Voice’ started, it was especially exciting because I liked the idea that it was only based on your voice — the judges didn’t see you,” she said.

She started vocal lessons when she was 10, and in 2015 started at OCSA as a freshman in the commercial music conservatory. Even so, the idea of auditioning for “The Voice” never really entered her mind, she said.

“My dad surprised me,” Eyre said. “A couple of days before the audition, he said, ‘Hey, guess what we’re going to do on Saturday? We’re going to drive to Los Angeles and audition for “The Voice.” ‘ ”

When she got there, she had 60 seconds to impress the screeners with her a cappella take on the Keys song. That led to a callback, during which she sang “If I Ain’t Got You” again, as well as the arrangement of “Blank Space” that earned her a spot on the show and a place on Levine’s team.

And then she waited. And waited. Without being able to tell a soul what was really going on.

“My gosh it was so hard not telling people,” Eyre said. “Because they knew when I auditioned. They were all super-curious about how it turned out. I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s still super-tentative.’”

Her journey on “The Voice” ended April 18, after a live performance of Demi Lovato’s “Skyscraper,” which earned high praise from Levine but failed to win enough votes from viewers to keep her in the competition.

Since then she’s returned to OCSA, which has been wonderful, Eyre said.

“Coming back was super-cool because everybody had known I was on the show and they were congratulating me,” she said. “I just felt all the love and support.”

She feels like she grew up a little during her time on “The Voice,” though she also says she’s still the same girl she was before all this began.

“I definitely feel like ‘The Voice’ has changed me for the better,” Eyre said. “I learned about the importance of keeping yourself healthy and not letting the stress build up on you. Because I’m a worrier, and being on a show like that, it got hard at times.

“I don’t think ‘The Voice’ changed who I was though,” she added. “I still maintained all of my values and who I was before.”