I'm turning the tables.

I'm so excited to welcome the incredible Amanda Ayala.

You may know her from NBC's The Voice, where she wowed the judges and America with her powerhouse voice, were diving into her journey and music, life after the show, and what's next for her rising star? Thank you for that introduction. Yeah, how are you? I'm doing good. How are you doing? Good. And again, thank you so much for having me on here. It's like absolute pleasure. Oh, thanks for coming. So how was it being on the voice? It was pretty amazing. It was definitely like, especially going on at such a young age. I feel like, I felt like I was living in La La Land. You know, like going out for that casting process was like the first time I was ever in LA. So like being so young and had my mom with me, it was kind of a crazy, crazy experience.

But the whole experience I learned so much. I learned a lot about myself as an artist, as a vocalist.

And I, even now, to this day, I still take things from that show and use it in today's, like, everyday

life. Into your life, right? Exactly. Lessons learned, you know, just like almost like professionalism as well.

Like it really, it kind of like fast forwarded me in terms of like the industry at a really young age.

So I took a lot from it.

I love that.

What first inspired you to audition for the voice and what was the experience like for you? So initially,

like, so I went on when I was 17 and I was a senior in high school. And I, oh, wow. So you were in

high school. Yeah. So your whole high school saw you do it? They did. Like, and I left high school early.

Like I missed graduation prom. So I skipped out on all of that to go film the show.

But I mean, I was okay with it. Yeah, yeah. But I was sitting in, like, class one day, and I was looking through my emails. I shouldn't have been on my phone, but I was looking through emails. And I completely missed an email from a casting director from the show. And I was like a month or two behind the email. and I was like, oh my gosh, they were asking if I wanted to audition.

So they kind of found a YouTube video of mine and asked if I wanted to audition. So initially I didn't think I would want to do it because, you know, when I was 15, I did like America's Got Talent and it was a catacall, hundreds of people. And I looked at my mom and I was like, I never want to go and do that again. So I kind of stayed away from the idea of it. But then they found me. And so I kind of went through and did like a private audition and then surpassed it. And then they flew me out to L.A. So I kind of expedited a lot of it, which made the process for me feel better rather than kind of having to go from, you know, the cattle to up. Yeah, because now with social media, like if you put it out there, they'll find you. Exactly. So that was like a nice perk. Like the fact that one of the casting directors found, like I was super grateful that they found it. It's kind of crazy that they stumbled across a video. And it probably didn't even have that many views at the time because I was in high school but for them to stumble across it and then think

that I was like worthy of going on the show was like the highest honor and especially being

so young so that kind of really pushed me so that experience was crazy.

That's amazing.

How did being on the voice change your perspective on music and your career?

I learned a lot from it, and I feel like, especially my perspective on the industry,

like I kind of got like an inside look at how things operate, how fast-paced it is.

You know, I was just like a kid that played in a cover band.

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