Close call! Craig Wayne Boyd is on top of the world after winning season seven of The Voice on Tuesday, Dec. 16, but there was a time, not that long ago, when he was so discouraged, he nearly gave up on his dream.
“I remember more than a year ago, a little more than a year ago, sitting in a pickup outside a club after I had played to basically no one, and talking with my drummer and saying, ‘Listen, I may have to quit. Because it’s not paying my bills, and we’re losing my house,'” the 35-year-old country crooner said in a press conference after the finale. “I lost my pickup. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
Fortunately for Boyd, his drummer convinced him not to throw in the towel. “And then randomly the opportunity [came] up to go audition a few months out for The Voice,” he recalled. “And I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to go do that.'”
The rest, as they say, is history. With help from coach Blake Shelton, Boyd beat out fellow finalists Chris Jamison, Matt McAndrew, and Damien Lawson — all members of Team Adam Levine.
“Will I rub it in Adam’s face? He may quit the show before I’m done rubbing this in his face,” Shelton joked of triumphing over his longtime competitor. “But what’s awesome is this guy holding this trophy. It’s unbelievable.”
Shelton is so proud, in fact, that he said he’d be Boyd’s opening act on tour. “I told Craig I’d open for him, as long as he’d have me, anytime,” the country superstar said. “Absolutely, I mean, my gosh. I would love to be able to tour with Craig.”
Boyd, for his part, is already planning his next move. Asked how he wanted to celebrate his big win — which includes a record deal — he said, “I don’t think I have time to…I am a hard worker. Even on the show, in between shooting things, I was listening to music for the next album…I thrive off of hard work, and I think I get that from my dad. So it’s just more of the same, nose to the grindstone.”
