The Voice's Tomi: 'Not getting a chair turn was for the best'

The Voice’s Tomi: ‘Not getting a chair turn was for the best’

The circus performer walked away from The Voice’s blind auditions without any buzzers being pressed – but he’s glad he stayed true to himself

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He came in from the circus, with his large – and very much alive – emotional support bear by his side, singing a Paul Kelly song and playing the harmonica at The Voice‘s blind auditions. But Tomi Gray didn’t get a chair turn from Richard Marx, Melanie C, Ronan Keating or Kate Miller-Heidke, and Tones And I didn’t press the buzzer for him either.

“You’d have to be kidding yourself not to feel a bit of initial disappointment,” Tomi, 36, tells TV WEEK. “But soon I was cool with it. I walked away thinking, ‘Fair enough, it wasn’t the right fit.’ The more this year unfolded, the more I realised it was for the best.”

Tomi says his music “sits in a strange lane”. (Credit: Channel Seven)

Tomi says he’s played big festivals and toured overseas, but doing a blind audition on The Voice was a completely different kind of pressure.

“You’re backstage watching performer after performer disappear through the doors, getting moved from waiting room to waiting room, through makeup, stage managers giving you pep talks… by the time you’re standing on that mark, it’s a lot more daunting than just walking out and ripping in.”

But he says if he could do his audition again, he wouldn’t change much.

“I’d rather people saw me as I am than a version I’d tweaked to try and turn the chairs.”

Tomi was hoping for a coach who would understand his music. (Credit: Channel Seven )

Tomi is still performing with Infamous Circus and touring his own show, and says he has “several albums” ready to roll out.

“The funny thing is, not getting through on The Voice ended up giving me the space to put absolutely everything into what I was already building.”

As for the bear (“Some think he’s just a bloke in a bear suit… people are strange”), Tomi says he’s known him since he was a cub.

“Found him under a pool table in a Wangaratta pub. He’s dependable, never complains, always travels well, but consistently outperforms me in press calls.

“He recently left the circus to go and ‘find himself’. Last letter I got from him, he was at a Vipassana silent meditation retreat up in the mountains, which probably suits him because he doesn’t know how to speak.