Sundance Head on 'The Voice' -- Blake Shelton is a badass, my music career took off once I stopped forcing people to listen

Sundance Head was crowned Season 11's winner over initial frontrunner Billy Gilman.


Sundance, formally known as Jason Head, was declared the champion of The Voice's eleventh season during the live finale broadcast on NBC.

Sundance, a 37-year-old musician from Houston, TX who currently resides in Porter, TX, was on Blake Shelton's team, marking The Voice coach's fifth win overall since Season 1. Sundance earned the title of "The Voice" as well as a recording contract. Ironically, he previously competed on American Idol but didn't make it to the finals.

During a recent conference call with reporters, Sundance talked about his The Voice experience and victory. Below is the concluding portion of what he had to say.

Had you written your original song "Darlin' Don't Go" before The Voice or did you write that while on the show?


Sundance Head: No. I wrote that before The Voice. That song is on the record and we just released it earlier this summer, before I went on the show. It's from the record titled Soul Country, which was going to be our breakout record to the Texas music scene. And it was.

We were nominated for Song of the Year with "Darlin' Don't Go," and I got nominated for New Male Vocalist and New Entertainer of the Year. I guess I couldn't go to the music awards and I couldn't really promote it though because I was on the show.

So I just kind of let things slide by, but I was just thrilled that it was recognized by the people back in Texas that I admired and that I was working so hard to get their attention. But there's a couple of songs on that Soul Country record that I wrote for Misty.

One of them is a single that I have out now back in Texas called "13 years" which was about our wedding anniversary. She's such an inspiration to me. I can't say it enough. I mean, she really is everything to me, and any success that I have, people need to understand that I'm really probably not even part of it.

It's mostly just because she believed in me that much that she pressed me and gave me the strength that it takes to go out and do it. And I mean, I can tell you one thing, if Misty could sing, she would have already taken over the world. I can promise you that. That's the kind of ambition that she has. Sometimes I wonder why she even, you know, married me to begin with, really, so I'm just thankful that's all.


What has it been like to see various songs you've covered on the show do so well on the iTunes chart?

Sundance Head: Well that's really what it's all about, man. I just want to have the opportunity to have people hear me create, do music and make art. And I really pride myself on being able to take someone else's song and make it my own.

And that's something that I've been doing now for a couple of years in our live shows. If you come and see my band -- and we play live usually -- I play mostly covers and then I'll throw, you know, 20% of, I mean, mostly originals and I'll put 20% of covers in there.

And a lot of times, people don't even realize that what's going on they don't know the difference because it all sounds like Sundance Head. And that's really important to me. It's something that I believe really distinguishes me from the other contestants.

I know exactly what I sound like, what I want to sound like, what I'm good at, and what makes me sound the best. And for me, I'm just lucky that I've been able to recognize that recently.


And so it's important for me to find out what those virtues are and exploit them on the stage whenever I have that opportunity and everything's really coming together for me at the right time. And it should. And that's the way things work out.

I've tried to force myself along -- for a lot of times I've tried to force everything. I've demanded people listen to me. I mean how can you believe it, you know, why this happened? Why won't these people get behind me? Why won't this promotion company help me?

And once I let all of that go and just started to make music again for my own pure enjoyment and just for my own soul, that's when I began to notice everything was changing for me in a positive manner. And I just hope that I can continue to recognize those things whenever they appear to me going forward.

You performed songs by the other coaches Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys, but if you were to have done an Adam Levine song, do you know what kind of song you would have done?

Sundance Head: Well, you know, I don't know man. Adam's songs are very poppy. Maroon 5 to me, you know, I think when I hear him sing a lot, man -- I don't know if other people relate to them like I do -- but I really hear like Michael Jackson. I'm not sure why, but I just do -- his phrasing, his tone, his delivery the way you can kick so much ass in the falsetto.


I have considered doing a couple of different songs, but I thought that was dangerous territory for me because his voice is so absolutely unique. I didn't really want to even take a chance to go that direction.

It looked like Blake and yourself had a pretty good relationship. I was just wondering what your favorite moment with Blake was?

Sundance Head: Well I had many favorite moments with Blake and most of them were off camera and probably the conversations were very candid. So I mean, he's a really sweet guy. He's a very big time joker. He tells a lot of bad dirty jokes that really aren't funny.

His sense of humor is just very different. A lot of times he says things just to make himself laugh, I think. I really do. Like I'm sure Blake could just make himself laugh all day if he was alone somewhere by just speaking to himself in the mirror. I mean that's the kind of guy he is.

He's a very, very, very sweet dude and very laid-back guy. I would probably say my favorite absolute favorite moment probably for me is whenever he came to my side up there during that press conference at the end and was asking the record label to absolutely do what they could to make sure that they held up their end of the bargain.


I thought that was very admirable. That's something that he certainly didn't need to do, and it just reaffirmed everything that I had believed all along, which is, "This guy is a badass." He deserves to be people's champion because he is the people's champion.

And I mean, for me -- and nothing against the other coaches, they're all very nice -- but I think Blake is pretty much the whole show. Everything hinges around him and just what a cool guy he is, man, and how likable that he is.

It's very entertaining to me to look at him when he does these skits and does all these things to make him not necessarily come off as the smartest guy all of the time, which he absolutely is the smartest guy all of the time. In fact, it's all of us that's getting played mostly, you know?

But he's got it figured out, man. He's just a great character and he knows that. He knows when to turn it on and when to turn it off. And I've just been, I think, I'm just really proud that I was able to build a relationship with Blake that I know that we're going to have throughout this whole thing and probably for the rest of my life.

After I won, we had a press conference. I was whisked off with my family and Blake went his direction. And that could have very well been the end of everything. I may have never spoken to him again.

But Blake texted me later that night and said, "Hey Sundance, here's my phone number, store me on your phone and make sure you call me if there's anything you ever need." Man, that's the kind of guy that Blake is every day, and I'm sure I'm not the only person that feels like he's reached out to me both as a mentor but also as a friend.


To read more from Sundance Head's interview, check out Reality TV World's The Voice 11 page. You'll also find our exclusive post-show interview with Billy Gilman there.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski