Where Is Bodie Now? ‘The Voice’ Season 22 Runner-up Makes Major Career Change

Finishing in second place on The Voice is no guarantee of a recording contract, but after seeing bodie’s finale performance of Christian singer Brandon Lake’s 2020 hit “Gratitude,” several Christian labels reached out to the Season 22 The Voice runner-up.

“At the time I wasn’t really interested in being a Christian artist,” bodie told Parade in this one-on-one interview. “I’ve been in the church world my whole life, but I’ve really enjoyed making secular music for all types of people.”

So, bodie passed on the opportunity to sign with Provident, Sony’s Christian label, until about a year later, when he rethought his decision and the direction he wanted his music to take.

“I had closed off that conversation with Provident six months prior to signing, and then my heart changed, some things kind of changed, my perspective changed, my vision changed, and I re-opened the conversation with Provident specifically and said, ‘Hey, you’ll never guess, but I think I’m ready to entertain this idea again.’”

It wasn’t long after that that the Southern California-based singer found himself in Nashville having serious conversations with the label about what his expectations were for signing with a Christian label, and making sure that they would be happy with the kind of music he saw himself writing and performing.

Part of the thinking on bodie’s part that had him reversing his initial decision was acknowledging that a good song is a good song, and a song from Provident could cross over if it spoke to people.

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“One of the hard conversations I had with them was, ‘Hey, I’m not your Christian radio artist. Are you okay with that? I love that music, I honor that music, I’m grateful for it, but that’s not what I’m going to do. Is that okay?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’”

So, bodie found a happy medium of writing music where some of it is directly acknowledging God and Jesus, but a lot of it is about normal life stuff but from a lens and a world view of a Christian, which he says has been really liberating for him as a writer.

The result of Provident and bodie coming to a meeting of the minds is his debut EP, Happy to Be Here, featuring six tracks, including the recently released single “whisper and the wind,” which is currently getting radio play.

“I just wanted to write a song that acknowledged that oftentimes people have experienced God moving in mighty ways, big, miraculous, ground shaking, mind blowing, miraculous ways, but more often than not, He doesn’t move that way. He moves in the stillness, the quietness of His spirit.

“Oftentimes, people can fall victim to expecting God to look and move a certain way in every situation and circumstance. And so, I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that God can move and act in many different ways, small and big, and just as much as we have faith for the big things, that He operates just as much, if not more, in the stillness and the quiet, of a whisper of His voice.”

Also, during our Zoom chat, bodie spoke about partnering up with co-writers for his EP, how grateful he is to be almost completely making his living as a musician, what’s next for him, and whether or not he keeps in touch with Blake Shelton, his Voice coach.

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How much of the writing did you do yourself and how much did you partner up on Happy to Be Here? 

Four of the five songs were written in Nashville with, at the time, people I had just met. I was fresh to signing with the record label that I’m currently with, Provident, so I was learning how to write with writers that I’d never met before. For four of the songs, getting to know these people, figuring out how to write with people I’d never met before, it was a really interesting, really educational experience.

By the time we got to "whisper and the wind," I think was the last song of the five that was written, and at that point I was friends with the writers, and it was a lot easier. But the first few, "RIP," that was the first song I ever wrote in Nashville with people I’d never met before, and it ended up being the first song I ever put out.

The fifth song of those five was "Know," and that’s the one that was written at my house with one of my best friends. It sat in a folder for two years, never thought it’d come out, and then somehow it made its way back into the project, and it’s probably one of my favorites and just probably the most special song to me even to this date. It was produced and touched only by me and one other person, where the other ones were a little bit more of a team effort.

Season 9 winner Jordan Smith is contemporary Christian gospel, and I think he’s making a living as a musician. Isn’t that the most important thing? To just be able to make music?

Totally. I’m really grateful, I’m pretty much there. My passion project job is teaching at my university that I graduated from, so now I’m an adjunct professor there and I’m the worship director there and that covers my rent. But everything else, I’m living off my music now, so I’m really grateful. It’s pretty crazy, I’m almost full on.

Is that the difference that The Voice made in your life? When you’re first on, people know you, but then that sort of wears off when the next season comes along, but there has to be a long-term effect from it. What would you say that is for you?

For me personally it was -- and this is what I tell anyone that wants to be on The Voice, wants to know about The Voice, I always say, “The Voice isn’t your big break, The Voice, it’s a magnifying glass of what you’re already doing, and if you think it’s your big break, your little TV moment that’s going to change your life, probably not going to happen.”

And so, I knew coming in that it was going to give me a higher platform for a short term, no matter how long, whether it’s two weeks in the show, or for me luckily it was the whole season, but I knew that I needed to lean into my artistry. Show people while they’re interested in me who I am, what I’m about, and build that fan base.

So that was a huge, huge win, but really I owe it to The Voice for getting me that platform to get the attention of these record labels. Because I never really thought or even wanted to come out of The Voice as a signed artist, but I’m so glad it happened, and I don’t know if it would have happened without it. So that was a big thing for me, but everyone’s experience is very different, for sure.

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You recently did an 11-city tour. What was that like?

It was awesome. It was amazing. It was super challenging being away from my family, but this had nothing on The Voice. The Voice was like eight weeks gone, six weeks gone, and four weeks gone, so a little two-and-a-half-week tour was nothing.

But it was still amazing, I performed all the songs off my EP plus some new stuff, some old things, I did a couple covers in there as well and it was awesome. It was really, really special, and now I’m so happy to be back and have a couple months home with the family.

Do you know what’s next for you?

I have some fun new music in the works that we’re going to be announcing pretty soon, some really cool projects I’m really excited about. As far as touring goes, we’re working on some cool things for the spring, not quite ready to be announced unfortunately but lots of live stuff coming, got some fun conferences and festivals coming up in the new year. But really, right now, I’m just focusing on some new music getting ready to come out soon.

What’s been the highlight of everything that’s happened for you since you were on The Voice?

The superficial answer would be it elevated my platform, that was really, really cool. I’m really glad that I was strategic and coming off of the show, just being able to grow my platform on social media just means that I can reach and encourage more people than I could have without that. But then, I guess, if I was to pinpoint one thing, it’d just be the opportunity to sign with a record label. That’s just incredible and right on par with everything that I dream of for my life. I had my first Top 40, my songs are on the radio now, it’s really exciting, I’m really grateful.

Radio is much more exciting than streaming, right?

Definitely, yeah. Even though we’re in a streaming age, hearing your song on the radio is still a big deal and I’m really, really glad.

Where were you the first time you heard yourself on the radio?

You know what’s funny? I don’t know if I’ve heard "whisper and the wind" on the radio. I get messages every single day, and I’ll tell you a funny story. On tour, we were driving eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours a day, and I was determined to hear my song. We couldn’t get it one time, but I’d get messages, “I just heard your song in Ohio!” “I just heard your song in DC!”

And then the last day of tour, not even, the day after, my tour manager was dropping the van off in L.A., back where we rented the van from, and as he got in the car, my song was ending. That was the one time we almost caught my song. But it was playing three, four times a day on these major stations and for some reason we kept missing it. So, I honestly don’t know if I have an answer for that, but I'll catch it soon.

Do you stay in touch with Blake? Has he been supportive of you?

Right after the show, he got me a really awesome meeting with one of the major record labels and we had an awesome meeting because of Blake. Every now and then I’ll shoot him a text just saying, “Hey.” I think my last text to him was telling him that I signed with Sony. I’m sure if I shot him a text, he’d probably respond, but I don’t want to overuse that relationship.

And what he does is so different than what you’re doing. He’s strictly country.

Totally, and he’s a legend, so I don’t expect him to respond. But I do have his phone number and if I needed something, I believe that he would take care of me. He’s a good man.

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