Will.i.am: Black Eyed Peas would fail The Voice

Will.i.am reckons The Black Eyed Peas would be a flop on The Voice and fail to get the coaches’ chairs swivelling.

The 39-year-old mega producer’s band started out in the mid-1990s and took almost a decade to make it big – but he’s glad the Peas took the long road to fame instead of a TV talent show.

‘We wouldn’t join it, and if we did join it, we wouldn’t win. And if we won, they would be joking. Because we are different,’ Will told Guilty Pleasures in an exclusive catch-up.

‘We mean something different in popular culture. We create our own stew. Everyone else is eating spaghetti.’

According to the Don’t Stop The Party singer, the music industry judges you ‘on spaghetti or pizza’ but the Black Eyed Peas were ‘like a f****** calzone’.

He added: ‘The person judging the pizza would be like, “This isn’t a pizza! What is this?” And I’d be like, “Taste it. This is different, homie.

‘We’re just making a sandwich out of the mother f****** pizza and putting all the juice in the middle.’

With his Voice commitments taking him to Australia and a Peas album in the pipeline, Will finds it easy to forget if he is in the northern or southern hemisphere.

‘I’m doing the Australian Voice too. Every once in a while you wake up and say: “Is this my Australian bed? Or am I in London? Or at home? Where am I at?” But I love doing The Voice UK,’ he said.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Monday 17 March 2014]