In a way I can’t believe it. Three years ago I walked off the stage while confetti rained over Pentatonix. After the 12 episode quarter-year spanning Season 3, I went home and set a few goals, one of which was to return to the show.
Written in permanent marker, I could scratch this one off.
After way more ado than we needed, the group came to LA a few days early to get ourselves warmed up for the show. This fifth season was more of a holiday special, with one episode instead of the epoch of 2011. We all looked fresh—hair and clothes on point, in shape, and in good spirits.
There were familiar faces too. Kourtney was running the show and a few of the wranglers and producers already knew us. As a returning group, we were odds-of favorites to win it. One of the best rules in the game is to play the underdog, and this would be our downfall.
Season 5 of The Sing Off
We soared into the first-looks guns a-blazing. We were confident and sang our hearts out. Our goal was to work hard and be nice, so the first step was to give everything we had, and the second would be to make friends people and enjoy the experience. So, we spent free time rehearsing and nights hanging in the hot tub or in the bar with Deke, Rob, Ben, Kristin, and the other groups.
Through the week of prep, we could see the other groups around us getting their songs polished and ready for the show, and it was going to be a tight competition. There were a lot of good singers on this season, and a lot of good arrangements.
When it came time for the group numbers, we focused and listened and practiced on our own to be ready. It’s LA baby and you gotta be top of your game. This has been the balance of the group all along: do your best, and then have a great time.
But all along, we were here for reality TV. Everybody knows that the story is what counts, but we never wanted to say anything false. At times the producers would get frustrated telling us what to say. We wouldn’t parrot things back if it was false, and I started to rethink everything.
Should we just say that we’re devastated and that we need this? Should we make our own sad story and fake some tears? Maybe some drama? Talk shit? Ugh, it’s dishonest, so I decided to rely on the competition being what decided it.
The day before the show came and we were holed up in the dressing room after soundchecks shook everybody’s confidence—each group looked great and sounded great and the speculation began. I remember specifically in the 3rd season, each group wearing purple got sent home. The Purple Curse. Can you guess the color of our outfit?
Christopher Diaz and Richard Robot The Sing Off Season 5
Our former foes and now friends Pentatonix came and sang their Christmas song and, as usual, wowed everybody. We talked to them for a few minutes, but it was so strange to be a competitor while they were here topping charts. Last time we were equals, and I felt lame and outdated. Bad vibes. Shake it off, Richie.
Oh yeah! Shake It Off! That was the “Battle Song” they had everybody prepare last minute, but after hearing everybody’s go at it, cut that last second. I felt really good about ours (with Timothy’s Gift) and was a little devo that the work was for naught and nobody would see it. It was right then and there that I suspected the producers had picked a group they were going to have win, and their version was not-so-good.
Show day came and back to the dressing rooms we went. We’d changed hotels so at least we weren’t far from our beds. BTW they were doing the show this year in the Dolby Theatre where they do a lot of awards shows, and they had us staying in the Loews hotel next door. Fresh.
Nick Lachey and The Exchange
The show came and went, much like the audience bored with a billion hour a cappella show, and it came time for the 2nd eliminations. We had made it through the first round, as could any of the other 5 groups, but we stood here now, hearts beating.
I felt it. I knew could hear them calling our name in my head. I believed we had it, but again the confetti fell for another group. We sang the shit out of our songs, and later found a script of the show (printed before it even filmed) that had the winners already announced.
That night we spent drinking and singing in the hotel as the power went out. Maria’s brother had come through to watch the show with his friend and we piled into one room with Timothy’s Gift, San Fran 6, some of Traces, the Melodores, and A Squared.
Lots of good people and lots of broken hearts. That said we were already planning a tour with some of them and left testing our stance that we didn’t NEED to win the show (despite the producers’ urging) and that it wouldn’t ruin us if we didn’t win. Was that pride or were we really devastated the first and second time we lost? Did the confidence ultimately destroy us or is there something people didn’t like about us?
We gave it our all, and I’d return to Vancouver to fall back on that. But damn, it would have been nice.
Watch our performances here:
OneRepublic’s “Love Runs Out” (cover) by The Exchange – The Sing Off Season 5
Ed Sheeran’s “Sing” (cover) by The Exchange – The Sing Off Season 5
