She did it her way

This was not Kathleen Reiter’s first experience with reality television. Her victory on the program “The Voice” might be described as healing the trauma that she suffered when she tried out for “Canadian Idol” six years ago. “When I did ‘Canadian Idol’ at age 17, I didn’t get past the audition stage. The process I went through there disgusted me and made me keep my distance from reality shows. You go through two days of auditions before you get to the audition in front of the cameras and the judges, and during this process they treat people like a joke. They take candidates and tell them: ‘You’re fantastic, terrific – come dressed exactly as you are, and sing exactly like you’re doing now. You’re simply amazing.’ And then, when they sing in front of the cameras, they tell them how awful they are."

“Because of that, when you look at the audition stage after that and at the people who look bad, you say to yourself: How is it possible that the person looks shocked when they tell him, ‘You don’t sing well’? But they don’t show you that for two days, the producers have been telling him that he’s going to win the season. The entire process disgusted me. Maybe it was funny during the first season, but that’s it. I don’t like it when people laugh at other people. I don’t find it interesting. Since I realized that, I kept my distance from those kinds of shows. That’s why I connected with the format of ‘The Voice,’ which is very respectful.

Reiter’s performance of Adele’s song, “Rolling in the Deep,” at the blind audition stage, made all four mentors turn around. Since then, just like in the stories, her life has changed. The night after she won, she hardly got three hours’ sleep. “Adrenaline is what keeps me going,” she says a moment before she falls onto her chair in exhaustion as a photography team captures her every step for a documentary film. Since she won, she has not had a free moment, let alone time to rest. At the age of 23, this young blonde from Montreal, who was the house singer for the ceremonies at the Israeli Consulate, finally managed to fulfill her childhood dream, and in the Holy Land on top of that. “Until now, I lived in the bubble of ‘The Voice.’ I didn’t have a lot of time to go places, and I didn’t go out much, so I don’t know how people in the street will respond to me. But I go with the flow. We’ll see what happens.”

“The only girl in the class who didn’t celebrate Christmas”

“There’s the Kathleen who sings onstage and the plain Kathleen, who doesn’t talk much and is pretty bashful,” she says at the beginning with her disarming smile. “When I speak Hebrew, everybody tells me that I sound like a baby, and when I sing, I have a completely different voice. It seems to be because I feel like a different person on stage.”

She was born in Montreal to Israeli parents who left Israel more than 30 years ago. Her mother, Michal, was born in Morocco, and her father, Moshe, was born in Israel. “My mother’s family moved to Canada and she had a hard time being alone in Israel, so my parents decided to try a year in Canada, and they’ve been there to this day.” She has two older siblings: Ronen, 34, and Natalie, 30. The family owns a company that supplies fuel to ships.

“When I was little, in public school, I was the only Jewish person in my class. Even though it didn’t bother me too much and it wasn’t all that difficult, it still felt a bit strange being the only girl in my class who didn’t celebrate Christmas and who didn’t have a Christmas tree at home. I always had to explain to my friends why I didn’t eat pork and why I couldn’t drink milk with a hamburger. I would answer, ‘Because that’s the way it is.’ All the time, I’d ask my parents, ‘Why can’t I do that? Why don’t we have that-’ and they’d answer, ‘They have Christmas, and we have Hanukkah.’

“For a little kid, it’s very hard to try to explain that to others. It’s not easy in any case for a kid to feel different from his environment. It’s not that I had a hard time with it, but when I got older and went to a Jewish high school, suddenly I felt what I’d been missing all those years. During that time, we moved into the Jewish community in Montreal and suddenly I realized how important it was to me to belong. Only when I started going to a Jewish school and saw that everyone was exactly like me did I realize the importance of that word ‘belonging.’ We had classes in Hebrew, in Bible, in history, and even a class where they taught us how to deal with people who badmouthed Israel.”

How connected were you to Israel-

“I was very connected. From a young age, we would come to Israel for summer vacation. The first time I visited here I was three years old. It was something I grew up with: an Israeli home in every way. Everybody spoke Hebrew. I learned Hebrew even before I learned English. The home was traditional. My mother is Moroccan, so it was mainly Moroccan tradition, and we listened to Israeli music all the time. At weddings or affairs, they would always play only Moroccan music, so I knew most of Sarit’s songs, even some of her really old stuff. I wasn’t familiar with Aviv Gefen’s music, for example, at least not the songs in Hebrew. I knew Blackfield (Gefen’s band when he sang in English) because it was English and they came to play in Montreal. But every time I came to Israel for summer vacation, I would get very excited over a particular singer and take his songs home with me to Canada. Every summer that I spent here has its own soundtrack. For example, there was one summer when they played Idan Raichel’s song ‘Mi-ma’amakim,’ so that was my summer song. Even after I went back to Canada, I kept listening to it all the time. There was one summer that I came back with a CD by HaCartel after I went to a performance of theirs and fell in love. The whole year after that, I never stopped playing that CD. But since I came to Israel, I started listening to the music of all the mentors.”

And is there a song that you got really excited about-

“Yes, one by Aviv Geffen. It’s on an old album of his and it’s called ‘Crying on My Mother’s Grave.’ There’s a guitar melody, so bluesy that I’m crazy about it. Just crazy about it. I think that it’s one of my favorite songs right now. The words aren’t easy, and the melody sounds like the guitar is crying. I like it. I like it a lot. I love blues, everything by Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. I love the combination of rock and blues.”

She was 8 years old the first time that she stood in front of a microphone. “I sang ‘Power of Love,’ which Celine Dion sang, in front of 200 people at my cousin’s wedding. I remember it well because it was the first time I got the bug and got excited about standing up and singing in front of people, seeing their reactions and getting feedback. It’s addictive. I heard them say, ‘No, she’ll spoil the evening. Don’t let her sing,’ and there was an argument about it, but in the end they insisted that I go up. There’s a video of it, and I don’t say the right words – I just chatter in English. I was eight years old.... When I finished the song, I said to myself: Wow, I like this. This is fun. I can definitely do this.’ When I was 12, I started voice lessons. It was obvious to me that this was my dream.”

Singing at ceremonies

When Kathleen was 15 years old, the Jewish community of Montreal organized a singing contest inspired by “American Idol.” They called it “Jewish Idol.” Ten contestants gathered for an evening in front of a thousand people in a huge auditorium, and guess who won. It was the first major success of Kathleen’s career. “After that, I worked a lot with the Israeli consulate in Montreal. I was a kind of ‘house singer.’ I sang at all the Independence Day ceremonies and for Memorial Day. I sang wherever I could, and as much as possible.”

Which artists influenced you the most-

“I grew up old school. Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder – singers like that. I grew up in a musical home. I remember that I was little and my mother would listen to CDs of Broadway shows all the time. I grew up on musicals, and I’m very lucky that they took me to see many Broadway shows when I was a child. I liked it very much. I think that it also influenced the way I sing – big and very theatrical.

“My older brother also influenced me a lot. He always played the piano and told me to stand next to him and sing. He really taught me music. Why did I like Michael Jackson? Because my brother liked him. If my brother listened to something, then I was a big fan of it, too. That was how it was – I wanted to follow in his footsteps all the time.”

When Kathleen was 19, she started a hard-rock band with her cousin. “We hadn’t planned on starting a band. We wrote a few songs and saw that they came out well, so we said, ‘Let’s go with it. Let’s start a band and see where it goes.’ Some of his friends joined and we were a typical rock band: two electric guitars, a bass guitar and drums. The most interesting thing was that other musicians all came from a background of punk, metal and hard rock, and I came more from the world of blues and R&B, and this created an interesting combination: the music was real hard rock, and in my singing I tried to bring in a style that was more blues and soul. We had performances in all kinds of pubs and bars. In Canada, there are these kinds of competitions between bands. It goes on a whole day. About 20 bands come and they go up on the stage one after the other, and little by little they go through the stages until the finals. As a band, we participated a lot in those kinds of competitions, and once we even took second place.”

What did you learn from that experience-

“The most significant thing was that I realized I could write songs. Before that, it was very hard for me. By the time I wrote something, it almost killed me. Since I started working with my cousin, it suddenly started to come out on its own. We would write songs in two minutes. Today I write and write. It just comes naturally.”

In Hebrew, too-

“My Hebrew isn’t good enough to write songs. I only write in English because that’s the music that influenced me the most. Maybe that will change in the future.”

Willing to give it a try

Her immigration to Israel was not part of the plan. It was more of a spur-of-the-moment decision. Last summer, she backpacked through Europe with five other girlfriends. Together they traveled through Italy, Barcelona, Paris and Amsterdam, and after a month they went their separate ways. Her friends went back to Canada, and Kathleen continued her vacation in Tel Aviv, stopping here to think about her future.

“I told myself: Maybe I’ll try to stay here for a while, even though I didn’t really know what I’d do with myself. I had a kind of feeling that I’d come home. I didn’t feel that it was urgent for me to go back to Canada. I said, Okay – I’ll stay and we’ll see what happens with me here. A month later, my father told me about the auditions for ‘The Voice,’ and it was like a gift from heaven. I was familiar with the format from the first season in the US and I said to myself: I can’t miss this opportunity. I’ll give it a try.”

The format of “The Voice” actually comes from the Netherlands. The American version was broadcast on NBC in April 2011, with the mentors Adam Levine from the band Maroon 5, the rapper Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and the country singer Blake Shelton.

Kathleen was very familiar with the American program’s first season, in which Javier Colon won. “His blind audition was amazing. What a voice he has! I think he was one of the only people whom all four mentors turned toward.”

If all four mentors on the American version of “The Voice” had turned toward you, whom would you have gone with-

“Wow. That’s a tough decision. I’d choose... Cee Lo, I think.”

Her father, Moshe, who is listening, asks in amazement, “Seriously? Not Christina Aguilera-”

“Yes,” Kathleen says. “That’s exactly what I did on the Israeli version of ‘The Voice.’ I don’t want to go with the choice that’s the most expected, but to try new directions.”

It really was very surprising when you chose to work with Sarit out of all the mentors.

“That’s all the fun of the program. It’s amazing and it’s an interesting combination – my style and Sarit’s genre. I really wanted to try that, so I decided to choose the mentor who seemed like the least expected choice, and work with her.”

You’re a pretty surprising person. I saw you compete in “One Against One Hundred” and answer almost all the questions correctly.

“Oh, that was funny. I was sure I’d be kicked off right away because it’s an Israeli trivia show, and how could I last there? I thought I’d never understand the questions, but it all had to do with music, so that helped. I was also a bit lucky because I guessed some of the answers. In the end, I was the last contestant on the team who stayed in the game.”

The diet of “The Voice”

Despite her exciting and deserved win on “The Voice,” her taking of first place came with a bit of an asterisk. According to all the bets and forecasts, the top candidate for the title was 17-year-old Yuval Dayan from Shlomi Shabat’s team, who left the program just before the finals. Kathleen does not like it when people say that she won because Yuval left. “If people think so, then that’s fine. They’re allowed to. I don’t think so at all. Yuval did what was right for her. It was her decision. It’s hard to go through that when you’re as young as she is, and I understand her. But the fact that I got to the finals had nothing to do with her, and I believe that I won because I deserved to win, not because someone else quit. I did it on my own.”

Do you think you would have won if Yuval had competed against you in the finals-

“I can’t know that. I can only say that anyone who competed against me in the finals, even if it was Yuval – I would have fought them to the end. I’m not willing to give up my dream.”

Were you surprised when they named you as the winner-

“Very. I didn’t listen to all the bets. Over the past few weeks, we were inside the craziness of ‘The Voice.’ We were in a bubble and I didn’t see or hear what people outside were saying about me. We were in the studio all day. Everybody felt that each of us had a chance to win.”

All you had to do was type your name into Google and you would have known that people were betting on you.

“I didn’t have time to do that,” she says with a half-smile. The first telephone call that she received was from her brother and sister in Canada. “It turns out that all my friends got together in our home in Canada. My brother made a whole production – he put up a big screen, connected speakers – and they showed the finals and felt as if they were in the studio. Forty people came to see it. After I won they called, put me on speaker and talked to me. It was incredibly exciting.”

Do you have friends in Israel-

“My social circle in Israel isn’t all that wide. I hardly know anybody here. I have family and two or three friends that I met during childhood, on vacations that I spent here in Israel. The friends that I met on ‘The Voice’ are my group now. The program saved my social life. During the last days before the finals, I became very close with Raz Shmueli. We slept in the same hotel and spent every evening together. We would sit on the couch and talk every night.”

What have you managed to do since you came to Israel in August-

“Not much. Early on, I was mostly busy with all the logistics of moving to a new country. Finding an apartment, living alone for the first time and all the things that have to do with that. I think that I did a pretty good job of acclimating myself. I found a temporary apartment in Tel Aviv. I’m crazy about Tel Aviv. It reminds me a bit of Montreal. It’s very cultural, lots of artists live there, it has nightlife. It feels a bit like home.”

You also lost a lot of weight. Was that part of the plan-

“That’s from excitement, I think. It wasn’t that I felt under pressure to lose weight. It was just a lot of excitement and pressure and work. We were very busy, and there wasn’t always time to eat. So I had good results, why not? Maybe I can sell it as a technique – the diet of ‘The Voice,’ before and after.”

The dream: Idan Raichel

Soon, she will be starting a round of performances with her friends from “The Voice.” The contestants sign very restrictive contracts with the program’s producers that do not allow them much freedom, and also do not allow them to profit much from the income of the program and the performances. Although Kathleen won an international recording contract, just as the program made sure to leak during the season, it is not yet clear how much say she will have concerning her first solo albums.

Lots of artists who were born in Israel dream of a career abroad, and you did exactly the opposite. Why-

“If you make good music, it can reach anywhere. It doesn’t matter whether it was created in Israel or abroad. Adele’s music comes from abroad, but it reached Israel and got into Israeli culture. That’s the goal I’m aiming for. I don’t know a single artist who wants to break into one market and stay there his whole life. Everybody wants to open themselves to the entire world. I don’t see why an international career should conflict with a career in Israel.”

But you also write in English. So it’s easy for you to aim abroad.

“That’s true. But as part of the preparations for the finals, I recorded a single with Israeli lyricists and composers, and it was an amazing experience. If I can continue in that way and also combine it with what I create, why not-”

Your contract with “The Voice” limits your freedom of choice a great deal. Many people are making decisions for you regarding what you will do and how you will do it. Maybe they’d prefer that you sang only in Hebrew-

“It’s strange for me to sing somebody else’s words. It takes some of the fun out of it, but being an artist isn’t just writing a song but also knowing how to give the right performance of the lyrics that are given to you. Some of my work is to take lyrics written on the shelf and give them the best performance. It’s like an actor in the theater who has to fill somebody else’s shoes and tell a story. Of course I want to be able to have an influence on all these things, from the clothes I wear to the decision of which instruments will be in the musical arrangement. But I don’t feel that I’ve gotten into some tunnel where all kinds of people will push me in directions that I don’t want to go.

“To this day, every performance I brought to ‘The Voice’ showed another side of me, from the arrangement to the clothing and even to the choice of songs. Although I didn’t decide everything, I had a say. I want to keep going in that exact way. Whether it means sitting and choosing who will write the melodies to the songs and who will write the lyrics, because I can’t write in Hebrew, or finding someone who will put my lyrics in English to music.

Besides, you can also do an album in which half of it is in Hebrew and half is in English. I definitely want to have a say in that, without a doubt. It’s important to me.

“In the first album, I’ll have to show who I really am. That’s a bit scary, but throughout this process I got to know a lot of people who can help me on the way there. From the band that accompanied us to the mentors to the other contestants – I can form a team of people whom I want to help me with the album just from the production department of ‘The Voice.’ I can sit with Lauren, who was on my team, and write an album just with her. I believe that we’ll see a lot of collaboration between the contestants.”

If you could choose an Israeli artist to work with, who would it be-

“Idan Raichel. That’s a real dream. He’s incredibly talented.”

By the way, what about a boyfriend-

“I don’t have one. I’m still looking.”

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