Reunited Okla. pop trio OK3 preparing for ‘ The Voice’
When Sierra Sikes got married, she got more than one union out of her nuptials.
At her 2021 wedding, the Oklahoma singer reconnected with her girlhood best friends and fellow performers Courtney Hooker and Kenna Fields.
“We all were like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I miss you guys. We should get together and sing again.’ So, we did. We were singing, and we talked about, ‘Did you know that “The Voice” does groups? ... That’d be cool to do.’ Then, this opportunity came along, and we were just so excited,” Sikes recalled.
“It just all aligned perfectly, and we really think that it was in the best timing.”
As OK3, the Oklahoma City-based vocal trio immediately emerged as one of the contenders to beat on the latest season of “The Voice.”
Performing a tightly harmonized cover of the Meghan Trainor hit “Made You Look” for their blind audition, the group earned a coveted four-chair turn on the NBC series’ Feb. 26 Season 25 premiere episode, which ended on a cliffhanger as they tried to decide which of the celebrity coaches to choose.
With their pick of the Emmy-winning show’s Season 25 coaches — Oklahoma Country Music Hall of Famer Reba McEntire, EGOT winner John Legend, three-time Grammy winner Chance the Rapper and three-time Grammy-winning country duo and coaching newcomers Dan + Shay — OK3 opted to join Team Legend.
“His style is so close to our style that we love: we’re pop all the way,” Sikes said. “And he’s been great so far.”
Who is OK3?
As the group’s name indicates, OK3 consists of three singers from Oklahoma. They met through their vocal coach, Amanda Earhart, and have been best friends and musical collaborators since they were teenagers, performing together at various shows and competitions.
Their bond is so tight, they said they’re sometimes mistaken for sisters.
“We have been singing for a really, really long time together. ... When we were younger, we were together all the time, pretty much six days a week — if not every day — whether or not that would be rehearsing or just hanging out, (having) sleepovers, all of that stuff,” Hooker said in a recent Zoom interview with The Oklahoman.
Sikes, 24, is a University of Central Oklahoma alumnus who earned her bachelor of music degree in musical theater in 2021. She is a teacher at her alma mater, Choctaw High School.
Fields, 22, is a senior at the Academy of Contemporary Music at UCO who is majoring in contemporary music while teaching music classes at School of Rock OKC.
Hooker, 26, is an ACM@UCO graduate who received her bachelor of applied technology in commercial music in 2020. She also earned an associate’s degree from UCO in performance in 2019 and now works as operations manager for a local marketing agency.
How did OK3 prepare their show-stopping ‘ The Voice’ blind audition?
OK3 broke up in 2017 because the singers were in different phases of their lives. After not seeing each other for four years, they reconnected at Sikes’ wedding. The trio was inspired by “The Voice” runs for groups like Girl Named Tom and Sorelle to reunite at the Oklahoma Opry and then audition for the NBC music contest.
“We’d all gone separate routes and studied music still. So, we all came back with a more comprehensive, roundedout knowledge of music and how to arrange songs and harmonies. So, we were throwing every single thing we ever learned at the fan and just seeing, ‘How crazy we can make this performance?’” Fields said. “Our goal was to just put the song on its head ... and to set it up for a trio and make it something that people were surprised at.”
Along with arranging the song, working out choreography and practicing relentlessly for their blind audition, the group tried to prepare for every onstage contingency.
“We’d go outside, and we would jog for 30 seconds in the parking lot. We’d put our heels on, and then we’d run through it a couple times, like OK, we need to make sure we’re winded and can still sing this and hit those notes, because we’re gonna be nervous,’” Hooker said with a grin.
“When we did that, people were looking at us like we were crazy. It was so funny,” Sikes added with a laugh.
How are the OK3 singers preparing for their ‘ The Voice’ battle?
Their creative methods paid off with a four-chair turn, followed by fierce competition among the coaches to convince OKC 3 to join their team. The trio said the outlandish debate — ranging from Legend deploying a giant inflatable tube man to Reba pulling out one of her Grammys — was flattering but overwhelming.
“John wasn’t our first pick, honestly. We were really interested in Dan + Shay, with them being a group, and obviously, with Reba being from Oklahoma. So, we were trying to go up there with a plan, because we knew it was gonna be chaos. ... And we all just had a moment where we were like, ‘It’s John, right?’” Fields said.
With the Season 25 blind auditions completed on the show’s March 12 episode, “The Voice” moves to the next phase: the battles, which will air over the next couple weeks at 7 p.m. Monday, March 18 and 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 19 on NBC.
“As far as John goes, he’s been awesome. We’re super excited; we’ve been preparing for the battle,” Hooker said. “Like he said in our blind audition, he’s been arranging for groups forever. That was one of the biggest things that we were so excited about, was to get his feedback and see how he could help with this arrangement going into the battles. So, we’ve been really prepared for it, and (we’re) making it something really cool and special.”
How do the ‘ The Voice’ battles work, and how is OK3 getting ready?
Now that all four coaches have assembled a team of 10 artists through the blind auditions, the battles begin on “The Voice.” The coaches pit two of their own team members against each other to sing the same song together.
Both artists are mentored by their coach, but after each battle round, the team’s coach must choose which artist will advance to the next round of competition, the knockouts.
During this season’s battles, each coach will have one steal and one playoff pass. With their steal, coaches can take for their own team artists whose coach has declared them the loser in a battle.
The playoff pass will allow both artists in a battle round to advance: The playoff pass winner gets a big advantage by skipping the knockout rounds, advancing straight to the playoffs and getting one step closer to the live shows.
The coaches leave the battles with six artists per team, with one artist per team bypassing the knockouts with the playoff pass.
Another Oklahoma contestant, AJ Harvey, a Native American singer based in Norman, also will be competing in the battles on Dan + Shay’s team.
For OK3, the battle round will be particularly tricky, since it will involve at least four singers sharing the stage.
“For the solo artist going up against a trio, it is difficult — three against one — but also in the trio’s sense, we don’t just have to sing well. We have to be very coordinated together, our breathing has to be the same, and all of us have to be hitting the exact perfect right notes at the same time,” Fields said.
“There’s a whole lot that goes into that we’ve been trying torque out to make sure we we hold our own.”
How to watch ‘ The Voice’
“The Voice” airs at 7 p.m. Mondays and 8 p.m. Tuesdays on NBC. Episodes stream the next day on Peacock on-demand. The streaming service offers full episodes from the show’s previous 24 seasons, too.