Rolling Stone (June 16th 2016)
Blake Shelton
The ‘Voice’ star on how he got together with Gwen Stefani, Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade,’ Guns N’ Roses, and why tabloids don’t faze him anymore
Last year, Blake Shelton’s four-year marriage to Miranda Lambert fell apart, and the saga turned the country star into a tabloid fixture. “I had to piece my life back together,” he says. But happiness turned out to be just two chairs over on the set of The Voice. Shelton bonded with fellow coach Gwen Stefani, who was going through a divorce of her own, and the two started dating. “If you had told me that that’s who I’m gonna end up with, I would have thought you were crazy,” he says. “But she became my closest ally.” Shelton chronicles his road back from heartache on his new album, If I’m Honest, which features a duet with Stefani, “Go Ahead and Break My Heart.” “We realized that we were both having a hard time letting our guard down,” Shelton says. “But I sent a voice memo to her, and then she sent back her verse to me. We wrote it communicating to each other. And that’s why it’s so special to the both of us.”
When you’re not shooting The Voice or on tour, you’re in Oklahoma. What’s your life like there?
Unless it’s raining, I’m hunting or fishing or farming. I’m going crazy right now because I put corn in about three weeks ago and I haven’t been back to look at it. Sometimes I’ll go hunting for caribou in Canada, or elk hunting. But bowhunting white-tailed deer in Oklahoma is my favorite thing.
Do you ever take Gwen hunting?
I know you know better than that. [Stefani is an animal-rights advocate.] I can just see her: “Get ’im!” That makes me laugh.
Like your album, Beyoncé’s Lemonade deals with a relationship falling apart. Have you checked it out?
I watched the movie, and it blew me away. One lyric really hit me: “Who the fuck do you think I is?/You ain’t married to no average bitch.” Whoa! That’s not a marketing stunt. I can’t believe that’s anything other than true.
You’re famous for your partying. What’s your key to throwing a good one?
I really don’t throw a lot of parties, though it damn sure looks that way if you listen to the media. But you just gotta have great music: classic stuff everybody knows that you don’t gotta think too hard about. And I’m not talking about any of that dance-club music.
I take it you’re not an EDM fan.
I don’t even know who that is.
What rock music did you love growing up?
Ted Nugent and Bob Seger. When I got older, I got into Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC. I saw some GN’R footage from Coachella. Axl sounds as good as ever. If I went to the concert where he’s singing for AC/DC, I’d probably have a seizure.
You’re still a country dude at heart, but you also live in L.A. You recently attacked a Twitter troll who accused you of “going Hollywood.”
Some people are just so stupid. If I’ve gone Hollywood, then AC/DC has gone country. It’s that stupid of a statement. I feel like I’m doing this guy a favor by pointing it out to him.
Do you ever worry about being seen as a television personality rather than as an artist?
My job at The Voice is to represent country music. I take that very seriously. So many hit songs have been launched from this show, and so many songs have been discovered. It’s bringing music into 13 million people’s living rooms. There’s nothing but fuckin’ awesomeness that comes out of that. That said, I wish to God the show was taped in Nashville. I’d be 200 times happier.
What have you learned about your Voice co-host Adam Levine over the years?
Adam is a 14-year-old boy trapped in a 30-whatever-he-is body. And that includes his attention span. This week, he’s all fired up about houses he might buy: “Hey, dude, look at this one, check this one out.” It’s just like, “Oh, my God, man. I know you’re not going to buy any of these.” When he gets on something, you need to take a Tylenol and get ready, because that’s what you’re gonna hear about for the next month. Before this, it was golf.
You’ve gotten into a few scrapes on Twitter. What does your drafts folder look like?
More than ever, I’ve been hitting “delete” before I send out a tweet. I’m just tired of the drama that comes with it, the absolute crybaby reaction you get from how politically correct the world is now. Everybody needs to take a chill pill.
Trump makes a big argument that political correctness has gotten out of hand.
I feel like it has. The best way to deal with that, I think, is just sometimes to keep my mouth shut.
It seems like you, Miranda and Gwen are on the cover of every tabloid these days. What’s that like?
It used to upset me, but it turns out it just pays really well. They can’t let go of anything I do. I literally was followed to work today. It must mean my career is doing pretty well, because my personal life’s not that exciting. I don’t do that much. I’m kind of a slug. But they damn sure want pictures of it.