by Lauren Rosier
Photo courtesy of Luke Wade Management
Since Season 7 of NBC’s The Voice, Dublin, Texas native Luke Wade has been kept busy. Like many of the contestants on The Voice, Wade had been performing and playing music long before his blind audition. Wade is a son born from artists and of a family that encouraged creativity. As you may have heard from The Voice, Wade experienced several incidents such as a bout with spinal meningitis and a paintball accident that left him blind in one eye. But who is Luke Wade otherwise?
“[There’s] no reason not to be humble. I try to take elements of soul and aim them towards telling stories. That we all tell the same things, make moments, and bring people together,” Wade explains.
Since the beginning of The Voice, we saw that Wade had a very soulful, passionate voice for music. Since being on the show he’s fallen in love with the classics: Otis, Marvin Gaye. At this particular moment, his current influence and inspiration has been Jay Buchanan of Rival Sons.
“He was particular in an interesting way. He wouldn’t sing with all of himself. He might not react. He put himself into a song,” says Wade.
Despite being on a successful primetime television show and having the spotlight on him constantly for several months, life wouldn’t significantly change. Wade says, “It’s been awesome. [I’m] not doing anything different. [I’m] doing exactly what I’m doing before, more people are showing up, more people are listening.”
He has been keeping busy, though. In March, Wade was invited to join Patti LaBelle at the “Dream Marches On” concert at Alabama State University to commemorate and honor the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March.
“It was really awesome and amazing. It was an opportunity to be part of something really historic and amazing,” he says.
In addition to performing with legendary musicians he has been “writing like crazy and talking with producers and talking with Pharrell. Working on demos and trying to get things aimed at a certain direction.”
Wade will be performing as part of Fort Worth Symphony’s 25th Annual Concerts in the Garden summer concert series in late June.
“[There’s] so many cool gigs coming in. Something I’ve always wanted to do is the Northeast. I’ve never played in Philly. Doing cruises in New York. Hard Rock Cafe Las Vegas. Everything is awesome,” He exclaims.
Wade is currently on tour in the Northeast and will be playing at Milkboy in Philadelphia tomorrow night.
