The Sing Off’s Delilah: “… sharing a special message through music”

This week on NBC’s The Sing-Off, judges Sara Bareilles, Shawn Stockman, and Ben Folds made a tough decision and eliminated all-female group, Delilah, from the competition. After making it past Round 1 with their memorable performance of Bruno Mars’s “Grenade,” Delilah knew they had to work hard to build upon the judge’s critiques and come back a new group in future rounds! While nearly escaping elimination, Delilah knew they had to prove themselves week after week. Unfortunately, in a crop of six highly talented groups, Delilah found themselves eliminated. Earlier this week, YakkityYaks had the pleasure to participate in a media call with Hannah Juliano from Delilah. Read on to find out the story behind the group, plans for the future, and more!

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Talking About Their Hardest Challenge As a Group
Hannah, Delilah: Well, a lot of the groups on the show primarily do a genre and they are really strong in a genre, you know, say like hip hop or in jazz or in electronic type of music. And the basis of our whole group was that we not only were, you know, adapting to all these genres, all these challenges every week, but we also were just all female. It was commented on a lot obviously because it was our biggest challenge. We don’t have a natural low end like the groups that have guys do because our – physically our voices aren’t as low. So it was a huge challenge for us every week to not only reinvent these songs and represent them in a way that was true to us and, you know, as musicians and as women, but to really get around the struggle of not having that natural low end. I think that we really rose to the challenge every week. We dug deep every single week to try and beat that.

On The Judges’ Best Advice
Hannah, Delilah: Gosh, they said a lot of things. The shows are pre-filmed so a lot of the commentary was given to us. They would really talk to us a lot in the live shows so some of it didn’t really make the cut in the shows, but I do specifically remember when Ben Folds told us that when we’re making ourselves happy, we’re making everybody else happy. That was one week that it clicked for us that we were trying so hard to please ourselves and the judges and what we thought the audience was going to want and we weren’t really listening to ourselves. When we started to sing from our hearts, that’s really when everything clicked. Sara said the same thing the next week. She said that, you know, just when we tap into that true very emotional, feminine spirit that we all have and are very true to that then we were the most successful.

Thoughts On The Comments From Rock/Country Night
Hannah, Delilah: I was actually really scared about how they were going to turn out because we thought they were so awesome and so strong, we felt so connected to them both, and then they were both judged kind of harshly, so I didn’t really know what everybody else had heard. I didn’t know if it was different from what we had heard or what we had thought about it. But I am so, so happy about how they both turned out. We really were just singing from our hearts on both of the songs. Both of them were a struggle. You know, we really, really had to dig deep that week, especially on the country song. We had to rearrange that song about ten times and our last version of it was finally done. Even that day of filming we were still working on it and changing it. So listening back on it and watching the performances, I think they’re really both beautiful and, like I said, we were just singing our hearts out. And as far as pitch issues or energy issues in the first song go, I don’t know. It’s different when you’re in the group. I feel like I have a bias because I feel so strongly connected to them in the first place, but I can see what they were talking about as far as the energy issues in “Dream On” where we peaked early. And the pitch issues in “If I Die Young,” I don’t think they were as dramatic as the judges had made it seem. But when it comes down to it it’s the top six in the competition and any kind of mistake is a big deal because everybody is so talented and so perfect. So…it definitely was a blow to us though.

On What The Future Holds For Delilah
Hannah, Delilah: We are so excited and so motivated. We really just liked being on the show and it turned into something much bigger and much more special than we would have ever imagined and all of us continue to talk every single day. We unfortunately are all split up across the country right now. You know, we’re all from different places, so none of us are together save maybe two people at a time in different cities, but we are planning on continuing. Of course we want to kind of see if some offers roll in and we’re kind of waiting for all of that, but really want to do an album, tour and stay together and really continue to share this special thing that is Delilah that we found.

On Delilah’s Favorite Performance
Hannah, Delilah: Oh my gosh. Probably – oh gosh, I don’t know. Probably “Grenade” and Alicia Keys. They both were ones that just clicked and so it wasn’t as much of a struggle to perfect the song as it was or it wasn’t much of a struggle to really beat the song and try and outsmart it to really give a great performance as it was just perfecting something that kind of was great from the start. You know, a lot of our songs sprouted from us having to deconstruct it and find how to make it work for us and both of those songs just kind of naturally worked for us. And they were both just a joy.

On Which Judge Delilah Connected Most With
Hannah, Delilah: I’m going to say probably Shawn. I feel like he got our platform most of the time. We have a pretty special relationship and very different with each of the judges. With Sara being the only girl, we always felt like she was rooting for us. All of them were always rooting for us really. But there was something special about Shawn. Every time he commented on us, we always felt a special kinship with him and you can’t see it on a lot on the TV. They don’t show it, but he was always pointing to us and saying, “I’m so proud of you.” He was always encouraging us especially when we were struggling in the Guilty Pleasure week. After we had been saved the second time, he looked at us and said, “Come on, I know you can do it, ladies.” Like, I don’t know, we just – I specifically felt something with Shawn. I’m sure each of the girls have different opinions, but that’s just my standpoint. We loved all the judges so much. They were always so great to us.

On Staying Positive As A Group
Hannah, Delilah: Well, the group is really special. And we didn’t really know how special it was until we were in it, you know, because we formed for the show. So it was all very quick and we were finding our identity in real-time on the show, so that’s what I think is really interesting about the group. It kind of changes from what we thought we were going to be on the show to what we actually ended up being and what we felt a connection with. I think being in the bottom two the first time was a big shock to us because we had come out of the gate so strong in our first two songs. So after that we thought, well I don’t know. There was always a very, very positive energy about us and we were all so so close, truly a sisterhood, so we were always constantly lifting each other up. I guess our strategy was just letting it all go and remembering what it’s all about and that’s about the music and connecting to it and sharing a message with the audience. So whenever we would just kind of breath and relax and try and forget about the judges then the challenges and the competition, it really seemed to click for us. You know, we would get back to that special place of just sharing a special message through music.

On Keeping Up With Delilah
Hannah, Delilah: Oh gosh, fans can find us everywhere. We are constantly online. We love checking up on the YouTube videos and answering fans there. We’re all on Twitter. We all have individual Twitters and then the actual group’s Twitter is @singdelilah. We’ve got a Facebook fan page. We’re working on getting a Web site and all that kind of fun stuff to make it kind of centralized outside of Facebook and Twitter. But we are all over the Internet. We are constantly answering fans and saying hello and thank you and spreading the love because just can’t get enough. We love them all so much.

On Who They’d Like To See Win It All
Hannah, Delilah: Afro-Blue. We have a really, really strong connection with them. They became some of our best friends. Both Afro-Blue and Pentatonix, I would say. Those two groups, we got especially close with. They’re just so talented and I love everything they do. So those are my people I’m rooting for. But, you know, obviously they’re all our best friends and we love them all.

It was so hard being in the bottom with Afro-Blue. We just – we couldn’t believe. You can see it when we all just rushed to each other and hugged each other. I don’t know if the fans really get how non-competition-like it is for the groups. We don’t even understand that it’s a competition. It’s weird to us that there’s a winner because we get so close and we truly, truly support each other in every single performance. So to be pitted against some of your newly found best friends is just heart wrenching and we – you can’t understand it, it’s so strange. So that was really hard. All of us are going, gosh, that was even worse watching it than it was being there.