Any roommate of yours is a roommate of mine: A chat with Javier Colon

Entertainment Weekly may have already claimed him as an early favorite, but Javier Colon and I, believe it or not, actually share one thing in common. We have both shared living spaces with The Voice contestant, Tje Austin. In fact, the moment we started our phone interview, we spent a good 10 minutes talking about Tje's junk food habit. Ever read “The Babysitter’s Club?” Tje is Claudia.

This is why I love my job though. Because from the moment Javier covered Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” during his blind audition, I, with the rest of the world, was rooting for him and there I was weeks later on the phone with him. Of course, I’m on Team Tje, but Javier is a close second. After all, he did manage to impress all four judges by having them turn around as well as receive two standing ovations from Adam Levine and Blake Shelton.

In the end though, Javier chose Adam.



But did you know that Javier originally cancelled his initial audition? That’s right. We may not have discovered that soulful voice if he didn’t feel better that morning. Thursday before his Saturday audition, he called his manager to cancel the audition.

“My voice was really shot that morning,” said Colon. “I told him to cancel it. He said ok.”

However, when Saturday came, he felt better.

“I was like you know what, I really should do this. What else do I have going on? This is an opportunity,” said Colon.

Luckily for him, when he called his manager to see if he cancelled the audition, it turned out that his manager forgot.

“I was like ok, good. Then I’ll go. So I ended up going that afternoon and here we are, which is crazy,” said Colon.



Javier had a record deal with Capitol Records and released two albums with them years before The Voice audition. While to most musicians wanting to make it, a record deal is a dream, but sometimes there are compromises that come with that contract.

“We had a couple of things that we didn’t necessarily see eye to eye on,” said Colon. “They wanted me just to be a straight ahead R&B guy, and I love R&B. It’s a part of what I do. It doesn’t necessarily define me.”

Even though the label and Javier eventually parted ways, he did discover that one of his R&B albums landed in the hands of a fellow contestant, his own roommate Tje Austin.

“When I did meet Tje, we had a pretty funny exchange about him having an album from a guy named Javier. It was kind of awkward because I was like yeah, that was me,” said Colon. “It was pretty cool. I wasn’t necessarily expecting anybody to know my stuff and I was flattered that he had heard my music and that he actually had one of my CDs.”

The second portion of the live show is going on right now as I type this and Javier will perform (hopefully after this is published). Even though our mutual roommate is back in Austin (he lost to Nakia in the battle round), Javier is ready to tackle his performance.

“I’m excited to go back to the single song format. You get to go up there and you get to sit down and rip into a song. I feel good about that,” said Colon. “I’m excited just to be up there and share some songs with the world. Where I get to, at least, share my interpretations of these songs with the world.”