Utah dad 'heartbroken' to be away from kids while filming for 'The Voice.' Now he's in the top 13

The morning after Cade Mower’s second performance on “The Voice” aired — an episode that included Kelly Clarkson calling his vocals “insane” — the 35-year-old singer from Bluffdale, Utah, had a confession.

“I’m very critical of that performance,” Mower told the Deseret News during a Zoom call from his car on Oct. 27. “I was very, very upset with it.”

You wouldn’t know that from watching it. Fifteen years of performing at bars — thousands of shows — has taught Mower how to put on a face and keep singing through his frustrations.

Onstage during his Battle round performance — a duet of the Red Clay Strays’ “Wondering Why” with fellow contestant Brayden Howell — Mower smiled, swayed to the beat and dug out some gritty vocals. Singing with Howell, Mower said, felt more like a collaboration than a competition.

For the Utah singer, the biggest battle of the round ended up being with himself. And there were a few reasons for that.

He knew the song well — “Wondering Why” is in his own setlist — but to accommodate both singers, the arrangement for “The Voice” dropped the key down to a register Mower felt didn’t show off the strongest part of his vocal range.

Because of that, he took a gamble and made some last-minute changes to his parts — a chance he said he wished he hadn’t taken. Filming for a show like “The Voice,” he said, can also come with the occasional stop-and-go that messes with adrenaline.

“I got in my head,” Mower said, noting that he came in a little earlier than he was supposed to on his very first note, which set off a chain reaction of personal disappointments throughout his performance.

It turns out Mower is his own worst critic. When decision time came, his “Voice” coach, country star Riley Green, chose to advance him to the next round of the competition.

Now, Mower has survived “Cut Week” — the show’s largest single-week elimination in history that whittled the competition down from 28 to 12 contestants (the show will add in a 13th singer next week based on viewer voting). He got an automatic bid to the live shows during the most recent episode, so he didn’t have to perform.

But when he returns to “The Voice” stage this Monday, he’s viewing it as a “chance at redemption.”

‘Staying true to who I am’

Now that his Battle performance is behind him, Mower is ready to take the lessons he’s learned to the live shows.

One of his biggest lessons is more of a reminder. Over 15 years of playing shows, he’s figured out his strengths and weaknesses, and knows who he is as an artist. During the Battle round, Mower said he lost sight of that a little bit as he made last-minute changes to the song in an effort to show off his voice more.

“I know what I am, I know what I’m not,” he said. “I’m not the guy that’s gonna do vocal acrobatics. ... I’m the guy that’s gonna just sing the song. I feel it and just sing it the way I sing it.”

Mower has never considered himself a reality competition guy — it took years of encouragement from one of his friends for him to even apply for “The Voice.” But so far, he said, his time on the show has felt “authentic.”

“All of it feels like it’s a good representation of who I am,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’m faking anything. I feel really good so far about how I’ve been portrayed on the show, and I think that’s a result of staying true to who I am.”

A big part of Mower’s story on “The Voice” has been his family — the support of his wife, Lindsey, and the pain of being away from his two kids, ages 2 and 1, while filming.

“I was heartbroken, to be honest,” he said. “I’ve spent two months out of the last five in LA away from my kids, 30 days at a time. And it is so hard. I can’t even articulate how hard it was to be away.

“It hurt so bad that I very solidly internalized that heartache and converted it into presence when I came home,” he continued. “So when I am home now, I try to be unadulterated, just purely present with my kids and my wife. I think that’s more important than the amount of time I’m with them. It’s been such a good shift for me as a dad, and that experience gave that to me.”

Mower met his wife after moving from Utah to Austin, Texas, which was the source of the music he loved — artists like Willie Nelson, Gary Clark Jr. and Stevie Ray Vaughan. She was a server at a place he was playing, and the pair “fell in love pretty quick.”

He did get nervous about their relationship when he realized he’d probably need to move to Nashville if he wanted to further his music career and learn more about the business side of the industry. He wanted Lindsey, who was his girlfriend at the time, to come with him. But he also recognized that was a big ask.

When Lindsey got home late from work one night, Mower, who couldn’t sleep, anxiously told her what was on his mind. He’ll never forget her reaction.

“She was like, ‘Welcome to the party, you’re the last one to understand that. Let’s go,’” he recalled.

“I had just closed on a house, so it was like the stupidest thing ever financially,” he continued. “So I just turned around and sold it and lost a bunch of money and spent loads of money getting out here. But I had to do it, and I don’t regret it at all.”

Now, Lindsey’s support is buoying him as he juggles competing on “The Voice” and pursuing music with fatherhood and his finance job.

He’s also grateful for the support from family and friends in Utah, who have been cheering him on since his earliest days in music, when he couldn’t have fathomed reaching this point.

‘It just adds fuel to the fire’

Mower, a graduate of Riverton High School and Utah State University, cut his teeth at his uncle’s bar, Club 48, in Murray, Utah. Once he turned 21, he’d go in and play on Monday nights.

“He helped me out so much by letting me come there and play when I was terrible,” he said with a laugh. “I was so bad at the time. I think he paid me like $50 a night or something, which was super nice. He was helping me more than I was helping him for sure, so I’m definitely grateful for him. I’m grateful for Club 48. It’d be fun to go back there and play again.”

Currently, Mower plays one or two shows a week — and despite the inner turmoil from his Battle round, the Red Clay Strays song is still in rotation.

But being on “The Voice,” he said, has lit a fire. His audition for the show — which got an instant chair turn from all four coaches — is one of the most-watched of the season, with more than 3 million views on YouTube, and has made him a strong contender to win the show.

“The show already has opened a lot of doors as far as getting me in the right rooms and introductions to the right people and exposure,” he said. “It’s highly encouraging, and it reignites the passion that I’ve always had. It just adds fuel to the fire.”