Before he came to NBC's "The Voice," Viktor Kiraly had experienced a professional music career in Europe. But he's looking to break through here in America, and he's off to a great start as his blind audition cover of "What's Going On" turned all four coaches' chairs. The new member of Team Adam talked about making the transition from one market to another in a media conference call.

He said it took a lot of sleepless nights for him to decide whether or not to audition, because of the risk involved in the situation. "If I don’t get any chairs turned, then it might be embarrassing to go back to a country where people already somewhat know my name," he explained to reporters. But what got him to go through with it was that he does this for the music. He doesn't do it for the fame, the radio plays or anything like that, so he said it's not a problem to start from zero.

Viktor is really starting from nothing, as he has no established American audience. He explained that actually lends itself to a liberating feeling, because he knows that he's working just as hard as anyone else to find his spot on the show. Nothing is being handed to him because he had a prior career someplace else.

Given all that, what was it like for him to come out and turn four chairs with his audition? He called it "totally a surreal situation and I was totally in awe."

Viktor told reporters that he chose Adam Levine to be his coach because of the overwhelming amount of positive criticism Adam gave him, even though he'd originally wanted to pick Pharrell Williams. But Adam was really lifting him up in some way, and so Viktor feels totally comfortable with his new coach.

Just because he's a veteran performer doesn't mean he was immune to the nerves that every "Voice" contestant feels. He admitted that watching the TV broadcast of his blind audition was the first time that he actually heard and understood what Gwen Stefani had said to him on stage. After trying for years to make it, all of a sudden he was up there with four superstars really fighting over him, and he said he didn't even really get a chance to comprehend it because it was so weird and out of this world.

But he's not content with having one of the best auditions of the season."When I got off the stage all I was thinking about is how am I going to give more," he said. "How am I going to prove that I’m even better than this blind audition?"

(axs.com)