‘The Voice’: Four chairs turned and Tucson singer's life changed

But when fellow judges Riley Green, Kelly Clarkson and Queen Latifah followed Levine’s lead during Mathews’ Oct. 6 blind audition on “The Voice,” she admitted even she was surprised.

“It just continued from there like boom, boom, boom, in succession,” the 31-year-old Tucson native said days later. “That was crazy.”

When the NBC talent show returns Monday and Tuesday, Mathews will join judge Queen Latifah and her team mentor, Grammy-winning R&B singer Patti LaBelle, for the Battle Rounds.

Contestants are contractually forbidden from even hinting about the pre-recorded episodes so we can’t say if Mathews survives to see another week. Tune into the show at 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday on KVOA Channel 4 to find out.

Mathews’ road to “The Voice” started when she was still attending Mountain View High School in Marana and answered an open call at the AVA at Casino del Sol.

She didn’t make it.

A few years later, when she was 21, she auditioned in Las Vegas.

No luck.

Last fall, she got an email inviting her to once again audition for “The Voice,” this time digitally.

“So I recorded myself. I think it was like 60 seconds of a song,” she said. “And I kept hearing back, and they're like, ‘This is great. We'd like a few more songs.’ So I'd submit a few more songs, and then finally, I got a phone call one day, and they were like, ‘We would love to have you come out for a blind audition.’”

That call came not long after Mathews in August released her indie single “Hard Road,” which she wrote just before she moved home to Tucson in 2025 after seven years in Nashville.

The neo-trad ballad questions if anyone cares or is even paying attention to her music, “and then to get a phone call like that, where somebody took a chance on me,” she said.

“Somebody finally said yes,” said Mathews, who started singing in middle school and started writing her own music after she joined the Desert Bluegrass Association in high school. “Just giving me the opportunity, that's all I ever wanted in music. I think that's one of the most profound moments and something I'll remember forever."

After playing gigs around Tucson, including Jessica Northey-Shaw’s Arizona Originals songwriters showcase series, Mathews moved in 2018 to Nashville on a month’s notice. She had no job and knew no one, but she said she knew that if she didn’t “take this opportunity, I never will.”

It took her a month to land a job as a tour guide at the Grand Ole Opry, where she met her husband, Kevin Sanchez, who was a tour guide and worked with Southern rock bands. Mathews said one of her best memories of that time was being in the auditorium the night Luke Combs became an Opry member — one of country music’s most prestigious honors.

“That was one of those moments that I was like, I really want that to be me someday,” said Mathews, who has been doing music full time since 2022 and has performed at honky tonks, bars and festivals around the country.

When she stepped on “The Voice” stage for the blind auditions, Mathews said she wasn’t too nervous. Her husband and father were there, and she felt prepared after having sung Vince Gill’s “When I Call Your Name” “so many times … that I was really comfortable with the song.”

But nothing prepared her for standing on that stage in that moment.

“I was so grateful that we have a live audience that's in there because it made it feel more like a regular show,” she said.

As soon as the first notes kicked off, she started singing, and then she heard the crowd cheering and encouraging her.

And then she saw Adam Levine turn his chair and it felt like her world was about to change.

As the four judges lobbied for her to be on their team, Mathews said there was something that Queen Latifah said that made her change her initial thought of going with Clarkson.

“She said I took her to church,” Mathews said. “I'm a face-to-face person, and the way that Queen just held eye contact, her energy, her spirit. She said she was excited to see what would happen, and I just felt a connection with her, like she could get me to some places that I maybe haven't ever even thought about with my music.”

You can follow Mathews’ journey through Facebook or Instagram at KayleighMathewsMusic.