If you look, very quickly, you can see Kelly Perkins Robinson on television, for just a moment. She’s bending her sister’s ear, or is it the other way around, as host Carson Daly talks about the “blind auditions” on NBC’s smash hit, “The Voice.”
You just have to peer around a very well-placed Starbucks cup.
Kelly (left) and her sister, Kat Perkins, circa “the 1990s.” Kat (now a dark-haired rocker) is set to appear on Season 6 of “The Voice” next week.
Minnesota musicians are no stranger to the hit show, now in its sixth season. But this marks the first time St. Michael has had its own little tie. Kelly’s sister, Kat Perkins, is looking for her shot.
We can let you in on this much: She got one. She’ll be part of the last blind audition show, which is set to air Monday, March 10, on KARE 11. Show starts at 7 p.m.
“It’s been SO hard to stay quiet,” said Kelly, who was with Kat when she auditioned for super-judges Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Shakira and Usher back in the fall of 2013. “Christmas was especially hard. Everyone knew she went down to Los Angeles. They just didn’t know if she’d get on the show at all. And we can’t tell anyone a thing.”
Both Perkins sisters are from the small town of Scranton, ND, which is the western part of the state. Their parents were both musical, but it was Kat who had the look of a performer.
“Dad was in a band, but we was a bass player. You could tell with Kat. Like when she was 3, she would just start taking over,” Kelly said.
Eventually, she made it to the stage with the famous Medora Musical, which is staged in Medora,ND. She had a five-year run, and then joined groups in New York and Nashville before settling closer to home – and to Kelly – in Minneapolis. Kelly lives in The Highlands development of St. Michael with her husban, Bill.
Kat Perkins gets set to rehearse the National Anthem prior to the “Crashed Ice” event in 2013 at St. Paul.
Fast forward to today, and Kat is a hard-working singer and frontwoman for three different groups, including Dirty Word and Scralet Haze, two rock bands who make their way around the region and have been featured here in the St. Michael area.
To Kelly and Bill’s kids, she’s Aunt Kat, and they’ve been sitting on “pins and needles” like everyone else for the first few episodes of the show, which premiered Feb. 24.
“Our kids actually play ‘The Voice.’ We have four barstools that they’ll turn away and act like judges during the blind auditions. If they like what they here, they spin the chair around.”
So, who would Kat like to work with if she gets a chair to spin?
“She likes rock, so Adam really is a good fit. But she does do some country, so she could go with Blake. I think those would be the top two for sure,” Kelly said.
As for Kelly, she’ll have her 15 minutes of fame, too. She’s one of the people “in the room” watching the blind audition, waiting for someone to pick her favorite sister.
“It’s the most emotional, intense thing ever. It’s right up there with getting married and the birth of my three kids. I’m just so proud she went for it and got this far. Who knows what happens next, right? But she got the audition and we’ll see where it goes from there together,” Kelly said.
Stay tuned, as North Wright County Today will have more from the Robinson family and “super sibling” Kat Perkins as this story unfolds.