5 things you may not know about ‘The Voice’ contestant and Hilton Head singer Stee

Before Hilton Head singer Stee made it into the third round on NBC’s reality television show “The Voice,” he was already drawing crowds on the island with his band The Ear Candy.

Now, people are driving in from Beaufort and Savannah to hear him perform at his family’s restaurant, Kind of Blue, on Dunnagans Alley.

The 34-year-old Bluffton resident is the son of veteran performers Sterlin and Shuvette Colvin and uses a single name professionally.

In his audition for the “The Voice” that aired Oct. 2, all four celebrity coaches wanted him for their team after his performance of Maroon 5’s “Sugar.” Stee chose John Legend.

He’ll next perform in the show’s “Knockout Rounds,” airing at 8 p.m. Monday and 9 p.m. Tuesday. Viewers also can stream the episodes the following day on Peacock.

Here are five things you might now know about Hilton Head’s newest celebrity.

Stee speaks Bulgarian.

In the second round of competition, known as “The Battle Round,” Stee was named the winner over fellow team member Willie Gomez after their performance of the Latin pop song “Tacones Rojos.”

The celebrity coaches seem to give extra credit to Gomez for singing in Spanish and English, but Stee did the same thing. The coaches just missed it.

“I was singing Spanish, too,” he told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. “If that was the deciding factor, it would really, really upset me because I worked hard on that part, and they didn’t hear that.”

Stee said he doesn’t actually speak Spanish, but he does speak Bulgarian. Stee’s childhood best friend was from Sofia, Bulgaria, and he learned the language from his friend.

“I’m losing it now,” he said. “But 10 years ago, I was fluent.”

Stee doesn’t sing in his car.

Stee says he listens to a variety of music while he’s driving, depending on his mood.

“It could be Creed, and it could be Tupac. It could be Joni Mitchell. It could be Usher,” he said. “It was just Justin Bieber in the car. That was just random. I just said, ‘You know what, I wanna hear a Justin Bieber record,’ and I actually listened to like half of it on the way here.”

He won’t be the person throwing out all the stops singing into a pretend mic while he’s stuck in traffic, though. That’s too much like his work.

“I don’t sing with the record because I’m off,” he said. “If I do sing, it’ll be a harmony part.”

Stee has a sense of fashion.

Stee said he considers himself to be “basic” when it comes to everyday fashion, but he knows how to dress for a performance.

The experts in charge of “The Voice” contestants’ wardrobe gave a thumbs up to several of his own pieces of clothing for the show.

“With my blind audition, some of that stuff was mine, not the whole outfit, but a lot of it was mine,” he said. “The jewelry was mine. The pants were mine. I wanted the jacket to be mine, but it wasn’t mine.”

Stee wants to show his musical chops.

Stee said his main goal in his song selections for “The Voice” has been to highlight all of his various musical styles. The Ear Candy performs pop and soul covers but also original music, some of which is being remastered and re-released.

“My plan for the Knockouts and for every round has been to show a different side of my artistry,” Stee said.

“So what I would really love to do the next round is sing a song that requires some vocal difficulty. That could be a ballad or a soulful song,” he said. “Definitely something you haven’t seen me do on the show yet. That’s the plan.”

Stee had a goal of three rounds.

In reflecting on three weeks of work he put into the Battle Round — the show compresses the timeline significantly — he would have been seriously disappointed not to advance.

“I would have been upset. I really would have been upset,” he said.

“My goal was to make it at least three rounds. ... So in the event that I do get knocked out at the Knockouts, that’s something I can swallow. Hopefully I get to do my soul song.”

He tells himself: “So you got to do a pop song, a Latin song and a soul song, and you get knocked out. I’m good. That feels good to me. You know, anything more than that would just be garnish.”