COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — After Ohio trio Girl Named Tom made history with winning Season 21 of “The Voice” in December, siblings Bekah, Joshua and Caleb Liechty, appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” to talk about that whirlwind moment and their future plans.
DeGeneres shared that she “was a fan early on” and noted that in all the seasons of “The Voice,” there has “never been a band or a group” that has won. She also remarked about the three’s “beautiful harmonies” and asked how they felt about competing on TV adding that, “obviously you, you don’t go in thinking we’re not going to get far.”
However, brother Joshua surprised the host with his answer.
“That was kind of our mindset,” he said. “There is no chance that we’re going to win. We’re a trio and we’re just hoping to turn a chair at the beginning. And each week we were like, well, ‘this could be it, fellas.’ But we just kept going and it was so fun.”
The group, from Pettisville, also shared the extraordinary experience of celebrating their victory with their father who is battling cancer.
“Oh yeah, I mean, not even 24 hours after we won ‘The Voice’ on that stage, we got to be in the hospital room with our dad, all of our family together and that was very, like, surreal, just to share that moment with them,” said Bekah.
Caleb added, “They were a huge part of like getting us through the experience with ‘The Voice’ and so to go back and then like, share love with them in that room was so special.”
“He said he woke up the entire hospital when we won, screaming,” revealed Bekah. “Yeah, it’s like everybody’s sleeping, but he was like, ‘Yeah!’”
The group also discussed its humble beginnings in a town with no stoplights where their parents “surrounded” them with music.
“We just started this band, and we didn’t know what we were doing, and our first show was in a little winery, like a mile and a half down the road in the cornfields and 300 people showed up,” said Caleb. “And it was our first time ever singing together in a setting like that and they’ve just been supportive from day one, so it’s special.”
“To just inspire that too,” said Bekah. “Like, no matter where you’re from, you can follow your dreams.”
DeGeneres commented that dreams for the three have switched from pursuing medical careers to the world of popular music, asking, “were you just singing for fun while you were on your way to becoming doctors?”
“Yeah, because you don’t be a musician for like, an actual job. Right?” Bekah confirmed.
The mystery behind the band’s name was solved near the end of the segment by Joshua.
“It’s an old nickname,” he explained. “I, for some reason or another, called my sister Bekah, ‘Tom’ when she was a baby and it’s kind of a legend in our family. And so yeah, that’s Girl Named Tom.”
And Caleb ended with the group’s plans for the future.
“We cannot wait to share music with people,” he said. “Like, we won, we won ‘The Voice,’ so we have this platform now that we never could have dreamed of and we’ve been writing during COVID, just in a little house in South Bend. And we’ve got some great music and we can’t wait to share it. It’ll be out next year, we’ll hopefully tour the country, I don’t know, we’ve got big dreams.”