After struggling with an “identity crisis” early on, “The X Factor” finalists Lakoda Rayne seemed to find comfort as a country-pop act. They first truly clicked with a cover of Keith Urban’s “Somebody Like You,” and they received their best reviews to date for “You Belong with Me.”
Paula Abdul, the mentor of the female quartet, stood behind the country-pop direction. And, in an interview with reporters Tuesday, the group, consisting of Dani Knights, Haley Orrantia, Cari Fletcher and Paige Ogle, reiterated its desire to continue in the Taylor Swift direction.
“I think the song that best represents us as a group and what we want to bring to the industry was actually our last performance, “You Belong with Me,” by Taylor Swift,” Fletcher noted on the call. “Honestly, after we got off the stage that night the girls and I said this: If we go out it would be on this performance that we want to go out after.
“We had such a good time performing it. For the first time we were just like, yes, this is it. This is what we should be doing. This is the direction where we should head.”
There is just one problem with that notion. After performing “Somebody Like You,” Lakoda Rayne ended up in the bottom two. After performing “You Belong with Me,” the group garnered the lowest vote total and went home as the ninth-place act.
Headline Planet discussed the interesting coincidence with the foursome, pondering why the “X Factor” fans seemed least inclined to connect with the songs on which they felt most comfortable.
An admittedly intrigued Orrantia noted, “When we performed our Keith Urban song, one of the things that we considered to be a possibility of why we were in the bottom few, but we have absolutely no idea if it was true, was that the CMAs were on the exact same night. So we assumed that maybe our country audience was a little busy looking at their other country artists that they love instead of voting.
“But then we decided to perform the Taylor Swift song and I don’t know. It is something that we’re comfortable with as a group and I think people enjoyed seeing that from us,” she continued. “We got the best comments from the judges on those and the best reaction from our supporters, so I’m not really sure why we did get in the bottom for those songs, but I think that’s something that we need to go for. There’s a gap in the market for that and it’s something we all four love doing together.”
The Lakoda Rayne case makes for an interesting one–was the group’s fanbase simply too small to carry them any farther in the competition, or was there actually a disconnect when the girls performed the types of songs that they–and the judges–felt best suited them?
Sticking together
What is more certain, however, is the group’s desire to stay together. While they did return to their own corners of the country following the elimination, the end-goal is to find a place together and work on their music.
So, sorry again, Steve Jones, the dream is not over. (Ogle did explain that they “don’t take [his comment] to heart anymore…he said his words wrong”)
It will, of course, likely be on hold until Cari and Hayley finish school; in the meantime, Paige plans to move to California to be near Dani as they start building a future.
Assuming they do indeed move forward as a group, it is still important to the foursome that their own individual personalities get to shine through. Speaking on the call, the girls noted that none really got to stand out as individuals on “The X Factor,” and that crippled viewers’ ability to connect with Lakoda Rayne.
“We really just wanted to have America get to know us individually. Yes, we have a good time together, but we all have completely different personalities,” explained Fletcher. “Like the Spice Girls, for example, they were four [sic] completely different individuals and we are the same way.”
“Maybe then, somebody would have a favorite. People would be like, ‘Oh, I love this about Paige or I love this about Cari or I love this about Dani or Hayley kind of thing,’ and that was something that didn’t happen. We just kind of seemed like four individuals that were just thrown together, but that’s not the case at all. We’re four different people with different qualities about ourselves.”
What are those qualities? Cari took the lead in describing her fellow Lakodas, calling Dani, who is the oldest member, “the one that you always go to when you need somebody to talk to about something or talk about a problem with,” Paige “extremely rebellious” with “no filter” and Hayley “your sneaker, jeans and T-shirt kind of girl…she just has a really chill personality…she just makes us laugh 24/7.”
What about Cari herself? According to Dani, “We like to call her our all-American girl…Cari is just very, very, very sociable. She can be everybody’s best friend and she’s a really old 17-year-old in a way.”
Learning to stand out
How could the group better have showcased its individual qualities?
Well, great advice was not always to be had from the judges. Though the group felt it got constructive criticism from teh judges (yes, even from Simon, who Ogle notes can “take it a little far sometimes”), they also seemed prone to receiving very mixed messages. There were debates about their choreography, their outfits and their genre selections. How could they have turned all the advice into something usable?
“The judges criticism and everything like that was something that we took into consideration each week. But everything that they said just kind of helped us evolve into what we are; like everything that L.A Reid did say was just something that we took into consideration for the future and things like that. It just helped us figure out who we are,” explained Fletcher.
Concerning all three eliminated groups this year, there had been discussion about how best to portray their personalities and backstories.
The Thanksgiving episode seemed to really underscore the difficulty. While contestants like Marcus Canty, Drew and Rachel Crow had opportunities to share emotional backstories, the Lakoda Rayne girls had to divide their time four ways, making it far harder to touch viewers’ hearts.
The girls did agree that the “time split” makes it hard to get over as individuals, although they did not necessarily see the sob story element as a factor.
Ogle noted, “All the other contestants really did have deep, deep, deep emotional background stories and our story was just kind of us coming together as a group and we gave thanks to the people who were really important in our lives. But I feel like that’s just as important as somebody who had overcome something really in their lives. Just because we didn’t have a story like that, I don’t think that was a reason that America didn’t connect with us.
“I just think it was because in our packages that were put on the show before we performed, we had to split up like two minutes between four people…I just feel like people weren’t able to get to know us enough because of that.”
For as challenging as connecting with viewers might have been, the humble Lakoda Rayne girls remain willing to take some of the blame. They, themselves, acknowledge that they were late to the party when it came to standing out on stage.
Confirmed Knights, “I think we started to get a voice maybe a little bit too late in the competition. We didn’t want to step on any toes. This was an incredible opportunity. We were working with absolutely the best of the best in the industry and it wasn’t until later that we came to realize that if we don’t start speaking up, we will not be heard.”
They’re no longer on “The X Factor,” but will Lakoda Rayne indeed be heard? The group has been interacting non-stop with its fans on social media and truly seems committed to making something of its unparalleled opportunity.
“The X Factor” returns with a new episode Wednesday at 8PM.