As fans of The Voice will surely know, finalist Tyler James was a close friend of tragic singer Amy Winehouse, and her death saw him having to make some life changing decisions after he descended into a depression that left him struggling to stop binge drinking.

However, he came out the other side from his grief, and though of course he still misses Amy, he has previously stated that being on The Voice has saved his life, both metaphorically and possibly literally.

But today, Entertainmentwise have an interview with Tyler in which he claims that Amy would have “thought I was mental” for trying out for The Voice.

He explained, “The record industry is a hard industry to get into. Lot’s of people come up to me in the street and they think because I was friends with Amy that I should have been sorted, but it doesn’t work like that.”

He added, “And my friendship with Amy was a friendship and had nothing to do with her career…

“It’s not ‘Oh Amy can we do a track together so you can sort my life out for me’.”

Tyler went on to say, “This show, and shows like this, the kind of exposure that you get, the platform that it is, you can’t get that from anything else.

“If you go to a record company now and you’ve got good stuff.

“It’s not like it was seven years ago, where they’ll just take a chance on you because they thought you are really talented.”

And when asked what Amy would think about him being on The Voice if she was still here, Tyler said, “I think originally, if I told her I was going for it, she’d have thought I was mental.

“She had the same kind of view that I had of shows like this, which is just how do people do it? How do you get up and sing and be judged in that way.”

However, Tyler reckons that Amy would have loved to be a coach on The Voice. He said, “I think maybe on something like this [she would have done it]…

“If someone can sing she’s got all the time in the world for them.

“She would love Bo, she’d love Vince, and she’d like so many people on this show.”

And finally, when asked what lies in the immediate future for him after The Voice, Tyler said, “I cannot wait to get in the studio, with a pen and paper and keyboard and write my *ss off! I’m a happy boy.”