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Friday, May 2, 2008
5/2: Clay Aiken interview, ratings update, song choice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Those Clay Aiken fans have been waiting for this since I’ve been teasing it. But his first album of originals since 2003, “On My Way Here” comes out Tuesday. (The Claymate crew will be at Manuel’s Tavern, 602 N. HIghland Ave., Atlanta, at 8;30 p.m. Monday for an album release party.)
Clay is definitely the gabby sort. I had a lengthy list of questions to ask him for my 15 minutes, including several from Clay fans I solicited. But I only got in a handful of my own before the publicist said time was up. We spoke on April 23, a couple of weeks before his final “Spamalot” show on Broadway, which is Sunday.
What’s the coolest part about doing “Spamalot”?
This deal was for 18 weeks. I really thought I was going to hate it by now. [He then compared it to school and how the third quarter is such a drag.] I’m in the third quarter. And I’m not miserable! I’m not! I’m enjoying it. This show is funny. It’s a little different every night. It’s always fresh. At the same time, the people I work with are unreal… I was worried they’d hate me. I came off a reality show! I didn’t pay my dues. i didn’t have to audition. But they’ve been warm and inviting. I’ve been thrilled. I’m not going to say I’ll shed a tear, but I’ll miss it a little bit. I’ll miss the people. I’ve made friends I’ll have for a long time.
What was the toughest part of doing Broadway?
Everything has to be precise. You can’t change anything. But the hardest thing for me the first few weeks was not looking into the audience. I’m so used to playing for the audience and looking at them. At concerts, you have a spotlight on you so you can only see the first two rows. In this show, you can see the first 15 to 20 rows. And for me, it takes energy to be another person. I think I’ve gotten it down.
But it was some work to be able to do that. The reason we did this show versus others because it was work. Most other shows were about singing, no dancing, less acdting. This one was so far out in left field. I had to learn a British accent! It took some training to go from a Southern redneck to proper British!
So do you sing much at all?
It’s comedic. The song that I do is actually a patter song. It’s spoken though they changed it in a couple of places so I sing some notes and do my thing. Still, it was a challenge to do. That’s why we chose it. I wanted to expand myself, something people wouldn’t expect. Maybe that’s why I’m not bored. It’s so different!
I saw you at Chastain last summer and yes, you interacted with the crowd a lot.
I’m constantly doing that. I stop the show to talk to people.
I remember you commenting a lot about the bugs flying around.
Forget bugs. In Asheville. N.C., we had bats! Those are rodents with wings! And the moths were so big, one flew down the tops of one of my background singers. We had a bit of fun with that!
Why has it been so long since you did a full album of originals?
The record label latched on to me doing a Christmas album. It kind of made sense. It worked beautifully for whatever reason. The truth is, we ain’t radio people. Clay Aiken and the radio don’t happen as easily as Kelly Clarkson or Chris Daughtry. They wanted me to do an album with songs they could sell on TV. Radio is like an advertisement for your album. They thought they could sell Clay Aiken songs for commercials. So I did mostly covers. It ended up being a product I liked quite a bit though there was some resistance from the fans. They call me the next Barry Manilow but at least he has his own music. I wanted stuff that was mine whether it gets played on the radio or not. We went at this saying, that’s not a priority. I don’t want to think about doing radio friendly songs.
Look-I’m not top 40. I’m not cool enough to be on there. If you walk into a nightclub and they put on Clay Aiken music, I hope they’ll run out.
How about soft rock stations?
The “lite” stations? We might have a shot there. We are trying to do AC [adult contemporary] stations. I spent five years trying to be a politician. That’s stupid. We obviously have sold enough, I’m able to be comfortable to do what we want to do. We’re fortunate to have people come to concerts without airplay. Let’s do what feels right. That’s really all that matters.
Do you think your first single “On My Way Here” can do well on radio?
The label thinks so. We never tried to find a single. We used to try to do that. We tried and tried. Nothing worked. We do things that are good for me, that sounds believable. If you saw the show the last time, I did a bit of “Sexyback.” It was totally a joke, totally tongue in cheek. If I tried to sing those songs sincerely and put it on the radio, that’d be a caricature. I know that. Give me a cool song. I start singing it, it’s not cool anymore.
What’s different about this vs. your first album?
I used to not care about lyrics. I could have sung about watermelons as long as it’s pretty. This is the first time we looked at lyrics. I wanted every single song to connect with me lyrically. Some of them are songs that don’t necessarily connect with me directly but a majority of people will experience.
We produced a very diverse sounding album. If some of these songs were sung by someone else, they might end up on Q100… Lyrically, it’s all connected.
I have time for one more question. I just saw you on ‘American Idol Rewind,’ the week you did “Grease” in that red leather jacket. Good memory or bad?
[He laughed.] That’s the one week I’ve wiped out of my memory completely! I remembered “To Love Somebody.” That was great! The truth is, the little hip thing I did. [He did a hip thrust during “Grease.”]. That’s a really good connection about what we were just talking about. That was not cool.
About the jacket - we always went shopping with a stylist and we had a budget. We can spend so much money each week. I wanted to wear stuff that looked good but not too edgy. I’m not edgy. You can’t make me look like Justin Timberlake. The stylist kept pushing me. That week, I gave in. I bought this red leather jacket. I had never spent money on clothes. I was really cheap. So I had some money stored. I spent $2,000 on that jacket and wore it. It didn’t work.
In other “Idol” news:
-The Tuesday episode, at 25.1 million, was only 6 percent lower than last year. But the results show, at 22.8 million, showed the biggest discrepancy of the season to a comparable episode at 28.8 million a year ago, when Phil Stacey and Chris Richardson were eliminated in the first double elimination since the first season. That’s 21 percent lower than a year earlier. Most years, the results show is about 10 percent lower in ratings than the performance show. That’s kind of understandable. The results show is 55 minutes filler. But last year for reasons I wasn’t ever able to fathom, the results show did better than the performance show most weeks.
-Barack Obama read the top 10 list last night on “The Late Show With David Letterman,’ which were surprising facts about Barack Obama. No. 2? “This has nothing to do with the Top Ten, but what the heck is up with Paula Abdul?”
-Entertainment Weekly got up close and personal last week with “Idol” to watch rehearsals. The focus? Song choice.
”I’ve had people going into fetal positions over song choice,” says vocal coach Debra Byrd. ”The judges say song choice, song choice, song choice constantly, so they’re in agony all week over it.”
The article’s take on Archuleta: his dad is indeed heavily involved. Brooke won the tiebreaker pick-a-name-out-of-a-hat for “I’m a Believer.” They couldn’t condense “Holly Holy” properly to 90 seconds. He got rid of songs with inappropriate lyrics for him and settled on “Sweet Caroline” and the cleverly patriotic pick “America.”
Jason had a brother and friend visit, taking time away from practicing. And when he met with Neil Diamond, as we saw on screen, he didn’t know the song well enough to get constructive criticism. “I’m kind of ready to go home,” Castro said. We could tell!
Syesha struggles over song choice. It’s interesting to read how she agonizes over the choices. Simon says she’s very Broadway. We knew that, too!
When Cook picked “All I Really Need is You,” Byrd said it’s boring but he thought it had a “November Rain” feel to it. Diamond liked him. Simon says “I’d like him to win it.”
Finally, Brooke is having a tough time because songs are either about women or alcohol. She picked “I’m a Believer” over Archuleta in the hat and was still doubtful about it at first though she eventually came around on it, even after Simon dubbed it a “nightmare.”
