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- Idols in the News
- This Week on Idol
- Call with Eliminated Contestants
- Janell, Ashley, Joe, and Tyler Tell All
- Scott MacIntyre’s First Post-Idol Album
- Elliott Yamin’s earthquake scare in Chile: In his own words
- Jason Castro: wedding singer
- Jay Leno grills Simon Cowell about love and marriage
- Today in ‘Idol’: Eight girls, six spots; ex-Idols let the sunshine in
| Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST Many of your favorite American Idols have been in the news lately for upcoming albums, appearances, and more. Here are some of the Idols that have appeared in the news this week. Idols Featured on NOW CDs: Idols on Tour and Idol Appearances
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| Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST Tonight, the eight female semifinalists (Didi Benami, Crystal Bowersox, Lacey Brown, Katelyn Epperly, Siobhan Magnus, Paige Miles, Lilly Scott and Katie Stevens) will take the stage once again, singing LIVE for America at 8/7c. Then, its the guys turn tomorrow, Wednesday, March 10 at 9/8c as the eight male semifinalists (Lee Dewyze, Andrew Garcia, Todrick Hall, Casey James, Aaron Kelly, Alex Lambert, Michael Lynche and Tim Urban) perform LIVE in hopes of winning Americas vote. Tune in Thursday night to see Season 8 finalists <a href="http://www.americanidol.com/… read more
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| Call with Eliminated Contestants Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST The day after Haeley Vaughn, Michelle Delamor, John Park, and Jermaine Sellers were eliminated from the American Idol semifinalists, they opened up about their experiences on a press call. Something the contestants have been battling the first few weeks of live shows has been their nerves. Sixteen year old Haeley Vaughn said, The first week was really tough. We were all super nervous and scared and worried about our song choiceAnd nerves are always going to play a huge factor in what we do on the show. She explained that the nerves kind of settled down week two, but they were definitely still there, for me anyway. If I would have continued to be on the show, I think as the weeks went on, my nerves would have kind of gone away because I would have gotten more used to it, but theyll always be there. After Haeleys performance on Wednesday, Kara talked about Haeleys voice and the need for it to mature a bit. Haeley doesnt disagree, I think that more experience and more time working on my vocals would be good. I think experience is always better for someone, especially since Im only 16, and this is the first really big thing that Ive done ever. Ive never performed in front of millions of people before. Ive never even performed in front of 100. And so, I think its always … read more
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| Janell, Ashley, Joe, and Tyler Tell All Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST The morning after Janell Wheeler, Ashley Rodriguez, Joe Muoz and Tyler Grady were eliminated from Season 9 of American Idol, they opened up about their American Idol experience on a press call. Janell Wheeler was eliminated on the Top 24 results show, but has a positive outlook on the Idol experience and her future. Many of the semifinalists experience problems with song choice their first week out, and thats what Janell struggled with too. I think I knew exactly what [the judges] wanted from me, Janell said. I just was choosing to do it the second week. The first rehearsal with me and that song was a little more country; however, it lost a lot of its rugged sound and energy, so I did switch it back to the rocker version and I felt like it definitely pumped me up and helped me perform better. But I think that in order for me to really have secured a place to the next round, I should have gone ahead and brought the guitar out and performed a top 40 hit like American Boy, which I was definitely planning on doing next week. But I will definitely, as I progress in my future, I will be sticking with a style that I do best, which is so close to my Hollywood audition, the most memorable one, which was American Boy. Janells most memorable moment was … read more
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| Scott MacIntyre’s First Post-Idol Album Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST A year after inspiring audiences worldwide as a finalist on the eighth season of American Idol, Scott MacIntyre will release his first post-Idol CD, Heartstrings, on March 11. The album will be available on iTunes and at his website, www.scottmacintyre.com. The release date coincides with his return to American Idol on the March 11th results show, when he will take the stage to perform with Matt Giraud on the same evening that the Season 9 Top 12 are revealed. The first visually impaired finalist on American Idol, Scott was called an inspiration to the entire world through your commitment, through your talent by former judge Paula Abdul. All of his talents classically trained pianist, award-winning singer, composer and musician come to the fore on Heartstrings, which features a dozen original tracks: from the upbeat pop/rock of Stars, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and its lead single, Heartstrings, to intimate acoustic ballads like Autumn Leaves and The Sun Still Shines, to the humorous romp Ill Take Tom (MySpace Breakup Song). Scotts contagious spirit of optimism and heartfelt lyrics take the listener on an emotional journey of love and yearning, hardship and hope, from the perspective of someone who deeply understands the challenge of overcoming enormous adversity. Born in Redondo Beach, Californiaand having lived in Toronto, Canada; London, England; and now Scottsdale, ArizonaScott has been visually impaired since birth and started playing piano by ear at age three. At fourteen, he was admitted into Arizona State Universitys Barrett Honors College and Herberger College of Fine … read more
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| Elliott Yamin’s earthquake scare in Chile: In his own words Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST
Yamin was performing at the annual Competencia Internacional in Viña del Mar, the largest music festival and competition in Latin America, representing the United States with the song "Rock Around the Clock." He had just been cut from the seminfinals round and tweeted a semi-tirade about the show, which he called an "incredibly huge waste of time." Hours later, a terrified Elliott took it all back as he wrote of "utter chaos on the streets" as an 8.8-magnitude earthquake reverberated from the city of Concepcion, some 200 miles away. With the power out and aftershocks rattling the buildings regularly, Elliott and his fellow performers gathered in the street outside their hotel until morning, after which he became a go-to witness for several American media outlets, such as CNN's "Larry King Live." Over the next few days, we had intermittent contact with Elliott, who is a diabetic and was traveling with a limited supply of insulin. Assured that he was OK and finding his way home to Los Angeles, we waited until he returned Friday and had a moment to process and reflect upon the experience.. Here, in his own words and pictures, Elliott talks about his harrowing tale, the emotional highs and lows he experienced and the first thing he did when he finally made it back. . . .
So it was a panel of judges, most of whom are Latin American soap opera stars or singers, and they chose a song for each country to sing. Every night, there's 50,000 or 60,000 people there and my song was "Rock Around the Clock." I advanced to the first round, then the second, and I got cut in the semifinals.
To be honest, I wasn't having a good time. It just wasn't my cup of tea, I felt like it was very amateur and that my competing days were over after "American Idol." I had a blast performing, and, of course, I'll never phone it in, but I didn't like the whole scenario. Everything else about the trip was amazing until the earthquake happened. It was the last performance night, I'd been there six days already, and I got back to my hotel room at, like, 2:30 in the morning and was on Twitter talking about how I didn't like the competition when literally, the Chilean God saw my tweet and the building started shaking. The timing was so ironic. My room was on the seventh floor and what started off as a subtle sway turned into a pretty violent rumbling. The room was jerking every which way like King Kong had grabbed the building and started shaking it. It started getting crazier and crazier, then I got up, ran to the doorway and started yelling out into the hall. There was nobody there and I just felt like, I'm way up here and I have to get to the staircase and get out of this building. I stayed up there maybe 60 seconds and then took off running for the staircase. I'm thinking about everybody I love, yelling and basically jumping down whole flights of stairs. The lights were flickering on and off, pictures were falling off the hallway walls, it was really an apocalyptic scene that felt like a movie or an attraction at Universal Studios. It was a really surreal thing to go through. I was running on shaky ground just trying to get away. In the beginning, I didn't think anything of sharing my experience on Twitter. My phone happened to be working and we were letting people know that we were OK. It went dead pretty quickly because I was letting people use my phone to call home. Remember, these were musicians from all over the world who'd never experienced an earthquake and were just scared. And I guess in tweeting about what was going on, it played a significant role in the early flow of information in terms of what we were seeing in Chile; because it was 3:20 in the morning on the East Coast. The next thing you know, my phone starts ringing off the hook with requests to talk about what was happening, so rather inadvertently, I turned into a reporter.
Still, I learned how truly universal the language of music is. Kicking it with all these musicians who share the same passion as me — Brits, Italians, this really cool French jazz singer, Mexicans, Colombians. … We had these jam sessions huddled outside. And the earthquake brought us that much closer. About 13 hours after the quake hit, a whole group of us were bused to Santiago because they had power there and their aftershocks weren't as severe or happening as frequently. Also, being that we're foreigners and it's the capital, all of our embassies were there, and we were closer to the airport. They came up with a plan to drive everybody to Mendoza, in Argentina, the closest airport city. It was a 10-hour trip through the Andes on what are called "death roads." The Andes are huge and colossal. It's like being so close to the San Gabriel Mountains in Pasadena, but so much bigger and taller. I decided to stay in Santiago because I had a good feeling that the airport would open up soon and I didn't feel comfortable being in a bus on a road deemed not the safest. So most of the group went and I stayed for almost six days, pretty much confined to my room in the hotel because I was a bit scared to go anywhere and I wanted to be glued to the announcements. I had a couple of meltdowns. In the very beginning, I kind of lost it. I called my brother, who deserves a shout-out because a lot of the news agencies were reaching him first. I was just in tears. I couldn't keep it together — my chest was caved in, I felt like my blood pressure was through the roof and I couldn't breathe right. I knew it was from the nerves and what I had just been through; it just messed me up. On the third day we were in Santiago, I had another little meltdown because there were all these angles and possibilities to get us out of there, and every time something felt promising, it fell through. Like we had reached out to the USO who were trying to help and it didn't work out. Again, it's the not knowing and, being a diabetic, I was worried about my insulin, so yeah, I lost it. I wear an insulin pump and I always bring an extra week's worth of supplies, just in case I need more or one of my tubings isn't working. Going on six days, I was getting kind of low, and not knowing when we were leaving, I got a little nervous and wrote a tweet about it. I just said that I was worried — that if your blood sugar gets too high, you could go into a coma, but I wasn't tweeting like I was in dire straits. All of a sudden, the media makes it out like I'm buried under rubble and I can't get to my insulin! Perez Hilton made it sound like I was on my deathbed. There were actually people on the ground in Chile helping me out, and I ended up getting more supplies that I never had to use. But just being a diabetic, I kind of freaked.
I travel so much, and once I'm on the flight, I'm cool, but the whole preamble of being in the airport and how the TSA treats you, no one's ever happy going through that. But having a ticket in my hand and knowing there was a 99.9% chance that I would be going home, it was one time when I was so carefree and happy to be there. The Jewish holiday of Purim is about celebrating miracles, which is exactly what that Chile trip was. That none of us got hurt, that we weren't in a devastated area or had to see any crazy … and how we made it through this 8.8-magnitude quake and lived to tell about, it truly was a very Purim-like miracle. When I got back to L.A., I went to Katsuya in Encino. It's one of my favorite sushi restaurants and I go there once about a week with a group of friends. I was a little inebriated since it was quite the celebration dinner. But it was cool just to be around friends and to share my story. It's good to talk about. It was a crazy, dramatic experience. Even parts of Sunday, I still felt like the ground was moving. And on Saturday, I tried to go see "Alice in Wonderland," and the noise from the surround sound triggered little things you'll always remember — what came through the speakers was bringing me back to that earthquake noise. It was weird. I have a feeling some of this experience will end up in my music. It's not like I'm planning on it, but I'm pretty positive it will come out naturally. It'll definitely inspire me. It already has. I was being a stupid, spoiled American complaining about the festival when the quake struck. And in an instant, I worried if we were actually going to live. How it changed was so abrupt that it makes you think: There's so much more important things in life to be upset about or mad about. – As told to Shirley Halperin Follow @IdolTracker on Twitter Photos, from top: Elliott Yamin performs at Competencia Internacional in Viña del Mar (2); Yamin with children from the Isabel orphanage in Luanda, Angola; Yamin in Santiago, Chile. Credit: Elliott Yamin Related: Elliott Yamin rattled by Chile earthquake
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| Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST "American Idol" viewers loved Jason Castro's ukulele-led rendition of "Over the Rainbow" back when he performed it during season 7, and apparently the producers of "The Bachelor" dug it as well. During Monday night's very special "Bachelor" wedding of single-dad second-guesser Jason Resnick and former department store buyer Molly Malaney, Jason performed the song along with one of his own originals, "That's What I'm Here For," against the beautiful — and stormy — backdrop of Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes; that's hopefully not a sign of things to come. The wedding singer gig was an appropriate pairing considering that Jason himself is a newlywed (not to mention he has an album coming out on April 13). He and longtime sweetheart Mandy Mayhall tied the knot the day after New Year's. Their wedding song? Etta James' "At Last." "That was the song my wife wanted," Jason told IdolTracker last month. "She'd dreamed of dancing to that song. My wedding was the best. Better than I ever imagined it could have been." Read more of our recent chats with Jason Castro here, and check out "The Bachelor's" magic moment below. – Shirley Halperin Follow @IdolTracker on Twitter
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| Jay Leno grills Simon Cowell about love and marriage Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST Simon Cowell was on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on Monday. The interview was revealing in a way that went way beyond Cowell's gaping neckline. Leno grilled Cowell about whether or not he'd been grumpier than usual this year while judging "American Idol." Cowell said no, but watching back a clip of himself ripping into 16-year-old Haeley Vaughn, who was eliminated last week, he admitted that he had been "maybe a teensy weensy bit more grumpy" this season, adding: "Now I have to apologize to that girl, whatever her name was." (Interestingly, Cowell also told Leno that he rarely watches the show because it upsets him to hear what he says to contestants.) Leno also asked Cowell about the reported friction between him and new judge Ellen DeGeneres. Cowell said that, while he and DeGeneres get on fine, he did "take it quite personally" when his new colleague shifted her seat away from him to the opposite end of the table. He said he was joking, but it didn't entirely sound that way. However, one hopes he wasn't serious when he predicted that, since DeGeneres appears to be moving back his way again, she'll likely be on his lap by the end of the season. "That's what normally happens," Cowell quipped. "That's kind of what happened with Paula. She ended up in my lap — off the show as well." As for his replacement, Cowell said, "I basically advised them to find the worst possible person, because you don't want to leave and have the show successful after you leave." Which probably explains his endorsement of Perez Hilton. But the big news? Cowell all but confirmed the engagement rumors, hemming and hawing and blushing and giggling and even sweating his way through a painfully attenuated non-denial. Ultimately, asked where the engagement might have taken place, he admitted, "I bought her the ring in London." The wedding will happen, he parried, "within the next 10 years." But the highlight of the interview was when Leno spontaneously invited Cowell's girlfriend (er … fiancee), Mezhgan Hussainy, to join them on the set. She gamely squished in next to Cowell in his chair, silently enduring this exchange: Leno: And she is also your makeup person. Cowell: Oh, yeah, I always said if I was going to get engaged, I would get engaged to a makeup artist. Leno: So when you're in bed, if something — hang on — and she can touch up. Cowell: Oh, for sure. At least three touch-ups a night. Audience: Oooooooh! Cowell [flashing an embarrassed smile]: Not that kind! It's a different kind of touch-up. [Takes drink of water.] Leno: After you're married, the number of touch-ups a night will drop. Two touch-ups a week, and then it gets to … At which point Hussainy took her leave. And really, who can blame her? – Amy Reiter
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| Today in ‘Idol’: Eight girls, six spots; ex-Idols let the sunshine in Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:13 PM PST
On the West Coast (barring any unforeseen hospitalizations), the eight remaining girls — Place the shoo-in (Ms. Bowersox) and fan favorites (Siobhan, Katelyn, Lilly) to the side, and it could mean the danger zone for former frontrunners Didi Benami and Katie Stevens, but more likely it'll be Paige and Lacey, who both delivered mediocre performances last week, who'll be going home. Tonight's episode is (thankfully) only an hour long (Fox, 8 p.m.). Meanwhile, on the East Coast, former "Idol" finalists Ace Young and Diana Degarmo make their Broadway debut in "Hair" Tuesday night at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Ace plays Berger, the head of the hippies, while Diana is Sheila, love interest to Kyle Riabko's Claude. Check out some rehearsal footage below and let the sunshine in. – Shirley Halperin Follow @IdolTracker on Twitter Bottom row, from left to right: Crystal Bowersox, Katelyn Epperly, Lilly Scott
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