Season 6 Final 2 contestants, Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis, gave media interviews on Friday. You can listen to the entire interviews on podcasts downloadable from Starry Constellation Magazine– Blake and Jordin. USA Today’s Idol Chatter blog has short recaps on Jordin’s interviews, here and here. And Blake’s here and here.
A side note: Phil Stacey has been cleared by the Navy to join the American Idol tour. Good for him.
Click on the jump for more highlights from the interviews.
- Jordin would like to win.
- Blake approaches the competition like a producer would.
- Blake has known Maroon 5 for about 7 years. He called them and asked for a “solid” and they said he could sing anthing of theirs that he wanted.
- At the time Idol began, Jordin was working on three country songs for a CD. She helped write the songs herself. She would love to re-work them for a post-Idol album.
- Jordin is comfortable being in the limelight–she spent her childhood watching her Dad, NFL cornerback Philipe Sparks, deal with celebrity.
- Blake picked Jordin and Gina Glocksen to take the whole competition at the very beginning.
Blake highlights:
- Blake has been beat-boxing since 1998-99, but he says he’s been doing it “subconsciously my whole life. After I saw someone do it, it became conscious, and I could do it after that.”
- Blake says he looks at the competition “as not a competition.” He tries to go out and have fun each week.
- He approaches his performances as a “re-mix” competition from a producers standpoint. When he “digs into a song on theme weeks, I want to remix it, I don’t want to do it like the original…I think that’s helped me.”
- Why should the viewers vote for him? “For all those people out there who like to use their imagination, be creative every day…vote for me.”
- What would the difference be between winning this week and not? “I don’t know anymore, I’ve never looked at it as a competition, I’ve always looked at it as….because I’m such an eclectic artist…I’ve just tried to represent myself this whole time, and I think I’ve done that, and I think my support from the show and all the fans of me on the show have seen that, that’s why I’ve gone this far. I’ve never looked at this as a competition, so I’ve won regardless. I feel like I won when I got into the Top 10. I’ve already reached my goal…”
- What kind of a CD would he like to cut post Idol? “I love good pop music like…a lot of the stuff coming out of the 80s…I definitely have this more dance, electro kind of feel to my music, I listen to a lot of electronica music, so definitely more of a dance vibe to it. ….definitely a dance flair, but I have a softer jazzy side that not a lot of people have got to see on the show. I’ve been writing a lot of music for the last 7 years and I have a lot of different tracks inspired by so many different areas of music. It’s going to have like a pop, kind of electro jazzy field to it…kind of hip hop…loop based, good vocal arrangements…some beatboxing…an electronic mix to it so each song flows into the next.
- The story about getting permission to sing the Maroon 5 song. “That’s a funny story. I’ve known them for about 6 years, about 2 years ago I had lost my cell phone–was stolen–and I had lost touch with them. I was really good friends with Ryan the drummer. I just happened to run into someone who was dating him–actually someone I went to high school with. I got reconnected with them about a month ago. I didn’t ask then but I called them last week and asked if the boys would pull out a solid for me. I called them the night before we had to pick our songs, and they said I could sing anything I wanted to. That was really a solid from them…getting back in touch with them was really a good experience. I’ve been a huge fan since they’ve been “Carla’s Flower’s” back 7 years ago before they were Maroon 5.
- Jordin and Gina was his pick to win this thing in the beginning.
- There will definitely be some beatboxing Tuesday night.
- He says the beatboxing is “a big part of me.” He says it’s “50/50 with the singing.” He’s been singing since he was 5. He says, “Each week, when I get a piece of music, it really depends on that piece of music.”
- About Sir Mix-A-Lot, “I met him 4 or 5 years ago. I used to MC a lot of hip hop and rave style parties, he was playing it…I beatboxed…I opened for him…I was the main MC. He wanted to get on board when I came into town…that was pretty neat.
- He thinks Jordin is a record label’s dream, because she’s so young, “She knows who she is, but she’s still trying to find herself at the same time…she works well with other people.” About what kind of album she could produce, “I see her making a really poppy album, she’s got a little rocker in her as well…and a little hip-hop influence as well.”
- People he would like to work with: “Dark Child, Dan Automater, Robin Thicke’s producer.
- How he arranges songs, “I use this great program called Ableton Live…you can stick loops that you already have made in there and…slow the temp down…put it where you want to…it’s really great for me ’cause I can take the original song and cut it up, every song on the show is 1:30 to 2 minutes is all they allow us each week. It’s hard to arrange a great song that is already great, and making it yours, and cutting it down…you’ve really got to dig into the piece and listen really closely…I mix in beats…I have a portable studio with me, I got a couple guitars, and my keyboard and my midi controller and all my stuff, I just go in, make a couple of synth lines if I feel it needs it…it depends on how I hear it…I look at it from a producers viewpoint. The three songs I’ve done the most to were ‘Keep Me Hanging On, ” Bon Jovi, and then the second Barry Gibb song I did.”
Jordin highlights:
- She played softball and basketball in 8th grade.
- About winning, Jordin says, “I really do want to win, but at the same time, if I don’t, it’s not going to be the end of the world, it’s not going to be, “Oh my gosh, I’m never going to sing again or anything…I would be happy if I won and I would be happy if Blake won, so I think it’s pretty cool. I’m just glad to be a part of it, and that I made it this far.
- About Simon’s remark that she sounded “old” last week: “Simon’s comment’s always stay with you, so I guess yes [on trying to sound younger this week], at the same time, I can’t really base what I’m going to do off of that…he says what he feels, and I understand what he’s saying, it was an older song…but I wanted to sing it really badly. I loved it. Next week I am going to go with, I have a more youthful song in my repertoire that I’m going to pull out next week…I’m really excited for next week.”
- Have there been any tense moments? “I try to take what comes along with a grain of salt. I try to let criticism roll off my back…take what I can…everything that happens, happens for a reason. They have to make a great TV show, [when the producers made it look like she was out on IGB night]. Afterwards we were all laughing about it.
- Stress handlers: reading, eating pickles (she loves them) talking to friends.
- Hair and clothes for next week: She’s thinking of straightening her hair again this week–it’ll be easier to do different styles for the costume changes. She’ll be wearing a lot of really nice dresses.
- She was not allowed to answer a question about the coronation song she’ll be singing.
- Jordin says the Nicole Miller dress she wore for country week (she sang “Broken Wing”) was already sold out on the West coast by the time the East coast feed ended.
- At the time Idol started, she was working on her second CD. She had been working on 3 songs. After Idol, she would love to take those songs and try and “turn the music a little towards what I’m liking now….they are all more country based…I love country music…I’d have to tweak it a little bit. I helped write them, it would be cool to tweak them a little bit.”
- Why should people vote for her? “I’m very, very strong willed, and this is what I want to do, what I have wanted to be doing for so long. If people did vote for me, I could represent it well if I did actually won. It would be amazing, I would love to win. I don’t know…just vote for me if you like me.”
- She loved meeting Martina McBride, because she loves her music. And she loved meeting Gwen Stefani, because “everybody my age listens to her.” The person who gave the best advice, “had to be Jennifer Lopez, she just made us feel so relaxed…she said, if you can give out the emotions in a song, that’s all that matters. If one person feels the music, then you’ve done your job…she was one of the sweetest people I think I’ve ever met.”
- What is her strategy going into the finale? “Blake and I are just two totally different singers…he’s an amazing performer and he’s so entertaining and…he’s just great…I’m really honored to be in the finale with him. I don’t really have a strategy…any strategy if I was to call it that would be to give all that I can give, I know that sounds so cliched…I’m going to try to do my best, and hopefully people like the songs that I picked and whatever happens on Wednesday happens.”
- Advice for kids who want to be where she is right now, “Don’t give up, I didn’t think that I would make it at all…you never know if you don’t try. Trying out has been one of the greatest things that’s ever happened because now, I’m actually here…keep going, and if you want something, just work hard at it.”
- Was she surprised that Melinda left the competition? “When it was down to the three of us, it could have gone any way…I was so sad to see her leave, but at the same time, she is gonna be totally fine. We were talking about it, and she was having an amazing night, and I was just looking at her with surprise and she said, ‘It’ll be OK, it’ll be fine, ” and at the same time I knew that ’cause she is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met and she is an amazing performer and I feel very blessed to be in the finale with Blake because I thought it was actually going to be me going home.”
- Past Idol contestants she looks up to: “I love Kelly Clarkson, she is the first Idol, and the way her career has gone, it has gone so amazingly well for her…and she still manages to stay out of the tabloids and she seems so amazing and I love how she has a whole bunch of different genres in her albums and that she isn’t anybody but herself, so I would love to do something like that. Carrie Underwood also has an amazing career.
- Her dad’s (NFL football player, Felipe Sparks) celebrity helped her deal with being in the limelight for the first time.
