American Idol: Interviews With Eliminated Contestants

Last week I had the chance to jump on a conference call with the eliminated Idols from last week. Haeley Vaughn, Michelle Delamor, John Park, and Jermaine Sellers were all on the call. I’m going to post a “best-of” below. All of their answers are their exact quotes from the interview…so if there are grammatical errors, it’s not my fault.

First eliminated contestant: Haeley Vaughn

Q: There’s been a lot of conflicting advice from the judges…did you feel you were affected by that?

A: No, not really. I felt like the judges had really good comments and feedback to give me, and I’ll definitely learn from it and work on the stuff that they told me to work on.

Q: What’s next for you? Are you going back to school? Start working?

A: I’m definitely going to keep working on my career. I’m going to keep singing and hopefully, doors will open up for me. I’m a really big fan of Disney and Disney Channel. So hopefully, there’s something there that I can work on and I’m just going to keep working on my career and doing what I love to do.



Q: Is it hard to go up there and sing after watching the video of your Idol Journey?

A: Watching the video right before I had to sing was definitely hard. I was just thinking about my journey through the show and everything that I’ve done and how far I’ve made it, which was really emotional and then having to sing afterwards, oh, my gosh, was so hard. And I was just trying to get through the song and I really connected with the song the time I sang it last night and the lyrics really meant something to me.

Next Contestant: Michelle Delamor

Q: Were you upset that Kara was praising you, and then turned on you the next day? Was it shocking?

A: You know what, it was a little bit disappointing, but knowing myself, I’m really a perfectionist and I know that I didn’t do my best. I know Wednesday was not close to my best performance. So I understood where she was coming from. I was a bit disappointed that she had those things to say, but I couldn’t really—I couldn’t say that she was wrong for it because it wasn’t my best performance.

Q: After all was said and done, did you regret singing that Creed song?

A: I really did question it. As a matter of fact, I think part of what messed me up a little bit is that I questioned it before I got on that stage.

Q: What was your favorite moment on Idol?

A: You know what, working with Dorian. I’m sure you don’t recognize his name, but he worked with Michael Jackson. And if you saw This is It. He’s in the film. And I was like if I—I watched the film five times. And Michael Jackson’s my idol. He’s my inspiration. And so I watched it about five times and I was like one day when I become successful, I just pray to God that I’m able to work with this man. And when I walked into the room and I saw him there like I just started crying. I got so emotional because I felt like oh, my God, a dream of mine just came true. Like this is as close as I’ll ever get to Michael and he really like, he really helped take me to the next level. And that to me was the highlight of the whole Idol experience.

Click to read John Park, and Jermaine Sellers after the jump…

Next up…John Park

Q: What was the most memorable experience from the show?

A: Most memorable is just meeting the other contestants and really becoming good friends and also working with Rickey Minor and the band. I mean, just working with the top of the top crew and band and coaches. It was just incredible, just the whole, just meeting new people and meeting incredible people.

Q: What did you think when Simon said Purple Haze was going to get their lead singer back?

A: Well, he is basically saying that I might go home this weekend. He, of course, dramatizes so that people at home watch it and they can get a kick out of it. I mean, I don’t really mind it because I understand like where he’s coming from. That’s just how he is on TV and after the elimination happened and I sang my last song, he came up to me and he shook my hand and he said good job for coming this far. And so he’s not that mean a guy actually. Yes.

Q: What’s next?

A: Well, I’m going to head back to Chicago and see what kind of open doors there will be for me. And I don’t—just kind of wait it out and probably go back to school this upcoming quarter, which is happening in about two weeks. So I’ll just take some time off to decompress. And think about is performing really what I want to pursue? And of course, that will change as I get different offers from different people. Yes, so everything is really up in the air.

Next up: Jermaine Sellers

Q: Where you confused by the judges’ remarks?

A: I took it the best way that I possibly could. I mean, the thing about it is as an artist you have to stay true to yourself and when you stand true to yourself, it’s a certain way that I sang my whole entire life from a child on up and I kept pulling back. I did. I pulled back a lot because there was a lot more that I could have done, but with me doing it the way that I did it’s like I felt like if I pulled anymore back then I would be basically whispering to them. I’m a church singer.

Q: What was your favorite part of being on Idol?

A: The best part about it is just being there, being in that line first with 15,000 people, and meeting so many different people, just different personalities, and people from different states. It’s just the people and then making it to the top 20. It’s a blessing. That’s the best experience about it, just getting on that platform and being able to, not just sing to people, but to minister to them, too.

Like people don’t realize that the reason why I sang songs like Alida Adams and Marvin Gaye What’s Going On?, half of the reason why I did What’s Going On? right then and there at that time was because I felt like we’re not paying attention to what’s going on as far as Haiti, as far as Chile. We’re not paying attention to it. We’re spending time focusing on other stuff when we should be focusing on what’s actually going on in the world right now.

Q: What kind of artist do you see yourself as?

A: I see myself being a contemporary artist. My style is very much that what BeBe and Cece Winans were years and years ago, how they sang songs like “Heaven” and “I’m Lost Without You,” and it still was marketable to where you would see it on MTV or you would see it on BET. You would see it on basically, a show that doesn’t just show gospel stuff. It also shows R&B stuff. It’s that crossover market.

Q: Was your experience different than you expected?

A: The experience in general. What’s his name? Joe, I call him Jose, but Joe Munoz, when I seen him go home and he was so good, I said to myself I said okay, well, if somebody that good is going home right now, and I know I’m a good singer, too. My dad has been my biggest, biggest like fan. If somebody that good like Joe Munoz is going home, I know they’ll send me home.

So that was a shocker. Honestly, to see him go home and other people getting comments like oh, that was excellent. That was the best performance of the night. Stuff like that. And then, it’s like you know in the back of your mind, you’re thinking the same thing that Simon is thinking, and I love the fact that Simon was like, honest throughout the whole thing. He’s not just sitting here like playing with people. He’s just like look, I don’t know whose ears you’re listening with, but that’s not what I just heard.

Because then it’s like Michelle last night, for instance. You get somebody that critiques you good one night and then the next night you get a bad comment. So it’s very—it’s confusing.

—-

I want to thank them all for taking to time to hop on the call! Best of luck to you guys!