Devyn Rush looks to conquer the world with love, yoga, and music

by Bill Palmer

When the year began, Devyn Rush was a singing waitress working her way through the ranks of American Idol. Now she’s a yoga instructor and child advocate who just happens to be working on her debut album. That evolution won’t come as a surprise, however, to those who know her.

“Today I taught three classes,” the New Yorker says of her yoga schedule which, spanning five days a week, is now essentially a full time gig. That schedule is being interrupted this week by a nine-day jaunt to San Francisco punctuated by an event called Women Rock It in which she aims to help inspire women to “get out of their own way in a male-driven business society.”

Things won’t slow down after she gets back to the east coast, however. “The following day after I get back, I’m going to Massachusetts to do another teacher training.” This time it’s yoga for the benefit of women and children who come from domestic violence.

“Yoga is very accessible for kids,” she explains. “I want them to have the poses in their bodies, so a really fun way to teach kids is to give them animal poses. A lot of the poses are named after animals anyway, so I use that to my advantage. And they love it. They love downward dog.”

The youthful yoga efforts tie into Devyn’s anti-bullying campaign. “Once you start to get to the age of nine, that’s when your brain starts changing rapidly and going into this pre-pubescent phase. That’s when the judgment starts to seep in. So that’s why I think the kids need to have yoga and anything that’s in their body and in their minds early on so they never feel like it’s weird.”

“Everything that I’m doing ties in together. It’s funny, I have a lot of conversations: How do songwriting and yoga work together? Devyn, you have to focus. I am focused. I’ve noticed the music industry has changed so much. And for me to get a record deal the way that I want to, and for me to go multi-platinum the way that I want to, I have to start a revolution on my own. This is something that I whole heartedly believe in, that you can’t give somebody something that you don’t have. If you don’t have self-love, you ain’t giving love to anybody else whole heartedly. So I want to teach people how to love themselves. I want to instill that in people early on, because there are too many adults that walk around unhappy.”

That’s a long way from when the year began and she was trying to win on a television show. So is Devyn Rush, with all her do-gooder efforts, finding any time for her own well-being? Turns out they’re one and the same. “I’m doing exactly what I want to do. Every day I’m loving my life a little bit more.”

DevynRush.com • Twitter

X Factor: judges Simon and Paula mean half American Idol, half ratings

by Bill Palmer

X Factor USA is half American Idol and half new territory, and so far that’s translating to half the ratings. Simon Cowell thought he had the formula right for delivering a new musical talent competition which starts with what America originally loved about Idol and adds in splashes of what the world loves about the various international iterations of X-Factor. The show sees Simon pairing himself with fellow original Idol judge Paula Adbul along with two new judges while expanding Idol’s age limits in both directions and allowing for auditions which are less strictly music-focused while being more entertainment-focused overall. But so far, the ratings just aren’t there. And that begs the question of whether it’s the similarities to early Idol, or the differences, which are the problem…

The similarities run long and deep: Simon and Paula are teamed with LA Reid who, like Randy Jackson, is a seasoned record producer. The show travels the country in its early episodes, auditioning contestants who run the gamut from promising to awful to hilariously awful, and picking a few from the former group to join them in the next round. There’s even a second female judge, most commonly referred to thus far as “not Paula,” similar to Idol’s middle seasons. On the whole, the first two episodes have felt about as entertaining as the start to the typical Idol season. So where are the ratings? Part of the issue may be simple overload. In past years, two thirds of a year went by between the end of an Idol season and the beginning of the next. Here, Idol viewers are being asked to be interested in the concept again just a few months after Idol’s season wrapped. There’s also the fact that X-Factor is airing in the fall, something Idol never did. While Idol’s early-year debut meant that TV viewers had already settled in on which TV series they were or weren’t going to watch that season, leaving openings for Idol episodes, X-Factor’s fall debut has to compete with season premieres of episodic series along with the debuts of new TV series. There’s also the fact that American Idol’s ratings had been falling steadily for years, even while Simon and Paula were on the show…

That leaves one to wonder whether America is simply tired of the concept. None of the past several Idol winners has gone on to (yet) have a significant music career in terms of sales; some have opined that Idol’s relevance ended the moment Kris Allen was handed the victory over heavily favored Adam Lambert, pointing to an ever-growing schism between the show’s overall audience (spanning nationwide) and its most active voters (skewing heavily towards conservative regions such as the south and midwest). Is X-Factor now paying the price for Idol’s increasing irrelevance? Or perhaps it’s the fact that even after Simon and Paula departed, Idol didn’t quite die as some had expected. The addition of new judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez has breathed some degree of new life into Idol, and proved that a Simon-less Idol could work on some level. Now Cowell, who’s been off the air in the U.S. for a year and half, is attempting to re-create old magic. It’s way too early to write off X-Factor based on the disappointing ratings of a mere one week, as positive or negative buzz among those who did tune in will dictate the size of the second-week audience and will set the ratings tone for the rest of the season one way or the other.

David Cook unsure if he’d win American Idol with J-Lo, Steven Tyler

by Bill Palmer

David Cook doesn’t know whether he would have won American Idol like he did back in 2008 if his judging panel back then had consisted of current judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez instead of Simon Cowell and the gang. “I’ll be the first to admit this judging panel is different,” Cook tells Beatweek of the differences between the 2008 and 2011 iterations of the television show which launched his career. Having revisited Idol during the latest season to perform new single The Last Goodbye from his album This Loud Morning, Cook got a look at the current judges in action and concluded that “they were probably across the board more nurturing than Simon, Paula, and Randy were. Not to say that they didn’t offer constructive criticism, but there was certainly more of it.”

So would David Cook have been able to defeat fellow contestants like David Archuleta if J-Lo and Aerosmith’s frontman had been critiquing him on a daily basis? “I’d say maybe not, only because the negative critiques I got from Simon and Randy,” adding that the criticism “lit a fire under me all the time.” He explains that “if the judges had been any nicer I may not have felt as challenged and I may not have pushed myself as hard as I did.”

He added, however, that “I can’t remember if Paula was ever anything but nice to me.” Here’s Beatweek’s full 2011 cover story interview with David Cook.

Devyn Rush interview: singing waitress finds zen after American Idol

by Bill Palmer

The “singing waitress” from this season of American Idol has changed vocations. Since her exit from the show, Devyn Rush has begun work on her debut album while also pursuing a career as a yoga instructor – and the latter is anything but a fallback option. The whirlwind of the past few months has seen her writing breakup songs, taking an unusual route to fund her record, being a “Big Sister” to a twelve year old, getting her yoga certification, and taking ownership of the song which ultimately triggered her Idol exit.

“When I got cut from American Idol it was really devastating and shocking,” she says of her December departure despite having been considered an early standout. “It seemed like the best thing I could do was to convert all the of negative energy that I was feeling into something positive and keep going.” After flirting with the trendy Kickstarter project for funding the album she’s looking to release, the current New York City resident ended up instead returning to her home town of New Hope, Pennsylvania to put on a show in order to seek local funding instead.

The songs which Devyn has been cranking out, from And Love Me to Psycho, have tended to be of the breakup variety of late. In fact her live performances of the latter have been spliced with a cover version of the most popular breakup song of the year, Cee-Lo Green’s Forget You. The fact that it happens to be the same song which represented the end of her Idol hopes, she says, is a coincidence, as evidenced by the fact that she’d been performing it in her own live shows prior to doing so on Idol. But nonetheless she’s since seized the opportunity: “I remember the first show that I did after I got cut from American Idol I was like let’s do it, let me redeem myself.”

So what led her toward becoming a yoga instructor even while pursuing her musical dreams? “I started doing yoga about a year ago and I fell in love with it because I went into it for a fitness routine and then all the sudden I felt good and I was like oh my god, if I do this, I’m going to feel good. I can make myself feel awesome all the time. And then as I went to classes I developed this incredible respect for the teachers. All of the things that they say in class, all of these metaphors, all of these inspirational things, how they seem so together, and I really wanted to teach. Everything that I do in my life is on this path going toward my music career, so I’m still on the same path as I am when I’m in a meeting at a record company. It’s just that this is what I do to unwind and this is what I do to stay grounded and focused. When I’m done in a yoga class I feel so focused and ready to take on my music career.”

Even while pursuing her dual career path, Devyn is taking the time to mentor a twelve year old through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Her decision to carve out the extra time for it relates back to the trials and tribulations of her own childhood. “I was made fun of a lot in middle school and it really turned my whole world upside down because middle school is this very fragile time where you’re becoming aware of yourself and you’re becoming aware of other people, you’re starting to judge yourself and other people, which is something that doesn’t really happen earlier in life. You’re kind of in the zone up until a certain point where you kind of develop this new awareness for things. When I was in middle school my life took a really negative turn when I started being made fun of. It wasn’t until high school that I started to find a way through fitness actually to stop being made fun of because my self esteem went up as soon as I started exercising and focusing on myself in that way. I decided I wanted to be a big sister because I wanted to help somebody through all of her ups and downs, be there with somebody for all her ups and downs. My little sister Kelsey is twelve and we’ve been a match for about a year and a half. Kelsey is, I don’t say it lightly, she is the most inspiring person I’ve ever met in my life.”

“I know that sounds cliche,” she says, “but having the recognition from American Idol, to have recognition as a musical artist, is a wonderful thing because I can then use that to make a positive impact on other people.”

DevynRush.com • Twitter • Facebook

David Cook unveils The Last Goodbye ahead of new album, American Idol spot

David Cook has posted the official lead single for his sophomore album to his website. The Last Goodbye is currently streaming from davidcookofficial.com ahead of his scheduled appearance on American Idol this week to perform the song live. Cook’s new album This Loud Morning is set for June 28th release. The up tempo rocker offers an upbeat-sounding take on the end of a relationship with “If you hear this on the radio, then we’ve already said our last goodbye.” The Last Goodbye gets the official Beatweek thumbs up. Expect to hear it blasting out of radios all summer.

The rocker is preparing for a homecoming to Idol on April 21st after winning the show’s seventh season and then releasing his self titled major label debut album in 2008. According to his site, the album will be available on the site for preorder starting tomorrow. However, the single has not yet arrived in iTunes; new music typically arrives on Tuesdays, so keep a hopeful eye out for it tomorrow. The Last Goodbye was co-written by David Cook and OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder. Of the forthcoming album, Cook has offered “This album is the culmination of one of the loftiest endeavors I’ve ever undertaken. The end result is an album that I cannot wait to share with everyone.”

David Cook beat out fellow David, David Archuleta, to take the American Idol crown three years ago. This week he’ll he facing an almost entirely new judging panel upon his return to Idol, as only Randy Jackson remains after the departures of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.

Censor: American Idol Steven Tyler is a FOX standards nightmare

When you tune in for the season premiere of American Idol tonight, expect the censors to be working overtime – and no, it’s not because of Cee-Lo Green. Instead, new Idol judge Steven Tyler is said to be a profanity machine on the show according to host Ryan Seacrest, who quipped that the standards and practices division at the FOX network may have difficulty keeping up with the Aerosmith singer as he swears his way through the premiere like a sailor.

This is no surprise to those who know Aerosmith and Steven Tyler better than they know American Idol, as Tyler is as comfortable with the f word as he is with a microphone. But for those longtime Idol viewers who’ve grown accustomed to the show’s PG rating, with previous judges who’ve carefully remained within the boundaries of what you actually can say on television, expect a surprise as Steven Tyler blows up the blueprint in his own way. Here’s more on the American Idol premiere.

American Idol tonight: do-over gets nine minutes to save nine seasons

American Idol host Ryan Seacrest has announced that the first nine minutes of tonight’s season ten debut will explain “where we’ve been & where we’re going.” That gives the iconic show, essentially, nine minutes to salvage nine seasons of effort and sell the viewing public on the promise of what is essentially a do-over. Yes, the blueprint blow-up was going to happen one way or the other, with Simon Cowell leaving because he wanted to; that alone was going to mean a different direction for the show. But with the exit of what was ultimately three-fourths of the judging panel and a pair of famous faces who have no plausible connection to the show’s past, Idol must now sell its viewers on the idea that this can work.

There’s no time, this time around, for Idol to wait for the season’s contestants to start shining brightly enough to carry the season (that formula didn’t work in the ratings department last year anyway, even after certain contestants did start shining). Nor can the buy-in which comes with fan voting be counted on to float the season, as that also comes later on. For the show’s remaining audience, and for those tuning in tonight out of curiosity, the clock will be ticking from the first second. High profile changes tend to bring a high level of interest, but that interest tends to come with a very short attention span. Fair or not, for many of tonight’s viewers, nine minutes is about all they’ll need in order to decide whether these new changes are going to sit well with them. In other words, American Idol has about nine minutes to make this work. And according to Seacrest, the folks at Idol know it as well. Here’s more on the American Idol 2011.

Lee DeWyze interview: Live It Up, life after Idol, tour plans and more

Becoming a television star this past spring hasn’t changed much about Lee DeWyze or the music he makes, beyond the fact that he’s now doing so for an exponentially larger audience. His post-Idol debut album Live It Up, which is being released today, sees him still writing his own songs, referencing his hometown lyrically, and refusing to allow himself to be categorized stylistically. In our Beatweek interview, Lee offers insight into the past four months of his newly hectic life and talks about where things will go from here.

Live It Up is not only the title of the album, it’s a sentiment that carries throughout a lot of the record, particularly in the first two tracks. Did that just unfold through the creation process?

It kind of unfolded in the creation process. I was in a happy place when I wrote the album, and I was in a good place. It starts off in that vibe and then it definitely goes to a little bit of a darker place towards the middle of the album, and that’s kind of what I wanted. I wanted it to be a different variety of music. I didn’t want it to be eleven acoustic songs or eleven big rock songs. It takes you to a different place with each song, and that’s kind of what the goal was for me.

Some artists take a year to make a record, or multiple years. You’ve made this record in just the past few months, and you were on tour for a lot of that time. On paper it looks like you were under a lot of time constraints. Was it a lot of long days trying to get this completed so you could get it out in time for Thanksgiving?

Yeah, definitely a rough little mental thing for me at first, just like why do we gotta put out a full album in this little bit of time? But I guess when you dedicate yourself to something a hundred percent as far as time, I mean I put every second into this album physically possible. I literally would sit there in the writing sessions and just write and write. When I wasn’t in there I’d be outside writing, coming up with ideas and different things. It was just really being focused. It comes down to work. What is your work ethic? I didn’t go out and do this or that, it was more like I have an album to make here and that’s what I’m gonna focus on. So that’s what I did.

With the resources you have available to you now, you could have let others do all the writing for this record, but you ended up co-writing almost every song, even with the time constraints. Why was that so important to you?

Because I consider myself a writer as well. I’m not just someone that sings songs and goes from there. Which is okay, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people that don’t write. Writing isn’t everyone’s favorite thing to do or what their thing is. But it is my thing and I’ve always written. I think anyone that followed me during the show knows that I’m a writer. And I guess for me it’s just hard to sing about and be involved in something when you’re not mentally or emotionally or somehow connected to the song. That’s just where I was at during the writing process, just putting my ideas out there and expressing who I am as an artist and what I want to do in an album. I’ve never been confused about what kind of artist I was gonna be or what I was gonna do. I always knew who I was, and I’m just glad I was able to stay true to myself on this one.

When you sat down with your label and said okay, I want to be heavily involved in the songwriting, did they have to be convinced to go with that?

You know, it was never like they said “convince me of that.” It was more like okay, “you write, so go write and we’ll see how it goes.” We went in the first session and Live It Up happened. And so after that they were like hey, do your thing. It just kind of took off from there. There was never a time where I sat in a room and was like okay, sounds good, and just went and sang it, alright, have a good day. There were times when we had one session scheduled and we had to make it into three because we were just figuring it out and I was writing. It was a cool process, man. The label was really on board with it after they saw that I was really serious about it. They’ve been awesome to me.

Sweet Serendipity just came out as a single. Are you the type who’s looking at the iTunes charts and airplay charts and sweating it, or do you even pay attention to that stuff?

I don’t really sweat stuff like that. I’m proud of it, and whatever it does or doesn’t do is okay with me. I mean of course I’d love to see it up there on the charts, that would be cool, you know? (laughs). Why not? I have my first single out there and I think in time it’s gonna do really, really well. I think it’s a great song, and I’ve heard tons of positive feedback from different people and stations and this and that. So I’m happy about it. But I mean you can’t control stuff. You gotta just stand by what you do, be proud of it, and move on. That’s what I’m doing. I’m gonna stand by this song and the album, and once the album comes out, I think people will really get an idea of what of what I was doing for the past few months, and really get a better idea for it.

You’ve got multiple Chicago references on this album. Lake Michigan. Chicago in the winter. Was that something you consciously tried to work in?

The Chicago references were not planned necessarily. It was more like I was writing about it and that’s where these things happened. Sometimes it’s easier to get an understanding of a song when put in that setting or whatever. All the songs are written from a very honest place. It’s me. Like in Dear Isabelle, the Lake Michigan reference, or in Me And My Jealousy, ‘Chicago in the winter.’ If you’ve ever lived in Chicago, anyone who has, they know what a winter in Chicago is like. To be going through a tough time here in the winter would be just be all the more worse. So it’s just kind of the way it happened, a little shout-out to my home.

The biggest transition on the album is from Me And My Jealousy which has this soaring thing going on, and then it cools off into Brooklyn Bridge, which has a sultry feel. Having something like Brooklyn Bridge on the record, do you think that’s gonna surprise people?

Hopefully. I want it to, because that’s me. It’s kind of my thing. I like good music, and I don’t want people to think that I’m just this guy that has to sing rock all the time or folk all the time. Basically, I’m always gonna do whatever it is that I want to do. Whether that be a big rock balled or a broken down acoustic song, I just like music. So coming off of the show, many people are going to expect one thing or another. Having them be surprised by what’s on the album is something I’m actually looking forward to, because I don’t know how much you can learn about an artist or a style of someone’s music through that show. I think that’s more of a different setting. It’s a different feel. I think that being able to put out my own album now, that’s really, really cool. It’s like I’m showing everybody, hey, this is what I like to do. This is me.

I know this is your first major label album but you’ve done some indie records in the past, so this is not your first rodeo as far as being in the studio and making a record. Do you think that experience helped you this time around?

Absolutely, one hundred percent. It didn’t freak me out, being in the studio. I felt really at home and I felt good about it. So being in the studio was really cool. I know what it’s like to get in that vocal booth and do a couple takes, and I know what it’s like to change things up in the middle of the recording. So I’ve definitely been there. But having this be the first album I have on a major is really exciting for me.

We’ve gotten quite used to seeing you with your guitar on TV. How much guitar did you get to play on the record?

A lot. It’s always different studio vs live. I’m the first one to admit, I’m a pretty unorthodox guitar player. I’m very percussive, and sometimes you don’t want that when you’re trying to make a record. It’s always different when you see someone live and you see them on the record, but my thing is I wanted the record to be very similar to how it’s going to be. I want it to be real. I want it to come from a real place. And I want people when they come to see me at the shows to have fun. I want them to dance. I want them to have a good time.

Speaking of live shows, you’ve already done quite a bit of touring this year with the group tour. Are you going back out on the road before the year is over, or are you going to wait until after the new year?

I think it’s gonna be til after the new year. We have a lot of stuff going on into the new year, and it’s definitely gonna be a process, but one I’m looking forward to. I’m definitely going on tour next year, early on. When that time comes I’ll be ready for it. Right now I’m just getting ready to hit all the TV shows and do all the things we’ve got to do, and have a good time doing it.

You’re going to be back on American Idol performing at some point next year. The winner always goes back. Every winner goes through this. But in your case, you’re going to be the one who’s going back and not only will it be new contestants, but three of the four judges you worked with are gone, Rickey Minor is gone, there’s talk of set changes, format changes, the most drastic changes in the show’s history. When you step on that Idol stage and perform the next time, have you thought about the fact that it’s gonna look like a whole different show to you?

Yeah, it’s kind of cool actually. Obviously the judges I worked with, it would be cool to go back and see them and all that. But at the end of the day, I’m playing for a different show. At this point it’s not gonna be about American Idol for me. It’s gonna be about doing my thing and getting up there in front of all the fans of the show of mine that are continuing to watch, and you give them something to be excited about. I’m excited to do it. I think it’s gonna be really cool to go back there, when, if, how I got back there, and to play my song. It’s gonna be different than when I was up there last time, I know that much (laughs).

interview by Bill Palmer

LeeDeWyzeOfficial.com • iTunes • Twitter • Facebook

Beatweek Magazine issue #90: Lee DeWyze interview, top iPad and iPhone apps, and more

Beatweek Magazine’s 90th Issue highlights:

• Lee DeWyze cover story interview: reigning American Idol champion discusses his new album Live It Up and more

• Top apps for iPad and iPhone

• Interviews with Saving Abel, Shelby Lynne, and Kate Nash

• hands on with We Doodle

• much more!

Read this issue now

Subscribe for free

Crystal Bowersox to marry “best friend for years” Brian Walker

Crystal Bowersox is getting married next month to fellow musician Brian Walker, according to reports. Bowersox used her Twitter page to thank her fans for all the congratulations that they’ve been offering her since the news broke, and commented that she finds it “hilarious that people think brian and I just met. He’s been a best friend for years.” She further explained that she and Walker have “both always had pretty bad timing, but it finally worked out.”

For his part, Walker who just joined Twitter two days ago at @BrianWalkerLive, quipped “Brian Walker-Man of mystery, mwahahaha……who am I????”

Crystal Bowersox was a frontrunner and fan favorite on American Idol last season but surprisingly finished second to fellow contestant Lee DeWyze. In addition to getting engaged to Walker, Bowersox is also in the midst of recording her debut album, which she’s also been documenting via Twitter.

American Idol dumps theme weeks: best move the show has ever made

Forget, for a moment, American Idol new judges. Their high profiles will cause people to tune in (or in some cases, tune back in) just to see how they fare, and they’ll either sink or swim. We’ll have no answers on that until the season takes off. The real news out of the Idol camp, for the moment, is the fact that show will no longer put contestants through the bizarre rituals known as theme weeks, in which America’s next pop stars were determined by how well they could sing Sinatra tunes, and aspiring R&B singers were determined by their ability to croon out a country song. At their best, theme weeks made for some humorously awkward television. But too often, they merely served to make the top contestants look bad for coming up short in genres in which they were never meant to be dabbling in the first place.

The theory goes that a great performer can shine in any genre or styling. And it’s a nice theory. But asking voters to decide which contestant has the most potential to succeed in the one genre of their choosing, based on asking all of the contestants to perform in all genres, simply never made sense in practice. It’s not unlike McDonald’s filling a finance position in its corporate offices by asking applicants to show off their skills on the fryolator, or asking potential french fry cooks to display their accounting skills. In other words, judging Adam Lambert’s career potential by asking him to perform a country song was as silly as predicting Carrie Underwood’s potential by asking her to sing anything but country.

So that’s one major step in the right direction as American Idol heads into the tenth and most pivotal season of it long run. Either Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler will work out or they won’t, and that’ll go a long way to determining whether there’s an eleventh season. And there are other questions to be asked, such as whether the show will ever be able to overcome its status as “South and Midwest Idol” in which most of the viewers and voters come from those regions, leaving contestants with almost no chance of winning unless they come from one of those regions. But that’s all to be answered once the season begins. For now, at least, Idol has claimed a piece of legitimacy that it could never previously claim during any of its nine seasons: no more putting contestants through wrong-genre circus acts just to watch them squirm.

American Idol sets new judge panel for 2010-2011: who’s in?

American Idol has announced that it will, ahem, announce its new panel of judges for its upcoming tenth season next Wednesday, September 22nd, at the show’s Los Angeles auditions. At least three quarters of the judging panel will be replaced, after original judge Simon Cowell retired at the end of last season in favor of pursuing an American version of X-Factor, while Ellen DeGeneres quit after one season and Kara DioGuardi is also not returning. Randy Jackson, the only original judge remaining, is expected to return unless there’s unforeseen news. The only thing we know for sure is that host Ryan Seacrest will remain part of the show; according to Idol, Seacrest is the one who will be announcing the new judges.

Jennifer Lopez and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler had been widely rumored to be the frontrunners to take over for Cowell and DeGeneres, but it’s not clear whether this would mean a reversion to the show’s original three-judge format or whether an additional name might surface. Among those who have publicly expressed an interest in becoming a judge are Bret Michaels of Poison and Perez Hilton. It’s also been long rumored that Seacrest could become a judge himself. Others have suggested that former judge Paula Abdul should return to the show.

Here’s your last chance to look like a genius or look foolish in public: post your best guesses below as to what the new American Idol judging panel will look like after next week’s announcement.

Heat’s LeBron James, Dwayne Wade turn up at Kris Allen concert in Miami (update: not really)

New teammates LeBron James and Dwayne Wade haven’t yet played a game together in a Miami Heat uniform, but that hasn’t stopped them from enjoying some quality time together in LeBron’s new hometown. So where did they surface on Thursday night? At a Kris Allen concert of all places. According to the 2009 American Idol winner, Wade and James turned up at his Thursday night show in Miami. Neither NBA star mentioned anything about the concert on their respective Twitter pages, but we’ll take Kris at his word that they were indeed there. Allen publicly thanked them for “a special one in Miami last night.” No word on whether Allen, who is originally from the NBA-less state of Arkansas is now a Miami Heat fan.

Update: Consider us officially duped by Mr. Allen. When pressed on his Twitter page by a follower, Kris has since admitted “shhhh. They weren’t. Hehehehe.” So yeah, nevermind. Move along, nothing to see here. Except that the talented Mr. Allen has a drier wit than we were expecting

Steven Tyler American Idol rumors boost Aerosmith FM radio airplay

Time will tell what impact the rumors of Steven Tyler joining American Idol as a judge, if true, will have on the future of his band Aerosmith. But in the short team at least, the storyline appears to be having a positive effect on Aerosmith’s popularity and exposure – and not simply because the band’s name is being mentioned in the headlines so frequently of late. Aerosmith has seen its songs in rotation on FM radio for a generation, even though the band hasn’t had a new hit song (or even released a new album of mainstream material) for nearly a decade. But this past weekend, I spent a total of about six hours on the road, the majority of it tuned into various FM radio stations in the multiple markets that I passed through. And what I found was seemingly all Aerosmith, all the time.

Based on my own (admittedly fading) memory, I’d say that Aerosmith songs were easily being played three times as often this past week as they have been during any other time I’ve sunk myself into long-term radio listening in the recent past. As usual, the classic rock stations were playing the Sweet Emotion-era stuff, while the pop forty stations were more focused on Crying and What It Takes. But stations seemed to be digging deeper into the Aerosmith catalog, playing songs I hadn’t heard on the radio in years, and doing so with such frequency that if I weren’t a fan of the band, I might have even been annoyed by it (actually it’s the contrary; call me old-school, but when Aerosmith comes on, I crank it up).

It’s not as if every local DJ suddenly and independently got the idea to start playing more Aerosmith; most of these “local” stations are owned by the same handful of soul-destroying conglomerates, and so this is more about a few stiffs in suits deciding somewhere in a board room that more Aerosmith should be played on the radio across the country for as long as the names “Steven Tyler” and “American Idol” are appearing in the same headlines. But if it serves to help properly introduce Aerosmith to a younger generation, then so be it. After all, when I was in high school and Aerosmith had their (second) big comeback in the early nineties, we were only vaguely aware that they were an older “seventies” band making a comeback. If anything, we started with Get A Grip and then some of us worked our way backwards to the classic stuff. With Aerosmith not having made a radio-suitable album since about 2001 (Honkin’ on Bobo doesn’t count in that regard), there hasn’t been that new bridge to hook the younger generation – but perhaps the Idol tie-in is it.

After all, as crazy as it seems to someone who’s just old enough to remember back when Paula Abdul was the coolest, trendiest pop singer out there once upon a time, a lot of today’s younger audience had no idea who she was until she appeared on Idol. Of course by that time her pop career was officially over, whereas last I checked, Aerosmith is still selling out major concert venues as we speak. What effect Tyler’s twice-weekly appearances on American Idol would have on Aerosmith’s ability to go on tour, let alone finally make a new record, is unclear. But if it helps introduce one of the most important rock bands of all time to a bunch of teenagers in a positive way, them I’ll for Steven signing on as an Idol judge. After all, just the mere rumor of it has already helped improve FM radio.

Ellen DeGeneres Idol departure crashes Twitter – Jennifer Lopez next?

Twitter has crashed in the wake of Ellen DeGeneres’ announcement that she’s leaving her role as judge on American Idol. Ellen was atop the social network’s trending topics list at the time the trending list was disabled altogether, and then several minutes later the entire Twitter network was brought to its knees. This evening’s Twitter meltdown, the site’s first major burnup since the World Cup soccer tournament ended, likely cost Jennifer Lopez her opportunity to make it into the trending topics for what might have been the first time in the site’s four year history. Rampant rumors and gossip this evening have J.Lo taking Ellen’s place as the new “friendly” American Idol judge. The move would mark a return of a veteran musician to the judging chair vacated by Ellen, which had previously been occupied by Paula Abdul.

Twitter has since sporadically returned to life, but the trending topics list is still missing in action.

Ellen DeGeneres Idol replacements led by Perez Hilton, Bret Michaels

The newly announced departure Ellen DeGeneres from American Idol gives the show not one but potentially two judges’ chairs to fill, with Simon Cowell also having departed this offseason. Various public figures have already been rumored for Cowell’s seat, with some of those storylines having been a direct result of the celebrity in question openly lobbying for the gig. With two openings, the number of stars lining up for the gig is set to double or more. While Cowell’s job has all along been expected to fall to someone who can play the role of resident meanie by telling contestants what they need to hear (or worse) no matter how impolite the message may be, Ellen’s role (and that of Paul Abdul before her) was largely one of friendliness and encouragement. This now opens the door for Idol’s producers to cast any two opposites they like in the two vacated roles.

Two of the most prominent individuals who’ve been campaigning for the gig are Bret Michaels (Rock of Love, The Apprentice, and a little band called Poison) and celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. Michaels is everyone’s friend, and a new generation of Americans have fallen in love with him now that he’s had a reality show resurgence this decade after having been one of the most prominent rock stars of the eighties. Perez, on the other hand, is the guy that everyone loves to hate because he’s never hesitated to throw celebrities (or anyone else) under a bus on his blog. Perez could fill Simon’s snarky role, while Bret could take over Ellen’s nice guy role, and if nothing else, the pairing of those two along with current judges Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi (assuming they both return next season) would have people talking.

Both Michaels and Hilton have had recent ties to the show. Perez used one episode to essentially launch the solo career of his protege Travis Garland, while Bret performed the Poison classic Every Rose Has Its Thorn with contestant Casey James on this season’s finale. The fact that Michaels did so a few days after having had a stroke and a hole discovered in his heart, and a brain hemorrhage a few weeks before that, has led some to question whether his recent spate of health issues might be too big a risk. However, with Michaels now touring the nation as a solo musician and having no health troubles for it, that risk now appears minimized. And whereas his friendly nature might not have worked as a replacement for Simon, the contrast of having Perez (who’s arguably even meaner when he wants to be than Simon) on the same judging panel would balance out the nice-to-mean ratio of the panel.

For his part, Perez has taken to Twitter and his blog in the past hour to relentlessly campaign for the job, asking his celebrity pals to help him out. Michaels hasn’t yet had anything to say on the matter, but he will coincidentally be performing on the Simon Cowell-produced America’s Got Talent on August 4th. Speaking of Cowell, he’ll be looking to assemble a panel of judges of his own for his upcoming American version of X-Factor, which he left Idol to launch.

So what do you think? Would you be more likely or less likely to tune in for American Idol this upcoming season if Bret Michaels and Perez Hilton join the ranks?

Ellen DeGeneres votes herself off American Idol, half of judge panel now gone

Ellen DeGeneres says she’s leaving American Idol after just one season on the show’s panel of judges. In a statement released through Warner Bros, DeGeneres blames both the workload of doing two television shows (Idol and her own Ellen Show) along with an aversion to hurting lesser contestants’ feelings. Ellen’s departure comes on the heels of the departure of fellow judge Simon Cowell, who announced his own exit long before the end of the most recent season. The move leaves Idol faced with the task of filling one or both suddenly empty judges’ chairs, as the show could cast two new judges to remain at the current total of four, or it could simply bring in one new judge and go back to the show’s original three-judge format. As it stands, Randy Jackson is now the only remaining original judge (that’s if he himself remains with the show; apparently nothing Idol-related is certain at this point), along with Kara DioGuardi, who’s been on the job for two seasons.

Among those who’ve openly lobbied to replace cowell have been Poison singer Bret Michaels and blogger Perez Hilton. With Ellen’s departure, there might now be room for both of them.

Ellen’s official announcement on the matter via her Twitter account? “Dim the lights…I’ve voted myself off American Idol.” That’s right, she led with the joke before any of the rest of us could come up with it.

We Are The Fallen: interview with Carly Smithson

We Are The Fallen is a band unto its own, insists Carly Smithson, and that’s not changed by the fact that she was not too long ago a favored American Idol contestant nor the fact that three of her bandmates were at one time members of the popular band Evanescence (including co-founder Ben Moody). And she’s right, of course. A year after announcing their new band, and getting pelted with questions from the media about their past the whole time, We Are The Fallen have finally released their debut album Tear The World Down. And on opening day of their tour with Saving Abel, Carly explains to me that being in a band is what she’s always wanted – and why she would never have wanted to name the band after herself, even despite the name recognition she gained from a year of television exposure.

“It was a very sweet day when we all met,” she says of joining forces with Moody and the gang. “They were working on the same project across town, they didn’t have their singer, I was working on the same project across town, didn’t have my band. And we met and it was just perfect timing, perfect everything. I mean there’s five people in a band, I would never want to call it Carly.”

While some in the press initially tried to peg the band as being some kind of put-together entity, it turns out to be one of those stories you couldn’t make up if you tried: “My friend lived with Ben, and I happened to be in his house, and his girlfriend saw me, told her mom, and her mom watched Idol, and hounded Ben to contact me. Even though I was in his house a lot, he wasn’t there, he was always in the studio.” Finally Ben reached out, and after an initial all-night discussion about common goals, they decided to push forward as a fivesome, including fellow former Evanescence members Rocky Gray and John LeCompt, along with Marty O’Brien who had also previously collaborated with Moody.

Once the two camps came together, they pooled the material that they had each been working on and co-wrote a surprising number of new songs as well. “Bury Me Alive, which was the first single, was actually something that I was working on,” says Carly. “Paradigm, which is on the record, originally was a track that they had been working on. Through Hell was on their project. St. John, I had been working on, on my project. There were just many different things that we had all been writing for so long. When we originally came together, our original idea was only to do two songs as our first recording and writing together, and we ended up doing fifteen.”

Why so many newly written songs, when they already had so much existing material to work with? “When we got together we had all these ideas for personal projects that we’d been working on for so long, and they just all gelled together so perfectly. This record took not a lot of time, and the whole writing experience was really amazing. I don’t know, you have to be in the room and there to experience it. It was really magical the way it all happened. It was like us five had really known each other forever.”

But nonetheless, the comparisons to Evanescence persist, at least inside the beltway. “You’re the first interview that I haven’t had the first five questions be exactly the same,” Carly tells me of the fact that the press just won’t stop asking about the parallels. She’s quick to add, however, that “our fans have never said any of those things. And even when we didn’t even have a song, we were just an idea of a band, they were supporting us one hundred percent.”

Asked if her year on American Idol, which sees contestants poked and prodded in every fashion, helped prepare her for the inevitable media sideshow surrounding the launch of her band, Carly says she’s learned not to care about outside opinions, quoting a piece of advice from her friend and fellow Idol alum Brooke White: “opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. You just can’t get rid of that.” Although Carly adds that Brooke “might have said it in a more PG fashion.”

As if to emphasize that We Are The Fallen is not about any of their past accomplishments or any existing name or face recognition, the band members decided that none of them would appear on the album cover, but would be depicted by children instead. “The track on our record with we all mostly love is Tear The World Down. It’s the most bells and whistles, it’s the finale to the record, it’s the boldest song that we have on the record. So we decided to name the album Tear The World Down. I was going through different images online, just different photography and stuff like that, and we all decided we’ll go away for a couple of days and we’ll all come together and reconvene with our different ideas for the album cover now that we have the name, and see what we come up with.

“I went away and I was looking at different things, and I saw this picture of this child that looked kind of like a mixture between the kids from The Shining, the kid from Orphan or The Omen, that kind of like creepy kid, but still very angelic and just innocent, with this background of a ruin, and it just looked so eerie, the contrast between this child and this destruction, demolished buildings behind her. So I contacted the band and said I think it would be a cool idea to do the band, but as six years olds, all these creepy eerie looking children. So we found children for every band member and we did a full photo shoot with all these five kids, and they were creepy as hell looking, but it just didn’t look as eerie and as isolated and as alone as with one child. So we decided to just go with the little girl. But it’s not me, it’s a child that we found in LA, and she was just amazing. She looked just like me as a child. It was weird.

“Little Ben was really funny as well. He kept pulling down his pants and all sorts. It was an amazing day to have five children and have us five all dressed up. It was very weird, cause we had a whole photo shoot day with the children and stuff. But it was really cool. They needed like a little school teacher and a school setup and everything, cause I guess the laws and stuff. It was cool, we came in and they were all sitting down doing their first lesson of the day while we were getting hair and makeup. It was funny. But yeah, she was amazing, and that’s kind of the idea. The idea is that child woke up in the middle of the night and destroyed the city behind her, and that’s Tear The World Down.”

Finally, there’s the matter of being the female lead singer of an otherwise all male rock band, which Carly says was her goal all along. “I always wanted to be part of a band. I hate being on stage. I feel so isolated being alone. I love having. And before Idol, I actually had a band that I would play with every week. Going from that to being alone on a stage was really quite frightening, and just uncomfortable and I really didn’t like it. I’ve basically grown up around boys. I was always one of the tomboys, and I guess having a tattoo shop, and building cars when I lived in Atlanta, I’ve always been around greasy metalheads, so these guys are probably the cleanest of the clean that I’ve ever been around. There’s eleven guys on our bus, and they’re pretty much just like my friends back home, but they make music instead of cars and tattoos. And it’s cool, my husband gets along really well with them cause we’re all tattooed and all into the same stuff. So it was honestly just a perfect match when we all met.”

Learn more at WeAreTheFallen.com • iTunes • Facebook • Twitter

Allison Iraheta interview

“I only know where I’m at because it’s a day off” she tells me, and even “day off” is a relative term in that it simply means there’s no Glam Nation concert for her that night; she’s just come from doing local radio press and now she’s chatting with me. Allison Iraheta hasn’t likely had a real day off since she tried out for American Idol when she was sixteen years old and then spent the season rising to fame while competing with fellow musicians as much as a a decade her senior. Since then she’s done the Idol tour, pushed out her debut album Just Like You, and has now embarked on the Glam Nation tour with former Idolmate Adam Lambert and Orianthi. The timing is good, as Allison has just released her new single Don’t Waste The Pretty, which not so coincidentally features the latter on guitar.

“It’s just a rocking song,” Allison says of Don’t Waste The Pretty. “The message is amazing. And then we talked about different choices and stuff, but also, we brought up the idea of having Ori play on it, and it was like the perfect song for her to rock out on. It just all worked out.”

The song, like her entire album, knowingly straddles the line between rock and pop: she’s a rocker at heart, but she understands that having just turned eighteen she’s in an age bracket that leans toward pop, as well as the fact that this is a pop-leaning era in general. “It’s definitely pop stuff that gets the attention of the listeners right now, you know what I’m saying? But I definitely wanted to stick to that rock edge. So it’s definitely the pop that is on the album, but I like I said, there’s definitely the rock edge to it.”

Those expectations give her a chance to catch people off guard if they might have been stereotypically expecting “poppy young innocent sort of thing” as opposed to the veteran rock that Idol viewers have come to know her for. “People that don’t know me from Idol, say they randomly see me out doing some live stuff and I’m doing some rocking stuff, like I’m doing Pat Benetar covers and all the stuff we do live from the album, even thought it’s a bit poppy tracked down, when we do it live it’s definitely rougher, it’s definitely edgier.”

Allison Iraheta is the future of rock and roll whether she knows it yet or not, which means that with the lack of an established blueprint she gets to make up her own rules. But those suspecting intentional symmetry in the fact that her backing band consists of two girls and two guys may be surprised to learn that it just worked out that way. “We went through some auditions with musicians, and then my girls kicked some ass,” she says with a seeming bit of pride. “So we decided to stick with my girl drummer and my girl bassist. And now it’s working out, it’s really cool, I’ve got two girls and two guys in my band and it definitely attracts people.”

If the pink-red-purple hair is Allison’s visual signature (asked if she plans to keep the crazy hair colors forever, she teases that “I just might shave my head for the rest of the shows”), it’s her husky “I can’t believe this voice is coming from a teenage girl” singing voice that makes her instantly recognizable. But she admits to having been unwittingly using her instrument wrong until recently: “I’ve actually changed the way I used to sing from the show to now, because I actually just learned how to sing properly. I was more of like the screamer and not really taking care of my voice, but now being on the road and doing this every night, I’ve learned. I get sick a lot, and I lose my voice very easily. And I think it’s maybe cause I sound like a man.”

If the world learned how to pronounce Allison Iraheta’s last name from Idol host Ryan Seacrest then they’re apparently saying it wrong, as she finally broke the news to him that he had been botching it all along when she appeared on his radio show after the season had ended. So I asked her for the correct pronunciation, just so I would never again say it wrong one way or the other, which is when she admitted that “there’s like two versions of it,” the original Spanish pronunciation of “EAR-uh-HAY-tuh” which she grew up with, along with what she says is now the “correct” pronunciation, anglicized along the lines of “I-ruh-HEE-tuh” – a version she’s adopted because it’s a pronunciation that “everyone is cool with saying.”

Over the past seventy-five issues, Beatweek Magazine has interviewed some of the most famous musicians on the planet. But of all the times we’ve opened things up for our readers and Twitter followers to submit questions in advance for possible use, we’ve never previously received even a fraction of the overwhelming number of questions that Allison’s army of fans submitted to us (we stopped counting after receiving more than a hundred in the first several minutes). So that in itself begs the question that every artist fears having to answer: why do your fans like you so darned much?

“Geez, I hate talking about myself,” she half-jokes before coming up with an entirely logical answer. “I think it might because I put myself up to like me being young and all, a lot of my fans out there are about my age or younger, and they really point out the fact that I’ve gone through a lot of things that they’ve gone through themselves. They can really relate to me and I can really relate to them.”

Of those hundreds of questions we picked the most popular and the most intriguing, the former being what dozens of her fans want to know: will there be a music video for Don’t Waste The Pretty? “Maybe up ahead. We’re gonna see. Right now we’ve got the whole tour going on, we’re just waiting on how it does.”

The other reader-submitted question focuses on the future. Allison has already said that she plans to take a larger songwriting role on her next record (she’s said that for her debut album there simply wasn’t the time). So once she sits down to start writing lyrics for album number two, what topics will she be looking to focus on? “Maybe more personal stuff. More on what has actually happened in the past few years of my life. All those songs that were written on this one were more overall, not so personal. So I think I’m gonna get more personal when I start writing.”

Learn more at AllisonIraheta.com • iTunes • Facebook • Twitter

Bret Michaels could become next American Idol judge: report

Days after performing on the American Idol finale, Bret Michaels told a concert crowd in Mississippi that he’s in the running to replace Simon Cowell as a judge on the show next season. And while the remark could easily have been interpreted as a joke, seeing the wide variety of names being idly tossed around in the media when it comes to Simon’s possible replacement, TMZ reports that according to their sources, Bret is in fact in the running for the gig. Michaels is no stranger to reality television and contest based shows, as he’s starred in his own Rock of Love and recently won Celebrity Apprentice. No word on whether his myriad health issues so far in 2010, all of which he appears to have bounced back from, might impact his ability to do the job for a full season; the singer is still looking at having surgery to repair a hole in his heart in the fall.

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