In the first part of my chat with American Idol season 10 Top 24 contestant, Tim Halperin, we touched on the earlier rounds of his Idol journey, from his initial audition in front of the judges in L.A. to making it into the Top 24.
During the final part of my interview with Halperin, we talked about Top 24 from his song selection to the Wild Card round, what he took away from his American Idol experience, and what lies ahead for his music career.
How did you go about selecting your song for Top 24?
I had a list of about five or six songs that I thought would be really good. And the thing that I wanted to do for Top 24 was show off the fact that I wasn’t a one-trick pony; I wasn’t kind of pigeon-holed in one sound. Up until that point, I had really done slower kind of ballad type songs, which is definitely probably one of my strongest types of songs to sing, but there’s also this soulful part of my voice. I love doing soul/pop-rock kind of tunes.
I was looking at Gavin DeGraw, I was looking at John Mayer, and of course that Rob Thomas song. We rehearsed, and felt the Rob Thomas song was just a really good fit for my voice.
Rehearsals went well, I was able to fine-tune it, and I felt like even the on stage rehearsals were going really well. I thought the performance, to be honest with you, went really well. If you notice when you watch the crowd, they really loved it. I thought that it went really well, and the judges thought that it wasn’t my style. Maybe it wasn’t, and I can see where they’re coming from, just because all they’d really heard me perform were ballads. Maybe I should have stuck with that sound for my first round, before I ventured off into something else.
For me, I have no regrets with that song choice. The other thing that was kind of hard to deal with was when Ryan asked Steven what type of song I should have picked and he said John Mayer or Jason Mraz, when in fact, John Mayer co-wrote that song that I sang and played guitar on the track. So that was kind of frustrating to hear.
I felt like all the way through I had good performances. I feel really lucky to have done that.
You play piano, so I am wondering at what point did they tell you that you guys were not going to be using instruments for that first performance?
They told us well in advance, and you know it’s hard, but at the same time I don’t think I would have used the piano even if I was able to. In my mind looking back on it, if I was able to it probably would have been a good thing, because piano kind of set me apart. But, I wanted to show the fact that I wasn’t stuck behind my instrument. A lot of flack that contestants have gotten in the past that play instruments is that they can’t perform without it. I wanted to show that I was very comfortable on stage and very comfortable performing without [playing piano], which I feel like I was able to prove. I thought the performance was for sure really good. Yeah, we knew well in advance that we couldn’t use instruments.
Was it that you couldn’t use it for that one performance or was it a stipulation for the season?
It’s decided on a round by round basis. I’m not even sure what’s going on this time. It’s the same as it’s been in the past, certain rounds people are allowed to use instruments and certain rounds, and certain rounds they’re not.
My thought is just because last season, there were so many people using instruments, and the responses were that they were using them as a crutch. So, my thought is that they probably won’t let people use instruments as much this year.
I was just wondering about that, because we saw a few people that had used instruments in earlier rounds get eliminated last week. And I figured because the last three winners (David Cook, Kris Allen and Lee DeWyze) all fall under that blanket category of singer-songwriter is possibly why Idol seems to be looking for pop star, rather than the singer-songwriter type this season.
Yeah, that could be it. But at the same time, the people in the Top 13 are definitely all extremely talented. Is it hard being a singer-songwriter and not being able to use your instrument? Yeah, you know it is. At the same time, I feel like I got what I wanted out of it. Because I do play an instrument and I have experience, now it’s going to be really easy for me to make the transition back into putting out a record and doing shows again.
Continue reading Catching Up With Tim Halperin, Part Two
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