There have been a few extremely talented former American Idol contestants that have faded away from the spotlight after appearing on the show. For former contestants to stay on the fans’ radar, they have to really make a concerted effort, which is exactly what season 10 Top 24 contestant, Tim Halperin has been doing.
A lot of things have happened since I last spoke with Halperin earlier this year. He released “The Last Song” as a free mp3 download right after his run on Idol ended, which led to a unique opportunity with radio DJ, Kidd Kraddick. In between going on his Piano Tour and participating in Kidd Kraddick’s “Idol Got It Wrong” competition, Halperin raised $8,000 via Kickstarter to fund the intriguing and visually stunning music video for “The Last Song,” which premiered on June 6.
Watch Halperin’s music video for “The Last Song” below, and then check out my extensive Q&A session with the singer-songwriter which took place earlier this week about the making of “The Last Song” music video, his participation in “Idol Got It Wrong,” and what he thought about this season’s American Idol results.
How long ago did you actually write “The Last Song,” and how did it come to be the song to kick off your post-Idol journey with?
I wrote “The Last Song” about a year and a half ago. I was about three months out of a long term relationship, and I kind of came to that point where I was resolved to move. It’d come to that point where a lot of time you’ll see things or remember certain memories about that other person. Every day you’ll see certain things. So, it kind of got through that for a couple months, and I was finally ready to move on. I had that line going through my head, “This is the last song I’ll write for you,” because after being with someone for quite awhile you tend to write a lot of music about them. I had that line in my head and just started filling out different lyrics and different ideas for it.
That was one of the first songs that we recorded on my full length CD that will come out in the fall. It just turned out really well, and I think that that song gives people a good picture of who I am, and also that my music is very honest and straightforward. I like to throw all my emotions on the table, because I think people can relate best to honest music. That was kind of why I put it out first after American Idol. If you’re an Idol fan that maybe hasn’t heard my music before, you’ll get a good glimpse of who I am as a songwriter.
Did you always intend to turn “The Last Song” into a music video?
No, I hadn’t really thought about doing a music video. When I gave “The Last Song” out for free, in that first week it had almost 5,000 downloads. People really seemed to latch onto it, and it started getting radio play with this radio DJ in Dallas, Kidd Kraddick. It actually got enough radio play to put it on the Top 200 radio show, and it actually hit 148 a few weeks ago, which is really cool.
So I was like, “Man, people really relate to this song,” and so I called my buddy who did my music video for “She Runs” about a year ago. These two directors, my two friends Jonathan Combs and Joe Childress, I called them up and said, “I want to do a music video, I don’t have any money.” [laughs] Which they’re familiar with that, cause I didn’t have any money for the “She Runs” video. So, they started brainstorming and said that they wanted to do another video for me. They had a great concept, but they’re like, “This is going to take some money to do it.”
We decided to do a Kickstarter page where people could donate in return for different rewards like Twitter mentions and YouTube shout outs. And we raised the whole budget. I was so excited. We raised the $8,000 in less than 30 days.
Continue reading Tim Halperin Discusses The Making of “The Last Song” Music Video
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