Life has a strange way of working itself out

I'm admittedly a record guy. Singles and I are a different beast. I'm definitely an overall picture thinker.

I actually got to write with one of my musical heroes, a guy named Raine Maida from Our Lady Peace. I got to sit down and write some songs with him, and that was pretty heavy. I listened to Our Lady Peace growing up. It got me through the teenage angst.

The further you go on the show, the larger the budget gets. But in the beginning they were just like, "Here's a hundred bucks in L.A. Good luck."

I got to play with ZZ Top and introduce Bryan Adams and George Michael. And to have it all topped off by me winning 'American Idol?!' It's pretty absurd.

I'm competitive to a fault, so of course every week I'm just like, "I want to win, I want to do great."

There's definitely a visual aspect and an emotional aspect to a song. And that harks back, for me, to theater.