American Idol winner on a cloud: 'I'm doing the thing I love the most'
Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2009
Kris Allen can't remember the last concert he attended at Alltel Arena.
At least not now, during a 10-minute Friday callback to the home state's newspaper wedged between other American Idol publicity demands with a Fox representative monitoring the phone line.
"I know in high school I saw Creed there ..." says the soft-spoken 23-year-old Conway singer "running on fumes and energy drinks" between thought pauses, adding there had to be more recent shows. He is drawing a blank; he hasn't had much time to sleep, breathe or reflect in the two days since the season finale of Fox's phenomenon ended with him jubilant and drop-jawed.
But he's well aware of the next performance he'll experience at the North Little Rock venue - his own. On July 25, Allen will take the Alltel Arena stage with other show finalists for a stop of the 50-city American Idol Live! Tour.
Last July at the Louisville, Ky., auditions Allen, along with his brother Daniel tried out for the show and nearly didn't when they arrived late. He never anticipated how drastically that day - and a year - would change everything.
"My life was pretty low-key," says the former business major at the University of Central Arkansas, about what he was doing last year at this time. "I went to class - most of the time. And I just hung out with my friends. I was getting ready to be married, planning a wedding, spending time with my fiancee. Just hanging out more than anything."
And just hanging out, he says, is what he misses more than anything right now, after being consumed with the show, dating back to Hollywood Week that took place last October. The show's eighth season began airing in January with weekly live competition and results shows taking place since February.
"But I'm so happy right now," he says. "I'm doing the thing I love the most. I can't complain."
Terms like "dark horse," "upset" and "underdog" have been used to describe the subdued soft-rocker Allen's victory over flashy wailer Adam Lambert, a 27-year-old from San Diego. And Allen says he too was surprised.
"It felt really crazy," he says, when his name was announced by host Ryan Seacrest. "I was shocked. I felt a little numb. I didn't know what to feel."
He says he would have been just as happy for Lambert - his friend and Idol mansion roommate - to win by the most viewer phone and text-message votes.
"We told the other he deserved it all [Wednesday]. I don't think it mattered to either one of us who won," Allen says.
The same couldn't be said for Allen's Arkansas backers - those who turned out for the singer's home visit appearances, attended watch parties and dedicated hours to dialing in support.
He's thankful to his "amazing" fan base, saying with a laugh, "The whole state is crazy."
Securing the Idol title doesn't mean everything. Sure, country singer Carrie Underwood, who won top honors during the show's fourth season, earned $14 million in the past year - the most of all show contestants - according to Forbes magazine's recent ranking of the top Idol earners. But next on the list at $5 million is Jennifer Hudson, who was seventh place during season three; the winner of that season, Fantasia Barrino, didn't make the list.
How much success Idol status will mean for Allen remains to be seen. But for now, it means a wealth of exposure. He's visited with everyone from Jay Leno to Ellen DeGeneres to Larry King. Today he'll head to New York for more television interviews.
He says he's enjoying the fame even if he hasn't fully grasped the enormity of it: "We're still in the bubble just a little bit. It definitely feels huge, but I don't know if it's feeling as huge as it really is right now."
Two of Allen's songs - his take on Kanye West's "Heartless" and his first single "No Boundaries" - were two of iTunes top 10 downloaded songs as of Saturday afternoon. Allen and Lambert struggled with their live performances of "No Boundaries," a coronation song for the winner co-written by Idol judge Kara DioGuardi, that critics panned as cliche and unsuitable for the singers.
"The song is definitely not something I would have written. I'm not sure it's something even Kara was excited about writing," he says, explaining that the song had to meet certain criteria.
But he says he's pleased with the studio version of the single that he heard for the first time Thursday night after it was released earlier that day: "It's a good song, and I think they tried to make it sound like me."
The song will likely be included during the summer tour he's excited about starting July 5 in Portland, Ore. ("The nine people I'm with are really great. It's going to be a lot of fun") and on his debut album, expected to be released in the fall.
"This is the reason I tried out for American Idol ... get someone to notice me and make a record," he says.
"That's going to happen. That's coming true."
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