Pittsburgh Post Gazette Article

Concert Preview: Clay Aiken fills album gap with pop history revue

On the day we reach Clay Aiken, he's in the middle of damage control, a rare situation for the "American Idol" runner-up and contemporary poster boy for everything good and wholesome.

The trouble is a TV Guide cover story in which he admits that the entertainment industry has made him "jaded" and then appears to go on to attack the population of greater Los Angeles, where he now lives.

"I said I felt people there put too much emphasis on the outsides and not their insides," Aiken says. "What I meant to say was 'people in the entertainment industry' and I kind of generalized 'entertainment industry' as 'L.A.' and it came out that way. I read it back that way and went, 'Oh, crap,' and it kind of stirred a commotion amongst fans and whatnot, and that's nothing that would ever have happened to me before.

"I'm surrounded by people in the entertainment industry, not people that I work closely with, but people in general in this business, who, sometimes I think their priorities are wrong. But I just said it one way and now I look like a jerk, and I didn't mean it that way at all. That's not the kind of thing that would have happened to me as a teacher. I would have said something, people would have realized what I meant and I would have moved on to the next thing."

Fortunately, Aiken's little commotion comes on the eve of his next thing, the Jukebox Tour, which makes its fourth stop Sunday at the Chevrolet Amphitheatre. It's a concept show he cooked up to bridge the gap between his 2003 debut, "Measure of a Man," and the follow-up that doesn't seem to be coming along as smoothly as the first.

Aiken will start from the '50s and, with liberal use of the medley, will touch on as many as 100 Top 40 songs from then till now, including a few of his own.

"A friend of mine was in a show in Charleston that was a revue of music from the '60s," he says. "I thought, that might not be a bad idea, why don't I just pick a decade? But I couldn't really pick a decade, so I thought, why don't we do them all?"

Aiken's career as a young adult contemporary singer -- starting when he turned up as a geek and mama's boy from North Carolina on the second year of "American Idol" -- has defied the odds and the predictions of resident "Idol" critic Simon Cowell, who said he was better suited to Broadway.

"When I got off the show, I saw something on Broadway, and said, 'That's a compliment because those people can sing,' " Aiken says. "Anybody who can do seven shows a week and just really full-out sing as well as those people do, if that's how good you think I am, thank you. That was kind of a backhanded compliment. That's where some really talented people go, so thanks, Simon."

Rather than going to Broadway, Aiken, who was studying to be a teacher and describes himself as "dodgeball bait" when he was in school, went west and rode that "Idol" well. He has enjoyed sales of more than 3.9 million, running just behind Kelly Clarkson as the biggest-selling Idol. It was all beyond his expectations.

"I had no faith, to be honest with you," he says. "I'm not a pessimist, but I try to be a realist as much as I can and realize that thousands of people are trying to do the same thing that I'm doing and four people are doing it well -- and I'm not sure that I'm one of them. So, I kind of have to realize that it could honestly end any day. I'm enjoying it while I can. I kind of chalk it up to a good summer camp experience. If it doesn't end up working out for the long term, I have memories that I would never have gotten any other way."

One of the keys to his continuing success is the Claymates, a fanatic fan base that follows his every move on fan Web sites and makes sure that any critic who says anything remotely negative about him is deluged with e-mail (this writer got 65 of them once). So, how does Aiken deal with his Claymates and all their high expectations of him?

"It's difficult for me to answer that. I think they do have expectations and sometimes, to be completely honest, it's almost, well, I don't want to use the word 'burdensome' ... sometimes it's tough to live up to everyone's expectations because they are so enthusiastic. And some people want my hair to be short, and some people want my hair to be long. And some people want my hair to be blond, and some people want my hair to be brown. It's hard to please everyone, but in general, they do kind of help keep me sane, because they are so enthusiastic and I'm constantly wondering why the heck people like me. I don't even get it. I get confused every time I see a fan site, I just laugh. I think sometimes they think I'm better than I am. It's tough to live up to their standards, but it's a good challenge for myself."

Which brings us to the long-awaited follow-up to "Measure of a Man," which was scheduled for the fall but is looking more like early spring. Aiken is working with producer Jaymes Foster-Levy, and the challenge is to find 11 or 12 songs he can really get excited about. "We're not going to rush it this time," he says.

Does that mean he wasn't happy with the first one?

"I wouldn't say that," he says. "I was new. We walk off the stage of 'Idol,' and two days later, I was handed my songs by the label: 'Here you go.' Fortunately, I liked them all. I think they did a halfway decent job of picking songs that I sound good on. But a lot of the songs were angst-driven. 'I Survived You' and 'No More Sad Songs' -- it's not necessarily any emotion I wanted to express. There were definitely elements that I thought were good, the songs were good. I was thrilled to work with the producers I got to work with. But this time, I want this one to be everything I want. You kind of have to fail on your own. If I don't have a full stake in it and it flops, I have an opportunity to blame someone else. If I put this together and it flops, at least I can say it flopped on my terms."