Flint Journal Article/Interview

Aiken takes 'Jukebox' out on the road
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION


Thursday, August 11, 2005By Doug Pullen
dpullen@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6140


It's been three years since Clay Aiken captured the hearts and minds of American women as the runner-up (to Ruben Studdard) on the second season of "American Idol."

Journal music writer Doug Pullen, who interviewed him last year, caught up with Aiken for a 10-minute telephone interview in advance of his "Jukebox" tour, coming Friday to the Meadow Brook Music Festival and Saturday to the Clio Area Amphitheater.

Q: You've been going steadily ever since "American Idol." Did you finally get some time off?

A: I took a good few months off at the beginning of the year, which helped a bit. I realized that I'm tired of taking months off. I get bored easily after going so steady for so long.

Q: What are some of the things you're working on now?

A: Obviously, we have some things in the works once we finish this tour. Of course, I'd love to do a Christmas show on the road. That's easily one of my favorite things to do. And we're in the process of working on a new album.

Outside of that, I try not to make too many plans. Everything so far has been (in a) provident direction: being in the right place, being open to the right things at the time. It sounds really bad. It's not a great example to say I don't set goals or make plans, but I've had more success by letting go. I'm perfectly willing to do that.

I want to do a Christmas tour and get an album out in the next (calendar) year, and outside of that, you know. I'm just open to seeing what comes.

Q: How did you come up with the "Jukebox" concept for this tour?

A: It actually came about because I couldn't do the same show over and over. I was up in the Flint area last year for a show in Clio and found out I would be again this year. When you have the opportunity to go back to the same venue - a number of other venues asked us to come back and do it again - we couldn't come back and do the same show. I have one album, really, so what are you gonna do, sing the songs backward?

We've got to do something creative, so I had a friend in a show... at the time, a revue of music from the '60s, and I thought that could be kind of neat to do a theme show like that. I don't know if I want to do '60s, '70s, '80s. Let's just do them all. I couldn't pick a single decade, so we'll do 'em all and wrapped the theme into the rock 'n' roll era ... about 50 years when the rock era started in 1955. It's not necessarily rock, but pop music. We came up with 120 songs, knocked it down to 100, then 70 and down to about 65 that are in the set.

It's quite the busy, energetic show. It's already worn me out.

Q: Are the songs personal favorites?

A: When we sat down to do it, we didn't necessarily pick songs that I liked the most. They're songs we recognized the most. I don't listen to 'Mr. Sandman' in the car on a regular basis, but it's a song everyone can recognize from the '50s, or heard in commercials or in the 'Back to the Future' movie. They heard it somewhere. Most will recognize songs from each decade. I got flak because I only do one Beatles song. I do a little Elvis. See, the whole idea is for it to be a fun, exciting show, not necessarily a retrospective of music as it could be. It's more just fun, summer songs from (the last 50 years).

Q: You caught flak for critical remarks you made about Los Angeles when announcing your decision to move back to Raleigh, N.C. How do you react to that?

A: People in the industry, to be honest, I think they agree with me, too. I think the problem was I generalized. I usually think before I speak, but I generalized a little too quickly and said everybody in L.A. is (....). It's not true. I've met honest and decent and real people there. I'm not talking about them. I think, honestly, people who got offended were people I generalized about. Everybody in L.A. is not necessarily evil. In Raleigh, there are people who are not nice, but that's where my family and friends are, where I grew up, but there are some nasty people there and I've run across some of them.

Q: It was reported that the Bubel Aiken Foundation (which he co-founded to help children with special needs) was not spending its money properly. How do you respond to that?

A: If you read the article (on WCAL.com), it said we were in line with every other (charitable nonprofit). My only reaction is disappointment that other news outlets, other media outlets decided to run only the first half of that story. The people who generated that first story did their research and found out that, yes, people were critical of it. They researched it and found out those concerns. But they're not really valid. ... My only concern is the other media outlets that chose not to get the full story.

Clay Aiken performs at 8 p.m. Friday at Meadow Brook Music Festival in Rochester and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Clio Area Amphitheater. Tickets are $23 lawn, $46.50 pavilion for the Meadow Brook show; $51 bleachers, $54 for seniors and $60 reserved for the Clio show. Tickets are available at each site's box office, Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.com and (248) 645-6666. Details: (248) 377-0100.