News & Observer Pulls Out All The Stops For Clay

As promised, the Raleigh News & Observer published a very long article about Clay today in anticipation for his return to Raleigh (for good) next week. The article covers lots of topics, including how he spends his time while on tour, why he moved back to Raleigh, his decision to drop Simon Fuller and 19E as well as his dedication to working with kids. A fantastic read.

Th News & Observer also has 17 fantastic back stage photos from the New York concert earlier this month which is 'narrated' by Clay. The photo gallery is available here. We have a few photos from the slideshow posted below.

The December 22 edition of the N&O will contain a limited edition JNT poster. Ordering information for both today's and next week's paper is available here.

Clay Aiken: A new measure
Matt Ehlers, Staff Writer

A Nicolas Cage adventure flick plays on the pair of flat-screen televisions in the lounge of Clay Aiken's tour bus. No one watches. This Monday afternoon, on a stretch of highway between New York and Boston, four of the five people aboard count sheep instead of mileposts.

Aiken, his bodyguard and his tour manager are sacked out in the back. A reporter along for the ride naps up front with the singer's dog, a border terrier named Raleigh, snoozing in his lap. Only Sarge, the all-business man at the wheel, remains alert, talking endlessly on a cell phone as he steers the bus to its next stop.

Raleigh's most famous pop star is tired. Tired of living in Los Angeles, a city full of suck-ups. Tired of having other people make decisions for him. And, at the moment, tired from having stayed out all night at a nightclub.

After Boston come Rhode Island, Tennessee and Florida, then Raleigh for Thursday's show at the RBC Center. A few more dates on his "Joyful Noise" tour, a few more weeks waiting for his new house in the Triangle to be completed, then Aiken heads home for good.

He's taking charge of his life and career, and one of his major decisions is to return to North Carolina. It's where he belongs.

Aiken started his journey as an "American Idol" wannabe, equipped with a booming voice that belies his lanky frame. He lost in the show's final sing-off in 2003, but the zealous fans he won assured the kind of success that makes you think of a latter-day Tom Jones without the innuendo.

All of it -- the record contract, the money, the panty-tossing fans -- could have gone to his head. Instead, as two days on the road with him reveal, the Clay Aiken who left North Carolina three years ago as a purposeful young man on a mission has returned that same man, only with better hair and more mettle.

On the road

Backstage at New York's Beacon Theatre, backup singers Angela Fisher and Quiana Parler are bugging Aiken about going to an open-mike performance at a club after the show. In the last couple of years, he has only hit the town with them once, in Charleston, S.C., two summers ago.

He leans against the door jamb of their dressing room,

"Do you know what time we have to be at CBS? 5:30!" Aiken asks and answers before adjourning to his own dressing room for makeup and a pre-show drink of white milk.

Sometimes, Aiken has a hard time saying no. Tonight, he'll go out with the singers.

Far from home

After "American Idol," everything happened so fast that it was hard to keep up with the changes, much less control them.

Aiken moved to California, far from his home turf, and bought a a 7,800-square-foot mansion. That's what new celebrities do. Los Angeles is the be-seen capital of the universe, as anyone who reads People magazine knows. Stars need to be there to take meetings and walk the red carpets.

But since the first time he had the chance, Aiken has spoken on TV and in magazine interviews about his hometown, about singing in church and working at the YMCA. He has said enough good things about the area that people have moved to the Triangle because of his praise. Others come to his hometown concerts and make a pilgrimage to important life spots.

The decision to sell his California house and move back was easy.

"I want a home base," he says during a long backstage interview before the Boston show. "I'm tired of people asking me where I'm from and having to say 'L.A.' or saying 'North Carolina, but I don't live there anymore.'

"When people ask me where I'm from, I want to say 'I'm from Raleigh, and I live there.' And mean it."

Los Angeles, with its maps to celebrities' mansions, isn't home. And the entertainment business, with its egos and grandstanding, left Aiken with questions about life in California and his place in it.

He asks: "Who wants to be around me because they want something from me? Who wants to be around me because they feel obligated to? Who wants to be around me because they feel sorry for me? And who wants to be around me because they really want to?"

Then he answers: "Raleigh is the only place right now that I believe there are more people who want to be around me because they want to be around me than there are people who want to be around me because they want something."

The location of the house he's building remains a secret. His mother, Faye Parker, who is helping to guide the completion and decoration, will say only that it's in a gated community in the Raleigh area.

Eventually, people will find out where he lives. By then, she hopes, locals will be used to the Triangle's most famous resident hanging around and won't pay much mind.

In the green room

Just after 4 a.m., Aiken and crew arrive back at the hotel, stone-cold sober. This isn't a drinking crowd, which bodes well for them this morning.

Barely an hour later, he and his cohorts are camped out in "The Early Show" green room with juice and Danishes, waiting to rehearse "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

Parler and Fisher scrunch up in their chairs and doze. Aiken, in a green-hooded UNC-Charlotte sweat shirt, laughs and jokes with the network staff and scans USA Today.

He's tired, he says. But he doesn't act like it. Unlike the others, Aiken didn't take a turn at singing after the concert. He let his friends take the spotlight instead.

"I had open mike all night," he says, smiling.

Management changes

Aiken is ready to call his own tunes.

As part of the deal with "American Idol," Aiken signed with the label owned by series mastermind Simon Fuller and with Fuller's management company. The label essentially chose the songs for his first album, "Measure of a Man."

Aiken uses Raleigh radio parlance to describe his disappointment with the marketing of the first album, which didn't get as much airplay as he thought it could have, but sold millions anyway. The songs appealed to people who like the adult-contemporary sound and listen to Sunny 93.9. The record company marketed it to the G105s of the world, stations that spin a Top 40 playlist filled with Usher and Justin Timberlake.

After hiring an attorney, Aiken freed himself from Fuller's management company. The move puts him more in line with industry norms, in which the records are put out by different people from those who do the managing. Now, he's managed by Simon Renshaw, who also handles the Dixie Chicks.

"I've got people falling into the right places, where at one time, everybody just wanted to have their hands everywhere," he says. "And since that's happening, I'm feeling a little more empowered to make decisions for myself."

He's still signed to Fuller's label. But he's determined to release an album different from the first. Aiken wants it to fall in the middle, something that would appeal to stations that sound like WRAL-FM. He's still going around with the record company about it, but he's firm.

"Nothing's going to happen on this album that I'm not happy with, and that's where I've gotten more businesslike," he says. "I think, after a while, if you get kicked enough, you learn not to kick back necessarily but at least wear shinguards."

Before the camera

After "The Early Show," Aiken and his entourage hop into an SUV and ride to ABC to tape performances of "Mary Did You Know?" and "My Grown Up Christmas List" for future episodes of "Good Morning America."

He greets Diane Sawyer in the hallway, and the pair duck into an empty room as Aiken's bodyguard shuts the door after them. When they emerge, Aiken pokes his head into the office of co-anchor Charles Gibson.

"I've always wanted your job," he says to the veteran journalist in a kind of non-joking-but-joking way.

Grace under pressure

What Aiken wants appears everywhere in the "Joyful Noise" show. It's more musical production, with actors and a plotline, than standard pop concert. Aiken came up with the idea and the story and wrote a script to tie the songs together. His core fans have responded to the show's blend of sweetness and sentiment.

He also makes the rules for the cast and crew. They're allowed to leave the tour on an off day, but they have to be back in town the night before the next show. He recently fired someone for failing to do so. He won't risk having someone stranded at an airport at the wrong time, letting down the rest of the company as well as the fans.

It was tough to let someone go, especially someone he cared about.

Alison Lawrence, who has a leading role in the show, saw the way Aiken responded to adversity when he was a boy.

As his ninth-grade choir teacher at Leesville Road High School, Lawrence watched other kids tease the student then known as Clayton Grissom about his geekified nature. Some kids would retreat in the face of adolescent cruelty. But Aiken, who had survived a rough childhood with an abusive father, was more resilient and resourceful. He learned to deflect the teasing with his own humor.

"All those things are now coming to fruition and are really paying off," Lawrence says.

Aiken embraces his sense of humor. "I keep it as light as I can all the time," he says, although he worries occasionally that people who work with him aren't sure when he's being serious.

"I do get upset about things. Things will piss me off, just like they will anybody else," he says, his voice turning to a whisper at the minor vulgarity. "And I'll let you know it, too. But I'll be done with it. Once I've told you, it's over."

He knows how to handle pressure.

Aiken hasn't had to face many professional failures, other than last year's NBC Christmas special, which was trounced in the ratings by an episode of "Lost." But the more he takes charge, the more the pressure builds -- much of it self-induced -- to make sure his career doesn't falter.

The new album, which he hopes will be released in April, is a prime example. He wants it to be a hit and says so with a mix of earnestness and self-deprecation.

"A lot of it has to do with not really wanting to face the reality -- my life changed so much in 16 weeks -- not really wanting to go back and have it change again," he says. "And then, of course, nobody wants to be a punchline."

Surrounded by kids

Aiken spends Tuesday morning at the Learning Project Elementary School in Boston. Sitting on the floor among 45 or so kids, he's clearly in his element, having worked with children at the YMCA in Raleigh and while working toward a degree in special education at UNC-Charlotte. He was living in Charlotte when he first tried out for "Idol" in 2002.

Songs may bring him fame, but Aiken loves working with kids. Teaching fits him.

He's appearing at Learning Project to thank the students for raising more than $6,000 for UNICEF. He recently traveled to Uganda and Indonesia on behalf of the relief organization in his position as a celebrity ambassador.

The group watches a short video highlighting his work with UNICEF, and Aiken talks about how the money the students raised could help immunize children in far-off countries or develop supplies of clean drinking water.

The kids, led by a teacher on an acoustic guitar, serenade him with "What a Wonderful World."

Making his own way

Hours later, Aiken will do the serenading at Boston's Orpheum Theater. Talking backstage before the show, he considers the question of whose respect -- if anyone's -- he'd like to earn. He quickly dismisses the critics' approval. He doesn't need it.

"I'd like to have the respect of the people I work with," he says, specifically management and record-label types. "I'm not saying I don't. But I don't know that I do."

He's getting there, though. He feels more confident.

When the executive producer of his next album, Jaymes Foster-Levy, asked him if he had any ideas for song titles for his new album, he gave her the phrase "Where I Belong." The writers can take that in any direction they please, he says.

"I think that would be a great title track for this next album because it will come out about the time I'm getting back to Raleigh, which is where I want to be," he says. "People in my life are falling into the place they need to be, and I don't know if my career is necessarily, but at least how I control my life is finally getting to the place where I'm comfortable with it."

"Where I Belong" fits.

"I kind of feel that's what the next Diane Sawyer interview would end up being -- that I'm finally figuring things out," he says. "After two and a half years, I'm finally getting my footing."
Staff writer Matt Ehlers can be reached at 829-4889 or mehlers@newsobserver.com.