Clay Talks About the New Look, Days of Our Lives, and Las Vegas in Access Hollywood Interview

ClaytonClaniac at The Clayboard has given us an exerpt from an Access Hollywood interview. Below is a part of that interview:

"........Shaun Robinson and I spent some time with him here at NBC just last week. I have only met him a handful of times but before this latest incident, he seemed much more grounded and real than ever before to me. It was like the North Carolina boy had returned to his roots. He was laughing, he was joking. He wasn't surrounded by a million handlers. He was just Clay Aiken from North Carolina not Clay Aiken of American Idol fame.

He was even able to joke with Shaun about his dark hair and Beatles-like look that had viewers gasping at the American Idol finale, "I didn't recognize myself. At first, it took me 2 or 3 weeks to actually get comfortable watching it on TV and thinking who is that dude, oh it's me."

Gone is the dark hair and dark suits now it's back to a much more laid back look. Clay with light brown hair, dressed in an argyle sweater and khaki pants, was on the lot at NBC to film a cameo appearance playing himself on "Days of our Lives."

Though not a soap opera fan himself, Clay brought along his best friend who is a huge "DOOL" fan. She was in heaven according to him.

I expect we won't be seeing a lot of Clay for a while. So, fans may have to get their fill when this episode airs December 26th. For now, I suggest he just throw himself into his work. His latest album, "A Thousand Different Ways", which featured mostly covers of famous love songs didn't exactly burn up the charts. Apparently, he wanted to do an album with all new material but the record label pushed for something else, "That was the intention at the beginning of making the second album. In the process Clive (Davis) came up with a different idea. It's my intention hopefully, to do an album of all [new]material next. We'll kind of see what the record label has in store for us."

Shaun brought up that maybe he should follow in the footsteps of Barry Manilow, Celine Dion and Elton John and head to Vegas. According to Clay it certainly is not out of the question, "It's a possibility. I mean I think that it's kind of ,Vegas has had it's rebirth. I was saying to someone the other day it's gotten very hip recently. I would have no problem if someone in Vegas wants to hire me to do a show. You call us up.""

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