New USA Weekend Interview

A new USA Weekend interview is appearing in this week's USA Weekend, a weekly magazine that is included in many newspapers. The interview was actually published online in December:

Clay Aiken on Spamalot, stage fright and sequels

Can you think of any better revenge on that high school musical director who cut you from the cast than to end up in a hit Broadway show? I can't. And that's just what has happened for Clay Aiken — the Broadway part, not the revenge, necessarily. He got cut from the musical when in high school in Raleigh, N.C. and next month he'll make his Broadway debut.

He says he won't even have time to think about Spamalot until Jan. 2 and he has not ever seen the movie, Sylvie. In fact, he only saw the show a year ago. "The first time I saw it, I thought, 'This is stupid.' It was lost on me." But about six months later, on a second viewing, he saw that it is "irreverant, silly, silly, silly and it's all it's supposed to be. I laughed so hard. It's the funniest show in New York." He IS a little worried about the dancing, or as he put it, "God help us with the dancing part." He'll have just about two weeks to learn it before his debut on Jan. 18. And he's curious about what it will be like to do eight shows a week all in the same place. Spamalot, he says, "is the closest to a 9 to 5 job I've ever had in my life." And, Lissa, it sounds like he'll work on the new album primarily after the show is wrapped up in May.

I asked about writing a sequel to his book Learning to Sing, and at first he laughed about it being called Learn to Shut Up. But Clay says he doesn't see a sequel. He says the first book felt right because he had so many experiences to share that might benefit someone else. Though he's grown much and "there would be a lot to get in" he doesn't see how it would benefit anyone else.