Thursday, May 7, 2009

Allison Iraheta: “I’m pretty happy that I made it that far”

I’m still not sure how Simon Cowell could say that Allison Iraheta has no personality, because listening to her talk to reporters on her conference call today, I can definitely tell you she has one. She has the personality of a 17-year-old. She’s bubbly, a tad precocious and loves to talk in incomplete sentences.

In other words, she’s a lot of fun. Just forgive me if don’t always know how to punctuate her…

Here’s a sample of what she had to say…

On whether or not she knew she was going home: “It was weird. I’ve been in the bottom three so many times, so I’m prepared for anything. It was either [Danny] or me, and it was me. I’m pretty happy that I made it that far.”

On her duet with Adam: “We thought about doing a duet for a while now. We really had fun and we’re even planning on doing [“Slow Ride”] on the tour.” Allison clarified that the Idols chose the duet pairings.

On having four judges: “Change is good. I love Kara. It’s awesome that they change it up. You don’t want to be stuck seeing the same thing.”

On the best comments she got from the judges: “I really like the fact that they say that I was different. I really like that because I stayed true to myself and I reminded myself of that so much being here. It’s been a long ride and I’ve been so happy to be a part of it.”

On being like a little sister to the guys: “They would pick on me. It’s love, you know, it’s so cool. It was like a family, you know, it was really great. They would help me with song choice. It was really great.”

On the fact that Chris Daughtry finished fourth as well: “It’s really cool for me. Hopefully, something will happen for me…It made me feel better. He’s done so much and done well and it’s like you know if he’s done well enough to make it all the way to the top then it gives me a chance and hopefully I’ll do well, as well as he does.”

On Simon’s comments: “It was like, every week, I’m boring and I have no personality and I was like, ‘Okay Simon.’ I’m really not the type of person who talks back, but this show he said, ‘start begging’ and I was like you know what, that’s it and I thought it was the perfect time to stand up for myself. I’m not who you’re saying I am. I’m not boring. I feel this is the perfect timing for me to come in.”

On singing in Spanish: “If I have the opportunity to I definitely want to bring back what I first started doing, which was singing in Spanish.”

On how the accident on the set affected them: “We were just very, we didn’t know how to react. It was a great friend of ours, the stage manager, Debbie, we were just like, wow. But you know what? You know she’s doing better and we were just conscious of what was going on and we wanted to know how she was doing during the show and we heard she was doing fine. I guess that really helped us to continue on and do what we were going to do. And I guess we did…We were all [distracted]. The whole day things were not going well. I think during each of our performances we started out shaky and then we got into a good place and just did what we were supposed to do and yeah, we had to just go on with the show.”

On Slash as the mentor: “When I heard it was Slash, I was like, oh my gosh, I can’t wait to meet him. He’s so awesome and I’ve been a fan for so long and it’s insane that I got to sing while he was playing for us. I think he was one of the best mentors we had and it was so great that he took time out of his schedule to just come to the show and help us out.”

On whether getting so many comments from the judges that had nothing to do with her singing annoyed her: “It sort of did. I was like, come on, I’m singing here. But I think overall they all look for what you’re gonna do as a selling artist. And I know there were a lot of risks that I did. I mean, hey, I had fun with it and I think that’s what matters.”

On whether being in the bottom three affected her song choice. “It really didn’t affect anything because I felt like I was doing pretty good. I was prepared for anything so if I was in the bottom three again and I’m actually eliminated, I’m ready because I’d be leaving on a good note. I honestly feel I did pretty good and I’m pretty proud of myself.”

On whether she’ll go back to school: “If I take my GED I’ll be completely done…I really want to continue with the Idol school. I have a great teacher…I was home schooled so I was doing a lot of things ahead of time. And so, I’m almost done with school pretty much.”

On her final performance: “It was funny because I was crying and I was singing a song called Cry Baby, but I really felt like it just felt so different. Like, alright, you know, they’re not going to judge me on this, so I’m gonna do whatever and I’m gonna give it my all. I just really felt it. I felt really great about it and I felt like this was my last time on here so I should give it my all and end on a good note hopefully.”

On the judges disagreeing with her choice of “Cry Baby”: “I appreciate everything they say, but I really think it was about me feeling it and I really don’t regret doing that song or anything I did back at the show because I felt really good about it. I think it’s really about me feeling it and just enjoying what I was doing and having fun.”

On who her fans should vote for now: “They gotta vote for whoever they think is awesome. It’s so crazy, this competition, because everybody’s so different. If you find someone that you can totally connect to, you go for it and vote for them. Whoever they feel just connects with them.”

Photo Credit: Ray Mickshaw/FOX