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Interview Podcast Audio Blake Lewis
"Break Anotha"

As Chris Daughtry found out in 2007, you don't have to win American Idol to reap the benefits of the show's incredible popularity.

For Blake Lewis, the beat-boxing runner-up on the sixth season of American Idol, he lost out to Jordin Sparks, but he gained a record deal with show creator Simon Fuller's 19 Recordings. Lewis' debut album, A.D.D. (Audio Day Dream), hit stores Dec. 4 and has sold more than 210,000 copies.

Lewis spoke with MP3.com about his wild ride on Idol, reaping the rewards of national television exposure, and taking A.D.D. on tour.

Blake. How are you? Good. How are you doing, man? Doing great. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. I appreciate it. Yeah, man. So, I wanted to ask you, your new album A.D.D. (Audio Day Dream) is in stores now. I'm kind of catching you at a time that the official numbers are--for your first week sales--are going to be released soon. Are you the kind of person that cares, is trying to get updates on this sort of thing, or would you rather not be bothered with all that? No, I don't--honestly, it doesn't make any difference to me, I mean whether I know now or whether I know in a year. And, honestly, I mean I hope it does well. But I mean all I care about is going out and touring the record. I mean to be performing live is my favorite thing. I really hope people are going out and picking it up this holiday season. It's a great time. I think it's an amazing album. I'm very proud of it. Cool. But you know, I hope it does well. I hope it does fantastic. I mean I put a lot of work into it and coming off an amazing show that has an amazing fan base. Yeah, you kind of have that built-in fan base from American Idol. Yeah, well, I hope people that are a fan of pop music will really dig this record. I mean I'm very inspired by '80s pop music. You describe this record as something to be called 2000-'80s Blake Radio. I kind of have a sense of what you mean, but maybe you could explain that for us. Definitely. Basically, I mean all my influence growing up are '80s--very '80s based, like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, New Order, Erasure, The Police, and the U2, and Michael, and Prince. Right. Sure. Just amazing--the '80s to me I think was just some of the best pop music because it was all over the place. Nothing sounded. Nothing sounded alike but it was all considered pop music. And The Cure--I mean The Cure doesn't sound like Depeche Mode. Everything was so different. And it's just like--I don't listen to the radio now. I haven't listened to the radio really since sometime... Since the '80s? [laugh] Since sometime in the '90s. Okay. You can go to the Internet right now and listen to amazing bands you'll never hear on the radio. Absolutely. Or YouTube even like you'll some playing a concert somewhere. But besides that, I mean that's what my radio was like when I grew up listening to was '80s, you know, and I wanted to make my pop record, my Michael Jackson Bad album. Right, your '80s radio album. Yeah, and I mean it's based off of Michael Jackson's Bad. That's my favorite album ever produced, and just the fact that every song is different. But it's Michael at the same time, you know? Absolutely. Sure. You go from "Dirty Diana" to "Liberian Girl," totally and completely two different songs. Sure. Well, clearly, you're a product of all of those influences. I mean it's evident on the record for sure. And I guess I was wondering about the importance of a full album to you. I mean putting out albums is what artists and singers and record labels do. But does it matter to you, in this day and age, where songs are available in so many different ways, does it matter to you that if the songs on an album fit together as a cohesive album or is it more important for you to kind of represent all of the various influences that you have kind of obviously drawn from? I think it really depends on the artist and the album they want to make. I mean you can do a concept record. It really depends on where you're at right there. I mean right now this is the album I made right here, that's what I wanted to set out and do. I mean it's kind of a concept record. Right, more of a mix tape? Yeah, it's a more of a mix tape feel. I mean, sure, all my records will be like that. I mean I want to take you on a journey when you're listening to a record. I grew up listening to vinyl where you can't pause the record. You can't skip to the next track. You have to get up and physically take the needle off the record. I mean that's why my album is a record. It looks like a record. I want the listener to press "play." I mean I love albums that I can just press "play" and I don't have to get up. I don't have change the song. Worry about what's next. Yes. Sure. Yeah. I mean that's where the whole thing of ADD comes into is because America is so ADD. And like I'll be in a club and hear a 45 second mix of a song I love rather than go into something I don't like. Like that was 45 seconds. Like I'm on this pop culture show [American Idol] where I didn't even get to sing a full song. I sang a minute and 30 of a song that I loved. Right. Exactly. That's ADD. But I guess kind of what you're getting at is that it's got both its plusses and minuses. It's got the, 'Oh, I just heard 45 minutes of a song I liked, and now we're onto something that sucks. That's too bad. But in the same sense, I can keep it moving across a number of different genres at my own pace, and mix in all sorts of influences that might not have fit on a record maybe say 20 years ago, or 30 years ago,' and that kind of thing? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, he produced most of this album. Yeah, he did. OneRepublic is a band that landed a huge hit with the Timbaland record in the song 'Apologize.' I wanted to know how you guys connected. When I set out to do this album, I had a mix tape that I made for everyone, like everyone, just like, 'This is where I'm coming from. These are my favorite songs. This is who I'm influenced by. This is my album,' you know, pretty much ADD, like, 'Here's the idea. Here's the concept. This has been in my head for years. Let's make it happen.'

Then I met Ryan, and within like 10-20 minutes, it was like, 'Wow! I didn't know you are one of my homies.' He was like one of my best friends. He told Clive [Davis, head of J Records], when he met with Clive, he was like, 'If I was in Seattle, Blake and I would be best friends. We'd make music all the time.' It was just--it was instant, like coming from the same background. Like he's just a little bit older than me, and he's so talented and everything. So, you clicked right away? Yeah, totally. We wrote two songs in a day. Fantastic. It was great, you know, instantly. I'm like, 'What about this?' 'Cool.' 'Yeah, what about this?' 'Cool.' Just easy--easy mesh. It was a no-brainer. [You can't get] better than that. Yeah. No. It was great. That's the way it's supposed to work. Exactly. And that happened a lot on the--I mean this whole entire album was like that pretty much. Oh, great. There were some ideas that didn't come out exactly the way we wanted them to. But they didn't make the record. I mean the ones that did, the ones that are very organic and true to me and my melodies and my lyrics just really came to fruition. And the stuff I did with Ryan, some of that turned out amazing you know. Absolutely. So, let's talk about the process of coming out of the American Idol competition. It sounds like you're happy with the way things went since the season ended. It sounds like the process of going to the auditions, going to the show, and where you have ended up, you're pretty happy with? Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean it was--the show was definitely surreal just because I'd never seen it before. The neatest thing was that I'm a live performer. I've done improv for so long just for audiences making stuff up on the spot. Like this is great. I can sing a song for people that I'm inspired by that, hopefully, they know and are inspired by as well, and have fun.

I had the most fun on that show because I never stressed out because I didn't take it too seriously, honestly. I mean I just--I went out to have fun and perform. It was just another gig. It's the biggest gig as far as television that I'll ever get to do I mean. But, to me, it was completely new. I didn't know like they'd compare me to Chris Daughtry when I'd never seen him ever before. And I wasn't going to look him up to go see him. I was like, 'Cool. You're comparing me to this guy I've never seen before.'

And then I'd meet old idols that were on the year before, the year before that, and then I look like a di** because I'm like, 'Who are you?' And they're like, 'We were on season four.' I'm like, 'That's cool. I didn't watch it. I'm sorry.' [laugh] Right on. I had so much fun. I mean just coming off that show into a record is great. I mean I was very fortunate that Simon Fuller decided to pick me up. Yeah. That was one of--the main thing that first caught my eye auditioning was some of the people from 19 [Recordings], is that they're amazing at their jobs, and they care about good music. Sure. The improv stuff you mentioned was one of the reasons I wanted to ask that question was because you were kind of doing your thing in a number of different mediums prior to American Idol. And it's always interesting to see someone who was in a very creative place before, and kind of come out the other end. And I guess the question is was it all worth it? And it sounds like for you, at this point, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Do you have any regrets? Do I have any regrets? Yeah. Never. No? [laugh] Definitely, no. No, I don't regret anything. I've done some crazy sh** in my life, too. [laugh] Okay. Okay, like what? You baited me. What? You baited me. Like what? Oh, just, you know, partying and--sex, drugs and rock and roll. Good times. Okay. Good times. No. No, I don't regret anything. I live life to the fullest. And I think that's what people got from me coming on the show is I have fun, and I love to live life. I love to be creative and communicate with as many people as possible. I mean American Idol, it was amazing because I got to go out every week on a live television show, sing a song, and people told you if [they] liked it or if they didn't. Yeah. Sure. It was great. I mean like for this year, I've had the easiest job ever, and then coming off that to create my album I've always wanted to create. Can't complain. I know. I'm not going to talk about it too much. [laugh] Yeah. I gotcha. So, where do you go from here? And I'm not--to me, it's just that it's too good to be true. So, I'm just riding a wave, man. Absolutely. Now, where do you go from here? You mentioned that you are very much a live performer, and very much want to take this out on the road. I know you're doing some late night shows in the next few weeks here. You're doing a New Year's thing on Fox. Do you plan on taking this on the road with a band? Yeah, my band's amazing. I mean that's where ADD came from is my original band title. And, yeah, we just played Ellen. It actually just aired--we were just on TV about a half hour ago. Yeah, that's right. I saw that. And, yeah, man, we're all over. We're going to Columbus, Ohio tonight, my drummer and I. Where ADD truly came from was my name for Kevin and I, my drummer. He's crazy. And he's one of the best drummers you'll ever see live. If you come to a show, he's just--he's so good, it's ridiculous. Like people--like amazing people [and] huge stars that's seen him, and just like--and producers--are like, 'Who is this kid?' Okay. Cool. So, I mean that's where I came from. And, yeah, hopefully, by the end of January, once all this promo stuff gets out of the way, we're going to settle down, and we're going to rehearse a lot, and do a lot of writing on tour. Something like mapping out like a spring tour would probably be about what you're thinking, eh? Yeah. I'm thinking clubs, not too big, 1,000 people to 2,000 at the most. Yeah. Yeah, that's where we'll be. We're ready to rock. We've all been playing together for so long it's just like we're so stoked, like, it's a new experience for them as it is me and I'm happy that I get to share it with my brothers. Absolutely. Well, I wish you all the success, and thanks for taking the time to talk to us, man. Yeah, man, thanks. Have a good one. You, too.