American Idol 13 premiered on 16 January on StarWorld in Singapore via SingTel mio TV Ch 301 and StarHub TV Ch 501. It airs every Thursday and Friday at 6pm and 8pm. The judges of American Idol 13 participated in a livestream question and answer session held on 15 January 2014, 7.30pm (Singapore time). If you don’t already know, the judges are Ryan Seacrest (RC), Jennifer Lopez (JL), Keith Urban (KU) and Harry Connick, Jr (HCJ).
RS – What would you say, to start this lucky season thirteen, we are looking for in the next American Idol. Jennifer?
JL – I think what we’re always looking for, is somebody who can have a sustained career over a long period of time. Somebody who’s the full package, who can come in, who can touch your heart with their singing, and just reaches through the television and into the hearts of America. That’s what’s going to win at the end of the day.
RS – Keith, what stands out when you think about all the cities that we’ve been too, and you look at what we’ve found and what we’ve brought back, what is most memorable to you?
KU – I think, it sounds so simple, but I think the level of talent. I mean the level of just natural, raw talent. And for me what I’ve always loved about Idol, is watching someone that comes from some town we’ve never heard of, some small little place, and they have this amazing gift but they don’t have anything else yet. They have ‘it’, but they haven’t got all the rest yet. And this journey allows them to get all of that and we watch blossom right before our eyes.
RS – And Harry, how much did you enjoy picking that young man up and twirling him around?
KU – I wish he had of picked you up!
HCJ – I haven’t bathed since. That son of a gun smelt good.
RS – Let’s get to your questions. [FROM TWITTER] Do you ever just roll your eyes at Keith Urban’s and Harry Connick, Jr’s shenanigans?
JL – All the time. Regularly. No, I love being on the panel between these two guys, I do. And they do have a lot of banter going on and I am kind of the girl in the middle sometimes, but I do enjoy it. They make me laugh. I think the danger for me this season is not to come off like a giggling fool because they make me laugh so much. We’re really having a good time, they’re awesome.
HCJ – That’s like gold though. That’s all I want to do, it’s so much fun, there’s so much going on on the panel, anything to get her to lose it. And it’s so easy.
JL – Writing me notes, I’m like ahh stop!
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – Hi Harry. You’ve done movies, music, Broadway and television. If you had to pick your favourite, which would it be?
HCJ – Oh man, I think performing I guess. I love Broadway, but it’s not me I’m playing a character. I love doing films but it’s a completely different vibe. So I think being on this stage right now, even though I’m not performing, this is where it’s most home to me, is just doing live shows. If I had to pick, I’m glad I can do them more.
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – I have a question for Keith Urban. What’s your favourite song? Has anyone on this show ever sang it or played it for you?
KU – I don’t really have any favourite songs. I always get asked that and I really don’t have a favourite. People do come on the show and sing some of our songs though, and it’s a strange situation because you’re just hoping to God that they sing it really great. The worst thing is for someone to come on and just murder a song and then I have to give feedback.
RS – How do you draw that line when someone comes in, and it’s obviously flattering, they’re a fan they choose your song, but then you have to be honest with them, and nobody knows better than you.
KU – The way I’ve done is I do two parts. I go firstly, thank you so much for singing my song, that’s really flattering. Now, it was terrible! I don’t literally say that, but I think you’ve got to give the critique after, but I want them to know that I really appreciate that they do that.
RS – [TWITTER QUESTION – TO JL] Have you found a contestant that reminds you of your own story?
JL – I think every year I’ve don’t it there’s been girls that come in that remind me of myself at that time when I was auditioning and going out there. I think that’s what I love about the show. So many times, many times that’s happened, and this year as well.
RS – There were some contestant that came in this season that literally are so grateful to be in the room they break down in tears. What do you feel when you see that kind of emotion coming from somebody you’ve never met before?
JL – It’s overwhelming, it really is overwhelming and it’s humbling. Sometimes I can’t even look at them I have to look away. And it may be misread, but the truth is it touches my heart so much I can’t even let it all the way in. Because I will start sobbing, you guys know! I will start sobbing. And then later on when I’m thinking about it at home, and I’m like ‘Wow what that girl said, I can’t believe it’, I’m just really grateful. I’m really grateful that I’m able to do what I love and that it can inspire or make somebody believe in themselves more in any way. That’s like probably the best thing in life I think.
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – Hi Harry. You have been a mentor artist for so long, why did you decide to be a judge?
HCJ – I guess the simple answer is they called and asked me if I wanted to be a judge. I’m so easy! I had a great time mentoring, and it is a big commitment, you can ask anybody on this stage. Because not only is it a big time commitment, but all of us want to take this job really, really seriously. And I just wanted to make sure that if I did do it, I would live up to the great reputation that American Idol has already set. But they called and said, ‘You want to do it?’ and I really hoped it’d work out because I really love the show, I was excited at the prospect of working with this crew and Randy [Jackson] who’s not here right now but who’s amazing. So I was very happy that they asked.
RS – [TWITTER QUESTION – TO KU] Who pulls the most pranks between everybody?
KU – Well Harry’s a bit of a prankster, you guys would guess that, right?
JL – [To RS] You? No?
RS – Me? I don’t!
KU – Ryan, are you a bit of a prankster?
RS – I think he’s [Harry Connick, Jr.] going to beat me. I like to wind us up when we get on the show. I think he does, I think he makes a sport of it.
HCJ – I haven’t made any pranks, yet. I’m still trying to worm my way in. But now that I know that I can, maybe I will.
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – Hi J.Lo, what’s it like working with Ryan, Keith and Harry?
RS – Dream come true?
JL – You took the words right out of my mouth. It really is, I really do look forward to coming to work every day, it’s true. It’s what I loved about Idol before, even when I did my seasons with Randy [Jackson] and Steven [Tyler] and you Ryan. I had a ball which is what made me want to come back when they asked me to come back again, and I got lucky with these two [Keith Urban and Harry Connick, Jr.] good looking fellas over here.
RS – We’re so psyched. Remember, I called you and said ‘You have to come back’.
JL – I know, yes I do remember.
RS – I said ‘No, no, don’t hang up on me, you have to come back’.
JL – [Laughing] And I giggled like that, right?
RS – Yes you did, non-committal giggle right there.
RS – [FACEBOOK QUESTION – TO KU] If you were a contestant on this show, what advice would you want to receive?
KU – You’re going to Hollywood! A performance of mine when I was sixteen just popped up on YouTube recently, and it’s weird because I don’t remember doing it. And it was on a singing TV talent show in Australia when I was sixteen. And I got some fairly harsh criticism from the judges, but I also thought they were right. I still had a lot to learn about my craft, and I took that to heart. I knew that I’d just came from a small town, and…
RS – What was their biggest criticism?
KU – It wasn’t very good. I was watching it going ‘Ahh dude I thought I sang better than that?’ But it wasn’t very good and the guy was saying ‘You’re kind of just ah, you know you’re opening your mouth and sound is coming out, and that’s about all that’s happening. But I can tell you enjoy it, and if it’s something you want to do then I would advise you to learn more about singing and singing properly’ and all of that. And he was right, I mean I wasn’t very good.
RS – So that feedback kind of fuelled you to make yourself better and I think it worked out for you.
KU – Yep.
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – Hi, my question is for Harry. In the show they called you ‘Harsh Harry’, is this accurate?
HCJ – I think sometimes when you give somebody your opinion, which is essentially what we were hired to do, is give opinions about the performance. Sometimes people don’t hear the answer that they want to hear. And if I don’t like it, I say it, I don’t think I’m mean, but I say it succinctly, and I’ll say ‘I didn’t like it’. And I think it’s key, especially now as the numbers start narrowing down, and you start thinking about who can make it all the way, I think specificity is the key. You can’t just tell somebody ‘Ahh, I don’t know, it didn’t really do it for me’, I’m going to tell you very specifically in most cases what it is. Maybe the specificity might refer to, it didn’t move me, but it may be a technical thing that I would like to impart. And if that’s harsh, I can’t do anything about the way people interoperate what I say. But I can promise you this, I love those kids, all of them, and I would want somebody to tell me. And they did, ‘Hey bro, that song you just played was no good. The way you just sang that was terrible’.
KU – And that was on Tuesday?
HCJ – And that was just on Tuesday – that was with Keith, I played him my new music and I’m like ‘Come on, what do you think?’ he’s like ‘I hate it’.
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – My question is for Keith. I was wondering, how do you manage your Idol responsibilities with your hectic touring schedule?
KU – That’s a good question. That really goes for all of us. Because Ryan, you were doing one, or twenty-five other things.
RS – A couple of things, right now actually, I’m hosting a radio show in my pocket.
KU – I think I’m not alone, there’s a lot of you guys out here tonight that are holding down more than one job, and you’re trying to figure out how to balance family and work, because there’s limited time for all of it. And I think it’s just balance. I was always told ‘Balance is never achieved it’s just maintained’, so I try and do my best to maintain.
RS – To answer that question a little bit for Keith, we would be in a city doing the auditions and then the second we’d finish he would fly out, fly overnight, and be in another city the next day, perform and come right back. And that’s what it’s like for everybody when we’re doing this. Except for me because I can’t sing.
[QUESTION FROM AN AUDIENCE MEMBER] – If you were performing today, what three judges would you want up there to hear you?
KU – I’d go with Ellen [DeGeneres].
JL – I’d go with Ellen too! I want Ellen!
HCJ – When you said anyone, I’m thinking of like Thor, some fictional characters.
JL – I would pick all the nice judges, I would pick Ellen and Paula [Abdul], and myself!
HCJ – I don’t know man, we all love Ellen, I mean Ellen’s pretty fun, we just love Ellen, I’d pick Ellen.
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – Hi Jennifer, I’d like to know what is it like on set behind-the-scenes when the cameras not running?
JL – It’s pretty much like when the cameras running, it’s the same thing. They always have cameras even where we do hair and makeup and everything. It’s pretty much the same, who these people are on camera, including myself, is who we are off camera as well. There’s a lot of joking around, a lot of talking, a lot of chatting. We talk about our families more off camera, we do that. You know we talk about the kids, how they’re doing.
RS – They give me relationship advice.
JL – We do, that’s true. I love that part!
RS – [TWITTER QUESTION – FOR ALL JUDGES] Who is the hardest judge to impress this year?
HCJ – I think maybe because I listen so intently, I do, to every single contestant. People come to me all the time and they say ‘Are you OK? Are you angry?’ I have that intense face, my wife tells me all the time. I love life, I’m very happy, but sometimes like I saw backstage watching the screen that my face ‘Dude lighten up a bit, you look mean’, but I’m really, really, really listening. But I guess, you know what, let me just go out and say it – I think we have a pretty low standard right now, and yes I am hard to impress because I think we can do better. I think there’s amazing talent out there, I’m sitting up here with some of them, but we can do better than what’s out there. Let’s just get really real, this has nothing to do with talent, this has to do with the standard, this is America man, this is the greatest country in the world. We have access, especially now, to get to any kind of musical education, any kind of influence, it’s all on your phone. So yeah I guess honestly I am a little hard to impress, but it’s just a challenge to these young performers to work at your fricking craft! Work at it! Practice! Go buy a book, if you can’t afford a book go to the library. I learnt ninety percent of what I know in one room in a public school in New Orleans. Not in college, I learnt it in high school. I don’t have a degree, you know what I’m saying?
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – I actually have one for J.Lo. I was just wondering, you’ve conquered so many different worlds, TV, fashion, all those things. I’m just curious, what keeps you inspired?
JL – I love what I do. I have like an insatiable appetite for creating things and for wanting to get better at what I do, and always growing and never stopping. I don’t know it’s just something I may have been born with. It’s definitely a drive. It’s a drive, it’s a passion, it’s a passion, and it’s driven by a love for what I do.
RS – [TWITTER QUESTION] Harry Connick, Jr. describe yourself in one word.
HCJ – Struggling. I struggle, every day, with trying to be a better dad, a better husband, a better musician, a better artist. It consumes me, and I don’t see an end in sight in any department. So it’s a struggle, like we all do. We want to be better people, we want to be better at our craft, so I’d say struggling, you know. I’ve been very blessed but I struggle.
JL – We love Harry!
RS – We love you, Harry! He does not struggle at the gym. That dude works out every single day. He hasn’t missed one workout in three years, three and a half years, something like that, very frustrating. [TWITTER QUESTION] It’s a question for me. Do you ever get attached to the contestants, is it hard to see them go? You know what it is, because you’re standing up there next to them and you can feel them shaking, you know their hearts are beating. Sometimes right before the result is read on the air they’re totally silent, sometimes they’re talking to each other. And I look down on that card and for a split second it’s in my head, I know which one is going to go. And that’s tough sometimes but it’s part of the process, and I think we all feel that way. Especially when you get attached to the contestants towards the end.
[VIDEO FAN QUESTION] – Hi Keith, now that contestants have the option of playing instruments, how do you feel that enhances or detracts from their overall performance?
KU – I think it depends. First of all I love the fact that they allow that because I prefer to sing playing my guitar or playing piano or something, I don’t really love just standing and singing without an instrument. I understand a lot of people feel the same. We want to hear them in their most comfortable environment so I’m glad that we allow that. At the same time we hear some people that probably shouldn’t play as well. And that is also a great moment because sometimes they’re stuck behind this instrument, and they’re actually better without it. And we give them the opportunity to see that and say ‘You’re actually better without that, just work on just singing because you’ve got it’.
RS – How often to you think you disagree this season on the road with the contestant when they step into the room. Because it happens every once in a while.
JL – I think a lot. Obviously, two of us have to agree for someone to go through, but it would vary. It wasn’t like we [Jennifer Lopez and Keith Urban] always agreed or they [Keith Urban and Harry Connick, Jr.] always agreed. There was always a time when one of us was just like ‘I don’t know’.
HCJ – In the moment it gets, I don’t know if heated is the right word, but intense, it gets really intense. There’s been, I don’t know, twenty times, when we really kind of got into it, but we love each other and it’s based on respect. I so respect these two [Jennifer Lopez and Keith Urban] and I like to have a reasonable dialogue.
JL – You love to argue.
HCJ – No, I learnt a long time ago when I got married, just don’t argue.
JL – But that’s why I like arguing with you, because at some point you give up.
HCJ – It’s Jennifer Lopez! I give up baby, I can’t hang with you.
KU – I love it when we say no to somebody, Jen will write down ‘No’, I write ‘Nope’, and then we let them just sing a bit more and something happens in the song, and it’s happened at least once, and we’re like ‘Ahhhh, it’s a yes’.
HCJ – We would draw like an ‘N’ for ‘No’, and then, this happens so many times, and I look, and they draw an extra line for a ‘Maybe’. Interestingly enough more times than not we all responded to the same type of thing, we all responded in different ways.JL – What I love too about this panel is that I do look over and go, if I have a ‘No’ and you definitely have a ‘Yes’, it’s like OK now I need to know why he said yes, you know what I mean? There’s more collaboration I think on this panel.
KU – Because we don’t want to miss anything.
RS – Can it change your mind?
JL – I mean sometimes. Sometimes we dig our heels in, and it’s like ‘NO!’, or ‘YES’ I am not letting you get rid of that person forget about it!’.
HCJ – Jennifer sits in between us and sometimes we’ll be talking, and it’s almost like we’ll hear a few bars, and a lot of times I’ll be like I really see what you’re saying, and it can change your mind.
RS – There was a portion of Hollywood Week when I saw you guys, and it looked like you were frustrated, and I thought ‘Oh my God, there’s the first argument on the panel’, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was about. But it was about cutting contestants because there were so many good ones you felt this year in Hollywood Week, right?
JL – Yeah, we had a couple. One we had a big kind of discussion about one contestant’s performance, when me and Harry kind of got into it a little bit.
RS – Well would you like to elaborate?
JL – I think you’re going to see it, I think it’ll make TV!
HCJ – I will say this, I think it really truly bugged all of us is that we really had to send some, not good, but really good talent home, which is just to show that this year’s going to have some ridiculous talent. But there were a couple of times where we were like ‘Oh my God, did we just send that person home?’ And then the next person would come out, and it’s hard, it really is hard.
KU – What’s crazy too is that right now we’re in a really strange time right now because you don’t have to be able to sing to have a huge career. There’s a lot of trickery that can make you sound real good on a record, and you can sell a lot of a lot of records and have a huge career. And then when people see you live it’s not so great, but you can maintain that for a long time. And so there’s the question now of ‘What are we looking for?’ We’re constantly asking ourselves, because this guy or girl they look fantastic, they have a good tone, their pitch is not so great, we can fix that, they can sell a lot of records, but they’re not really the real deal. This person has an amazing voice, but I don’t know that they’re going to sell any records –which one should we send through? Which one is the most talented? And I think it’s just got to be a feeling, there’s a feeling that this person connects with me somehow.
RS – Yeah, you have to make the call in the moment.
