Interview: A Conversation With Bo Bice - Page 2

It was a lot different than I expected. Because it was a very pop-oriented show, I didn't expect to go far. I didn't expect anything. Being a pessimist, I was trying to be as optimistic as ever. And you know, all that was blown out of the water when America stepped in and voted me second.

What are your favorite performances or memories from when you were on?

My favorite memory of a performance on the show is when I got to perform with Lynyrd Skynyrd. That was a childhood dream come true. I was just in Jacksonville, and got to hang out with Johnny [Van Zant]. He came to hang out on the tour bus with us, at the Jaguars' stadium. We were doing the halftime show. If you told me five years ago that I'd be hanging out with Johnny Van Zant, in Jacksonville, before my halftime show performance, I would've laughed in your face. So that alone would be my favorite performance. That whole American Idol experience is really lumped together as - aside from my sons being born, and my wife and I experiencing that together - the greatest experience of my life.

How did you like doing the show's themes each week? Did you ever wish you could've just kept with your own style?

Obviously everybody would like to keep with their own thing and do what they want. But I think part of it was more stepping outside of the box and saying, 'Okay, this is part of what I signed up here to do. Now I gotta do these commercials, now I gotta dress up.'

Now, was I apprehensive? Yeah, of course! I mean, I'd never done commercials. And they're asking you to put on these dorky clothes - you don't know how it's going to come out. For all you know, you can look like a moron. They're telling you, 'It's going to look great when it's finished. And you're like, 'Oh okay, whatever.' [laughs] At the end of the day, Idol is like a boot camp for celebrity. It teaches you how to do interviews, and commercials, and studio work. Working camera angles, things like that - that's something that you have to learn. And there's some people that learn and grow with it and there's some people that go, just like you said, 'Oh I wish I could just do my own thing.' Well, your own thing didn't get you discovered. If it did, you wouldn't be on American Idol.

Article Author: Sherry Lipp

Sherry writes mostly music and dvd reviews and on occasion she gets to do an interview. She plays the guitar, enjoys playing with her dog Pepsi and she and her husband are currently in the process of internationally adopting from Poland.

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