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SINGAPORE : It's been his dream since he was 13 to become a singer but singing doesn't always come easy for American Idol 8 champion Kris Allen.
The 24-year-old dreads singing in front of small groups as he gets "tensed up" and "scared". One wonders how he made it through the Idol auditions.
"I'd rather sing in front of a million people than you guys," Allen told reporters during an interview at Mandarin Oriental Singapore on Tuesday.
And it's worse if you are family. So the Arkansas native decided to take action and gave his mum song cards for Christmas which she could use to force him to sing.
"She would pull it out once in a while and go 'okay now you have to sing' because I couldn't say no to it, so that was really rough," he said.
Interestingly, he has no qualms about singing in front of a small audience in karaoke bars.
"I actually like karaoke because karaoke's fun. You can sing anything, sing stupid songs that no one even likes and you don't even have to sing, you just have to ya ya ya," he yelped demonstrating his karaoke singing.
Well, thankfully there will be plenty of fans present to calm his nerves when he performs at mega club Zirca on Wednesday. And even more so after organisers waived the minimum age requirement for entry into the club, though those under 14 years must be accompanied by a parent or guardian who is at least 18.
Allen, the first American Idol winner to stage a solo concert here, will be performing tracks from his self-titled album as well as familiar covers of songs that he sang on American Idol.
Singapore is his last stop of the Asian leg of his tour which included shows in the Philippines and a stopover in Malaysia.
Idol-ised
2009 has been a whirlwind year for Allen. Since winning the eighth season of American Idol in May, he has been working on his self-titled album which he released in November, and is now on a world tour to promote it.
But all this would have remained just a dream had his brother not convinced Allen, who was close to giving up his music career, to tag along for the American Idol audition.
"American idol was something that just kind of happened. I just went and I just kept getting through the audition rounds," he said, though he had resisted the call of Idol initially as he wanted to make it on his own.
"[But] Idol's given me the opportunity to at least have a career right now and hopefully have one for a really long time, so I'm happy with how things are going right now. But the thing about it is, when you are on the show, people expect a lot out of you, which is fine, but there's a lot of expectations."
So any advice for Idol hopefuls?
"I always tell people to take the risks that you want to take because people appreciate them and understand them and I think that people vote on that for sure and just be yourself. Everyone has their niche, their genre whether it be their music or their style, stay true to that," he said.
Catch Kris Allen on February 10 at Zirca, and the live telecast of American Idol Season 9 on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 6pm on Star World (StarHub Channel 18).
- CNA
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