Katelyn Epperly, Todrick Hall, Alex Lambert and Lilly Scott were the next contestants to be eliminated from “American Idol” and spoke about their exit in a recent conference call. Excerpts are below.

Katelyn Epperly
Hometown: West Des Moines, IA
Currently Resides: West Des Moines, IA
Age: 19
Occupation: university student

Q:  Some people felt like the judges were particularly hard on you during these live shows and were more forgiving of other contestants.  Do you feel like the judges were too hard on you?

Epperly: They were definitely more critical towards me.  I’m not sure if it’s possibly because I’ve been performing for so long they maybe expected more out of me than what I was giving them.  But, you know, I started out on a pretty strong note, so maybe I didn’t live up to their expectations week-by-week.

Q: It seems like contestants have gotten very close this year already.  Would you say you were closer to one or two people?  Or, who were you closest to on the show?

Epperly: Lilly and I were best friends throughout.  We were roommates throughout the show and we hung out all the time.  So, I mean, it was kind of ironic that we both got eliminated on the same day, but maybe it happened for a reason.

Q: I thought that last week you had a really powerful thing when you sat at the piano and did your song.  And then afterwards they started complaining and they said, oh, it was too slow and so forth.  Did you kind of over-adapt after that?  Did you move out of your element with this week’s song a little bit?

Epperly: Yes, I totally did.  I definitely was trying to find a song that would portray me as an artist, which is difficult for singer/songwriters in this competition because, first of all, I don’t listen to mainstream music and second of all, I don’t typically perform covers.

So, I kind of scrambled around last minute trying to do something I could; I brought out the Wurlitzer keyboard, I wanted to do something edgier and it didn’t work out for me, but I definitely don’t regret doing it because I love that era and I love the song.

Q: Can you tell us what you’re planning to do moving forward with your music?

Epperly: Yes, I am planning on going back, well, for now since I’m flat broke. I’ve got to go back to Des Moines and start working and continue to pursue recording and writing music with all sorts of different artists.  A band called Lovedrug, it’s been a band that I’ve been listening to since I was real young, I’m going to get together with them and, hopefully, start writing some music with them as well as other artists.  Just getting back in the studio and getting back to what I truly love to do.

Q: What specifically inspired you to do (“The Scientist”)?  I mean it truly was a highlight.

Epperly: Well, you know, without going into anything too specific, it’s definitely a song that comes to mind when I think about anything hard that I’ve had to do, of any sort of loss.  It’s a very touching, riveting song.   I remember I covered it a lot this summer and it helped me cope with a lot of things that I was going through and it definitely is a song that is sad, but also hopeful. 

When they said it was too slow, that was okay with me.  I was waiting for that comment.  I wanted to do it slow.  I wanted to focus on the lyrics and the song, it just cries.  And I wanted that to be portrayed and I think I portrayed it despite what the judges might have thought.

Todrick Hall
Hometown: Arlington, TX
Currently Resides: Arlington, TX
Age: 24
Occupation: performer

Q: What do you think you’ll do in the future?  I know you’ve had so much success already.

Hall: Well, listen, I’m making it my personal job now to be my own campaign manager to get myself a role on “Glee.”  I think I would be perfect for that show and so every time somebody asks me what I’m doing now I’m just telling everyone that I would love, love, love to be the next cast member on “Glee.”

And I didn’t even think about campaigning for that until (Simon said) the other night, “Well, you look like you are doing ‘American Idol the musical.’”  And then Randy chimed in and said, “Glee.”  And I was like, actually, I think I would love to be on “Glee.”  It’s the perfect show for me and that’s the reason I came on “American Idol” to hopefully take this platform and do something else with it.

Q: I know you were kind of trying to shake the dancer stereotype the whole time on the show when they were telling you, you know, you’re more of a dancer than a singer, all this stuff.  But I guess I’m kind of wondering, did the dancing come in handy at all?  Like were you helping choreograph the group numbers, those dreaded days?

Hall:  No, it did come in handy for the performing aspect, but actually that kind of like hindered me.  I was always so frustrated during the rehearsals because I’d be like, “Come on, guys, left, right, left, right.”  And then I had to be like, Todrick, they’re not dancers.  So that was kind of one of the things that I had to kind of let my dance background go and realize that this is not that; we’re in a singing competition.

And I actually think that being a dancer and announcing that and announcing that I was on Broadway could have potentially hurt me and might be part of the reason why I’m not on the show any more.

Q: I thought it was kind of disappointing that you had your best week this week with the Queen song and the judges loved it, and it seemed like you would just sail through to the Top 12.  So, what do you think went wrong after having such a great performance?

Hall: Well, you know, I feel like I should have done that a couple of weeks earlier.  The problem is, I’m an African American male, as you all could tell from watching me on TV. A lot of people expected me to sing, you know, I got so many messages saying sing Usher, sing Chris Brown, sing Ne-Yo, Brian McKnight, Stevie Wonder; any Black artist basically that you can sing because that’s your demographic.

But that’s not the kind of music that I want to sing.  So, I’m happy that I stayed true to myself, but I kind of sadly feel that if I had just sung the cookie cutter songs that people would have expected me to do and not gone so far out there with the clothes and the performing and just been a normal guy that got up there and sang semi-decent, you know, I feel like I would have maybe done better, but I’m happy that I stayed true to myself because I think that’s most important and I would have not been happy doing that.

Q: Todrick as you try to move forward here, so many things have come up as far as people who are bitter about “Oz the Musical” and say that a lot of kids got scammed out of money by that, are you going to approach that in some way?

Hall: Yes and I’m so glad that I can talk about it now.  It wasn’t a good time to talk about it when I was on “American Idol” because I just needed to focus on the show, but I do want everybody to know.  I’m not a scam artist.  I’m a nice person.  No 23-year-old that I know in the history of the world has ever tried to put on a show and I think that if people think about that they’ll realize that I’m just an ambitious kid that got wrapped with a producer that didn’t know what he was doing.  I didn’t really know what I was doing and I allowed my name to be attached to that.

But I’m going to get on the phone on Monday and hopefully call a lot of those people because I do want to go there and I love kids and I wouldn’t want people to think negatively of me in that way and I think that the show is going to happen again and we’ll be able to fix that situation and there will be no more negative press.  But, just for the record, I was just the writer and director and choreographer of that show.  I did not produce the show and I never had any of that money.  I never dealt with the money side of that show.

Alex Lambert
Hometown: Fort Worth, TX
Currently Resides: North Richland Hills, TX
Age: 19
Occupation: high school student

Q: You said that there was a lot you were still hoping to show the judges and America.  What specifically did you have in mind and do you have any regrets looking back now?

Lambert: Well, when I said I want to break out of my shell and show America what I can do, like, man, honestly every time I got up there I couldn’t even sing my best because I was so nervous.  I have a whole other series of songs that I can sing that sound so much better than what I sing on the show.  I don’t regret anything because this is like the beginning of my career.  I have never really been on stage before so I think I did great for like how good I did for not having any experience.

Q: I just wanted to kind of follow up on what you were talking about with the nerves, that seemed to be what got the best of you because a lot of people were rooting for you and really liked the tone of your voice.  Now that you kind of know that you have people watching you and that they’re interested in seeing your music do you think you’ll be able to get past that and have a music career?

Lambert: Yes, I mean I feel like I’m already past it and I feel like I just needed a few more weeks to just have a little bit more experience on that stage because it wasn’t a nerve thing because I would get up there and I would be like comfortable and it felt right. But I didn’t know how to look at the cameras, I didn’t know how to react with the audience because I had never done it before so definitely it’s something I’ll easily be able to get past.

Q: Ellen really took that whole banana analogy thing pretty far on the show.  She was always mentioning it.  I guess I’m just wondering your thoughts on that and are you ever going to be able to look at a banana the same way again?

Lambert: Well, I mean I know it’s all for entertainment and stuff, but it does make sense.  I guess I probably won’t be able to look at a banana the same.

Q: The scene when you actually got eliminated and they cut to commercial and we didn’t see it and then they came back, it was probably one of the most emotional moments I’ve ever seen on that show.  What was going through your mind then and were people talking to you or were you all just huddled there crying?

Lambert: No, a lot of people were talking to me.  And, yes, it was emotional pretty much because a lot of people weren’t expecting the people that went home to go home.  There’s people on the Top 12 everyone thought was going home and then when they found out it was me, like, that whole day I was nervous and people were like, dude, why are you nervous?  You have no reason to be nervous.  You’re going to be here.

Then, when I got cut they were just like, what?  And a lot of people that were upset were like I made it and he didn’t? 

Lilly Scott
Hometown: Littleton, CO
Currently Resides: Denver, CO
Age: 20
Occupation: musician

Q: When you were eliminated you didn’t hide your surprise and you said, “I don’t know what America wants to hear.”  What was the emotion behind that and what were you trying to say about what you have to offer as an artist?

Scott: Originally trying out this year I really just kind of wanted to break the mold and just kind of be that offbeat contestant that did exactly what I wanted to do and really just kind of explained myself as an artist with my song choice and I definitely have no regrets in that department. But just kind of watching certain people make it into the top 12 that had kind of not done so well over the past three weeks and then basing judges’ comments on my three songs the past three weeks I just was kind of frustrated, just kind of feeling like my fan base wasn’t really there, even though the producers and judges seemed to love me and I was feeling like I was having a great run on the show.

But I guess my fans weren’t there so I guess that’s why I kind of said, “I don’t know what America wants to listen to,” but then, again, my voting demographic is probably more of the underground scene who probably doesn’t even own a TV and if they do they’re probably out riding their bike or doing something more productive than watching TV, let alone “American Idol.” 

Q: Do you think it was your song choice that determined your fate this past week or what do you think it was?  I mean, I obviously, know you were talking about the fan base and I am one of those people that goes out and rides my bike, but it was such a shocker because, do you think it was your last song that did it?

Scott: You know, yes and no.  I picked that song because I love Patsy Cline and it really describes who I want to be as an artist.  But then, again, the “American Idol” voting demographic is probably mostly Tweens, you know, like 11 and 12-year-old girls and I’m sure they don’t know who Patsy Cline is.  So, that definitely kind of probably affected me.

But I’m staying true to my song choices and I’m definitely having no regrets.  I just feel like maybe my fan base and the audience I was playing to, which is the underground market, probably literally wasn’t watching the show and just supporting me in their hearts and not actually voting.

And then there’s the whole deal with maybe people just assumed I was safe and chose not to vote.  So, honestly I really have no idea what happened, though.

Q: Did the judges come up to you and offer any sort of consolation or nice words or did they tell you how sad that they were to see you go?

Scott: Randy definitely walked up to me and showed his sympathy.  He said that I definitely knew who I am and he was very upset to see me go.  And Kara came up to me as well saying that she thinks that maybe America thought that I already had the whole package and was already ready to go as an artist and so comfortable in my own skin that America maybe didn’t know what to do with me.

And “American Idol” is really about finding that amateur artist that’s so vulnerable and then turning them into the huge pop star and I thought going into the competition with a lot of experience under my belt would be a good thing, but I guess it turned out to be a not so good thing.

Q: You said that Thom Yorke and Bjork and artists like that were the kind of artists that you wanted to meet and I wondered if you ever thought about doing songs more in that vein rather than songs that were twice as old as you were?

Scott: I definitely considered that, but you know, in a way the producers swayed me against doing songs like that because they are almost less well known than people like Sam Cooke and Patsy Cline, just for whatever reason.  I mean, they’re 100% well known to me, but I actually did try to do “Nude” by Radiohead, which is their top charting song, more than “Paranoid Android” or older songs, so that didn’t get cleared and I just figured I love classic rock and I was going to try and make that my niche this season, because unfortunately Indie and underground music isn’t really ready for the big breakthrough and I think that was kind of reaffirmed last night by me getting voted off, that America may still not be ready to have that kind of music in the mainstream.