Clay's Radio Interview with Z100 - May 27, 2003

This was an interview Clay did via telephone with the NYC radio station Z100. Clay was very chatty in it and I felt that it was one of the best interviews he's done. I've included all his little giggles and "you know"s, so you can get a feel for the interview. Clay was talking REALLY fast, which is why there's so many broken sentences, repetitions and "um"s and "uh"s. The interview was about 13 minutes.

1 = Z100 Elvis Duran
2 = Z100 John Bell
3 = Z100 Danielle Monaro & Christine Negy (my apologies, I couldn’t differentiate between their voices)
C = Clay

1: Ladies and gentlemen, on the line, the one, the only, Clay Aiken!
C: Hey guys, how are you?
1: Good morning, Clay. How are you doing today? Are you tired of this yet?
C: (giggle) No, not yet. I’m tired, period. I’m worn out, but I’m not tired of this—why not?
3: Clay—you were robbed!
C: No, don’t say that!
3: I’m sorry, I have to feel that way.
C: Well, I appreciate it.
2: We all said, several days before the finals, that there were going to be no losers in this contest, because both you and Ruben and Kimberly for that matter—you guys are so great that all of you’ve got careers ahead of you that should be very successful and we wish you all the best of luck.
C: Well, thank you very much.
1: They said that about us, too. But we have careers like carrying luggage at the airport and stuff like that. (Clay giggle) Now, Clay, um, I gotta tell you, while you were in there doing your thing, dawg, getting it done…America was out here not only rooting for you or rooting for Ruben, but we actually saw a fistfight one night, between two people that couldn’t agree on you or Ruben.
C: Oh, you’re kidding me?
1: No!
2: That’s…it’s pretty rampant. It’s still going on.
3: Yeah. I hope you’re happy you two have divided a nation.
C: Oh my goodness! Well, who won the fistfight?
(laughter)
1: I don’t know. We ran!
C: (unintelligible) …in the fist fight so at least I won something.
1: No, no. It was like two big old dykes. We ran. We didn’t want to be a part of that.
(Clay laughed REALLY hard here)
1: Now, Clay, I gotta tell you, this mornign at 7 o’clock, um, gosh, an hour and 45 minutes ago a lady named Gail called us from Toronto and she herd you were going to be on the show today. And Gail stayed on hold (Clay gasps) for an hour and 45 minutes.
C: Oh, you’re kidding? Oh my goodness!
1: Now, with your permission, we’re going to put you on with Gail. If you don’t want to, then I understand.
C: I would love to.
1: Alright. Hold on, let me get her….Ladies and gentlemen, we give room now, for Gail and Clay.
Gail: Clay!!!! Oh my god!!!! Hi!!!!!
(Clay giggles)
Gail: I love you! You are so amazing!
Clay: Oh, thank you very much.
Gail: Oh my god! Can you do me a favor, please?
Clay: I will do my best.
Gail: I have two friends who absolutely adore you. Their names are Lena and Laura. Can you please say hello to them?
C: Hey, Lena and Laura. How are you?
Gail: Oh, my god! (shrieks)
Clay: Okay, Gail. Breathe for me, honey.
1: Now, Gail, other than that, do you have a question…do you want to interview him real quick? Do you have a question for Clay?
Gail: Yes, actually, I wanted to ask you. The two favorite songs that I..uh..that you did was “Solitaire” and “This is the Night.” Are you going to be recording either of those two on your album?
C: Both of those should be on the album. “This is the Night” is on the single that’s released on June 10.
Gail: Oh, it’s not going to be “Bridge Over Troubled Water?”
C: Um, it’s going to be a double-A single. So basically…
Gail: (gasping) Oh my god…
1: Wow, that’s some interesting lingo. Double A single…what the hell is that? (Clay giggles)
C: Well, you’re on the radio, you should know these things.
1: There, you’re--You’re right, Clay. Gail, there you go. Your moment with Clay.
Gail: Clay! You are so amazing!
C: Oh, well thank you so much.
Gail: Oh, my god! I love you!
C: Oh, well thank you!
(I’m editing out this part because it was just more of the OMGs and all that. Gail says goodbye.)
3: Oh, you just made her whole life…
1: Now, you’re at this point, now, Clay, I’m sure when you do these interviews a lot of the questions aren’t asked. It’s a lot of “Oh, you’re fabulous! Oh you’re incredible!” I mean, at some point, do you ever go, “Okay, I’m incredible. Enough!”
(Clay laughed REALLY hard here)
I mean really, isn’t it like…aren’t you ready for someone to just ask you a question?
C: Well, you know, I get asked questions, but what I usually get asked is, “So tell me about this makeover?”
3: Oh, yeah.
C: So I get the questions, definitely. (giggle)
2: Well, Clay, you have to admit, that you…you went from one place to another.
C: And then he starts with it…here we go.
(laughter)
2: It wasn’t..it wasn’t…you were not unattractive, but you were kind of an ordinary looking guy in the beginning.
C: Yeah, there was definitely a change there somewhere.
2: And then they fixed you up, I mean, they dressed you up NICELY.
(Clay giggles)
1: The question is: Did they do it, or did you do it, or was it a colaborative thing?
C: Well, it started off way back in the top 32. I wouldn’t let anybody do anything. I was just…apprehensive, extremely, and I said, “You know what, I’m going to do my own thing.” And then, as we got to the top 12, I finally said, “Okay, let me just…Alright, we made it here. Let me just let them do what they want to do.” The hair guy started doing his thing, and then I slowly started letting the stylists tell me what to wear, and that type of thing. And then as we’ve gotten into the top…actually every outfit that was on the final show…the final Tuesday night show….I picked out.
1: And that includes…that doesn’t include that red leather jacket, does it?
C: That does not. That was definitely his…
3: I liked it! I’m sorry, I thought it looked good!
1: Sometimes, Clay, even superstars, you know, wear the wrong thing.
(Clay giggle)
C: I made, I um…That was one time I didn’t veto, and I should have vetoed.
3: Clay, did you study a lot before you reached American Idol? Were you a school singer?
C: Um, no, I was a special ed major. I never ever ever ever thought I would be…I mean, I never…thought I would be performing like this. You know…
3: Yeah, because your voice is so beautiful and you have such range and we all thought, oh, he must have studied for YEARS to get that.
C: I sang in church, and um…and that’s pretty much it.
2: It’s not only that you have a great voice, but your phrasing, and the way you use your instrument, and the other thing that was really great is that you have great mic technique. Which a lot of people don’t learn right away.
C: What is that?
1: Exactly. You know what, that’s the thing, that’s the point that I guess we’re getting to here…it’s all so natural…it’s that “gift from God” thing which I’m sure you’ve heard before, and you know, good for you, threre’s nothing more natural than what you’re doing and that’s a great thing.
C: Well, thank you very much.
1: But, you know what—you love to sing. I’m assuming that’s the thing you love more than anything.
C: I do love it, yeah.
1: But, you know what, now that you’ve had a taste of what “Hollyweird” is all about--
C: Right.
1: And being on national television, and being pulled here and yanked there, and you know, not really getting a lot of time to yourself…Is this a life that you really could see yourself getting used to?
C: You know, that’s a very good question. (said in Clay’s “teacher voice”) Um, I haven’t, you know…I think, it’s..uh…it’s difficult, you know. It’s nice, to, um…it’s extremely nice to be recognized and to have everyone know who you are. I mean, I left North Carolina a few months ago, um, and nobody knew who I was, and now everybody knows who I am. So, it’s…so it’s nice, I mean, of course who doesn’t like a little bit of attention? (said really cute with a little laugh) But, um you know, sometimes it would be nice to go to dinner…and eat…you know…it’s gotten, um…it’s a little hectic, you know. I never thought I’d need security in my life, and I have to have security with me. 1: Yeah, isn’t that weird?
3: Think about it—this Sunday you’re going to be singing at Giant’s Stadium at our Z100 Zootopia, and what is it, 60,000 people??
C: We are so thrilled about that. Ruben and I are pumped.
1: Yeah, that’s going to be kind of weird. You know, speaking of having dinner, we had someone call in earlier, call our show in New York, saying, “Oh, I saw Clay eating dinner with Ruben over at Carmine’s the other night!”
C: Yes.
1: It was like, you know, you can’t even have dinner without someone calling the radio station and saying, “Hey, I saw him at Carmine’s, too.”
C: Well, it took us 20 minutes to start eating because we had to do a photo shoot when we got in the restaurant. (laughs)
3: Yeah, we heard, and that you sang “Happy Birthday” to somebody, which was really cool.
C: Yeah, we did.
3: You went to see RENT, right? And Frenchie was in it?
C: Yeah, Frenchie went to dinner with us. And Frenchie and Ruben and I all went up to sing “Happy Birthday” to her.
3: I told the publicist in RENT on Friday, I said, “Please consider Clay for Mark in Rent, he’d be amazing!”
C: I think…I think…I…that’s been mentioned, you know.
3: Oh really? Cool?
1: Well, listen. Is that something you’d ever want to do? Some broadway?
C: You know, again, this is like I said, this whole path is new to me. So, um, I don’t know that that’s something that I’m interested in you know, right away, but it’s definitely something I want to keep the door open to, for sure.
3: Hey, Clay, can I ask you a question? It might be a little delicate.
C: Okay.
3: The rumor was that you knew that Ruben was going to win because you peeked over Ryan Seacrest’s shoulder.
C: The RUMOR…is simi…the truth is similar to the rumor.
3: So what happened.
C: I think it sounds like I looked for it, and uh…(laugh) I didn’t necessarily look for it. We were backstage right during the commercial right before the results were announced. And uh, and we were all lining up getting ready to go out, Ruben and I were standing there, getting ready to go out, and Ryan was, uh, had opened the card, just to kind of check his…check his lines, you know, it was just a whole name, and there were just two people left, so why do you have to write the name down? (cute laugh) But, uh…he had it on the card.
1: Ryan can be a little slow sometimes…they want to make sure he doesn’t mess it up.
3: That’s a pretty good shot right there.
C: He had it on his card, and he opened the card to check it, to make sure the name hadn’t magically changed or something, I don’t know. And uh, my eyes glanced over there, and all I saw was that the name…I mean, I knew that the card he had in his hands was the winner’s card, and um, I uh, I glanced over there, and the name was—it was a lot of writing. And there’s a lot more letters in Ruben Studdard than there are in Clay Aiken. So, I made the…all I did was put 2 and 2 together, I made the assumption, that it was Ruben. And so if you watch the tape back, I’m staring at Ruben the whole time.
1: Yeah, you are.
2: And I told him, I said, “I’m watching you, because I wanted to be the first to see your reaction when you won.”
3: Aw! Nice.
1: Now, what was the first thing that you thought, or felt when you…well, when you assumed that Ruben was going to be announced American Idol?
C: You know, I didn’t really feel much, and most people don’t believe me when I say that it was not a humongous deal to me, I think I had, I think we had both prepared outselves for either outcome by the time we got there on Tuesday and Wednesday on this past week. We had both prepared ourselves for either outcome, because we were both just thrilled to be in the top 2. Neither one of us…Ruben had told me, Tuesday night right before we both went out to sing you know, “Look at this. The two most unlikely people to be in the top 2. And here we are.” I mean, we were just thrilled. I did not--I told somebody else earlier, I didn’t expect to make it to the top 32, and I made it to the top 2. So by the time we got there…
1: There you go.
C: I mean, on Wednesday night, nobody was getting cut.
3: Right. That’s true.
C: I didn’t get cut and sent home. I’m here in New York, even though I didn’t win, and I’ve got..um…so, either way, I was gonna be..I was gonna be happy. Becaue you know really, at this point, it’s an American Idol, it’s a title. And it’s, uh, I’m extremely happy for Ruben, cuz he’s one of my best friends and I love him to death.
1: (jumps in to give Chatterbox Clay an opportunity to breathe) Isn’t it interesting, because, you know what, before you were in this competition, would you ever ever in a million years thought you’d be good friends with—Ruben?
C: Well,—
1: It’s like, you guys are polar opposites!
C: You know, I think that’s what makes us such good friends. I think that’s why we get along so well. Because we’re both so different. You know, we laugh all the time! We’re always cutting up and having a good time, so, uh…and I think that’s why. You know, I’m not necessarily the type of person who goes up to people, you know, at random and says “Hey, let’s hang out.” that type of thing. And Ruben is so…so genuinely, like embraces people when he meets them. And when we met in Glendale, he was the first to come up and to me, and talk to me, and he called me after Glendale, he called me once a week, just to check in. And you know, he barely knew who I was. I mean, he’s just that type of person.
1: A sweet guy. You know what, I’m sure you’ve been doing a lot of these interviews, and after a while you get asked the same questions over and over. Is there one thing—I don’t mean…I’m kind of putting you on the spot—is there one thing, Clay, that you haven’t been asked to talk about, that you think is interesting? Something you should be talking about, or you want to cover, that you don’t feel like all of us interviewers are asking, or talking about?
C: Well, you know, um, you guys all have got together and asked pretty much everything, I think. You know, it’s been a while…I don’t know that there’s anything that has..I mean, I get a lot of the, like I said, I get a lot of the makeover questions, and of course the past week, I’ve gotten a lot of the “did you know the…really ten minutes before?” question…um, but most people really cover most everything. I just talk so much anyways, so that if you don’t ask the question that I want you to ask, I’m gonna put my answer in there…I’ll get it in there somehow! (giggle)
3: You know, I think, Clay, in so many ways, you’ve accomplished something that every living human being probably has wanted to do some time in their life. It’s like the accomplishment of an American dream. Everybody wants to be successful at what it is they do.
C: Right.
3: And to watch you go from the very beginning to that last day up on stage, and to watch you and Ruben accomplisth that goal for yourself, was incredibly uplifting for all of us.
C: Right, and now you know, I think again, I think that’s why the show is so popular. Becauese people can buy their own contestant. And they pick, “Okay, that person’s gonna be my favorite.” Um, I don’t know who Gail picked, from Canada. But, um…(giggle)
(laughter)
3: It felt like we grew with you, like we saw you from the beginning…
C: Exactly!
3: Like we saw you from the beginning and….Does it feel weird that you don’t have to be there tonight to perform?
C: It does! And I’m LOVIN’ it!
(laughter)
There’s no Simon Cowell in my life!
1: Then what are you doing? Now that, I know they have you busy. What do they have you doing, for instance, tonight? What are you guys up to?
C: Tonight, we have…we’re doing a lot of Fox News Live tonight, that type of deal, E! tonight, Ruben did Regis and Kelly today, and I am headed out just a minute to rehearse for Good Morning America because I’m singing on there tomorrow.
1: Oh, beautiful! Alright, well, we’ll let you go, Clay. While you’re in New York, I hope you get a few seconds to yourself to go shop, because there are some pretty cool things to buy here.
C: I looked…I’ve never been to New York before!
All: Oh wow!
C: And the weather is a little nicer today. (they try to talk but he keeps on going) I’ll be honest with you, I thought, when I left LA, I had this picture, I’ve always had this picture in my mind of New York City being, I’m sorry, you know, kind of dark, and gray. And everything. And we left sunny LA, and came to New York City and it was dark and gray and raining, and I was like, “I was right!” And you know what, I wake up this morning, and you’ve got a very beautiful city!
1: There you go. (cute Clay giggle) We just ask you to leave it as you found it.
(laughter)
And thank you. Clay Aiken, thank you! And don’t forget—Sunday night—don’t be late! You and Ruben on stage in front of 60,000 Z100 fans.
C: Looking forward to it.
1: It’s gonna be amazing. Clay Aiken, everyone! With the song I liked—(starts playing “Build Me Up Buttercup”) See ya, Clay!
C: Bye guys!
(They play “Buttercup” in its entirety)
1: There you go! Clay Aiken! Our American Idol!