Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Quiz: What features a carnival barker opening and songs accompanied by ukulele and accordion?

Answer: The “big girl album” Joey Cook promised upon her elimination from American Idol a little over a year ago, of course.

And considering she was one of the quirkier artists to ever grace the Idol stage, you won’t be surprised to discover it’s a delightfully different sort of album.

The nine-song collection is called “Welcome to the Variety Show,” and that’s a nod to the wide range of sounds on the album, Joey told Voice Views.

“No two songs are the same genre of music this time around,” the 25-year-old New Orleans-based singer-songwriter says. “Every single song, a different genre, but somehow it still all flows together effortlessly.

“My goal is to have a little something for everyone. For example, my mom may love the bluegrass song, but hate the surfy noise rock song.”

The album, released Friday, officially comes courtesy of Joey Cook and the Partyraddlers. Who are the Partyraddlers? Joey explains.

Immediately after the show, Joey says she decided she wanted a full band sound for her new material, so she started turning to musician friends involved in other bands in the New Orleans area to see if they’d be interested in playing on or helping produce her songs.

“Suddenly, all of my friends were just as passionate about this record as I was. As soon as we finished recording, we hit the road to tour with it,” she says. “I think The Partyraddlers name developed on tour. It was an excuse to put on a bunch of face paint and glitter and bring a little bit of the New Orleans spirit to whichever city we were in.

“Partyraddling became a verb and suddenly people started coming to the shows with face paint already on. It surpassed every one of my expectations of playing with a full band, all thanks to these amazing people.”

Those amazing people include Mikey Famiglietti and Cody Bowers on guitar, Benjamin London on bass; Eric Singer, Thomas Kargbo and Jeremy Nardozzi on drums; Zach Moats on piano, melodica, backing vocals and Megan Sloggie Moats on piano and backing vocals.

got their first taste of the new music when Joey released a song called “Bones” back in April. She says it’s a song she wrote three years ago and was used to performing with just her accordion or ukulele. Add the full band, and it turned into “a Spaghetti Western/brit rock sort of tune,” she says.

It also features fellow Season 14 contestant Quentin Alexander.

“Quentin and I have always seen eye to eye with art, which is sort of kept us going while on American Idol,” she said. “He was my reminder that art was something bigger than singing songs on a stage like that. Plus, we live in the same city, so we had talked about collaborating after the show, no matter what.

“As soon as we were in the studio recording ‘Bones,’ I immediately called and asked him to come in to record some background vocals, resulting in what we referred to in editing as ‘The Quentin Choir’ that you hear at the end of the song.

“As soon as we started discussing the idea for a video, I knew he had to be a part of it. I think it helped the both of us to show the world who we were as artists outside of what was portrayed on a reality television show, covering other people’s songs.”

You can follow Joey through her Facebook page. On Twitter, she’s @IamJoeyCook.

Now, here are two of my favorite tracks from that new album.