Idol Chatter & Voice Views

If anyone had any question about what Tyler Grady will be doing now that he’s been eliminated from American Idol, he cleared it up Friday afternoon.

The 20-year-old from Nazareth is coming back to Pennsylvania to perform with his band, Wailing Waters.

He dropped the name of the band at least three times during a conference call with the media, then gave Wailing Waters another plug during his closing remarks.

And while the judges suggested that he might want to change his style and his 1970s vibe a bit had he hung around on Idol …

… well, that wasn’t likely to happen, whether he was performing on the Idol stage next week or back home with his band.

Had he survived elimination, Tyler figures it would have been because his fans appreciated his style of music, which was definitely different from that of any of the other contestants.

“You wouldn’t have seen me coming back wearing baggy jeans and wearing a headset microphone,” Tyler said. “When you’re building a fan base, and they’re supporting you, they’re supporting you because of what you’re doing. You can’t turn on your fans.”

On a night of subdued — and generally subpar — performances, Tyler tried to inject some excitement into Wednesday’s show with a rock classic — The Guess Who’s hit, “American Woman.” But the judges chided him for a performance Randy Jackson described as “style over substance” and for mimicking 1970s rockers instead of bringing something new to the stage.

Tyler wasn’t about to be baited into criticizing the judges Friday, even though they seemed to embrace his 1970s look during the auditions and Hollywood Week, then criticize him for it once he reached the semifinals.

But he did balk at one critique from Ellen, that his performance seemed less than genuine.

“Honesty in performance is everything,” the 20-year-old said. “And I am very honest when I’m performing on stage.”

The one change he might have made had he stuck around — performing a more current song in week two.

After all, it’s not like Wailing Waters performs nothing but covers from the 1970s.

“When I’m performing with my band, we’re performing original material that’s written in 2010,” Tyler said. “When we do any cover songs, we’ll cover ’60s rock, we’ll cover 2000s rock. It’s not about the era. It’s about the performance. It’s about the emotion.

“I just want my fans to realize, what you see on American Idol is the type of performer I am. If you see my band perform, you’ll see the same thing. Hopefully I can get my fans from the show on board with my band, Wailing Waters, and, if all goes well, we’ll get a record out in the near future.”

The band already has a three-song EP available on iTunes. The first song, “Runaround Rodeo” is particularly good. So are Tyler’s vocals.

And no doubt, the Pennsylvanian says American Idol was a learning experience.

“This is one of the best education programs you can get into,” Tyler said. “There’s no better school for the entertainment industry than American Idol. You get a phenomenal crash course on the entertainment business.”