Idol Chatter & Voice Views

We were introduced to Skylar Laine, the brash mud-bogging gal from Brandon, Mississippi, back in January.

She was one of several aspiring country singers to try out for Season 11 of Idol.

After all, Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina finished one-two in Season 10, signaling that post-Simon Cowell American Idol would be more friendly to singers with Nashville aspirations.

Of course, Skylar might have been the only female country star wannabe with a deer’s head mounted on her bedroom wall.

Oh, yeah, she killed the deer herself.

As it turned out, that wasn’t all that made Skylar unique.

She was also the only of those country singers to make the finals of Idol.  And her take-no-prisoners attitude on stage served her well.

She hung around until Thursday night, finishing in fifth place.

On Friday, Skylar talked to the media about her time on Idol.

* Being herself is a piece of advice she plans to keep in mind as her career progresses.  “I’m not a pop-country singer and I never will be one,” she said, adding she doesn’t intend to let someone convert her into one.

* She says she’s accepted the fact that if she records music they will probably only be played on country radio stations.  She wants to perform traditional country and honky tonk songs.  “That’s what comes out when I write,” she said.

* The most challenging part of performing on Idol:  “Staying true to myself and walking in high heels.”

* She said she’s looking forward to meeting her fans on the tour and finally feeling she’s “made it” by being on a stage and performing a concert.

* She’s hoping to sing some of her own songs on tour.

* Skylar says it would be her dream to perform or write with Miranda Lambert or Justin Moore.  She calls both of them her idols.

* Of her performance of “Gunpowder and Lead” last night, she says: “I wanted to go out with a bang, and I think I did a good job of it.”

* She says she still wants to help her family with their longtime store that was in jeopardy because of the downturn in the economy and that we learned about in her Idol audition.

* Skylar says she’s not sure what to say about the controversy over Jessica Sanchez’s dress.  But she loved Jessica’s dress and that “I really didn’t have a problem with it.” “She’s stick thin,” Skylar said. “Don’t we all want to be like that.”

* If she could pick a judge to spend a night on the town with, she’d chose Steven because “he’s crazy. We’d have fun.”