Idol Chatter & Voice Views

The pawn shop worker did it.

The guy who didn’t take up music until being inspired by his guitar-playing brother-in-law is the Season 11 American Idol champ.

En route to the win, Phillip Phillips never landed in the bottom three.

And he seemed assured the Idol crown the minute he finished singing “Home,” his first single, on Tuesday night’s performance finale.

Thursday afternoon, Phillip talked to the media about his Idol experience. Here’s what he had to say.

* His favorite moments from last night’s show included the Jessica Sanchez-Jennifer Holiday duet.

* He would have liked to have made one of his songs the first single, but said there wasn’t time to make that work.  “Home” was the song the record company threw out there and “it seemed to fit.”  Philip said it’s not a song he would have written, but he’s glad people enjoy it.

* Phillip says “Home” is a little too pop for him.  He says he’s a “little more rock than that.”  He says he has a good many songs he’s written.

* He says his own music is a mixture of rock, jazz and acoustic and he’s anxious for fans to hear it.

* He said he started thinking his entire American Idol journey and the top 12 while singing “Home” and that’s what caused the onset of emotion and the tears that made it impossible to finish the song.

* He says his right kidney isn’t functioning, and he has a stent in, and needs to get that taken care of.  He says the surgery will take place pretty soon, but he’s not sure exactly when.

* He said he won’t be missing tour dates because of the surgery.  That he should be fully recovered by then.

* He admits he had bad days during his Idol run, and there were a couple of times he seriously considered dropping out to have surgery done.  But he had doctors working with him who helped him quite a lot.

* He said Jessica told him she was proud of him and that she knew he’d win.  “I didn’t know it.  She has such an amazing voice.”

* He says he’s still adjusting to being in the spotlight. “I hate being the center of attention. It’s different.”

* He says if Idol viewers really look at the past five contestants, they’ll realize they’re all different.  He thinks he’s a lot different. Phillip says the others are probably better singers, but he thinks he has strong guitar skills.  As for his vocals: “I don’t feel I’m that great. I can’t hit all these high notes. I try to hit some kind of note.”   He hopes people supported him because of his musicianship and the way he changed up songs.

* The one performance he’d change if he could was “Time of the Season.”  “That was a pretty rough performance,” Phillip admitted.