Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Alex Preston wasn’t exactly shocked by his American Idol ouster Thursday night.

Matter of fact, he was expecting it.

Alex Preston and Caleb Johnson await the word on who’s advancing to the finals on American Idol Thursday night. (FOX Photo)

“Jena and Caleb are so good and their performances are so big. I knew deep down it was going to be them in finale,” he said in a Friday afternoon conference call with the media. “I’m happy for them.”

The 21-year-old from Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, finished in third place on Season 13 of Idol, good enough to earn one of those heart-warming trips home, but just shy of the Idol finale.

Of the final three, he was the singer-songwriter type, offering up coffee-house style performances on a weekly basis while Jena delivered her fair share of up-tempo pop-rock performances and Caleb stomped around the Idol stage in classic rock mode.

“It’s awesome,” he said of the Top 2’s bigger performances, “but I can’t do that. It’s not who I am. It’s television, and people love seeing that stuff, but I wanted to stay true to who I am.”

And plenty of people enjoyed that, too. Alex delivered particularly moving covers of “Say Something” and “Every Breath You Take.”

He also got to perform an original — “Fairytales” — twice.

“Original music being allowed on a show like this is awesome and pushed it to the next level,” Alex said. “It shows the artistry in all the singers, and that’s a good thing.”

Alex Preston with Ryan Seacrest on American Idol. (FOX Photo)

As of Friday afternoon, he still wasn’t certain whether the song would be released.

“It’s an awesome song,” Alex said. “I sure hope it’s released.”

If not, he’d like to have another single out soon and plans to start work on an album as soon as possible “kind of to take advantage of this wave of publicity.”

He’s also hoping to collaborate with other songwriters on new material.

On Idol, Alex said he set a series of small goals for himself: make the semifinals, make the finals, make the Top 10 so he’d earn a spot on the summer tour.

“Once I hit the Top 3, I was thinking, ‘No matter what happens, this is awesome. Then I started looking at long-term goals, things beyond the show.”

Among the other topics Alex covered during the interview:

* Like Caleb, he wasn’t healthy for the Top 3 show, announcing on Twitter that he has “bronchitis. I am on two anti-biotics and lung steroids.” Unlike Caleb, the show did not make a big deal of his medical condition. “I didn’t have any vocal hemorrhages, but I was not in top shape at all,” Alex said during the conference call.

* He thinks Idol has helped pull him out of his shell and he plans to use what he’s learned about performing live in future performances, including he summer tour.

* Alex plays about a dozen instruments and intends to demonstrate those skills on tour.

* He’s made all sorts of singing show connections thanks to Idol, including becoming friends with Alex and Sierra, the X Factor winners (“we hang out all the time”) and with Casey Abrams, from Idol Season 10, who called to say how proud he was of Alex’s accomplishments after Thursday’s show and suggested “we should jam this weekend.”

* Of course, another of his singing show connections is girlfriend Jillian Jensen, formerly of the X Factor and a Hollywood Week contestant on this Season’s Idol. After Thursday’s show, she tweeted: “@RealAlexPreston u are my American idol. I love u with all my heart and am so very proud of u. u are one of the most gifted people I know.”

* One of his closest friends on Idol was Sam Woolf; he’s also hoping they’re able to collaborate on music post-Idol.

Alex Preston performs “Fairytales” as his farewell song on American Idol. (FOX Photo)