Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Brooke White laughs at the notion.

No, she did not include an inside joke on her new album. At least not intentionally.

Some fans thought otherwise. The reason: a track titled “Sometimes Love.”

On it, Brooke starts playing the piano, then stops. Then she counts down to four. Then she starts playing piano again.

This from Idol’s queen of stops and starts. She did it when performing “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. She did it again when she performed “You Must Love Me” on Andrew Lloyd Webber night.

Depending on which Idol judge you listened to, it was a sign of artistic bravery or tantamount to folly.

But Brooke survived elimination both weeks and wound up finishing fifth on season seven of the most-watched singing competition in the world. Now, she has released her first post-Idol album, “High Hopes & Heartbreak.”

With “Sometimes Love.”

“It wasn’t necessarily a stop-and-start,” Brooke says of that recording. “It was, ‘Let’s get a line, let’s just hear the piano,’ and we didn’t edit it out. That was our first take, and we kept the whole thing in it’s entirety.”

Part of the “organic,” natural sound Brooke wanted for the album. She’s thrilled when told the Brooke White on the album sounds like the same Brooke White fans met on Idol, knowing that isn’t always the result when contestants leave the recording studio.

But “Sometimes Love” sure left some fans wondering.

“That’s really funny,” Brooke says. “At first, I considered doing a really blatant type of a joke. By the end of the record, I completely forgot.

“But then when I saw fans say, ‘It’s like you stopped and started over,’ I’m like, ‘I guess that could be taken that way.’ It’s awesome.”

Here’s what else Brooke had to say about her career and album when Idol Chatter talked to her late last week.

Idol Chatter: Anyone watching Idol last year would have left with the impression that you were a full-time nanny who had pretty much put music on the back burner. Was that the case?

Brooke: “I basically decided when I became a nanny that I was evaluating how far this whole music thing was going to go. Living in L.A., trying to become a singer-songwriter and still trying to make a living was kind of the place where I was at.

“By the time I tried out for Idol, I guess I was kind of giving it my last best effort to see what I could make of it. It was not on the back burner, really. It was a case of trying to juggle real life with my dreams. … It can be really a long road and hard to find that great chance to really make it real, to find a springboard. And that’s exactly what Idol was for me.”

Chatter: You released an independent album (“Songs from the Attic, 2006) prior to Idol. Anything you tried to do differently this time around?

Brooke: “Yeah. I think if you just listen to the two, that’s apparent. For one, just because of pure progression as an artist. For me, I knew that I wanted to go after this album in a very live, organic manner. I don’t know if I can really articulate it, but in my mind, from the second I got off the tour, I really knew what this album was going to sound like. And it’s crazy because when I listen to it … I think it’s rare when you set out to do something and you get exactly what you wanted. And that’s how I feel about this record.

“Everybody played together in the room at the same time and it provides kind of a really human … like kind of a warmth. It’s no secret that I really love the classic music of the ’60s and ’70. To me, that’s the best music there ever was. I think I really took a lot of inspiration from that.

“Instead of trying to sound modern or trying to sound like super flip, I just wanted to sound … I didn’t really want to try, I just wanted it to happen naturally, and this is what happened.”

Chatter: One other song I was hoping you could talk about — “Be Careful.” It sounds like a very touching, very personal song.

Brooke: “Quite honestly, I don’t think there’s a song on there that’s not. But ‘Be Careful’ — the recording is really intimate. It was actually a demo that we thought turned out so perfect, it just had the magic right away.

“I had written that with Steve McEwan. He’s the one who’s counting in the beginning with the charming English accent. We had written that song quite quickly. And it’s just the idea that when you love someone and they leave for anything, whether to go to work, or go on a trip and you’re apart, there’s sometimes that human nature, that feeling of, ‘I hope I get to see you again.’ It ended up at the very end of the record because I thought that it was a nice little parting track.”

Chatter: Is there any of your personal relationship with your husband in that song?

Brooke: “Absolutely. There’s a lot of really sad or emotionally driven songs that are not in relation to my relationship with my husband, but maybe other people’s relationships or relationships I’ve had in the past. But ‘Be Careful’ is one that points more directly to my relationship with my husband, who is my closest friend.”

Chatter: I think it was on Blogtalk Radio, you made a wonderful analogy, about how Idol shows you the top of the mountain in the music industry, then dumps you at the bottom and says, ‘Now, climb back up.’ What’s going to be the most difficult part of that climb for you?

Brooke: “I think I’m in it. I’m being honest. Making the record was the best part, the most rewarding part. You’re kind of in this place where you can keep it close to you. You perfect it in like your own little sanctuary and you enjoy the music regardless of what other people say or think about it. You’re kind of in that pure place.

“And now that I’ve released it to the world to take a hold of it and see how people respond and take something very personal and make it part of a business and attach it to things that are important in this business, like numbers, that’s sort of hard for me.

“I’m not savvy at business. I’m emotionally very bare. It’s hard for me to go out there and do this part. Idol definitely does try to prepare you for that. You put yourself out there, and not everyone’s going to love what you do. That’s hard.

“I think touring is hard. I think being on the road, day after day, waking up in a different place and being far from home for an extended period of time … for some, it’s amazing … for me, it’s kind of hard. I enjoy being home. I think touring will be wonderful, because I’ll get to do my own material. But it’s going to be physically and mentally grueling.”

Chatter: How will you define success for this album?

Brooke: “I’m going to say that I feel like I’ve already had success with this album. In my team of people, we say this is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes a while to build a record and make it something that everybody gets a chance to know that it’s there.

“But the fact that I got to actually realize this record. And I get to hold it in my hands and it’s exactly what I envisioned. And that I made it to a place where I could even make a record. That’s successful to me.

“There’s a couple different levels of success. I try not to have too much of a regimented definition of what success is, because I think that only sets you up for disappointment.”

Chatter notes:

Since this interview last week, Brooke and Michael Johns just announced a list of joint tour dates. See Brooke’s MySpace for more information. No dates in the East yet, though Brooke is scheduled to appear in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 10 (minus Michael) at the Tween Girl Summit.

Brooke’s officials Web site is realbrookewhite.com. You can also follow her on Twitter at realbrookewhite. She Tweets quite often, about everything from broken watermelons to music.

Here’s a link to the Idol Chatter review of Brooke’s “High Hopes and Heartbreak.”