Idol Chatter & Voice Views

For a guy who advanced to Hollywood on a unanimous vote, Devin Velez describes his American Idol audition as quite nerve-wracking.

He performed one song and felt good about it. The judges asked for another.

He was midway through a second song in an audition that wasn’t televised when Mariah Carey stopped him.

She didn’t think the song was quite him. She asked if he could sing something in Spanish.

“And so, the show must go on,” Devin told redeye.com. “I had to pull something Spanish out of the hat, out of nowhere, and I sang ‘Con Los Anos Que Me Quedan’ by Gloria Estefan.”

Well, that did the trick. Four yes votes later, he was Hollywood bound.

We saw him perform there, and he impressed the judges with a rendition of “What a Wonderful World” that turned out to be one of the evening’s best vocals.

Devin, 18, of Chicago, attended the Rickover Naval Academy high school where he starred as Charlie Brown in its first musical in November 2011 and sang with its jazz ensemble.

Of course, Devin told redeye he’s been singing since age 3, mostly at church early on. He says his mother was a singer there and was a major musical influence.

He later spent six years singing with the Chicago Children’s Choir.

In his Road to Hollywood video, he said many of the singers he looks up to are Christian artists, including past Idol performers like Kris Allen, Mandisa and Colton Dixon. Among non-Idols, worship leaders like Eddie James and Isreal Houghton stand out.

And Devin takes a philosophical approach to his fate on Idol.

“As awesome as it would be if I won, it’s really not going to change what I do in the future,” he says. “Whether I make it or not, I’m still going to pursue music. I’m still going to show people what I do music for. When I’m happy, I sing. When I’m sad, I sing.”

Here are three performances by Devin.

“How He Loves Us”

“Let It Rain”

“Perfect”