Kohlton Pascal impressed the American Idol judges at the Season 14 auditions in Kansas City. (FOX Photo)
Then there’s Kohlton Pascal, a busker on the move.
Kohlton told Idol he travels all the time to “defeat depression and boredom and stagnant living.”
He never stays in one place for more than three or four days. When he reaches a new town, he finds a “nice little spot,” puts up his tarp, spreads out his bedroll and has a new home for a couple of days.
“You don’t have anything to cling to in places like this,” he says. “There’s nothing but adventure, so you have to live.”
Kohlton, 21, of Auburn, N.Y., auditioned in Kansas City with an original song, “Sitting Here Beside Me.”
He delivered an impassioned vocal, and got a unanimous vote to advance to Hollywood.
Keith Urban and Jennifer Lopez both like the fact that he’s so different from the typical Idol contestant.
Harry Connick Jr. called his audition “terrific,” but also warned him a televised singing competition is likely to push a young man used to being something of a nomad outside his comfort zone.
What Idol didn’t tell us is that Kohlton auditioned pretty much by accident.
He was traveling, as usual, with a friend in the Reno, Nevada, area.
“Me and my cousin were hitchhiking through the desert and we were gambling at the casinos downtown,” Kohlton told the Reno Gazette-Journal last summer. “We saw some cool (kids) skateboarding nearby and decided to check it out.”
That’s when they discovered that the American Idol bus tour had stopped in town. Kohlton auditioned with the same song he planned for the judges and made the cut.
Music came naturally for Kohlton. In a 2013 interview with The Post-Standard, he said he grew up with music on both sides of his family. His uncle, Dusty Pas’cal, is a singer-songwriter who had released three albums since 2006.
“I couldn’t not do it,” he told the newspaper of pursuing music. “If I was stuck on a desert island, I’d by trying to string up a coconut so I could play music.”
He’s a singer-songwriter, too, one determined to deliver his own truth, “rough, raw, real, from the heart.”
“I’m not much of a sunny kind of guy,” Kohlton said in the newspaper interview. “I hear be-bopping pop on the radio and I say, ‘That has no soul in it.’ ”
Here are some Kohlton links, followed by a couple of samples of his music.
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Twitter: @KohltonPascal
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