Idol Chatter & Voice Views

At age 15, Thia Megia was so anxious to audition for American Idol that the Californian refused to wait for the show’s auditions to come to her.

Instead of auditioning in San Francisco or Los Angeles, she drove to Milwaukee, earning a golden ticket that eventually launched her into the Idol finals.

Now 16, her Idol journey ended Thursday night when she was eliminated from the show.

But she’ll still be part of the Idol summer tour. Thia discussed Idol and her future with the media on Friday.

* Thia says she caught the singing bug when she jumped up on a coffee table and started performing for her family at a birthday party at age 5. A year later, she was performing at her first concert, singing a couple of Britney Spears’ songs as an opening act.

* Thia says she didn’t know what to expect on elimination night, but is looking forward to the tour and is grateful for the exposure to millions of viewers.

* Being minors, she says she had to attend school three to four hours a day. The disadvantage: She didn’t have as much time to rehearse. The advantage: It was a distraction from the pressure of Idol.

* Thia says the female finalists realize more girls watch the show and tend to vote for the guys, putting the females at a disadvantage. But she says it’s also a situation where the guys remaining in the competition are very talented.

* Her musicial inspirations are Adele and Jason Mraz, two artists she’d love to work with some days.

* She says she doesn’t regret her choice of a ballad on Elton John week, because the performance was dedicated to her older brother. In hindsight, she admits she might have performed too many ballads earlier in the competition, leaving viewers with the perception that she’s just a ballad singer. She says she hopes people realize she can do much more than that.

* She’s looking forward to the summer tour, where the contestants will be able to perform songs they didn’t get to do on Idol. Thia says there were some songs she wanted to perform that didn’t seem to fit the Idol themes contestants were asked to stick to. One song she would have loved to perform: A 90-second version of Adele’s “Chasing Pavements.”