And The Next American Idol Is...

While Grant was browsing the PCC board (the message board for all PCC reprobates), he discovered that one of the American Idol contestants went to PCC from 96-97. And, he's one of our favorites on American Idol - Chris Sligh. Grant and I usually only watch American Idol for the stupid auditions and then the last episode, but for some reason this season we've been watching it every week. Probably for the lack of anything better being on TV.

We first saw Chris Sligh on his audition. He made me laugh right from the beginning when the judges asked him, "Why do you want to be the next American Idol?" And his response was classic, "Because I want to make David Hasselhoff cry." From that point on, and after hearing him sing, he won me over.

Now hearing that he actually went to PCC, I really want him to win! One of my friends on Myspace, who went to PCC, posted a message a while back saying to vote for him, because he was a close friend of theirs. I just assumed they were from the same hometown, not that they actually went to college together! Evidentally, a few of my other friends from PCC also knew him.

I found the video from his audition, so please watch it. He makes the Hasselhoff comment, and they show the clip of him crying.



Chris Sligh American Idol Audition - Amazing videos are here

Oh, and someone from the PCC board found this posting on one of his blogs:

"I graduated from college **I think he meant to say high school** and my parents gave me 3 choices of where I could go to college: Pensacola Christian College, Bob Jones University and Northland Christian College - all 3 were very conservative Christian colleges. I chose PCC because it was at the beach (and it was freaking cheap) and I went to school as a pre-law major.

Now, I should explain that PCC has very strict rules. They go on a demerits system. 150 demerits kicks you out. If they find out you have illegal music (read anything with a "rock or sensual" beat) gives you 75 demerits the first time...kicked out the second time. However unlike my parents, they didn't search through my stuff without cause to look for illegal music, so my first week of school after my parents left me, I went to the local Christian bookstore and bought like 20 CDs of various contemporary Christian artists that I had always heard about but never listened to: Michael W. Smith, 4Him, Michael English, etc. And I fell in love with this music like crazy.

First semester of that year, a few weeks in, I was walking down the hallway humming a Michael English song (for those of you who don't know, Michael English was the Christian version of Michael Bolton). A kid walking the opposite way heard me humming and came up and tapped me on the shoulder and told me he was starting a vocal group and that he liked my voice. I later went and sang for him and he put me in his quartet. I had written a song my first week at school called "Ransom" and I thought we might be able to do it. The guys loved it and from there on out, I wrote all the songs for the group - I would write a skeleton of a song, and then would sit down with Ryan (the guy who heard me in the hall) who was an amazing pianist and we would flesh it out with chord structure and everything like that. It was my first taste of fame, as we would sing for various school functions and people started recognizing me around campus.

About half-way through the 2nd semester of my freshman year, I began thinking that I really wanted to be a music major. More and more I was spending all my time working on music and loving it. I hadn't written any prose in months...just song after song, trying to work on the craft of songwriting. I looked at the school of music at PCC and realized that it was okay, but I really wanted something great. So, I transferred to a school called Bob Jones University - one of the 3 schools my parents would help pay for. It was probably a mistake, in retrospect, but I didn't want to have to pay for school on my own and the music department is well-respected...but it is solely classical."

I have never voted on AI before, but I think I will this year.