Luke Bryan Didn’t Jump At ‘Idol’ At First
Luke Bryan has been a fixture on American Idol as a judge for a couple of years. What some people don’t know is American Idol actually had to talk him into being on the show.
He told us, “The day that I took American Idol… it’s funny American Idol approached me. My thing was like, ‘Guys, I’m doing stadiums. I’m kinda at the pinnacle of my career, and can American Idol keep that going.’ I certainly didn’t want it to hurt at the time.”
He continued, “The American Idol brand was kind of roughed up. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. I think it had ran its course and they really had to do some talking to me to get me transitioning to a new form of my career. And then the Vegas thing, I had a real friend that ran Resorts World and I was like ‘I’ll do this for a buddy.'”
Luke added, “I’m in the middle of all of it, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, that’s too much, but I enjoyed Vegas. I learned a lot. I learned how to put a show together and compete out there. When you’re out there, and you’ve got Adele down the street and Usher and everybody else. They’re coming to see me and they’re coming to see a country act.”
Bryan concluded, “My experience is I got to be authentically me you know, and hopefully that they saw one that they were like, ‘Well, we didn’t realize he could play piano’ and do all these different songs.”
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When American Idol decided it was time to have Carrie Underwood as a judge this season on the show, nobody heard a word from Luke or Lionel Richie. We talked to Luke recently and he told us all about his thoughts on his fellow country superstar joining American Idol.
Bryan told us, “Yeah, we were hearing whispers of several people, and Carrie was obviously one of them. As far as decisions, I didn’t get any votes but that doesn’t mean we’re not super excited about Carrie. They asked opinions and stuff and everybody they were bringing up I’d be like, ‘That’d be great. What about us, are you all hiring us?'”
He added, “We’re excited about Carrie, I think me and her and our love for country music and our brand of country music really line up.”
The country singer is looking forward to getting to know Underwood even more, “I think at the end of it, when you work that much with people you develop a really cool respect for everyone’s taste, talents, and intuition, so I’m really excited to know a little bit more about how she’s gonna judge and do all that. She has all the qualifications to do a great job. You know you look back at her hosting days at the CMA (Awards), she knocked it out of the park, And even though now I’m hosting CMA a lot of fans really want her back (laughs).”
