Everybody knows that I predicted Dwight d’Eon and Carly Rae Jepsen to be the final two right after their auditions on Canadian Idol. With only 5 competitors left in the competition, both are still standing and I have once again solidified my position as the world’s foremost reality television expert. On Sunday, I had the chance to interview Dwight behind-the-scenes at the Idol rehearsal. I asked him about many things, including his feelings about whether Idol will hurt his credibility as a rock singer, what will happen to his band if he wins and how he feels about my bold prediction. With a coffee in his hand and a lot to say, Dwight already looks and sounds like a rock star. This interview proves that he already is.
Murtz Jaffer: Ready to go?
Dwight d’Eon: Yeah.
MJ: Awesome, the last time we talked, I asked you about picking songs that not many voters recognized and you said that you would rather sing the ones that you are more comfortable with. I have noticed that you are still continuing with the same philosophy, so it is obviously working for you?
DD: Yeah, I mean with the Idol thing itself, if you want to stay on the show, you kind of have to cater to the audience at large. But at the same time, I am really concerned about maintaining my integrity as an artist so I am picking that songs that people recognize by artists that I really respect. That’s the game that I have been playing ever since the day that I landed in the bottom 4. Ever since that day, it’s been like ‘okay, wake up, time to start doing stuff that people know!’
MJ: Exactly, yeah, yeah. Even with Queen, instead of going with the mainstream of “Bohemian Rhapsody” or whatever…
DD: Yeah, I stick to my guns and wait for something that’s more my style which is kind of who I am. That song itself (“Tie Your Mother Down”) was probably not the best vocal performance but I mean it’s kind of a tough tune to do. Especially if you are running a 150 meters up, it’s a little tough but I mean people got what I was trying to do with my tune so it worked well.
MJ: That was the song where you started off on the speaker off to the side right?
DD: Yeah.
MJ: Was that your idea to stage it that way?
DD: Yeah, that was all my idea. I wanted to start it up there. I just wanted to do something a bit different. The thing is too, I always feel kind of weird being down. I am used to being in clubs where people are literally…
MJ: In your face?
DD: Yeah. Sharing some sweat. Now, I am on the stage down in front of everybody. I am kind of like a zoo animal. You know what I mean? With people just kind of looking at me and I feel a little weird. This was my way of getting myself up top so I could kind of focus. Then when I could get into the crowd, then it’s a good chance to interact with people for real.
MJ: And it kind of turns the theatre into one of those clubs…
DD: Right, exactly. That was the whole point.
MJ: The judges initially told you to put the guitar down and focus on the singing and that’s clearly what you have been doing. Do you find that you are getting more used to performing without it?
DD: I am, but I still as much a guitar player as I am a singer. You know what I mean? I have been playing guitar for 16 years. I have only been singing in bands for the past maybe seven. I am a guitar player…
MJ: First and foremost?
DD: Yeah, exactly.
MJ: This week is pop/rock week. Did you automatically know what song you were going to do?
DD: This is a song that I have had in my back pocket ever since I came here. I have just been waiting to have enough time to be able to do it. Like I said, I am a guitar player so this week here, I am bringing out… I have a side of me that people haven’t seen yet and something that people haven’t seen anybody on an Idol show do, and that’s play electric lead guitar. Guitar solo. And that’s part of who I am when I am playing with my band, I am this guy with the electric guitar in his hands doing this kind of thing. I have had this tune in my back pocket in the hopes of when we actually go to…
MJ: A pop/rock week?
DD: Yeah. A minute 40, a minute 50, two minutes to play and that’s what we have this week so when you got a minute 20 to play, you can’t start playing guitar solos. You need to sing. That’s what we’re here for. So that’s more of a chance to develop a song into a bigger and better performance. It’s going to be cool!
MJ: How far in advance do you know that this is the song that you’re going to do for this week? Is it immediately after the results on Tuesday?
DD: The day after results, we are back workshopping and getting ready for the next week.
MJ: How do you find that you like practicing? Obviously, on Monday, it looks like you know the song and everything is good to go but how much work goes into it? Like how many times do you have to listen to it?
DD: Everytime I have picked so far, I knew the lyrics.
MJ: So lyrics are never a problem for you?
DD: Never. The only time it’s a problem is taking a three minute song and turning it into a minute 20. You do some edits to the song. So all of a sudden you need to remember that this line goes here. So it’s little things like that that you need to keep in mind. I think we’re rehearsing the song in workshop twice and then with the band today, we’ll play it three times in total I think. And then tomorrow (Monday) another once. So you get to play the song five or six times in total and then you practice on your own. You know, I’ll sit with my guitar.
MJ: Some people prefer to listen to it on an iPod. Other people like to read the lyrics. But for you, it’s just the guitar?
DD: Yeah, I’ll just sit with my guitar and I’ll play the song in my head. I don’t practice a whole lot. I do a little bit.
MJ: You don’t want to seem unnatural?
DD: Yeah, only when I am picking apart something that I need to fix. Vocally, there’s something that was pointed out. ‘You’re singing that line is wrong.’ Try to fix that, that’s all. 20 minutes. Just kind of a getting a feel for the music. If you practice it to death, then you lose all the energy out of the song. You get on stage and you’re too comfortable.
MJ: I think that what a lot of people don’t get to see is all these great people behind-the-scenes that help you with every performance. There’s obviously Byrd who helps with the actual singing, JD who helps with the staging, and Orin who helps with the arrangement. How important are they in what we see every week?
DD: JD is like the floor director. He’s the guy that just tells everybody what’s going on. Who’s going where and that sort of thing. Orin is the band leader, but Marc Lalama the piano player is more the guy who is involved with Byrd. When we do workshop, like the first workshop is just me, Marc and Byrd. Marc’s on the piano and we just need to figure out the arrangement for the song. So say you have a minute and 20, they say ‘here’s the song you’re doing, let’s find the best possible arrangement of the song that can fit in a minute 20.’ So that’s what that first workshop is like.
MJ: So it starts with that and then it moves to the full band rehearsal?
DD: Yeah.
MJ: A female has won Canadian Idol for the last two seasons in a row, but up until Greg’s elimination last week… there were 3 girls eliminated in a row (Mila, Khalila and Martha). Do you think that Canada seems to be leaning to a guy to winning this year?
DD: Not necessarily. I don’t think it has anything to do with it to tell you the truth. I think the odds are better this year that a guy is going to win but I don’t think it’s in the bag. I don’t think it will be in the bag. If it so happens that Carly and Tara leave within the next few weeks, then obviously a guy is going to win.
MJ: But you think it is completely random, the way that Canada votes?
DD: Canada votes for whoever they like on a week-to-week basis. And I think guy or girl has no bearing on ‘oh, I want to vote a guy to win so I am just voting for the guys’ or ‘oh, I want a girl to win so I am just voting for the girls.’ It makes no sense.
MJ: I wanted to ask you about the group numbers that you perform. You’re in a band so you’re used to performing on stage with other people. Is there any similarity to when you perform with the group like on Idol to when you perform with your band?
DD: It’s actually completely different. It’s totally the opposite. I am probably more uncomfortable in the group numbers, reason being is that you only get a line or two and then you only get to sing harmony. I have always been a lead singer. I have never been a harmony singer so then when I am expected to perform harmony lines with people that we don’t really get a chance to sing together. It works. It’s just different. And another funny thing is the choreography of it of having to move here and walk there and all these things that are done for camera shots. It’s done on purpose to make sure that the cameras are in line for the next person’s shot.
MJ: A lot of people said about Jacob Hoggard that ‘oh, you can’t be a rockstar if you have been on Idol’ and obviously they were wrong because he has had so much success with Hedley…
DD: The way that I honestly feel about this whole is that Idol maybe in the first few seasons, possibly that was the case. You know, karaoke stars to a point. But I think this year especially… I know a lot of the contestants were probably stereo rockstars where they sang karaoke and they went into the competition and they achieved a bit of success. This year especially with myself, Brian and Greg in particular, we come from bands. That’s where we come from. So we’re using the Idol thing as a means of exposing ourselves to the public at large and I think that this year especially, it’s going to be a bit of a trailblazing year where some of the hardcore Idol fans might think it’s the worst season based on the fact that I think they are confusing the fact that this is no longer just a singing competition, this is a competition that’s looking for people who are marketable as artists as stars. The singing part is only part of it. You also need the performance, you also need a bit of an edge. Different things that make you quirky. And going back to Greg, that could be one of the reasons why he’s gone now. I don’t know. Greg was almost too perfect. Perfect singer, perfect good-looking guy and I think Canada might want the artist to be a little flawed. I know I do personally. That’s just kind of the way I feel about it.
MJ: Do you get a hard time from people back in the band that know you from the clubs that say ‘oh Dwight, he used to be amazing, he used to be a rockstar, but now he’s on Canadian Idol…
DD: I had that exact same mentality as those guys until I came here. My own ignorance would have been my demise for what it’s worth. The times are changing, the industry is changing and this is one of the new venues. Especially if it’s no longer about popstars. It’s becoming more about singer/songwriter/artists, I think you’re going to see a lot more people like us and Brian and Greg and those guys that are going to come into these things. Andrew Austin was another one. Carly Rae, same thing. She comes from the jazz.
MJ: Tara Oram?
DD: Tara, same thing. She comes from the touring bands. I must have played 600 or 700 shows in my lifetime. I have played a lot of gigs so this is not new to me. And I think that if people like us are getting involved and if one of us ends up winning this thing, then after the fact, when we even go to Sony, we have a better grasp on what it takes to maintain our success. It’s not just ‘oh I sing, oh I won this competition, oh Sony dress me up, make me dance.’
MJ: Like on Instant Star?
DD: Yeah, like on Instant Star. That’s why I think that some of the Idols in the past haven’t done so well, because when they were thrown to that thing…they don’t know what they are doing!
MJ: And they just say ‘yes.’ They just become yes-men and yes-women.
Yeah because they haven’t really played live shows before so their only experience with live shows is Idol and Idol is not normal. This is really really weird.
MJ: Yeah, you’re not going to have guys that say, ‘oh, we’re going to shoot you this way.’
DD: Exactly, exactly. When you are out live on stage, you need to confront the audience, like get in their faces and confront them. That’s what it’s all about and you need people that can really do that to succeed in careers. You need people to buy tickets to your shows and you need people to buy your records. Anyone can dress you up and give you songs, but there’s no guarantee that you’re going to succeed.
MJ: If you win, what’s going to happen to the band?
DD: I don’t know. And like everybody else here, I want to win just for the fact that I want that prize. If I go to the back and I make Top 5, 4, 3, 2 or whatever, I am going back to the band definitely. And even if I do win, I am going to vouch to have them…
MJ: Come with you?
DD: Yeah. Maybe they won’t want them to record on the record, that’s fine but at least I could have them as a touring band or something because my band are equals to me. We’re all very very good musicians. But the thing is, they are from the East Coast. They have never been in this environment, this pro-level where it’s cutthroat. We have never been there. Can they keep up? I think they could. But at the same time, it’s up to Sony in the end.
MJ: Do you think you will win?
DD: (Laughs). You know what? Obviously somebody’s going to win and I think I have as much of a chance as anybody. The shocker last week (Greg Neufeld) goes to show that nobody’s safe so now, there’s no reason why I can’t win.
MJ: Now, I know that we last talked at the Mansion during Top 10, I told you that I predicted you and Carly Rae to be in the final two (and you know that I made that prediction right after the auditions)…
DD: You called it!
MJ: We’re down to six people left. You and Carly are still in it. So my question is, am I not the world’s foremost Canadian Idol expert?
DD: I think so. So far, so good! So I mean we’ll see how this goes. I mean the thing is that I haven’t landed in the bottom yet as of Top 10 which has been a good thing. But Greg hadn’t made it either and look what happened. It’s just one of those things. Carly’s been there twice so I am hoping that after last week’s scare with Greg, that her voters will really buckle down and take care of her better. It’s anybody’s guess man. I was doing pretty good, the first few weeks in Top 22 from predicting week-to-week who was leaving but now, I can’t even guess!
MJ: That’s awesome. Thank you so much.
DD: Thanks a lot man. Good to talk to you.
