May 8 2008
The morning after his elimination from
American Idol,
Jason Castro chatted with reporters about his
Idol experience. Here's what he had to say.
On the rumor that he purposely flubbed the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" because he wanted to be eliminated:
"I definitely did not do that on purpose. I couldn’t believe I forgot such a popular line, something that’s like written on your soul. Somehow, it slipped my mind. But definitely didn’t do that on purpose..."
On his inexperience and his problems learning lyrics:
"I started playing guitar at my freshman year of college and singing shortly thereafter. And while I was learning, I was teaching myself, and so I would learn songs, but I would never learn them all the way through. So I’d never even learned a song all the way through, and now trying to learn two in a week has just been tough."
On missing home:
"...I just miss home. And I love being home in the summer and just – I kind of miss working, working in the summers with my dad. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’ll happen again."
On the hardest part of being on American Idol :
"I think it’s really – it has everything to do with the songs, either selecting the song, or finding the time to rehearse it. That’s the biggest challenge. It’s all about the song. And if you’re trying to make things original, and just, as time goes on, you get less and less time to do that, and it really becomes harder. But, yes, just the day-to-day runnings of things make it hard to do that."
On how he was portrayed on American Idol:
"I am a goofy person. I have fun and everything. I am kind of an awkward conversationalist. I’m doing my best right now, but all my friends, they love it because what you see is what you get. I didn’t change at all coming out here. And so, yes, that’s me."
On what he learned from the American Idol experience:
"Well, I’ve learned that I can do a lot more than I thought. Before I did this, I wasn’t really confident as a performer, and I wasn’t doing it a whole lot. And well, now, I did it for a few months straight on TV. And so I just gained a lot of confidence and learned that I can do it, and it’s cool."
On being in it to win it:
"I didn’t really consider it a real possibility that I could win until these last few weeks. And so I did kind of just wander in and see where it would go, and it started going, and then I was like, “Well, all right, I’m here. Might as well be in it to win it.” And I was giving it my best. I never necessarily had the mindset in mind of wanting – like winning first place, but it was more of the mindset of every week, I want to give it my best, and that leads to winning it."
On why he seemed relieved about leaving American Idol:
"I’ve been telling people I was as happy last night as I was when I found out I made the top 24. This whole time, I’ve had a blast, and I was trying, but it’s just really been hard. And that night, I remember before we found out the results, I was just thinking, I was really starting to fear the week ahead, if I made it. How am I going to do three songs? I can’t even do two right, and with the hometown visit, it was just going to be a lot of work, even though it would have been so much fun. I was just freaking out about it, and so that was all building up, and so I was kind of – I was ready to go either way, whatever they gave me. When they gave me that, I just – my natural reaction, I just really felt relieved, like the pressure was off. I loved my time on there, and I would have liked to go farther, but I don’t think I could handle it, so I’m content."
