American Idol's Casey James Says Third Place is All Right with Him

On Wednesday night’s American Idol results show, Casey James, the 27-year-old construction worker from Cool, Texas, left the competition in third place. For James, that was as good as winning. He spoke to People Magazine about being at peace, his future album and what he puts in his hair.

You said you couldn’t picture yourself winning but when it got down to it Wednesday night, was it still bittersweet to leave?
Not at all. Not at all. It was not bittersweet whatsoever. It was amazingly as sweet as it could be.

What did like most about being in the final three with Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox?
They are both very special people and there’s a lot to be said about both of them. They are good people and they’ve got good things coming their way. I do know there is quite a bit of music we all share, which is funny because we are from such different trains of thought and from different places in the world. So that was neat to find out. Lee has a good appreciation of old-school stuff. Obviously, he did “Simple Man,” and I’ve sang that song about a zillion times, being a guy that plays bars for a living for the past 11 years. But we all like anything old.

Were you surprised by the turnout you had during all the stops along your hometown visit?
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know you are getting votes from someone and so just to meet those people and see them and for them to show that kind of support is amazing and overwhelming.

Was it strange that the judges pegged your audience as “women and girls?”
Oh! I don’t know. I really have no idea. How would they know who was voting for me or not? Maybe that’s wishful thinking or maybe it’s not — maybe they know exactly who was voting for me! But I can tell you that whoever was voting for me, I am appreciative.

So have you started using any new hair products?
Ha! It just depends on the day whether I do anything to it or not. Sometimes I try to make it a little more curly, in which case I just put some more gel into it but it’s stuff that I bought from Walmart. I don’t really pay that much attention to that stuff, to be honest!

Can you believe where you were a year ago and where you are now?
I’ve been up and down in my life a lot, and it’s really cool to look at where you were a short amount of time ago and go, wow, that’s where I was. In one way, it’s amazing and unbelievable and in another way, it’s like, you can believe it because it’s just part of your journey in life. It’s more amazing looking at what’s going on in my life now. A year ago, it was a normal life and I was happy, playing music and loving life and doing what I wanted to do, but now, I’m doing it on an even bigger level. And I’m going to get a chance to do hopefully my own record and my own music.

What will your first album be like?
I would like it to be a good mixture of a lot of the stuff that I love and we’ll see what that ends up being in the end. I love country and blues, and rock, and soul, and folk. It just needs to be a good mix. I don’t want to go straight, hardliner one way or another.

Your brother Billy is musical as well. Do you think your careers will line up together?
I certainly do. They will line up at some point, I guarantee you.

Idol Picks Its Top 2!

After playing songs of their choice as well as songs picked by the judges, Idol‘s top 3 — Lee DeWyze, Crystal Bowersox and Casey James — faced the final elimination before next week’s season 9 finale.

...and Kara DioGuardi was right! (based on a recent interview where she predicted the final two.)

Crystal and Lee will face off in the finale — and Casey is out.

As Wednesday’s results hour ended, Lee was the first singer declared by Ryan to be safe. Then, without trying to tease out any suspense from the moment, Ryan said Crystal would be with him. “I’m safe?” she asked, incredulous, before running over and hugging Lee.

So it’ll be Lee or Crystal, and definitely not Casey, the guy who combined a cowboy lankiness and a cheerful, surfer-dude unflappability.

It probably wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been informed that he’d be the first living person to record a duet with the ghost of Elvis or that he’d be spending the rest of the year recording backup tracks for Kris Allen in a studio on a prison ship. He would have nodded and smiled.

This has, in fact, been the season of laid-back Idol.

At the start of the show the three of them sat there, looking astoundingly cool under the circumstances, and resolutely unwilling (or unable) to put on a dog-and-pony act of burbling excitement as Ryan tried to probe their emotions.

It was good, though, to know that Crystal’s diabetes has been getting better treatment than ever, being on the show. And the footage of their home visits was very touching: They were all humbled by their success and the kind wishes of the fans.

There were two guest performers who were much closer to the Idol type. Travis Garland is a choreographed, shiny pop package. If this were Glee, he would have been revealed to be the lost descendent of Judy! Justin Bieber sang, too — a very slick talent projecting outward from somewhere inside what looks like a natural American teenager.

Watch next Tuesday and Wednesday night for the two part finale of American Idol 9 on FOX. Plus, Simon Cowell will be leaving next week. Let's see what that Idol producers have in store for his send-off.

American Idol Final Four Face-Off Tonight!

American Idol is heading into the final weeks with early front-runner Crystal Bowersox squaring off against a trio of guys: Lee DeWyze, Michael Lynche and Casey James.

Tonight’s competition is crucial and the pressure is on. But this talented quartet tells TVGuide they remain thick as thieves:

You guys have had plenty of time to bond, but where’s the fine line between camaraderie and competition? Clearly, you each want to win this.

Casey James: We’re not competing with each other. Everybody’s so different. It’s like apples and oranges, one’s not the other. Each one of us has our own sound and people that are voting for Mike aren’t gonna vote for me or for Crystal. It’s not like that. It’s not like I’m setting out to beat them. I’m just setting out to do what I do, and hopefully do it well enough that it’s accepted and appreciated in a manner that people are gonna vote for you. Really, one has nothing to do with the other. You’re just gonna try and do the best you can do so that doesn’t bother me, personally, at all.

Lee DeWyze: I do think that there is somewhat of a line. We’re all friends and that’s not gonna change anything. But as far as the show, at the end of the day all of us do want to win. That’s why we’re here. We all want that number one spot. But I don’t think that we look at it as ‘I wanna take it from Michael. Michael’s taking it from me,’ or ‘Crystal…’ It’s not like that. It’s more that we all want that number one spot for ourselves, not because we don’t want anyone else to win. If any one of these guys were to win, I’m sure we’d all be happy for each other. But at the end of the day we have to sit there and work on our songs, make them the best they can be, and do whatever we can to have the best performance on any given night. So us being friends isn’t gonna change. We all want to win, but that doesn’t change how we feel about each other.

Crystal Bowersox: We’re all definitely friends and then the line between friend and competitor is – I don’t know, for me, it doesn’t really exist.

Michael Lynche: Doesn’t exist.

I predict Crystal Bowersox and Lee DeWyze will be the final two, and hopefully Lee will win this year's Idol. We'll have to stay tuned to see what happens.