Philly hasn’t been represented on American Idol since Justin Guarini, but that day came again when wedding singer turned jazz chanteuse Erika Schiff made into Hollywood week. We didn’t get to hear the sultry crooner. But we did get many a glimpse on Fox TV air as well as on the American Idol website that we linked in a previous Icecube.

OK. Drama over. She didn’t make it through to the top 24 this week. But that doesn’t mean Schiff isn’t wonderful (she has an album, In The Blonde, due out in April) or that she doesn’t have opinions about who will win or some fun tales about the tunnel-vision experience. Besides, Guarini just had his first Broadway show close (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) with another on the way (American Idiot) Everything’s coming up roses for Schiff. Here’s the Idol story she told me:

“The experience was surreal. I never imagined myself on a reality show when I auditioned  — which I have many times, just as I audition for anything and everything under the sun. I considered it a very quick way to launch a music career. And by launch I mean take it to the level that would allow me to dedicate all of my time to creating music and art without having to take side jobs, as most of us do. Not necessarily to be rich and famous, but have the means to have freedom to create and focus solely on projects that are important and fulfilling to me, and the opportunity to work with the best people to make myself better. Yes, I knew this was a crazy big show, but like I said, I audition for everything I can. Beggars certainly can’t be choosers.

Though I lost, my goals are still the same right now. My feelings on the whole experience are kind of indifferent. To say I expected to be completely judged by my musical ability would be a lie. American Idol is a television show. Hollywood Week certainly drove home the idea that this is television and not some intimate show at Tin Angel. They are casting a show and it takes all kinds of different people to make a show interesting. I can’t say if the judging is fair or not … but this show is not called America’s Best Singer. We’d have to know exactly what the producers were looking for to really know.

My biggest goal for Hollywood Week was to kill it. No matter what went down I wanted to come out of it feeling good — like I did my personal best and, of course, learning. I was fully prepared to make it all the way through and I was also mentally prepared to not make it through.

The judges seemed nice and honest. They weren’t overly this or that. Okay, they are your average every day Joes, but still, all seemed very good natured. It’s hard to tell what is real and what is not sometimes. There are many breaks and chats in between everything … it’s amazing what editing can do. The vocal coach I worked with, Debra Byrd, was fab. Loved her.

There was some drama that happened during Group Round. Early on we had a group of four (all from the first day Round 1) fully established, worked out harmonies, etc. And then the producers threw a curve ball at us saying we needed to include one person from the second day of Hollywood Week Round 1 in our group. This created complete chaos. One of our group members was very choosy on who he was letting in our group. In a perfect world I would be too, but I knew if we didn’t get someone soon our entire group of great singers was going to be split up anyway. It was safer to just take someone with a decent voice. Suffice to say, we finally found another person who was up to the standard … then this same “choosy” group member ended up switching groups pretty late in the game. The producers were all over this! I knew we had something to get accomplished and there was really no time to spend on being angry and/or talking about what went down. We had a few hours to get our shit together and look amazing the next morning. The camera crews were constantly there, I was not as “vocal” about my frustration as others. I get tunnel vision when I work, perhaps that doesn’t make for good TV. Instead I tried to keep my group calm, collected and focused on the goal, and we all made it through group round with absolutely no sleep. But the amount of time and energy the crews spent on stopping us for interviews about it all was just a huge wake up call that this is in fact, still television.

I expected the unexpected. I had a blast, worked my ass off and made some awesome new friends. This was really just another moment in the life of someone who lives for weird and new experiences.I can’t wait to have more.”

As for her predictions as to who might win AI 10, Schiff was hard pressed to guess but going by what she heard and seeing how the producers are airing certain people, serious contenders include Lauren Alaina, Brett Lowenstern, Jordan Dorsey, and Jerome Bell. “They are super young, good and have real identifiable personalities,” says Schiff.

Stay tuned to see if she’s right. And check your April calendars for her In the Blonde release shows throughout Philly.

ICE CUBES: A chat with American Idol’s Erika Schiff

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Ice Cubes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.