Exit Interview: Garrett Haley

Many of Garrett Haley's classmates might have been confused by the '60s standard the 17-year-old singer performed on American Idol last Tuesday (Feb. 19). They aren't the only ones.

"[W]ell we're allowed to choose three songs from a list," Haley explains. "And every contestant is for sure to get one of the songs, and I didn't get to get any of my songs, because they gave the songs out to all of the contestants before that. So I just ended up with having to choose from the list again, and I didn't really get to chose, they just threw the song at me and said, 'Here, sing this one,' and I was like, 'Okay.'"

So had he ever heard "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" before it suddenly became the most important song in his life last week?

"Never, not once."

Haley, who says he'd never had a voice lesson in his life, was one of the first four contestants voted out of this season's American Idol Top 24 on Thursday night and by Friday he was having his obligatory exit interviews with reporters. It was a mighty fast journey for a kid whose pre-Top 24 on-air exposure was less-than-minimal.

"I didn't think I was going to get voted off that early, I had pretty high hopes and I was very excited about next week, because it was a song that I could really do, really well," Haley recalls of finding out he was heading home. "I don't know, I was pretty shocked at first, when [Ryan] said 'You're going home,' I thought he was kidding, but then he didn't smile or anything and the music came on and I was like, 'Oh man, he's for real.' So I was sitting there like, "Oh my god, I hope I remember the words to this song that I have to sing."

Some highlights of Haley's conversation with the press:

On the cost of his lack of camera-time: It doesn't really bother me, I mean like at the time, it was like, 'Hey you better not blink or you might miss me,' if I even did show up on the screen. But I don't know it's like, I really wish they would have let you guys hear some of my Hollywood songs, because I beasted it up in Hollywood. So I think that would have affected them, because the top 12 guys, that's the first time everybody heard me sing and it wasn't the greatest song either. So I wasn't too happy about that, but it's okay.

On Simon Cowell's comments on his paleness: I could tell that Paula and Randy were pretty upset about that, because that's not something that you should be saying to a contestant or something. But you know Simon; I don't know maybe he just couldn't find anything bad about my voice or something. I really wasn't affected by it; I found humor in it, kind of. I don't know it didn't really affect me much.  I like to take constructive criticism from them. But when Simon said that I have white skin, there's really nothing I could get out of that except for go tanning, but I wouldn't do that. So I don't know I really didn't get much out of it. But I thought it was pretty funny.

On the Peter Frampton/Leif Garrett comparisons generated mostly by his feathered hair: I've never heard of the guy before that, nobody has ever compared me to Peter Frampton or Leif Garrett before this, so that was new. I went back to the house that I was staying at, and I Googled them, because I had no idea of who they were and I was hoping that they were like decent looking guys and talented. So I was pretty happy when they popped up. I don't just my hair, I use Garnier Fructis and I've been using that for a long time.

On his future plans: I plan on finishing school first, but like you said, I'm going to keep in touch with everybody here, like the staff from American Idol, and if anything pops up where they want me to come do or if they'll allow me to do little gigs or something, then I'm definitely going to jump on that, because you know all the experience I can get, I'm definitely going to do it. But right after school is when I'm going to hit it hard and I'm going to do everything that I can to become an artist.

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