The Auditions & First Show

What was your motivation to do Nashville Star?
     It was actually an idea suggested by my producer in Nashville. He saw it as an opportunity to get an instant profile and build a bigger fan base, which I didn't have in the States. No one here knew about my independent records and, truth be told, my Australian career wasn't that big of a deal to the American labels. Their attitude is "If you haven't done it here, you haven't done it yet," which is true because the music industry is so different and so much larger here. Even if I didn't win, we were hoping that Nashville Star would help me get my foot in the door with the Nashville record people.

How did the Nashville Star audition process work?
     My audition process was a little different. They did these big ol' cattle call auditions in most cities but when they got to Denver they were running out of time. They decided that they would just look at select people for a smaller audition here. There were eight people and I was one of them.
     We all had to do a cover song and an original song that night, just with an acoustic guitar, no band. I did "You Don't Even Know Who I Am," which I eventually performed on the first episode, and a song I wrote for my sister, "Lift You Up."
     I was one of two people from Denver to go on the regional auditions. Our regionals were held in Austin in January. There, you sang your original song acoustically and the other song you actually got to do with the Nashville Star band. You also had to sit through some pretty intense interrogations, at least it felt like an interrogation. There was a long questioning process about your life and the reason why you wanted to be on Nashville Star, plus a bit about your history and your road so far in the music scene.

How many people in total made it through to the regional auditions?
     There were probably about 200 broken up over two days in both Nashville and Austin. I think something like 8,000 people auditioned nationwide, so the competition was intense.

What was your reaction when you found out you were selected to be on the show?      I was screaming and I was jumping up and down like crazy and asking them if they were joking. And they said, "No, you're in!"
     The contestants weren't supposed to find out until two weeks after the regionals, but I guess I actually found out maybe four days after the Austin audition. I wasn't even expecting the call. We kind of babbled on for like ten minutes, just having a normal conversation. Then they decided to let me know that I had been accepted for the TV show. I was very excited.

What was it like when you arrived in Nashville to tape the first show?
     At the beginning of February, we were all flown down there and we all got to meet each other and hang out together for two weeks. Over that time, we were prepped on how the show was going to run. We did pretape the very first episode, so we spent those weeks rehearsing and going through the whole process of the show. We also did a lot of publicity and advertising stuff.

What was the atmosphere like with the cast?
     Well, very different from how it finished out. (laughing) Put it this way - we didn't really know what we were in for. We were just ten very, very excited and energized, intelligent people ready to give it everything we had, probably each believing that we were going to win.
     We got along very well and bonded very quickly, even by the end of the second week it felt strange coming back and not being around each other anymore. We had been together 24/7, going through the same experience, stress and excitement.
     Then we came home for two weeks. At that point it really hadn't started because the show still hadn't aired. The reality of the "reality show" hadn't affected us at this point because we hadn't experienced the whole elimination process yet.

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