Blake Lewis: An Audiophile with Style

"American Idol" runner-up Blake Lewis stood out from the rest of the contenders thanks to his unique style and beat-boxing ways. In a recent interview, the break-out star tells us how he stays in touch with his fans using MySpace, gives advice to budding artists, and explains what the Kaoss pad does to his voice.

Can you tell me about your new album "Audio Day Dream?" Why the name? What can we expect to hear?

My band's actually called A.D.D., and its been our name for about four years now. It came about because of my drummer and I — everyone thinks we have both have A.D.D. (he definitely does). Same with the live show. Our show is very wild, and we go through many different types of music. It's kind of an live electronic jam band, but like synth pop. And just like the record, it will hopefully take you on a journey from start to finish. We're definitely high energy, and so that's where A.D.D. came from.

I heard a couple of your songs online, and they all sound so different. What style would you say your album is?

Pop. I grew up with Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, and '80s-influenced pop music. The nice thing about pop is it's any kind of music. Pop is just another label people try to place on the music. There's Jamaican glitchy dub, Curtis Mayfield meets James Brown, and Erasure meets Depeche Mode on this record. That's what I label it as, pop music, just not your cookie-cutter "Girl, you're so fine" pop or "Oh my God, it's pop music" pop music. (laughs)

What type of music do you listen to?

Everything is always playing on my music player. I just bought, like, 30 CDs. I'm a fan of music, so I'm constantly listening to it. I'm currently listening to a guy named Edit. It's called glitch hop music — he synthesizes it anyway. The album is called "Certified Air Raid Material." It's beats — I listen to beats all the time. I also listen to Kenna's "Sacred Cow" record. It's very '80s Depeche Mode-y influence, kind of snyth pop produced by the Neptunes. I also listen to 311. It really depends on the mood. Whatever mood you're on, put your record on, put your CD on, put your iPod on.

You mentioned you bought CDs. Do you always buy CDs or download music?

I never really downloaded music. I'm not a fan of the download. I'm a fan of art and buying the artists' art. I have a huge, huge, huge CD collection that goes on for days. I will constantly buy vinyls and CDs. I gotta have a physical form for me, and the quality of downloading is just bad. We have our technology and the process and the power to have amazing-quality-sounding music, but everything you download is a lower form of music. So much money goes into making an album to have great quality sounding music only to destroy it by turning it into an MP3. So I definitely do not like downloading anything digital.

And you have an iPod?

Yeah, but it's all all WAV form. It's all high-quality music. I don't take anything into MP3. You just can't download music from the Internet in WAV form. I guess it's too expensive to do it. A lot of the artists make a lot of money off the downloads. But I love the fact that my music is reachable. It's a double-edge sword. I love the fact that my music can reach so many people in so many different countries through the Internet. I mean, it's an amazing power, the Internet, you know. But as far as me, personally, I would rather throw vinyl on any day over a CD. You get the good-quality analog sound over a nice set of speakers.

What do you think about these established artists, like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, who distribute their own music online?

That it's great. If it works for them, that's great. I like it because they're being rebellious against the music industry. The fact that Radiohead did it for their fans is just great. Whatever price you want to pay. You can pay 35 cents to 40 bucks to 200 bucks for the album. That's rooted old school, rebellious punk music right there. Radiohead is a punk rock band for sure. I love it.

Do you have any advice for new artists trying to break into the music business?

It's really tough right now. The market is changing every day. I'd go out there and research. The Internet is a huge source. I keep up with my fans every night on MySpace, and run the page myself. I don't let my record company touch it. I'll put some free music out there, but for new artists, I'd say just get out there and promote yourself. MySpace is a great, great, great way, and so is YouTube now. Making videos and just staying current with everything around you is good. There's so much technology, so find out what it is and use it to your advantage. There is no right way of doing things or wrong way to do things. There's only try and succeed, or try and fail. Same with any idea.

You're pretty connected online. You run your own MySpace page, but what else do you do online?

It's basically YouTube, MySpace, and places like FunnyorDie.com.

I heard you play a loop pedal and Kaoss pad? Can you explain what they do?

The Kaoss pad is meant for turntables. I use it to delay my voice, distort it, filter it. I can yell and still change the pitch to make my voice sound like a turntable. There are so many cool effects. I use it live on the record and on the last track. I did a lot of live tracks on the record. The last one, there's no producing, it's just mixed. It's my drummer playing one-handed, and me going through my Kaoss pad live. There's a video online called "She Loves the Way" that's on my MySpace that's all vocals and me using my Kaoss pad. I'm going to do a free clinic here sometime on MySpace of me going through beat-boxing for, like, two minutes with vocals effects and stuff.

What inspired you to beat-box?

I was in an amazing a capella group for four years, and we all used vocal effects, and we all beat-boxed. I saw someone beat-boxing in high school, and I was like "Oh, I gotta do this." I was making noise my whole life and didn't know I was beat-boxing until I saw someone do it, and it raised a consciousness about it. Then two years later I auditioned for an a capella group, got in it, and became a professional instantly. Summertime we had 32 gigs in 29 days. We were double booked, doing a gig every single day. It's was crazy.

How do you stay in touch with fans, friends, and family?

There's that great power of MySpace, once again. I'm on there every night or every other night, as much as I can. I respond to at least 20 people a night. I go through my first 20 messages to see what's going on, see what people are into, and give some shout outs to friends.

Where are you spending your holidays?

I going to Utah to see some family for a couple of days, probably Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Then I'll be playing at Times Square on New Years.

Nice!

Yeah, I'm very excited.

What's the geekiest thing about you?

I'm a total geek. I mean, come on, I make noise with my mouth and wear a bowtie.

Check out Blake's Celebrity Wish List and find out what other gear he likes to rock.