Ideal 'Idol': For his fans, platinum-selling Clay Aiken is still the one By MATT ELLIOT World Scene Writer
7/6/2007
Last Modified: 7/6/2007 9:11 AM
A message to the ladies from Clay Aiken: He's glad you've stopped pelting him with your undies.
"They've calmed down on those," Aiken said in a phone interview from his North Carolina home. "I think they threw so many the first time, they ran out. During the 'Idol' tour when we came through Oklahoma City, they were throwing undies all the time."
These days the platinum-selling singer has been eschewing Top 40 radio and trying not to lose his brand new iPhone.
"I haven't lost it but I anticipate that I will at some point very soon," he said, acknowledging that he has lost other cell phones. "I'm probably going to have to tape it to myself."
The singer will be performing Saturday at the Brady Theater with a locally recruited orchestra. This tour is the first time he's worked with an orchestra outside of special Christmas tours. Aiken admits to being unsure as to whether or not it will work.
"I don't know what to expect. But it'll be interesting one way or the other. It's either going to be a wonderful, wonderful show or a colossal flop."
In interviews, Aiken has dodged questions about his personal life and lashed out at interviewers who attempt to invade his privacy.
Through his brief pop career he has kept a sense of humor about himself and the various controversies that have followed in his wake. He's endured everything from his well-publicized spat with Kelly Ripa to frequently invasive questions about his sexuality.
He's also been the whipping boy of cowardly Internet blogs, laughed at for his baby-faced looks and self-professed dorkiness.
But that doesn't seem to keep him from having a good time.
"You have to have an ability to laugh at yourself, no matter what," Aiken said. "We're doing 'Sexy Back,' (by) Justin Timberlake ... And seriously, there is no way on earth that I will ever be Justin Timberlake ... I'm never going to be that cool ever. So you have to kind of do things like that with a little tongue-in-cheek action."
But when asked to compare the qualities of older and younger women, Aiken laughed in that distinctive Carolina accent, and answered with characteristic Southern charm.
"I think that there are definitely benefits to either one," he said, wisely. "Younger ladies have things to offer that older ladies can't and definitely vice versa. So, I'm gonna stay well behaved and not get myself in trouble by answering that too specifically."
The former "American Idol" runner-up's most recent album, last year's "A Thousand Different Ways," peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 200. His first disc, 2003's "Measure of a Man," went to No. 1 on the same chart.
These days, he operates under the mantra that busier is better.
"People assume that since I haven't been on every TV show in the last month that I'm obviously washed up and I'm finished or I'm retired," he said. "I think it's just the general expectations game in that you can never take a break in this industry."
On Saturday, he'll perform songs from "A Thousand Different Ways" as well as medleys of pop songs and TV show theme songs from the last 20-30 years.
"We're doing a medley of songs that absolutely should not be performed with an orchestra ever. And we're going to do kind of a little tongue-in-cheek interpretation of some of them."
Included in that sampling of pop culture will be Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy, Breaky Heart," as well as Timberlake's "Sexy Back."
On Aiken's next album, he'd like to branch out a bit with, toy around with the production and work with a producer who's less likely to try to change him, he said.
Aiken has a particularly rabid fan base in Tulsa, comprised largely of women from the area who collect trinkets from his career and meet regularly to discuss Aiken-related trivia.
The group of fans has made nearly 300 reservations for a pre-party set at the Crowne Plaza Hotel downtown. Among the pre-party events scheduled are silent auctions and raffles that'll benefit the singer's nonprofit Bubel Aiken Foundation, a group supports the integration of children with disabilities into the life environment of their non-disabled peers.
The woman who went with Aiken to his prom lives in Bixby, and the singer named his English bulldog after the town, he said.
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