It was really cool to do American Idol . That's a lot of folks sitting there, listening to country music.

Did you grow up listening to country music, around the house?

Fan Fair is just the most amazing thing. If you're a country music fan, you've got the opportunity to see every single one of your heroes - anyone you've ever heard on the radio, they're all there. To get all the country music artists in one place at one time [means] you also can get autographs and pictures if you want. It's awesome, because all the artists and all the fans are right there together, which never happens otherwise during the year.

Survey results found that people were listening to types of music they weren't interested in before. Country music and folk music for example.

I never gave up on country music because I knew what I was doing was not that bad.

I didn't know much about him, and I wasn't a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn't know a lot about him.