Jeremy Bradley- You have a busy day going on, don't you?

Sebastian Pigott- Yeah, yeah, but no big deal at all. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

JB- No problem. All right, let's talk Idol.

SP- Cool.

JB- First off, were you shocked to be eliminated? I mean, last week you seemed shocked that you stayed. Were you expecting this?

SP- (laughing) Partially, sure, yeah, absolutely. I sort of felt like I was on borrowed time the way I was getting smacked on by dear old "Zacky malassie", but I felt like I made a really good showing of myself on Monday night, and it's kind of a high note to go out on as far as I'm concerned.

JB- What was it you think just wasn't clicking with the Idol audience that had your time on the show end so soon?

SP- I don't know if there was anything not clicking, I mean, I've gotta give a shout out to all the people that were voting for me and sending me (messages on) MySpace and it was incredible the support I was getting from across the country. So I don't know if there was anything not clicking. There was just an incredible group of talent there, you know what I mean? When there are seven other people like that sitting beside you it's hard to feel really insulted. I'm going home number 8. I feel pretty damned privileged to be number 8, to be honest. I'm looking back to some of the people I beat out like Omar Lunan. I mean, geez! If anyone did a better job than on Ain't No Sunshine, I mean that's gotta be one of the highlights of my whole experience doing this, was listening to him do that tune.

JB- Is there anything you could pinpoint that you would do differently that you're certain you would've stayed longer?

SP- No. No, I pride myself on taking chances as I think any good artist does. And when you take chances, you know, inherent in that is the chance that it might not work, and I felt like every week I came up with a specific idea I wanted to work on. And I came up with something different, and I'm really proud of that. If I was to do anything different it would be to do a little better sometimes. (laughing) So that's never for lack of effort. Sometimes for whatever reason it doesn't quite fly the way it should and in my lesser moments I was sub-par. I'd love to change that, but c'est la vie.

JB- A lot of people comment that these Idol shows - it's not finding actual artists, it's impersonating ones that are already around. What's your take on that having gone through the experience?

SP- Well I think certainly in the show's lesser moments it certainly falls into that category. I don't think anyone on the show encourages that but it goes without saying that when you're doing someone else's tunes - I think that's something that you could say about cover tunes in general, is when they're done poorly they come off as poor impersonations of the original, but what you're seeing in the better moments - and you look at somebody like Earl (Stevenson) - and the stuff that he's done, and you look at somebody like Mookie (Morris), or you look at Omar Lunan in that performance I'm talking about when he did Ain't No Sunshine. He took that song back to bare bones and built it anew with a fresh take on it and that's what doing a good cover is all about: it's stripping it back to the song - strip away the arrangement - you know what I mean? Strip away the production; strip away the vocal, delivery - and do it fresh.

JB- Do you think it's easier then to take a song that's not familiar to the public or… because a lot of times the judges will criticize doing something like that but yet then they say "Well do something people can relate to …" so I mean how can you not almost imitate the person that does the song in the first place?

SP- It's a constant challenge when you're faced with judgement so directly as an artist. That's an incredible challenge not to let it get in your way. I think for the most part you need to ignore the judges. If they say anything that's constructive and useful to you, then you take it for what it is but you certainly can't adapt your performance and yourself as an artist to suit them because that's just silly. Everybody just needs to keep doing stuff they think is cool and stuff that they would listen to. As long as they're doing that and you're doing original stuff - if you're ever doing anything derivative then it's garbage. That goes without saying. It's gotta be inspired.

JB- Had they ever told you to change or to do something that you just felt, "You know what that's not me being true to myself as an artist"?

SP- Yeah, absolutely. For one thing, I was constantly encouraged to practice in the mirror which as a performer, I think it's a terrible idea. At least for me because I find if you're looking at yourself in the mirror then you tend to be metaphorically watching yourself in the mirror the whole time you're performing. You just get self-conscious. Because moments shouldn't be mechanically prepared. They shouldn't be prepared out of vanity. They should be prepared out of, you know, an honest expression out of something that's going on.

JB- That brings us to your movements and your motions on stage. I mean you got pretty friendly with the mic stand and … you know …

SP- (laughing) Yeah, a couple of times …

JB- Is that always … or is it that you're so into it you don't even notice that you're moving like that? How does that work?

SP- Not really, at least initially, I mean, you kind of do things and then people call attention to them and then maybe you become aware of them, which in a way is another challenge because then of course you become aware of it yourself and then, "Oh I'm doing that thing again" which you never even knew you were doing - you're just doing because you were into it, you know? I mean music - it moves you if you're into it. If you're in it and it can move you in sexual ways, in spiritual ways, or make you sad or make you happy. And so you do things. But it does become a thing though when you read in the paper and the blogs. And that's why I quickly learned to stop doing that. You hear somebody call attention - even if they're saying it's a good thing - to something idiosyncratic that you're doing. That's the only thing they call attention to. (laughing)