Interview: Simon Cowell

With the eighth season of American Idol just one week away, the team at Gamesville had the opportunity to sit down with the very opinionated judge of FOX's hit reality series, Simon Cowell. He joined us to answer some questions about the upcoming season and shared some insight into the previous success stories from the show.

Gamesville: Let's jump right into it. How is the talent pool this year compared to last year?

Simon: Having done the Hollywood round, which we completed about a month ago,  I feel that we have an interesting bunch.  Where I think we got a little bit stuck last year, it was kind of like battle of the blondes and they all looked the same.  I couldn’t differentiate one from the other.  This year there seems to be more personality.

In the early years of Idol, the show was primarily based in pop music. Have you been surprised by how successful Idol contestants have done in the country and rock genres?

I think the rock thing, particularly Chris Daughtry, made a huge difference. Contestants like Chris have brought a different type of edge to the show and have been incredibly successful. I do like is the fact that we’re open minded enough to now encourage all different types of artists, which is a good thing for the show.

I did this show in the first place because I’ve always been a big fan of American singing talent. You have to hope and assume with a show as big as ours that through the process that we are going to find stars.  I’m not really that surprised.

You’ve said already that you think a guy will win this year. Is that because the male talent pool is so overwhelming or do you have someone specific in mind?

Not anyone specific.  When you do the Hollywood week, which we did about a month ago, you get to see all the contestants for a second time.  My memory of that was that the guys overall were just stronger and they stood out more than the girls.  Still, anything can happen.

What’s your take on the changes to the shows format this year, such as bringing back the wild card and focusing less on the train wreck auditions?

I think the wild card is a good idea.  I wasn’t crazy about the process we went through the last couple of years where we were given a small group of contestants who you actually got bored with once you hit about show five of the live shows.  This way this is a bit more jeopardy and hopefully a bit more fun in the middle stages.

I think it’s important that we have all types of singers, all types of people because I have to say, I think personality is as important as talent on a show like this.  What you hope you end up with is somebody like Fantasia, who’s not only extremely talented, she’s an incredible person, has a great vibe and makes the show interesting.  We tried, where we can with what we had, just to get a more interesting group of people.

It was announced that Kara DioGuardi will be joining the panel as a fourth judge this year. Given that she’s worked with Idol contestants in the past, do you think that helps or hinders her as a judge?

I’d think it’s probably a good thing.  At least she knows what the end process is and what you have to do to turn somebody into a recording artist.  She’s obviously not snobby about this kind of music, which some people can be, with this kind of process.  At least she’s not going to look down on the process, which is a good thing.

She also has tons of experience–she’s written hit songs, she has an opinion, and she talks a lot. I think she’s probably well qualified.

A number of idol’s were nominated for Grammy’s this year–Jennifer Hudson, Carrie, Fantasia. Obviously, you must be proud of the level of success they have achieved.

I absolutely love it when that happens because they deserve it and there’s so much snobbery in the music business about what we do on these shows and I know how upset they all get, so I think it’s fantastic.

The eight season of American Idol premiers on January 13th and January 14th on FOX.