SonyRED/Modern Whomp RecordsOn Friday, American Idol season-five champ Taylor Hicks releases his first new music in seven years: a song called “Six Strings & Diamond Rings.” He admits some fans have “jumped ship” during his layoff, but hopes they’ll return when they hear the song.
“I’ve seen some of them come back,” he tells ABC Radio. “And now that the single is here, I’m excited ’cause I know the music’s good.”
The song is about the toll the music biz takes on your love life. “Every time…they ask me, ‘Well, what’s the title?’ I say ‘Six Strings Are Hard on Diamond Rings,’ and they say, ‘Wow, great title!'” he says. “It’s very exciting for me to be able to play a song that has that kind of title and this kind of meaning.”
As for ABC’s reboot of American Idol, Taylor thinks it’ll succeed because of another long-running ABC reality competition: Dancing with the Stars.
“ABC knows how to keep the audience, and…they know how to entertain the audience,” Taylor says. “If it was on any other network, I would probably tell you that this was way too quick, this is gonna crash and burn. But the track record ABC has…I think it’s a perfect fit.”
Taylor also likes the judges: Katy Perry and — rumor has it — country superstar Luke Bryan. Katy’s “a songwriter first and foremost,” he says, and Luke is “just a heck of a nice guy” who’ll have the best interests of the contestants in mind.
The single suggests Taylor’s “Soul Patrol” sound has turned towards country, but he’s not thinking about genre.
“Here’s the deal: the song’s undeniable, the title’s great,” he says. “I sing my butt off on it. It’s got a great message. That’s all I can do, from an artist’s perspective.”
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