When we made it to the top 25 duos, they moved us to the Gaylord Opryland Resort. My room was delta 4044, and I remember when I checked in to the hotel they handed me a map to find my room. I couldn’t find my room because it seemed like a mile away through a maze, so me Carlos, and Dave got a bellboy to help us find our way to our rooms. Camera men were going crazy videotaping everyone trying to find there way through the confusion lol. Actually, Camera men was everywhere you’d turn for the majority of the show. I could be standing out in the hall talking to one of the contestants, and before you would know it… you’d look around, and you would be filmed. Once I finally got to my room, we all found out that Can You Duet wanted us down in a certain area of the hotel for a mixer to get to know our competition, and also for the show to split us up into two groups. One thing that stood out to me was everyone in my group seemed to be really nice and down to earth. It was relieving to meet everyone and make friends; it eased some of the stress of losing Belvis in the first round. I went from feeling alone, to feeling more at home with the other contestants. Right off I became friends with David Oakleaf, and Lewis Brice, The Lexington Brothers were a blast to hang with. Things started looking up, and as I got to know more people… I really liked about everyone. I met all the singles that night at the mixer except for the guy they teamed me with lol. I wanted to be put with a Girl because I thought it would be cool being able to sing in a higher range, and do some powerful duets. When I was teamed up with Jared Johnson it was a surprise, I really had hoped that they would put me with a female singer. But I got to know him very quick, and he was a blast to hang with. We started singing together and going over songs that we could do, he sung in a similar range as me so that was relief. I really liked Jared’s voice, but I noticed that we didn’t blend that well as singers. But I also knew we had never met and had never sung together, so I didn’t know what to expect. We chose to sing “When Will I Be Loved” Every time we played it, something seemed to be missing. I couldn’t tell what it was, well when we got to play it for Amy at SIR… I noticed that she did like our voices, just not together. So I got the vibe that we would end up being split, so the only thing that I was worried about was I could be the one getting sent home because I kept forgetting certain parts in the song. It was great working with Jared, but when we played for the judges and they split us up… we both knew it was for the best. We both were very relieved that we got split instead of being sent home, so once again we were singles. The only question now was who are they going to put me with now? I thought that the judges would either place me with Lewis or Caitlin… When they put me with Caitlin, I already knew we sounded really good together cause we had sung with each other just goofing around. Honestly, they could have put me with either one of them and I would have been happy. Before I knew it, Caitlin and I were knocking round after round down in the contest. It seemed like every time we sung for the judges, they loved us more and more. All through the show I was just hoping to make it in the top 8 duo’s, when we was still getting great reviews from the judges after the top 8… things just kept getting harder and harder to believe.

I truly did not think Wild Honey was going home… I really thought they would at least have made it into the top 3. When they got voted off, it shocked the crap out of me. I really thought Caitlin and I would have been sent home before them, and before I knew it… Caitlin and I were in the top 4 duos. We had talked and talked about preparing the right time to do a love song, and it was time to bring out the big guns and take a risk. I had said when Caitlin and I had first got teamed up that doing a love song at that point wouldn’t be a good idea. Looking back, I really believe I was right. I didn’t want to go up on stage with someone I barely knew and sing a passionate song with them. I knew I wouldn’t pull it off, I had never done a duet like that before, and I was afraid that our performance wouldn’t be believable. So it seemed to make better sense to do a few rocking songs at first, and in the mean time we would get to know each other enough that it wouldn’t be an issue. So I talked Caitlin into waiting. When we made it into the top 4 duos, we knew it was time to do the love song. We knew that they wouldn’t expect two people that barely knew each other to pick a love song, especially a Faith and Tim love song. It was a song that would either make us or brake us. As soon as we went into the performance of the song, the mood of the audience completely changed. Everyone went quiet, and we didn’t know if it was a good quiet, or a bad quiet. As I walked up beside Caitlin as we were singing, everyone just broke out into cheering. I looked over at the judges, and they were giving us a standing ovation. By the time we had ended the song, I was all choked up. It really meant a lot to get that sort of reaction from everyone. The Judges loved the performance; Aimee went on to say that it was the best of the whole show. I never saw that coming!! It felt like we had won the show that night lol!! That was the first time that I had ever been mobbed by fans after the show was over. It was so sad to see the Coppolas get voted off that night, I was so worried that Joey and Rory was getting sent home. Rory kept saying how worried he was that they were leaving that night, it had me worried lol. I was so glad to see them make it; they are like family to me. They got so close to everyone, they are the kind of people that you could go a whole lifetime and never meet… They truly are one in a million. I really believe the last few shows was the hardest because we had said goodbye to so many duets in the contest that had became so close as friends. The last 3 rounds of the show was the hardest, I felt really sad that it all was coming to an end. I found myself missing some of the other contestants that I had hung out with everyday. I missed David Oakleaf a lot, David was such a great stress reliever because we would set around a joke all the time. At the last show, David and Lewis came… I had hoped they would, and when the showed up… It really made me want to player as good as I could. David and I had set around playing “Stupid Boy” on the guitar different times through out the show… So It was great to be able to play it up on stage and have Caitlin help me add a female flavor to it. We played it in a higher key, and split the main vocals to make the song more personal. It was a blast!! I looked out in the crowed and David and Lewis looked so proud, dad and mom were grinning from ear to ear. It always helped me do better when I could see friends and family in the crowed. For some reason, it would make it easy to play for the judges.

After Caitlin and I had played “Stupid Boy,” I felt really good about the performance. I wasn’t sure if we had did good enough to make it to the top 2 duos, but I knew that if we got voted off… we had went out with a bang. And honestly we could have got voted off at that point and we would have walked away knowing we did a good job. I would have hated to have gotten voted off because I screwed something up in the song. After everyone had played, the judges went off to talk over who should be the top 2 duets. Well, I sat down beside Caitlin and she asked me… Do you want to win? I said yes, but If we don’t… I’m just glad we’ve made it this far. She smiled and said; well it’s good to know we both feel the same. We really didn’t think we would win, but we really wanted to make it into the top two duos. When we found out we had made it, we was freaked out!! It was so great, but at the same time… We also had to go up and play another song. We knew even if we didn’t win, we at least had made it into the top 2. I loved the song that Sony had picked for us to do “Love Is” it’s such a powerful message, but it also was a hard song to pull off. It’s one of those power vocal songs, you have to sing it as good as or better than the original version… and the original recording of it was amazing. When we sung it and I seen Brett start crying, it hit me like a ton of rocks! I had never seen anyone in the whole show make Brett manning cry. It really meant a lot to know that we did good enough to have that sort of emotional pull on him. We worked our butts off to win, and when we did… I didn’t know what to think. All through the show we kept hearing Rossi start each show with the lines ” These duos have came in hopes of winning a recording contract with Sony BMG Nashville” and all through the contest I would look over at all the contestants thinking, one of these duos is going to win that. It never crossed my mind that it was me and Caitlin that would be the ones to walk away the winners. Brett, Aimee, and Naomi were amazing judges, and they truly gave us priceless advice throughout the show. It was a great experience getting to know them and learn from them, I went into this wanting to meet them and learn as much as I could from them. Not purely for the fact that its neat meeting a star, I wanted to know what they thought and how they looked at things. After all, they would know better than anyone about what it takes to become successful in music. Can you Duet and the Producers of American Idol really did us well by handing us those three, they always had something to tell us to uplift and keep us raising the bar every round. I started out being intimidated by them, but as I got to spend time with them in the mentoring sessions, I really got to find out what they were about and what they wanted. I think where people can make the worst mistake is not listening to the judges, I seen people come into the contest thinking they were able to do things the way they wanted no matter what the judges said… you might be lucky enough to make it past a round or two being that way, but somewhere down the line it will get you kicked off. You truly have to be flexible; the judges are there to help… if they talk, it’s best to listen. To end the blog, I just want to say that… Can you Duet has been a great thing in my life. It was by far the hardest thing I’ve be put through in my music, but it really paid off. I met people in the contest that I will probably stay friends with from now on.