It's all worked out for Josiah Leming.  The season 7 American Idol hopeful, who gained a legion of fans despite not even making the Top 24, was renowned for his heartfelt, yet unpolished style.  No one would consider Leming's voice excellent (or even good), but as a singer/songwriter it doesn't need to be.  When America first laid eyes on the teenager, he had left home and was traveling the country, performing anywhere people would have him and sleeping in his car.  He cried on national television, gave one of the most unique (if not one of the best) performances of the season, but was heartbreakingly left out of the American Idol Top 24.  Typically, this is an Idol hopeful's cue to recede into anonymity, but media exposure (thank you, Ellen DeGeneres) gave young Josiah some juice.  Now, three months after his last national television experience, Leming is in the studio, having signed a record deal with Warner Brothers.  Not bad for an Idol reject. 

Josiah Leming signed his Warner record deal six weeks ago, but declined to announce it until now (possibly ride the crest of the Idol finale wave).  He's been hammering out an album's worth of new songs, and is now ready for producers to come in and start the recording sessions.  He will cut the album in both Los Angeles and London studios.  He's pretty excited about it, too: “I'm just beaming inside right now. Since I signed the deal, it's been a lot of wait, wait, wait. Now it's finally come. I'm in this awesome studio, working on songs. ... It's amazing. This is everything I ever wanted," Leming told MTV.com. 

Though he admits that American Idol was a stepping stone and that he wouldn't be where he is without it, Leming also has some perhaps not-so-kind words about the competition in general: “...the fact is, it's glorified karaoke.  They pick people with pretty faces and the pretty voices, and they don't let them write their own songs. They pick these good-looking people with voices, and they have them sing these songs that other people have written. And therefore, it lacks passion, it lacks emotion and it lacks the things that set an artist off from being good to being great. So that's my feeling on it."

It's hard to argue with the truth of those statements, and while there may be some lingering bitterness over his lack of inclusion in the Top 24, he has to be extremely pleased with how it's all worked out.  Had he made the Top 24, his first album would have been a lot different.  While it appears that his Warner Brothers album will be entirely of his own creation, an Idol-certified album would have taken away at least some of Leming's creative control.  Nothing can be certain until Leming's debut album is released, but when it is, we could witness the very first indie hit from an Idol alum.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Source and Image Courtesy of MTV.com