Trent Harmon Explains Why He Waited Two Years After Winning 'American Idol' to Release Album

Trent Harmon's debut You Got 'Em All album will be out this Friday, May 18. The 11-track record comes two years after the singer won Season 15 of American Idol, but he says the timing couldn't be better.

"I think it was really important; you want to pay tribute to all of that," Harmon says of his time on Idol. "But, you almost want to create this disconnect. And by the time being in between then and now, and being able to write my own material, whether it's good or not, whether you think it's good or bad or indifferent, I got to write it. And no matter what, five years, 20 years, 30 years removed, I would rather have a finished work of original material rather than a bunch of cover songs which would essentially have been what I would've done. I would've had to put songs on hold that were by other artists because I hadn't had time to write."

You Got 'Em All shows where Harmon has been since his time on American Idol, both with lyrical content and his different musical influences.

"I think [fans will] be able to see different chapters of me through this record in the last two years," the 27-year-old says. "Sometimes I was mad, sometimes I was sad. The single is pretty sad. It's pretty overwhelmingly sad. I think that was right about the time that I was thinking, 'I don't know what's going to happen. Overwhelmingly, I do not know what's going to happen; I'm sad right now.'"

"There are a lot of influences on that, a lot of soul," he adds. "People say, 'I wish you were putting out an R&B album, a soul album.' It's on there. I can finally say, 'Go buy the record.' You can tell what days I wanted to make a soul album."

Harmon is grateful to his fans, for allowing him the time and space to make the record he wanted to make.

"They have stayed in touch with me for the last two years," says Harmon. "I've tried not to go ghost on them. If they'd say, 'Where is your album? We're supposed to get an album'; a lot of people thought that they were going to get an album within weeks of Idol being over. And here we are, a new Idol has come out. I mean there's going to be a new winner about the same time that my record comes out."

Pre-order You Got 'Em All at TrentHarmon.com.

Photo Credit: Instagram/officialtrentharmon