Scotty McCreery Opens Up About Returning to ‘American Idol’

Scotty McCreery would love to return to the set of American Idol, but not as a judge. The Season 10 winner reveals he’d love to help the contestants, but he is not interested in replacing Luke Bryan’s place in the judge’s seat

“Mentor, yes. Judging, I don’t think so,” McCreery recently shared with PopCulture.com at a media event of his desire to return. “I know how it feels to be on the stage being judged by judges, put in your heart and soul and it’s a whole week of learning this song and putting your best foot forward and sometimes you nail it, sometimes you don’t. It’s not because you didn’t try. So I don’t know that I could judge.”

But Bryan and fellow judges Lionel Richie and Katy Perry might want to take note: the singer is available to provide advice to those who are in the same position he once was in.

“I would love to go there and help those contestants,” he said. “Just give them some insight and little tidbits that I’ve picked up on the show and things I’ve picked up since. It’s a lot to be bagging groceries one month and singing in front of twenty million people the next. That’s a big leap. I’d love to mentor if I could, for sure.”

The North Carolina native has learned plenty since his debut album, Clear as Day, was released in 2011. After just earning his first No. 1 hit, with “Five More Minutes,” which he wrote with Frank Rogers and Monty Criswell, McCreery is passing on the advice he received, that helped him nab his first chart-topping hit.

“What I’d probably say is just what I’ve learned from making this last record, and that’s just tell your story through a song,” McCreery said. “I mean, the way we wrote this song is we just talked about Granddaddy, talked about my life, talked about – for me it was baseball, just feelings of wanting some more time with it. So just get out there and talk about your life because, like I said, a lot of us go through the same emotions.

“And also, don’t be afraid to speak up,” he continued. “When I first started writing songs, I was very, like, “These guys have been writing a lot longer than me. I’m just gonna let them take it.” Now it’s like, hey, y’all, I’ve got an opinion. I know how this song, how I see it in my head now. That’s through writing with guys like this and through learning from them. So, know what you want to say and speak up. Just write about life.”

Download “Five More Minutes” on iTunes.

Photo Credit: Instagram/scottymccreery