Q&A with American Idol's Matt Giraud

SR: It seems like the whole process of choosing a song and then figuring out the arrangement would be an extreme amount of pressure. Does it feel like pressure to you? Or is it a natural thing?   

MG: It the beginning it really was, it was just what I loved to do, it was so exciting every week. But as you got down and down to the nitty-gritty toward end, it really became more pressure. The most nervous, intense days of my life were those Wednesdays. On performance days, I woke up with this feeling in my stomach, like "Ah!" It turned into something; it was a competition. It wasn't just us performing, you know; it was judges and people picking apart what you wear, what you say, what you do every day and as an artist. That gets kind of hard. I was pretty nervous on those days, but I've noticed after getting off the show, performing on some of the talk shows, I've been a lot more comfortable. People can really tell. They'll say, "I like him better now!" It's less pressure.