Q&A with American Idol's Scott MacIntyre

SR: What is the best piece of advice you've been given?   

SM: You may not be expecting this either, but the best piece of advice I've been given came from Kara DioGuardi, and I have to tell you the story of this. After I left the show, she actually grabbed me that night as I was walking off the stage and again backstage and she told me, "Hey, I want to get together, and I want to hear your original music." ... I actually got to spend some time with Kara a couple days after getting voted off and played a lot of my original music for her, and I'll never forget what she said, she goes: "This is what you need to be doing. When you're singing your own music, you have no issues with the vocals. It's like a different Scott, because the passion is what is driving the music."   

She really saw that passion in my own music and in things that I have been living with for a while, and that actually were born and bred out of my own heart, so that really meant a lot to me that she recognized that that is what I need to be doing. I need to be writing and performing my own music, and especially coming from her, that meant the world to me.