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By
Suzanne
Interview with Carrie Underwood on FOX
11/16/09
Ms. Underwood seems like a very nice
person. I don't watch "American Idol" (although everyone I know does),
and I don't really know her music too well, but I know she is a very
good singer, judging from the few times I heard her. She has an
upcoming holiday special on FOX, so that's why they arranged this
conference call with her and the media. I did not get to ask any
questions, because time was limited, but it was interesting nonetheless,
to listen to on the phone.
Her new holiday show sounds like it will be a treat!
FBC PUBLICITY: Carrie Underwood All-Star Holiday Special
November 16, 2009/6:15 p.m. EST
SPEAKERS
Jill Hudson
Carrie Underwood
PRESENTATION
Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to
the Carrie Underwood All-Star Holiday Special interview call. Due to the
large volume of callers, we ask that you please limit yourself to one
question and one follow-up. You may the re-queue and additional
questions will be taken as time permits. I’d also like to remind you
that today’s conference is being recorded.
I’ll now turn the conference over to Jill Hudson for opening remarks.
Please go ahead.
J. Hudson: Hello, thank you so much for joining the call today. The topic
discussed today will be Carrie Underwood All-Star Holiday Special that’s
airing on Monday, December 7th from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. both eastern and
Pacific time on FOX and Carrie’s album that debuted number one last
week, which is entitled Play On. I’d like to go ahead and introduce
Carrie Underwood at this time.
Carrie: Hello, guys, thanks for being here.
Moderator: We’ll go right in to the first question then and that will
come from Michael Hughes with TV America.
Michael: Hey, Carrie, before this started not that long ago, what was
your typical Christmas for you growing and to what extent was music
involved with it.
Carrie: Growing up, basically we don’t really have too many traditions as
a family. But we would always celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. Of
course, Santa would come on Christmas morning. But we had records that
and it wasn’t even any specific name, artist. It was just like a choir
or something. We had these old records that I would always play for
Christmas. I have them now. Thank God, my mom didn’t throw them away. I
have them now and I still like to play them. It makes me think about
Christmas.
Michael: That’s good. You’re also going to be doing some of your hits. So
are you going to be doing like Cowboy Casanova during the special?
Carrie: Yes, we’re doing several new songs, as well as a few that people
should recognize. Other artists get to come on and do some of their own
stuff, too, which is really cool. And I do stuff with them and it’s just
a big mish mash of awesome music.
Michael: Good, because I just wanted to ask you one thing about Cowboy
Casanova. That is such a mouthful. You have to do so much so fast in
that song. What did you first think of when you first saw this song and
how hard was it to really master it?
Carrie: It wasn’t that hard to master it because I was one of the
writers. So it came from me from my mouth and on to paper and then out
of my mouth again when we recorded it. So it really wasn’t that
difficult to do.
Michael: Your mouth just has to be so nimble and so agile to get around
all that so fast, but it was never hard to do.
Carrie: I talk a lot, so.
Moderator: Next, we have Rita Sherrow with Tulsa World.
Rita: I wanted to ask where and when will you be playing on Oklahoma
again?
Carrie: I honestly have no idea. I’ve seen a few tour schedule kind of
first run through list that I’m sure is going to change about 70 more
times before we actually lock something down. But there’s no doubt that
I’ll be headed in that direction.
Rita: And also, when you were a little kid, did you watch variety musical
shows? Is this a dream of yours to do this show for Fox?
Carrie: Well, I think I kind of just missed some of the variety stuff.
I’ve seen the Mandrell sisters before, but it wasn’t something that we
all gathered around to watch. I kind of missed that era and I’m glad to
see that there’s other people doing their stuff, too, and I think it’s
really great family programming. It was a lot of fun to tape and I think
we ended up with a great show. And I’m glad to see that that format may
be catching on again.
Rita: And you have a lot of Oklahomans on the show.
Carrie: I do.
Rita: Just like old home week. Thank you for your time.
Moderator: We’ll go to Alice Chapman-Newgen with the Time Courier.
Alice: I have a twofold question. What was it like last week on state
co-hosting with Brad Paisley at the CMA Awards presentation? And I
understand he is going to be on the special coming up. What’s that going
to be like with him?
Carrie: Brad and I have a bit of a history together. I got to co-headline
a tour with him not too long ago, but he’s just a great guy. I’m lucky
to have gotten to know him over the past few years and got to co-host
with him last year. I feel like the more we’re around each other, the
more we get comfortable with each other and things just get better and
better. He’s a great guy.
It was a lot of fun co-hosting the CMAs again. I felt like we did a good
job. I was really proud of both of us for managing to, I don’t know, not
cause any major problems. It was just a lot of fun and, yes, he is on
the special. We get to do a song together and he performs one of his
own. We had do it in a different way, though, because he couldn’t
actually be in LA for the taping, so we did something kind of cool to
bring two locations together.
Alice: Okay, that sounds cool. Yes, you guys were great. I really enjoyed
it. I just watched the whole thing; it was so good watching you.
Carrie: From a host standpoint, it makes three hours fly by.
Alice: It was great. I’m looking forward to the new special, too. Thank
you.
Moderator: We’ll go to Mike Ayers with AOL.
Mike: Have you ever thought about cutting a Christmas record yourself?
Carrie: I was lucky enough to record a few songs last year. I was so busy
last year, I didn’t actually have time to do a full album, but I would
love to. I love classic Christmas songs. They have been around forever
and everybody knows them and I like doing things very traditional as far
as Christmas songs go, so I would love to do that some point. I’m going
to finish the album, I guess.
Mike: So you’re into the crooners.
Carrie: Yes. I just think there’s so many things that are just perfect
the way they are. When you get some good, classics, of course, you can
put a little bit of yourself in there. If we all sang the same song the
exact same way, that would be really boring and nobody would want to
hear anybody else sing it. But I love to keep things as traditional as
possible and I love strings and I love to just keeping them traditional
and very classy.
Mike: Cool, and Dolly Parton is going to be joining you, yes?
Carrie: Yes, she was very nice, nice enough to come and be a part of the
show. I got to sing with her and she did some stuff on her own, too. I’d
never met her before this, so I was so excited to be able to get to talk
to her and obviously get to sing with her. It felt like such a special
moment for me in the show to be able to perform with her. It was a dream
come true.
Mike: Yes, she’s a funny person and you’re doing on the CMAs, funny as
well. So I feel like it could play off each other if you do any skits,
too.
Carrie: Yes, we didn’t really do—I did something with her. It really
wasn’t a skit. It was more kind of an impromptu fun moment. When Dolly’s
there, you just step out of the spotlight; let her do her thing because
no matter how hard you try, she’s going to steal the spotlight. It’s
great. It’s the way it should be.
Moderator: Next, we have Katie Kauss with People.com.
Katie: So I know you’re talking about a Christmas album and how you’ve
recorded. But do you have favorite Christmas song of all time?
Carrie: Oh, man, I love things like O Holy Night. I think that’s probably
my favorite, but Little Drummer Boy, and things like that. I have those
on my records. They’re just the things that really puts you in a
Christmas frame of mind.
Katie: What was the best present you’ve ever received for Christmas?
Carrie: Oh, I don’t know. I remember when I was little, I wanted a TV so
bad. There’s wasn’t a box underneath the tree big enough to have a TV in
it. So I was kind of getting disappointed, the closer it got to
Christmas because there was never another box that was under there that
was big enough. And my mom had wrapped up the remote and it was like
whatever, the smallest TV you could possibly get, it was my TV. I think
I had that sucker until I was like, they might even still have it at the
house to be honest, I was probably like 15, 20 years old, but that was
really awesome to like a seven year old girl.
Katie: What will you be doing for Christmas this year?
Carrie: I’ll just be with my family. We don’t really have that many
traditions, but we are together and that’s the most important thing. We
eat ourselves silly and try, of course, remember the true meaning of
Christmas and celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Katie: Do you have a favorite food to eat on Christmas?
Carrie: Goodness, my mom always makes like a broccoli cheese casserole
and we do like potato casseroles and stuff like that. Just whatever is
meat free. I can load on my plate, I’m there. I am not a picky eater. I
just love food.
Moderator: We’ll go to Hunter Kelly with ABC News Radio.
Hunter: It was so funny last week watching you and Brad sing those songs.
So I wanted to know about what you did with Kristin Chenoweth and
Christina Applegate for this special, as far as the skits and working
with them and really just working on your comedic side.
Carrie: Well, they were great. I think it’s a lot easier to do stuff like
that when you have two people around you that actually know what they’re
doing. And they both have great comedic timing. Like I said, they know
what they’re doing. So we ended up doing a medley of sorts of throwback
songs, like the ‘50s, ‘60s vibe with matching pink dresses and beehives.
It was just a lot of fun being around them and they’re great. They
showed up and they were willing to do whatever we needed them to do.
Three blondes, we had fun together.
Hunter: Hopefully, you can talk about what you do on the show with your …
friend, David Cook.
Carrie: We sing together, which the first time we sang together was last
year, was it last year, it seems like a long time ago, at the opening in
Disney World of the American Idol attraction. They asked us to sing
together and we did and it was like, hey, this is really good. This
feels really good. So we kind of rocked out for a minute and got to sing
together again and I think, again, it’s probably one of my favorites on
the show, because I just love him to death.
Moderator: We have Paulette Cohn with ET Online.
Paulette: Can you talk about some of the songs that you’re going to sing,
specific songs, name them instead of just generally?
Carrie: I hate to give away too much information, but another one of my
favorite moments, of course, is singing with Dolly. We kind of did one
of her classics that many should recognize, but it was an amazing moment
in the show and she was so great. I thought we sounded really good
together. Like I said, it was a dream come true for me.
Paulette: Do you still watch American Idol?
Carrie: Yes, ma’am, of course. I will always have just the biggest love
for American Idol as a participant and as a fan. Now it’s so crazy for
me to watch and think, “Oh my gosh, I was on that show.” But I love the
people on that. I love the people working on it. I love to go back and
talk to the contestants and I feel, I vote, too, just like everybody
else. I sit out there and I vote, so it’s great to understand being a
fan and being a participant. I get to see both sides.
Moderator: Next is Alex Dobozinskis with Reuters.
Alex: You just released another hit album and it’s funny because it comes
out now at a time when a lot of this year’s Idol finalists are also
getting ready to release their albums. What would you say or what do you
think that they need to do to get to the point that you are now at your
career?
Carrie: I feel like any contestant that comes off Idol that does well on
Idol has to stay true to what people voted for. I’ve seen it happen a
few times where people are one thing on the show and then they get off
the show and try to do something else. And that’s really strange because
Idol is one of those things that they’re telling you what they want.
People are telling you we love this person as is. It’s the best testing
form that you can possibly have because … what they want. So I think
it’s just really important to remember why people voted for you and, of
course, cross your fingers and say a little prayer and hope that people
dig what you’re doing.
Alex: You mentioned that you vote. From this past season, do you have
some favorites that you’d like to talk about now?
Carrie: I was one of those that, I really like Chris Allen. He seemed
really genuine and he was from my neck in the woods. I use to do a few
shows here and there in Connelly, Arkansas. So it was cool to see not a
hometown boy, because it was still a four hour drive, but from my neck
of the woods.
I love Danny Gokey, too. I thought he was just the sweetest person. I’ve
gotten to know him a little bit from the show and he’s hanging out in
Nashville now, so hopefully he’ll be done with his stuff and be on his
way because I think he’s really sweet.
Moderator: Next we’ll go to David Martindale with the Hearst Newspapers.
David: By the way, I saw the CMT invitation only special and enjoyed it,
too. Who are some of the artists in your CD collection or on your iPod
that might surprise people to learn that you listen to?
Carrie: I honestly listen to everything, … is one of my favorite. I know
some of them and like Trevor is just amazing. I think they are people
that deserve a lot more credit than they get. I don’t know. I am an Idol
fan, so I do have a lot of other idols on my iPod. I love classic
things. I love like Rolling Stones and things that my parents introduced
me to, Creedence Clearwater Revival, like Ne-Yo, I don’t know. It’s just
a big mess on my iPod. You never know what you’re going to get when you
put on shuffle. I think that’s good, though. I love music in general.
Moderator: Next we’ll go Juliet Izon with Life & Style Weekly.
Juliet: So we were just hoping you could set the record straight for us
because one of the tabloids accused you of cutting off Brad Paisley from
praising Taylor Swift so that the focus went back to you. So we just
wanted to get your own opinion on that.
Carrie: I just want to say that that was really hurtful. My brain would
never operate that way at all. I have so much respect for every single
person that is in that room, because most of the people that are in that
room are in the music industry. They are part of it. I would never dream
of doing anything like that. Like I said, my brain does not work that
way and it was really, really hurtful to see such a great night and such
a great moment be turned into trash. That just made me sad and it made
me sadder for—I feel like stuff like that kind of takes away anybody’s
moment more than anything else because that’s turning somebody’s great
moment into a tabloid headline and that’s sad.
Moderator: We apologize, we are out of time. We’ll take one last question
from Susan Yeager with Entertainment News.
Susan: I am a big fan of Sons of Sylvia and have the utmost respect for
those guys. I wanted to ask you how that collaboration came about and
did you consider any other bigger names for that duet.
Carrie: I think when we wrote the song, it was written as a duet, so it’s
not one that we tried to turn into a duet. And tons of names, of course,
you think of all the obvious people, but I’m kind of a person that would
like to do the not so obvious choice. Like when we had … on the Grammy’s
last, that wasn’t really somebody, somebody would have been like they
should get together. It was completely unexpected and it was so
wonderful. So I kind of wanted to do the same thing with this song.
Ashley Clark, who’s the lead vocalist of Sons of Sylvia was in my band
when I first came off of Idol, so I’ve known him for about five years
now. We’d sing together in our shows, so I knew we sounded good
together.
When I went to everybody with this idea, it was kind of like, “Oh, my
gosh, yes, this works so well.” And then we got into the studio and they
completely transformed the song. It sounds nothing like the demo. They
really put their spin on it and they are so freaking talented, it’s
amazing.
So Ashley gets in the studio and I just think we sounded really good
together and I was so excited that they wanted to be a part of it. I
love the way it turned out. So it adds a different element that’s little
unexpected, but hopefully, a lot of people will hear them and say who’s
that and be really interested in them because I think they are amazingly
talented.
Susan: Do you know if that song is going to be a single?
Carrie: I honestly have no idea. I think we have so many options for
singles right now that it is hard to—things change from week to week and
new songs get—oh, we have to do this one. I don’t know. We hear people’s
favorites and stuff like that, so it’s one of those that it’d be great
if it was, but I honestly have no clue.
Moderator: We are out of time. Carrie, do you have any closing remarks?
Carrie: Just thank you, guys, for coming. Thanks for dialing in. I hope
people really enjoy the special and thank you, guys, for hopefully
writing nice things about it.
Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for
today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive
TeleConference. You may now disconnect.
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