First up, Katelyn Epperly...

Do you think the judges were too hard on you?
Katelyn: They were definitely more critical towards me. I'm not sure if that's because I've been performing for so long that they maybe expected more out of me than what I was giving them.

After a great performance in the second week, did last week's performance take you out of your comfort zone?
Katelyn: I definitely was trying to find a song that would portray me as an artist, which is difficult for singer-songwriters in this competition because, first of all, I don't listen to mainstream music, and second of all, I typically don't perform covers. So I kinda scrambled around at the last minute, trying to find something I could do, I brought out the Wurlitzer keyboard I wanted to do something edgier, but it didn't really work out for me. But I definitely don't regret doing it, because I love that era, and I definitely love the song.

Do you think the show should start allowing contestants to play original songs?
Katelyn: That's a tough one. People like Lilly, Crystal and I would excel in that category, but it's a show where you get judged, and original music, especially the music that I write, is filled with a lot of emotion, and it's based on your personal experiences. And I think it would be hard for me to get up in front of four people and have them tell me that my personal experiences are invalid, and my song that I wrote when I was going through a hard time wasn't good enough. But I think it would be a cool twist to bring to the show.

Who were you close to on the show?
Katelyn: Lilly and I were best friends throughout. We were roommates throughout the show. And we hung out all the time, so it was kind of ironic that we both got eliminated. On the same day, but maybe it happened for a reason.

So what are your plans?
Katelyn: For now, since I'm flat broke, I gotta go back to Des Moines and start working, and continue to pursue recording and writing music with all sorts of different artists. A band called Lovedrug -- it's been a band I've been listening to since I was real young -- I'm gonna get together with them and hopefully start creating music with them, as well as other artists. We'll see how it all pans out.

What surprised you the most about being on the show?
Katelyn: I didn't expect to get along with people so well. I've been doing music my whole life and never really got along with the people in choir and so forth, and I thought it was gonna be a bunch of divas walking around. And there were some, of course, there's gonna be some in every bunch, but I definitely didn't know about all the behind-the-scenes people you work with The show's so huge and so much goes on that you don't even realize until you get there it's a huge, working machine, and I've never realized until now, because I hadn't seen the show in a few years, I'd never realized how big it was. I mean, you go from being nobody to walking down the street and people are calling out your name. But it's probably one of the best marketing platforms for you to start your career off on. I basically just got handed 30 million viewers, and I hope if you liked my covers, you'll like my original work.

Next was roommate and co-evictee Lilly Scott...

What were you feeling after you were voted off, when you said, "I don't know what America wants to hear"?
Lilly: Trying out this year, I really wanted to break the mold and be that offbeat contestant who did exactly what I wanted to do and really just explain myself as an artist with my song choice, And I really have no regrets in that department, but watching certain people make it into the top 12 that had not done so well over the past three weeks, and then based on the judge's comments on my three songs for the past three weeks, I was just kind of frustrated, feeling like my fan base wasn't there, even though the producers and the judges seemed to love me. And I was feeling like I was having a great run on the show, but I guess my fans weren't there. So I guess that's why I said, "I don't know what America wants to listen to." But then again, my voting demographic is probably more of the underground scene, who probably doesn't even own a TV, and if they do they're probably out riding their bike, or doing something more productive than watching TV, let alone American Idol. So I guess they just weren't voting.

Do you think it was your song choice last week that got you sent home?
Lilly: Yes and no. I kind of feel that I picked that song because I love Patsy Cline, and it really describes who I want to be as an artist, but then, the American Idol voting demographic is probably mostly tweens, like 11- and 12-year-old girls, and I'm sure they don't know who Patsy Cline is, so that probably affected me. I just feel like maybe my fan base, the audience I was playing to, which is the underground market, probably literally wasn't watching the show and just supporting me in their heart and not actually voting. And then there's the whole deal with maybe people just assumed I was safe, and just chose not to vote. So honestly, I have no idea what happened.

Given what you know of your fan base and the AI demographic, did you kinda see this coming?
Lilly: I did and I didn't. In the past few years I've watched American Idol, and it seems like every year the person I fall in love with goes home, and I don't know if that's because I see true artistry in that contestant, or what it is, but I definitely feel like I got cut early. I know that I could have done a great job next week with the Rolling Stones, and I probably could have really kicked butt in the top 12, but maybe I was just too off-the-wall for people, or maybe it was just my time to go out with a bang and keep my indie cred and do my own thing without having the American Idol label all over me.

If you could work with anyone, what artist would you like to work with?
Lilly: I would love to meet Thom Yorke from Radiohead, and people like Bjork. They're kind of like the king and queen of the indie world. They're really kind of who I strive to be as an artist, and their fan base is so huge, and they're so respected as artists.

Where will you go from here?
Lilly: I definitely feel I would fit in the big summer festival circuit, doing things like Coachella and Bonnaroo and really doing some mass touring. I know I can have a whole entire different kind of audience coming out to shows if I did tour, and recording is definitely on my list of things to do. I know there's a fan base out there for me that is loving what I'm doing, I just don't necessarily think that was the American Idol voting demographic. That's what I worried out day one of being on the show, and I thought I could break the mold, but I guess it's another season of the same old stuff.

Next up? Todrick Hall.

There were four guys from Texas -- Casey, Tim, Alex and you -- did you bond at all?
Todrick: We were all kind of nervous about it, because Texas is such a strong area. Jason Castro and Kelly Clarkson did so well and also Joshua Allen did so well on So You Think You Can Dance?, because Texas has such strong voting power. But there's six of us, not just four guys but also two girls from Texas. So we did talk about it, but it wasn't anything we thought was a concern.

You gave such a great performance last week -- what went wrong?
Todrick: I feel like I should have done that a couple weeks earlier. The problem is, I'm an African-American male, as you all can tell, and I got so many messages saying "Sing Usher, sing Chris Brown, sing Neyo, Brian McKnight, Stevie Wonder... any black artist that you can sing, basically, because that's your demographic." But that's not the kind of music that I want to sing. So I'm happy that I stayed true to myself, but I sadly feel that if I'd just sang the cookie-cutter song that people would have expected me to do, not gone so far out there with the performing and the clothes and just been a normal guy, I maybe would have done better.

Both you and Adam Lambert were open about your theatrical backgrounds from the beginning, then your performances were repeatedly labeled as "too theatrical." Do you think that weighed you down?
Todrick: I do honestly feel that way. When people know things about you, it's hard to shake those things. I told someone today that I feel if Lady Gaga, one of the most successful artist out there right now, if she was on American Idol, I don't think that they would have good things to say about her. And to a certain extent, I do think that they want you to be out of the box. They kept telling me I was changing things too much, but then I would hear them tell people they weren't changing it enough and making it their own, and you have to try to find that line.

If you could sing any song you wanted, which would you have done?
Todrick: I wanted to sing "Black and Gold," which is on the Fame movie. I love that song and I wanted to dance and do everything I wanted to do with that song, but it didn't fit any of the criteria for the categories, so unfortunately I couldn't do that.

Did you make any friends on the show?
Todrick: My best friend was José Munoz. He was the first guy I met when I was there, and I took him to see The Color Purple with me, he hadn't really seen any Broadway musicals, so I was probably closest to him, as well as Alex Lambert, because Alex was my roommate.

What's next in your future?
Todrick: I'm making it my personal job to get myself a role on Glee. I think I would be perfect for that show, and so every time someone asks me what I'm doing now, I'm just telling everyone that I would love love love to be the next cast member on Glee. And I didn't even think about that until the other day, when Simon said, "You look like you're doing American Idol: The Musical," and Randy chimed in and said "Glee!" And I was like, "Actually, I think I would love to be on Glee!" That's the perfect show for me, and the reason I came on American Idol, to hopefully take this platform and do something else with it.

And finally, the unfortunately named Alex Lambert.

What did you mean when you said you wish you'd been able to break out of your shell?
Alex: When I said I wanted to break out of my shell, every time I got up there I couldn't even sing my best because I was so nervous. I have a whole other series of songs I can sing that are so much better than what I sang on the show. I don't regret anything -- this is the beginning of my career, and I'd never really been on stage before, so I felt I did great for not having any experience.

Do you feel like you're ready to conquer your nerves?
Alex: I feel like I'm already past it, and I just needed a few more weeks of experience on that stage, because. -- it wasn't a nerve thing, I would get up here and it felt right, I just didn't know how to look at the cameras, how to react to the audience, because I'd never done it before. So that's definitely something I could easily get past.

What helped you come out of your shell the most, the judges or the support of your peers?
Alex: I would say it's all me. The only person that was gonna help me overcome my stage fright and my nervousness was me. It was all in my head. I could have gone up there and had a great performance, but in my performance, I was thinking about nailing the song vocally, I wasn't really thinking about performing. I guess I never thought that the show was so much a performing show as a singing competition, and I had it in my head [that] I want my vocals to be so much better than everyone else's, and I guess I lost track of the fact that it was a television show.

How little experience do you really have?
Alex: Before American Idol, I had performed at a few coffee shops, and the most people that ever showed up was probably 40 people, and they were mostly my friends and family. I don't have any experience singing in front of people that I don't know, and that was the main problem for me.

Do you know what kind of artist you want to be?
Alex: I know exactly what kind of artist I want to be. I really would like to do a bunch of acoustic stuff, but I also wanna be on some R&B tracks and a whole lot of different stuff. I know my voice, and I know what I can and can't do, and I know it would sound good on not just one genre of music, I could put it on anything.

What song were you planning to do next week?
Alex: The Rolling Stones -- I was planning on doing "19th Nervous Breakdown."

Did the stylists give you an grief about your mullet?
Alex: The stylist had already asked me if I wanted to cut it. They probably would have wanted to, but I never would have let them cut my mullet.

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