SCOTTY MCCREERY

I love singin' in the car, it just makes me feel good.

I've told many people that I'm not looking to go out there and find the most beautiful girl in the world who likes me because I'm 'Mr. American Idol Scott McCreery.' If I could just find a nice hometown girl who just likes me for who I am, that's all I want.

One thing I love about Josh Turner is his faith; that's why I looked up to him so much.

Country music is me, it's what I've grown up with, and it's what I do.

Just the title of 'American Idol' is something that people can look up to. I'm not Saint Scott, I'm not Mr. Perfect, but I want to be that role model.

I'm a pretty low-key North Carolina boy. I like to go fishing and hang out with my friends.

The minute I get a big head and start acting like the big man on campus, it's all downhill from there.

I love Florida Georgia Line. I love 'Round Here.' So if a fan wants to listen to that, and if a fan that wasn't listening to country music before is listening to 'Cruise' on Pandora, and after that a song by George Jones comes on, they may have never heard George Jones before. I think it's a good thing for the genre.

For me, my number one priority always has to be the music, and I'm going to work school around my music - not music around my school.

If my life were a song it would probably be titled 'Roller Coaster', up and down all the time.

I was an Elvis freak. That's all I listened to growing up.

You know I used to sit there and I'd go outside and play ball and everything, but now in my free time I just kind of lay back and relax because this atmosphere is so busy and stressful, so anytime I can sleep, you'd best believe I'm sleepin'.

The road is a fun place, and it's a great place to get out there and explore the country. But as far as the road life with the 'rock n' roll temptations,' there's not much of that with me.

I've dealt with losing close ones before, and I've been around friends that have lost friends at a young age. I think it's important to think about - not necessarily death, but about life and think about where you're going and how you want to be remembered and the legacy you want to leave.

When they first said I made it through it was just crazy, I mean all kinds of thoughts were going through my head, and you know to be watching the show for nine seasons and to be on it now is surreal, it's so surreal.

My favorite type of music to sing is country, and my favorite type of music to listen to is country.

When you're out there talking about your faith and what you believe in, you'll face some backlash. But mostly, I've received support.

You gotta 'be' country music - you can't just sing it.

I wanted to have more songs with religious backgrounds. The Christmas record has strong, traditional hymns, but it also has a song called 'Christmas in Heaven' about missing someone that you love that's passed on, and wondering what's going on up there on Christmas.

I'm still single, but me and Lauren are really really really close friends.

I was watching the show last year and it didn't even cross my mind that this could even happen.

It's a new game now, you know, you have to bring some fresh stuff.

I wanted people to see that I really am a real person. I'm not just some guy who was on a TV show, some guy engulfed in the Hollywood life. I'm just a normal guy when it comes down to it.

I want to do music the rest of my life.

I keep a lot of my old baseball hats, and if you look in the hats I've had since I started pitching, you'll see 'Philippians 4:13' written on the brim. That's the Scripture that gets me through the day because sometimes you can't do it all by yourself. You can't do it on your own, so you lean on Him.