American Idol has long been known as being launching pad for young superstars over the years, giving artists the opportunity to shine and to start their careers. Nick Fradiani is no exception. After winning the show, Fradiani’s career continues to shine as he grows as an artist in the pop genre. We had the chance to speak with Fradiani about his new EP, American Idol and his upcoming tour.

Most of you know Fradiani from being on the hit show, American Idol. However, what you might not know is, his first taste of success came from being on the reality talent show, America’s Got Talent. Fradiani had a 3 piece band in which they performed on America’s Got Talent’s 9th season. On the show, they performed one of their original songs, “Coming Your Way,” which went on to sell 6,000 copies in just the first week after the show aired. The song reached #53 on the iTunes Pop Singles chart and sold over 10,000 copies. Fradiani later decided to continue as a solo artist auditioning for American Idol and the rest is history after winning thecompetition.

Fradiani, who was the winner of American Idol’s 14th Season, began his successful journey signing with Big Machine Label Group and releasing his debut album, “Hurricane,” in August 2016. His debut album received major accolades as the release debuted at the #1 spot on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. His winning song from American Idol, “Beautiful Life,” became FIFA’s 2015 Women’s World Cup official anthem.

After the experience Fradiani gained with recording his debut album on his major label deal, Fradiani decided to take the next step. He left his label and decided to pursue his career as an indie artist.

He just released his latest EP, “Where We Left Off,” in which he not only recorded, he also helped produce the album. Fradiani states, “I’m a little excited about this album. This is mostly a lot of me here doing this. It was a fulfilling kind of venture. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely a learning experience. It felt really good once it was all finished up. I kind of got to do it the way I wanted to do it. It was a really good experience. The overall message is, where we left off. We wanted to get back to my roots of where I came from. It was nice to make this album because I finally had creative control over it and you can finally hear my voice on the album.”

Fradiani continues, “My last album was done with a major label and then this one was not. So I think I learned a ton from that, which in turn helped me a lot with what I’m doing right now. It’s gone really well and I’m excited to see where we get take it from here.”

On his music video, “I’ll Wait For You,” Fradiani decided to film a simple, stripped down version for this song, which you don’t see that much anymore. Fradiani states, “Basically, this was my first independent music video, so I had to think of ideas where I wouldn’t drop a bunch of money on a video. I didn’t want to do the typical
guy leaves girl or girl leaves guy thing, but instead a dog and a soldier and the soldier coming back to his dog after being deployed. It took us two days to film. I had so much more control over this video versus what type of control over videos I had in the past.”

When we asked about his favorite song off the new album, Nick replied. “It changes a lot. “I Wait For You,” it felt really good when we wrote it. My band and I think that “Outlaw” is the best song to perform live. Those two are my personal favorites.

As a previous winner of American Idol, and being the winner of what was supposed to be the final season of the show, we asked Fradiani about his thoughts of the show returning. “When we were at the finale, the producers kind of told everyone don’t say goodbye and it made us think that it would come back in maybe ten years, after it had a break and time to breathe. When they announced that only after a year of being off air, I was surprised by how quickly they announced, but I am excited to see how it will be different and how the new judges will work together.”

Fradiani cites the coolest moments for him since winning American Idol is performing with One Republic, getting to meet Steven Tyler and getting to perform with Rob Thomas. “There have been so many
experiences that I couldn’t write them down if I had time to.”

When we asked about the journey the latest album took them on while writing and producing, Fradiani states, “It just sort of happened. Nick had a studio at his house, and he wrote and produced “Hurricane,” which was written with Jason Mraz. He was involved with my last one but not as much as I would have liked him to be.
When I came back home, he was obviously still in Connecticut. We had been in a band together. He was in ‘America’s Got Talent’ with me and been through a lot. We always sort of felt like we had a lot to prove in
writing. That’s ‘Where We Left Off’ came from. Me and him were saying “This is where we left off before I did ‘American Idol.’” This is what the songs might have been. That’s where the idea of the title of the EP came from. All of a sudden, we had 10 or 11 songs. It started to sound like a sound I wanted to go with.”

“It’s been a cool year for me,” Fradiani reflected, “To create all this, not even knowing I was going to create an EP.  After I left Nashville and I was off Big Machine Records, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I needed to start writing again, whether it was for me or whatever, and I’m glad that I was able to get back and get this out
relatively quick and have people hopefully enjoy it.”