John Park: "I was just too distracted"

John Park was really kind of middle-of-the-road during his time on “Idol.” So I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that he didn’t really produce any earth shattering comments in his media conference call.

Here’s some of what he had to say…

On what went wrong: “I think it was mostly—yes, song choice and nerves. I definitely got distracted by the cameras and the fact that the judges were going to criticize me in front of 30 million people. …I think that kind of took away from my concentration on just singing the song honestly and trying—I couldn’t do my best to interpret the song my own way.”

On what he was going to do next week: “I was thinking either a Stevie Wonder song or—Yes, it was either Stevie Wonder, Marc Broussard, or Britney Spears. I had a long list of songs that I wanted to choose from and try different things with but didn’t get as far as choosing a song.”

Britney Spears? Hmmm…

On what he’s going to do next: “Well, I’m going to head back to Chicago and see what kind of open doors there will be for me. And I don’t—just kind of wait it out and probably go back to school this upcoming quarter, which is happening in about two weeks. So I’ll just take some time off to decompress. And think about is performing really what I want to pursue? And of course, that will change as I get different offers from different people. Yes, so everything is really up in the air. But basically, I want to finish school at some point and pursue music, performance or not performance.”

John said he would definitely go back to singing with Purple Haze, his a cappella group…

On the judges’ expectations: “I don’t think the judges were necessarily disappointed because I wasn’t living it up to the expectation. I think it was mostly—I just think I kind of was just too distracted during Top 24. And I don’t think it was—I don’t know if they had such high expectations for me because even getting into Top 24, I felt that I was one of the people who barely got through.”

On whether Simon telling him his group was getting their lead singer back was cruel: “Well, he is basically saying that I might go home this weekend. He, of course, dramatizes so that people at home watch it and they can get a kick out of it. I mean, I don’t really mind it because I understand like where he’s coming from. That’s just how he is on TV and after the elimination happened and I sang my last song, he came up to me and he shook my hand and he said good job for coming this far. And so he’s not that mean a guy actually.”

Photo Credit: Frank Micelotta/FOX