Paige Miles: "You live and you learn"

Probably the thing that kept Paige Miles in the competition this long was her laryngitis and the sympathy that it garnered her. But according to her during her media conference call, her laryngitis is what eliminated her.

Here’s some of what she had to say…

On the judges’ influence on the voting: “The judges, obviously they have a certain amount of power over the voting public, but it also comes down to the performer delivering a good, solid performance. Tuesday night definitely wasn’t my best, and they ripped me for it. So, it really can go both ways because sometimes they’ll back up the person that the judges ripped apart if they feel that that person really delivered, but you never really know how America is going to vote…The best thing to do really is to just do yourself and do what makes you most comfortable because the judges can give mixed messages.”

On her voice problems: “It was bad last night. It wasn’t as bad as it is now of course. I’ve been struggling with laryngitis for over three weeks now. I have swollen vocal cords, and there’s a lot of inflammation and with us singing and rehearsing as much as we do, I had very little time for it to heal. So, it would basically get a little bit better, then I would have to sing again, and it would get worse again. So it’s tough when you’re in a singing competition and you have no voice, so that was a bummer. And, that affected my song choice at times because I would kind of stay away from what I would typically do like big tunes like “Alright Now,” which I love and I am super comfortable at, and I would kind of shy away and try to do something smaller in efforts to not like overtax my cords or do something where I could possibly damage them.”

On her choice of “Against All Odds,” a song that had been done on the show many times: “Actually, I hadn’t realized how many times it had been done. Actually, I was in rehearsals last week and was just trying to find a slower song that I wouldn’t have to stress vocally too much over because my vocal cords were pretty much trashed, and I didn’t want to do anything too up tempo and crazy. I was just trying to really take care of my vocal cords if I were to keep going, but I probably should have just picked something I was super comfortable with, which is something like “Alright Now” and just gone for it. But you live and you learn, and I was trying to make a decision for me and my health.”

On what she meant by losing herself in the song: “I guess vocally when I’m not 100% with my vocals, it was tough to find my way around it, trying to be in a range where I’m usually not comfortable. Because my total range wasn’t there, so just finding my place in the song, finding the meat in the song where I could really sink my teeth into it, I could never really grasp it, even in rehearsals. I just never was really able to grab it, in large part due to the fact of dealing with the laryngitis and it was just tough.”

On what she planned to do for R&B/soul for this week: “I was actually, it was a tossup between “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and “I Can’t Stand the Rain” by Tina Turner.”

On whether she thought she was going home: “I knew I had a poor performance Tuesday night, but I really didn’t think it was my time to go yet, so I was surprised.”

When one reporter tried to ask Paige why the theme was changed from Teen Idols Week to #1 Hits Week, the “Idol” publicist jumped in and said, “Paige doesn’t know the answer to that. If you can go to the next question, please.” Hmmm…

Photo Credit: Michael Becker/FOX