Scotty McCreery likes to compare American Idol to senior year in high school. There, as the winner of the show's 10th season, he was big man on campus.
Today, though, McCreery releases his debut album, Clear as Day, and that's more akin to going off to college. "I'm the freshman who's still having to learn his way around," says the fresh-faced 17-year-old from Garner, N.C. "Hopefully, this album does well, and I can stick around."
Fortunately, some of country's upperclassmen are taking McCreery under their wing. Keith Urban pitched him one of his songs, Walk in the Country, for the album. Brad Paisley asked McCreery to join his 2012 tour.
I Love You This Big, which McCreery performed on the Idol finale, went to No. 15 on USA TODAY's country airplay chart and sold 604,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. New single The Trouble With Girls cracked the country top 40 this week.
The rest of the album favors time-honored country themes like religion, family and coming of age, and the title track takes a chilling twist. "We didn't want to have this poppy, rock-y new country," he says. "We wanted to bring the tradition back."
Phyllis Stark, executive editor of country music for industry news site Radio-Info.com, predicts Clear as Day will be the week's top-selling country album. "I can't see him not being successful," Stark says. "Everybody I know has been impressed, and this is a tough crowd to win over."
In person, McCreery comes across as remarkably levelheaded for someone whose life has been upended. "I don't do drama," he says. "If you bring drama into my life, I'll shoot it right back at you."
He shrugs off negative comments that some radio programmers made about him during his Idol run. "A lot of people didn't know if they wanted to believe in me. When I saw that, I said, 'Now I've got to kick it.'"
As for real college, McCreery plans to attend after graduating from his hometown high school next spring.
North Carolina State University, Middle Tennessee State University and Belmont University are contenders.
"We'll see where we end up. But I'll be in college. It might take 10 years to get the degree, but I'll be there."
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