Life After Idol: Ryan Malcolm

In 2003, Ryan Malcolm was crowned the first-ever Canadian Idol. Six months after the release of his debut album, Home, he wanted out of the Idol circus. He was unimpressed with the quality of Home and craved more creative control. And now he's talking about Idol and his band Low Level Flight.

"If (an artist) is not happy with what they're doing, then there's no real amount of success or numbers that can make a happy situation," he said in a recent telephone interview from Toronto.

"I just realized I wasn't happy. I wasn't really being true to myself as a songwriter and as a developing artist. When you're constrained by a billion dollar corporation, your existence isn't exactly substantial."

Malcolm spent 2004 and 2005 traveling and writing new material before his new rock band, Low Level Flight, was formed in 2006 with friend bassist Shaun Noronha.

"I had to make sure that the band was a proper fit and the writing worked with them," said Malcolm.

"I'm a bit of a perfectionist so it takes a long time to write a quality record."

The quality record mentioned is Low Level Flight's debut offering, Urgency. And Ryan does not mince words when asked about covering songs from his post-Idol album:

When the band does media appearances for the album, Malcolm says the members would rather not talk about Canadian Idol.
"That's dead to us. That's a completely different chapter in my life. It was fun. The show was amazing. It opened a lot of doors, but artistically it was a joke," he said.

"It doesn't create artists. It creates television stars. It's up to you to keep it going. That's why so many of them just go up and down. They're back at home doing what they were doing before."

For all the press coverage he earned during his Canadian Idol run, Malcolm seldom hears requests at concerts for material from Home.

"We get the odd 40-year-old lady that wants to hear it, but that's not happening," he said.

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Life After Idol: Ryan Malcolm

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