by Gina Scarpa

It comes as no surprise to many American Idol fans but last night, Scotty McCreery was named the season 10 winner, after over 120 million votes were cast and counted. The 17 year old high school student from Garner, NC has his first single, "I Love You This Big", ready to go and will soon head out on the nationwide Idols tour. Today, he spoke to RealityWanted and reporters in a press conference call about his American Idol journey, his win, and his plans going forward.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Congratulations on winning American Idol! How are you handling and getting used to all of the attention you're getting?
A. Scotty: It's been pretty wild! It's a whole lot more than I bargained for coming into this. I'm handling it well. This is what I asked for and I'm ready for my new life!


Q. When Carrie Underwood won, she made her debut in Nashville at the CMA Music Festival. Any idea when you might be headed that way?
A. Scotty: I was talking to some people and I'm going to try to get out there and work out the specifics about where we're gonna be playing and doing some signings. We're gonna be down there for sure, I think.

Q. You had an emotional moment when you went back to Garner, NC. What was going through your head?
A. Scotty: In the limo? Oh yeah. I looked out the window and saw all the familiar faces and I rolled down the window. Someone said, "We miss you. We love you, brother." They're my friends and they were my friends before the show. They're people that I really love.

Q. Did you notice any change in your voice during the show?
A. Scotty: I've always kind of sounded the same, other than when I was young. During Vegas week, I realized I could singer higher than I had been singing. One of the vocal coaches kind of got it out of me. I still have the same voice but I guess you could say that it's changed over the competition.

Q. Did you have a game plan going into the competition?
A. Scotty: Everybody had their own niche. Casey would sing his jazzy music, James would sing his rock music, and I would sing my country music. Country music is what I grew up with, it's what I do, and I didn't have any intentions of changing it.

Q. Your song is currently #1 on iTunes. How do you feel about that?
A. Scotty: Is it really?! That's amazing! That is wild. I love the song. When they pitched it to me, I fell in love with it. Last night, when I sang it for my finale song, I kind of got choked up. That's really amazing that it's #1.

Q. Lauren said she thought, for sure, that you were going to win.
A. Scotty: My thought was that she wrapped it up in her finale song. It was one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard. I was more than nervous coming into last night but it went down in my favor. Lauren has been supporting me and I've been supporting her throughout this whole process. We're really good friends and we both came out winners.

Q. Anything else you want to say?
A. Scotty: I just wanna thank you guys so much for everything you've done for me. I've done all the work on Idol and my work here is done. It's time for my real job to start.

(Image courtesy of FOX)


Follow Gina @ginascarpa