There’s a saying in the music business that you’re only as good as your last radio hit. Elliott Yamin knows this all too well. In 2006, he was on top of the world. After placing third on the sixth season of American Idol, Yamin -- a Richmonder who had likely never spent more than $30 on a pair of jeans -- was catapulted into an unfamiliar world of fame, fashion and fortune. His entire life literally changed overnight, as he attempted to handle the unexpected transition from run of the mill Southern gent to bona fide household name.
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He made appearances on every talk show television had to offer, including The Late Show with Jay Leno and Live with Regis and Kelly. He performed the national anthem at Game 2 of the 2006 NBA Finals. He sold out the Richmond Coliseum and served as the closing act of the Virginia State Fair. Hell, he even shook hands with President Bush inside the Oval Office.
“I always equate that period in my life to Good Will Hunting,” Yamin said when we spoke via phone just after Christmas. “That scene where Ben Affleck goes to pick up Matt Damon for work, beeps the horn and says, ‘Every day when I come to pick you up and blow that horn, I hope and pray that you won’t come out, because you’re out making it in the world. You’re off actually using your talents.’”
It’s likely that Yamin connects this part of his life to that famous scene because while he assumed the role of Damon, those around him collectively played the part of Ben Affleck. For years, friends and family gave him grief for failing to take advantage of a voice that was meant to do bigger things than communicate at dead-end jobs and remain hidden from the general public. Corralling together, they constantly heckled him for wasted potential -- a sentiment likely fueled by a closet case of shyness -- until finally, fed up with being in-between jobs and recognizing that he had very few positive things going on, Yamin, much to the playful displeasure of D.A.R.E officers everywhere, finally buckled under the peer pressure.
“They got the best of me, and I made up my mind that I was going to try out for the show. I had nothing to lose,” he added, fondly.
Armed with an empty bank account and a positive attitude, Yamin and his girlfriend rounded up every penny they had and ventured to Boston for the first round of Idol auditions. They had no idea what to expect aside from what they had been told: plan for long lines, and be ready for anything.
Following both pieces of advice, Yamin advanced to the next round, which was set to take place a few months later. What he didn’t know when he was handed a golden ticket to Hollywood week, however, was that he would almost never make it there. “My Mother was sick at the time and I almost didn’t go. It was tough,” he said. “I had that weighing on my mind and it was hard to focus on Hollywood and beyond. It certainly rattled me -- I couldn’t think about anything but my Mom. I was ready to just stay home and take care of her because she was really ill, but she begged me to do it.”
Even in poor health, Mothers always know best. Following her advice, Yamin ventured west to mingle with the strange and unfamiliar world of Hollywood. “Being on Idol was like being in a really gifted band camp. I wasn’t used to hanging out with so many talented people who shared the same goals and dreams that I did,” he said. “When you’re on the show, you go from this anonymous lifestyle to everybody knowing who you are. Strangers are out there supporting you, appreciating what you’re doing and that was really encouraging.”
Through his long and windy adventure, the well of support never seemed to run dry. From the very beginning, Yamin turned the heads of peers and television viewers alike with his boy next door persona and Josh Groban-esque vocal talents; a combination that even Idol judge Paula Abdul couldn’t resist, poking fun at his ‘two left feet’ before advancing him to the next round during Hollywood Week auditions.
“It takes an army of people to really help you get there,” he said. “I had those people in my corner. Obviously, I couldn’t have done it alone.”
Using those same two left feet, Yamin plowed through Hollywood week, eventually jumping into the Idol top ten and the hearts of fans across the country, who latched onto him for embodying the very reason fans fell in love with the show to begin with: they shared a love for watching the common man chase his goal in front of the entire world. Without meaning to do so, Yamin had assumed the role of the underdog; an everyday guy taking advantage of a fantastic opportunity on a global stage. “We were completely relatable,” he said.
That relatability, combined with phenomenal covers of Queen’s “Somebody to Love” and Sinatra’s “It Had to Be You,” carried him all the way to the finals, where he was finally eliminated in week 10; but not before leaving his mark on the show by way of an unforgettable duet with Mary J Blige. While his Idol run was ending, it was clear that Yamin’s career had only just begun.
Immediately after his elimination, Yamin committed to the American Idol tour, which served as an up-close and personal introduction to the season’s top 10 for the dedicated fans across the country who had spent months fighting busy signals in an effort to call in and support their favorite contestants. And while some of his Idol tour counterparts decided to take some time off from their newfound rigorous schedules, Yamin did the exact opposite, following up the three-month tour with a slew of promotional appearances, ranging from talk shows to state fairs to singing the national anthem at charity sporting events.
“You’ve gotta take advantage of those five minutes. It’s all about striking while the iron is hot and a lot of people fail to do that once they leave the show,” he said. “Once I got pushed out of the Idol womb, I kept my eye on the prize and just kept saying ‘I want to parlay this into a career. This is the only reason I auditioned for the show, so I could have a career.’”
In March of 2007, just ten months after graduating from the Idol stage, Yamin released his much anticipated self-titled record. His name still fresh in the minds of the widespread Idol audience -- a move that can be accredited to the media marathon he had spent the previous six months enduring -- the record debuted at number three on the Billboard charts, fueled by the success of hit single “Wait For You”, which was a constant guest on top 40 radio stations across the country. The album sold 90,000 copies in its first week and went on to be certified gold by the RIAA less than seven months later.
At this point, it became clear that where hundreds of other Idol graduates had failed, Elliot Yamin had passed with flying colors. He officially had a music career.
Riding the wave of success and playing with the cards he had been dealt, Yamin released his second album, Fight for Love, two years later in the spring of 2009. Determined to avoid the infamous ‘sophomore slump’ and prove to naysayers that he was more than just a flash in the pan of reality television, he prefaced the release with a gigantic media tour. He used the tour as a platform to inform fans that the album could be categorized as “more contemporary R&B” than his debut, and included several more “radio friendly singles.”
On paper, it looked like Yamin was destined to join the ranks of the Idol-elite; artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, and Carrie Underwood, who had successfully separated themselves from the machine in which they came from, refusing to bite the hand that fed them in the process. It was this line -- one that has proven to be the most difficult for nearly every Idol graduate over the last decade -- that Yamin was determined to walk with both passion and precision.
“Every year, there’s a new batch of Idol finalists and the show goes on,” he said. “Life goes on, with or without you. It’s tougher as the years go on to keep things going the further removed you are from the show, if you aren’t Chris, Kelly, or Carrie.”
Despite being backed by a relatively successful single and the heaviest promotional tour of his career, Fight for Love sold just 49,000 copies in its first week. It was a devastating blow that likely rivaled a fictional scene in which Ryan Seacrest accidentally pronounces your last name wrong in front of the entire world. This scenario, however, was all too real and couldn’t be easily corrected.
“In hindsight, I think the song ‘No Better’ would have done a lot better on the radio than ‘Fight for Love’ did,” he explained. “Everybody loved that song except for the label, and that seems to happen all too often in our business. But I try not to live in the past, as it’s hard to get ahead when you’re thinking that way.”
Despite keeping a positive attitude about a hard to swallow situation, the facts remained clear: while the quality of his second album certainly didn’t warrant qualifying it as a ‘sophomore slump,’ the media attention and overall buzz that’s necessary for artists to stay on top was nowhere to be found. In the blink of an eye, Yamin had found himself a victim of a rapidly changing industry relying on a mainstream society that seems to be more concerned with latching onto new music trends rather than enjoying the ones they already have.
“These days, I think the artistry gets lost in the sauce sometimes, so to speak,” Yamin explained. “Everybody wants to make money off you and capitalize on your success. It’s a money game, and especially in the pop world, it’s gotten so saturated and watered down with people trying to sound like what’s hot now or sound like everybody else, as opposed to letting the artist dictate how they wanna be perceived.”
And in a world where relevance is king but can’t be pinned down or accurately defined, artists not dominating the airwaves are forced to determine how to mold their career into something that both they and their fans can be proud of. “To stay relevant, you have to have a good grasp of what our audience wants from you and what they expect from you, all the while keeping your integrity about you,” Yamin says. “It’s a tough line to walk because you want to stay true to your music and your audience, but the more time that elapses, there’s new artists coming out and new songs being made. At the end of the day, you just want people to know about you and what you’re doing.”
But the rules of relevance have certainly changed. Less than ten years ago, when Facebook was slowly transforming into a social tool that would change the world, Yamin was just beginning to make a name for himself. At that time, the levels of success a music artist experienced always correlated with the number of singles their album produced and how much airplay those singles received. However, in the digital world we now live in, where entire albums can be recorded on an iPhone and artists can connect with fans and share any aspect of their lives with a simple click, the definition of success within music is changing just as rapidly as the industry itself. This newfound business model is exemplified by this year’s Grammy Awards; a night that saw continuous appearances from Frank Ocean and Alabama Shakes -- two artists who received very little assistance from mainstream media outlets on their year-long evolution from club dwellers to undeniable rockstars.
But they certainly didn’t do it alone. While the element of “right place, right time” hasn’t gone anywhere, the avenues available for an artist to introduce themselves to a mass audience have grown and expanded significantly in the last decade.
“You have to stay on top of the tools that are readily available to you now; social media doesn’t cost anything,” Yamin adds. “When I was on Idol, Facebook was more of a college app. Nowadays, you look at artists that are tweeting backstage and have hundreds of thousands of followers. I think being open to whatever the cutting edge new technology [is] and taking advantage of [it] helps you gain an audience.”
Yamin, who boasts nearly 50,000 twitter followers and normally connects with his audience several times a day, seems to be doing just that. “Any impression you can make on an audience in today’s music business is a positive one,” he notes. “Impressions can be made in so many ways: word of mouth, forwarding a link, using Soundcloud, posting on your site, interacting with fans online; it’s more of an in-your-face approach. And for me, I like that and I think it’s more beneficial than it is detrimental.”
“I’ve been focused on evolving as an artist; learning as much as I can about the business, about my artistry and staying true to what it is I’m doing musically,” he continues. “That usually speaks for itself. It’s the mindset I’ve always had post-Idol.”
Unfortunately for Yamin, mindsets don’t pay the bills. In an effort to stay successful and continue his music career in light of a radio market that doesn’t seem to be interested in what he has to offer recently, he has been forced to find other creative uses for his talents, such as song licensing. Recently, he’s licensed various songs to the likes of Toyota and America’s Funniest Home Videos, which pay him a predetermined fee for the rights. “Things like that are getting me paid and keeping my business afloat,” he said, adding that he recently started providing songwriting services for a certain Nashville supergroup; a large-scale project that will surface in the next few months.
At the end of the day, Yamin will be the first to admit that his appearance guarantees are down and he gets recognized in public less than he did just a few years ago. But just because his songs aren’t playing in every Starbucks or Panera across the country doesn’t mean his undeniable passion to make music has gone anywhere.
“I wanted to do Idol to establish a career, and that’s exactly what I’ve done and strive to continue to do. The relevance stuff is secondary,” he notes. “I’m still doing what I said I could do, which is having a career in the music business and support myself doing what I love. Anything else that happens above that is just an added bonus.”
www.officalelliotyamin.com