While traveling around the nation with the American Idols LIVE! Tour, we caught up with Season 10’s saved contestant, Casey Abrams. In this interview, he chatted about his Idol friends, being recognized in public, his instruments, and more!

We wanted to know about the best thing and the hardest thing about being on tour. Casey replied, “The hardest thing is honestly just sleep. That’s all. The music and meeting the fans have been great. It’s the fact that we don’t have the best sleep schedule in the world, but I guess we just got to get used to it. We have some good couches inside the green room and we can always go on the tour bus and lay down if we want to. That’s the good part.”

Some of Casey’s favorite places he visited on tour were Los Angeles, Nashville, and Orlando. “I really liked L.A. because it was kind of like being home and I got to see friends and I got to play at the Nokia Theatre again, which was pretty sick. Nashville was really fun. Orlando I really liked, even though it was really muggy and you walked outside for five minutes and you’d be sweating like crazy, but it was a really fun crowd.”

Known for being a jokester and having a good sense of humor, we wanted to hear from Casey about any pranks that have been pulled on the tour. He shared, “My favorite prank that we pulled was actually the only prank we’ve done so far. Paul filled up a giant bowl of ice and water, turned on the video camera, pulled back the shower curtain, and dumped water on a naked Jacob. We threw a whole bunch of ice, he screamed, and everyone laughed.” Is Casey afraid of retaliation? “I’m afraid. There’s always going to be pranks around here, so we’ll see what happens to me. Stefano is probably next though.” Stefano, let this be your warning!

What kind of gifts has Casey received from the fans? “I got some crazy cool books. I’ve had a Casey bear and a Casey doll thrown on stage, and I thought that was pretty sick. That’s about it.” The doll resembled Casey, “He had a beard and some plaid shorts. It’s pretty good.”

When the tour wraps, Casey plans on “doing a couple of active things here and there. Doing an album with all my own stuff, maybe a couple of co-writes with some good people. Maybe even song-write with Paul or James or Stefano or something like that.

During the rare moments when Casey has downtime on the tour, he shared, “I try to write songs, watch a couple of wrestling videos with Durbin, and every once in a while go sneak out of the arena and just see the world for a second. It’s kind of hard because people recognize me—I have a very recognizable beard. Scotty McCreery has it easy. All he has to do is put on a hat and nobody recognizes him. Stefano as well; he just puts on a hat and nobody really knows who he is. But I have my beard.”

Does the musician have all of his instruments on the tour bus with him? Casey didn’t seem to think so, but I do! He counted, “Not a lot on the tour bus, but on the actual set I have my upright base traveling with me, my electric bass is on the tour bus, my guitar is on the tour bus, my melodica, and that’s all I could fit!” There’d be no room to sleep if he brought anything else on the bus!

To the future American Idol hopefuls, Casey offer up this audition advice: “If you’re an incredible singer, have something that sticks out. Not even a physical trait, just something that’s very unique. You have to do something to really attract attention. For instance, I took my melodica and had a big orange beard, so I feel like they had to look because it’s very different than everyone else. So if you’re a really good singer, there’s nothing bad about trying to make yourself stand out.”
Casey had this message for his fans: “Keep listening, do something original, do something crazy, take risks. Everyone’s going to make bad decisions here and there, but you don’t know unless you try. You failed, so now you know how not to do that in the future. I hope they keep listening to me a little bit.”

Watch this video to find out Casey’s favorite way to chill out before a performance.

Next, we catch up with Stefano Langone!

Read our tour interviews with:
Pia Toscano
Paul McDonald
Naima Adedapo
Lauren Alaina
Haley Reinhart