“American Idol” loves presenting its contestants as bumpkins brimming with brilliance, green amateurs only now finding their feet in front of 20 million fans. But the reality is that many of the wannabe “Idols” are veterans of record contracts, studio sessions and big stages.
And no contestant this season has a pre-“Idol” resume as impressive as Lee DeWyze, who made it to the final three last week.
Though he’s billed on the show as a simple paint store employee, DeWyze, a 24-year-old native of Prospect Heights, Ill., began writing songs at 16, recorded the first of two albums at 21 and last year led a local Chicago Bears show, “Chicago Huddle.”
“We were kind of like the ‘Huddle’s’ version of Paul Shaffer’s band,” DeWyze’s ex-producer and drummer, Ryan McGuire, recalled with a chuckle during a phone interview last week.
McGuire and production partner Louis Svitek discovered DeWyze when he was still a teenager strumming love songs to impress girls.
“I was about 16 years old playing at a Borders and (Svitek) walked in,” DeWyze told the Chicago Tribune in 2007. “He said, ‘I play a little guitar.’ This guy was just wailing out on this acoustic guitar. . . . I was like, ‘Where the hell did you come from? Who are you?’ And he said, ‘I’m the lead guitarist for Ministry.’ ”
As wowed as the kid was with Svitek’s chops, Svitek was equally impressed.
Even at that young age, he sounded great, the guitarist says.
With McGuire and Svitek as producers and backing musicians, DeWyze recorded two albums of original songs – “So I’m Told” in 2007 and “Slumberland” in 2009 – for the pair’s WuLi Records. They’re mostly acoustic guitar-driven tracks with DeWyze’s groaning, dark vocals at the center of every song (if you dig his version of Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars.”)
But neither disc got the Lee DeWyze Band anywhere.
“We are such a small label, it was just hard to get any promotion for an unknown musician,” McGuire said.
Of course, exposure isn’t a problem anymore. As DeWyze’s star rises each week, more and more distributors are stocking “So I’m Told” and “Slumberland.”
“It’s at Best Buy and now at Wal-Mart, and we’re negotiating a deal with Target,” McGuire said. “It’s been a blitz in the last couple weeks of ‘Idol.’ ”
“It’s been an absolute avalanche,” Svitek added. “I mean, I’ve seen them flashing copies of them on Fox News.”
Because contestants are bound to Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment in their post-“Idol” careers, WuLi won’t be representing their biggest client anytime in the near future.
But the two are rooting for Chicago’s latest favorite son – and not just because they stand to cash in on DeWyze’s back catalog.
“I’ve got two little girls,” McGuire said, “so every Tuesday and Wednesday, it’s like the Beatles on ‘Ed Sullivan’ at my house. We’re all pretty confident that Lee will take it. Having worked with Lee for so long, I’m still waiting to see his greatest performance. I know what he can do, and he can do better than anything he’s done on the show yet.”
