Kellie Pickler is living proof that ''polarizing'' works. There's something to be said for the fact that so far, she's the lowest-ranking American Idol finalist to have a gold album. Her small-town-Southerner persona — which she freely describes as ''obnoxious'' — is the kind that was destined to inspire heated love and impassioned dislike almost from the start, as was her choice of genre, country. But the season-5 viewers who did fall for her couldn't help but feel she was their new best friend. And she made good on that trust with Small Town Girl, an album with an unusually strong selection of savvy country material that belies how hurriedly the whole thing was recorded.
Her current single, which is just about to break into the country top 10, is ''I Wonder,'' a ballad about growing up without the mother who abandoned her when she was still a toddler. It's an honest tearjerker, even if you don't know its autobiographical truth — but who with basic cable doesn't? Pickler's life has rarely been without some kind of family drama, and there may be more in the offing. In this interview, she alluded to more that might be about to appear in the news — and sure enough, days after this interview was conducted, the National Enquirer published a story about how the singer's long-estranged mother is looking to reunite with her. Perhaps Pickler's sophomore album will have an ''I Wonder, Part II'' that picks up that story.
In the meantime, though, she's out on the road opening shows for Brad Paisley, with performances that evidence real star power. ''People relate to [her] honesty and the fact that there's no pretense,'' says SonyBMG Nashville chairman Joe Galante, who's guiding her career as well as Carrie Underwood's. ''And the fact is, by the end of this year, she'll have a platinum record. On the Paisley tour, she's hitting 12,000 people, and doing 70 to 80 dates. That's almost a million folks.''
During a week off from the tour, Pickler sat down in her label's Nashville offices to discuss the making of her album, what she hopes to do even better on the next one, the hazards of returning to Idol, and what, exactly, she has in common with Britney Spears.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you went in to meet with the SonyBMG people after the Idol season ended last year, do you think anything about you surprised them?
KELLIE PICKLER: They saw exactly what they saw on TV, but a lot more, because I was just so loud and excited. [Laughs] I was more obnoxious in person than I was on television, so I think they were a little like, Whoa! The greatest compliment that Joe [Galante] has ever given me was that he kind of sees a little Dolly in me. And that means the world to me, because I've always been the biggest Dolly Parton fan. She's my definition of an American idol. When I was little, one of my best friends from home gave me this nickname Picklebutt — oh, I hated my last name with a passion — but now I'm like, Thank you, Lord, that my last name starts with a P, because when I go into Best Buy, I'm right beside Dolly Parton on the shelf! That's the greatest thing ever.
You were hustled into the studio practically overnight, right?
You can ask any Idol that was on tour with me last summer — I didn't sleep at all on that tour. We had 60 shows in less than 90 days, so we were booking it to the next city after each show. And every day we had off I was songwriting or recording. Sometimes I would go to the studio after a concert, if [there was an appropriate facility] in that city, and record till 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, then get right back up and [on the road] with the Idols. Because we set a date that the record was gonna come out, Oct. 31, and everything had to be done at least two months before. I was literally writing on the phone with songwriters back in Nashville, before I even met them. It was nuts: ''I don't know you, but I'm gonna pour my heart and my soul out to you on the phone, and we're gonna write a kick-ass song.''
NEXT PAGE: ''There's a lot of songs that I really liked and didn't put on the record, because I was so worried about what other people were gonna think, and I regret it.''
