Caleb Johnson

You have to embrace the people that love you because you're making a difference in people's lives, and you're making them feel something with your music. That, I think, is the biggest key: to stay grounded and focused and stay true to who you are as a person.

All I ever wanted to do is make music.

I think, for me, winning opens doors to all types of shapes and sizes and genres to come on the show and kill it. I'm probably the antithesis of what American Idols have been.

I'm a rock singer, but I love soul, I love blues, and I love theatrical stuff, too, like theatrical rock like Queen and Meat Loaf.

Nashville, I think, for me, personally, would be where I want to live and work. L.A. is a whole other world and has a whole other vibe to it, so I would like to come out here for work for a couple of months, but L.A. is just not really my scene, per se.

I love being on the road. I love that lifestyle, traveling city to city, rocking out and moving on to the next place.