It's culture shock for a lot of people when they think that they can just come into any band and just be in it. No, it doesn't work like that.

We'll do anything for each other. We're a family. A lot of people don't see how such a big group of people would be so close, but we're around each other all the time.

I get in the zone ... I'm about to go to war, so to speak.

Sometimes what he says may sound to some people like cliches. But he says things, and in ways, that especially in the black community, we understand exactly what he's saying, because we've heard those things since childhood.

It's a very happy thing that we're doing to help people. When [executive producer] Simon Fuller suggested the idea of putting on a special charity concert to help those in need, I and all the Idols on tour were happy to help.

We have the government telling people to eat more fruits and vegetables, and we have the U.S. Department of Agriculture funding some of these fruit studies, and now we have another arm of the federal government that says you can't use the research.