Triston Harper reflects on ‘American Idol’ journey: ‘It became my life. I loved it’

When someone else’s name was called to round out the Top 3 on “American Idol,” there was a look of surprise on Triston Harper’s face, but the camera cut away too quickly for the emotion to register. Looking back, Harper says it was straight-up shock.

Harper and his mother, Hattie Mae Sullivan, had a lot to say about the “Idol” experience and the work they’ve been doing since then, laying the groundwork for his future career in music. But before he could begin that work, Harper had to accept that his run on the show had ended one episode sooner than he would have liked.

To recap: At the end of the May 12 episode, host Ryan Seacrest told Will Moseley and Abi Carter that they’d made it to the Top 3. That left Harper, Emmy Russell and Jack Blocker waiting to see which one of them would go on. It was Blocker’s name that Seacrest called, and Carter went on to win.

It took a while to sink in.

“Everybody that I talked to, they give me so much faith that I’m for sure gonna make Top 3, that even if I didn’t win it, I had Top 3,” he said. “And for a little while, I believed it. So I went through every bit of my performances and I just knew I had Top 3 on the amount of votes that people were telling me that I had. And you know, I just knew that I was gonna make Top 3.

“And so when Ryan Seacrest called Jack Blocker’s name, it was the shock of, you know, this is what I woke up every day and loved doing and now I don’t get to do this anymore,” said Harper, who’s from McIntosh, Ala. “It was more of a shock, hurt kind of thing, you know. No disrespect to Jack Blocker because Jack Blocker sang and Jack Blocker did exactly what he had to do every morning, just like I did. But I just really thought I had it. But, you know, he’s a very talented guy.”

The comment about “every morning” opens a window into the fact that viewers only see a tiny portion of what goes into an “American Idol” campaign. Mia Matthews, another Alabama singer who made it to the Top 10, recently said the show had involved about two months of work without an off day. Harper agreed that it was a full-time job.

“For me, you know, as a 15-year-old little boy, it was a lot of work,” he said. “Every day I had my vocal coaching, which I did for two hours. I had a wardrobe, which, they put you in about 70 different outfits, you know, so they kind of mastered what you were gonna look like on camera. Then you had your blocking, which is what you do on stage, they practice everything you’re gonna do. And we did that every day. I mean, that was life for me. I ate and slept it, anything you can think of, I did it. It became my life. I loved it, for me. I don’t know about everybody else. I mean, I loved it so much.”

Sharing a room with a little brother who was too excited to sleep might have been another challenge, Harper hinted. But family played a big role in his “Idol” experience. Harper’s mother said she struggled to balance the need to be there for her son with the need to let go.

“He’s always been my baby,” she said. “He’s always been a mama’s boy, but he’s very mature for his age, even though he is still 15.” At one point she had to tell producers that if there wasn’t a way for her to bring her other three sons with her, then she wasn’t going to be able to accompany Triston to Hawaii and Los Angeles.

They were able to come along, but she still couldn’t be there every minute. She said she felt the show’s producers did a good job taking care of underage competitors, however.

“One of the things that I do love about it is that they do keep their minors separate from the others,” she said. Guardians also are assigned to stay with the minors, so that they are never unaccompanied.

“They made me feel safe enough to sign those papers and say, ‘Okay, y’all can be here with him if I’m not here,’” she said. “You know, and I just let him be him and I let him spread his wings. I probably cried all night long, just not knowing if it was the right decision, not knowing what was going to happen. You know, not really. I had all kinds of people in my ear telling me not to do it, that it was signing my baby away, but I didn’t see that nowhere in the words that was on there, I didn’t see it.

“So I was just like, ‘You know what? God, I trust you,’” she said. “I’m just gonna be a mother to my other children and I’m gonna be here for Triston when he needs me, but this is what he’s gonna be doing the rest of his life. So he needs to get a feel of it without mama being there to make every decision.”

That’s one thing on which mother and son are both dead certain: Harper will make a career in entertainment.

“I really didn’t know what I was gonna do after the show, you know, and Mama got on it,” Harper said. “I mean, the night I got eliminated, she hopped on it that same night and has been getting me gigs, bookings. We went the other day and had rehearsal for the band, you know, she, she put all that together to where I could be able to keep pursuing my career, and not just be waiting, while it’s still hot.”

They were about to travel to Nashville to do some recording, he said, and after that would finish putting together the backing band. But late summer and early fall, Harper and Sullivan said, they’ll be announcing some concert dates that are coming together now.

“I can’t wait for me and my band to really get out there and really do what we do,” Harper said. “The band is called the Dreamcatchers. It’ll be Triston Harper and the Dreamcatchers. You know, I never just want to be strictly country so I want to do a lot of collaborations and different things and I can’t wait to just see what happens.

“I mean, you know, I’m doing all this for fun,” he said. “A lot of people do it strictly just for business, but I’m, I’m doing it for fun. I can’t wait to see what happens.”

Maybe not strictly just for fun. Harper made an impression on “Idol” with an original song called “H.O.P.E.,” which stands for “Hold On, Pain Ends.” Based on his own experiences, it’s a song that answers hardship with an uplifting message.

Asked if there’s a common bond among the fans he’s gained so far, Harper gave an unusual answer for a 15-year-old.

“I would say … hurt,” he said. “[There are] a lot of people who’ve been through pain. They tell me that they really relate to my story. And then there’s other people who are of color, who believe that they relate to what I’ve been through because of my race and my tribe not having federal recognition, different things like that.”

Harper is a member of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians, a tribal community based in Mobile and Washington counties. While recognized by the state, the MOWA people have not received federal recognition, which they have sought for decades.

A recent homecoming concert showed that Harper’s run on “Idol” was a very big deal to his community, and it’s not hard to understand why. Interest in Harper means that people across the nation are learning for the first time of the MOWAs. He wants to build on that.

“I feel like I’m just getting started for getting my people recognized,” he said. “I do feel like I did an amazing job representing my tribe. I could have said I was from Lower Alabama and that I was just a regular Native American Indian. But I said exactly where my race was at and exactly where I’m born and where I was raised. I take pride in where I live. I take pride for my race and I’m gonna work my butt off until I get us recognized.”

Harper said there’s one more facet of the “American Idol” that he’d like to evangelize, one more thought he’d like to share.

It’s very simple: Go for it.

“I want people to know that you have to work hard for everything you do. I 100% loved it. I mean, it was my life and if you love music, I would 100% go and sign up. Do you love it?

“I would 100% advise everybody who can, if you want that exposure, go out there and get it,” he continued. “It don’t matter whether it’s ‘The Voice,’ whether it’s ‘American Idol,’ whether it’s ‘America’s Got Talent,’ whatever. Whatever it is, do it. I mean, don’t be scared. If your dreams don’t scare you, dream bigger.

“So go out there and do it,” he said. “That’s what I advise everybody to do. Do it for fun, too. Don’t let them take that away from you. Do it for fun.”