Phillip Phillips

I get scared to death every time I have to play. I always get nervous because you never know what to expect. The crowd could be awful, or it could be amazing. You just never know what you're going to get until you get out there and do it. I just do my best and have fun.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?

It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits.