No idle moments for latest idol winner

Scotty McCreery had just come home from school with an assignment: write essays for college applications.

Wait a minute. Isn’t he the reigning American Idol? Isn’t he on tour with Brad Paisley?

The high school senior plans to be on campus in the fall. Last month, he was putting the finishing touches on applications for four or five schools. He’s committed to his career but determined to go to college part-time, too.

“College is important to me. Education is important to me. You never know how far your job can take you,” said McCreery, who plans to study marketing or communications — something that will help in his profession.

At the same time, he has been more aggressive about launching his career than other recent “Idol” champs. The previous two winners, Lee DeWyze and Kris Allen, waited until after the next Idol was crowned before making their first solo appearances. When Season 11 began in mid-January, McCreery was already traveling the country with Paisley. That tour, which also includes The Band Perry, stops at the Tacoma Dome on Saturday night.

“Being aggressive is something that needs to happen,” McCreery said from his family home in Garner, N.C., just south of Raleigh. “Even when I was on the show, I remember talking to the producers, saying that I wanted my album to come out quickly because I didn’t want the people forgetting about me. I’m going to work my tail off.

“One of my sayings from my baseball days is ‘Go big or go home.’ We want to go big. Right now, we’re just trying to get out there and make sure people know we’re still around.”

People have certainly responded. McCreery’s album, “Clear as Day,” established two records: the first country newcomer and the youngest male to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

“That was something different,” McCreery said in his typically modest, aw-shucks way. “I was extremely humbled by it, but we were ecstatic. When I heard the news, I was running all around the house.”

Tastemakers in the music business are warming to another “Idol” finalist jumping into country music.

“He’s a hard kid not to pull for,” said Gregg Swedberg, program director of K102, Minnesota’s top country radio station, which hosted McCreery in November. “He’s smarter than people think he is. It starts with the parents. They’re ‘parent’ parents, not show-business parents. When he was doing radio appearances here, he had to get home to do his honors English test.”

Neither of McCreery’s singles — “I Love You This Big” and “The Trouble With Girls” — has set country radio on fire, but he’s selling albums like a big-name star. In fact, he’s outselling the latest by “Idol” hitmakers Kelly Clarkson and Chris Daughtry.

“It’s a fairly safe first record,” Swedberg said of McCreery’s collection of radio-ready ballads and medium-tempo ditties. “His fans like it. It’s a good start,” but “not as crazy nuts” as when Carrie Underwood exploded from 2004 “Idol” champ to a superstar with the fastest-selling country debut ever.

Of course, not everybody has warmed to the languid Southern crooner with the strikingly deep voice and goofy eyebrow-raising gestures. Entertainment Weekly magazine named “Clear as Day” one of the five worst albums of 2011.

“Is that so?” McCreery said the day after the magazine came out. “There you go. You can’t win ’em all. Maybe they’re R&B fans or something. You can’t please everybody.”

He let the high-profile cheap shot roll off him. And he’s heard the cracks about looking like Mad mascot Alfred E. Neuman since he was a kid. It’s no big deal.

Never mind his ears — what stands out about McCreery is his poise, his maturity. On “American Idol,” he exhibited the confidence and charisma of someone twice his age. He credits baseball.

“My dad pitched in college and he raised me on the pitcher’s mound,” McCreery reflected. “If you’re the pitcher, all eyes are on you — everybody in the stands and the team is depending on you. Being on stage and having all eyes on me, it’s kind of a transition from baseball to the stage for me.”

Although he’s writing songs, McCreery didn’t contribute any material to “Clear as Day.” Working with producer Mark Bright (Underwood, Luke Bryan, Reba McEntire), he picked pieces by Nashville stalwarts such as Craig Wiseman, Rhett Akins and Chris Tompkins. McCreery stuck with age-appropriate material — singing about writing a girl’s number on his hand, living in a small town and appreciating the demands on his mom.

“I don’t think there was one song on there that when I recorded it, I had to fake it or make something up in my mind to really believe it. All the songs speak to my life,” McCreery said.