Webmasters C's story:

I got a call from Fred (AJ's manager) asking me to take some photos of AJ and to just spend a day with him. I got to his house in the morning and was immediately taken to his recording studio. Talk about a musician's playground. Fred and I jammed while I was waiting for AJ to get ready. It was a blast! Fred played keyboard and I played guitar. The studio is there for AJ to keep on top of his vocal chops and to develope his writing skills.  

OK, AJ says he is ready to go and we load up the car with all his clothes. We get to our location and we are given an area to change and eat. By the way… thanks Kipp! He is my contact person that sets me up with the coolest photo shoot locations. When I have other "Celebs that need privacy Kip has always been there.

I spent some time talking to AJ about his life and he told me that he has matured so much in the past few months. He reminded me that he has had to abide by the higher standards of song writing in the music industry. He submitted his original demo to many record labels and sat in meetings of criticism. He told me that he really had to take the advice constructively and not take it to heart. The interesting thing about our conversation was the fact that I got a lesson in what major record labels are looking for and really how difficult it is to convince labels that you are worth the investment. AJ has a new game plan that we will touch on at the end of this story.

Let's talk about his photo session. We set up an area inside a hotel that had a grand piano in their lobby. AJ asked if he could play and I said mentioned that I didn't think it would be a good idea to draw attentions to us. No sooner did I say “I don't think…” AJ was playing jazz/R&B style songs on the piano and singing. The funny thing about that is the fact that the tourists where walking by listening to AJ sing. A few of them gave me their tip of the day, which was… “Maybe you should try and get him to audition for a management company. He has a lot of potential to maybe do something musically.” I got a kick out of that. Tourist where getting a live unplugged performance from American Idol's first season top ten finalists.

We then moved outside and AJ grabbed the guitar and began singing and playing, and of course we got the same advice from passers by. The strange thing for me was the fact that we were singing all of his originals from his school days to the most recent and I knew so many lyrics from just handling his career via web and photos.

It took an act of congress to get him to unbutton his shirt. AJ is extremely shy. I'll tell you something that I might get killed for later but I have to say this; We moved our photo shoot to a pool area and it has rock walls, caves, waterfalls… it was awesome. There was 2 little girls with their Mother just minding their own business, and AJ refused to take any pictures with them in the area. He said he didn't want to attract attention to himself. I said “Dude you were in front of how many thousands of people on television and these 3 people make you nervous?”  Needless to say AJ did not take any pictures in that area until they left.

We had a blast singing, playing and just laughing the rest of the day. Then we had to eat. AJ's of course has the resources to eat what he wants where he wants but he chose to eat healthy. HEALTHY!!!  He is a 19-year-old kid that is thinking about his health? AJ made it very clear to me during our dinner that he has a different plan for his career. He wants to approach all forms of media: movie, television, and in the music industry. He has done a movie in which he is the star. He is still negotiating a television deal (to be announced). Finally in regards to his music career he is going to be in Miami to record his album. What makes this approach to his music career different is the fact that he is taking his time to put out the right material with key producers that have a hit song track record. He doesn't want to make an album just because time is running out. He doesn't believe such a thing anymore. AJ says, “a true artist writes their music based on what goes on in his life”. He's not looking for hot beats, which seemed to be a monotonous trend in the industry.  His album is going to be a true story not just lyrics to fit the production. None of the songs in his music section are going to be in his album. These are just samples of the old AJ that we will all remember.

Stay tuned for the new AJ. It's a proven fact that he will be a world Idol and a universal artist.

“Webmaster C”

-July 26th, 2003 - AJ is performing at Joe Jackson's Birthday Party at Michael's Jackson's Neverland Ranch. His career is really taking off. Fred (Newartist Entertainment) is taking AJ's career to levels that are absolutely blowing minds in the industry. Great job guys!!