Brooke White has had just about all of the room service she can handle.
“There are certain things about normal life, like making your own food, that you definitely miss,” quips the 25-year-old Mesa, Arizona native, who has been on the road with the American Idol Live Tour 2008 since it kicked off on July 1.
The singer-songwriter, who made it to American Idol’s top five before she was eliminated, is in the middle of her very first tour. And by first-tour standards, it’s pretty impressive. By September 13, White and nine other AI vets—who have become like family, she says—will have performed 53 shows in more than 50 cities for audiences of 10,000 or more.
“I get nervous almost every night,” the star confesses. “Some nights more than others; I don’t even know why. Sometimes I just connect with the moment, but I definitely get butterflies.”
Finally, after weeks of a rigorous performing schedule and disappointing hotel quesadillas, White hit what will surely become one of the early watershed moments of her career. On August 13, she stood on the Wachovia Center stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—the very arena where she waited 20 hours for her first American Idol audition.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle,” she says.
Although she feels like music has always been an intrinsic part of her life—she honed her natural skills on her great grandmother’s piano, which “was like a magnet”—White’s performing career didn’t begin until she was 15 years old, when she reluctantly auditioned for her high school’s production of Meet Me in St. Louis and landed the lead role. Soon after, she began working with a vocal coach.
But White’s low and raspy voice didn’t match what she heard on the radio, and she found it difficult to relate to most contemporary artists and their music.
“I was discouraged with singing,” White recalls,” Until one day when [my coach] said, ‘Do you know who Carole King is?’ I sang ‘It’s Too Late’ and realized that I had found my voice.”
White first moved to Los Angeles to pursue music full time at the tender age of 17, then returned a couple of years later to attend Musicians Institute and record her independent debut album, Songs from the Attic. Just when she was starting to think, “If nothing happens soon, I might have to move on,” she auditioned for AI and nailed it.
Of all the challenges White faced while on the show—and there were many (Simon Cowell, anyone?)—one of the bigger ones, White says, was communicating with the stylist her desire to dress conservatively, but still look great.
“In this business, image is, unfortunately, something you can’t overlook,” White says. “From the very beginning, I wanted to be honest with AI about my lifestyle while still being gracious and not self-righteous.”
White explained her fashion standards to the stylist who, she said, was completely understanding and accommodating. Together, they learned to be a little more creative in their styling. During White’s run on American Idol, almost every single thing that she wore had been altered.
When she’s her own stylist, White shops at Anthropologie, where she says she can find clothes that are more lady-like and covering. But, for the sake of her wallet, she also likes to hunt for good bargains at consignment stores like Buffalo Exchange.
“You want to find something stylish and unique that doesn’t compromise your values,” she says. “With dedication, creativity and a good attitude, it can happen. I think I’ve had a lot of success in being both modest and fashionable.”
These days, White has found a way to bring all of her passions—music, fashion, and charity—to the same stage. The singer is the spokesperson for Malaria No More’s “Save the World Summer” campaign (www.savetheworldsummer.org), an effort inspired by a 10-year-old boy from Illinois who raised nearly $1,000 at his birthday party to buy bed nets for Africans. At every show White makes mention of the program, hoping some of the audience might be moved to action. Through her participation, White hopes to encourage people, especially children, to take advantage of their free time to change the world for the better.
“I feel like this is the time that I have the voice to do something positive,” she says. “I want to do whatever I can do to raise awareness and motivate people to help.”
written by Gretta Parkinson
photographed by Angela Kohler
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of ELIZA Magazine