Scotty and Lauren - American Idol Debut Album Progress

Yahoo Music’s Chris Willman caught up with American Idol 2011 winner Scotty McCreery and runner-up Lauren Alaina backstage at their Grand Ole Opry debut last week and had the chance to ask them both about their progress in the studio. While both were semi-tight lipped we still got a few tidbits out of the discussion. Sheesh. Where’s Haley’s parents when you need a spoiler?

McCreery was in the studio Thursday with producer Mark Bright, and the assembled band laid down five backing tracks, though Scotty won’t be adding his vocals to them till later.
Of course they’re brand new songs, not the kind of familiar covers heard on the show, that he’s recording. But he wasn’t willing to reveal any song titles. “After the ‘Out of Summertime’ leak, they’re being really strict on me about that,” McCreery said

Scotty will have to jet back and forth from the studio to the tour events this summer and there aren’t a lot of days between those. He’s definitely going to have a stressful, but surely exciting summer.

Alaina wouldn’t even reveal which producer she was working with Thursday, since she expects to be collaborating with several on her album and the lineup is far from complete. But she and whoever she’s working with got four basic tracks recorded Thursday, and among the songwriters whose work she’s cutting is… Carrie Underwood.

The Underwood song is one that didn’t make the cut on Carrie’s latest album. Definitely an exciting opportunity for Lauren to have a chance at covering it herself.
Now for anyone wondering about a budding romance between the two finalists, Scotty says they won’t be locking any of them doors:

“No, we’re not,” he affirmed. “We’re more like the brother/sister kind of relationship where we’re just really good friends and get along really well. But as far as the ‘relationship’ side of things, that’s definitely a no.”

Sounds like these two are doing great with everything going on. It’s a long article at Yahoo! Music, but a good one for anyone interested. Hopefully we’ll start to hear news for some of the other finalists from this year, but so far it’s been pretty quiet for everyone else.