'American Idol' Cast Opens Up About Season 11

By Michael Lopez

It's hard to believe that we're about to launch another year of American Idol. It seems like just yesterday when Scotty McCreery charmed the nation with his country crooning, but now the hunt is on to find another superstar. And all of this season's key talent are extremely excited to kick it all off.

"I think that Idol still is the best TV show of its kind anywhere," Judge Randy Jackson told us at an exclusive press conference. "We're the original, we kind of invented this whole game that everybody's now copying."

Indeed, at the A.I. press event, The Voice happened to come up several times. Not that the cast let that "other" singing show phase them. In fact, Ryan Seacrest threw out a few fun jabs at their NBC rivals.

"We never sit down before we do our show and think, 'what are the other guys doing?" Seacrest confidently said.

Jackson added,

"It's like second-chance theater over there."

And as much as NBC would like to hype Xtina and company's big February return, their season one champ seemed to fade away far quicker than anyone A.I. has produced.

And at Idol, the eyes will be focused much more on the shot callers than the contestants. Especially with A-listers like Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler in the judges' seats.

Discussing her approach to critiquing this season, J.Lo said,

"We're going to try to give them advice as we would want advice given to us. At the end of the day, you never know what's going to happen."

Steven seemed to relish his new role too, though he admitted that his Aerosmith bandmates had a hard time accepting it at first.

"[The Idol thing] wasn't really accepted at first by my bandmates," he said. "But now things are good and Aerosmith sales jumped up significantly since I joined."

All three judges assured the media that the same loose style will remain intact when they step in front of the camera Wednesday night.

"I love how our personalities are so different," Lopez explained. "We each have a different sense of style, but we all have fun with it! Hopefully the audience has been able to get to know us better now. To know us for who we really are."

You can get to know Jennifer, Ryan, Randy, and Steven all over again when American Idol cranks out season 11, tonight on Fox.

Are you excited about Idol's new season? Sound off in the comments or @MTV3.

Tags American Idol, Blogger: Michael Lopez, Exclusive Entrevistas, Jennifer Lopez, Música, Randy Jackson, Ryan Seacrest, Steven Tyler, Television, The Voice, Tr3s Exclusives