Singer Jason Warrior, 27, has gone viral on a handful of occasions through his appearances on “American Idol” and “The Four.” One of his viral moments included walking up to the judges’ panel on [The Four] and and told Meghan Trainor that sometimes she says things to contestants that really hurt.
The interaction ended up with security escorting Warrior off the set. A few years later, Warrior got a second chance to shine on “American Idol” and Lionel Richie told him he was ready for the big stage.
Recently, Warrior took time out from his gig as a teacher to speak with rolling out about his career and future hopes.
How has everything been for you since your last television appearance?
[I] must be honest. Since my last time on television, I have been trying to make sense of everything, right? It has been a trying time so far. It has been very stressful. I will be completely honest, because, as an independent artist, things are going to be stressful. If you’re not born with a silver spoon in your mouth. So yeah, man, since the shows, I’m living, but it’s a little stressful. I must be honest.
Is it difficult to balance the attention of going viral while trying to gain recognition as an independent artist separately from the social piece?
Absolutely. It is definitely something that you have to balance. Currently, as you see behind me, there is a whiteboard and screens, so I’m a teacher, right? So I’m actually in class right now on one of my breaks. But it is something to balance because I get students that ask,”Mr. Warrior, you’ve done these TV shows? Why are you here? Why are you teaching us? What are you doing?” I think that is a perfect segue to talk about this: What people see is not always what it really is, and I think a lot of people expected that because I was on those shows that everything would be great.
Knowing what you know about the industry now, after being on “The Four” with Diddy, DJ Khaled and Meghan Trainor, would you still have done what you did on that show?
Absolutely not. I’ve learned so much on my journey and learned how to deal with feelings, and how to separate the feelings from the business.
The one thing that I lost sight of was that at the end of the day, although it was a show, it was still a business. She still had a job she had to do regardless of if her job was to treat me as the antagonist or the protagonist of that situation. She still had a job, because that’s what she really wanted to do. So I think at that moment, I allowed myself to forget about that. In the journey, I’ve grown to this place where I’ve learned how to separate the business from my personal feelings.
