From: Favorite Hunks & Other Things
Good Bye Michael Johns, you were my favorite this season. I will still watch, but the season will not be the same.
Michael Johns (born 20 October 1978 as Michael John Lee) is an Australian singer-songwriter who finished in eighth place on the seventh season of a United States television series, American Idol, in 2008.
Johns was born Michael John Lee in Perth, Western Australia. As a teenager, Michael John Lee appeared as The Coachman in Pinocchio at the Regal Theatre and was a choir singer in Anything Goes at His Majesty’s Theatre.
Johns attended Newman College in Perth. In 1997, when he was eighteen, he moved to the United States on a tennis scholarship and majored in drama at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton before dropping out after two quarters. He also briefly played Australian rules football for the USAFL club Atlanta Kookaburras in 2001-2002.
Johns moved from Tifton to Atlanta to pursue a music career, playing cover gigs. He then joined a band called Film that folded after 18 months. After traveling to Los Angeles to showcase for a number of labels, he was signed to Maverick Records in 2002 as a solo artist under his birth name Michael Lee. He recorded an album, and then formed a rock band around him, called The Rising. The album was "Future Unknown", and a few of the tracks received some minimal airplay on radio. The album was released on iTunes after he was on American Idol. After Maverick, he was signed to Columbia, but was later dropped. He started using the name Michael Johns in 2006 as homage to his stepfather whose name, like his middle name, is John, hence "Johns" because there are two of them in the family.
He auditioned for American Idol Season 7 at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium in July 2007. He finished eighth place in the Season 7 competition.
Following the show, he performed on the American Idols LIVE! Tour 2008. Johns worked on the soundtrack for Shaun White's documentary DVD Don't Look Down, released by Three Rings Projects, while he was on the Idol tour. The album released features Johns singing all but one track, along with Rye Randa and Jeff Foxworth. Released on 1 January 2009 by Three Rings Project it consists of 17 songs, 10 of which are vocal.
He released a song, "Another Christmas," in December 2008, which he penned in 2006 when circumstances kept him from returning to his native Australia for Christmas. Half the proceeds from the song were advertised as going to the Red Cross and MDA's ALS division. In 2009, he released a digital download single called "Heart on my Sleeve" and an album titled Hold back my Heart, which sold 20,000 copies.
He released an EP Love and Sex, including thee songs, in 2012.
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