Eliminated American Idol contestant Tyler Grady has claimed that he is glad he stayed true to his roots whilst performing on the show.

Grady was criticised for being too 70′s and Cowell said he looked like he’d gone to ‘pretend to be a rockstar school.’

According to E! Online, he said: “I definitely respect the judges, and I think that they’re very qualified to be critiquing the contestants on the show, but at the same time, when you are building a fanbase and your fans are supporting you, they’re supporting you because of what you’re doing – you can’t turn on your fans.”

He added: “You can’t change up what you’re doing to the point where you irritate your fans. If they’re supporting you, you need to give them what they want and support them back.”

Grady admitted that he was surprised when his name was called saying: “To be honest with you, I can’t explain why I was eliminated. Actually, I can explain to you why I was eliminated – because I didn’t get enough votes, I got one of the least numbers of votes out of the 12 guys, that’s why I got eliminated.

“As a performer you have to stick to your guns. You have to be honest, you have to stay true to yourself. If you’re going to change your style and style of performance and style of vocals and be inconsistent you won’t be able to build a solid fanbase because people won’t be able to catch onto you.”

On his musical future he added:

He explained: “I would just like to say to all my fans and the viewers of the show that I’m going to be working with my band Wailing Waters and hopefully, if all goes well, we’ll be releasing a record and performing, so look out for us.”