Every X Factor reject has a busy day on the Monday after getting voted out – but none more than Austin Drage, who is at Number 1 in the singles chart with the Help For Heroes charity song. So this Monday is a little busier than usual, and we eventually catch up with Austin in the afternoon.

He’s getting a little tired out from all the questions, but we get what is possibly the most frank and honest X Factor interviews we’ve ever done.

Unreality TV: Harking back to Saturday night, one of Louis Walsh’s comments was that you were failing to connect with your audience.

To be honest with you, I thought that was a bit of a silly thing to say, because obviously I’ve connected with the audience every week since starting the competition. I’ve connected with the audience as much as anybody else, but I haven’t had the great songs that everybody else had, I haven’t been that lucky.

At the end of the night, did you feel cheated that Cheryl and Louis voted for Rachel based on her potential rather than her final performance?

Yeah, because I don’t think her potential is as much as mine, and I think I’ve showed plenty of potential since the first week. If they’d let it go to deadlock, I think I’d have ended up staying in the competition.

Rachel’s done one song well. I’ve done all my songs well, bar the last one, and that was a bad song on a night when it should have been a really funky song.

If you could’ve chosen your own song, what would you have sung?

I would have chosen Average White Band Let’s Go Round Again. It’s a great song.

And do you believe that song choice was the reason for you going?

Yeah, I believe that song put me in the bottom two. And I believe the fact that I was in the bottom two gave them the opportunity to vote me out rather than let it go to deadlock, which is what they should have done.

I wanted to ask you about that, because I would have thought you would be a threat to JLS

Yeah, I would have thought so. I mean, JLS are a great group, but I would have thought I’d be a threat to them.

And Simon now doesn’t have to worry about splitting votes between you and Eoghan…

I think with me gone, it leaves the market open for other people in the competition. But I think people should also be concentrating on what they can do when they’re out of the competition. I mean, I have an opportunity to release something now that I’m really proud of.

There was a rumour last week that Scott Bruton was thinking of challenging his X Factor contract, specifically the restriction on releasing any records until three months after the competition is over. Do you think that’s a fair term of the contract?

Well, you know, that’s the way the cookie crumbles – that’s the contract you were in and you knew what you were signing when you signed it. But hopefully I can get out of it sooner, I’ll be phoning my lawyer and see if I can get out of it sooner. We’ll see what happens.

(Note: It must be frustrating when you get voted out of X Factor, and everybody including the judges is telling you to get out there and use the publicity for your own good. But the one thing you really want to do – if you were serious about a career in music in the first place – is release a record! Unfortunately a restriction in the contract for contestants prevents them from releasing any music until 3 months after the show airs. Basically they can only gig and make personal appearances.)

So what will you be concentrating on now?

I’m going to focus on writing, producing and getting my face out there for people to know who I am and know that I am a talent. I think I just need to remind everybody what I did at boot camp and what I did back at the start and not what they tried to mould me into.

Yeah, I’d heard that you weren’t happy with the styling…

The haircut just wasn’t right. I tried to make it work, but it just wasn’t me.

I was reading today that you’re involved with a band called The Cameron. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Yeah, we’re going to hopefully release something when I get back on my feet and hopefully everything will be all gravy when we get back together. We haven’t got a website or anything yet, we’re just waiting for everything to be ready to kind of jump out. I don’t want to give too much away at the moment.

What would have happened with the band if you’d won X Factor?

I’d have come out with the band still, for me it’s not a negative thing. I’m out of the competition now and I can take all the positives out of it.

Before you joined the X Factor, you had a lot of TV experience. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, I’ve done Boys Will Be Girls, Snatch with Brad Pitt, I’ve done The Bill, Casualty and loads of other stuff. But to me it was important to get on something that really blew me up and got me in the public eye, and I think I’ve done that now. I want to get out there and push myself into the industry and get a single out, because I know I’m worthy of it.

On Saturday, Simon said to you “You probably have a girlfriend, I’ve probably got you in trouble”, which said to me that as a mentor, he doesn’t know much about you.

I don’t think he knew me as well as he thought he knew me. I mean, when he made the comment about me fancying one of the dancers, well of course, all of the dancers were gorgeous. I think that was just a flippant comment really.

Does he spend much time with you when he’s mentoring you?

No, not really. We’ve got a team that work with us on the actual show. Don’t get me wrong, he’s there, but we have to go through that team to get to him because he’s so busy. He’s not there all week, when you need to speak to him about a song.

But you’ve got your vocal coaches there as well, don’t you?

Yeah, but you don’t get much time with them, you don’t get much time with any of it. And it’s such a tight schedule to get everything right for Saturday night. There are weeks where I’d go on, they’d have a routine set out, then they’d take it away from me, and I’d have to learn something else, then end up going back to the original routine. It’s quite confusing when you’re worrying about sound, choreography and everything. It’s a lot tougher than people think.

Did you see yourself as competing against the other acts like Eoghan, Scott and JLS? Because you’re essentially appealing to the same group of voters.

No, I never thought of anyone as competition. I just thought “I’m in it to do my best and win it as best as I can.”

[Austin turns the tables on me at this point and asks me if I thought he should have gone out on Saturday. I explain that in our chart we said either Daniel or Rachel should have gone. Turns out we ranked him higher than Ruth Lorenzo too.]

You’ve been styled in a way you’re not happy with, and you’ve had to fit in with theme weeks that you’re not necessarily comfortable with. But what music inspires you and do you identify with?

I listen to a lot of BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughn. I listen to Guns N Roses, some soul like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder. I listen to a diverse amount of music, do you know what I mean? I love blues, I love soul, I love rock. I think X Factor stripped me of my musicality, because they tried to mould me, and I’m already moulded in what I do.

[We lapse into a bit of random banter about the Michael Jackson night, and he tells me that they played him the David Cooke (American Idol contestant) version of Billie Jean. I am suitably outraged and tell him to go and check out the Chris Cornell version which Cooke ripped off.

If he'd had a choice, Austin tells me he'd have sung The Way You Make Me Feel]

Finally…who’s your tip to win the show this year and why?

Laura White – because she’s really talented and she’s a musician and that’s what I want to see more of – more musicians playing music and not puppets. I wish her all the best of luck.