Kris Allen, 'Can't Stay Away' (Sessions)

AOL: When all is said and done, is this the album that you always envisioned making?

Kris: I never really envisioned making any album. This is the first one I ever made and this is all a surprise, so I never really had any expectations. Was the time-framing perfect? No. Was everything perfect? I don't think so, but anybody making an album would say the same thing. I'm really proud of it though. I got to co-write a lot of the songs on it -- nine out of the 12 that are on there. That means a lot to me as a songwriter.

AOL: Are there songs that have been gestating for years that we're hearing now?

Kris: There was a song that ended up on the album that I wrote a couple years ago. That is something that has been with me for a long time. I'm really happy that it ended up on the album. It was 'Red Guitar.' It's actually kind of a weird story, but I bought my wife an actual red guitar and she never played it. We ended up hanging it on our wall for decoration and one day I pulled it off, tuned it up, started playing on it and wrote a song. It just happened to make sense. That's what came out.