Former 'American Idol' finalist Elliott Yamin does music his way now

Last summer, Elliott Yamin toured the country on the "American Idols Live!" tour, playing sold-out arenas, staying in posh hotels and experiencing the luxury of having a massage therapist at your beck and call.

That was then, however, and this is his now. Yamin currently is in the middle of a 21-date club tour of the United States, which drops by Detroit's St. Andrew's Hall tonight.

What he loses this time around in amenities -- he is now calling his tour bus home, and last we checked St. Andrews didn't have an on-call masseuse -- he gains in creative freedom: This time it's his show, playing his music to his fans.

"It's my own little headlining tour," crows Yamin, on the phone from Los Angeles earlier this month. "I'm really thrilled to get out there and touch the fans and have a blast out there on stage."

This is a different Yamin than the shy underdog viewers were first introduced to on "Idol." But the blue-eyed soul singer slowly came out of his shell over the course of the show and endeared himself to viewers to the point where he ended up coming in third place for the season, behind Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee.

"I always lacked confidence growing up; people always had more confidence in me than I had in myself," says Yamin, adding the validation of the show's judges, viewers and coaches helped boost his self-esteem. "Being on the show helped me realize my talent, and being on such a broad stage really forced me to kind of shed that shyness. Now I live on that stage, man."

After Yamin wrapped his duties on the "Idol" tour, he went home to Richmond, Va., for several weeks before prepping his debut album. He worked on the self-titled release -- a mix of uptempo R&B and hip-hop-lite -- from October 2006 to February of this year, and it was released to positive reviews and healthy sales in March, debuting at No. 3 on Billboard's albums chart.

"We didn't go into the studio knowing what kind of record we were going to make," Yamin says of himself and his team of co-writers and producers, which included ex-House of Pain and Limp Bizkit turntable maestro DJ Lethal. "I had a basic idea, as far as I knew I wanted it to be real soulful, and I knew I wanted it to be a singer's type of record."

Yamin sang the first single, "Wait for You," on "Idol" several weeks ago, and the album has sold 217,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The singer stays in touch with his cohorts Hicks, McPhee and Chris Daughtry, and looks back fondly at his time on "Idol," saying it gave him the tools he needs to build what he hopes will be a long-lasting career.

"It was the best learning experience and the best training I could have gotten," Yamin says. "I take everything I learned, and I apply it to what I do now. It was the best crash course I could have ever received."