Every season, American Idol rolls out its storylines — the tearjerker, the comeback kid, the quirky one nobody expected. And every so often, one contestant cuts through all of it and makes you think: this one is for real.
This season, that person is Jake Thistle from Paramus.
On Monday night’s episode, Thistle performed during the Ohana Round at Disney’s Aulani resort in Hawaii — one of 30 contestants fighting for the Top 20 spots where America gets to vote. He performed an original song called “Sleep On Me,” accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Carrie Underwood compared him to a young Bruce Springsteen meets Bob Dylan. Luke Bryan chimed in with Paul Simon. Lionel Richie stood up, told him he took a big chance with an original, and said: as a songwriter to a songwriter, you did well. The American Idol account posted his clip with one word: captivating.
He made the Top 20. New Jersey is still in this thing.
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Here’s what I love about Jake Thistle’s story. When he was three years old, his parents brought him in to watch the Super Bowl, thinking he might get interested in football. Instead, the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers halftime show changed everything. He was hooked on music from that moment forward. By nine, he had a guitar. As a teenager, he was already performing in bars near Paramus and busking in downtown Ridgewood, with his parents driving him to shows several nights a week.
This is not a kid who showed up to a TV audition on a whim. He has shared stages with Stevie Nicks, Foo Fighters, Eddie Vedder, Jackson Browne, and Steve Earle. He played the Stone Pony and the Count Basie Theatre. He toured Europe with the Light of Day Foundation and helped raise more than $100,000 for charity. He graduated early from Rutgers with a double major in communications and journalism. The résumé was already there before the cameras showed up.
Why New Jersey should be paying attention
We do this every time one of our own steps onto a national stage — we watch a little closer, root a little harder, take it a little more personally. And we should. Thistle has said the support from Paramus, Bergen County, the Asbury Park community, and New Jersey as a whole has meant everything. “This is where I’ve cut my teeth,” he said. “It’s where I’ve basically learned everything I know.”
That’s a Jersey musician talking — the kind who earned it the old-fashioned way, one room at a time, one night at a time, long before anyone put a camera on him.
Now America gets to vote. Let’s make sure New Jersey shows up.
Proud to be New Jersey.
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