Elliott Yamin

NEW YORK – When Elliott Yamin competed on the fifth season of "American Idol," his singing brought Paula Abdul to tears and Simon Cowell described his voice as a "vocal masters class."

Still, he placed third in the Fox network's singing competition, behind winner Taylor Hicks and second-place finisher Katharine McPhee.

But Yamin, 30, may have the most fruitful music career of the three. He's had a hit single, his self-titled album went gold, and his new album, "Fight for Love," has gotten early critical praise.

Yamin recently talked about his music, "Idol" and how he's not into Facebook — yet.

AP: What's the new album like?

Yamin: It's kind of an emotional roller coaster about the ins and outs, ups and downs of love, with not just lovers but friends and family. I'm real excited about it.

AP: And "Fight for Love" is the first single?

Yamin: The message behind (the single) is just kind of about, you know, some people are scared of love. Some run from it, some people hide from it, this song kind of talks about how I found someone worth holding onto. That's kind of hard to do, especially in my line of work.

AP: You're on a small label distributed by a major label. What makes that so appealing?

Yamin: You just meet people who have these war stories to tell you about their label deals. I feel a little spoiled in that respect being that I don't have any of those kind of stories to tell. I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. I have the creative freedom to do what I want and not have a million suits breathing down my neck telling me how I should sing and how I should do things.

AP: Do you agree that if you had won "American Idol," you wouldn't have as much creative control?

Yamin: I would agree. Most of the winners don't really have a choice of how they can do things because they are managed by their management team, they are on their record label. With all due respect, I love everything they stand for and everything they do and they've been so supportive of me since I've been on the show. Whatever they're doing is working! I just knew I wanted to do things a little differently and on my own terms.

AP: What else are you into besides music?

Yamin: The computer keeps me up all hours of the night because I'm always on e-mail, online, checking baseball scores or basketball scores.

AP: Are you on Twitter or Facebook?

Yamin: Neither! I have fan pages on Facebook but I don't know how to navigate through Facebook and I'm just learning about Twitter actually. We're getting there!