Why Tyler ditched American Idol

Reuters

(File image) Steven Tyler

Los Angeles - Rock singer Steven Tyler said he “loved and hated” his two-year stint as a judge on American Idol but admitted the TV singing contest was “not my cup of tea”.

Tyler, who announced in July he was quitting America's most-watched entertainment show after two years as a judge, told Rolling Stone magazine that he took the job partly to wait out an internal feud in his band, Aerosmith.

“It was something to do while the storm blew by, to be honest,” he said in an interview in the upcoming August 2 issue.

“I loved it and hated it. It was a great job, I sat next to J. Lo and I made a ton of money. It was a moment in life and it became larger than life,” he added.

Tyler and singer Jennifer Lopez, who is also leaving the show, were brought onto American Idol two years ago after the exit of acerbic British judge Simon Cowell.

The Aerosmith rocker said he had come under pressure from producers to fill the nasty-judge role vacated by Cowell.

“The show's about kids and what you do to nurture their talent. They wanted me to take the p**s out of the kids and I don't have that in me. That's not what I'm about. That's more about that other guy. Not me,” he said.

Aerosmith - made up of frontman Tyler, Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer, Joe Perry and Brad Whitford - have since patched up years of internal strife and have been working for months on their first album of new material since 2001's Just Push Play.

The new album, Music from Another Dimension, will be released in November.

Fox television and American Idol producers announced last week that pop singer Mariah Carey would take one of the vacant seats for the new season starting in January. They expect to announce a second new judge in a few weeks' time. - Reuters