She’s no stranger to big dreams—but when Drew Ryn turned her American Idol performance into a love letter to Chino Valley, the arena rose to its feet. Click the link to watch how she carried her small-town spirit onto the national stage!
She’s no stranger to big dreams—but when Drew Ryn turned her American Idol performance into a love letter to Chino Valley, the arena rose to its feet. Click the link to watch how she carried her small-town spirit onto the national stage!
Chino Valley’s own Drew Ryn is making waves on the national stage after earning a coveted golden ticket on American Idol.
The talented singer impressed the judges with her heartfelt performance, securing a spot in the next round of the iconic competition. With roots in the local community and big dreams ahead, Ryn is quickly becoming a hometown favorite as she takes her voice from small-town Arizona to the spotlight of Hollywood.
“I dreamed my whole life of being able to say I’m going to Hollywood, because when I was a little girl and I would sit in front of the TV, I would watch American Idol every time it was on with my family,” Ryn said. “That was like our family time, and I’d listen to all these people scream, ‘I’m going to Hollywood. I’m going to Hollywood.’ So, it’s sort of a legendary phrase in my mind.”
Now 27 and living in Nashville, Ryn impressed the judges last month with an original ballad titled “Walk on Water.” Her heartfelt performance, vocal control and emotional delivery made her one of the standout auditions of the season. The song’s lyrics are about overcoming cyberbullying.
Drew Ryn took to the American Idol stage again during the Monday, April 14, episode, perform…
“When I was 14 and thrust into the public eye, I was majorly cyberbullied and I felt scared and wilted away a little bit because of what people had said about me, about my looks and all of it,” Ryn said about writing the song. “So often we don’t believe that we can do anything, and we don’t believe that anything’s possible, including something as crazy as walking on water.”
She wrote the song as encouraging words for young girls like herself who experience cyberbullying.
“I wish that maybe somebody had said that to me when I was being just tortured by the internet as a young girl, and maybe things would have been a little bit different in my teenage years,” Ryn said. “It’s for the 300 shows I did for cyberbullying. It’s for the thousands of kids that I spoke to.”
Ryn’s American Idol audition marked a full-circle moment, both personally and professionally. She performed a song she wrote six years ago but had held onto, waiting for the right moment.
“I had written this song about six years ago and knew that there would be a special place for the song, a special time to release it,” she said. “So I held on to it, which is pretty rare. Usually, if you really love a song, you put it out as quickly as you can, but I knew that there would be a platform and a moment. I never thought that it would be American Idol.”
The risk of performing an original song wasn’t lost on her.
“Carrie Underwood mentioned while I was in my audition, that it can really be a gamble to sing a song that you wrote because the world doesn’t know it,” Ryn said. “A lot of the time, what they’re listening to is the song, rather than just listening to your voice and seeing if you’re a good singer. But she said it paid off.”
Ryn credits growing up in Chino Valley with shaping her journey as a performer. “I am so blessed to be a small-town girl because the things that came my way later down the line in my life and in my music career, I just couldn’t be more grateful, I couldn’t want to share it more with the place that I’m from,” she said. “I feel such a connection to Chino Valley. I feel such a connection to just what comes with being from a small town.”
She recently flew back to Chino Valley to watch the audition with her family.
“All of my childhood friends and all of my family, my brothers and my parents still live in Chino Valley, and they were shocked that I was going on the show,” Ryn said. “It doesn’t matter how long you’ve moved away. It doesn’t matter how many things you’ve done since you’ve been back. It just felt like I picked up where I left off.”
Fans can vote for Drew on the American Idol website, app, and via text.
