Former MHCC student sings in front of celebrity judges

A Gresham resident and former MHCC general studies student had the opportunity to sing for the judges of American Idol during his time as an auditioning contestant for the show during its open auditions in Portland.
Andrew Serino is a 2009 graduate of Gresham High School, where he was involved in concert choir as well as being a part of the drama council and being involved with various plays and musicals. Serino is now the lead vocalist and guitarist for Gresham-based Christian band named His Legacy.

Serino was encouraged by his parents to try out for the FOX network reality TV show.
“My dad says out of my whole family (of seven, including parents), he believes in me first off and he believes that I’m the Serino that can probably get our name out there as far as music and talent,” said Serino.
Serino said he wanted to audition to make his parents happy. “I just love to honor my parents with anything because they have provided so much for me, my life. The only thing I do is just give as much as I can back and this is just a little thing but it ended up being a humongous thing for them,” he said.
When American Idol airs the audition process for the show during the first few weeks of every season, it makes viewers believe that each stop in the selected cities are taking place all in one day. In reality, this process takes several months. Serino recently had a firsthand experience of this process.
The first audition took place July 3 at the Rose Garden.  Serino said there was around 7,000 people at that audition.
He said the first audition was in front of 10 executive producers in music. “When we went inside, there were a lot of people sitting down, Ryan Seacrest was telling everybody what to do and we sang in these tents in groups of four. Each person got 10 to 15 seconds to sing and it was a fast process, but it was really discouraging, too, that in the first 20 minutes no one made it. Only like two people got the golden ticket,” he said.

Serino made it through the large preliminary audition in July and the second audition took place in September at the Oregon Convention Center. Serino said 200 to 300 contestants were involved in this round. The second round has two parts: in the first part the contestant sings in front of some of the producers, and if they are well liked, they will audition for the executive producer of American Idol.
“It’s up to him to see if you get to sing in front of the real judges. The first part was like the last round: you would only sing for 10 to 15 seconds, they would tell you yes or no right away and they have to say yes for you to go to the next round.”
Serino received a yes from the judges to go to the second part of the second round. The next part of the audition was in front of American Idol’s executive producer.
The second part of the second round is filmed just as it would be in front of the real Idol judges. This gives the contestant an idea of what the next step of the audition process will be like in the third round.
“Going there, I was very excited. I hid my feelings as far as being nervous,” Serino said. “I sang the chorus of my song, ‘Harder to Breathe’ from Maroon 5.” The executive producer stopped Serino right after the chorus and the judges agreed he passed to the third round.
The final stage of Serino’s Idol journey was the third audition, which took place at the Red Lion Hotel in Portland in November. Serino said there were 50 to 70 people.
“When they called me up, I got really nervous when I walked in the room and saw all the TV sets and all the camerawork guys and I started hearing their voices. I heard Steven Tyler. Steven Tyler is like the man I wanted to see. He was the main reason why I auditioned, to be honest, just to sing in front of him. I walked in there when it was my turn and Steven Tyler says, ‘Well, hello there, Sparky Spark.’ He liked my outfit and he said, ‘You enlighten the room, I like it,'” said Serino.
The judges then asked him questions. “I hid my nervousness very well from that, but when I started to sing, I sang the chorus and everything, I felt I didn’t do up to what I could have done. If I graded myself, I would do a 70 percent and then they stopped me and they were really nice,” Serino said.
“Steven Tyler was the one who talked the whole time, which I was thankful for, but he told me, ‘Yeah man, I could tell you were ready to go right when you started talking to us. We were engaged in what you were talking about. When you started to sing, we started to see how nervous you actually got. You have a killer voice but it’s not going to be cut out for this.’ Randy Jackson jumped in, saying the same thing like, ‘Yeah man, you were swallowing in between breaths and that’s a sign of being nervous and we need your confidence, we need you to perform,'” said Serino
According to Serino, Jennifer Lopez said, “I’m sorry it’s a no for me, honey.” At the end, all three said no but said, “Hi and best luck for you guys for that,” to Serino’s band.
“It was a ‘no’ but I came there, I did my job, I did my absolute best, my full extent of singing in front of celebrities. I got to meet a lot of crazy weird people and the whole experience was worth it and it made my parents really happy. My mom got to see J-Lo, so it was really fun,” Serino said.
As far as American Idol, Serino says he does not think he will participate again, but would like to work with his band.
“I did have some pretty deep good conversations with some of the contestants about what we believe in. I was just letting them know they are loved and everything. That’s one thing that I really, really got a lot out of was just being able to talk with people,” Serino said.
The music style of Serino’s band, His Legacy, is heavy rock and ambient. According to Serino, their music is “straight up for the Lord.” The band has been together for about a year and a half. Before His Legacy was formed, Serino performed with another band allshewrote, for a year. The style of music was hard-core, screamo and electronic.
His Legacy is made up of Serino as lead vocal and guitar, Brennan Dryer on guitar, Dustin Moore on bass and Seth Zimmerman on drums. The guys worked as the worship team at East Hill Church, with Serino as a worship leader, before officially forming the band. The band’s first show was in the summer of 2010; Serino said it was a big success.
“It started as a side project that turned into an answer to prayer for all of us because it’s music that we generally love and that we can honestly give back to the Lord,” he said. “We on our own could not create this music without our Lord and savior and we went through practices knowing that, so every time we write music we just give it back to him. That’s the meaning of our name, too.” Serino said.
Serino is not now a student at MHCC but has hopes of returning. “I want to go back to school at Mt. Hood because I’ve been away from that for a while. But I don’t know yet what I want to do yet as far as music business or something else with music like worship pastoring or something else with the church,” Serino said.
His Legacy will have a CD release show at East Hill Church 7 p.m. tonight. The cost of the show is $10 and will include performances from His Legacy, as well My Favorite Season, Roads and My Mantle. Copies of His Legacy’s first CD “Not Ours” will be available for purchase for $8. East Hill is located in downtown Gresham at 701 North Main Ave.