Although most of the contestants were weeded out over the last few weeks of Nashville Star, this week was the last episode before the final three. It's been an interesting season, with many musical highs and lows, but the L.A. based country hopeful, Coffey, almost found himself a spot in final round of competition. Despite pulling out all the stops with his own rendition of Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama", Coffey was forced to pack up his guitar and continue his journey down the road to country music stardom.

A day after being voted off the show, we hopped on our horse and rode into town to take part in a conference call with Coffey to learn what went wrong and what's in store for the future.

THE DEADBOLT: How does it feel to know that Sinbad and Patricia Heaton are your fans?

COFFEY: Isn't that crazy? It's nuts. Troy, let me tell you - Patricia flew in from Chicago. She's raising money for her new film with her son Sam and came in. As I'm getting ready to go up, she walks in. And she didn't even go home. She came off of the plane and came to the show, brought her son; he plays guitar. Sinbad was filming a comedy special. He came in, grabbed a limo, they drove him over, said hello to me and then gave me a hug and told me, "Hey, young brother. Do your thing." Gave me a hug and left to do his thing.

And Stephan Marbury, you didn't get a chance to see him, from the New York Nicks, brought in 300 pairs of shoes, jeans, t-shirts, jerseys and gave them out to those kids we bussed in that I talked to from the projects. He brought and gave those kids the shoes because he realizes in urban settings a lot of kids don't have shoes. So they actually have been killing each other for clothes. He took care of that. And Bryan Clay, the Olympian, came in as well, who's going to be competing in Beijing. He's the new Dan O'Brien, great great guy. It was nuts, man!

THE DEADBOLT: Since Shawn had a wisdom tooth problem and Gabe had a cold, do you think you would've faired better if you were on the mend?

COFFEY: [laughs] You know what? I feel for them. I travel and I sing in all types of different places. You know, my immune system is strong, brother. I take Vitamin C and I drink water. It's a grind and they have to understand that. Maybe I would've got a better rating if I had a cough, I don't know.

THE DEADBOLT: I liked your rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama", but were there any particular songs that you wanted to perform before it was over?

COFFEY: "Good Hearted Woman", Willie Nelson. I really wanted to sing that. I wanted to sing that the last week. I was actually going to do that and "Sharp Dressed Man" Monday night. Those were the two I was going to do, especially ZZ Top. I love ZZ Top and Willie. So those were the two artists that I wish I could've gotten to. But you're only given eight weeks and you have themes and stuff for the week that you have to fill in and go at. So, what can you do, bro? What can you do?

THE DEADBOLT: Of the three remaining contestants, who do you think will take it?

COFFEY: Wow! Well, I think a Texan is going to take it. I really do. But let me give ya my dilemma, T. This is the deal: when you look at what Shawn Mayer has done in the last three or four weeks, she's come on strong. The first week she was here it was hard because she was just going through a breakup. She had a lot of things going on with her personal life and now all of that stuff is just squared away. It's put behind her and she's come on strong. Melissa is just seizing this thing. She's just grabbing the thing by the horns. She sees it as her opportunity to get ahead and make it happen. And then you see Gabe gave up his job, took out his retirement. He came out here, rented an apartment in Nashville, and everybody here has paid their dues. Everybody here deserves this thing. So I'm pulling for a Texan, because that's how we are in Texas. We think we could secede from the United States and be fine, so we just pull for each other. My money's on a Texan.

THE DEADBOLT: After you go on to bigger and better heights in music, would you ever come back to a show like this to be a judge?

COFFEY: It depends on the situation. I love Nashville Star. I think Nashville Star changed my life, and not only made me a better person, but furthered my career. I believe in it. I think that the people behind it are good people and they have good hearts. They got a flack for adding pop music to country and things like that, but they just really want to broaden country music's mind and also broaden the fan base. So I think it's a great vision with Nashville Star, and it really saved my career and it got me off the street hustling for Savannah and kind of put me in this setting to be able to give her the type of lifestyle she deserves.