“I feel kind of like I let my state down,” petite Alexis Grace spoke with reporters following her American Idol elimination. “I’m from the South, and we’re supposed to do country well.”

“I think I actually sing country pretty good. So it was a disappointment,” she admitted. Alexis plans on pursuing her career in music, with or without American Idol.

Grace was cut from the show just shy of making the Top 10, which means she won’t be part of the summer tour. But don’t write Alexis Grace off just yet. “If you want to do anything in life, if you want to pursue a dream, you’ve got to work hard at it and believe in yourself,” Grace remains positive when it comes to her dreams, though she had her hopes dashed when she thought she might be saved from elimination Thursday night. “It’s early in the game, and it wouldn’t be good for TV if they did it so early,” Grace said of the judges’ save. “It just wasn’t the right time.”

Before she kicks off her post-Idol career, Alexis Grace is heading to Memphis, Tennessee for some family time. When she does get ready to record her own tunes, Alexis expects that her sound will be something like “Joss Stone, mixed with Carrie Underwood, mixed with Sheryl Crow.”

(You can find all the American Idol 8 posts here.)