So how does it feel to be the new American Idol? The word on Kris Allen's lips when he stopped by the Idol press room a couple of minutes ago was "shocked": "I felt shocked almost every week that I made it," he said. "And to be the American Idol, I'm completely shocked."

And he meant what he said at the end of the show when he called out that Adam deserved the Idol title. "I feel like he deserves this just as much as I do," he said. "He's an amazing, amazing performer, a gifted, gifted guy — really just an amazing guy. It was fun doing this with him, it really was." And it's fitting that he said the best part of the whole Idol experience was the friends he made along the way: "The tour's gonna be a blast."

He's already thinking about the kind of music he'll make, and it's in keeping with what we've heard from him on the show: "I've done a lot of the pop singer/songwriter, pop/rock kind of thing, and that's definitely what I want to do," he said. He still seemed a little stunned at the possibility of his lifelong dream of having a music career coming true: "I tried for so long, and nothing happened — and this has been the coolest experience ever." He seemed starstruck at tonight's performances — "Seriously, I got to sing with Queen? Wow!" — and said that while he hasn't heard personally from Kanye West about his cover of "Heartless," he has heard through the grapevine that Kanye was pleased.

Kris said he's prepared to live the life of an Idol champ: "American Idol boot camp kind of gets you ready for that. I'm totally ready." But he's not going to go all superstar on us just yet: "I don't want to change who I am."

To see what Adam had to say, just read more.

Though he didn't win the title, Adam came back to the press room all smiles. "It felt so good, you know?" he said of the night. "I got to sing with two great, heroic rock bands of mine."

He said he'd had kind words already from Paula Abdul, who'd said she was proud of him, and said everyone on Idol had been supportive throughout the journey: "I never felt like anybody was like, 'Well, you can't do that. You can't sing that. You can't say that. You can't wear that.' They've always been like, 'Run with it, Adam, do your thing.' So it's been really cool."

And naturally, he had nothing but kind words for Kris: "I think that Kris won because he's a great artist, and I was happy to be a runner up to that," he said. He said the two of them went into the final knowing it would be a close race, and "we're both going to get to do great things now in the future. . . . For me, it's not really about what happened tonight — it's about tomorrow. It's about next."

And what is next? Adam said he's already had some offers, but "I know that we're going to start working on some music right away, and that's what I can't wait to do — to collaborate, to write, to co-write, to create visuals that go along with the music, too." His dream now is "to make a really dope record, to do something new, push the boundaries a little bit, push people's buttons, open people's minds up a little bit." Which sounds about right, given what we saw from him on Idol.

Photos courtesy of Fox