Franklin, Tenn., native Hunter Metts earned a golden ticket to Hollywood during his American Idol Season 19 audition. His performance for the judges, which aired on Sunday night (Feb. 28), gave Luke Bryan "the real deal chills," in fact.

After auditioning with Kaleo's "All the Pretty Girls," during which he accompanied himself on acoustic guitar, Metts earned a unanimous "yes" from all three Idol judges. Both Bryan and Katy Perry told the 22-year-old they believe he could make it to the Top 10.

"There was one note you hit that, man, like, I got the real deal chills," Bryan told Metts, adding to Perry and fellow judge Lionel Richie, "I almost started crying when he hit that one note."

Metts is the son of parents in the music industry. He started to pursue a career himself after high school, "[but] then my family had went through some hard times; some things kind of fell through for my dad in the music industry," he tells Williamson Homepage. "During that time, I decided that I didn't want to really pursue music because it was so unsteady and it's just such a risk."

Nonetheless, Metts had considered auditioning for Idol in the past, "[but] it just never felt like the right time," he says. When he finally decided to go for it in 2020, he passed his Zoom-based audition and got the go-ahead to sing for Bryan, Perry and Richie.

"Just the opportunity to be in the same room with those names is something I never thought I'd get to do," Metts says, "so the fact that they'll get to hear my voice, hear my heart and my story is something really special to me."

American Idol airs on Sunday nights at 8PM ET on ABC. Sunday night's episode showed this season's third set of auditions, filmed in California in late 2020.

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