GUIDING LIGHT’s Bradley Cole (Jeffrey) dishes DANCING WITH THE STARS and AMERICAN IDOL and previews his annual rock show for charity.

Soap Opera Weekly: I’m surprised to learn that you’re an AMERICAN IDOL viewer. What did you think were some of the highlights from the celebrity performers this season?
Bradley Cole: Smokey Robinson was fantastic, the best thing on the whole show [that night] — Gladys Knight, also. Those two were fabulous.

Weekly: Are you a fan of Blake and his beat-boxing?
Cole: It was all right. It's like, “Okay, do something else.”

Weekly: Were you rooting for anyone in particular?
Cole: The whole season was really bad; a bad crop. Bad is relative — they are all worthy singers — but it was nothing like the other years. This was the first season I watched almost every episode. At first I thought there weren't going to be any boys [advancing]. The boys were terrible this year! That Melinda was by far the best singer, but she's a professional back-up singer.

Weekly: There's no rule that contestants can't be professional singers; they just can't have a record deals.
Cole: It's like DANCING WITH THE STARS. Joey is a professional dancer. He's was in that boy band (‘NSYNC). All they did was dance all day! They certainly didn't sing in the band.

Weekly: But he didn't win.
Cole: That show is very hard to watch in the beginning. You have to sit through all of that horrible stuff. This year, I couldn't believe what those people were doing with just a one-week rehearsal. I tried dancing before. I took dancing lessons. It's hard. You would've have to dedicate at least eight hours a day. We need more soap representatives, though. The winner of one season was a soap star (GENERAL HOSPITAL’s Kelly Monaco, Sam).

Weekly: Would you be interested in being that soap representative?
Cole: No, because after seeing what it requires, you would have to completely give up everything.

Weekly: Are you going to be performing in your annual GL Fan Club Weekend rock show?
Cole: I met with the Red Cross already (because proceeds benefit the charity). It's going to be bigger and better than ever. We're going to do it this year at the Red Cross. The Red Cross just moved from their Amsterdam building to a new building on 49th Street and 10th Avenue, so it'll be a good chance for the people to see the new building. It's beautiful and they've got these great old vintage posters on the wall.

Since this year is the 70th anniversary of GL, and the Red Cross is even older than us, I thought it would be nice to go through a timeline of the show, the Red Cross and music. We may do a contest or something over the Internet, [letting people] vote for the songs they want to hear from certain eras. But in any case, we'll choose some very good songs and try to fit them with the right singers. We have everybody at GUIDING LIGHT, but I'm going to try to get some people involved [from other soaps] and raise awareness for the Red Cross and have a big soap party that night!