Danyl Johnson X Factor

Danyl Johnson X Factor

'X Factor' Star Danyl Johnson Thought His Music Dream 'Had Gone Past' Contestant tells 'Today' show his students encouraged him to try out. Danyl Johnson being dubbed the next Susan Boyle makes about as much sense as calling Heidi Montag the "a modern-day Michael Jackson." Boyle was a Scottish spinster with a love for show tunes when she decided to audition for "Britain's Got Talent." Johnson is a 27-year-old who prefers cargo shorts to house dresses and classic rock to "Les Misérables." But the two singers do have two things in common: instant fame and a dream of becoming a professional recording artist.

On Thursday (August 27), days after Johnson's viral-video-generating cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends" on the British talent show "The X Factor," Johnson spoke with the "Today" show about his ambitions. "My dream is to get an album out there, write songs, really enjoy this," he said via satellite during the interview. "That's what I wanted for so long. I've been singing for about 10 years now, and I didn't have that much interest before, and now loads of interest has come in. It's just really amazing. I'm having a really good time. It's so humbling."

Johnson had previously been in boy bands, auditioned for "X Factor" and performed on television with a rock band. But the world had never taken notice, leading "Today" host Ann Curry to wonder where Johnson had been hiding his talent. The singer from Reading, England, said he had no intention of trying out for the show, but his students encouraged him to give it a go and keep pursuing a singing career. "I thought that dream had gone past. And the kids have been so supportive, and they said I should go in for the competition, he explained.

Texting While Driving PSA

Texting While Driving PSA

The new public service announcement warning teens of the perils of texting while driving is violent, bloody and graphic. Even in a world with increasingly tough and graphic public service announcements on TV about the dangers of such activities as smoking, a recent PSA originating out of Gwent, Wales, breaks new boundaries in the explicit level of its bloody details.

Two teen girls giggle over a text message they are sending while driving along a country road. Distracted, the driver smashes head-on into another car, and while the bloodied girls exchange dazed glances, a third car careens into the passenger side. The driver finds her friend lying dead next to her. Then the camera switches to another smashed vehicle and shows a young child inside, asking why her parents are not waking up.

Produced by the Gwent Police Department, the PSA sends out a horrible visual to illustrate the dangers of texting while driving. But it currently isn’t being aired on U.S. television. For Americans to even view the ad on YouTube, they must assert they are at least 18.

Warning from Wales

A South Wales community of 550,000 that many Americans have never even heard of seems an unlikely place for discussion of the dangers of texting-and-driving to be raised, but a visionary Gwent police department was up to the task. Police locked arms with filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes to produce the PSA, titled “COW — The Film That Will Stop You Texting and Driving,” named after the character Cassie Cowan, who unleashes the lethal chain of events by texting behind the wheel.

Danyl Johnson Video

Danyl Johnson Video

The video of Danyl Johnson performing the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friend" on the British talent show "The X Factor" has gone viral. On Monday, the official clip on YouTube had registered about 600,000 views since the weekend. Twenty-four hours later, the count had doubled to almost 1.2 million. On Saturday night's airing, judge Simon Cowell called Johnson's soulful cover "the best first audition I have ever heard." Johnson quickly shot to frontrunner status, raising questions about whether he'd become the next incarnation of Scottish chanteuse Susan Boyle, albeit one in cargo shorts who prefers classic rock to "Les Misérables."

In the days since his performance, the British press has been reporting exhaustively on Johnson's personal history, just as it did following Boyle's appearance on "Britain's Got Talent" in April. The 27-year-old is a schoolteacher from Reading, England, who has fallen short in other attempts to make it big as a singer. According to The Daily Mirror, he has been in two boy bands, Upfrunt and Streetlevel, but neither of them ever caught on. The paper also reported that Johnson performed on television with a rock band called Empty Spaces and has auditioned for "X Factor" three times.

The Daily Mail landed an interview with Johnson's estranged father, who said he had not spoken with his son for a year after a falling-out. Following the "X Factor" performance, though, Johnson's father sent Danyl a text message and received a response back. "I was so proud when I saw Danyl on the television," he told the paper. "I did shed a tear as he was singing." The audience and the judges were nearly as taken with his performance. "When we see a performance like that, it's the absolute perfect audition," judge Dannii Minogue said. "So exciting to be sitting here on this panel."