Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com has a sneak peek at the American Idol fave as he records his debut album and tells us how it’s going.

On Idol Lambert sang songs by Cher, Wild Cherry, Foghat, and Sam Cooke. ”I don’t like boxing myself into a genre,” he says. ”But if I had to pick one major style, the classic rock stuff is where I was most comfortable on the show. Or at least that’s what people saw me as the most.”

Check the rest of the photos here: EW