Chuck Wicks Approves of ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Changes

Chuck Wicks hung up his dancing shoes in the spring of 2009, after jiving his way through eight weeks on the hit ABC show, 'Dancing With the Stars,' alongside then-girlfriend Julianne Hough. Though the two are no longer together, Chuck says he still has fond memories of his time on the show.

"My season there wasn't a lot of dirt, like, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe this happened,'" he recalls to Detroit radio station WYCD. "Not as bad as some of the other seasons. It's always fun to watch these real big football [players], like Lawrence Taylor. He was on my season and he looked like a scared little kid getting ready to learn these dances. It kinda made me feel better, like if Lawrence Taylor is nervous, I guess I can be too!"

The singer-songwriter, who had very little previous dancing experience, was initiated quickly into the exhausting regimen. "You get about three weeks before the initial show to break the ice with your partner and figure out what exactly this dancing stuff is," he explains. "After that, if you make it through the first week, then you say, 'OK, Tuesday, cool. You made it through. You're going to learn this dance and you've got five days to learn it for Monday. It was pretty grueling."

The show, which recently crowned Julianne's brother, Derek Hough, and partner Jennifer Grey as its latest winners, has evolved since the days Chuck joined the cast. "When I was on it, you would go into a back room, and now they have a room when the dancers get done, [they're] a part of the audience almost. I think that's cool, because when we would go backstage and we weren't on camera, we would be goofing off. Now they've gotta sit through the whole show and they can't goof off, so they've gotta focus."

Chuck didn't have much to say about the three judges, Carrie Anne Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli, but he has high praise for the show's longtime host, Tom Bergeron. "He's hilarious," Chuck gushes. "One of the funniest guys."

Chuck, who was recently named by MSN as one of the Most Eligible Bachelors, is moving full-speed ahead with his sophomore CD, which will hit shelves in the spring. "[I've] been out on the road staying busy promoting the new album that's coming out in March," he reports. "It's a fun album. There's not one depressing song on the record, and I've never been in a better place, writing songs, singing songs, and just so focused on what I love to do ... It's exciting to have new music out there. It's exciting to play new music. I put out my first record two years ago. I think it's time for new stuff."

The new project's next single, 'Old School,' was released to radio this week. Keep track of Chuck's upcoming tour schedule here.