Steve Lillywhite: campaigning for Cowell job

Steve Lillywhite wants to "help America find the next Elvis Presley". And that's why the Grammy Award-winning producer - whose CV includes work with U2, the Dave Matthews Band, Morrissey, the Rolling Stones, Phish and scores of others - wants to be American Idol's next Simon Cowell.

The British-born, New York-based Lillywhite has mounted a full-scale campaign to be considered for the job Cowell will be vacating after this season of the hit show to helm the US rollout of his British TV series The X Factor. Lillywhite has hired an agent and publicist. He also has posted a short clip on YouTube extolling his bona fides, and he recently filmed "a slightly more professional" video that will be out soon.

"I think I have the right credentials," Lillywhite told Billboard.com. "I'm quite effervescent. I'm quite opinionated. I'm funny. I can do this job. If people say, 'Oh, you're just a rock producer,' I'm not. I'm a pop producer, because pop music is popular music. I'd like to think a lot of the things I do are popular. Bono is a crooner... Frank Sinatra with electric guitars. I would like to feel I can present the public with 24 contestants that they can really help go on this journey."

Lillywhite, who's producing the next Evanescence album in New York, said he hasn't heard anything from Idol's production company since he started the campaign for Cowell's job.