PwC staff auditor Steve Beguhn is back to checking debits and credits after American Idol judges cut his Hollywood dream short.

Beguhn, a CPA who graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 2006 and works out of PwC's Milwaukee office, won a coveted yellow ticket during Idol auditions in Milwaukee. He wowed the judges with his soaring tenor rendition of The Script's The Man Who Can't Be Moved, but they weren't as jazzed when he took the stage in Hollywood with Michael Buble's Haven't Met You Yet.

“I'm an auditor,” Beguhn told Idol in Milwaukee, “so I really don't have that many friends. It sort of comes with the territory, I guess. It's a lot like seeing the state patrol on the interstate. People can't wait until you go away.”

Beguhn made his first impression on Idol judges in Milwaukee by making light of his last name sounding like “big goon.” When he told the judges he was an accountant, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith fame was aghast. “Oh God, there's two strikes!”

To his vocals, on the other hand, Tyler had a much different reaction: “Disturbingly great,” he said, making special note of Beguhn's command for the upper range. “Weird, compelling, great.”

Beguhn sang through college with the UW's Madhatters, a men's a capella (meaning without accompaniment) choral group, and served as the group's business manager. He says he auditioned twice before for Idol, but was inspired to try a third time after a friend lost a battle with leukemia. “Nothing in life is guaranteed,” he said. “When you seen an opportunity in life, you have to pursue it.”

Through a run on Idol, Beguhn said he was hoping “to represent the demographic of people feeling restless in their job.” Beguhn was forbidden to talk off camera about his Idol experience, and PwC offered no word on whether the firm held his job while he jaunted off to Hollywood to pursue a singing career during busy season.