Luke’s ‘American Idol’ rules: No pets, altered classics, choreography, or “My Church”

ABC/Gavin BondAs Luke Bryan and his fellow American Idol judges start their third season together on Sunday, there’s no denying they’ve learned a thing or two during their time on ABC.

Luke, Lionel Richie and Katy Perry all agree there are several mistakes that will almost always doom an audition.

“Performing one of our songs,” Luke tells ABC Audio.

“Another one is when they take like a classic and try to rap it,” he continues, as he starts to sing one of former American Idol judge Paula Abdul‘s hits. “Somebody did, like, ‘Straight up, now tell me, do you really…’ But then they do something weird with it.”

“And then they bring choreography to it,” Lionel interjects. “It’s best — stand still, deliver the goods and kill it.”

“Never bring your dog, your pet,” Luke adds.

The tight-knit threesome goes on to reveal there are also certain songs you shouldn’t even attempt to sing at this point.

“What was the one? The Maren Morris [one]?” Luke asks. “‘My Church’ was… It’s hard to out-sing Maren Morris.”

“Yeah!” Katy agrees, while lapsing into her twangiest version of Maren’s debut hit. “My church! Like that.”

“We heard ‘My Church’ a lot,” Luke confirms.

See American Idol season three’s hits — and misses — as the road to Hollywood kicks off Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. The auditions start with stops in Savannah, Georgia; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles, California; and Sunriver, Oregon.