Sorry if this has been posted already...but I thought it was a great read!

DAVID COOK: A rocking "Idol" rocks on

By Gary Graff
The New York Times Syndicate


How crazy has life been for David Cook since May, when he edged favorite David Archuleta to be crowned the 2008 winner of the seventh season of "American Idol?"

"They tell me my name's David," the 25-year-old singer says with a laugh. "I don't know what my last name is. I assume it's Archuleta!"

He's in no way complaining about the photo shoots, interviews, tour rehearsals and meetings that have crammed his schedule since his "American Idol" victory, he hastens to add.

"I've been busy but, you know, I welcome it," says Cook, who received 56 percent of the public vote in the final round, and went on to place a record 10 of his "American Idol" performances plus his first single, "The Time of My Life," in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with a total of 944,000 first-week downloads. "I really don't have or ever had any disdainful feelings toward ("American Idol"). I've seen it as an opportunity and nothing more.

"I just never really saw 'Idol' as my path," the singer says. "I was content doing what I was doing before, but I can certainly appreciate how much this has accelerated everything for me."

Cook was, in fact, working on an album in Tulsa, Okla., even before he became an "American Idol" finalist. He has been committed to a musical path since his childhood in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs, Mo.

Music was a family affair in the Cook household. His father played guitar, and both parents were avid music listeners. The middle of three brothers, Cook went through R&B and country phases, he recalls, but latched onto rock "and never looked back" after his older brother gave him a stack of records for Christmas that included titles by Billy Joel, Pearl Jam and R.E.M.

"I think for me it was just a matter of finding my own way, for the most part," says Cook, who began playing guitar at 13 and redirected his attention from his other great passion at the time, baseball. "The first two songs I listened to were 'Closer' (1994) by Nine Inch Nails and 'More Human Than Human' (1995) by White Zombie.

"After I started playing there were three records in heavy rotation: (Green Day's) 'Dookie' (1994), 'Clumsy' (1997) by Our Lady Peace and 'The Color and the Shape' (1997) by the Foo Fighters," he continues. "Those are the three I kind of cut my teeth on."

Cook, who had roles in high-school musicals such as "West Side Story" and "The Music Man," says that his parents were generally behind him.

"They were always supportive of my doing what I loved," he recalls, "and kind of allowed me to operate in my own realm a little bit."

They also insisted that he attend college, however, so he wound up at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on a theater scholarship. After two semesters he switched majors, and ultimately got his degree in printing and graphic design. Simultaneously, though, he was playing in the band Axium, which released three independent albums.

After graduating in 2006, Cook moved to Tulsa to join a regional band called the Midwest Kings. He recorded an EP with that group, released a solo album, "Analog Heart" (2006), and was working on another solo project when he accompanied his younger brother Andrew to "American Idol" auditions in Omaha, where Cook's own plans were derailed.

"I was just there for moral support," he recalls. "We were standing in line at 5:30 in the morning, the sun wasn't up yet, it was raining, and one of the producers comes up with a camera and interviews my brother, 'Why are you the next American Idol?'

"Then he turns the camera to me," the singer continues. "I gave some smart-aleck answer and said, 'I'm not auditioning,' and he goes, 'You are now!' I picked my song (Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer") and it all kind of snowballed."

With no hard feelings from his brother, Cook rolled on to Hollywood and into the finals. His music choices covered a wide range, running from free to Roberta Flack and from Dolly Parton to Duran Duran, with stops at Aerosmith, Mariah Carey, U2 and even a nod to Cook's theater roots with a rendition of "The Music of the Night" from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "The Phantom of the Opera." He particularly impressed viewers, and the show's judges, by performing rocker Chris Cornell's languid version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean."

His selections sometimes perplexed people, Cook admits, but there was a method to his madness.

"I wanted to set up the season like a set list," he explains, "and so I guess, in that respect, I forced myself to kind of assume that I'd make it to the end. I wanted to have the first couple weeks be upbeat to draw people in, and then have those peaks and valleys throughout the season.

"The goal was, if I look back now and look at the song list in the order of what I did, there'd be some continuity to it."

With his major-label-debut album looming for fall release, Cook hopes to bring similar coherence to his new material.

"It'll be a rock record," he promises, "an interesting rock record, something people would be glad to say that they bought. To try to do anything else would not be in keeping with who I am.

"I look at guys like Bo Bice and Chris Daughtry ... that operated within the rock realm on ("American Idol") and made it work," Cook says. "Those guys ... made it possible for somebody like me to come on here and win the show."

The album is "heading in the right direction," Cook adds, and will be recorded during days off from the summer's "American Idols Live!" tour and after the tour finishes. Having done it before, he feels comfortable in the studio, but he acknowledges that he's having to learn a great deal in a short time.

"Doing it on this kind of scale is something I always dreamed of doing," he says. "I definitely feel that I'm still a little green. I've got a little bit to lean on, but I also realize that I'm 25 years old and have got the world to learn.

"This is a unique opportunity and can get fairly daunting at times," Cook says. "But for the most part I feel like I've got a leg up on some people that would try to do this, in that I've been on the other side, so I appreciate it a little more.

"I have to give it the best shot I can."

I'm not crazy about the beginning of that article, but whatever. It's still a very positive read.

And did this originally appear in The New York Times? If so, Cookie has a fabulous publicist.

Not sure...that's just how I was posted. So I copied it over...making sure whoever got props.

What's there not to like about David Cook. He's intelligent, articulate, and focused. His head is on straight and he is taking it one step at a time, moving in the right direction. Never to boast or get big headed about his new found status, he still acts like the same guy he was one year and several million dollar differences ago.
He will make it and make it big. Good luck, DC -- we, your great fans, have your back.

Thanks for posting the article. I had not seen it before.

The beginning of the article is weird. I think it's time for the media to move away from the pretense that AI7 was a close race, because it wasn't.

Cook didn't edge Archie. 12 million votes is not close. Cook led, according to dial idol, for the last 7 weeks of the show.

I'm not complaining, mind you. It's just weird to me.

I get why the media pimped a close race, to garner ratings for the finale. But it's over and it's been a while, and ... it wasn't close.

I would like to see reporters put a little more effort into their job and do some research and stop asking the same questions.

We all have heard the audition story 4,351x by now; I like reporters who look for something original, or at least current, to talk about.

Yes/no???

The majority of the media doesn't know what Dial Idol is. I doubt most people here know.

The majority of the Cook media we get these days doesn't mention Archie and this article is by and large very positive and respectful. I think for the most part the media has gotten over "shock win" but it will still come up now and then.

i agree with the need new questions thing. it'd be cool to have a forum topic of interview questions we can submit on this site and somehow get them to david to answer or to a newspaper or something who can ask them for us. that'd be so cool!

I agree! but overall, a good read...there were one or two new things I learned. THANKS!!




YES, GREAT idea!!!

he always sounds so earnest

That's quite a good read, though the story of David's Idol journey had been mentioned for over 12 million times already - probably as much as the votes that were sent in on the finale.