David cook another story

David Cook may have gotten his first taste of fame thanks to Simon, Paula, and Randy, but his musical ambitions began long before he appeared in front of their judging table. Born in Houston, David Cook was raised in Blue Springs, Missouri. He began singing in second grade and performed in his school’s musical theater productions, but David Cook found that rock and roll was more his style when he picked up a guitar at age 13.
David Cook formed his first band, Axium, at 15, though his attention was split between music and sports. “I thought I wanted to be a pro baseball player, but my fastball wasn’t fast enough and I couldn’t hit to save my life,” he says. “Performing was the only thing I ever felt I was great at.”

David Cook recorded a solo CD called Analog Heart, during his senior year of college at Central Missouri State, which sold well regionally. In 2006, after obtaining a degree in graphic arts, David Cook had to decide whether he wanted to be a musician or a graphic designer. “I gave myself every opportunity not to do music,” he says, “but it was always there. I couldn’t ignore it.” He moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was in the early stages of recording his second album when his younger brother Andrew asked David Cook to accompany him to Omaha and lend moral support while he tried out for American Idol. Andrew didn’t make the cut, but he encouraged a very reluctant David to try out. “He threatened to beat my ass if I didn’t, so it’s entirely his fault that all this happened to me,” David Cook says with a smile.

David Cook rewrote chart history when 11 of his songs debuted on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, One week after being declared the winner with a record-breaking 56 percent of the nearly 100 million votes cast, — the highest number of new entries in a single week by an artist since the Beatles in 1964. Topping the list was "The Time of My Life," which debuted at No. 3, making it the highest new entry on the Hot 100 of 2008.
David Cook, In July, hit the road with his fellow Idol contestants for the American Idols Live! Tour, which visited more than 40 cities across the U.S. — an experience he cites as extremely valuable. “Being able to make a 16,000-seat arena feel intimate is one of the trickiest things to pull off,” he says. “If you can get the people in the nosebleed seats to feel as though they’re getting the same show as the people sitting front and center, then you're doing something amazing. That’s always going to be my goal.”

David Cook has performed the songs on his debut album, It shouldn’t be too tough. Gutsy and epic, but grounded in the personal, the songs are tailor-made for those magical moments when music, whether it be uplifting or heart-breaking, can transport you to another place, which is exactly what David Cook intended. “I want my album to be an exhausting experience, in that you listen to it and have to take a breath to collect yourself, and immediately need to listen to it all over again,” he says. “I want people to hear it and feel like they just ran a 5K marathon.”