David Cook

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David Cook's Bio: David Cook was born in Houston, Texas, raised in Blue Springs, Missouri, and currently owns homes in Kansas City, Missouri and Los Angeles, California.

Cook's interest in music began at a young age. He began singing in second grade, when his elementary school music teacher gave him a part in a school Christmas performance. He proceeded to perform in virtually every Christmas and PTA program. He received his first guitar, a Fender Stratocaster, at the age of 13. He also participated in choir and drama programs in middle school and high school. At Blue Springs South High School, he performed in musicals, including The Music Man, West Side Story, and Singin' in the Rain. In addition to this, he was an active member in the Blue Springs South High School National Forensics League, where he qualified for the national tournament twice for duo interpretation, an event that relies on performance and interpretation of a literary work.

He was also an avid baseball player during high school and once gave up a home run to Albert Pujols in an American Legion Baseball game. After an injury, he focused more on music. He earned a theater scholarship to the University of Central Missouri, but he abandoned theater after two semesters, graduating from the school in 2006 with a degree in graphic design. While in college, he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa. After his college graduation, he relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma to pursue a career in music, telling his mother, "I just want to give myself until I'm 26 years old to get a job." He was 25 when he auditioned for American Idol season 7.

David Cook formed a band with his friend Bobby Kerr while at high school. The band was initially named Red Eye, later Axium. He wrote his first song, titled "Red Hot", when he was fifteen. He was encouraged by Evan Sula-Goff of 8stops7 to make an album when he went to Cook's school to judge a contest, Mr. Jaguar, where David Cook and his band performed Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City". The band had some success when one of their songs, "Hold", was selected to be played in movie theaters across the country, and they were named one of the top 15 independent bands in the country by "Got Milk?" contest as well as the best Kansas City band in 2004. The band produced three studio albums – Matter of Time, Blindsided, and The Story Thus Far, as well as a number of live albums including Alive in Tulsa.

Axium however broke up in 2006 and David Cook moved to Tulsa where he joined Midwest Kings, a band he once opened for. He was the bassist for their EP Incoherent With Desire to Move On. Members of that band Andy Skib and Neal Tiemann later became part of David Cook's post-Idol band The Anthemic. He recorded and self-released a solo album Analog Heart in 2006. He had also recorded his second solo album prior to appearing on Idol, and was working as a bartender to support himself.

Cook originally did not plan to try out for the show. He went to the auditions in Omaha, Nebraska initially to support his younger brother (who did not make it to Hollywood and then, prompted by mother and brother when a show producer noticed him, David auditioned himself. He performed Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer" for his audition. For his first Hollywood audition. Cook took advantage of the decision to allow contestants to play musical instruments.

Cook won the seventh season of American Idol on May 21, 2008, receiving 56 percent of the votes, with 12 million votes over David Archuleta, the runner-up. Cook then sang "The Time of My Life", the winning song of the 2008 American Idol Songwriter's Competition.

A week following Cook's American Idol victory, in the Billboard chart week ending May 25, 2008, Cook broke several Billboard chart records. Most notable was his record shattering feat of having eleven songs debut on the Hot 100 that week. Cook's eleven charting songs also gave him the most songs by one artist on the Hot 100 of any week in the Nielsen SoundScan era, and the most of any era since The Beatles placed 14 songs on the chart the week of April 11, 1964. In addition, that same week Cook also broke the record for the most debuts on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart, where he placed 14 debut entries, the record of which was previously six set by Bon Jovi in 2007. Cook's 17 entries had a combined total of 944,000 digital downloads in the first week of selling.

The first single released from his self-titled album, "Light On" was announced on Cook's official site and debuted on September 23, 2008. By the week of October 10, 2008, the song had reached no. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single was certified platinum January 20, 2010. This is followed by a dual release of Come Back to Me and Bar-ba-sol, with "Come Back to Me" being released to HAC radio stations and Bar-ba-sol to rock radio.

His debut album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association for America for sales exceeding one-million units in January 2009.

On January 23, 2009, Cook announced he would be embarking on his first headline national tour, the Declaration tour. Cook had earlier announced via his myspace blog that two former bandmates from Midwest Kings would join his band, with Neal Tiemann as the lead guitar player, and Andy Skib on rhythm guitar and keyboard. Other members who joined later were Joey Clement on bass guitar, and Kyle Peek on drums and backing vocals. The tour began on February 13, 2009 in Tallahassee Florida, and was originally set to end in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 25, 2009. The tour however was extended twice, finally ending December 1, 2009 in Charlotte, NC after a total 153 shows.

David Cook began to concentrate working on this his second album after his first major tour, the Declaration Tour, concluded in December 2009. While on the tour, he put down some riffs and lyrical ideas, and started song-writing as a band towards the end of the tour. He had hoped initially that a single would be ready for release in April 2010 and the album that summer. However, a producer for the album was not announced until May, and recording started in June that year with producer Matt Serletic at the helm. On March 31, 2011, Cook tweeted that the title of his new single will be The Last Goodbye. A press release was sent out on April 15, 2011 announcing the name of the album which will be called This Loud Morning. He has also stated that at the beginning his goal was to make an album that "really, really pushed the concept of dynamic." … Read more