After the past two days that David Cook has experienced, you might expect him to be a bit groggy.
But while the scruffy “American Idol” champ has been on the usual victory lap of 983 interviews and TV appearances, he found time to sneak in an hour nap Thursday afternoon, and as soon as his promotional duties ended for the day, hit the sack.
That seems to fit the personality of season seven’s winner – a low-key, humble guy who thinks his first album will lean toward rock, but is more interested in making a record “that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand out.”
The mere presence of the sweetly soulful Cook on TV undeniably had that effect on millions of voters – many of them women of a certain age who unabashedly swoon over the 25-year-old singer/guitarist – enough to catapult him to victory over 17-year-old teddy bear David Archuleta.
In a conference call with reporters today, Cook disclosed that some of the lyrics to the songs during the finale were made available on a TelePrompTer (and no shame there – he and Archuleta had at least six performances to learn, some including choreography, in a matter of days). He also talked about what it was like playing with ZZ Top, his past musical experience and why it was such an “honor” to share the stage with young Archie.
On his background:
“I started in bands at 15 in Kansas City and played in and around there quite a bit. I traveled around the Midwest on occasion. Then I graduated college and the opportunity to continue music presented itself in Tulsa…I played acoustic gigs a couple times a month, full band gigs a couple times a month. I kinda hoofed it around the Midwest for 10 years.”
On getting ready for the finale:
“You’ve got to prepare for the best, but expect the worst. That’s pretty much how I operate…I made sure that I was prepared to win, but Archie did a great job and I’ve said it the whole time that if you were basing it off of Tuesday, that he deserved to win. He came out and did three amazing songs.”
On the frenzy that’s surrounded his every move – including that “Guitar Hero” commercial (now available on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ12-bNpHpk):
“I can’t believe the level of support that has come out of me doing this crazy TV show. All I can do is try to embrace it…the sky’s the limit right now.”
On performing with ZZ Top on the finale:
“You know, those guys were so nice. You hear horror stories all the time about established rock bands and musicians being about them, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth with those guys. They made it so fun and so easy, given the fact that there were 90 million other things going on. I couldn’t have asked for a better scenario.”
On whether he really thought he would win:
“I thought Archie was probably a little bit ahead of me, if I’m being honest…I attribute the finale vote discrepancy to my fans just being awesome…but my hat’s off to Archie for the whole scenario. He handled himself with a lot of grace, but more importantly, he’s just an amazing human being and I was just honored to share the stage with him.”
On the emotional roller coaster that is “Idol”:
“This show has been great for my diet. I’ve lost 10-15 pounds since the start of the season…There was a lot of intensity the last few weeks…The crying after I won was like an exhale. This whole experience has been about eight months, including auditions. I felt like that whole time I was holding my breath, and to be able to breathe and enjoy the moment was the main thing.”
On what to expect from his future musical endeavors:
“The covers were great, but I’m ready to get back into the creative process of writing songs and baring my soul on these records…I’ll probably put out a rock record because that’s the music I enjoy playing. That was the exciting thing about this show—I loved knowing there were things I could do that people never expected I could do. Andrew Lloyd Webber night was fun for me. I loved the fact that everybody was like, “WHAT?” I’m going to try to recreate that imagery with this record—I want it to have some twists and turns on it. I want people to feel like they got taken on a trip from beginning to end.”
On how he was inspired:
“There was a short article that Debbie, our stage manager, hung up in the red room that talked about Frank Sinatra and how he would go about the song process. Before he listened to the music, he would read the lyrics and try to tune into the lyrics and try to tune into what the lyrics were saying, what the song was about and then he would go into the music aspect of it and figure out the melodies and all that.
So for me, that was really an eye-opening article. It made me think, OK, I need to step back and before I even try to learn this song, I need to read the lyrics and that really helped as far as trying to find the vibe…With the Mariah [Carey] song, I loved it that the lyrics had a little bit of longing in them, but then it was still packaged in this upbeat pop song. For me, that was a very natural transition to just slow it down a little bit.”
On whether he thought NOT winning might have been better for his rocker cred, a la Daughtry:
“I definitely went into this to try to win it. Daughtry’s success is amazing, but I’m not trying to be Daughtry. I’m just trying to put out a solid record. Even if it doesn’t do well commercially, as long as I can put out a record that I’m proud of, that’s the goal right now, and hopefully if I can do that, the success will follow.”
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