Shortly after winning the seventh season of “American Idol” last year, David Cook started swapping notes with a few of his heroes: Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace, Goo Goo Dolls’ front man Johnny Rzeznik, Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra, The Nixons’ singer-guitarist Zac Maloy …
“I got off the show and (the record company) asked me for a wish list,” he said. “To walk into a room with … guys that I grew up listening to and kind of learned music by emulating their records, it was just kind of a trip to pick their brains and have them treat me as a peer.”
First up was Maida.
“He was actually my first writing session, and not just for this record, I mean ever; I’ve never co-written with anybody,” Cook said calling from a tour stop in Tyler, Texas. “And he immediately made me feel comfortable. I remember I went to his house and met his wife and his kids, and we knocked out three songs in six hours.”
David Cook
The two penned four tracks for Cook’s self-titled CD – “Heroes,” “Mr. Sensitive,” “I Did It for You” and “Permanent.”
“Light On,” the first single from the disc, was written by Chris Cornell, the voice of Audioslave and Soundgarden, and Brian Howes.
“That was one of the first songs we listened to for the record and it just immediately grabbed me,” Cook said. “I think musically it was kind of a rock history lesson. I think it spoke to me in the sense I could hear a lot of my favorite bands in it – Soundgarden, Guns N’ Roses and even back to Led Zeppelin, so it seemed like the perfect song for this record.”
The 26-year-old rocker wrote “Declaration,” the first track on the CD, with Rzeznik.
“I think it was a great opener for the record in that coming off the show, I felt that people had seen an accurate depiction of me or as much as they could, you know, tuning in a couple times a week, but I wanted to show more of myself and wanted this record to be a reintroduction and a more concrete definition,” Cook said. “I think it’s a declarative statement on where I’m at right now.”
He will be in Perrysburg on May 6 when the Declaration Tour comes to Owens Community College Student Health and Activities Center for a 7:30 p.m. show. Ryan Star will open the concert. The show is sold out.
“I expected to sell more records than I did on my first solo record [2006’s “Analog Heart”], which I think sold 1,000 in a year,” he said. “But past that, I really tried to not have any expectations at all. So when I got those numbers, it was mind-boggling to call my dad and say I think the only people who have sold more are The Beatles. It was a little weird.”
Kind of like the singer-guitarist’s last 18 months, which he wrote about with Maloy in “Life on the Moon.”
“I wanted to talk about all that I experienced over the last year and a half; this has been amazing but also a little unnerving to go from relative obscurity to this, so it turned into this deal, feeling like living on the moon,” Cook said.
What did he learn from the “Idol” experience?
“Not to get caught up in everything … whatever’s going to happen is going to happen, so you may as well just enjoy it,” he said.
Right now he’s having a good time on the road.
“The response has been great across the board, which makes me feel cautiously optimistic for the future. I just hope I don’t screw it up.”
Cook likes smaller audiences
David Cook said he is trying to stand out in an era of music that has become disposable.
In an effort to reach fans on a personal basis, his Declaration Tour is featuring stops at many colleges with smaller audiences.
“We have very intense, passionate fans and it makes for a fun show,” Cook said. “It’s nice to have the faith that if we can’t sing one night, the fans could sing the songs for us.”
That intensity is evident at Owens Community College, where the 660 non-student tickets for his concert sold out in seven minutes, according to John Byers, student activities manager at Owens.
It’s the kind of impact Cook is looking for with his tour, and it’s the one that he didn’t get coming off of “American Idol.”
“You know, coming off ‘Idol’ and the massive venues, I had a blast and the crowd was great, but I came away feeling that I hadn’t reached everyone,” Cook said.
Therefore, prior to performing at summer fairs, Cook will be performing at a couple of smaller colleges in Ohio. Following his stop at Owens, Cook will be at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Clark State Community College in Springfield and The Ohio State University’s Newark campus.
On tour, Cook and his band members try to stay active by playing basketball or throwing a football around at college stops. During that time, Cook meets faculty, students and fans.
“It’s actually amazing,” he said. “People get these ideas of celebrities, and people assume I’m not a talkative person. I consider myself a pretty personable person.”
Aside from his scheduled Ohio tour stops, Cook said he has actually been to the state quite a bit, but not necessarily Northwest Ohio.
“My dad has friends there,” he said. “I went to a summer camp in Ohio. I’ve been to Kings Island and the Idol tour was there.”
Cook said he would likely be bartending if he hadn’t won “American Idol.”
His biggest honor was seeing 11 of his songs debut on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending May 25, 2008. That was the most since The Beatles had 14 songs on the Billboard chart in April 1964.
“Dude, I’m gonna have to get that tattooed on myself,” Cook said. “I think this whole last year has been nuts. I’ll look forward to being able to sit back and process it.”
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