Season seven American Idol winner David Cook is back on tour and making a stop at District Live on Sat., Oct 22.
According to the multi platinum-selling rock singer-songwriter, his love for music goes way back to his childhood and although he grew up singing and playing in bands, auditioning for Idol was never his intention.
“I had been in bands and stuff and touring regionally in the Midwest 10 years before Idol,” Cook said. “I was living in Oklahoma at the time and my little brother Andrew had wanted to audition for Idol for years and finally the auditions came close enough. So, I went to the audition with my brother and my mom and got talked into auditioning as we were standing in line to register.”
After nailing his spur of the moment audition, Cook landed a spot on the singing competition series and eventually went on to win the entire season. Since then, the acclaimed rocker has charted on the Billboard Hot 100 with his hits “The Time of My Life,” “Light On,” and “Come Back to Me,” and he’s released four albums, three EPs, and also starred on Broadway.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to travel the world and play music which is a pretty great gig,” he said. “And my definition of success in music has very much been a living, breathing thing. But my definition of it before the craziness of Idol is miles different from what it is now really.”
This past April, Cook released his latest single, “TABOS,” an acronym he says stands for ‘this will all be over soon.’” He explained the inspiration behind his song.
“I watched this kind of actors’ roundtable thing online and it was Robert DeNiro, Tom Hanks, Adam Driver, and Jamie Foxx and they were all talking about their process and their experience in the industry,” Cook noted. “Tom Hanks talked about how his mantra is ‘just wait…things are going really great, just wait…things are going really terrible, just wait.’ I really sort of found something in that mantra and my version of it is ‘this will all be over soon.’ It sounds like a downer, but it’s really a positive message.”
Cook added that in addition to finding songwriting inspirations from outside sources, he uses various methods to get his creative juices flowing.
“How I write each song varies every time…sometimes it’s a melody that pops into my head and it’s like ‘okay what lyrics fit that melody,’” he said. “Sometimes it’s a musical idea and I’ll go down into my studio and record kind of a basic music bed of drums, bass guitar, piano, etc and figure out the melody from there. Or sometimes I’ll have a lyric and it trickles from there.”
Currently on the road with a full setlist ready to perform, Cook stated that each of his shows will vary, featuring a mix of fan favorites and new music including his latest single “TABOS.”
“We just try to make each show communal and make it a unique experience,” he said. “Some of my favorite concerts are the ones where I walked away feeling like ‘man I got to experience something that nobody else is going to get to experience going to that artists show.’” I want each show to feel like its own ecosystem and that’s very important to me. It’s my way of saying thank you to my fans for all of the years of support.”
David Cook will perform at District Live on Sat., Oct. 22 at 8 p.m. For more information or to purchase tickets visit ticketmaster.com
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2022.