Date of Birth

20 December 1982, Houston, Texas, USA

Birth Name

David Roland Cook

Nickname

Dave
Cooky
Sugarfoot

Height

5' 10" (1.78 m)

Mini Biography

David Cook grew up in Blue Springs, Missouri where he graduated high school then went to Central Missouri State for Graphic Design. He formed a band, Axium, with friends Bobby Kerr and Jeff Shrout, and recorded 3 albums, plus a live album. His band Axium created a great fan base in Kansas City area as well as Tulsa, OK and smaller towns around the country. He plays a white left-handed Gibson guitar that was specially made for him. He had become friends with Andy Skib and Neal Tiemann, lead singer and lead guitarist, respectively of Tulsa-based band, MidWest Kings. After moving to Tulsa after graduating college, he joined MidWest Kings. He released his own album in 2006, Analog Heart which won an UrbanTulsa Weekly award for Indie Album in 2006.

Trivia

• Favorite quote is "Pain don't hurt", from the Patrick Swayze movie, Road House (1989).
• Is not related to Kristy Lee Cook.
• Refers to himself as a "word nerd" owing to his love of word puzzles.
• The initials "AC" stand for his brother's names Andrew Cook and Adam Cook. David uses them for good luck.
• Had no intention of trying out for American Idol but at his brother Andrew's insistence he tried out and made it to the final two with David Archuleta.
• Won American Idol (2002) by 12 million votes.
• Was a bartender in Tulsa, Oklahoma when he tried out for American Idol (2002).
• David's brother passed away at 11:52pm Eastern, May 2, 2009. David was scheduled to fly to Washington D.C., to be a part of the Race For Hope-D.C., a fund raiser for research and development of a cure for brain cancer on May 3, 2009. David participated in the race as a tribute to Adam.
• Had a specially made white Luna Apollo Electric Guitar.
• While in college, he was a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.
• He began singing in second grade, when his elementary school music teacher gave him a solo in a school choir performance.
• Music video for first song "Light On" debuted on VH1's Top 20 Countdown at #1 in its first week of voting.
• Video for "Light On" placed number #28 on VH1's Top 40 Videos of 2008.
• Best friend on American Idol (2002) was Michael Johns. They did different types of dances on the American Idols LIVE! Tour during the final number, which resulted in a lot of attention from the fans, who dubbed them "Mavid".
• Has a dog named Dublin.
• Asked out American Idol (2002), Season 2 alum, Kimberly Caldwell, while on the red carpet, before the show's seventh season finale, after hearing she liked him. They dated until they broke up before the holidays. Rumors emerged saying she cheated on him, however, Kimberly has denied it, and her rep has confirmed that they are still friends.
• Is the first Midwestern and first rocker to win American Idol.
• Axium was named one of the top 15 independent bands in the country in the "Got Milk?" independent band contest. Axium also was chosen as the best band in Kansas City in 2004.
• One of Axium's songs, "Hold", from their "Blindsided" CD was picked up by AMC Theatres Movie Tunes and was played nationwide on over 20,000 screens prior to the movie previews.
• David formed a band in his junior year of high school called Axium. They recorded 3 albums - "Matter of Time" (2002), "Blindsided" (2003), "The Story Thus Far" (2004), and 4 live CDs, "Cain's Ballroom Recordings" (2003), "Live @ Fishbonz" (2004), "Alive in Tulsa @ The Venue" (2004) and "Welcome to the Funeral" (live, 2006).
• On May 21, 2009, David performed the song "Permanent" from his self titled, major label debut CD on the Season 8 American Idol finale. The audio of that performance was sold as a download on Itunes, with 100% of the proceeds being donated to Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2).
• Had eleven songs entered in the Billboard Hot 100 and fourteen songs on the Hot Digital Songs lists. His eleven songs on the Hot 100 chart are the most songs in a week by any artist in the Nielsen Music era.
• Holds the record for most downloaded song from American Idol (2002). His song, "Time of My Life", has been downloaded more than 300,000 times.

Quotes

• If you can't feel thousands of people screaming for you, then you're in the wrong business.
• I'd feel the exact same as I feel today: that I'm just a goof who got lucky.
• I think marriage is a long way off for me. I'm 25 years old and I've got the world to learn. But I think eventually I would love to settle down and have a family and bring some kids into the world. Time will tell.
• At the last minute I decided to do it. Andrew and I were in the same group of four for the first audition and he didn't make the cut. It was very awkward. I turned to him and said, 'Is this something you want me to do? Because if you don't, I won't.' And his response was, 'If you don't, I'll beat your ass.' So it's entirely his and my mother's fault that this happened to me, and I'm very grateful.
• The difference between David Cook now and David Cook a year ago is...shorter hair. It's interesting. There's a lot of ancillary things surrounding me that are extremely different. My mom and my brother still make fun of me on a routine basis, so not much has changed.
• [About the American Idols LIVE! Tour 2008]: This tour is interesting because there's something for everybody. We've got country, we've got R&B, we've got rock, we've got Michael Johns and his mustache. It's all...well, everything except the mustache is a plus.