Whatever Happened To David Cook From American Idol?

After winning Season 7 of American Idol in 2008, David Cook released a self-titled album that went platinum. And that was just the start of his music career. Since then, you may not have heard much about him, but it's not because his career has plummeted. There are actually quite a few reasons why, over the last ten-plus years, Cook has faded away from the mainstream.

Firstly, Cook didn't take the fame of winning Idol lightly, and it's a responsibility he still struggles to balance today. "It's a constant push and pull," he said during a September interview on the Bringin' it Backwards podcast, referring to navigating celebrity. Still, after touring his first album, he jumped right into a second, This Loud Morning, which took him through the sudden loss of his brother to a brain tumor. When his brother died, Cook said he made the "wrong choice" to continue working and performing. "I didn't really give myself any time to process that, because he was and still is, really a big part of my life," he explained on the podcast. In turn,"the energy on [This Loud Morning] was a little more of a mixed bag," he said.

After that, Cook took a much needed break, found hope in therapy, and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder — something that he'd been battling for years. His fourth studio album, Digital Vein, started as an experiment. He wanted to dip his toes back into music to see if he could still do it.

In 2020, David Cook released two singles, "Red Turns Blue" and "Strange World," which will both be on his upcoming EP. In the podcast interview, he explained that "Red Turns Blue' was "written as a letter from my anxiety to me." After it was recorded, he had this "weird freeing moment," he said. "I felt lighter somehow." He wrote that track in October 2019, and the rest was written mid-coronavirus lockdown. There's not an official release date for the album just yet, but it is available for preorder.

Obviously, live performance events have been halted due to the pandemic, and Cook misses them as much as the next musician. So he's been holding virtual concerts via StageIt to scratch the proverbial itch. "It's not a substitute for the real thing at all, but it's fun," he said. In March 2021, if all goes well, he and fellow American Idol star Kris Allen will tour in Europe, co-headlining a show called Dave & Kris Go to Europe.