NOTE: For those of you who missed the story in Friday’s PD, here you go…

By BILL PINELLA
HE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Dates chronicle the ups, downs and sideways of everyone’s life story. Try these four on for size in singer David Cook’s journey:

May 21, 2008: He is announced as the Season 7 winner of “American Idol.”

Nov. 18, 2008: He releases his initial post-Idol debut record — “David Cook” — and it eventually goes platinum in sales.

May 2, 2009: His older brother, Adam, dies after a long battle with brain cancer.

June 28, 2011: He finally releases his second record, entitled “This Loud Morning.”

Cook, who will perform at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts on Oct. 20 along with Gavin DeGraw, knows those dates will forever be included in his biography. He also knows that the nearly three-year span between records was both good and bad as far as a career move. Was it too long?

“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles. “Maybe in the context of coming out of the gate all guns blazing, sure it was. But I don’t think I could have made this record any other way. I think this record needed to take this long and this is the record I wanted to make. The record I wanted to put out.

“Absolutely it was emotional for me. All these awesome things, and I say awesome in terms of massive … things like, I mean, I started my first band when I was 15, and in the last three years I had my first platinum record and the journey to get to that point ….I think back on it now … Jesus, if I had been smart at that time I probably wouldn’t have continued. Thank God I had blinders on. But the awful thing was my brother passing away. I was on the road with my first major label record and I didn’t want to shortchange that. So I took all those experiences, and I kinda shelved them.

“I got off the road and immediately went into writing another record and all of a sudden those things came back up. I was emotionally all over the place.

“And ideally, I don’t have any intentions of taking another three years to put out another record. It just depends on what this record does and where my head’s at. All sorts of factors that at this juncture are out of my control.”

Sales haven’t exactly skyrocketed since the record’s release. But that seems to be secondary to him.

“Yes, I think that’s an accurate way to say it,” he said. “Much to my management’s chagrin I have consistently said I would rather put out a record that I have my heart behind than a top-selling copy that I can’t stand and it sells 10 million copies.

“I’m happy with the album because it’s … well, somebody out there found something in that record and they bought it and they are listening to it. I’m good. I’m in a good head space right now.”

Cook’s 22-city tour with DeGraw kicked off this week at Penn State University and the stop here will be concert No. 8.

They will split the headliner spot during the tour.

Gavin and I met early in the first record’s life cycle. We were doing a Christmas show, I believe in Orlando, and a radio thing brought us together. He’s a good dude, has good vibes and good energy,” the 29-year-old Cook said.

Cook will be the third Idol winner (Kris Allen and Lee DeWyze were the other two) to perform here in the past two years.

Does he still watch the “American Idol”?

“One of the positives of being in one place working on this record was that I was able to catch Idol this year,” he said. “It was a good year. I thought there was a lot of talent. Now I’m interested to see how they (top finishers) parlay it into doing their own thing and putting out records.”

IN CONCERT

Who: David Cook and Gavin DeGraw with Carolina Liar

When: 8 p.m. Oct. 20

Where: Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Highway 101 at River Road, Santa Rosa

Cost: Tickets: $45 and $35

Information: 546-3600; wellsfargocenterarts.org