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David Archuleta

Monday, February 23 2009, 06:28 GMT

By Nick Levine, Music Editor

David Archuleta, for those of you don’t enjoy a weekly dose of Paula Abdul, finished second on the last season of American Idol. He’s young, fresh-faced and as wholesome as a flapjack – a bit like Gareth Gates before we found out about Jordan – and his debut single ‘Crush’ has shifted a whopping 1.5m downloads in the US. As he prepares to release it in the UK, we gave David a call to find out more.

What’s your debut single, ‘Crush’, about?
“It’s about not being sure exactly what you feel for someone. You’re like, ‘Is this real, or is it just one of those normal everyday crushes?’ It’s really about the confused emotions that arise in that situation.”

Do you have a crush on anyone famous at the moment?
“I’ve never had a celebrity crush! I don’t believe in those really. I feel like you have to get to know the person before you start to feel anything like that. People always think they know celebrities, but how can you when you’ve never met them? When I was younger, I was never that into anyone in particular. I’d get really into a song but I didn’t know who it was by a lot of the time.”

What can we expect from your album?
“It’s a pop album and it was really fun to work on. With the Idol artists, they really have to rush the album together and that was hard for me because I was still learning about everything. I didn’t really have time to work on my songwriting, but I did manage to get a couple of my own songs on the album. I’m really excited about that.”

How long did you have to make the album? I remember Jordin Sparks saying she’d put hers together in three weeks.
“Yeah, it was three weeks pretty much! I wasn’t able to be that hands on with the whole project because I was on the Idol tour while I was recording. Whenever I had a day off to write and record, I’d try to fit in as much as I could. It means that I recorded the album all over the country though. I recorded in Minnesota, Oklahoma, Indiana, New York, Maryland…”

You’ve recorded a version of Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’ for the album – and you sang it on Idol too. Are you a big fan of that song?
“Yes, I think it’s such a powerful song. It’s probably my favourite song to sing actually. I love Take That and Robbie Williams – I actually really want to learn ‘Rule The World’ by Take That because I love that song too.’”

Take That aren’t that well-known in the States. How did you get into them?
“Well, everyone knows that song ‘Whatever I said, whatever I did, I didn’t mean it…’ but they don’t know anything else. It’s weird. Before American Idol and all this stuff I was obsessed with music charts and I used to go online to find out what was popular in other countries. I’d log on to the BBC website and that’s how I found out about artists like Natasha Bedingfield, Daniel Bedingfield and Take That.”

You got to work with Daniel Bedingfield on the album, didn’t you?
“Yeah, he’s quite the character! He was so genuinely concerned for me since I’m pretty new to the industry and everything was happening so fast. He watched out for me and really wanted to make sure I wasn’t taken advantage of. He really made sure my personality came through on the song we worked on, which I really appreciated.”

You suffered from vocal paralysis when you were younger. What happened?
“I’m not really sure what happened. I was really sick for a few months – I had a really bad case of bronchitis, then I had appendicitis and then they think I caught a virus. I was on a show called Star Search at the time and I could barely get through one song without totally wearing my voice out. The more I was singing, the harder it was getting to talk and even breathe. I went to the doctor and apparently one side of my vocal cords wasn’t moving, which really freaked me out because I was only 13 at the time and I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean.”

Are you fully recovered now?
“I feel like it. I mean, I think it’s helped to give me the sound I have now. I still have a pretty gaspy, wheezy breathing issue but I guess that’s just me now. I had to stop singing for a while because my voice couldn’t handle it and that was really frustrating. But I think it just goes to show that if you love something and really want to do it, it all works out if you keep trying. I really feel like Idol has given me a second chance.”

‘Crush’ by David Archuleta his out now. His self-titled album follows on March 2.

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