Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 - PURE BEGINNINGS
CHAPTER 2 - HIT WITH INSPIRATION
CHAPTER 3 - SCHOOL OF AMERICAN IDOL
CHAPTER 4 - BUMPS IN THE ROAD
CHAPTER 5 - HOPE RISES
CHAPTER 6 - CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
CHAPTER 7 - STEPPING IT UP
CHAPTER 8 - DIVINE FREQUENCY
CHAPTER 9 - THE JOY IN SOUND
CHAPTER 10 - STAYING TRUE
CHAPTER 11 - DREAMING ON
MUSICAL APPENDIX
Acknowledgements
Celebra
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Published by Celebra, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, June 2010
Copyright © David Archuleta, 2010
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CELEBRA and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Archuleta, David, 1990-
Chords of strength: a memoir of soul, song, and the power of perseverance/David Archuleta. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-43458-1
1. Archuleta, David, 1990- 2. Singers—United States—Biography. I. Haim, Monica. II. Title.
ML420.A738A3 2010
782.42164092—dc22
2009053837
[B]
Set in ITC Giovanni
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To anyone who believes in the power of a dream
and all the possibilities . . .
“I have no idea why I’m doing this,
but I know I need to be doing it for
some reason.”
INTRODUCTION
That was the last entry in my old journal, which I wrote during American Idol auditions. I was finally home for the holidays in 2008, hanging out with a friend and going through a bunch of my old stuff when I came across my old journal. I had written on and off over the previous several years about school and friends, and questions about the future and what I was going to do with my life. There was a gap of several months between my last two entries, and the very last one was right before I went to Hollywood the week of American Idol’s seventh season.
It was November of 2007 when I was still sixteen and in my junior year at Murray High. I had written about how nervous I was to be auditioning for the show and quite sure it wouldn’t be too long until I would be booted off and back home and I really had no expectation about what might happen next.
No one can see your life the way you see it.
As I read and thought about the events since that last time I had written in my journal, I was a little disappointed with myself. I thought about how I was the only person who really knew my side of the story, of how I really felt when all of this was going on. I saw that back then I was writing about music quite a bit and saying that I really wanted to do something with music but I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to do it. It really amazed me when I thought back and tried to put myself back into the state of mind I was in when I had written each entry, and kept thinking, “Wow, you had no idea what was going to happen in the next few years, couple of years, or next year,” depending on when the entry was made. I felt bad that I hadn’t written down more of what I went through, especially because I hadn’t written anything at all during the entire 2008 year while I was on American Idol, or the following Top 10 tour and the events surrounding the recording of my first single and making of my first album, all life changing events.
So I made the decision right there in my room that I would make a New Year’s resolution to write in my journal at least once a week from then on, even though I thought there was no way I’d be able to keep it going because I hated writing, which is why I couldn’t keep it up with that old journal in the first place. Then I thought, I get interviewed all the time and several of my incredibly amazing fans have made very detailed scrapbooks about my life. Did I want to rely on everyone else to tell my story of how I started, where I came from and who I am? People were keeping track of me, but no one really had my own story. No one knew what was going on in my mind before people knew my name. I was thinking, man, when I have my kids in the future, I don’t want them to rely on what everyone else thought about me. While I hope that people think good things about me and that I left a good name for my family and myself, I want them to hear my story from me in my own words. No one can see your life the way you see it. Not only did I realize at that point the importance of writing in my journal, but also, like I did with singing, how important it is to share it with the most important people in my life: my family, friends and my fans.
So that is the long explanation of why I said yes when I was asked to write a book. Writing in my journal has helped me more than almost anything else I’ve been doing because it has helped me organize my thoughts and understand what is most important to me, and to think about how I can make sure I keep on track with my personal priorities.
I would have never imagined just over two years ago that I would be recording albums, touring all over the world, writing a book, speaking in front of youth groups and other large audiences, raising awareness for several worthy causes; things that I never believed I would be able to do, let alone have the courage to do them. I remember thinking about when I was too shy, and I hated the sound of my voice, and when doctors told me I might not ever be able to sing again. Back then I was ready to make music a hobby and think about becoming a dentist or a doctor. There I was a few years later, and a world away, reading that journal and first thinking, Wow! I can’t believe I’m actually doing
what I dreamed about, and then some.
I had to overcome many fears to do almost anything I do in public today including singing, speaking in public and, now, having to write a book. When I started singing, as much as I loved it, I had serious issues with my own voice. Even when people would tell me I had a nice voice, I thought they were just being nice because I was a little kid. If someone were to record it and play it back, I would freak out and run out of the room because I couldn’t stand my voice. I hated it! I thought I sounded so strange. But I knew one thing: I still loved singing so much that I loved the way it made me feel more than I hated listening to myself, if that makes sense.
I remember the first talent show I did was the Utah Talent Competition when I was ten. I was so afraid to go onstage. I couldn’t believe I was doing it. I kept asking, “Why am I doing this?” While I was backstage, I had a panic attack. I was hyperventilating. I remember everyone backstage saying, “You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.” It was embarrassing! Five minutes before I had to go on, I said to myself I could do it, and I just got up there and sang. I ended up winning the kid’s division. I just couldn’t believe it. The audience was so supportive. I think they realized how scared and nervous I was because I was shaking so much. That was the first time I had overcome my fear of singing in such a big way that I started to realize how many great things could happen by confronting the things that scare you most.
Sometimes you have to face your fears. Even though I used to fear singing, I went ahead and put myself out there until I started to gain confidence and gradually my fear went away. Same with speaking. I used to dread doing interviews and having to answer questions, and definitely would have never thought I could speak in front of a large crowd of people. I know it was something I needed to face head-on.
This book is supposed to be about persevering and following your dreams, so I ask myself, “What does it mean to follow your dreams?” Well, it’s your desire to accomplish something that you really want to do even if it seems difficult. It’s, “Well, that something will probably only ever exist in my dreams. That can never happen in reality.” But then it’s like “Well, why not! I mean, if it’s something you really have a desire to do and you feel like it’s a good thing, it may seem difficult to do, but you just have to take those first little steps.”
I ran cross country for my high school track team when I was in ninth and tenth grades, but during and after Idol and touring, I got out of my running routine. So one thing I told myself was that when I got home from tour, I needed to start running again. It was always those moments when my alarm was blaring at me at seven a.m., and I was still dead tired and just didn’t feel like getting up that I would notice a little light coming into my room and even though I felt so warm and cozy in my bed, I’d tell myself, “David, if you don’t get up, you’ll be disappointing yourself. You’ll be lying to yourself. You need to get up.”
And after a few minutes of internal struggle, I’d get up. And I’d force myself to stretch and go outside and run and once I was running, I wondered why it was so hard to get going in the first place, when the air felt so fresh and my mind was free to think and wonder and figure out what was going on in that spacey head of mine.
That’s one of the things I’ve learned so far in my just over nineteen years. If you want to get better at something, you need to start in the first place even when you don’t feel like it and sometimes you need to trust those around you because they may see something in you that you can’t see. You need to have a little bit of trust, and a little bit of faith. You also have to decide what the first step is and then stick to it. It’s like “Oh well, there’s no guarantee I’ll ever be good at that” or “I’m just not very good. Why would I think I can actually get better?” and so it’s easier to just avoid doing it and try to rationalize it away—kind of like how I have felt about trying to write a book when I have never imagined doing something like this before.
So here I am struggling away trying to write out these pages and you’re all my witnesses that I am trying to overcome something here that is terrifying to me, and I hope I’m able to share something that will be of value to you in some way as you are reading this. It really can be difficult to take that first step sometimes because we’re fighting this current of fear that’s pushing us back. If you really have the desire, if you feel like “Yes, I want to do that,” even if it is a hard path to take, even if it has a lot of resistance with big hills and rocks and trees and you can get scratches, and you can trip and fall, and you can get hurt. I think that’s what makes us grow the most. It’s like when you exercise: The more you do it, the stronger you feel and the easier it gets. And even the soreness the next day really feels great! It’s working through the resistance that makes us learn in our lives. So when you get to the end of the path, you have all those bruises and cuts and you can see that you had a difficult time getting to where you are now; but at the same time, you can say, “You know what? I was willing to take that path even if it wasn’t the easiest path to take and look where I am now compared to where I was before I started!”
You just have to trust yourself. You have to trust in God. You have to decide, “Yes, I want to do this,” and then you have to have the faith and courage to do it. And that’s what I want to say here.
My road has definitely come with many bumps and bruises. I had been on Star Search when I was twelve and was invited back a year later for what would be the show’s final season. After a series of health issues, I was diagnosed with vocal paralysis. Surgery was one option, but it could ruin my voice forever and therapy was the only other option, but with no guarantees. I thought this might be the end of singing for me. Therapy would take one to two years. I couldn’t even get through a couple of songs. How was I supposed to be a singer? I went back to my regular life as a teenager and put singing on the back burner. I later got a job and started moving past my dream until American Idol auditions came back around. All of my friends and family encouraged me to do it and I thought they were all crazy. Then I thought, “Maybe I should?” As soon as the possibility crept into my head I couldn’t get it out. Maybe it was a good idea, but maybe not. I just wasn’t sure. I knew only one thing to do, pray. I believed in prayer, but wasn’t sure it was appropriate to pray about whether God would care about me wanting to try out for a TV show, but I figured, why not? I knew I had to ask, so I did. And I got an answer. It was: Yes, I should do it.
So I knew that it was something that was right for me to do and I figured, “Even if I don’t get past the first round, it couldn’t hurt. I’m sure it would be fun and maybe I would learn something from it.” I realized that even though I wasn’t very confident that I could do it, I knew my family, my friends, and God were behind me. For me, that was enough to keep myself moving forward. My family and friends have always inspired me and supported me to become more than I believed I was capable of.
Right now, I feel so fortunate and blessed to be doing what I am doing with my life. You could say I am living my dream in many ways, but I still look forward to all the new experiences and challenges that lie ahead. In just the last few months I have had some incredible opportunities, which I could have never imagined just a few short years ago. It is hard to believe I am in the middle of working on my third album, and was able to visit Asia, the UK and tour most of the United States throughout last year. I was able to record a Christmas album, which meant so much to me, and then go on a Christmas tour, and even had the privilege of performing with a full orchestra playing new arrangements of both my pop and Christmas songs. I have been able to help with the Haiti Disaster Relief telethon in Hollywood as well as the Spanish language version of “We Are the World” project in Miami—so many other events that I can’t begin to list them all. And best of all, I’ve been able to meet some incredible people along the way from so many different states and countries, and all of this doing something that I love so much, getting to share the gift of music!
I have been so
fortunate to have been encouraged and inspired throughout my life by people who cared enough about me to be there when I doubted my own abilities, and I’ve learned that when I exercise some faith and take the first steps, that usually, somehow, things seem to work out. I hope that through this book as I share some of my experiences and challenges that I’ve faced, that you can perhaps feel the desire and belief that you can also overcome your fears and go after your dreams.
CHAPTER 1
PURE BEGINNINGS
“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
—J. K. ROWLING
I spent the first six years of my life in Florida. Maybe that’s why I like warm weather better. It was a sticky heat, filling my childhood with scurrying lizards and duck-egg hunts. My sis-scurrying lizards and duck-egg hunts. My sister Claudia and I used to poke around the yard of our first townhome, looking for duck eggs to raise as our own; they never hatched for some reason. But before I go into details about my own story, I would like to tell you about my roots and some of the influences that have helped make me who I am today. Before there was music or singing, before there was faith, before there was anything that ever mattered to me deeply, there was always my family. They were and are my anchor, my roots, the base of everything that I am and everything that I aspire to be. Without them, my story would be meaningless, because at the end of it all (or at the beginning of it all, I should say), it is family that matters most.
I was born in North Miami, Florida, the second of five kids. We lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in Hialeah, Florida, a city mostly made up of Cubans, which made for a very Latin environment, with lots of salsa and Spanish-language music floating all around our home. Music was always playing in our house: nineties pop music, salsa, jazz, church music, Christmas music, Kansas and seventies rock, and all kinds of different wonderful music that brought a sense of joy and celebration to our everyday lives. Songs and melodies were always a part of our routine, whether it was for fun, for a special occasion or for anything else that might come up. We would always find opportunities to sing together, whether just for family and relatives, caroling to all the neighbors during the holidays or visiting the elderly. It was a way that we felt we could share our love for family, God and others. To us, music and spirituality always went hand in hand in our home, and our family was largely shaped by the way we would combine the two.