First I gotta than Kristen the promotions coordinator at MIX 98.5. for allowing me to hang out at the breakfast! The peeps at MIX were all really cool. Lander, the morning guy did not poke his head into the MIX lounge, (he’s like OZ says Kristen, ha ha) But, Fast Freddie, the guy who does gossip did come into the lounge for a bit. I promised him I’d send him any scoop I found it. Heh.
I just edited this paragraph to add info and fix typos! First things first: Here’s the information I managed to get from David and his Dad: There is a song that David wrote completely on his own for the album. It’s called “Falling” and it’s a bonus track on the iTunes deluxe version. He wrote the song when he was 14 years old. David wrote non-stop the two weeks before the album deadline, because he and Jeff felt there weren’t enough good tracks to choose from for the album. He wrote about 8 songs, four of them are on the album. He wrote the bonus track for the Wal-mart edition with Daniel Bedingfield. It’s an acoustic number, and the “heaviest” on the album. He also wrote “Don’t Let Go” with JC Chasez and “A Little Too Not Over You” with Matt Girard and Robbie Neville.
Check out my pictures and read my account of the morning after the JUMP…
When I arrived at the studio, there was no crowd waiting outside the building for David like at some of the other radio station events. Once inside, the fans invited to the event were milling about. They were mostly teens and their moms. Skipping school to see David Archuleta! Interesting, none of them are on the internet. Nobody I talked to knew that David’s album was available for pre-order on iTunes or that a full version of “Angels” was available for download. Most of these kids know “Crush” because it’s on the radio, but are pretty unaware of everything else going on with him. When I said, “his album is available for pre-order, ” nobody appeared to be chomping at the bit to order it. They will probably buy his album when it’s available. Here’s a pic of some of the kids I met.
We waited around in the lobby for awhile before we were ushered into the MIX lounge. Breakfast from Panera was waiting for us. Yum. The original plan was for David to do his interview first, and then come back to meet the fans. But, he was stuck in traffic trying to get across town from the other radio station. He finally arrived:
And it turned out that David didn’t arrive in time to do a live interview, so he came out to have breakfast with the fans first. He sat up front, and it was so funny, because it was very quiet at first, so I asked the first question, about “Falling”–he mentioned that it was “only” a bonus track, then I thanked him for bringing peace to my blog–that his friendship with Cook helped bring all the fans together. Ha ha. I also mentioned that his pre-order had hit #6 on iTunes and he didn’t seem to be aware of that. He was all “Cool!”
He turned to talk to another fan and said, I think I have something in my teeth. After the fan left, he turned to me and said, “Do I have something in my teeth?” He squinted his eyes and grinned so I could inspect. Heh. David is so random, and so funny. No, he didn’t have anything in his teeth. David also sings to himself. All the time. When he’s signing autographs, when he’s answering questions…I mean all the time! Also, according to Kristen, when he walked into the building, he saw pictures of Jason Mraz and John Mayer from past MixFests on the wall and he got really excited.
David signed a picture for me, and he asked me my name, I said “MJ” and Jeff Archuleta was standing there, and said, “You’re MJ? I want to talk to you!” And I was all “Ruh Roh!” By this time, the kids got over their shyness and approached the table for autographs, it got crowded, so I retreated to the back to talk to Jeff and that’s when he told me about the cuts on the album and the songs David wrote right before deadline. Anyway, he said that he found me last November when I was posting spoilers from IDF, and that I introduced him to the wonderful world of AI online. Ha. He said he found the information useful, and didn’t mind at all that I spoiled David. He also was OK with the fact that I criticized David during the competition, and that he realizes that’s “part of the business.”
One other thing he made a point of telling me (probably because I criticized David’s penchant for ballads during the show) that David sang mostly ballads because he couldn’t hear himself during the faster numbers like “Shop Around”. They allowed the kids to wear in-ear monitors, but only for a couple of weeks.
So I pulled myself away from Jeff to snap some more pictures of David:
Jeff also said that album is “very mature” and has a variety of styles on it, and that people will be “blown away”. Towards the end of the breakfast, some of the staff came in to talk to David and take pictures, including Fast Freddie, and the music director and a few other people. Right before David left, he grabbed some breakfast for himself. He says there are no Paneras in Utah.
Here are some more random pictures:
Kristen, the promotions director was gushing. She said David was one of the nicest people she’s ever met.
Afterward, David left to record his interview. You’ll be able to hear it live tomorrow at the MIX 98.5 website
