Nice guy David Archuleta is having a whirlwind year
By John J. Moser | Of The Morning Call


"American Idol" runner-up David Archuleta is so nice and polite that even asking him if he's truly as nice and polite as he seems flusters him.

"Oh! What do you mean?" he says, laughing, in a telephone call last week from Los Angeles, where he was preparing for his first solo tour, which Sunday brings him to Allentown's Crocodile Rock.

"That's an awkward question. I guess so. I guess that's just the way my parents just raised me, I don't know. I guess that is the way I act. I try to be nice to people, especially if it's the first time you're meeting them or the only time you're meeting them, the first impression really matters to them."

Archuleta also is so nice that he answered the question most of you reading this wanted to know: He doesn't have a girlfriend and, in fact, a month past his 18th birthday, hasn't even had his first kiss.

"Yeah, I'm not really involved a whole lot with girls right now," he says, laughing again. "There's not really even time to watch TV or anything, so why get a girl in your life when that can make things even more complicated? I think it's just about waiting for the right time, 'cause I think there are other things that I should be focusing on right now."

So the boyish crooner doesn't have a girlfriend -- but here's what he does have: a self-titled album on Jive Records -- the home of Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown -- that debuted at No. 2 and has gone gold. He has a double-platinum hit single, "Crush," that was the highest-ever debut for an "Idol" song not performed on the series and the highest debut in 2008, and a new song, "A Little Too Not Over You," climbing the charts (No. 52 this week). He's also had a recent appearance on Nickelodeon's hit TV show "iCarly."

Not bad for finishing behind David Cook last May by a margin of 12 million votes out of the record 97.5 million cast.

But suggest to Archuleta that, with his spot-on tenor, he is more talented than Cook, and his modesty flares again.

"Oh no!" he says, laughing again. "I thought Cook deserved to win. I thought he was a great example of an American Idol, because it's not just about the singing and stuff -- I think it's about the person, too, and I think he's just a great guy."

Archuleta says life is great anyway: He's happy with his album, especially since it was cobbled together while he was on the road with the "Idol" tour.

"That wasn't like a whole lot of time, especially because I wasn't ever in one spot for very long, having a show almost every day for three months," he says. "But it was interesting, that's for sure, and definitely not the way I expected to work on my first album. I thought, [in a singsong voice] 'Oh, you know, I'm going to take my time and try and write songs for the year and see which ones are good.' But there was like no time to do any of that kind of stuff, so it was pretty crazy. But it was fun."

He also got to work with hit producers and writers Andreas Carlsson, Desmond Child, new "Idol" judge Kara DioGuardi and former 'N Sync member J.C. Chasez. He also co-wrote a couple of songs on the disc, as well as a pre-order song and some B-sides.

"All the songs, the writers I worked with were really cool because they all were concerned about just me getting the most out of it," he says.

Archuleta says fame also has meant he's missed a few things. A high school senior from Murray, Utah, he likely won't be home for the graduation ceremony. "I haven't graduated yet, so I don't know if I missed it," he says. "But I'm missing out on all of what my friends are doing and stuff."

Asked whether he got to go to his prom, he answers in a dejected voice, "No, I didn't." But he laughingly describes how he sneaked back to a dance last month.

"That was fun," he says. "I kept it really under wraps. Everyone was pretty much my age ... It's the other kids, it's the sophomores this year that I didn't meet before this whole thing happened, they're the ones who freak out, kinda, 'cause they didn't know me before."