What David found out about himself

MANILA, Philippines — Six years after his last visit to the Philippines, US singer David Archuleta is back for a concert at the Kia Theater in Cubao, tomorrow, Oct. 20, 8 p.m.

The concert also coincides with the release of former American Idol runner-up’s newest album titled Postcards In The Sky, the fruit of his two-year hiatus from the music industry.

In a presscon yesterday, hosted by concert producer Ovation Productions, David said that the album is all about what he found about himself after he took a lengthy break from his singing career to become a Mormon missionary.

“I really felt like I needed to remind myself why I was doing music in the first place because I kinda felt like I lost why I wanted to do this. I was so caught up in trying to please everybody, the record label, my management, the lawyers, the fans, the family, that… I forgot why I love to sing,” said the 26-year-old crooner, who entered the music business at the tender age of 16 through Season 7 of the hit reality TV talent search 10 years ago.

David described those two years of being away as “all about thinking how I could bring people to God, just build my relationship with Him and just serve people — if they needed their walls painted, or they needed to build their homes, or they needed help with their groceries, if they were teaching people how to pray.

“I found myself by not focusing on myself at all. I wasn’t worried about how many likes I was getting on Facebook or Instagram. I wasn’t worried about: Am I making my goals for the business? It wasn’t anything about that, it was just about giving.”

When David came back from the mission in 2014, he had difficulty finding the motivation to keep on singing. It took time for him to find that spark again. “I really had to take the time and think why am I here in the first place: Is it to make others happy?”

All those thoughts are translated into Numb, the first single he released from the album. “It’s like, I don’t know if this is really what I should be doing but I’m going to take a second chance, anyway. But I don’t want to go back to what I was before. Even if there was a sold-out crowd, or I was performing next to these big-name artists and people were screaming (my) name… even with all that going on, I was asking myself, why am I feeling empty? And I’m looking at other musicians, they’re feeling empty, too.

According to David, he needed to discover that there’s another reason why he loves performing other than just wanting attention or fame. “I needed to have another purpose. I needed to know how to give. I needed to help people connect to what I was connecting to on my mission and since then. And that’s really just a relationship with God or relationship with other people… and learning to speak up because I never spoke up before.

“I dealt with a lot of abuse emotionally, and I decided that I needed to open up about that… I thought, who else might be dealing with not feeling good enough? Or who else is feeling emotional or even physical abuse? And they don’t know how to get out of it or speak up for themselves. I felt that I needed to give them a voice.”

That’s what Postcards In The Sky is all about, David said, just “putting them all out there and having the faith that you will be heard.”

He also hopes that people who will listen to his new music will feel that the songs have helped them.

Postcards In The Sky will also show that he’s a big advocate of mental health and a believer that one can overcome issues related to it.

Mental health has “definitely inspired the new album,” David admitted. “I was trying to understand my own anxiety, my own issues that I had like bullying and abuse, and also people who are close to me who have depression, anxiety and schizophrenia ­— things that make people go, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about that because that would make me a bad person.’ It doesn’t make you a bad person because you didn’t choose to be like that and to struggle with something like that.”

He continued, “It doesn’t have to define you…. You know who you are. And even if you have to struggle with a lot of things, a lot of voices, a lot of emotions you have to understand… I’m a big believer that there’s still this small voice in us, this quiet voice, that is always guiding us, that’s saying keep going.”

The singer also stressed that it’s very important to take the time and effort to understand people that “you don’t understand what they’re going through.”

David will perform Numb and other inspiring new songs from Postcards In The Sky in tomorrow’s show, as well as his old hits and singles from the OPM album he recorded the last time he was in the country. These include his favorite Pinoy song Forevermore, which he said he even sings in the US.

The presscon was graced by fans from other countries as well, including Salamahafifi Yusnaieny, a Malaysian who formed a David Archuleta fans club in 2008 when she was working in Singapore.

She told The STAR that she’s been a loyal fan of David because of who he is as a person. “It’s no longer just about his music. He’s been consistent, like you’ve never heard of him getting involved in scandals. His music is what we need. He’s a role model.”