Once known as the wide-eyed, pure-voiced teenage sensation who stole America’s heart on American Idol, David Archuleta is no longer interested in playing it safe. Now in his 30s and firmly in charge of his own narrative, David is embracing the complexities of adulthood, queerness, spirituality, and self-expression with a new sense of purpose and Earthly Delights, his upcoming EP, is the soundtrack to that evolution.
The project is a colorful, confident, and sonically adventurous departure from his earlier work. But more than that, it marks a milestone in his personal journey. After years of internal conflict and public silence, Archuleta is finally giving himself permission to feel, to love, to question, to celebrate and to bring all of that into his music without apology.
With a new tour on the horizon, he’s ready to share that growth with fans across the country. We sat down with David to talk about the joy behind Earthly Delights, the freedom in finding your voice, and what it means to show up on stage and in life as your whole self.
I love Earthly Delights. What inspired the title and how does it reflect that your current journey?
The title is based off of this journey…walking away from the religious environment that I grew up in and learning how to look at the world in a different way, in a way that is not as scary.
I think I was taught to be afraid of what the world was and even though the bubble I was in was also the world. It was just teaching me that anything outside of the bubble was the bad world. And so, if I let myself venture too much outside of the bubble, it would be a danger. It would lead to unhappiness and problems.
And you know, of course there were things that led to unhappiness and problems inside the bubble and outside the bubble. So, I think it was just a matter of changing perspective and Earthly Delights is me changing that perspective of, you know what, I’m going to enjoy life for all that it is and not let fear or shame taint what I feel is the best life for me to live.
What themes were important to you and ones that you wanted to explore in the songs on the EP?
I wanted to go through love, romance, flirtiness, sexiness. These were a lot of the earthly delights I was always too afraid to venture into before – at least some of them. And I feel like I really got to explore these topics in a writer’s way and for me, it was just very exciting.
These are such common topics in music that I was like, wow, I can’t believe I haven’t really explored these – especially like the flirty, sexy side of things until now at age 34.
Was there a particular sound or a vibe that you were influenced by that you wanted to kind of replicate in this EP?
Yes. I have a new circle of friends made up of writers in Los Angeles since I moved here and a lot of these songwriters took me under their wing. They have an indie type of singer/songwriter vibe and that influenced, for example, the first song on the EP (“Give You the World”). I was like maybe this will be my new world to live in. I think I was looking too quickly for a specific world because I was used to always being in one specific one before. And then I explored a little bit of the soulful side of singing. I’ve always been a more gospel and R&B influenced singer since I was a teenager, actually since I was 10- years-old.
I’d never really explored it because I was like, well, it doesn’t really make sense for me to sing it, but I’ve always listened to it. I always sing it. I was on this show, The Terrell Show, which features vocalists and the moment that most surprised people is when I started singing gospel because people were like, wait, David, not only do you enjoy singing gospel, you actually sing gospel? And I was like, well, yeah, it’s a part of my essence as a singer. Gospel has a lot of soul into it. I was like, well, I don’t want to sing gospel music right now, but I do love R&B. And so, I wanted to give a little bit of that influence on “Lucky”, for example. So basically, I’m giving myself this chance to explore more themes and even genres that I always held myself back from exploring further before.
What do you hope that people, especially your LGBTQ+ fan base, take away from this project?
Well, I feel like the freedom you know, that was another community. I was like, oh, so is this my new community? Is this one? And of course, the LGBTQ+ community is a new one, but there’s also a very specific aesthetic to the pop culture/gay community and I tried venturing into that a little bit as well with “Crème Brulée.”
I also felt like I don’t think I can be as cookie cutter with this as what seems to work for a lot of other guys who come out as gay or as queer. And I was like, you know, I think my vibe, my style is a little different. So, by figuring out my own lane in the LGBTQ+ community and still being a part of it and thriving in it and being proactive and actively engaged in it, I’m hoping that other people who may feel they don’t fit the cookie cutter look and aesthetic and style and language and way of talking can find a little sense of belonging.
I’ve been out, I’ve been performing at Prides, I’ve been getting a lot of press from the queer magazines and interviews, like articles and social media. But hopefully to show like, yeah, I can be part of that. And sometimes for like special occasions also come into that aesthetic, but also that I’m still myself. And you don’t have to be just one way. You don’t have to just sing dance pop just because you’re gay. Sometimes people expect me to talk a certain way or joke a certain way or act a certain way. I feel like I do adopt a lot of those traits. You adapt to whatever you’re surrounded by. But also, there’s some things about me that are just me and if I try to change or push it anymore, I’m not really being myself and I’m trying to be someone else.
That’s why I wanted to have songs like, “Can I Call You” and “Home” and “Dulce Amor” because I feel like these are queer songs. These are queer love songs, but they’re not really in your face. They’re sexy, but they’re not over hypersexualized and I think a lot of times people expect that out of queer male artists, just because it’s like on-brand. And it’s like, well, what if we expand the brand a little bit to be a little more wholesome at times? I feel like that’s what I’m trying to do, like “Home” for example. It’s a queer love song, and I’m hoping people also see that – especially if they’re straight, if they’re heterosexual – that they can see like, oh my gosh, queer love is not far off from what I experience.
And I think that’s also the point, like, yes, in the queer community, we have our identity and things that help us so that we can find each other and feel a safety in a time when we’ve always had to be on guard or had to protect ourselves or try to fit in and try not to be outcast and rejected and bullied or discriminated against in the end. The essence of being cared for and finding companionship and finding community is the same. That’s a human experience and it’s not really any different whether you are a straight person looking for those same things.
Exactly. I would love a guy to sing “Can I Call You” to me. It’s so universal and it’s really great.
Aw, thank you. I’m so glad. That’s currently my personal favorite song from all this new music. Just because I feel like I hear it and I’m like, there I am. I’m right there – and I can sit into myself a little bit in that song.
You’ve evolved so much during your career, like how would you describe your sound and message today as opposed to when you were just starting out?
When I was young, it’s kind of weird because a lot of the things about myself, I was like, oh well, I must be this because people used to tell me, even like my own peers in high school and in junior high would say, oh, David, you’re so innocent and a little naive. And I was like. What are you talking about? I laugh at the same naughty jokes as you or I might be making some too so I don’t get what you’re saying. But they’re just like, there’s something about you that’s a little more naive.
I was talking to another friend of mine Jordin [Sparks], who’s also an American Idol and I think there is this kind of wholesomeness when you grow up very conservative and shielded from a lot of cultural influences and not taking as many risks – even into adulthood. We’re both in our mid-thirties, but there’s still this like innocence and wholesomeness where sometimes people are just like, oh my gosh. When they see me, I think they’re like, this is so cringe at how naive and wholesome his whole demeanor is.
I’m like, you know what? I don’t really know if there’s anything I can do to change it. I have my sexy songs, I have my flirty era, I have “Crème Brulée”, but in the end I am who I am and a lot of times people in the entertainment industry aren’t really celebrated for that. I think people are like we already live a pretty wholesome normal life. We want to kind of have an escape like Lady Gaga or Doja Cat, where it’s a little wilder and out there. People who are bigger, crazier personalities are more what people want to see out of artists.
So, when they see someone who’s a less wild that I think people are a little turned off by it because they’re like, we want something a little more exciting. Like, come on, use your platform to be a little more daring and risqué and give us somewhere where we can escape from our normal world.
But I think there is a way of like. I am who I am and I think I’m just a little more normal and or a little more average in my life. I do fun stuff. I’ve been going to raves lately and EDM festivals. I wouldn’t say that’s really the average American experience. I mean, it can be but I don’t think it is because people look at that as more risqué. But, I’ve added some elements of that into my shows, into the energy of how I perform.
There are elements that I see of myself that haven’t changed since I was a 17-year-old, even since I was a 10 or 12-year-old, that I’ve just always been who I am but the ways that I have evolved, I feel like I’ve been more daring to just be who I am rather than running away from who I was – especially just being a queer person. That’s not something that has changed other than the fact that I’ve learned to accept myself rather than doing what I’m supposed to by feeling ashamed that that’s who I am and hiding it and trying to change it, I don’t try to do that anymore. You kind of sit in this new confidence in your personality and also as an artist that starts to come out as you learn to do, give yourself space to do that.
You’ve been very open about your faith and your sexuality and your mental health. What inspired you to be so open and so honest with your fans about all those things?
You know, my mom would say sometimes that I’m an oversharer and I don’t know why I am, but for me it feels like I’m alive when I feel seen by other people. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily because I want attention but I just want to connect with people. And the reason I like to write songs and to perform is because you feel a connection with the audience and you feel validated in your experience as a human.
And it also. It’s not just for myself feeling validated. It feels amazing when you see that other people feel validated in your sharing yourself and telling your story and they say, I see myself in that. I feel like it’s one of the most fulfilling experiences. It’s part of why I loved being a missionary. I’m not religious anymore, but I loved it – and I don’t believe what I was teaching before to everyone but I loved being able to just go into some other part of the world.
I went to Chile. I didn’t have cameras on me, I didn’t have social media. I was just going and talking to people, hearing their stories, and talking about how I went through something similar like that and letting people feel seen be just them feeling seen and just having a moment where no one else is watching, but it’s just you two together and it’s about the connection in the end for me. That was just as fulfilling of an experience as being on American Idol was with tens of millions of people watching. There really isn’t a difference in the way it feels to me so I just try to remind myself of that and just keep working hard and pushing myself and connecting to more people, but also not getting into the caught up in needing more in order to be happier and needing more in order to be successful because I kind of experienced that and it’s not the case, even though that’s what the world tells you.
I know you’re taking Earthly Delights on tour. What can we expect in your live shows?
Well, I’ve been incorporating choreography into my shows and I have dancers. They’re small shows, I’m not playing arenas, but I still love to have the energy of dancers in a show and hopefully people can feel this fun, lively energy of dancing. For me like it is, you don’t need to go to a big giant EDM festival to experience the love of feeling energy in upbeat music and in tempo and lights.
I love going into underground raves where it’s downtown and it’s a small bar turned into a dance floor or like a warehouse and people are just in there, kind of crammed in together but just moving to the music and you feel like one. I’m hoping that I can bring a little bit of that into my shows as well as the vocals. I’m a singer by trade, a vocalist, and so there’ll be that as well. It won’t just be a dance party the whole time. It’ll be telling my story and expressing myself emotionally through just the music.
Earthly Delights will be available on August 15, but you can pre-order and pre-save on your favorite streaming services here. Tickets to the Earthly Delights tour are available here. Follow David on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify and at www.davidarchuleta.com.
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