Danny Gokey finished third on the recently completed season eight of TV’s “American Idol.” He was voted off of the show in the next-to-last episode, leaving Adam Lambert and Kris Allen to battle it out for the title on the season finale.
So, it might seem as if Gokey was never really a central part of the conversation about who would win this past season.
But Gokey he suspects he was much closer to winning it all than many people assume. While most observers (not to mention the “Idol” judges) expected Lambert — with his big voice, flashy goth clothes and makeup and his strong stage presence — to win easily, Gokey thinks his main competition was Allen, whose smoother mainstream pop sound and boy-next-door image carried him to the upset win over Lambert.
Had he beaten out Allen to reach the finals, Gokey thinks he might well be wearing the “Idol” crown.
“When I got voted off, I think me and Kris kind of tended to draw from the same crowd,” Gokey said in a late-June phone interview. “So if I wouldn’t have gotten voted off, and he got voted off, I think our fan bases probably would have voted for each other (over Lambert).”
Still, it’s not as if the ending has been all bad for Gokey. He has a featured slot on the current “American Idols Live” tour, singing a four-song solo set. That’s generous compared with the stage time everyone but Lambert and Allen will receive.
And in some ways, Gokey seems to be getting nearly as much attention as Allen. Even though Allen was the champion, there’s little doubt that most eyes are focused on Lambert in the aftermath of season eight.
It was Lambert, after all, who landed on the cover of “Rolling Stone” magazine in the wake of the season finale (with an article in which he confirmed, after plenty of speculation, that he is gay). There also seems to be considerably more anticipation for Lambert’s first CD, which it appears will include producer RedOne (who produced Lady Ga Ga’s hits “Poker Face” and “Love Game”) in a featured role.
Gokey said he has no problems with the attention Lambert is receiving.
“I don’t mind that at all,” he said. “That’s like his thing. He’s stands out. He’s the type of guy who stood out in the auditions. … I don’t mind it at all, and I’m actually happy for him.”
The truth is, Gokey is feeling very good about where his future in music stands, considering what he went through only a few weeks before his “American Idol” odyssey began.
In February 2008, Gokey told his wife, Sophia, that he wanted to audition for “American Idol.” Sadly, Sophia Gokey never got to see that day. In July 2008, she died of complications from what was a third surgery for a congenital heart condition. The “American Idol” audition was only four weeks away when Gokey lost his wife.
Despite his grief, Gokey went ahead with the audition, traveling from his home in Milwaukee to the audition site in Kansas City.
Gokey, who had been singing on the area’s Christian Music circuit for years, said he was driven to audition because of one thought.
“I can sum it up with one word, and the word is hope,” Gokey said. “I didn’t want to live after she passed, but (the desire) to find meaning in music, which I’ve always wanted to, brought me a new sense of hope. When you have hope, you kind of have the faith to go after something. … Now I’m living in my dream. I’m fulfilling a dream. Even though it was a rough road to get to this dream, it made me have a passion for this life again.”
There was also a practical reason why Gokey realized auditioning was a now-or-never-proposition for him.
“I was too old to try out the next year,” he said. “I’m 29 now, and the cutoff is 28.”
Now it’s almost a year later. Gokey has notched his third-place finish and has found a new purpose through starting a charitable foundation in honor of his wife, called Sophia’s Heart. And like most top finishers on “Idol,” he appears to be in line to sign a record deal soon.
And he’s excited about the “American Idols Live” tour, which has allowed him to get reacquainted with his fellow “Idol” contestants without having the pressure of competition.
“I feel like it’s going to be great,” Gokey said of the tour. “I think it’s going to be a lot stronger energy than we had on the show, because on the show we’ve only got two minutes. So with our own sets, we can show more of ourselves as opposed to a two-minute song. And we get to kind of feed into the crowd more because we don’t have to be conscious of judges and we don’t have to be conscious of cameras.”
