American Idol 2008 winner David Cook recently had the pleasure of writing songs in Los Angeles with his own personal idol, SOCAN member Raine Maida. Cook says he's a longtime fan of the Our Lady Peace singer and frontman, and asked for a meeting with him to write some material for his upcoming Idol-backed solo album.

"The songs that we wrote are, in my opinion, some of the strongest that we've done for this record," Cook told the http://music.sympatico.msn.ca website recently. "I'm very pleased with how it turned out and I'm actually hoping to get together with him again before the record gets released to try and write some more."

Cook said that Maida's sound is very similar to the kind he hopes to release himself. "I wanted to write with people that I admired and respected, and people that I thought could tune into the kind of vibe that I wanted. Raine's definitely one of those people," he said.

Cook, who chose the Our Lady Peace song "Innocent" for his Top Eight performance on the Idol show, says he hopes to release his album this fall.