Cook: 'I Nearly Quit Idol'

He is now just three eliminations away from winning American Idol. But David Cook has revealed that he nearly quit the contest after the first round.

The rocker only went to the Idol auditions to support his little brother, Andrew, and decided to try out himself at the last minute.

Now David has told Billboard.com that after he secured a place in the second round, he almost dropped out because he felt guilty when Andrew didn't make the cut.

The 25-year-old says he was ready to walk away until his brother gently persuaded David (as only a brother could) to take up the opportunity he had missed out on.

"My little brother Andrew had wanted to try out for a long time," David, from Blue Springs, Mo., told the Web site. "I didn’t really have any interest. I was working on another record the follow up to his independent album and was really content to do it my way but he asked me if I would go as moral support up to Omaha while he tried out.

"As we got closer to it, my mom and my little brother were being a little bit more persuasive in trying to get me to audition with him.

David said he quickly prepared a version of Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer that he had been doing at acoustic shows, and signed up with Andrew.

"He didn’t make the first cut and we were in the same audition group of four," said David.

"It was very awkward, like to the point where I turned to him and said, 'Is this something you want me to do, because if you don’t want me to it, I won’t.'

"And his response was, 'If you don’t, I’ll beat your ass!'”

And the rest is Idol history!