Gavin DeGraw is one of the most talented people in the business, with studio albums and hits aplenty.
Now he's released his latest record 'Make A Move', and we got the chance to chat with him about his past, the process of making this album and his admiration of Taylor Swift.
Have you always wanted to be a musician?
I think I always loved music. When I was a kid and I loved music it didn't cross my mind that I could do it for a living. I just thought it was something people did in their house, once in a while. It never really occured to me that it was an option probably until I was about 15.
Who or what are some of your biggest inspirations?
Oh man, so many. Obviously The Beatles and Elton John, Billy Joel, really a lot of the hippy era musicians, lots of Bob Dylan, a lot of older music. Really my parent's generation of music.
I grew up about 15 or 20 minutes from Yasgur's farm which was the original Woodstock site, so a lot of that music and that culture of music was around me, just growing up because it was probably the pride issue of having that closeby.
I would spend my summers hanging out at camp fires, that was my part of my youth. It was very hippy, revivals of Woodstock and things like that locally so, there was a lot of that happening - which was really kind of cool upon reflection. It was very unusual. So there's a lot of that.
I was also exposed to American old school country music because my dad's father had that music playing at their house - there was a lot of that very, very old school country.
You had a bit of a rough time in 2011 when you were assaulted and struck by a taxi - can you tell us about that period and what you went through?
Oh yeah, that was rough.
Basically, I was out on tour with Maroon 5 and Train - a couple of bands that have always been really helpful to me and are a really great group of people, a great group of friends - they had invited me out on tour to help promote my album 'Sweeter', and I had actually just taken off my sling - I had a sling on my left arm when I was part of that tour for about a week or two - and I took my sling off a couple of days earlier and I went out, then I basically had an altercation with a group of guys on my walk home, so they were fighting a half of a man.
I finally made my way to the hospital somehow, in the back of an ambulance, after being in an encounter with a cab after the altercation so I felt pretty well bludgeoned.
I was lucky I did not killed, as far as I'm concerned by whatever happened with the cab.
Aside from that, what other challenges have you faced throughout your career?
I would say the biggest challenge is keeping conscious that you always have to be moving forward, really.
I'd say the biggest issue I had was the lapse of time that was taken between the first and the second album. If I could do it all again I would've released 'Chariot' and two and a half years later at the most I would've put out another record.
'Chariot' took so long to gain any traction as an album - essentially even though the album came out in July of '03, it didn't have any commercial success until late '04 or early '05. Probably early '05 so it took about two years to really become heard.
So then, finally as a musician once the single gains a little traction that gives you an opportunity to start to make some income, have a little bit of success and things like that and you go 'oh wow, cool! I actually can buy stuff now!' (laughs) You're seizing that opportunity to do the best you can with that moment of glory.
Then I really spent about three and a half years on the road with that album, and then in 2008 was when the self-titled record came out so because it was such a large lapse of time, I think I lost pretty much any or all of the momentum that had been established from the 'Chariot' album so in a lot of ways that felt as if I was beginning my career again.
And so when I reflect back on that I go 'Oh wow, well I see this now, I wish I would have known!' I would have just put out albums sooner and faster and that was very difficult for me.
But now with the success of the last album and particularly with the song 'Not Over You', what that song did for me - I really feel it sort of resurrected me artistically, and it's really given me another start as a musician. So now I've been approaching my career in a much different way - I'm a lot more conscious of being prolific and really doing my best to finish material sooner, faster, making it better and the biggest change has been co-writing.
Earlier in my career I was very much opposed to trying the co-writing approach and so when I finally did try the co-writing approach, I was lucky enough to have success with it. I decided that for this whole new album 'Make A Move', that I would go about this whole record co-writing versus only doing a couple co-writes and doing the rest alone. It really took a lot of the pressure off of me and it has made the process a lot more enjoyable.
So tell us about the new album 'Make A Move'.
First of all I think that this particular album so far is the truest record I've made, and I really think that that's really due to the amount of personality that has joined me on the album as far as people who are creative who I've been lucky enough to surround myself with and who have made the time to join me on the album - people like Ryan Tedder writing and producing, or Butch Walker again producing, or Kevin Rudolf, Benny Blanco, David Hodges - there's been a really wonderful mix of personalities and creative people on this album and it's really made the album very dynamic, and for me as an artist, as a performer who's an artist, it's really gonna add another dimension to the live shows - which is really where I live, I really live on stage.
It's something that I keep in mind when I'm making an album. I keep in mind 'OK well I want the album to be great, but I also want it to be something that adds variety to my live shows', to give the live shows lots of different types of options or angles. You should be able to take the show to a more high energy place or a much more emotional place, so having the different types of songs really, really adds to what you can do in front of your live audience.
Aside from music you've put your hand to dancing on 'Dancing With The Stars' - how was that experience?
Oh yeah (laughs) - that was a lot of fun. I was apprehensive at first when my friend Karina Smirnoff first wrote me she said 'Hey would you be interested in doing 'Dancing With The Stars'?' I said 'Absolutely not! I'm the guy who kind of leans on the bar with friends watching people dance. So I don't think I wanna be the guy who people are making comments about!'
I was hanging out with a race car driver friend of mine at my house in Florida - a guy who I ride motorbikes with - he said 'if you do it I'll do it', I said 'really?', he said 'yep, if you do it I'll do it', I said 'OK'. So I signed my paperwork, I reached out to him I said 'hey man, I signed my paperwork I'll see you at the show', he writes me back 'no can do man, sorry!' (laughs), 'schedule isn't gonna work out you know!' Every week I'd hear back from this guy - Brian Vickers - every week I'd hear from him he'd say 'ah man you gotta watch your left foot, your posture's a little off!' (laughs)
Is it a hobby that you still keep up to this day?
Oh yeah it's hysterical man! But I also still keep in touch with people from the show - people who were working on the show, cast members, people working backstage, other people in the 'competition' - I still stay in touch with guys like Donald Driver and support guys like that. It was really a great community of people.
What would you say are some of your career highlights to-date?
I have to say that 'Dancing With The Stars' was definitely one of them because it was such an unexpected thrill, just as far as doing something I'd never done before.
As far as my music career, highlights would be performing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert for Sam Cooke and having his granddaughters come up and tell me that they're fans, and Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke's brothers saying 'thanks for keeping our music alive' - those are those moments where as a musician you become overwhelmed with the idea that you're really part of something important artistically, so that type of thing.
Phil Ramone called me up and says 'will you do this concert for me? Songwriter's Hall of Fame' - can you induct Phil Collins?' and I was like 'yeah OK that would be kind of awesome!' - giving him his award - these are the moments you think about. You're on a stage and five minutes later Van Morrison and Ray Charles are on the stage and Billy Joel's on the stage and Stevie Wonder's on the stage and Aretha Franklin's on the stage - you're doing shows with these people and you think to yourself 'I can't believe that I'm being put in an arena to share a spotlight throughout the course of the night with someone like this' - it's so incredibly flattering.
What can we expect from you now going forward?
Going forward what we'll do is continue with this album - 'Make A Move' - and 'Best I Ever Had' has been doing really good for me fortunately, then we'll drop 'Make A Move' - the title track - and continue doing more collaborations I think - that's the next stage of the career - more collaborative work with other artists. Perhaps in different genres of music as well, not only within my own category. Whether it'd be working with DJs, or country acts, or working with more maybe classical groups - whatever it is I really like to break up the categories sometimes, so they'll be a lot of that.
I'll be touring probably all of next year, hopefully crossing the pond and coming out there again, so I'll be doing quite a bit of touring - I like to put the miles on. For some reason I've become addicted to living out of my suitcase (laughs). People say 'how do you stay on the road?', but when I wanna see something familiar I just open up my suitcase and look at my pile of clothes - for me that's home.
You mentioned collaborations, who would you collaborate with if you could choose anyone?
There's really a lot of talented people out there. There's some great groups - One Republic, The Script... Ed Sheeran, I happen to love Kelly Clarkson. I love Train, Maroon 5 - there's some great DJs I love. Matina McBride is incredible, there really are crazy talented people.
A lot of people you know - you look at someone like Taylor Swift who appeals to kids - but she's a beast of a songwriter, a wonderful songwriter. So she's someone who's going to continue to blossom and expand and get to the next level even as far as the way people view her as far as her credibility as a writer. There's people out there who are really writing great songs whether they're in the category or not put in the category, but they really do bring something special when it comes to whatever their gift is.
Gavin DeGraw's 'Make A Move' is out now via Sony Music.
Tagged in Gavin DeGraw