Songs in the Key of G, The Temple Column, August 2004
by Erin McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief

When Gavin DeGraw launches into a cover of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On," the whole crowd sings along. He bounces from one side of the stage to the other, engaging in playful banter with the audience; he alternately plays the piano or the guitar, and at times forgoes both to stand at the microphone. The audience loves him. Well, except one. From the sidelines, a man yells for the main act. DeGraw turns toward the noise, unfazed. "I'm gonna give 'em to ya, man!" He replies, laughing, before turning back to the task at hand.

"Did you hear that guy, the heckler?" DeGraw asks later in his dressing room, a concrete cube complete with bathroom, lockers, and DeGraw's rider, from which he graciously offers drinks. He is wearing a blue denim shirt, long brown scarf, and a yellow knit cap pulled down low over unkempt hair. "It's just one guy. I thought it was funny," he says with a laugh. "He was obviously hammered."

It seems to be in DeGraw's nature to laugh at such things, and to laugh often. The 26-year-old singer/songwriter is easygoing, refreshingly ego-free and down-to-earth for someone who was handpicked by music guru Clive Davis for his J Records roster and, within the last year, has released a debut album, Chariot, to rave reviews. With his friendly eyes and broad smile, DeGraw belies none of the glitz and glamour of the music world he currently inhabits, and, in fact, seems downright normal.

Brought up by a musical family in the Catskill Mountains of New York, DeGraw began playing piano at 8, eventually making his first forays into the music scene by playing at local bars with his father and brother. As a teenager, DeGraw played in cover bands and, at the suggestion of his brother, began writing his own songs.

Studying music at Ithaca for one semester and Boston's Berklee College of music for a year left DeGraw unsatisfied with his experience. "School kind of made me want to run away from the scientific break down of art," he says with a tiny chuckle. "I was so afraid I'd become knowledgeable about what felt good, that the knowledge would get in the way of my heart." He pauses. "I just want to enjoy the way music sounds. It's not supposed to look like anything on paper; that's not how it was written. The science of music isn't music, it's only science. And science isn't my forte."

From Berklee, DeGraw returned home, working menial jobs until 1998, when he relocated to New York City. Making it, he recalls, was not easy. "I'd go out and get a set of gigs," he says, "and if it fell through, I'd get really depressed and I'd be like, 'Oh forget it, I'm not going to do this for awhile.' There was a lot of up and down until I finally decided that I had to play consistently, every week." Once he made that commitment, things began to happen. "Opportunities began coming a lot more often, and they were more legitimate. The gigs improved. The audiences grew. And that went on for a few years."

 It wouldn't be long before DeGraw's hard work paid off.  After playing a showcase at New York's Joe's Pub, DeGraw was approached by Clive Davis and signed to the mogul's new label, J Records. It was a significant deal, but not the first that had been offered to DeGraw. "The first offer I'd ever been given by a major label was before I'd even moved to the city," he reveals. "The offer was menial, so insignificant that I felt if that's what they were offering me, then I just wasn't ready." He turned it down without looking back. "When Clive made me the offer," DeGraw continues, "it was sort of like…here's the lion's feast. The offer was a reflection of having faith in my success with the label. There was no wavering, there was no 'let's talk next week,' it was 'let's do this right now, because I want it.' There was no game." Rather than find Davis intimidating, DeGraw finds him open-minded. "He's open to suggestion. He [gave] me a lot of room which is, I guess, surprising to a lot of people. I personally think I'm fortunate that I have the same vision for myself that he has for me."

From there, DeGraw set about crafting his debut, Chariot. A funky mix of soul and rock with an emphasis on DeGraw's piano playing, it sounds like nothing else out there. This was exactly what DeGraw set out to do: make a record that is different than the pre-packaged rock or pop that currently dominates the industry. "It's funny to me that the formats of music are so scientific now," he says, fiddling with the frayed ends of his scarf. "It's like, 'oh, you play rock music? So you must be produced by this guy and this guy!' Everyone thinks they've got the formula down of what an album is supposed to sound like to the genre and because of that, all the genres of music have become sort of laughably similar. That's not what I was aiming at." He takes a long pause. "You don't necessarily want to give them [the label] what the public wants that day. Maybe the public will like it in two years…you know, when they come around. But you certainly can't go around making an album to suit one style of music. Not in my case anyway, because I don't buy new records." He much prefers The Beatles and early Elton John and Billy Joel to what's currently out. Not that he has anything against new artists. "I've got nothing against the actual music itself, it's just that the production has become so similar, it's like the artists are interchangeable. It could be anybody singing on a lot of those records. It's crazy," he says, shaking his head.

DeGraw personally attests to no particular form of songwriting process, although he will admit that he can get inspiration from pretty much anywhere. "A lot of it is sitting around, waiting for something to fall out of the sky." He holds out his hands, looking upward. "You put out your hat and you're looking for it…there it is!" He says with a laugh. "And you get an idea. Sometimes you have a topic, something you want to say…sometimes you want to propose a question, not necessarily a solution, and you start writing a little bit, and you find music that will suit the rhythm of the phrasing you're writing. Or you have an idea for a melody…so, so many ways to write a song."

The second single off Chariot is "I Don't Want to Be," an uptempo number about being true to yourself. It is the theme to the WB network's hit series One Tree Hill, in which DeGraw performed earlier this year (he describes his appearance on the show "a fluke. It wasn't my intention to get on the screen. But it was fun.").  "The idea of the song is basically being unconcerned with anyone else's opinion of you," DeGraw explains. "It's just important to be your own person, no matter what the environment, or what the consequence. At least you die knowing you were your own person."

For DeGraw, being his own person means not settling for any kind of mold, although he may not try to actively set himself apart. "I know that there are other male songwriters. I'm not really trying to separate myself," he says. "I think that will happen naturally."

Although he is serious when he talks about music, DeGraw has an enormous sense of humor. He prefers movies over television – Tombstone is his favorite – and frequently trades dead-on Zoolander impersonations with guitarist Paulo ??. When DeGraw finds something he enjoys, he describes it as "so good." His preshow ritual is an intricate question-and-answer period with his band in which DeGraw jokingly ponders doing the show: a) in his underwear, b) in a towel, or c) in the nude. (The band answers each, emphatically, with "no.") He loves all animals but prefers dogs despite his stint as a dog walker. "I love the animals, it's just, the job itself…you got the one task with the animals the owner didn't want!" He crows. DeGraw loves sports, "guy's guy kind of activity, the stuff girls don't necessarily want to be around," but he doesn't do teams.

Eventually, the conversation finds its way back to where it began: music and DeGraw's budding career. He doesn't really believe that he has made it yet, but instead has "just sort of found the north star, and I'm headed in a direction." He remembers his dreams about playing music as "a really funny little idea" without any conception of the reality. "There's so much more involved with this process than I'd ever imagined. When I had daydreams of playing music, my lone vision was really that we'd be on stage and playing, and people would clap and cheer, but nothing else really registered. It was just a daydream, and there's so much more reality to it than the dream."

In an industry where the more experienced constantly offer advice, DeGraw gets by with a tidbit given to him by his father when he decided to leave school for a career in music. "My father said, 'Now, just remember, you can make any decision you like, and you can go after anything you like, but make sure that whatever it is you want, you go after it fully. It's not halfway anything, ever.'" From his debut album to his live show, DeGraw is taking his father's advice and not doing anything halfway. And that never gets old. "Music is so intangible," says DeGraw. "That's what's so great about it. It shifts, constantly. The same song could be a different song every night." He pauses. "It's important to never forget why you started playing," he says thoughtfully. "Play for passion, because that's why we exist, the passion that we have."