Born in a small town in upstate New York, pop-music phenom, Andy Grammer (http://andygrammer.com/)earned his place in music the hard way. He spent years busking on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, honing is voice and skills as a singer, songwriter and also learning what draws attention and makes people feel good.
He’s since become the first male pop star in a decade to reach the Top 10 at Adult Pop Radio with “Keep Your Head Up” and “Fine By Me,” from his 2011 self-titled debut. His second album, Magazines or Novels, featured the triple-platinum smash “Honey, I’m Good,” which was one of the best-selling songs of 2015, and the certified gold anthem “Good to be Alive (Hallelujah).”
Now, with mega-hits and a successful career, he’s thinking a lot about how to speak his own truth. The concept of honesty—what it means and how to attain it—offers both inspiration and challenge to one of the most successful pop artists to emerge in recent years.
You can see this reflected in his recent album, “The Good Parts,” which has racked up over 400 million total streams. He’s also launched a new podcast by the same name, where he sits down with people to explore the stories they often never share publicly.
In today’s conversation, we explore where Andy came from, how his parents and his faith have shaped him and how, now as a husband and father, he’s re-examining his life and work. We also dive into how he is paying fierce attention to crafting a career that allows him to be present and also feel fully-expressed and alive and, at the heart of it all, be of service to his audience.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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- So my guest today, Andy Grammer, you may know his name as somebody who's built a huge name for himself in the music business with giant hits like Honey, I'm Good, Keep Your Head Up
Listen to hundreds and hundreds of millions of times and had said all sorts of records.
He actually started his career playing on the street, the 3rd Avenue Promenade in Santa Monica, for years.
Trying to figure out his point of view, his craft, and how and what actually lights people up.
In today's conversation, we explore that a little bit, but we also take a big step back in time to his upbringing, to his...
Relationship with his family, his parents, and his faith. He is what he would call a Baha'i, somebody.
Who practices a unique faith, especially for the small town that he grew up in. And that has informed the way that he's lived his life, the way that he has created, the way that he's built his living in a really powerful way. So we dive into that as well.
Well, really excited to share this conversation with you. Andy also has a pretty new podcast that shares the name with his latest album, The Good News.
Parts where he goes deep with some really interesting people very often in the music business so be sure to check that out.
We talk a little bit about one of those conversations in our conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good
Life Project.
And him and my mom, he was going after pop music, folk music at the time, like what was hot.
My brother was born and him and my mom just started kind of off the cuff writing songs for him. And then they're like...
This is really good. And my mom kind of played manager a little bit from the stories that I heard.
My dad would go have a show somewhere. She would book a school, like an elementary school.
And then before they knew it, he was getting more elementary school gigs than he was other stuff. And so he finally switched to just be like, I'm a children's singer. And he's the best at it. He's amazing.
So growing up around that even though I was pretty like I get really focused on something and that's all I care about That was sports pretty much all draw growing up, but it was
Because you'd come home and there'd be, they'd be writing songs. There's always a piano in the center of the house.
Believing and coming back and talking about songs. That's amazing. So you're kind of around it the whole time? Just around it. And I didn't realize how important that was kind of until after things started to get to take off.
And you talk to other artists and not only did they not have that but they had to fight their family to do this that's crazy you know that
Because for me, it was not only I saw my dad, I kind of got a little bit of how this works,
Around songwriting all the time that was really lucky. Yeah, you're right I mean a lot of parents look at the entire career like and and hey, they don't actually see it as a career They're like, you know, yeah
Break through that, that's tough. It's a hobby. You know, if you got to do it on the side, do it on the side to make you happy. But you know, nobody ever makes it so and they want for their kid like to be stable and quote successful. Yeah. And I think that's the big thing is to not have to have broken through the doubt. You know, if your dad's a successful children's singer, you're like, Maira, I could do something.
You can do something like that. If you're gonna pick a weird career like that and then be successful at it, then I could do art for a living. But also then just to have the conversations about the hook.
And well, if that's the pre-chorus, then I don't know if that's-- Did you have those conversations with your dad? I didn't have them, but I was just around them.
I would they'd be talking about the this they'd be writing a song and they say well, that's a good line But it's the hooks you're gonna keep saying it you do it four times three times
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