I had the opportunity to sit down with Gavin DeGraw and talk music, family, education, and the Rock & Roll Library’s Song Lesson Contest before he performed at a concert to benefit the Rock & Roll Library and Boston Celtic Walter McCarty’s “I Love Music Foundation”.

Gavin, great to see you.
GD: Thanks, it’s great to be here.

Actors could be jealous of the number of roles you’ve landed on TV; do you have aspirations to act?
GD: Not too much, I mean I think it is a lot of fun. I guess I would like to do it just to see what would happen. I am interested in some filmmaking. It would be kind of cool to sort of remake the movie “The Outsiders”. A good remake of something like that would be cool. A movie came out sort of similar called “Deuces Wild”. I thought it would be cool to do something like that.

What about film scores or soundtracks?
GD: I am interested in that. My background in classical arranging isn’t so deep that I would be asking or begging to be put in that situation. I am definitely interested and I would like to try stuff with that or get a film and say, “Hey would you write a song in reference to this subject that’s happening right now and during the plot”.

How do you listen to music? (CD’s, live music, portable MP3 player)?
GD: I don’t have an MP3 player. I listen to CDs just 'cause I have them around.

Do you surf the Internet a lot?
GD: The net, I don’t search at all, never ever. I sort of stay away from a lot of technology because now I feel like I can’t leave my house without my cellular phone. I didn’t want that to happen with any other items or my pockets would be completely full.

When you have a choice, what do you have for breakfast?
GD: I eat for breakfast the same thing I would eat late night, which would be eggs, pancakes, waffles and Belgian waffles.

How do you take your eggs?
GD: Over medium or scrambled, not too runny

What’s your favorite sport?
GD: To play, I would say basketball. To watch, I would say basketball and ice hockey.

Do you think that playing team sports (little league) helped give you a sense of identity?
GD: I think so. I think that creating a team environment and also creating good healthy competition is good for finding an identity and establishing yourself amongst your peers. I definitely believe in good healthy competition and working your way into a group and finding a place within a group.

Any message for young voters?
GD: I think it is important to voice your opinion. If you’re a kid who needs to be manipulated to go vote, please don’t go vote, you know what I mean. If you’re someone who has a real view and actually has something to say, go vote. If you’re someone who just wants to vote for the sake of voting, then stay out of it, you know what I mean. Go in educated and if you’re really serious about some subjects, then I think it is important to voice your opinion. If you’re not a passionate person, I would say let the people who are passionate go at it.

I heard you started playing piano around 8, when did you pick up the guitar?
GD: I picked up the guitar about three or four years ago.

Early on, did you do most of your songwriting on the piano?
GD: Yeah, mostly on the piano and then I started writing on the guitar which really lends itself to rock and roll, so I just naturally started writing rock and roll.

Right now do you write more with the guitar or piano?
GD: Right now I write more with the guitar because the piano isn’t so portable and even the keyboards that are portable aren’t that portable.

In high school you were in a cover band with your brother Joey; does he still play?
GD: He's a musician, a songwriter and he just made a record but it's not released. He plays electric guitar and sings. He’s the voice of a lot of companies on television, like of Old Spice, Lite Brite and Hellmann’s. He is the voice of a lot of things.

Was he a big influence as far as your music?
GD: Yeah absolutely.

What do your parents do?
GD: My dad is a prison guard and my mom is a detoxification specialist.

So the lyric “I don't need to be anything other than a prison guard's son” is a reflection of your life?
GD: That’s who I am man

I also heard he’s a singer
GD: He is a great singer, ridiculous singer.

Any competition there?
GD: No, his voice is very different than mine but I have been around some great singers and some really famous singers and he is as good and better than pretty much all of them. So it’s funny.

As good as most and better than some?
GD: Better than most and as good as the best. So it’s funny to be like, “oh this person is a legend” and I’ll hear them sing and I’ll be like, “they’re really great, but my dad’s better”. [Laughing] You know what I mean? He watches criminals for a living, but he’s a better singer.

Do you have a good relationship with your parents?
GD: Yeah, they’re really cool. I guess most kids don’t get the kind of support that I had. I didn’t get monetary support, but I had the belief from my folks which was cool but part of that is because they went through the same kind of thing that I’m going through when they [my dad] were trying to make a living at it. They understood that if someone is not supportive it’s disturbing to you because it is your passion; it is what you love and how could somebody interfere with your dream and tell you not to pursue that. That is sort of vicious.

“Be what you are and who you are”, is a common theme in your music.
GD: Absolutely.

Is this how you live your life?
GD: Absolutely. And now is the time when you’re young, this is the time to be selfish and you can pursue exactly what you want to pursue, this is your opportunity, because as you get older the window of opportunity shrinks and you have less options. And now is when you can try the absolute most outstanding and impossible things.

What inspired you to write, “I Don’t Want to Be”?
GD: That song was heavily influenced by the identity crisis right now that exists amongst youth. It’s almost like you can go into any town in the country and the kids don’t necessarily have an identity of their own; it’s like whatever is on television is who they are. I noticed that for myself on the road traveling a lot. When I go from state to state and city to city, I see the same sort of homogenization that happens. There’s this fast food chain and this soda company, and it’s hard for any place to have identity and that’s the same thing that’s happening among the people in those towns, especially among youth. They don’t have an identity of their own anymore. It used to be that maybe there was a kid who lived in X neighborhood and was some sort of character which made that neighborhood unique and that was very cool and if you went to different neighborhoods there were different characters that gave the scene some local flavor. And now you go there and it is not that, it was whatever they are watching on television and it’s really aggravating.

What have you been trying to be lately?
GD: My own man.

How are you doing at that?
GD: Pretty well.

What would you encourage others, especially kids to be?
GD: I would encourage them to take chances and to try things that are productive and difficult. And if they have a knack for something to really dive into that. Whatever they have a knack at they should really pay attention to because I think that the better you do something the more you can fall in love with it.

So what made you want to be apart of the RRL Song Contest?
GD: Well, I get to come out and perform for people and I get to be involved with helping children hopefully. I love being around kids, I don’t have any of my own, but it feels good to aid in keeping kids interested in something good because it is very easy to get swayed.

What do you think about using music in all different subjects in education?
GD: I think it is a great idea; anything that helps keep interest in the classroom, especially things that have to do with memorizing. It’s a lot easier to associate memory with some kind of tune or meter. I think that it’s very handy as a memory tool.

What’s the most exciting part of the contest for you?
GD: I think it would be great to go to the classroom and say “hey” and just to be able to do something different here and there is a very big deal.

What kind of student were you?
GD: I was a pretty good student

What was your favorite subject?
GD: It was math, until I didn’t do well in math for a little while and all of the sudden I didn’t like math anymore. I couldn’t stand English.

And yet you turned out to be a songwriter?
GD: Isn’t that funny? I guess I was an all right student. I did a lot of homework. I had a hard time paying attention in class. I would lose interest very easily.

Do you think that music would have helped keep you interested when you were in those classes you started to drift off in?
GD: I think it is very possible. I got to the point where I was like, “Man, anything different right now would help me.” [Laughing] You know what I mean? Let’s do something different today, even if it is just going outside and sitting on the grass, just something different.

Who are your musical inspirations/influences?
GD: My musical influences: The Beatles, Billy Joel, Elton John, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Donnie Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Etta James; that’s a lot of them.

What do you think of the Billy Joel comparisons that are being made about you?
GD: They are flattering. Billy Joel, you know, he’s the other Beatle. He is just an amazing songwriter and a lot of people sort of shackle him to the song “Piano Man”, the image of that. But he has a huge body of work that is very progressive. He’s a great storyteller. He develops a rapport with his audience. He’s an easy guy to identify with. He sort of invites you in, unlike a lot of other artists. A lot of artists sort of play this “Too cool for school” and I have no interest in that.

Do you have a good relationship with your fans?
GD: Yeah, yeah. I think that is really important.

If you had the choice of working with any artist right now, which would it be?
GD: I don’t know. There are a couple of good ones. I am really into classic artists you know what I mean. I would work with Billy Joel, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder would be great to work with, and Willie Nelson. There are several of them; I am really into the generations before me.

So now that you’re succeeding at what you want to be, a successful musician that is, what was it like when you had to be something you didn’t want to be? What work did you have to pick up to pay the rent? How’d did that affect you? Motivate you?
GD: I have done a lot of different jobs. I have worked as a lifeguard, walked dogs, worked lumber, as a bellhop, at a magazine stand; all different sorts of things.

I think I disliked the jobs so much that I felt like I had to pursue what I loved. I could not survive doing something that I couldn’t stand. I found the need to excel in music because I wanted a way out. It was very hard for me to work for someone else and get home and have hardly any energy for myself and for my own entertainment. It was a driving force; doing something I didn’t want to do for a living to pursue something that I did want to do.

You resisted signing with a major label, was that to ensure the integrity of your music? If not, why?
GD: Yeah, a lot of reasons. I got offered a deal at the first gig I played in Manhattan, I got offered a deal by a major label and I wasn’t impressed with their offer. I was working for a lumber company at the time, just an up-state kid working regular sort of un-skilled labor, just working hard and I felt good about the money I was making because I was working so hard and I feel like earned my sleep every night. I didn’t feel like if I signed this deal that I would be able to sleep at night. It was so bad. It didn’t offer me a lot of money. The structure of the deal was sort of like we own you and we will be manipulating the sound of your record and your songs and I didn’t want to be held captive. It was a respect issue for me.

I was talking to some of your fans online and they wanted me to ask you if you have had to compromise your music since you got signed.
GD: There are moments when you have to compromise on music, like for example, if there are people in the audience who are sort of your business partners and they are working with someone who needs to hear this song, that song, this song, and that song to see if they are going to help sponsor your tour. In that case you think, well I'm going to play these four songs. And so here are definitely moments when you do, but I have done my best not to actually tamper with the performance of the music, but sometimes I change the set list around.

But as far as recording?
GD: I think that that happens, certainly not while I was watching. But sometimes when you turn your back, somebody will be like “oh, I think we can tweak this a little bit” and you come back into the studio oh that is not what I wanted and you change it back. There is definitely a lot of pushing and pulling that goes on, because there are a lot of chefs in the kitchen.

So how is it working with J Records and Clive Davis?
GD: Amazing. He made me an offer the first time I played for him and we had a good discussion on who I am and he said “look I am going to make you a promise I’m not going to change you” and I said “all right lets make a deal.”

What was the motivation behind doing ‘Stripped’?
GD: Being around the road and touring with the album the way it is, we have had a lot of different takes on the song. Sometime it captures something completely opposite of the album to show people and the public range. You don’t want it to sound like the studio, well perfect, this doesn’t and to give [the fans] something completely different.

Your live shows are so raw and at times your songs seem to emanate from you more than just being performed, do you feel like the studio doesn’t always capture the passion of the music?
GD: I think it very difficult for that to happen. Especially in the modern music-making world where you have to appeal to what is going to be played on television stations and what is going to be played on radio stations before you actually get noticed and for people to come out and see you. There aren’t that many channels of choosing what you are going to hear or see.

So being that there are only a couple of streams, you have to be sort of prepared to jump into one of those. And not every song has to be radio friendly, but there are definitely reasons why certain artists get signed and certain artists don’t. A lot of it has to do with the label and who the label feels that the artist is going to appeal to. If a label feels that an artist is going to appeal to the public and have some sort of mass appeal.

Do you support a charity or cause that’s close to your heart?
GD: I would like to do some more events as far as cancer research is concerned. I have done some events with the Grand Slam Jam with Andre Agassi and the Davis Cup Team, it’s called the Hope Foundation. They do quite a bit of fundraising and they put musicians and athletes together in different cities to try and raise money. Lance Armstrong does it and just a lot of people. It’s a lot of fun, when they get together they watch tennis matches and at night they watch live music and it’s great because it is a lot of fun.

The Rock & Roll Library is proud to launch a new Song Lesson Contest with Gavin DeGraw featuring his hit single, “I Don’t Want to Be”. The contest challenges educators to write a lesson plan based on the song for any subject and topic. Gavin and the Rock & Roll Library will visit the winner’s school this spring. Full Story

Anne Fitzpatrick

edited for clarity