PBS Companion Interview
PBS Great Performances Website
December 2004
(Interview by Jaan Uhelszki for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online conducted in October 2004.)
At the age of 23, Josh Groban has already accomplished what many singers only dream about: two multiplatinum CDs, a successful world tour, headlining two prime-time TV specials, and scores of adoring fans, some of whom have taken to calling themselves Grobanites in his honor. GREAT PERFORMANCES Online caught up with the Los Angeles native before he embarked on another series of concerts that round out the year and take him to South Africa and Europe.
Great Performances: When did you first know that you had this incredible gift?
Josh Groban: Well, I think it started when I was very young, and it wasn't that I knew I had a gift or knew that I was actually going to do music as a profession, it was just kind of this overwhelming feeling that I had, even as a young, young, young kid, for music. When I was sitting watching a TV show that featured music or listened to a record, for whatever reason, it would affect me in a different way. I would walk away from it not being able to get a melody out of my head, or not being able to get over the emotion that I would feel with music. And it was something that I found I didn't always share with all my friends when I was little. It wasn't really something I understood, I just knew that it was a passion and knew that it was something I loved. As I started getting older, I started playing different instruments. I learned to play piano and drums by ear and started writing, and started really getting interested in making music and performing music. And it wasn't until high school that I realized that I could use the voice as a way to express myself musically. I sang a little bit in junior high school and then kind of put it off for a while, and got very much into acting. It wasn't until maybe I was 14 or 15 that I decided, you know what, this is something that I have to do, and I started becoming just passionate about singing. So I'm still relatively new to singing, when it comes to people in their careers as vocalists. But I would say that the singing started only five or six years ago.
GP: When you listen to music, do you have a physical reaction? Is it very visceral for you, even when you were younger?
JG: You know, when I was a young kid, I would watch conductors. And I would say, "That's how I feel. The way that conductor looks right now, the way he's moving with the music, that's how I feel." I don't feel like the guy in the audience sitting there listening with his hands under his butt. I feel like moving to it, I feel like being a part of it, I feel like experiencing it.
GP: You're never going to be a civilian.
JG: I was never a civilian. I love going to concerts, but there was something in me that was just an energy. It wasn't just that I appreciated what the music was making me feel, but I felt like taking it to the next level, to make people feel the way that I'm feeling right now.
GP: Did you have that sense of destiny, that you were doing something that you were meant to do?
JG: A little bit. You know, I remember when I was young and I'd be talking to my dad and we'd be talking about what I want to do when I'm older, and I said, "Dad, I want to be on stage. I want to be making music." He was like, "All right, well, have a backup plan." At least he didn't say, "It's not going to happen." But my parents are very realistic, and in that way they've tried to keep me very grounded and very humble about the fact of what's happened and how extraordinary it is, and to always remember where it all came from and to not ever take it for granted.
GP: So you didn't have a backup plan, did you?
JG: Well, I had been accepted to a very prestigious musical theater school. At that point I was so interested in acting and in theater that I thought, you know, a voice like mine and the kind of acting that I want to do, it's probably best suited for musical theater. I loved musical theater that was kind of anti-musical theater. I was passionate from that point on about Stephen Sondheim, about Georges Seurat. Trying to convince the kids on the playground that pointillist painting was something to be interested [in], it felt like a SOUTH PARK episode. "What are you talking about? You talk." Maybe I'll pull it out during a third PBS special. Anyway, I just started loving what Sondheim was doing with the American stage and with musical theater. The first musical I ever saw was "Cats"; that's kind of your big generic show -- everybody saw that. I was a kid at "Cats" and I was mesmerized. We bought a cat right away.
GP: You're on the road a lot. Do you dislike touring?
JG: No, I love it, but it was just so much hard work. And it was an unknown for me, and that's always scary. So I didn't know whether I would love it as much as I did. I had the time of my life. It honestly was the time of my life, and just to meet first hand the people that have bought the album and the people that have been so supportive, and to perform for them every single night and to feel that energy. It's made me want to do it just for the rest of my career. It's something that's so important. And what I learned just from being on the road for five months has made me want to just lock myself in a studio and start making more music, or go back out on the road for another year.
GP: Tell me about your fans.
JG: On tour, that was when I really first started to see kind of what a huge, wide demographic was in the audience. When we first started the tour it was mainly kind of 35-plus women in the audience, which is great. You know, they were enthusiastic and they really were the first people to listen to the music. But as we started moving to larger venues and started performing more and more, and VH-1 became such a big support, their kids started listening to the music, or their husbands, or girls and their boyfriends. For whatever reason, it started becoming a word of mouth [phenomenon] in the younger fan base, and at the shows there is a combination of some older people and then some, like, screaming, crazy younger people, which is fantastic. It's really exciting for me to see young people rush to the front, and slap my hand or whatever. Soon they'll be moshing. But it's really, really fun for me to see so many people my age and younger.
GP: How do you take care of your voice?
JG: It takes over my life, really. There's a lot of discipline and a lot of -- what's the word I'm looking for? Sacrifices, you know? I would assume I probably get, or at least make it a priority [to get], way more rest than you do. I'm a night owl, and I love to live off of four hours of sleep every night and just wake up buzzed and go to sleep buzzed, and just want to work. I want to work, work, work, work, work. The biggest thing that I've had to force myself to do is get eight hours a night; you know, if I have a TV show to do, as nervous as I am, get to bed, get a massage, do something. All it takes is one night onstage in front of 10,000 people when you feel like you should have had more rest, and you are never awake again when you're not supposed to be. There certainly have been times where it's been harder than others to get through it. I don't think it makes any difference to the audience, but for me there's certain nights where I feel like this is a sharp instrument. This is something I can really, really play tonight. And there's some nights where I feel like, okay, technique, help me out here, because my cords are not having it right now. And that's live performance. That's doing 81 shows, and 105 before the tour is over. I think that every night you learn something new about what you need to do, about whether it's not eating two to three hours before you go onstage, sometimes even longer, or just making sure you get enough sleep every night. The voice is not as fragile as people say it is. I think a lot of people are so overly careful with their voice. That's not to say I don't take care of it and that I don't study hard, and certainly don't abuse it. For the most part, you do the most basic of things: not being around cigarette smoke, don't be a heavy drinker, [and] don't miss out on your sleep.
GP: Do you have a motto or something you say to yourself when you're nervous?
JG: I think that "just do it" kind of sums it up. Ever since I was first discovered by David Foster, I would be put onstage in front of a real heavy audience, just kind of like, oh, my God, is that who I think it is? And I'd go onstage and [start thinking] it was so easy in rehearsal, why am I choking up right now? And then the song would start, and I'd look at David and I'd look at the crowd and I'd look at my microphone, and you just have to say to yourself, just do it. And you get into a zone, and before you know it you realize that the anxiety that built up to it is so much worse than being out there and being in control and just getting it over with. The worst parts for me are 20 minutes before the show starts, or 10 minutes before a TV performance, or whatever, or the two days before a TV performance. I pace. I'm a power pacer. I'm pacing right now, in fact. Talking about pacing is making me pace.
GP: Do you think that your good looks are a detriment or a weapon?
JG: Oh, gosh. I think that I'm okay looking. I wouldn't say that it was the reason why -- well, I mean, it's hard to say. I think that I have a look. I think that it was a look that I didn't even realize I had until someone told me I had it. When I was in high school I was always kind of the geeky beatnik theater kid. I guess I translated [that] into what I do now. I didn't start getting popular in high school until like 11th, 12th grade. I spent a whole five, six years in elementary school and junior high school just being completely ignored and being, like, the biggest dork in the world. And then I started realizing I could sing, and I started growing up a little more, and people started noticing me more. It just kind of was like, okay, well, this is nice.
GP: Do you have confidence in your looks?
JG: I'm confident, but it's more a musical thing than a looks thing, and I think that maybe that translates. When I hear people on the message board or I read something in a magazine like "he's so hot," I'm like, are you kidding? I see myself at my geekiest, so I think, if they only knew.
GP: What's the one thing that would surprise fans about you?
JG: There's a lot that I've already said in interviews that the fans kind of know about me. I think the drums were a surprise, and now I play that in the PBS special. There's kind of like a secret, kind of darker, badass side to me that I wish I could take out sometimes. But I never will. I think more and more I want to take it out in my music, and kind of explore that in future CDs.
GP: Do you listen to your voice and think it's a voice of an older man?
JG: I don't. I've lived with it for many years now; it's just me. Other people say it sounds more mature or whatever, but it's always just me. I just listen for progress. I say to myself, here's something I need to change, or here's something I need to get better at.
GP: What gets better? The tonality?
JG: For the kind of singing that I do, I won't be in my prime until I'm 30, 35. And in that way, range just soars as you get older. And for me, this is my first tour; this is still so new. It's just experience and confidence. As you get older, nerves are the same and the perfectionism is the same, but I think that you learn a lot more. And certainly in the last couple years I've felt like it's not so terrifying anymore. I've got more answers to the questions that I had when I started: Can I do it? Who's out there? What can I expect from myself and what do they expect? And basically, can I do it? Can I walk off the stage feeling happy with myself? The answer is always yes, but how you get there is different every time.
GP: One thing that you'd change about yourself? David Bowie says too controlling, Iggy says too hard on himself.
JG: I would go with both of those. I would add, I would change my glass-half-empty personality. I think that maybe that's the same as both of them, but if there was one thing that I could change, it's taking an uncomfortable situation and seeing the good that could come out of it, or taking a great situation and not looking at the negative in that great situation. I think that part of being a perfectionist is that you almost become as bad as the critics. You're looking for things that you really shouldn't look for. And so my biggest thing is that I need to stop looking for the negative.
GP: That may drive you. If you change that, you may lose some of that edge.
JG: And it causes an edge, and it makes me feel like I'm on my toes. It makes me feel like even though deep down I know how wonderful and beautiful everything is, and how thankful I am for everything, there's always that kind of edge of looking behind my shoulder and feeling like, what's next? How do I push myself more? Sure, the audience loved this, but I know I could have done this better. I think unfortunately it's not something that I'm ever going to lose, but fortunately I think it may help me become a better artist. I don't know.
I see artists that are very much that way, and I respect them, and I say, you know what, it's that edge that probably continues to make them do what they do. And then I see an artist like Pavarotti [who] just goes out onstage, and I truly believe that the guy doesn't have a care in the world, just appreciates his gift and studies it and focuses and makes it beautiful, and then he opens his arms and he accepts that adoration. He just jumps in his pool, and likes to swim and eat and enjoy life. And that's another side that I think I need to work on, just enjoying it more. And maybe Pavarotti had the same things I do, when he was my age. But I think that's something that comes with experience. If I honestly wanted to lose the negativity and the edge, I probably would be on meds right now. No meds, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.
GP: You've had a role on Broadway and you were on ALLY MCBEAL. Tell me where that fits in your future plans.
JG: I hope it fits comfortably. I had such a great time doing the Actors Fund benefit on Broadway, and the ALLY MCBEAL was just such a blast. It was such a difficult world. I think it's one of those things where I've got to go towards the fear. It's a world I don't know a lot about, but it's a world that I've enjoyed studying in the last four or five years, and if the right thing were to come around -- like everything else -- it'll feel right. And so I'm constantly reading scripts and I'm constantly looking at ideas to put myself out there in a different way, but not too blatantly and not in the wrong thing.
GP: So that's your backup plan.
JG: Exactly.
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