As an artist, you have an opportunity to get in and move things around in people.
— Andy Grammer
I think if you pick someone that you love, you will continuously fall in love with them.
Seriously, until I was 16 or 17, I didn't care about anything other than ESPN.
I am happy to join AutoNation in the fight against cancer. This disease hits close to home for me with the loss of my mom in 2009. Raising awareness and finding a cure is really important to me.
I think it would be really brutal to put on a persona and get famous for that persona. Like, 'I'm number one, I'm the best!' because that sounds like a lot of pressure.
You gain a level of fearlessness performing when no one's there to see you.
Basketball was every day of my life. Wake up with a ball - sometimes I'd sleep with it because someone told me that was better for you.
Touring is really hard because you're gone for three months at a time.
'The Good Parts' is me telling as much as I can of the deeper sides of myself that I haven't shared before. It's like an onion that gets deeper every time you cut it.
When I get back with band, the lights, and the whole production, that's me with the full artillery. A quick radio performance keeps me sharp for the big show.
Seeing what kinds of songs work in other cities and other parts of the world was pretty eye-opening. I know it changed how I approached the second record big-time.
I'm from New York, so I'm simultaneously a snob and will also eat any pizza you put in front of me.
When I hear an interview that I've done, and I've said 'like' a bunch of times, it just cheapens the sentiment.
We always need little reminders that it's gonna be all good.
Anywhere in the world is a great gig if the people are pumped to hear some music.
Once you see the impact that you have on people, either at a meet and greet or after a show, you think, 'Oh man, they need to feel better today.'
Album 1 is proving that you're worth listening to, album 2 is proving that it wasn't a fluke, and album 3 is the most authentic thing I've ever done.
That I even get to play a sold-out show where people know the words and I'm singing about things I'm connected to is such a blessing. It's the equivalent of a nine-year-old saying, 'I want to be an astronaut when I grow up,' and then getting to go to the moon.
For each person, they live their life and their truth and how it works for them, and that's just kind of how it works for me. I'm not good at doing whatever the other way is - it wouldn't work for me.
It's a weird business. You're trying to write something that's built on magic, which is pretty stressful.
The fact that 'Honey, I'm Good' made such a splash and that people were catching it on radio, on Spotify, on Pandora, it's driving everybody to go hear the album.
Sure, yes, there are smoking-hot girls. But my girlfriend's smoking hot, my wife, whatever.
I think I was 15 the first time I wrote a good song.
You get way better from playing to the passing public. You learn how to entertain. But it took me a good three years out on the promenade to figure that out. You also learn what makes them stop dead in their tracks and what doesn't.
I wrote my first single, 'Keep Your Head Up,' and that's what got me on the radio and helped me develop a whole base around the country.
Who are you writing this for? For a commercial reason, or because you want to make great art and give it to your fans?
I do radio gigs, three-minute spots, solo shows, so I still get plenty of practice at the sniper attack - me at a piano or with a guitar, having to win people over fast.
I'm a singer-songwriter, but we get loud and we jump around. We have dance moves; we freak out. It's really fun, man!
I love magic. Like, 'pull a scarf out of your fake thumb' magic. I have a legit bag of 'Magic Stuff' in my garage.
I don't know how to dance, and I don't have any extra flexible skills.
Stevie Wonder makes my heart happy and is my spirit animal. That is all.
'Honey, I'm Good' is a song about temptation, and we wanted to show what is possible if you can beat it.
Life is hard, you know. If I can give someone on the radio three minutes to make them feel happier, that's a cool thing.
When you're spending eight to 10 hours out there, the homeless guy is no longer homeless; it's Dave. They become people to you. I think we're really good in this country about saying that they're homeless and, therefore, they don't exist.
Hunger is an issue that I've cared about for a very long time and is incredibly personal and important to me.
I grew up a huge jock, a lot of basketball and football. We had a pond in my back yard growing up, and we played a lot of hockey, too. I loved to score goals.
Everyone deals with temptation. It's just there.
I think that's what makes a great show: when the performers onstage aren't putting on a show, they're legitimately just having a freaking awesome time.
You either create something there on the street, or nothing happens. It's brutal. But if you go through that for two or three years, it really toughens you up.
In a typical day, I would wake up about 8 A.M., pile all my stuff into my mom's minivan - my guitar, my amp, CDs to sell, a table and a rug - drive it down to the street, and unload it all. I'd wait until about 12, then play for two hours. You could only play in two-hour intervals, so then I would move it all somewhere else.
I saw my dad doing it and thought to myself, 'I can do that.' I would be backstage watching him and running around the country with him singing to children. He would sing songs that taught children really good morals: like, 'Teaching Peace' was a song he used to sing to kids a lot.
It's like freedom of speech - they can't tell you not to do it. When no one will put you on at a club or venue, you can go to the street, just start singing, and get a lot of good feedback from people as they walk by. I got really good at lip reading and seeing if a song is working. It was a good way to start.
I had my whole life to write a bunch of crappy songs and then play them in front of people and think, 'All right, that one out of these seven is really good; it's a keeper.' But on this second album, to be honest, I probably wrote about 50 songs where I was just trying to write a hit.
The first album was more born from busking - they were the 'me-and-my-guitar' songs. Going out on the road and opening for big acts changes you. You look out at those audiences and start to think, 'OK, I need to write some music that's a little bit bigger.'
I love songs, and I love to tell stories, and so a lot of times, if you really want a good story, you got to flip the radio dial over to country.
I love me some 'Family Guy.'
We all need songs that bring out our inner swagger just listening to it.
Life is hard, but there are moments, sometimes hours - and, if you're really lucky, full days - where everything feels just right.
It's not hard to create a song, but to write a song that's really going affect somebody? That takes a hell of a lot of time.
I feel like if you told me I would be having a son, I would be like, 'Yeah, I'm gonna be a parent - I get that.' But when the doctor was like, 'You're gonna have a girl,' I was like, 'What? Who am I?' It's the craziest piece of information that changes who you are. It's sweet.
