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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 met 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.
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online conducted in October 2004.
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