ENCORE | Gavin DeGraw

By Mark Loehrke
July 2018 View more Spotlight

Music > Sports
The first barroom I ever played in upstate New York was called the Nowhere Bar, and I used to go there when I was about 15 on school nights, playing gigs with my brother and hanging out and acting like what I felt like a man acted when I was a kid. That’s when I quit sports, because I thought to myself, ‘This is way cooler than playing basketball.’

Sing What You Know
Most of my songs are autobiographical or about someone who is near me. I do find the more real the song, the better the connections—people can sense some legitimacy. I also think, as the performer of the song, you just perform it that much better when they’re your stories written inside that song. You can feel it when you’re really singing about your life. You don’t get tired of that.

Playing the Hits
I’ve never been a performer to avoid playing the songs that I know people are familiar with. I think those songs are important—the music that people know about is the music that changed my life, so I’m happy to play that stuff.

July 14 at Arranmore Farm + Polo Club
$70–$200, plus parking | calsangels.org/concert