Danny Mogle

Andy Grammer is one of the hottest stars in pop music. His toe-tapping song “Honey, I’m Good” is a top 10 hit and his upbeat new single, “Good to Be Alive, (Hallelujah)” is climbing the charts.

Last year, Grammer competed on “Dancing with the Stars” and he was a featured performer on a Christmas Day television special from Disney World.

But back in the fall of 2010 Grammer was still a little known, up-and-comer, when he gave a concert at Tyler Junior College sponsored by the college’s Interfaith Club.

At the time, Haley Holcomb (then Smith), the creative director of IN Magazine, a sister publication of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, was a journalism student at TJC. She interviewed Grammer before his show.

“At the time of the interview I was not very familiar with Andy Grammer, but it was a great experience getting to interview a musician who was so passionate about his work,” Holcomb said. “Now looking back, it is awesome that he has made it so far.”

Below are excerpts from the story she wrote for the college’s newspaper.

With a worn backpack and guitar case sitting against the wall behind him, the New York native and Los Angeles resident Andy Grammer juggles the task of chewing furiously on his salad while laughing about what artists he would compare himself to.

“It would be if John Legend, One Republic and Jason Mraz had a little baby,” Grammer said. “I would be that … some weird artificial insemination creature. That would be me.”

Grammer might currently be an unfamiliar name as a singer/songwriter, but he is slowly emerging as a known talent.

“Everywhere you go these days people are waiting for me to play, which is better than not that,” Grammer said.

Grammer has been living off music for about three years, and he started as a street performer in L.A.

“It’s just crazy cause like a year ago I was at the street,” Grammer said. “I started performing on the street at Santa Monica and I would pay my rent by slinging CDs on the street. Now I’m coming from L.A. where I just did a show at the Roxy and there were like 400 people there. It’s just so awesome and so lucky, I feel very blessed.”

He describes his genre of music as credible pop because he writes the songs and lyrics and that his songs convey happiness.

“I think what’s hard to pull off when you’re trying to be real is happiness,” Grammer said. “There are many times in life where you are just genuinely just happy, but when you try to put happiness into a song it’s so cheesy.”

He recently caught wind of fame after he released his music video for the single “Keep Your Head Up,” which is an interactive music video where viewers can actually choose what they want Grammer to do in the video.

“It is pretty cool … to start seeing myself pop up,” Grammer said. “Like this video just got some serious press so there’s an article in the Wall Street Journal…and it got written up in Variety and Billboard.”

His inspiration for music sprouted from his father, Red Grammer, who was a popular children’s singer.

“I was always around it (music),” Grammer said. “My dad was a musician growing up. So I was always kind of around it.”

Albums “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill” by Lauryn Hill and “Room for Squares” by John Mayer also inspired him to start his music career.

“Those hit me at the same time and I really like both those a lot,” Grammer said. “Those are kind of my first and from those I kind of moved into some others.”

For now, Grammer is traveling and doing a mixture of playing shows and radio stations.

“I don’t even know anymore (where I’m going next),” Grammer said. “I just check my phone like the night before I go to bed. Like where am I going tomorrow, because I really don’t want to deal with it in my head.”

During large shows, he normally plays with a five- to six-piece band, but while traveling he just sticks to playing acoustic guitar with his songs.

“[I want] just to connect with millions and millions of people about something very intimate,” Grammer said. “It’s a really special thing. If you’re a musician and you’re singing to a crowd, that has all had a moment in their car where they have gotten to know you artistically, alone driving for a long way going, ‘yeah totally I feel that.’ And then when you’re in the shows… and you’re all unified back to something real. That to me is what a concert is, everybody connecting on something worthwhile.”

His first album is set to come out in January.

“I always knew I wanted to do something to try and impress people,” Grammer said. “Like I was into magic and then I got into, like I wanted to be a clown but like a really good clown, like a stilts walking juggling clown. And then I thought maybe I wanted to be an actor, but the one where you get to say the most, like just be yourself the most and talk from a specific voice, for me seemed to be music.”