Andy Grammer’s Success is Fine by Him
By Jane Croft
Platinum-selling singer, songwriter, musician Andy Grammer will be coming to House of Blues Boston on Sunday, April 7 with special guest Parachute, and you’ll probably want to get your tickets now.
Photo courtesy of facebook.com/andygrammer
Grammer’s massive debut Top 5 hit single “Keep Your Head Up” ~ from his acclaimed 2011 debut self-titled album on S-Curve Records ~ was just recently certified platinum, while the follow-up track, “Fine By Me” (also a Top 10 hit on the Adult Pop chart) has been certified gold, having sold well over half a million copies.
It’s no surprise that this energetic talent found music at any early age. His father is Red Grammer, a Grammy-nominated children’s performer who encouraged Andy to get up on the stage and embrace the bright lights. But Red was honest about how tough the music business could be and made certain that his son had the tools ~ primarily an iron-clad work ethic ~ to make it big.
Grammer, 29, began his remarkable career rise performing on the streets as a busker in Santa Monica, CA. The song “Keep Your Head Up” actually started as a letter he wrote to himself after a long day of busking, with little money to show for his hard work.
“I busked for three years, made enough to pay rent,” the musician says. “I did a bunch of covers, a bunch of my own music. One day Alec Baldwin came by and gave me a hundred dollars because he liked my stuff.”
In just a few short years, Grammer’s gone on to sell well over one million tracks, performing his hit single “Keep Your Head Up” onstage with Taylor Swift during her “Speak Now” tour and appearing on a slew of national TV shows including 3 performances on “The Tonight Show with
Photo courtesy of andygrammer.com
Jay Leno,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Talk” and “LIVE! with Kelly and Michael.” He’s sold out venues nationwide, received BMI’s “Pop Music Award,” graced the cover of national touring trade magazine Pollstar and presented at their annual awards show. He’s toured with the likes of Train, Gavin DeGraw, Colbie Caillat, Natasha Bedingfield and The Plain White T’s.
If this impressive resume wasn’t long enough, he’s also performed for his Holiness the Dalai Lama and does some great charitable outreach to those who truly need it. Inspired by his mother’s passion for women’s rights, he supports the Tahirih Justice Center ~ a nonprofit organization that works to protect immigrant women and girls from gender-based violence through legal services, advocacy, and public education programs.
The horizon is bright and beautiful for this young musician. Right now, he’s working on his second album and drawing inspiration from groups he admires, like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and One Republic. He intends to play a lot of his newer work while on tour and then rush home to record the songs that he loves. Grammer says he’s “too close” to the music right now to be able to predict which songs are going to be the winners ~ he’s just focusing on finding what he wants to say on this record and how he’d like it to sound.
And when he’s not making hits and touring the country, Grammer is happy to admit that he’s not living a pop star life ~ most days, he can be found hanging out at home on the couch with his dog.