Andy Grammer the next BIG Thing and we got to Interview him!

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Andy Grammer was born in Los Angeles, Calif. but grew up in New York. Grammer stems from a line of musicians, his father is a Grammy nominated children singer. At 20, he returned to California, studied music and earned a degree from California State University, clearly this kid was meant for more.

“I always knew I wanted to do something like this, I never really had a shot at doing a ‘normal’ job,” said Grammer.

So he did what he had to. He put his heart on the line and his music out there. He began by playing his music to the masses on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California. He would play for hours just hoping to make enough money to pay his bills.

“I started by being on the street in Santa Monica, California. I would take my guitar out there, and sell my cd to pay my rent,”Grammer continued. “I did it for two and half years, I’d get a cart and set up a little stand and trust people to put ten bucks in for my cd. Hoping people would buy it. Some days I would play for eight hours.”

After a few years of playing on the promenade, and barely making it by he was starting to have a hard time with it all. His roommate who co-wrote the book Soul Pancake, with Rainn Wilson, left street performing behind. Grammer forged on.

Two years into it Grammer began to wonder if he was really cut out for this. One day after playing on the promenade for hours, Grammer left with fairly little money and he almost called it quits.

Music being the thing he loves and his best outlet, instead of giving up, he went home and wrote about it. Playing out those emotions would be the song that would put Grammer on the map, “Keep your head Up.”

“When you’re out there for that long, and you’re not making money, it’s a long day. Sometimes you think ‘what am I doing with my life?’ That day I went home and wrote that song,” said Grammer.

Within a couple of weeks Grammer’s current manager, Ben Singer found him in the promenade. After talking to him for a few, he decided to play him the song he recently wrote. When Singer heard the song he loved it. Suddenly before he knew it Grammer was on a flight to New York City to record with Lion Share.

“He came out, and I showed him the song ‘Keep your head Up,’ and he freaked out,” said Grammer.

As luck would have it the label that Grammer was signed to was working with Vevo and a company in Israel, who had new innovative technology.

Remember those stories from when you were a kid, the choose your own ending ones? Well this technology puts you in the director chair. It lets you choose which way the video goes. Twisting and turning with different options as you choose what happens to Grammer.

The head of my labels (S-curve) name is Steve Greenberg. He brought this technology to me from Israel, you choose your own journey, and asked if I wanted to do this, and I was like ya! Sounds amazing!”

The video is the first of its kind and really got Grammers name spreading. He was even lucky enough to get friend, Rainn Wilson (best known for The Office) to be in his video. The video went viral, and was even featured as ITunes Video of the week.

“All that hype stuff is so encouraging, but you can’t be selfish, it can all fall away as fast as you get it,” said Grammer.

It didn’t stop there. The video landed Grammer on The Rachel Ray show. Then in January Grammer was featured as Billboard’s artist to watch for 2011. Just a few weeks ago, the video was nominated for an MTV “O” award for Most Innovative Music Video.

“It’s nominated right now which is crazy,” said Grammer.

It’s been quite the year for Grammer. His talent finally got him to a place in his career he has been working at for so long. He spent years on the road by himself, playing the college tour. Now he has landed as the opening act for the Plain White T’s and loves every minute of it.

“I love it, it’s so much fun! We hang out, we kick it back stage. For me I’ve been doing a lot of touring solo, just me and my guitar. So I feel like an only child that just got brothers,” said Grammer.

What’s most important to Grammer, is that his music is finally reaching people. If you listen to his song “Keep your head Up,” it’s easy to see why.

“When you write a song you hope that when you transfer it from you to somebody else that it sparks… It’s kind of unbelievable, people come up to me and tell me ‘you don’t know the situation I was in and then I heard your song on the radio’ and that’s just so sweet you know?”

Grammer doesn’t miss a beat, and his music is real and honest. More importantly he’s doing what he loves.

“No matter what you just love it, it’s what I want to do every day. It really has meant a lot, and I love each step of it.”

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