Gavin DeGraw Artistfacts

February 4, 1977
Gavin Degraw was born in New York in 1977. His father was a prison guard and his mother was a botox specialist. Degraw mentions his parents in his breakout hit "I Don't Want To Be," when he sings that he don't need to be anything other than "a prison guard's son" and "a specialist's son."
After growing up in upstate New York, Gavin attended the nearby Ithaca College, where he went on a music scholarship. He lasted just one semester there before enrolling at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he left after a year. He returned home and eventually moved to New York City, where he had a lot more success making music than studying it. He became a popular club singer and eventually got a publishing deal with Warner-Chappell.
Degraw signed with J Records in 2002, which was the label run by Clive Davis. His first album Chariot, released in 2003, was his most successful, selling over a million copies. He released two more albums on J before moving to RCA for his 2011 album Sweeter.
In 2004, Gavin Degraw made his TV debut on Last Call with Carson Daly. Since then, he has toured with many successful artists, including Barenaked Ladies, Maroon 5, and Jason Mraz.
He's in the bar business with his brother Joey, who is also a musician. They opened a place called The National Underground on the Lower East Side of New York City in 2007 that featured lots of live music. It closed in 2013, and in 2018 the brothers opened the Nashville Underground in Nashville, also a hub for live music.
Gavin Degraw recorded his third album Free in just two weeks. Brooklyn producer Camus Celli recorded the album which included the single "Stay."
Gavin Degraw's song "We Belong Together" was featured in the 2006 movie Tristan & Isolde. Additionally, his breakout hit "I Don't Want To Be" was the theme song for the popular TV show One Tree Hill.
DeGraw has a family connection to the military and does what he can to support the troops. "My dad was an Army guy, my mom was in the Reserves, my granddad was Army, so supporting our military is near to my heart," he said in a Songfacts interview. "The red white and blue represents everybody in this country and that's a beautiful thing - we should embrace that together."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

More Songfacts:

S&MRihanna

Rihanna claims that "S&M" is about her love/hate relationship with the media. Apparently her paparazzi are using whips and chains.

Sloop John BThe Beach Boys

"Sloop John B" is a traditional West Indian folk song, and it was a huge hit for The Beach Boys in 1966. They tweaked the lyric, "This is the worst trip since I've been born" to "...I've ever been on" as a wink to acid culture.

Tomorrow PeopleZiggy Marley & the Melody Makers

"Tomorrow People" by Ziggy Marley is the first song by a Marley to crack the US Top 40; the highest Bob got was #51 with "Roots, Rock, Reggae."

Happy BirthdayStevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder wrote his own version of "Happy Birthday" in an attempt to get Martin Luther King's birthday declared a national holiday.

Gangnam StylePsy

YouTube had to upgrade after PSY's "Gangnam Style" broke their hit counter in 2012. Once the video reached 2,147,483,647 views, the maximum positive value for a 32-bit signed binary integer in computing, the view-counter could no longer work.