Q&A: Andy Grammer opens up on his rise to fame and headlining his own tour

Andy Grammer used to perform on the streets of Santa Monica to pay his bills. Now, he’s on the last leg of his six-week national tour, after previously touring alongside artists such as Natasha Bedingfield. Daily Bruin’s Laurie Allred spoke to Grammer about his rise to fame, his upcoming performance at the House of Blues and the inspiration for his songs.

Daily Bruin: What’s it like to headline your own tour for the first time?
Andy Grammer: We did (the tour) for about six weeks, about 32 shows. The House of Blues is the last on the full country tour. … Being on the road, especially when you’re headlining, is the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. It’s still incredible to me that I can go across the country and there will be people … singing the words and being a part of it. It’s very grueling, for sure.

DB: Let’s talk about how you started in the music industry. You used to play on the streets of Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica?
AG: Yeah, a lot of time out on the streets. It was actually really fun. It was the job right after college that I created to pay my rent and all my bills and stuff. … I did that pretty consistently for three years and really started to develop my sound, and it was a cool way to make genuine fans in L.A. It’s tough when you’re a musician to actually connect with people. You give someone a flyer and they’re like, ‘Yeah.’ There’s so many musicians, and everything so … hard to cut through.

DB: Did you know right away you wanted to go into music?
AG: I knew that I really wanted to do something creative. I felt my best shot was music because that’s what I had the most love for and I couldn’t think of any other way of living my life without music. It’s funny, I got my degree that same day that I walked across the stage, and I took my amp and went out to the street to play. It wasn’t like a crazy thought-out decision, it was like, ‘Now I do this.’

DB: What is your inspiration when you write songs?
AG: I get really inspired by universal truth about the world. That’s what psyches me out. Any great song touches on one of those and the listener goes, ‘Wow I can connect to that.’ It can be anything. It doesn’t have to be sad. It can be encouraging. There’s universal truth in the world and when you touch on (it), it resonates. … Even something as simple as ‘You got to keep your head up’ – it really connected to a ton of people across the country. Every time I play the song (‘Keep Your Head Up’), there (are) people who run up to me at the show and tell me, ‘Man I really needed that song in the moment it came on the radio in St. Louis and you have no idea how helpful that was to me.’

DB: How about your new song ‘Fine By Me?’ What was your inspiration for that song?
AG: That is very much a love song about a girl (who) stole my heart. Dating in a L.A. scene is a bit of a jaded scene. There’s this feeling if trying to fall in love but also protecting yourself because it’s so jaded. That song is about someone stepping through all that. It’s almost like she had come to steal my heart. The line is like, ‘It’s fine by me if you never leave.’ It’s a casual phase.

DB: You used to play everywhere you could, including colleges and universities. Did you ever come to UCLA to play?
AG: I definitely have played at UCLA but it was a small, small thing. I was opening for a Korean band that I went on tour with to a bunch of colleges. I don’t remember what hall we played in but we played in a small hall. I love UCLA. A whole bunch of my good friends went there, my ex-girlfriend went there. The Korean band was called Mixed Vintage. It was really fun.

DB: Do you have any long-term musical goals?
AG: I don’t really have anything. Me and the band having been kicking around how fun it will be … maybe if we get this thing big enough we can play at Madison Square Garden. In general, what’s fun about this job is you don’t know what’s coming next, you just do great work and you put out a lot of good energy. You can’t even comprehend the coolest things that can happen. For me to say (a goal) almost sometimes cuts me short. I have open arms in the future; it’s been an amazing year, and we’ll keep going.