29 Apr Andy Grammer Can’t Be Boxed In: An Interview With The ‘Honey I’m Good’ Songwriter
Andy Grammer sits in his car next to his wife, in the driveway of their East Side Los Angeles home. It’s 9:45 a.m. and the pair just returned from a Whole Foods breakfast-run where the singer-songwriter got a “super sweet” acai bowl — “It’s like a fruit bowl with cashews and walnuts too,” he said. “Really good!”
Since coming onto the scene in 2011 with his infectious song “Keep Your Head Up” — which peaked at No. 53 on the Billboard Hot 100 — 32-year-old Grammer released his second studio album, “Magazines Or Novels” which hosts his most successful song to date, “Honey I’m Good.” The track is a pop song with some southern flair, something Grammer said was just a fluke.
“As long as there’s a great song, I’m down to go in any direction,” he said. “‘Honey I’m Good’ is almost like a country pop thing, but I definitely don’t identify with country. Some of my album is more hip-hop influenced.” Grammer says his influences range from Jason Mraz to Common. “I would say that I’m a singer-songwriter who’s down to go in a lot of directions.”
And this direction worked. “Honey I’m Good” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 15 weeks. “I knew when I wrote that one that we had something very strange,” Grammer said of the track. “When you feel like you have something that’s so different and weird it’ll be like ‘I really hate that’ or ‘that could be something enormous.’ You never know, you just get inklings.”
Before any success on the radio or being signed, Grammer performed on the streets of California. The son of Red Grammer — a Grammy nominated children’s artist — the pop artist credits his passion to his dad. “I grew up around him and my mom writing songs. I didn’t know I wanted to be a musician per say, but I knew that I wanted to create.”
Suddenly, mid-sentence, Grammer bursts out laughing. “I’m sorry, my wife is in the car and she’s being an asshole,” he said. Grammer’s wife, Aijia, who’s also a singer-songwriter, bellows alongside her husband with warm, loud laughter. “I’m going to make you get out of the car right now!” Grammer said, cackling through his words. “You lose your privileges!”
The couple have been married since 2012, the same year Grammer’s second single, “Fine By Me” started making its way on the Billboard charts. “She hears me do these interviews all the time, so she was making faces at me,” he said.
The musician will perform at SunFest on Sunday and shortly after that will go to New York to start work on his third album. He says the crowd has a lot to look forward to. “My band and I do stupid Motown dance moves, I play the trumpet, I have a looper pedal,” he said. “We try to jump around and freak out on stage as much as possible.”
Grammer and his band will perform on the same stage that Walk The Moon will later headline. “Just looking at the bill, I know that this is going to be a good time,” he said. “When we leave, I don’t know if you’d expect it from what you hear on the radio, but all of our clothes are drenched.”
SEE THEM LIVE:
Andy Grammer performs Sunday, May 1 on the JetBlue stage at 2:45 p.m.