"One day, David Foster called my vocal coach and said he needed a singer right away for an event he was putting on for the California governor’s inauguration," Josh relates. "At that point, I was very much into musical theater and was acting and singing in school productions."
Josh sent a tape to Foster and the next thing he knew, he was called to rehearse for the event. The song was All I Ask of You, from the Phantom of the Opera. When Foster heard Groban’s voice, he immediately called him and chose him to sing for the event. The inauguration event was a huge success, and much to Josh’s surprise, the Foster-Groban relationship was on a roll.
"A month later, David calls me and asks if I know the Celine Dion/Andrea Bocelli song The Prayer. I say ‘Of course.’"
The song was written by Foster. Incredibly, David was enlisting Groban to fill in at the 1999 Grammy rehearsals for Bocelli, who wasn’t able to make the practice session. Josh was in shock. "You must understand he was asking me to sing with Celine Dion. At first, I said no because the song was too high for me and God knows I didn’t want to embarrass myself."
But a persistent Foster prevailed. Josh found himself singing the Oscar-nominated song in front of several other Grammy-nominated artists and – to his disbelief – with Celine Dion herself! The whole experience was unreal.
That was exactly how I felt when Yue Sai Kan invited me to attend her interview with Josh Groban for her TV series in China, Yue Sai’s World. I was so blown over to be in the presence of such a multi-talented persona that I had to text my sisters: "Guess what! I am in front of Josh Groban, posing for pictures with him and listening to him talking about his phenomenal climb to success."
This whole experience was so unreal! When his stylists were making him over prior to the TV shoot, I took mental note of his appearance. There is an arresting, old-fashioned politeness about Josh G. and an anachronistic romantic quality to his looks. It’s almost Byronistic: Quite tall and lanky, fair-skinned with waxy dark hair. All that is missing is the air of melancholy. There is nothing melancholic about this good-natured young man who seems so uncomplicated and easy-going. There is no slick image projection, no attitude that is the problem of a lot of celebrities.
After the singing experience with Celine Dion, Groban knew his life had changed. He went back to his hotel with his dad and felt things weren’t going to be the same. "I went to sleep thinking, something’s going to happen. I was walking on air." Something, indeed, happened. His career gained momentum and he found himself in front of larger and larger audiences. In 2002, he performed live with Charlotte Church at the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics. There was an audience of nearly a billion. When he is not on tour, what is his life like? He loves to go to the movies and play drums. He also spends time with his girlfriend, actress January Jones. They met eight months ago at a Hollywood party. "Yes, that’s her real name. She had not heard of my music and I had not seen her movies. We started on a clean slate."
He doesn’t have much of a social life. He recalls the words of David Foster: "The golden microphone is in front of your mouth. You have to sing into it or it will get passed on to someone else."
His friends tell him to make time for them, but he has no time. While he sometimes experiences being lonely because he doesn’t see his close friends for months at a time, he realizes that he has to focus on his work. There will be time for relaxation and friends later on.
An interesting question asked of him was what he does with his money, considering the five million copies that his first album sold, four million on the second. He said that most of it is stashed away safely in the bank. But he has treated himself to a penthouse in Beverly Hills, a Porsche Carrera and bought Mom a diamond necklace.
What does he do first thing in the morning? He says he tries to "find his voice." He has to feel secure that his voice is still there. He breaks into a grin and says that it is difficult to categorize his talent. He has been compared to everyone – from Bocelli to Barry Manilow, even a male Celine Dion – owing to his range. Classical crossover? This makes him cringe: "I am not crossing from anything. I think of it as pop music with different influences. When I walk into a music store, my album is under classical/pop/easy listening. It is hard to say what genre it is. It is genreless. I try not to define what it is. I let the audience define it. Because for me, it’s just me."
Groban sings with great depth of feeling for sorrow and loss, but it does not come from a place of darkness or trauma in his own life. He had a happy normal childhood with loving parents and siblings. He seems to understand it without having experienced it firsthand. There is a richness and pathos and he can convey emotions for others to relate to without the burden of drowning in it himself. This is quite evident in his music. He admits to studying the different languages that he uses in his songs – Italian, French and Spanish. He has to feel comfortable singing in different languages by being fluent in them, says this hardworking young man.
His female fans call themselves Grobanites and have created an imaginary country for themselves called Grobania. During his concert which we attended one day after the interview in Jones Beach Theater on Long Island, I asked one of his young fans what draws her to Josh and she says, "It is his emotion. He’s got such a powerful voice. It’s magical."
I turned into an instant Grobanite overnight. When Josh Groban’s first album came out in 2001, I came across it one month after its release. I bought it out of instinct simply because I saw on the cover that it had his duet with Charlotte Church of The Prayer, which was one of my favorite songs. As I listened to the the whole album at home, it became an instant favorite of mine. I got hooked on Josh Groban’s music and I unabashedly told him this during our meeting. His song, To Where You Are became an international hit. Soon, I was giving this CD out as a present and, on one instance, I gave it to Max Soliven, who told me he had no inkling who Josh Groban was. Today, Groban needs no introduction to Filipino music lovers.
Before the interview drew to a close, Yue Sai Kan asked him to oblige us with a song. At first, he declined because he was very tired, having just flown in from LA and had only two hours of sleep. But he eventually obliged us with one of his favorite songs from Paul Simon, America, and accompanied himself on the piano. He learned to play the piano at age 15, mostly self-taught.
He has been dubbed "The New Boy Wonder of Voice" by the critics of the New York Times. But it is not only his voice that makes him sensational. He is in fact multi-talented. He not only sings. He plays the drums, the guitar, the piano and can act as well. He dreams of being on Broadway one day and his dreams are expanding. He is already living a dream. "That’s why I am smiling from ear to ear," he says with a big grin on his charming face.