Groban aiming to ‘raise up’ new singing talent
Josh Groban isn’t afraid to say it: sometimes You Raise Me Up is a bit of a downer. His version of the song, which lodged itself at No. 1 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart for six weeks, was ubiquitous in 2004 and made the poperatic singer a household name.
But with more than 125 recordings of the inspirational anthem kicking around, and fans at concerts always expecting some kind of Raise, occasionally the guy just wants a break — if only for a moment.
“I can be cynical backstage about songs and be like ‘There’s this song or that song that I can absolutely not get offstage without singing.’ But to have a song like that — that’s a career song,” he says.
“It’s the kind of song that has a universal message for people, and people love to hear it. Trust me, I’ve heard some pretty awful versions of it. But every time you see that audience reaction, every time you sing it again, you go, ‘Man, what a lucky thing to have a song like this.’”
Certainly, the competitors on his new show Rising Star would love to be linked to a tune with that type of tenacity. The series, for which Groban will serve as host and mentor, is a singing contest that lives and dies on viewers’ participation.
It’s the first of its kind to tally votes in real time, via a free app that’s available in Canada and the U.S. In each episode, soloists, duos and groups perform in front of a wall of TV screens. As the votes come in, they see images of exactly who clicked the light fantastic to keep them in the competition.
“Because we’re dealing with such a new technology, anything can happen,” says Groban. “The app could shut down, the wall could crush somebody, and (the host) is the one standing up there. So a little soft-shoe, a little interpretive dance to fill time if I need to? I have no idea.”
The 33-year-old with cherubic curls and a cheeky sense of humour is used to expecting the unexpected. Originally interested in theatre, he was thrust into the spotlight when record producer David Foster picked him to stand in for Andrea Bocelli at the 1998 Grammy Awards.
“I was a pretty nervous singer when I first started. I was kind of plucked right from high school,” admits Groban, whose first four albums went multi-platinum and sold 21 million copies.
“I certainly was thrown into the fire a lot of times with David Foster. He really took me under his wing and put me in situations where, much like standing in front of that wall, you say ‘OK, what in the world am I doing right now?’ and you just do it. You do your best and hopefully people will respond.”
These days, the Oscar and Grammy nominee keeps his nerves at bay with a little pre-performance prep — “I do my scales and two shots of Jägermeister,” he jokes — but nothing too serious.
“I think we’re all so in our heads as singers that if you start to develop all sorts of quirks and superstitious it just starts to build on itself and eventually you’re wearing six pairs of underwear and won’t go out to the audience unless they’re all faced to the left,” he says.