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When Gavin DeGraw needs a break from touring, he heads back to New York’s Catskill Mountains, a great place to let loose, ride motocross and hang with old friends.
“I love the road, and I love living on the bus and everything, but it’s nice to go home,” he says from Georgia, midway through a tour that stops in Fort Wayne on Tuesday night.
DeGraw prides himself on being a regular guy. Though he’s written a couple of this decade’s pop-radio staples – most notably the 2004 smash “I Don’t Want To Be,” which doubles as the theme to the teen drama “One Tree Hill” – he’s the first to admit that his is not a particularly famous face.
“There can be a lot of reasons for that,” DeGraw says. “I haven’t spent much time in Hollywood, and I think that one of the things that makes people household names is a lot of their celebrity associations.”
The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has never dated a celebrity, and he insists that he wants people to like him “for the right reasons.”
“I really want the focus of my career to be musical, but I guess I should be facing the more solvent reality I’m not in the music industry, I’m in the entertainment business,” he says. “It’s more interesting, for pop culture’s sake, if I have a celebrity girlfriend or something.”
He might not party with Paris or live it up with Lindsay, but DeGraw’s lack of tabloid coverage has done little to hurt his record sales. This year, he released his self-titled second album, a collection that, despite arriving about five years after his 2003 breakthrough, “Chariot,” cracked the Top 10.
He says the extended period between albums had nothing to do with writers’ block. He simply wanted to continue promoting his debut and keep fans interested in his music.
“Gavin DeGraw” picks up where its predecessor left off, offering the kind of light, soulful pop for which the singer is known. He says he felt little pressure to top his earlier success or distance himself from “One Tree Hill.”
“I, of course, wasn’t too concerned with moving on from certain things I’ve been associated with,” he says. “I just wanted to elaborate on them. All of the little chapters in your life are important. They’re all important elements.
“I understand the idea of being conscious of whatever your legacy is,” he adds. “You want to have a good one, or a respectable one, at least.”
