Josh Groban Credit: Photo by Sami Drasin
Between a new album, an engagement, and five upcoming dates in Vegas scheduled for this fall, Josh Groban has already had a hell of a year.
Last month, the 45-year-old crooner dropped Cinematic, a 10-track record featuring some of his personal favorite songs from the silver screen. Not necessarily showtunes (read: 2015’s Stages), but more like a stirring version of Adele’s “Skyfall” and Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” the latter being an album-closing nod to the tragedy of Rob and Michelle Reiner.
“I always knew that [these songs] were right in my wheelhouse to sing, but I think what surprised me[…] is just how relevant the songs themselves outside of the films are to me and my life,” Groban told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay during a recent phone call from Montreal.
He cites the record’s collaborations with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles on Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” and his father Jack Groban playing trumpet for the first time in decades on “Moon River” as his most personal selections. The father-son piece saw the Groban clan mosey down to Sunset Sound—where Louis Armstrong would often record—and witness the family patriarch sit on Satchmo’s stool while laying down his tracks.
In terms of his stage life, just before Christmas last year, Mr. “You Raise Me Up” took to “The Jennifer Hudson Show” to help announce a limited, co-headlining tour with the EGOT host of the talk show. And based on how well his baritone and Hudson’s soprano blended together on “Unchained Melody”—which also appears on Cinematic—you’d think that this summer tour was ages in the making.
The two met over a decade ago, but never did a serious collaboration until Groban’s 2024 holiday special “Home For the Holidays,” where they duetted on “O Holy Night” and realized that they just had to collaborate again. “It was just two ships passing. We would be on the same bill, or we would just sing a little bit for fun backstage or on her show,” Groban told CL.
Their joint tour rolls into Tampa next week, which marks Groban’s first appearance in the area since a 2022 gala with The Florida Orchestra on the other side of the Bay. It’s been a bit longer for Hudson, who hasn’t touched ground in Tampa since she sang the National Anthem for one Super Bowl XLIII in 2009, being followed by a halftime show from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Read our full Q&A with Josh Groban below.
Hi Josh, how are you?
I’m well, Josh. How are you?
I’m so good. Thanks so much for doing this with me today.
Of course.
Are you in Quebec right now?
I am, yes. In Montreal.
Nice. Last day before the tour, huh?
That’s right, yeah, exciting. Last rehearsal’s today.
Wow. So, first of all, I wanted to congratulate you on your engagement at Disneyland the other month. Speaking as someone whose parents got engaged at Disney World here in Florida, those photos were super sweet.
Oh my gosh, so you get it! Or they get it, at least. *laughs*
Yeah. Since your relationship with Natalie took off, do you think your views on success and happiness have changed or evolved?
Well, I mean, I started in this business really young and so obviously, the quest for finding the real balance in my life has been something that’s been ongoing. I’ve been kinda married to my work for a really long time, and so I think if there’s anything that allows you to widen your lens in a way. Love is the thing that can do that more than anything. So yeah, of course, it goes without saying that finding your person, I think, makes anything bigger and better.
Going into this tour a little bit. How did you first meet Jennifer Hudson? Like, what made you guys hit it off so quickly?
Yeah, we kinda kept running into each other at a number of different events over the last, I’d say 10, maybe even like 15 years. I’d always see her at charity events and Grammy parties and things like that. I would always run into her backstage, and we would just have a hug and say, like, “I’m a big fan, let’s figure something out one day,” you know, these things happen in the music business, you meet people all the time, and you’ve got a bucket list duet on your mind. But years pass, and schedules don’t line up, and—she has her talk show, and so being on the talk show, we got to sing together a little on her couch, and that felt really amazing.
And then, the real thing that kicked it off was a couple of years ago, I hosted a Christmas special called “Home For The Holiday” and she was one of the guests on there. We sang “O Holy Night” together, which is a very classical song, but it can be done in multiple different ways. We did that as a duet where our styles matched really well, we’re hitting that high note at the end, and we looked at each other and kinda went, “Let’s please find a way to really do this and record something together.” And obviously, making an album that’s about the grandness of cinematic music, I just thought, “There’s nobody I would like to blend voices with again more than Jennifer.” Then, obviously, for our schedules to line up again for the summer tour, I just feel so lucky, and to be able to sing our song every night is gonna be a lot of fun.
I definitely want to get into Cinematic and “Unchained Melody” with you a little bit, but before I do, was “O Holy Night” the very first time you two ever sang together?
It was, yeah.
Oh, wow, so it wasn’t that long ago.
No, it wasn’t. I mean, it was just two ships passing. We would be on the same bill, or we would just sing a little bit for fun backstage or on her show. But yeah, that was our first, real song we sang together?
So, what made “Unchained Melody” the perfect collaboration for you two? Because those harmonies were just delicious.
*laughs* They are delicious, I agree. Um, honestly, it just came from both of us feeling a great, great love of that song. I sent her some song ideas that we were thinking of for the album and we both—in the back of my head, I was thinking, “gosh, I really hope she picks this one.” And she was the first person to kind of raise her hand and say, “please ‘Unchained Melody.’” The reason it wasn’t an immediate idea was because I don’t think I’d ever really heard it as a duet before. Lyrically, it’s usually about one person’s very solitary longing for this unrequited love. And so, the idea of two people miles apart finding their way back to each other in the message of our version, and to blend our voices together was an amazing challenge, and it just came out of a lot of love for the song. We both love it very much and wanted to take on the challenge of figuring out how to make it ours.
Is there any personal meaning behind the other songs that you picked for Cinematic? What went into the selection process for you?
Yeah, a lot of personal meaning. I think probably even more personal meaning than I was expecting when I thought it would be a good time to make a concept album like this. I always knew I was gonna love the songs. I always knew that they were right in my wheelhouse to sing, but I think what surprised me—and this happened when I did the theatre album [Stages] as well—is just how relevant the songs themselves outside of the films are to me and my life, to the world. I think some examples of that are—Greg [Wells] and I were looking at what songs we might want to sing one day, or what demos we might wanna try or lyrics we might wanna look deeper at, and we’re looking at “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” You look at and think of that song, you think “Elton, ‘Lion King,’ Elton, ‘Lion King,’” going “what could possibly be added to this that isn’t there already?” We were just doomscrolling and going “what if we just focus on the love element of this, and the love that’s needed in the world right now?” Because that question I don’t think has been asked stronger than any other time that I can remember! So we decided to just lean into the anthemic nature of the realness of that question. And collaborating obviously with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, a community that very much needs to feel the love currently—it just wound up having a real deeper meaning when we went into it.
Another example is “Moon River,” being able to collaborate with my dad on the trumpet for the first time in like, 50 years. Him kinda pulling out the ax and playing on the song was very nostalgic and very meaningful for both of us. It was like a real tearjerker of a recording session for me. Every single song, I could go down the list of every one of them and find the why, because if you can’t find the internal why, then the list becomes paralyzing. I could go down a list of 100 of these songs and just say “here’s a beautiful version, here’s a beautiful arrangement.” I don’t go into the booth unless there winds up being something about it that feels particularly right for my soul at that moment.
Nice. And you mentioned “Moon River,” you and your dad recorded that at Sunset Sound, right? Where Louis Armstrong used to record?
That’s right, yeah.
That’s crazy.
And that was Greg Wells, he was the man. He knew that my dad was coming in, he’s got a real connection with his dad as well and understands that. He said “well, let’s make this really special. Let’s not just have him pop over — let’s get a really special room that has a lot of history for this moment.” So, he called Sunset Sound and we got, I think it was like, Studio 2. It was one of the rooms that that Armstrong used to really record a lot in. And they even said, “you know, I think they’ve still got Louis’ stool that he used to sit on.” “Yeah, we still have that in the closet.” “Can you guys bring that out?” Greg set it up so well, and so, we made it a family day.
My mom was there, my brother, my sister-in-law, my two year old nephew is watching Grandpa play for the first time, my fiancé was there. We just made a really special afternoon of it, and to watch my dad in his element…like, he’s been in business for 50 years and so, to watch him pick up the trumpet, for the ear to still be there, for the lips to still be there, for his musicality and improvisation skills to still be on full display? That’s where I got my musical DNA from. It was a a really amazing day.
I was actually gonna ask you about that day, and if doing “Moon River” with your dad was considered a full circle moment for you. Like, would you consider him as someone who veered you towards the arts as a kid?
You know, it’s interesting because I definitely got my ear from him. He was always musical in the house, right? He was always playing piano. We had a piano in the house, which was like, a super lucky thing. He was always whistling and just, my musical ear definitely came from him, but he was by no means a stage dad. Neither was my mom, There wasn’t like a push to say, “okay, well I’m musical, so I want our kids to be artistic too.” I don’t think they knew what they were even doing. They were just saying, “look, we’re gonna put our kids in front of it,” as every parent should do: Access to the arts, and making sure that young people experience the arts is one of the greatest gifts any parent can give their kids.
And so, what I did all by myself—because it was just in me—was that I would watch these concerts or theater performances or whatever they were, then I would come home completely transformed. I would come home and I would want to learn every song. I would want to sit at the piano and figure out the music. I’d wanna learn a new image. So, they just kinda saw these these lightbulbs continue to go off, and they didn’t have to push at all. What they did do was see that that was happening in me, and then said “yes, and…” to those ideas. They would say, “okay, maybe this class would be good for his excitement. Or this camp might be fun to kind of keep doing theatre because he loves theatre.” So what they did was continue to support it when I got the bug, but they didn’t push it at all.
And that’s so important to do. I know we’re running out of time, so I wanted to ask you about “Sweeney Todd” real quick. During that run, how did you get into the headspace of a murderer every night before going on stage?
Well, I think the thing that interesting for me—because the murder thing is the finish line—is who was the human being that became that? And, under the right amount of pressure and trauma, what was the thing about Benjamin Barker, the man who became Sweeney Todd that is in everybody? What is the thing that made him a loving husband, a loving father, a small business owner? Somebody who, for all intents and purposes, nobody was pointing their finger going “that’s the guy?” You know, I love the true crime stuff on Netflix. I love watching profiles of these monsters, and the thing that is the most chilling when I watch them is the person who was just the guy next door. When you just have no idea what was going on, that’s the thing that sends chill down your spine.
So for me, the act of what wound up happening after the snap occurs, is the final straw. But the thing that interested me, and the thing that our goal to make the character more human—and that was a choice, because Sweeney Todd can for sure just lean entirely into this kind of Grand Guignol, heady, dreadful-style, like—that’s the monster. There’s the bad guy, here are the clowns, you know. And I’ve loved Sweeney versions that are that way. Tommy Kail and I, and Annaleigh [Ashford], we all had a vision to kind of try and find the people behind these characters, and to find a little bit more realism to how this might have happened. And that to me, was is always way scarier. Absolutely.
*This interview has been edited for clarity.
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