INTERVIEW: Gavin DeGraw on New Album 'Something Worth Saving'

What's something worth saving? Gavin DeGraw knows. The 39-year-old singer/songwriter from South Fallsburg, New York, who has sold more than a million records over the course of his career so far, released his sixth studio album Something Worth Saving on September 9th via RCA Records. The new record is the follow-up to 2013's Make A Move and features ten new songs, including his singles "She Sets The City On Fire" and "Making Love with the Radio On." 

We recently caught up with Gavin about his new album during an exclusive interview. He told us the story behind his album title, and revealed several things he wishes he saved throughout the course of his career -- some thing(s) worth saving.

[Buy Something Worth Saving on iTunes]

On the story behind his album title Something Worth Saving

"I was sitting on my on my couch at my apartment and I just started playing something on the guitar, and honestly, I just sang the lyric. I sang the chorus almost straight through out of nowhere. [It] just kind of hit me. I surprised myself. It was like pulling a rabbit out of a hat -- and I've never pulled a rabbit out of a hat before -- but it was just like that. I felt like I was on to something. Then I chased that song around for over a year. It took over a year to finish it, because I'm a procrastinator. Also, I was working on so many other songs at the same time, and then it finally sort of revealed itself to me. But I felt like the sentiment of the song was impactful, and I felt like a lot of people could identify with the concept of trying to make something work because you felt like it would be worth it, if you get through the harder parts of it. I played it for my sister, the chorus. I remember I played it for her and she said to me, 'I don't know how you always seem to be able to write the way I feel.' And I thought, 'wow, I must be on to something here, I'll have to finish this song.' So by the time the album was done, I was throwing some ideas around in the room of what I should call the record. But I decided on that particular lyric, because I felt like it was a very poignant phrase, yet at the same time I felt like it was ambiguous enough that people [can] draw their own conclusions to allow them to feel that little blurb of lyric all for themselves, without even hearing the song yet. And it would hopefully peak their curiosity and have them go, 'I wonder what that is?'"

Gavin DeGraw Reveals 5 Things Worth Saving

Something Worth Saving got us thinking. There must be some things Gavin thinks are worth saving from throughout the course of his career. So we asked, and he answered. Check it out below!

1. A piece of the first bar room he ever played at

"I wish I could have preserved a little piece of the first bar room I ever played at. It was called the Nowhere Bar, and it was in upstate New York. It was across the street from the police station, and I used to go there when I was about 15 on school nights. That's when I quit sports, because I thought to myself, 'This is way cooler than playing basketball.' I was going out to a bar on Tuesday night and playing gigs with my brother and hanging out, and acting like what I felt like a man acted like when I was a kid. I thought that was so cool. So I wish I would've had a rock out of that place. Just anything from that bar room. Even a glass from that first place."

2. Anything from his childhood home 

"Now that my house that I grew up in has sold, I wish I had something from my old house. I went home recently to play a show near my home town at the original Wood Stock site. It's called Yasgur's Farm. And a guy named Allen Gary converted that property into a place called Bethel Woods. And we just played a show back home -- me and Andy Grammer did. [I] saw a lot of people from my home town, but it was the first time I'd ever been home with out having my home. So I wish I had something out of that house. Just anything. I don't know if you've ever been home after your house has been sold, but it's a very peculiar feeling."

3. Billy Joel T-Shirts from opening for the piano man

"I wish I would've had more t-shirts from Billy Joel shows because Billy Joel let me go out and open for him over the last two and a half years. And we've done maybe 10 or 15 shows at The Garden, Brickley Field, Fenway Park ... I mean so many of these amazing gigs." So I wish I would of had more of those concert t-shirts that he had printed. He had a new t-shirt made for every single venue. That was cool. So I wish I had collected all those t-shirts from every one of those shows so I could just hang them all up in my room."

4. His birth certificate (which he now has found)

"They just found my birth certificate. So I wish I had that. They found it in my old house. They're sending it to me. The original birth certificate. They called me up there were like, 'I think I have your birth certificate at this house.' I said, 'Can you please send it to me?'"

5. One of his very first recordings from high school

"I cut several recordings before I ever put my first record out, and I cut them with a couple of different people as I was trying to find my way as a musician. Some of them sounded like records. I mean some were better than others, some were way worse than others. Actually, I'd kind of like to find, this recording I made when I was about 16. I'd gone on this band trip with the school band, and we were doing one of those national competitions where bands from all over the country gather and they have this national competition. I was a horn player, so I played sax. I remember we were at this competition, and I walked into this recording booth, and it was 5 bucks or something you know. I was like, 'Oh yeah I want to record a couple songs.' I remember going in and recording a couple of these old jams like 'Lean On Me' or something like 'Desperado.' And I remember we got to the bus, and my band teacher, his name was Mr. Lusk, he'd heard that I had cut this recording, and he made everybody on the bus listen to me singing these songs. I was so embarrassed. But, he was really proud of me, and of course it was one of those, one of those first moments of feeling like you were singing in a way that people appreciated it. Without an experience like that, I don't know how confident I would have been about singing in front of people. It gave me a little bit of confidence because people reacted to it, and they made me feel like, 'oh wow that's really good.' It was one of those types of moments that I think was essential for building enough ego to be able to go out and do that in front of people."