Credit: Steph Port
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“I’m finally feeling like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be,” says Teddy Grossman, and the forthright, ever-soulful singer-songwriter speaks like a man who has been down many paths only to arrive back definitively where he’s forever belonged. Adds Grossman, a palpable determination and resolve in his voice: “I need to be able to look back at my life and say I gave it every ounce of energy.” This steady perseverance, this take-no-prisoners passion of Grossman’s— it all goes a long way in explaining why the multi-talented artist has finally arrived at this moment, his moment, the moment he’s been winding and weaving his way towards in life until this very time. That’s because for years, the lifelong music lover had kept music on the back burner, forever wondering if he’d ever take the leap and make it his principal career. Only recently however has he moved to Los Angeles and at last embarked on that long-gestating journey. And, Grossman says, he’s never felt more self-assured than he does right now. “It’s the happiest I’ve been in my life,” the shaggy-haired old soul says of the rich and inspired sessions for Soon Come, the musician’s highly-anticipated debut album out on November 19th.
Grossman spent much of his life getting his mind around what it meant to fully commit to a life in music. He’d always been a lifer at heart — his childhood was spent ingesting Otis Redding and Steve Wonder and Dylan and The Band— but upon graduating from the University of Michigan in 2009, he took the road often traveled and got a 9-5 job in the tech world. A few years back, however, after a near-decade living in Chicago and New York City, all the while working for the Man, in 2018, Grossman was finally ready to take the plunge. “It was all about taking that leap,” he says looking back at his decision to break out on his own and transform his passion into his livelihood.
All that time spent wondering what a music career — his music career — would look like now comes pouring forth via his cerebral and sublimely centered songs— the sort that speak to years of hard-won wisdom and, well, maybe a bit of luck. “There’s something about this music that feels modern,” Grossman says of the 12 songs that comprise Soon Come. “It feels organic and homemade.”
The album is highlighted by lead single “What I Owe” — a punchy pop song that fell out of Grossman in a single day and lyrically encapsulates the journey he’s been on…and one that’s still ongoing. “I’ll take my time/Wait my place in line/To make it shine like gold/till I pay down what I owe,” he sings on the hook, and there’s the sense that the musician has made amends with himself for all those years he waited to get right here. “It’s all about this feeling of despite having taken a decade to get here I still have this feeling of the iron being hot,” he says of the song, which was featured on the soundtrack for the documentary film “Maybe Next Year.”
But if there’s a song that perhaps best captures where Grossman is coming from — at least, sonically — it’s undoubtedly “Leave It On The Line.” Not only was it the first song he recorded for the project with producer Ryan Pauley — a childhood friend he reconnected with in Los Angeles and with whom he recorded the entirety of Soon Come — but “Leave It On The Line” is pure Grossman at his core: rootsy and soulful, infected with a dash of pop panache. “I had this vision in my head of taking Music From Big Pink meets Voodoo as the central heart to the approach of what I wanted this record to sound and feel like,” Grossman explains. Part gospel and blues and rock and folk and Appalachia and soul and R&B... “As a vocalist, those are equal-parts my influences,” Grossman continues. “And ”Leave It On The Line” executes on that lofty aim.”
As for the most personal songs on the LP? Grossman points to both “Crowned” and “Why Should I Pretend?” — both with their own respectively rich backstory. The former, “Crowned,” sprang forth from an unlikely friendship Grossman struck up with the iconic singer-songwriter Bill Withers near the end of the legend’s life. After a chance meeting one night, in 2018, at a small Bill Withers tribute concert in Los Angeles, Grossman and his drummer friend, Josh Teitelbaum, wound up going over to Withers’ house for a few inspired sessions. “I’m crowned in glory,” Withers kept saying as he’d run his fingers through his hair during their time together. To that end, Grossman calls the song “almost as an autobiography about Bill’s life.”
“Why Should I Pretend?” however might be the most touching song on the LP. First written by Grossman’s grandfather back in the 1930’s, and recorded later that decade by jazz icon Louis Prima & his New Orleans Gang, Grossman covers the song on Soon Come and even plays trumpet, his childhood instrument, as a tribute to his late grandfather. While his grandfather was an attorney by day, and only played music in his spare time — much like his Grossman’s own father who never took the leap and pursued a career in music — Grossman feels he’s in some ways he’s taking his family legacy to the next level. “It feels fortuitous,” he says of reinterpreting his grandfather’s tune.” And of taking the leap into music, he adds, “It’s like I’m breaking the chain of a third-generation creative of actually going for it.”
For Grossman, where things head from here is the exciting part. He’s eager to hit the live stage — “I really intend to get on the road and get out in front of people and perform these songs,” he says. “I’m excited to see how it translates” — and says no matter how his music career unfolds he knows he’s reached his proper destination.
“For a long time in my life, I felt this low-grade hum in the background that I wasn’t really where I was supposed to be,” he admits. Soon Come, then, he says, “is about hope and transformation. And I feel deeply spiritual and connected to some higher power at my arrival in this place.”