Andy Grammer + American Authors with special guest AJR

Los Angeles-born, New York-raised singer-songwriter Andy Grammer has gone from hustling street performer on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade to platinum-selling recording artist. With his 2011 self-titled debut album, Andy became the first male pop star in a decade, since John Mayer in 2002, to reach the Top 10 at Adult Pop Radio on his first two singles, “Keep Your Head Up” and “Fine By Me,” certified platinum and gold respectively. Andy’s second album, 2014’s critically acclaimed Magazines or Novels, continues his disarming success with his current single “Honey, I’m Good.” – a clever new twist on the traditional love song – which continues to rack up millions of streams and climb the Billboard Hot 100 while simultaneously hitting #1 on iTunes’ pop.

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A four-piece alt-rock outfit based in Brooklyn, American Authors use their razor-sharp musicianship
and natural mastery of songcraft as a jumping-off point for sonic exploration. On their debut album
Oh, What a Life, singer Zac Barnett, guitarist James Adam Shelley, bassist Dave Rublin, and
drummer Matt Sanchez weave in everything from hip-hop grooves and Afro-Latin rhythms to dancepop
synths and Queen-inspired vocal harmonies—all while staying true to a rock-and-roll energy and
melodic sensibility that’s highly refined. Featuring their breakout hit song “Best Day of My Life” and
follow-up single “Believer”,” the sunny yet soulful Oh, What a Life is also built on a magnetic sense of
optimism that’s carried American Authors from their formation at Boston’s Berklee College of Music to
their down-and-out early years in Brooklyn to their current status as an internationally touring band on
an ever-growing rise.

“Our number-one rule when we went to make this album was that we weren’t going to hold back or
limit ourselves on any one particular sound,” says Barnett of Oh, What a Life. “All four of us have
really eclectic musical taste, and we wanted to tie in all the different kinds of music that have inspired
us throughout our lives. The most important thing was that we have fun and experiment, and see
what happened when we got rid of any boundaries we’d put on our music in the past.”
Produced by Shep Goodman and Aaron Accetta, Oh, What a Life was born from the intensely
collaborative approach that American Authors always take in creating new music. “Our songs tend to
start with the four of us getting in a room together and trading ideas back and forth or sharing
stories—a melody or groove or lyric can come from any of us,” Shelley says. And as they gradually
brought in more sounds and styles to shape Oh, What a Life, the band ended up adding a host of
new instruments to their repertoire, learning to play banjo, mandolin, accordion, melodica, and
mandocello—as well as mastering the use of synth and drum machines—while in the throes of the
recording process.

Despite their lack of restraint in making Oh, What a Life, the album proves a tightly crafted collection
of pop-rock gems that—song after song—reveal American Authors’s irresistibly openhearted spirit.
From the amped-up dance beats that kick off “Believer” to the epic folk-rock of the album-closing title
track, the band channels their high-as-the-sky hope into songs marked by both soaring intensity and
summery ease. On the anthemic “Best Day of My Life,” those good vibes radiate by way of breezy
harmonies and propulsive rhythms, while “Luck” (a song about “family and the sacrifices we all make
to follow our passions,” according to Rublin) turns its tension into stomping beats and blissed-out
melody. Even in their darker moments—such as “Trouble,” an aching, acoustic-guitar-laced track that
serves as Oh, What a Life’s sole straight-up love song, and “Heart of Stone,” an angst-ridden number
driven by nervy guitar riffs—American Authors maintain a triumphant mood that’s deeply infectious.
The mix of boundless energy and melodic finesse that fuels Oh, What a Life owes much to each
member’s near-lifelong devotion to making music. Forming in 2007 at Berklee—where Barnett,
Shelley, Rublin, and Sanchez were all students—the band first took the name The Blue Pages and
threw themselves into perfecting their pop-infused brand of indie rock. After two years of struggling to
record and book tours on their own, the group dropped out of Berklee and moved to Brooklyn, where
all four bandmates shared a cramped Bushwick apartment. Once they’d gotten settled in New York,
the band changed their name to American Authors and began breathing new life into their songwriting
and sound. “Being in a new city and feeling the inspiration that comes from that, it just felt like a fresh
start,” says Sanchez. “We decided to go with American Authors for our name because an author can 
e anyone who tells a story through words, and we consider ourselves storytellers with our song
lyrics,” Rublin adds, noting that the name also refers to each member hailing from a different corner of
the country and bringing his own distinct background to the group.

Shortly after moving to Brooklyn, American Authors crossed paths with Shep Goodman while playing
a gig in the city. Eventually signing with Goodman and Accetta’s production company Dirty Canvas,
the band wrote and recorded “Believer” and quickly saw the track thrown into rotation on Sirius XM’s
Alt Nation radio. With “Believer” fast landing on the Alt-18 Countdown and their eagerly received
single “Best Day of My Life” building on the band’s momentum and greatly boosting their social media
following, American Authors soon inked a deal with Island Records, took off on their first tour, and set
to work on their debut album. “Everything happened so fast with ‘Believer’ and ‘Best Day of My Life’
blowing up and us going on tour, we ended up writing and recording the album at the same time,”
recalls Sanchez. “But the way it worked out was that we didn’t have the chance of overthink
anything—it was just us in the studio having fun and making the music that we wanted to make.”
Releasing Oh, What a Life in March 2014 and embarking on a national tour with OneRepublic in May,
American Authors have spent almost the entire past year on the road and consider playing live
essential to the band. “We love feeling the energy of the crowd and giving that energy back, and we
go into every show thinking that this might be someone’s first show ever or their last show ever,” says
Shelley. Already working on songs for their next album—with the help of a studio set up in the back of
their tour bus—American Authors aim to continue instilling their music with the joyful urgency that fills
their live show and first album. “One theme that runs throughout Oh, What a Life is this feeling of
hopeful determination,” notes Barnett. “Before ‘Believer’ started taking off, we were at such a low
point of being broke and jobless and down to our last dollar, but we just kept pushing to stay
motivated and stay hungry. Our songs aren’t saying, ‘Don’t worry, everything’s gonna work out
okay!’—they’re about all the ups and downs that everyone has to deal with, and how you have to
keep moving and do what you want and create your own future, so hopefully someday you can look
back at the good times and bad times and see how far you’ve come.”