Josh Groban on Nashville, mid-concert proposals and what he sings at karaoke

Classical crossover star Josh Groban returns to the Nashville area Tuesday, when his "Harmony" tour stops at FirstBank Amphitheater in Franklin.

Ahead of the gig, the 41-year-old called The Tennessean to talk about the songs he's rediscovered, the many fans who pop the question at his concerts, and his go-to karaoke artists.

'Songs that feel right for right now': Things would get hairy at the amphitheater if Groban didn't sing “You Raise Me Up” (don't worry, he will). And fans are no doubt happy to see songs like “Alla Luce del Sole” (which opened his smash debut album in 2001) on the setlist.

But otherwise, Groban is in a privileged position among touring artists, able to “fill the night with songs that just feel right for right now."

“And it came from a place of feeling like I didn't belong anywhere,” he explains. “Early on in my career, (I was) feeling like, ‘Well, nobody's paying attention.’ I'm selling all these records, but you don't feel like you're invited to the club if you're not a rock star in the top 40. I realize now that all that time, I was just able to do it my own way. I was writing new rules, and I was able to slowly but surely cultivate a group of fans that were in it for all the right reasons.”

That means he's able to pull out several cuts from his 2020 covers album "Harmony," particularly ones he saw in a new light after the pandemic: Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and Sinatra's 1967 hit "The World We Knew (Over and Over)."

'Now they've got four kids': One of Groban’s most surprising staples is “The Book of Love,” popularized by Peter Gabriel but originally written and recorded by indie rock stalwarts The Magnetic Fields. It’s a song he routinely dedicates to couples celebrating anniversaries in the crowd – but it’s also become a moment when audience members propose, as seen at a recent concert in Cleveland.

At the start of the tour, Groban met a couple who told him his concert in 2004 was their first date, “and now they've got four kids.”

“You're in a bubble when you're touring…and when you hear those stories, and all the different ways that music becomes the soundtrack for people's lives, It just opens everything up and gives you that perspective of why it's so important we do what we do.”

How he knows if a song is right for him:  As an interpreter of songs as well as a writer, Groban says his antenna is always up in search of material to perform. But even if he falls in love with a tune, it won’t pass the bar unless he can answer “yes” to at least three questions.

“Are the hairs standing up in the back of my neck? Does this lyric feel like it's something I've experienced personally, that I can say truthfully? And is the arrangement incredible?”

That’s what separates the songs he’d sing at karaoke from the ones he does in concert, he says. But that begs the question: What does Josh Groban sing at karaoke? Quite often, it's Journey, among other classic rock acts.

“I definitely sing more rock in karaoke than I would onstage. I do a great Pearl Jam – I was a teenager in the '90s. Eddie Vedder is still on my bucket list (of collaborators).”

The Nashville connection: Two of the producers of "Harmony" — Bernie Herms and Tommee Profitt — call the Music City area home, and Groban has rehearsed for previous tours here.

"It reminds me almost of the theatre community," he says. "You might stumble into a session, and they need a bridge lyric, and all of a sudden, you're on the song. It's just one of those cities where it's all about the song, and it's all about making the best thing you can."

If you go: Josh Groban performs at FirstBank Amphitheater on Tuesday, July 19 with special guests Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The show starts at 7 p.m., and tickets start at $34.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Josh Groban interview: Nashville, mid-concert proposals, karaoke picks