Josh Groban spoke with Billboard’s Executive Features Editor, Rebecca Milzoff, about leaving 'Sweeney Todd,' being nominated for ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2023 Broadway Cast Recording),’ the 20th anniversary of his album ‘Closer,’ working with David Foster, his friendship with Leslie Odom Jr. and Josh Gad & more.
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00:00 The Jonas Brothers were across the street from us at the Marquis.
00:02 They would come out to greet stage door right at the time that, uh, I think like,
00:09 I don't want to spoil anything, but there's a big death at the end with a quiet moment
00:13 right afterwards. And so the audience would chuckle because this very serious,
00:19 dramatic death would happen. And then there would be these just absolute screeching screams
00:24 outside the theater. Hi, it's Josh Groban and you're watching Billboard News.
00:28 Hi everyone. Welcome to Billboard News. I'm Rebecca Milzoff,
00:38 executive features editor at Billboard. And I'm here today with Josh Groban.
00:42 Hi.
00:42 You raised me up so I can stand on mountains. Through it all she offers me protection.
01:01 Hi Josh.
01:01 Thanks for having me.
01:02 You may not remember, but we actually met once before six years ago when you were making your
01:07 Broadway debut.
01:08 I do remember that.
01:10 Yes. I knew when we met that we'd met before. I just couldn't remember exactly when it was.
01:14 Well, I remember that you said at the time that you were excited by educated risks,
01:18 which I thought was such a great thought. And I imagine Sweeney was very much one of those.
01:23 There's a great risk to doing a new work because you don't know how people are going to respond to
01:28 it. And I think sometimes there's an even greater risk to doing a work that has been beloved for 40
01:32 years. Because yes, you have the responsibility to not mess it up, first of all. But secondly,
01:39 you want to honor the piece by bringing something to it that people haven't seen before and
01:42 by adding your stamp on it.
01:46 Doing something like Sweeney Todd, I joke that in the theater world it's like telling comic book
01:52 fans that you're the next Batman. You're going to get all sides from people thinking you're right,
01:56 people thinking you're horribly wrong. And you just have to stay the course and do your thing.
02:03 And the only meter that I have is to throw myself into stuff if I'm passionate about it
02:09 in a way that I think, well, if I'm enjoying what's happening here, then there are other
02:13 people that will probably enjoy it too. And we've just been just blown away with the response,
02:19 truly, by every age group for something that hasn't been on Broadway at this size, at least,
02:24 for a very, very long time. To see so many people, young and old, people who've seen it 20 times,
02:29 people who this is their first Broadway experience, to bring a work like this back to Broadway in a
02:34 way that's affecting people that way is like a dream beyond what I could have imagined.
02:38 Yeah, it's amazing to hear about how many people who have never seen it before.
02:40 The number of people that I see at Stage Door where this is not only their first Sweeney,
02:44 but their first Broadway experience ever, that brings me back to when I was that age. And I was
02:52 that 13-year-old kid waiting at Stage Door in LA where I grew up and going home and thinking to
02:58 myself, "Well, that's something I want to have in my life forever." To do that, to hold the torch
03:03 this year to do that was really fun. Well, speaking of you being a teenager, segue, I heard
03:08 that this is not the first time you wanted to do Sweeney, that you tried as a teenager and it did
03:13 not work out. That's right. I wanted to hear a little about that. Yeah. It's always funny when
03:18 a camp or a high school takes on a very adult show. I was Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof senior
03:27 year of high school. And that exists on tape. That does exist on tape. Many of us have seen it.
03:32 If I were a rich man. I was 15 going on 12. I was a real late bloomer. And I was not picked to be
03:41 Sweeney at camp, but I had an incredible time in the ensemble, which was for Sweeney is one of the
03:47 great ensembles in all of theater. Amazing. There is no shortage of wonderful things to do in the
03:53 Sweeney ensemble and vocally. It's one of the most challenging ensemble roles there is. So I had a
03:59 great time doing it. It was so fun to blend because being in being in a group setting for me at that
04:06 time was the perfect way for me to learn about relative pitch and and the camaraderie of theater.
04:11 And and then I kind of put it away and I thought, well, maybe maybe Sweeney is not for me.
04:15 So nobody was more surprised than me that this came around and that it was something that that
04:21 I had the potential to do. And it does seem like the kind of role that maybe a little more life
04:25 experience can lend itself to. I think so. There's a lot of approximating when you're in high school
04:31 and junior high school. Were you a menacing teenager? I'm not a very menacing adult either.
04:36 But but it's it's you know, it's the kind of thing where, you know, at that age, you're just
04:42 you're just pretending on so many levels. And I feel that way about songs that I recorded at that
04:47 age, too. I mean, it wasn't it wasn't long after that audition that I was actually signed to a
04:53 full blown record deal. So singing songs that were very mature for very mature people. And,
04:59 you know, I kind of felt the same way then as I did about trying to, like, put on the Sweeney
05:03 Todd face is that like, oh, I surely one day I'll understand what these songs are about.
05:13 Going back now and whether it's singing and taking on the role of Sweeney Todd or singing
05:18 songs from my first album, I like doing them now as a 42 year old person with lots of life
05:23 experience because they actually mean something to me now, as opposed to like, you know, presenting
05:29 them and going, oh, so thank you for thank you for telling me your story. I'm sure I'll have one
05:33 one day. Yeah. Well, you are now for the fifth time a Grammy nominee because of the Sweeney Todd
05:39 cast album and wanted to hear a little bit about that process, because I think a lot of people
05:44 don't know quite how much goes into recording a cast album and also just how important it is for
05:49 a show to have a great cast album. Cast albums were the way that I could enjoy a theatrical
05:55 experience before I had the opportunity to go see a show. Yeah. The the audio experience of a show
06:01 can be just as powerful. Close your eyes, put on your headphones and a really great cast recording
06:06 can truly transport you to what's going on. And I know that you guys also just filmed the Tiny
06:12 Desk concert. Yeah. Which is just such a big show, making it tiny. Truly what that was like.
06:17 Tiny Desk was awesome. They were, you know, so fun to watch during the pandemic when everybody
06:22 was doing Tiny Desk from their own homes and from their own offices and things like that.
06:26 Things like that. But but yeah, so we went to D.C., we did Tiny Desk with a I believe it was a
06:32 nine piece orchestration that also Jonathan Tunick had in his, he dusted off from his drawers that he
06:39 had from something else that he did, I think in London. And so, you know, anything that Tunick
06:46 does, anything that the show is a part of, it just goes to show that in any iteration it works.
06:52 It was just as powerful to sing this music with no mics. And actually it's an actual office. You
06:58 go in there and you walk into NPR and that is their music editor's corner office. And so to
07:06 sing there with all the staff there watching was just was a blast. I did some sightseeing, too.
07:10 You're leaving the show in January, January 14th, at the same time as your co-star, Annalie Ashford.
07:15 When you're doing a real bucket list role like this, how do you decide when it's time to leave?
07:21 Well, you know, there's a number of things that go into deciding. I think that we feel whether
07:30 we stayed in it another year, whether we left tomorrow. I think Annalie and I both feel like
07:35 we did what we came to do. We wanted to get it off the ground in a way that we were really,
07:40 really proud of to get a response that we feel Sondheim would have been really excited by and
07:45 proud of. We wanted to bring our essence to the role and do something with it that we we personally
07:52 would be really proud of. And then it comes down to how long do you stay fresh in that and how long
07:59 do you feel like you have something really vital in your tank to give it? As you were saying before,
08:06 like, I mean, I feel like the theater community itself is just reason enough to enjoy being on
08:10 Broadway. It just seems like such a fun group to be part of. And I know that you're on Broadway now.
08:15 At the same time as two of your BFFs from college, right? Josh Gad and Leslie Odom Jr.
08:20 Leslie is in Pearly Victorious and Josh is in Gutenberg. Both amazing shows, too.
08:25 There's the Carnegie Mellon alumni are killing it.
08:28 Representing. Yeah. So do you guys get to see each other at all? Is it I mean,
08:32 is it fun to be on Broadway? Oh, my God. We have a group chat going.
08:34 Amazing. How was your audience today?
08:35 Lots of Germans. We are, you know, continue to be pals. So proud to have been part of
08:45 that amazing class. I left earlier because I got, you know, I got this amazing door that swung wide
08:51 open and it was a big, big risk to leave such a prestigious program. Ultimately, working with
08:59 David Foster, making these albums early in my life wound up being a masterclass of its own
09:04 that I was lucky to have. Well, speaking of David Foster, he actually was here recently.
09:09 Yes. Soon to be a Broadway baby. Yes. Yes. I'm so proud of him and excited for him.
09:14 He spoke highly of you, of course. And I feel like since it's that time of year,
09:18 we should mention he also produced your Christmas album. Yes. Well,
09:21 are there things he taught you back then that you still find yourself calling upon today and sort of
09:26 remembering back to things he said? I mean, having David as a teacher, it's such an early time in my
09:33 life was really among the greatest educations I could have ever had. I mean, I mentioned that I
09:38 had to leave school early to work with him, but that was the that was the the trade was that I
09:42 got to work with somebody whose brilliance would mean that if I were in a school program and he was
09:48 visiting, I might get a two hour masterclass. I'd give away my soul to hold you once again.
09:55 And I got the opportunity to work with him 24/7 for years. That is something that you can't.
10:02 That's a lottery win for for a musician, for a vocalist. The amount of people that he's worked
10:07 with, the instincts that he has that you can't teach to be around those was was was everything
10:15 for me. Is that me playing? Yeah. You had a keyboard in the studio and a keyboard in the
10:22 studio and you just that's your sound. The thing about David, too, is that when he believes in you,
10:28 he puts you in the position to see the door, but he absolutely makes you have to sprint and sweat
10:35 and and walk through it yourself. And so to have had both of those things to feel like I,
10:42 yes, had the lift, had the opportunity. Hey, kid, I like the way you sound. Let's work. But let's
10:47 really work. He taught me a work ethic that, you know, I don't think always happens in this
10:54 business. We are here also to celebrate the 20th anniversary of your album Closer. Oh, yeah. Which
11:00 I've learned was one of the nine albums you've had that debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.
11:06 Wow. Three of those peaked at number one and Closer was one of them. Wow. Do you remember
11:11 that happening? Like like getting that number one album, what it felt like? It didn't it didn't.
11:15 I remember it didn't open at number one. I don't think. Yeah, I think it was four. And then once.
11:20 Yeah. And then I remember like being surprised that like I don't think almost like a month later
11:26 or something, it actually went up. I got the call that it had gone to number one when that's usually
11:31 not the case. Usually you have your big opening week and then it just at least that's the way the
11:35 business is pretty much now. So that was a really special feeling. That was the first album that I
11:41 started to write on. I felt like that was the first album where I started to kind of explore
11:47 more kind of eclectic tastes and took a little bit more risks and dip my toes into waters that
11:54 felt a little more self-expressive. I think when you're your first album, you're just trying to be
11:59 so careful, so careful. You've got a lot of chefs in your kitchen. Yeah. When you've got someone
12:02 like David Foster, you've got Gordon Ramsay in your kitchen and in a good way. Yes. And so,
12:11 you know, that that album doing what it did really made me realize that my fans are in it for the
12:19 long run. That was the album that going that album going to number one made me realize, oh,
12:22 we're going to have a journey together. This is not just a one album has to be this. They were
12:28 open to other styles, other things, and they were open to me being me. And that was a fun,
12:33 fun thing to realize. So 20 years on, sitting here with you still and continuing to take risks that
12:40 they're with me on. I realized that that was a right instinct to feel that because they've been
12:45 with me this entire time. So now you have sort of open road ahead of you soon. Yeah. So what are you
12:51 thinking about what comes next when you're done? I haven't the slightest idea and I'm OK with that.
12:57 You know, I I really kind of I poured everything I have into this show and my glass was so full
13:07 on every level that I just didn't I didn't really have much else to think about. This was a role
13:15 that I think demanded so much of my attention every single day, knowing that I had to get from
13:21 A to Z with a with a show of this caliber and the size is its own daily mental maze, you know,
13:30 and its own physical marathon. Every day you're doing a marathon with the show. And so I think
13:35 that the idea of not knowing after this is done has actually been a great comfort for me. Yeah,
13:41 because I need to decompress after this. I need to sit back, see where the creative winds take me,
13:48 see where the inspiration is and see where the next thing that like, as you said earlier,
13:53 I think like scares me in all the right ways is. But otherwise, I'm just going to kind of get better
13:57 at cooking and kick the can for a few months and and go to the woods. And maybe you'll see me,
14:05 maybe you won't. We'll we'll see. I was going to say, spend some time with your new puppy.
14:09 And my new puppy. Who I'm obsessed with. Oh my God, George is the absolute best. I would be
14:16 so happy to just take walks every day, all day. He is very cute. Yes. Well, thank you so much.
14:22 Thank you.