Speaker 1: Happy Days from the Welcome Back my Friend to Love
Speaker 1: Someone with Delilah, my podcast that I love, love love doing,
Speaker 1: even people that I've known for a long long time.
Speaker 1: For instance, today's guest, I have known him since he
Speaker 1: was a very talented, but very nervous teenager. He was
Speaker 1: a newbie. He and his anxious parents came into my
Speaker 1: studio right out of high school. I've watched him mesmerized
Speaker 1: crowds with his voice, his voice that is the voice
Speaker 1: of an angel. I have seen him stretch, reach, grow
Speaker 1: in might and maturity and in the ways of the heart.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is nearly synonymous with the Delilah Show and Christmas.
Speaker 1: He's a man of grace, of dignity, of unflappable positivity.
Speaker 1: He's followed by millions. He's adorable. He's got the most
Speaker 1: beautiful curls and the sweetest smile and a huge art.
Speaker 1: And if he still gets nervous like he was before
Speaker 1: his first concert that I went to, you'd never know it.
Speaker 1: We'll be catching up with my good friend Josh Grobin today,
Speaker 1: right after we give a round of applause to my
Speaker 1: superstar podcast sponsor. These are the folks that make this
Speaker 1: podcast possible each week the kind helpful folks at the
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Speaker 1: Make the most of your holidays with a little help
Speaker 1: from the Home Depot. How doers get more done? Hi? Josh,
Speaker 1: are you ready? I'm so ready. I'm so happy to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Hear your voice. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: I missed you. How are you to my friends? I'm
Speaker 1: doing well? Thank you? I mean, can you know? Can?
Speaker 1: Considering everything? I think you know, nobody's doing well well
Speaker 1: right now. But I've got a lot to be grateful
Speaker 1: for and have my health and have music, so that
Speaker 1: those two things I'm very lucky right now. Amen to that.
Speaker 1: Are you still in the Big Apple? Where are you? No?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in Los Angeles. I've been here. I've
Speaker 1: been here to the course of the pandemic. I was
Speaker 1: in Florida when everything went in to lockdown seven months
Speaker 1: ago and on tour and uh we shut down, and
Speaker 1: you know, my family's here and and uh I wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to look after my parents and um,
Speaker 1: and it just, you know, felt it felt more spread
Speaker 1: out to be here. This is my original hometown, and
Speaker 1: uh in New York, you know, especially at that time,
Speaker 1: felt like it would be very hard to get through this,
Speaker 1: this in a place so crowded that I missed New
Speaker 1: York very much. I bet, I bet they miss you.
Speaker 1: But you're you're at home. Your folks are well, they are,
Speaker 1: they are well. Um, you know, I'm just I've wrapped
Speaker 1: them and bubble wrapped and um trying to do the
Speaker 1: same for myself as much as possible. And yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been it's been a really crazy crazy you know, a
Speaker 1: few months finishing an album and writing and trying to
Speaker 1: learn how to cook and trying to keep myself sane
Speaker 1: and and and you and your your family, everybody, everybody
Speaker 1: even been okay. Yeah, as soon as it hit, UM,
Speaker 1: I packed up the kids and headed to my hubbies rant.
Speaker 1: For the same reason that you're you're speaking of. I
Speaker 1: took my in laws because they're in their eighties and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be in a safer place and
Speaker 1: and I already knew how to cook. And so I've
Speaker 1: got the COVID twenty that I've gained since being shut in. Um,
Speaker 1: that's not a good thing, you know, it's a badge
Speaker 1: of honor. I think that it just means that we've
Speaker 1: been we've been nourishing ourselves and nourishing those around us. Uh,
Speaker 1: because food and love. So I think that's I think
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's good. Yeah, well, my my ankles might
Speaker 1: disagree with you. That is good. But in our family,
Speaker 1: food is definitely love and I love to feed my family.
Speaker 1: And so, um, while you were recording an album, I
Speaker 1: was baking sour dough. You know, That's what happened. I
Speaker 1: think everybody decided they wanted to be to bake. Also
Speaker 1: during these last seven months, I have, you know, because
Speaker 1: I traveled so much. I tour so much. I'm always
Speaker 1: just kind of getting room service and whatever is the
Speaker 1: bus after a show, and you know, so I never
Speaker 1: really had the bug the culinary bug to kind of
Speaker 1: craft in the kitchen. I was always too impatient. I
Speaker 1: wanted to eat all the ingredients. That's where I cooked them.
Speaker 1: And there's something about having all this time too just
Speaker 1: you know, take a time out. I realized the cooking
Speaker 1: is very similar to music. You know, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of ingredients, you have a lot of notes, and
Speaker 1: they don't all seem like they're going to go together
Speaker 1: at first, and then all of a sudden, you take
Speaker 1: your time and you learn techniques and you actually craft
Speaker 1: something quite wonderful, and then it is. It is nourishing.
Speaker 1: I like to I like to serve food in the
Speaker 1: same way I like to serve music. So it's been
Speaker 1: a fun, fun escape for me. I am very frustrated
Speaker 1: with a lot of the stuff. I can't even imagine
Speaker 1: for somebody who's used to touring and performing as much
Speaker 1: as you are, how much change you've had to deal with.
Speaker 1: But I have loved the slow down and the opportunity
Speaker 1: to spend more intense time, intimate time with my family.
Speaker 1: M hm, I you know, I think they're there. We
Speaker 1: we all for our own mental health. We have to
Speaker 1: find silver linings in this tragedy. Of the year that
Speaker 1: we've had. And I know I speak for so many
Speaker 1: people in the music and touring and theater industries. Uh,
Speaker 1: this has just been an absolutely beyond devastating time for
Speaker 1: for everybody who relies on every facet of live performance,
Speaker 1: the cruise, the people who are are you know, help
Speaker 1: us get from pointing to point b, everybody in the
Speaker 1: travel industry, everybody who works behind the scenes, in front
Speaker 1: of the scenes, um my, my Broadway brethren. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: just been it's been a time of such such a
Speaker 1: rug being pulled out and so um you know, it
Speaker 1: has been so so hard, and I do hope that
Speaker 1: the silver lining for everybody getting through these hard times
Speaker 1: is hopefully that we just take stock in what the
Speaker 1: simple important things are in our lives, you know, to
Speaker 1: have a to have a mandatory time out for everybody
Speaker 1: that there is no there is no hedonic you know,
Speaker 1: treadmill to keep running on. We all have to we
Speaker 1: all have to take a step back and take stock.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of gratitude, there's a lot of focusing
Speaker 1: on our families and our friends, on connecting, on having
Speaker 1: a call that's more than five minutes long. Um, And
Speaker 1: so you know if and when, because we will get
Speaker 1: through this. I hope, we hope we we hang onto
Speaker 1: whatever slivers of good that came from from the time
Speaker 1: out in the quiet. So there's a sliver of good
Speaker 1: that's coming out the end of November. Your new album, Harmony,
Speaker 1: I can't. I almost called it that I chose Harmony
Speaker 1: of the sliver of good would have been would have
Speaker 1: been a good. Uh, sliver of good would have been great. Um,
Speaker 1: Harmony probably describes it a little bit better. Um, you
Speaker 1: got some timeless songs on there. You've got some new
Speaker 1: songs on the air. I just got to listen to
Speaker 1: the Impossible dream that is on there, that is so
Speaker 1: dreamy and so layered with richness. Um. And and just
Speaker 1: so tell me you start, how many songs did you
Speaker 1: have done when when COVID hit? So we had to
Speaker 1: we had the album about half done when COVID hit. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know that the album prior to this one
Speaker 1: was very personal. I've done a lot of writing, and
Speaker 1: I just on this one, I really wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: interpret sing my face off and just sing some songs
Speaker 1: that I wanted to sing for a long time. The
Speaker 1: fans have been requesting you know, for years and years
Speaker 1: and years and try to find kind of new relevance
Speaker 1: and freshness in these classic and timeless stories and melodies.
Speaker 1: And so half of them were done. And then when
Speaker 1: everything turned to one eight Um, two things happened. One
Speaker 1: was that finding songs that were classics all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: as as these amazing songs often do, had new fresh
Speaker 1: meaning in the times that we're in, you know, choosing
Speaker 1: a song like impossible Dream of both sides now, Um,
Speaker 1: I sang them with way more I think, meaning in
Speaker 1: relevance to today's and I would have if I had
Speaker 1: started to sing them five or six months ago. So um.
Speaker 1: And then the original songs weren't supposed to be on
Speaker 1: the album. I you know, I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of us when we have a lot of time to
Speaker 1: just sit and right, a lot of feeling came out
Speaker 1: musically that we're unexpected. And I gave them to the
Speaker 1: label and I said, you know, these are these came
Speaker 1: out and I wasn't expecting them to make it, and they,
Speaker 1: to their credits, said these are right for right now
Speaker 1: and um, and so the album took some turns, as
Speaker 1: I think everybody's lives have taken and so harmony is
Speaker 1: really about trying to trying to come together with songs
Speaker 1: both original and classic that that made me feel better
Speaker 1: to sing them, and hopefully people will feel better to
Speaker 1: listen to them. So you had months of shutdown, you
Speaker 1: had months with your family, you had months of introspection,
Speaker 1: you had time to write, to record. Tell me, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: sweatpants are not my friend. They lie, they lie to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I spend so much time wearing a suit
Speaker 1: in my life that that like that before all this,
Speaker 1: the moment where I got to actually crawl into some sweatpants,
Speaker 1: I just was like, is this Christmas? Like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Is it the greatest feeling ever? And I am so
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a bonfire when this is all done,
Speaker 1: of just all of the sweats and socks and snuggies
Speaker 1: and whatever else I lived in this last seven months.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just I'm gonna dance around the flames.
Speaker 1: I started doing a podcast live broadcast every day, uh
Speaker 1: before I go on the air. I tried to do
Speaker 1: it five days a week. You know, it's hit and miss,
Speaker 1: depending on what's going on. But I think that was
Speaker 1: good in that I actually have to put makeup and
Speaker 1: and comb my hair every day because I don't know
Speaker 1: that I would do those things otherwise. Is you know
Speaker 1: that the sneak attack. I don't know if you had
Speaker 1: to deal with this, is that sometimes um, for for
Speaker 1: me with with with interviews and things like that, something
Speaker 1: will I'll think something is going to be a phone
Speaker 1: call and it winds up being a zoom. I wasn't
Speaker 1: prepared for a zoom, So I'm I wind up having
Speaker 1: to like very quickly like what did on my hair?
Speaker 1: Or like put on a better you know, a better
Speaker 1: you know shirt while I'm still wearing pajamas on the
Speaker 1: bottom half, Like the sneak attack. Zooms are really u
Speaker 1: quite quite quite hard. So I am the cameraman, and
Speaker 1: I try really hard not to ever show that, you know,
Speaker 1: up top, I'm wearing a blouse and a jacket and
Speaker 1: and down below I've got on the grungeyest sweatpants I own.
Speaker 1: You know, At some point, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: whole thing will continue at the old joke of like, well,
Speaker 1: you know that meeting could have been an email. That
Speaker 1: is where we're living right now, is that every meeting
Speaker 1: is an email. Everything a zoom. I've got such zoom
Speaker 1: fatigue right now. I mean, I'm so grateful to have
Speaker 1: connections with my friends and family and will do like
Speaker 1: a you know, we'll we'll open a bottle of wine
Speaker 1: and have a Friday afternoon, you know, just kind of
Speaker 1: catch up. And that's always great. But man, I just
Speaker 1: my eyes are burning out from all the time staring
Speaker 1: at a screen. For the most part, I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: can't hear you. Yeah, exactly, And the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: working out of a barn now makes that pretty easy. Actually,
Speaker 1: well that's cool though, I mean, that's that's awesome that
Speaker 1: you get to have a kind of a haven there
Speaker 1: to to do that. I'd love barn sounds happen. How
Speaker 1: are the animals? How are all the animals? The animals,
Speaker 1: the horses, the cows, the dogs, the cats, the kids.
Speaker 1: Everybody is good, all the critters and animals. Animals don't
Speaker 1: under I don't think they fully understand how much they're
Speaker 1: helping us right now, Like all of our pets, I
Speaker 1: think should get some kind of metal at the end
Speaker 1: of all this, for that's a therapy they're giving us,
Speaker 1: and they have no idea. The pound the animal rescue place. Um,
Speaker 1: we have a no kill shelter in our area, and
Speaker 1: every time I would go there, it would be so full,
Speaker 1: and it would break my heart because you know dogs
Speaker 1: that that you know are just sweet dogs that are
Speaker 1: in there for days or weeks on end, they have
Speaker 1: been empty. Like a dog comes in, it gets adopted immediately. Um,
Speaker 1: because people are realizing what wonderful companions are for babies are.
Speaker 1: So that's that's one good thing. That's a silver lining.
Speaker 1: That's a that's every animal we can into our homes
Speaker 1: right now and and and take them in. Yeah, I agreed.
Speaker 1: You want one of my ten horses, one of my cows.
Speaker 1: I got a pretty modest sized home here. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I could look is it a miniature pony? I
Speaker 1: could set a miniature pony in my kitchen. That would
Speaker 1: actually be much better than a garbage disposal. I think
Speaker 1: if I just had a little pony. No, No, goats.
Speaker 1: Goats are better than garbage disposals. Goats will eat just
Speaker 1: pretty much anything. I could give you a miny goat.
Speaker 1: I've got many goats. I've got goats are only like
Speaker 1: two ft tall. Oh my god, this is I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is I truly, I only came on
Speaker 1: to talk to you and have the interview, but to
Speaker 1: get a goat out of this. To get a goat
Speaker 1: out of this, you could You could open a bottle
Speaker 1: of your wine. You could sit back. You could um
Speaker 1: give the wine cork to the goat. The goat would
Speaker 1: eat the wine cork in about three seconds. They really
Speaker 1: do eat everything, right, I mean you tows and toilet papers,
Speaker 1: they eat everything. They eat everything. You You can have
Speaker 1: the nastiest, rottenest apple that fell off the tree and
Speaker 1: throw it to the goat. They're like, oh, yes, this
Speaker 1: is fabulous, And I'm like, really, I could use a
Speaker 1: couple of goats when I experiment recipes. I think they
Speaker 1: they're they're probably probably the only ones who would eat it.
Speaker 1: You could experiment, you could burn it, you could like
Speaker 1: put way too much whatever in it, and the goats
Speaker 1: would love it. They would be thrilled. Long fire. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna feed all my sweatpants to these new gift goats
Speaker 1: that I'm about to get, and it'll feed the soil.
Speaker 1: At some point. You know, you are synonymous. You and
Speaker 1: I are synonymous with Christmas. When people think of Christmas,
Speaker 1: they think of the Delilah Show, and Josh Grobin, that's
Speaker 1: what they think of the Santa Claus is in there,
Speaker 1: and hopefully Baby Jesus. But you and I are synonymous, Josh.
Speaker 1: With Christmas. Well, I mean, man, it's been it's been
Speaker 1: incredible to have had such a connection with that time
Speaker 1: of year because I just love it so much. And
Speaker 1: I was raised, you know, having just some of the
Speaker 1: most amazing and warm and loving Christmass And when I
Speaker 1: made a Christmas album, I couldn't believe, Uh, I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it did as well as it did. I thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be a side project. And and
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm I'm thrilled with that, truly, year after
Speaker 1: year for this holiday, you've stopped by, You've had pie.
Speaker 1: Now because of COVID, we don't get to do the
Speaker 1: the in person thing, but we still get to do
Speaker 1: the show. So thank you for stopping by. My family
Speaker 1: is here, and um, you know, we've all we've all
Speaker 1: thankfully had a chance to to get together and share
Speaker 1: some precious moments together for this holiday as as I know,
Speaker 1: as I hope many other families are able to do,
Speaker 1: and I know so many more families are not able
Speaker 1: to do so, I'm very grateful for that. Tell me
Speaker 1: in your listeners something that in um a year of surprises,
Speaker 1: tell me something you are truly grateful for. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: that my family is healthy. I'm grateful that I've been
Speaker 1: able to to see so many extraordinary people show us
Speaker 1: that they are stronger than we all ever could have
Speaker 1: imagined we could be. And I'm grateful to have the
Speaker 1: hope that we can all get through this and be
Speaker 1: better for it. And um, yeah, hopefully I'll be grateful
Speaker 1: that my my Pi Cris gets a little better in
Speaker 1: the coming weeks. But I'm not going to hold on
Speaker 1: hope for that one. Yeah, I gave up on that.
Speaker 1: You know what I do now? I buy boxed pie
Speaker 1: crust mix. You can buy it in your box. You
Speaker 1: just add water, you stir it up and it's almost
Speaker 1: as good as GM's part of myself. I'm too type A.
Speaker 1: I just I feel like that's cheating, but no, it's
Speaker 1: it is cheating, and I don't care. There are some
Speaker 1: things I won't cheat, you know, I would never cheat
Speaker 1: when it comes to my family, my husband, But pie crust,
Speaker 1: pie crust, I don't care. It'sn'tly cheating, It's only cheating.
Speaker 1: The goats will now no longer get to eat the
Speaker 1: terrible crust. Such a joy to know you and Tom
Speaker 1: and to to talk to you all these years and
Speaker 1: have your support. Never forget driving up to the house
Speaker 1: wherever you were recording, and and flying into flying into Washington,
Speaker 1: and and and speaking with you and playing my music
Speaker 1: for you for the first time. And now almost seventeen
Speaker 1: eighteen years later, I can't believe. I can't believe how
Speaker 1: much has happened. And I'm so so thankful for your friends.
Speaker 1: So thank you for that. Thank you, God, bless you.
Speaker 1: Happy holidays, thank you, love you so much. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me on. I really appreciate it. Always it is
Speaker 1: always a pleasure to catch up with Mr Josh Grobin.
Speaker 1: Has been a pleasure to walk alongside you on this
Speaker 1: professional path, cheering your accomplishments, welcoming each new project. I
Speaker 1: have loved playing your music Josh on my show. You
Speaker 1: are so beloved and I know you know this by
Speaker 1: my listeners. I met one of your fans, Josh, who
Speaker 1: has a tattoo of you on her arm. That's how
Speaker 1: much she loves you. Harmony came out November thirty. It's
Speaker 1: available wherever music is sold at it to your winter playlist.
Speaker 1: Make sure it's a part of your life soundtrack I
Speaker 1: Will See You Soon on the air and right here
Speaker 1: on our podcast, Love Someone with the Lilah