Gavin DeGraw has spent the last two decades balancing between radio-friendly anthems and raw, soul-baring songwriting, but Face the River leans fully into the latter. Written as a tribute to his parents, it’s a record that digs deep, honoring their legacy while stretching his own creative boundaries. “I just wanted these people to be remembered,” DeGraw says. “I wanted to celebrate them. I didn’t want to bum people out—I just wanted to tell a version of their story.”
It’s not a funeral march, and it’s not a record about grief—it’s a record about life, love, and resilience. “There’s something triumphant about the overall texture of it,” he says. “I wanted to do it in the vein of Bob Seger, Springsteen, Billy Joel—but playing it with the kind of desperate howls of Sam Cooke or Jimmy Cliff.” And he found the perfect co-pilot in producer Dave Cobb, whose work with Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, and Jason Isbell helped define the last decade of roots-driven Americana.
DeGraw remembers his first meeting with Cobb in Nashville. “He walks in with luxurious hair, cool facial hair—he looks more like a star than any of the stars I know,” he laughs. “And he just goes, ‘So what do you wanna do?’” DeGraw laid it out plainly: no co-writes, just him pouring everything he had into the songs, and Cobb bringing them to life. “And he goes, ‘[Expletive] man, let’s do it.’”
From there, Cobb pushed DeGraw out of his comfort zone. “He wouldn’t let me make an expected album. He challenged me constantly—told me to take bigger risks, get crazier.” The result is an album full of moments that catch you off guard—the unexpected chords in Destiny, the slow-burn explosion of Lighthouse, the Springsteen-meets-Stevie Wonder swagger of Chasing Wind. “Sometimes you don’t know if you’re gonna get there,” DeGraw says. “But that’s what makes it exciting.”
DeGraw is taking the whole album on the road—not just playing a few songs, but performing Face the River in its entirety. “I know that’s a lot to ask of an audience,” he admits. “Most people don’t want to hear an artist play a bunch of new [expletive] for an hour. But this tour is a different kind of thing—it’s for the real fans, the people who’ve been with me from the beginning.” He’s playing intimate rooms, including The Bitter End in New York City, the first venue that ever gave him a gig. “It’s not about making a bunch of money or packing out a giant venue,” he says. “It’s about getting back to what made me fall in love with playing music in the first place.”
And if you’re wondering if there will be pyro? “The Gavin DeGraw pyro show,” he laughs. “That’s what the world is missing.” If that ever happens, it’ll probably be Lars Ulrich’s fault—DeGraw casually drops the fact that he once played an impromptu set with Ulrich, John McEnroe on guitar, and Mike Mills from R.E.M. on bass. “I didn’t even realize it at first,” he says. “I looked over and was like, ‘Holy [expletive], that’s Mike Mills.’”
For now, he’s just happy to be bringing this album to life. “Real is where it’s at,” he says. “And this record—this one’s real.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
