When musician Michael Grubbs of the band WakeyWakey joined One Tree Hill this season, he instantly became everyone's favorite bartender. The musical talent started out as just the one giving advice to our favorite Tree Hillers, to now having a role that has further evolved to showcase his tremendous gift as a musician. What most may not know is Grubbs is an actor as much as he is a singer. He recently discussed with me the process of going from live theater to on-screen acting, his deep passion for music, as well as some fun times on One Tree Hill!
Grubbs-I wrapped my portion of One Tree Hill last week for the season. We had a killer week. We had so much fun. We got to bring the whole band down to the show. It was a blast!
Will you be back on the show if there's a season eight?
Grubbs-Yeah if there is a season eight, I cannot think of anything in the world that would keep me from being on it. Cause I love the cast just so much. I love the crew so much. Everyone that works with the show is just so amazing. I can't imagine any reason to not go back there.
Did you always have an interest in acting, or was this just something that sparked with your role on One Tree Hill?
Grubbs-I did get a degree in theater in college. I studied theater in college and then after I graduated I was solely an actor for a few years. I only did stage stuff. I never ever did film at all, so it was a huge difference in the process, you know the way that you take on a scene. Just the way you do all of it. It's very different between stage and screen, so it was a major adjustment for me. But the great thing about it was that the cast was so cool. Everyone was so great there. And you know I was working a lot with India[de Beaufort], and all those guys are just really great seasoned actors and they really helped me with things.
From what I've seen and heard, the One Tree Hill cast is very supportive and welcoming of anyone new who joins their set. In fact, when I asked India and Shantel [VanSanten] what they wanted to promote at the end of their interview, they both plugged your music and your talent. I thought that was so sweet. I've also heard Sophia[Bush] praise your work. You definitely have a lot of support on that set.
Grubbs-You know I'm so touched by that. They're such wonderful people. Honestly from the minute I met all three of them, they were just 100% percent sweethearts and made me feel right at home. I feel so lucky to have worked with such great people.
Is there a moment on the set you'll always look back on and smile?
Grubbs-There were a lot of really special things. The process for me was fun because the earlier stuff I had in the season was literally a role that they would write for a musician on the show. I kind of popped in and said one line and popped out. There wasn't a lot to the scenes that I was filming. And then as the season goes on, you see I get a little more screen time and it gets more exciting. So the acting process and really getting into the scenes like that side of things was really cool. But of course the one thing that I have to answer to that every time was the tomato fight. When we filmed the tomato fight that was just the funnest day ever. It was just amazing. It was my first day ever working with Jackson[Brundage] which was really great. He's the coolest kid and it was just a really fun day.
That definitely was a fun scene to watch!
Grubbs-Well the cool thing about it is everybody sees on camera these flying tomatoes and the jumping and diving. But what they won't realize is there's a whole crew there and they were all wearing these parka's and all the cameras were wrapped in huge sheets of plastic and everything. It was just a blast. They were all throwing them with us. Then there was a little bit of off-screen tomato fight.
I was told Mark Schwahn recently joined you on stage at your final show in Wilmington? How was that?
Grubbs-Yeah he did actually. It was great. You know Mark is a secret rock star. He's played in rock bands before and he's fantastic. I would imagine him being the most amazing front man ever for a band. He still has that inner rock star that he needs to feed every once in a while so he jumped up on stage and we did a cover of a song by blind pilot called three rounds of a sound. It was so much fun. These are all on Facebook live stream shows right now. We've been getting a lot of the cast members involved in what we're doing. It's funny during the process of our release and with the album that we're putting out, we were like how are we going to plan along the show and the episodes that we were doing, and then suddenly there's this eight week hiatus that we weren't really prepared for and we kind of reached out to Facebook and said we want to do these live stream shows, and we reached out to the CW and everyone really got behind it. It's a really fun thing every Monday night at 8pm when you would usually be watching OTH, log into Facebook and see the concert and sometimes some of the cast members are gonna pop in.
What originally sparked your interest in singing?
Grubbs-I was actually born a musician. I was born to a family of musicians, like it wasn't really ever a discussion for me. I literally to the point learned to cite read music as I learned to read. I learned to sing as I learned to talk. I was on stage singing with my family when I was four and five years old. And so it was just one of those things like you know when did Jackson decide he wanted to be an actor? (Laughs) It's funny at one point I even rejected the whole music thing because I had been doing it so much and I really wanted to get into acting, that's why I ended up studying theater in college. I remember going to my mom and saying I really want to start studying theater, I wanna do something besides music in college and she was like you know I love you, I think it's amazing that you want to spread your wings right now but whatever you do you need to study music at the same time. She was like just make sure you keep studying music because that's where you're going to end up doing. And here's where I am!
Do you have a song that's really special to you on the album? One that stands out?
Grubbs-You know everyday I love a different song on the album. Right now we're in the process for getting the band ready for South by Southwest, the music festival in Austin. So we're kind of tweaking the live show with the album right now and doing some really specific work. So one of the songs that we're really immersed in as a band right now is the song 'got it all wrong'. That one right now is close to my head and probably my favorite on the album. But everyday it changes.
The song “Brooklyn” stands out to me. It's a fantastic song and fit well with One Tree Hill.
Grubbs-Oh thank you. That was just, I kind of wanted to write a lullaby. So that's how “Brooklyn” came out.
Who would be a dream musician for you to collaborate with?
Grubbs-I think right now the people I would most like to collaborate with I think it would be really fun to work with Dan Deacon and Dave Sitek. Dave Sitek is the producer for the band TV on the radio and Dan Deacon is this really obscure electronic musician that does these really cool songs that are all electronic. And I think it would be really fun to mix with them. Myself being such a pure pop song writer and then to be experimental and see what happens.
If you weren't involved in music and acting, what do you think you would be doing? What else are you passionate about?
Grubbs-You know one of my favorite things in the world is food. I'm really into food. Like if I had to do something else besides acting and music it would definitely be something to do with food. So food would be the thing for me. My number one way to spend time is to go have a nice meal somewhere.
Will you be going on tour anytime soon?
Grubbs-I hope so. I'm dying to go on tour. The next thing we're going to do is the South by Southwest and we're gonna do a bunch of shows down there. I hope we're gonna head out from there but you know it takes a couple of months to put something like that together. Hopefully this summer we'll definitely be out in the US and we'll definitely be out in Europe.
If you could go back in time and be anyone from history for a day, who would it be and why?
Grubbs-The first thing that popped into my head was it would be really cool to be Barack Obama on the day that he got elected. He just spoke of such hope and change and wonderful things, I think that for me if I could pick any moment to live that would be it right there. Someone from history, I mean it would be cool to be Beethoven the first, it would be magical.
Have you heard about all the petitions and letters One Tree Hill fans have been sending to the CW?
Grubbs-I have. I think that's so awesome. It's amazing the fans of this show are the most loyal and wonderful fans in the world. They're amazing and they really fight for the show. It's awesome to see what they're doing. I really hope the network responds.
Be sure to catch WakeyWakey's live shows on One Tree Hill's Facebook every Monday night!
Next week One Tree Hill producer Steve Goldfried talks about the fillming experience in Utah, the evolution's of One Tree Hill's cast, storylines, and much more!
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