Welcome to our podcast, our new named podcast. It used to be Conversations with the Lilah, but now with the new year, we have a whole new image and a new name, and we've changed the name to Love Someone with the Lila since it's all about love and kindness and changing the world for good. And our guest today is somebody that I met when he was a teenager. And since I met you, you have continued and consistently changed the world for good with your gift and your fans who are insane in the best possible ways, mostly the best possible ways. Yeah, they do take it over top. The lady that I met that had you tattooed on her arms, that that was unique. She has a new one. She now has my my newer, older bearded face tattooed somewhere else. What's the big beard with the beard? I'm not sure. I'm not sure how long she she chose to do the beerd I think it's more in the middle. But but yeah, because because that now I've outgrown my face has outgrown the first young tattoo, so she's had to she's had she had update get a new one. But she's also like I found out like she's like she's she's kind of like a biker Like she's she's tough, like she wears like leather vests and goes biking on her Harley, and she has like all kinds of other like badass tattoos. And then she just has my little face when I was like nineteen years old, going Hi everybody. Yeah, so Josh, I'm ruining her street cred is what it is. Yeah, Josh, when you were nineteen years old, you did not go Hi everybody, Hi everybody. I went to your first show. We were and and you you look like you were fourteen years old. I know I was a late bloomer. You were just this tall, adorable kid. And then you open your mouth and out came this voice from heaven. It was one of those experiences in my life. There there are two people that I saw earlier, early, early, earlier in their career that they changed me, I think on a cellular level. One was Whitney Houston. I saw her when she was twenty one. Oh my gosh, that must have been incredible. It was unbelievable. I look back at old footage of her singing right after when she was singing a church and she coming right out of the gospel scene. Yeah, that instrument just as it continued to be. And she had nothing else when I saw her, she had, you know, a small band playing. She had no choreography, no no stage director, no lighting. It was just her and that voice. Something magic about that time period. And the same with you. When I first saw you. You didn't have a big show, you didn't have a big production, but you walked out, Josh, this thin baby face boy, and out came the voice from heaven. My God gave you such a beautiful guess. That's so kind of you to say. And and I was so lucky as I continued to be that that you were there. You were right at the beginning of it, and you you heard something in me, and you were right there to be a support and a friend from day one. So thank you for Danny and I both were just sitting there with our mouth. Are we really hearing what we think we're hearing? Because your voice is so magic. And the connection between me and Whitney is David Foster, who you know. We made such incredible music with that great, great guy. And uh so, I mean that was a time period I look back at it. I was. I was so it was so incredible that I was able to have that stage, in that platform, But I was terrified that scrawny, skinny, tall kid was was was really not all that happy that time period because I was so scared and I was, um, you know, I was plucked from school at that time. When you first came to a concert, that was basically my first time ever touring, ever doing live shows. Um My voice didn't really come into its own until I was sixteen, and then David discovered me at seventeen. So for that time period that you first saw me, I was a student and a pro at the same time. I was trying. I was basically learning as I went. But you you did a great job. And the same time I met you and discovered your voice, I met your folks. Yeah, and I knew you were going to be okay. I knew you were going to be okay because I was so honestly, I was so afraid for you because I've seen this industry chew people up and spit them out. Like I said, I I met Whitney. I I saw her when she was young, and I saw what happened, and I when I saw your talent. I was so afraid for you. I was also so naive. You you are so naive. I was. I was really naive. And I think I look back at it now and I think, well, blissfully so because I didn't know. But you were trying to be so tough. You're like, yeah, I'm from California. Yeah, yeah, I've got a new album out, is my tour, so it's all going good, feeling pretty, feeling pretty good about things. Yeah, and inside you're just going you know, alert, alert, you know, and uh, you know. And I didn't know at that point, all the all the myriad of ways that it could it could be, it could go all terribly wrong, you know, and it does for so many people because they're not grounded. I think the main reason, yeah, the lack of that grounding. What I saw in you when I met you was standing right behind you four ft away were your folks and your mom. Oh my gosh, what a beautiful langage. She's she's wonderful, she's so wonderful, and she was like, we're not going to let that happen. We are going to make sure that he is looked after and grounded. And and they're still there as absolutely. I'm so lucky that I still have them as a sounding board and as my protectors and just you know, to have that balance, to have to have parents that believe in you that way. And I had an amazing professional team too, But there's only so much that a professional team can do for you big picture when it comes to the emotions you're going through and the decisions that you have to make that might not be the best thing for your professional career, but are the best things for your soul and for your for your emotional well being, and having a family that you can bounce those things off to that gives you the balance that I think when when it does go wrong, when when people spiral out, it's because they don't have that balance, is because they don't have people to turn to away from the decision makers they have good as they may be in the industry, and so um yeah, I know without without my parents and my brother too. I've got to give my brother a lot of credit too, because he's he's my younger brother, but he's like my older brother. He's just he's always been ten times more mature. He's just got such a great head on his sholders he's a brilliant director, he's he's a behind the camera guy, and he's just so full of wisdom too. So you have to have a great family, Uh is something that I'm I'm very very, very very lucky. And I heard you on the Today Show talking with Kathy and Hoda about the fact that your folks love story has inspired you in your in your music and finding that years yeah, forever love. Yeah, you know, I I can only write from my experiences when I write about myself, and those experiences generally stem from relationships that I'm in with which you know, I've I've been in a couple of relationships that have lasted, you know, almost a three year mark, but generally, you know, you know, might not not a lot of people I know have been together as long as my parents have, Like you know, it's it's it's pretty remarkable that they've been together, I mean, fifty years. That's just they've beaten all the odds. So so I might, you know, i might write about new love for a relationship that I'm in, but I'm also I'm so inspired by the idea of their journey and the fact that it wasn't always you know, it wasn't always perfect. That looking for perfection is I think something that drives people to a lot of unnecessary pressure. And my parents, I think I didn't know what they were doing for a lot of it, which I think was another key factor in their success, was that they were just diving in and didn't necessarily have a plan. They just went off of love and loving each other and also just being able to laugh off the small stuff, you know. And so who who has the the insanely fabulous sense of humor that you got? Was both of them are one of the other, because well, it's pretty funny. My dad is more of like a Borsch belt uh like, just kind of very dry, very groucho Marxi kind of humor. Now does he do the stupid dad jokes? Oh? He does. He invented dad jokes. Yeah, I was born. I was born with a dad joke slapped my back and I immediately had a dad joke. This this kid is going to be intolerable. Um. And my mom um is kind of she's she's she's definitely more like the emotional of the two, So she um, she's kind of she make excuses for the dad jokes. Does she say, oh, I'm so sorry. She you know, she does laugh at them, which is I think that's the key. I think that I think that one of the reasons they've been together so long is that he can make her laugh and vice versa. I think that, um, that's a big part of it. But my mom my dad is like, is that kind of witty? But brief. My mom will tell a hell of a story and be very funny in the way that she'll talk about a situation that happened or somebody that she met or something like that, and that's where her humor comes through. Yeah, when I've talked to your mom, she's very self deprecating, like she does not take herself seriously, and she can't tell fabulous absolutely, and growing up in now being in the music business where everybody is so about taking them so seriously and you know, thinking every little story they have is the most important thing that's ever happened. Um, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles. I found myself in show business as a teenager. But both my parents are not showbiz parents, and I think that was the key. But they come from education. My mom was an art art teacher junior high school, art teacher in public school in l A. You gotta be funny to survive junior and she loves working with junior high school students. Even that's just baffling, which is I taught art for three years. Oh yeah, junior high school kids will put me over the edge, right over the edge. Yep. It's it's because they they're testing the boundaries. It's right at puberty, there's yeah, it's it's it's everybody wants to be really everybody who had totally everyone's a total poop who head. And but my mom like has like the magic. She she can command their attention and um and even now because I've got my Arts Foundation, Find Your Light, and my mom is a big part of that. She's on she helped me co created and was on the board, and she'll visit schools and she'll talk to these inner city teenagers and just it's amazing how she's able to connect with them and and reach them. She's a teacher through and through. And so between that and my dad having started an art she he was a trumpet player and jazz dumper player in college. He came from a very very traditional family and um and you know, his mom kind of said us, no way to make a living, you know, go into business, and so he did so, so, you know, very grounded, very grounded folks, which which then going into a very not grounded business, I think was was essential that I stayed in the real world. So let's talk about your foundation, because you've been doing this for years. And one of the things that I love about the school my kids go to is they have and the little town that I live in has an amazing choral program. Oh yeah, my son's act that I told you that the past we started something called the Zachariah fund Um where we raise money for kids who want to be in the choral program but can't buy the suit, the uniform. Right now, the boys have suits, the girls have black dresses, and they're not expensive, but if you're on a you know, fixed income, they're expensive. And so trips, coral trips are our choral teacher. Mr Allen is a father figure to so many kids in our community and he really brings out the best in kids. And it's so important because it's a tool. You know. I think that the misconception, when it's argued about and talked about in schools is that it's a soft subject, that it's an extracurricular, that it's a drum circle just to fill time, macaroni necklaces, that kind of thing, and you know, and it's it's it is as essential as any of the major categories of education. And I and I say that without even a shred of doubt, because I've seen it in action. I've seen it used in schools where it's not about becoming a talent, like becoming a professional singer or whatever. I mean, if that happens, it opened up a world of possibility for me. It gave me blinders, it gave me the bug. But what I've seen more so, and especially in inner city communities and places where I was very lucky, but so many kids who don't have the parental system at home that keeps them where they need to be, that doesn't have the opportunity to go out and see shows and be part of camps and stuff like I was part of. That's their open door to express themselves and to build leadership skills. And their grades go up, the graduation rates go up, their home life goes up. Their parents are coming to see them in their school plays, and they've had previously nothing to talk about at home, and suddenly they're going and they're saying, oh my god, I had no idea my son or my daughter wanted was this good a dancer, wanted to be an Annie or whatever it is. And they're cheering in the audience. And for a lot of families, that's that's a very special connection and source of pride that they hadn't had previously. And it's life. It's life, it's empathy. And in this ever divided world that we're in where everything is being shouted from the rooftops about how scared we should be of each other and and um suspicious and and fearful. Uh, the arts are are one of the few languages we have left that are as that universal to teach us about each other's common denominators and and and and what brings us together as a unity but also celebrates our differences. I have a daughter who's fourteen, Blessing, and she played sports for the first time this year, and it was so much fun to go see her. But it was weird for me because for the last ten fifteen years, the kids that I've been parenting were all into the arts, drama, music, choir, choral, the elite choir and introduce them. Yeah, but I think sports can do the same thing, by the way exactly, but it was it was so similar but so different. You know, when I'm used to curling the girl's hair for the madrigal fees and finding a boar's head, you know that they can bring in because every year they have a real boar's head of Radical Feast. Yet it's their biggest fundraiser and the most amazing two weekends of of the high school's music program. To go from that to the basketball court. But the relationships that my daughter formed with the other girls that she played with, I saw the same sort of glue that held the team together, that held Zack's choir together and Sheila's choir together and bridgets choir together and the plays together. And what people need to understand and then, and I try to express this on the show, is life. If you don't have love, if you don't have relationships, if you don't have community, you are going to end up in trouble. Kids are going to end up in gangs that they don't have family if they don't have community. And what you're doing by supporting the arts is giving them that family. That community, that that glue to help them care about someone else. Well, it's when you care about the show, when you care about the performance, when you care about the choir, that gives you skills to change the world purpose, and it gives you the empathy and and and it gives you a voice that that for the first time in these young people's lives, they feel really matters, that they really can do something. There's so much noise out there, and there's so much negativity, especially now with social media and all the ways that kids can be anonymously bullied and and made to feel so small. The arts, uh and sports too. I really do feel like athletics are are are vitally important as well. Um give give young people the chance to to choose the right side of the fence when they when they're on the fence, because you're right. It's there are two too many temptations out there to find validation in their lives when when there is a void, to find it in unhealthy ways, and the arts gives them a healthy outlet and and and in that way, I don't think it's overstating that it's it's helping to save future generations and and change the course of the world through the leadership and empathy of those generations. So my foundation point hope. We work with foster kids, and the statistics Josh for foster kids in America is stomach turning. Thousand kids right now in foster care last year and eighty seven kids aged out with no parents, no family, no hope. And so what we try to do is encourage people to adopt children who are in foster care and legally free and support kids who are in foster care. We gotta figure out how to team up, Yes, so that we can use your platform for art to help kids who don't have permanency. You don't have a forever family, need that so desperately exactly find that hope and joy. And I can't sing a note. You know that you've heard me. I don't. I've actually had a theory that in the shower in your car, oh, I sing really laugh. The fact that I can't sing doesn't stop me from saying, well, you've got such a glorious speaking voice that I kind of feel like people who having incredible speaking voices should should should be able to sing ding it. It's not fair, but God gave me a three note range, you know, as so long as I'm speaking in my in my range. But I can't stand my speaking voice, so I'll get on the mic. Hi, how are you guys? And that trade. But but when I was in school, I was in place. I didn't get to do the musical. I didn't get to be center rale alright, I didn't get it. I didn't get a singing role in my first musical either. Really yeah, I was Mr Schinkoff in Fame. I was the German math teacher, music teacher and uh and I didn't didn't get a singing role. Well, I got to sing along with Bivity Bobby Book, but you know, there was like thirty other people singing. But that was my home. That was my stage and my brother. I had a brother, Matt, who's left to be in heaven years ago. But Matt and I were in every play together and our friends were the same friends, and we always hosted the after the play party at our house. And I have so many amazing memories from that. They stick with you, they stick with you for life, and they they they're the building blocks of your future relationship, absolutely, and those friendships last forever to whenever I've been in a There's nothing like being in a production with somebody that really just connects you emotionally for life. You've just you've been through it, You've learned the lines together, you've been through the boot camp of doing a show. And that's I think one of the great things about being young and doing theaters. It teaches you discipline, it teaches you, you know, selflessness when it comes to making sure the whole show. You're a cog in a wheel. It's not just about you. And I think that that that connectivity is so important too. And and and from a social aspect, I made friends because of the arts. That's another thing is I didn't feel as lonely when I was a kid because I was shy. I wasn't I wasn't going to go up and make friends by myself. It was being part of a show sometimes being forced through the assignment to interact with kids on an artistic level. You learn about each other, You become friends with each other. So how can somebody uh partner with you and get involved? Well, we in a number of different ways. We have a website we can anybody can go to find your Light. Find your Light Foundation dot org. The name of the foundation is Find Your Light and they can learn about us. They can donate off the website UM and through the website. If you're a program who also needs help, you can reach out to us. We take grant requests. UM. We are always looking for new places to team up with two UH to funnel our donations into to become a Find Your Light program. We we kind of like to be a part of many different organizations success and UH and then you know we're we're we're doing our fourth gala this year, you know, and UH, it's it's incredible. I've been able to call on my friends who have been right there, people like Adena Monzel who has her own Broader Way Foundation, people like Joshua Bell who has done incredible things with education through music. This year were honoring Tony Bennett, you know who's his his wife have just done incredible things. So, you know, we've had the honor of being able to include artists and friends that share our vision that we all team up together for the same purpose that there is no competition with these kinds of things. And that's one of the fun things about Find Your Light is an umbrella organization. We're out there to help make sure that those programs in school and after school don't get lost in the shuffle, don't fall through the cracks as those as the funds are being cut at record speed, unbelievably. It's it's it's a shame. It is a it's criminal. It's criminal. And when you you were earlier talking about the fact that when kids are involved in music or plaze or the arts, I mean, I'm a I love pottery, I love painting, I love drawing. I have a son, t K who's eighteen, and before I adopted him, he had a traumatic brain injury that when undiagnosed for years we didn't know, we didn't have their records. But he has found his home on the potter's wheel in the art room at their school. It's a focuser, oh my gosh. And he's turning out these beautiful creations and bulls. But more than that, he started mentoring the younger kids and teaching them and it's really given him an outlet for his love. He has a path, he's a purpose, ah and he's so so talented and he's now reaching those kids and passing on that purpose. And it it gives, and it gives and it gives. And that's That's the incredible thing about arts education is that what you received from it, you then have a million opportunities to give back, to take your person and it just continues. Um. We also did a really cool thing. Um, you like wine. Do you drink? I don't. You don't drink drink? I know you took your folks to That's true. I took up the wine country. The last time I drank wine, it was Strawberry Boon Boone's Farm, Strawberry Hills. You stopped. Yeah, that'll do it. That's a that's a hangover that I would imagine is a hangover that that that would make anybody stone cold sober for the rest of their lives. But but we teamed up with a wonderful guy named Ross Halleck, who is both an award winning pinot maker and also an arts fan, and he reached out to us and he said, Hey, love what you guys are doing. We have a whole lot of wine that we've made that is ready to go, and we want to make it a find to find your Light wine and we're going to give every dollar of profits to find your Light. And we've done that now for four years, and since I'm such a such a wine lover, he said, for the next couple of vintages come over and end with us. So I got to learn all about tasting. I got to drink out of the barrels and just learn about what all the different vines can do and all the different types of oak can do to to a blend. So now these bottles that we're selling for the foundation are just absolutely delicious and really personal because we've had our own personal touch into them too. Have you ever read the book The Secret of the Vine. I've heard about this. That's thick. I mean, it's it's a one hour reading. Yeah, blow your mind. I mean, I'm not a wine drinker, but that book made me want to learning about wine. Yeah, and I'm not. I'm not a heavy drinker by any stretch, but I love I love learning about the creation of wine. And like you said, whether you drink or not, it's fun to learn about the horticulture, the how what goes into it, what what proprietors do and wine makers do to make that happen. You know, it's it's pretty stunning to do well. I have vines on my farm that are over a hundred years old. I have to h two sets of grape vines that I have excavated off old properties and brought to my farm and planted. Probably I don't know a couple of hundred plants that are. That's a trick I learned from the Mandawi family. They have started a name dropped. They have me word for barbecue ones. And they grilled over their old vines, the old vines that they weren't using any really old vines. They used this as would under the grill, bet to grow with it and gave them it gave them me a really cool texture and flavor. And uh so that's a that's a little if you're into into vines, that's a cool grilling. I I clipped them, I groomed them, I ruined them. I have beautiful harvests. Yeah, I just don't know how to make wine. Well, I mean I need me neither, I'll call you. And also, okay, Josh Groben, here I got I'm teen bushels of these beautiful grapes. You know what I do with them? I juice them and I freeze it. And then when I make my health I blend a health drink every morning. I use They're delicious. They're delicious. Just the non boozy wine grapes are just just awesome. Just just juice them or eat them off and eat him off the vine. But um, but but anyway, No, this this one is delicious and people want to go. If people want to check it out, they can go to my website and get it. All goes to charity. And we've got some left which are awesome, very sweet, and your tour is going to be announced twin We've just released. We've just announced the new dates. I'm going to be going out at the beginning of summer. We're gonna be doing a bunch of arenas again, and then we're gonna do some great outdoor venues as well, places like Red Rocks and Santa Barbara Bowl, Wolf Trapped Ravinia, some of these classic Tanglewood I mean, speaking speaking of arts, when we're going back to Interlocking where I went to arts camp, and we're gonna play We're gonna play the outdoor amphitheater that I would see shows that when I was a kid. I even like I wear my camppin when I go back on that stage and just looking at on all the kids in their uniforms that I remember sitting in those seats. That's always really, really special. But the arena shows are going to be fun because half of them are going to be with my friend Jennifer Nettles. We sang this morning on the Today Show, um, and then half years we're gonna be singing more. Thank you so much. And then Chris Bodie, my friend Chris Body, the wonderful trumpet players. Yeah, he's going to join me on the second half of the shows and we're going to do you know who loves Chris as producer Janie loves Chris. Oh, well, well, Chris is a Chris is Uh. It's impossible man not to be in the mood with his music and his playing and just yeah, he's very sharp dress guy, sharp dress man, talented town. We all have to we all have to have to spruce it up a little bit when Chris is on on deck. Chris is coming on to our Okay, okay, press the suits, yeah, break out exactly, exactly. Well, thank you for spending time with me. It's always an absolute privilege to be to be with you and to talk to you and to to share share a couple of microphones with you You're You're an absolute absolute treasure and uh and I can't think enough for the years of support and friendship. YouTube love, bless you down and love someone with the Lila

Welcome to our podcast, our new named podcast. It used to be Conversations with the Lilah, but now with the new year, we have a whole new image and a new name, and we've changed the name to Love Someone with the Lila since it's all about love and kindness and changing the world for good. And our guest today is somebody that I met when he was a teenager. And since I met you, you have continued and consistently changed the world for good with your gift and your fans who are insane in the best possible ways, mostly the best possible ways. Yeah, they do take it over top. The lady that I met that had you tattooed on her arms, that that was unique. She has a new one. She now has my my newer, older bearded face tattooed somewhere else. What's the big beard with the beard? I'm not sure. I'm not sure how long she she chose to do the beerd I think it's more in the middle. But but yeah, because because that now I've outgrown my face has outgrown the first young tattoo, so she's had to she's had she had update get a new one. But she's also like I found out like she's like she's she's kind of like a biker Like she's she's tough, like she wears like leather vests and goes biking on her Harley, and she has like all kinds of other like badass tattoos. And then she just has my little face when I was like nineteen years old, going Hi everybody. Yeah, so Josh, I'm ruining her street cred is what it is. Yeah, Josh, when you were nineteen years old, you did not go Hi everybody, Hi everybody. I went to your first show. We were and and you you look like you were fourteen years old. I know I was a late bloomer. You were just this tall, adorable kid. And then you open your mouth and out came this voice from heaven. It was one of those experiences in my life. There there are two people that I saw earlier, early, early, earlier in their career that they changed me, I think on a cellular level. One was Whitney Houston. I saw her when she was twenty one. Oh my gosh, that must have been incredible. It was unbelievable. I look back at old footage of her singing right after when she was singing a church and she coming right out of the gospel scene. Yeah, that instrument just as it continued to be. And she had nothing else when I saw her, she had, you know, a small band playing. She had no choreography, no no stage director, no lighting. It was just her and that voice. Something magic about that time period. And the same with you. When I first saw you. You didn't have a big show, you didn't have a big production, but you walked out, Josh, this thin baby face boy, and out came the voice from heaven. My God gave you such a beautiful guess. That's so kind of you to say. And and I was so lucky as I continued to be that that you were there. You were right at the beginning of it, and you you heard something in me, and you were right there to be a support and a friend from day one. So thank you for Danny and I both were just sitting there with our mouth. Are we really hearing what we think we're hearing? Because your voice is so magic. And the connection between me and Whitney is David Foster, who you know. We made such incredible music with that great, great guy. And uh so, I mean that was a time period I look back at it. I was. I was so it was so incredible that I was able to have that stage, in that platform, But I was terrified that scrawny, skinny, tall kid was was was really not all that happy that time period because I was so scared and I was, um, you know, I was plucked from school at that time. When you first came to a concert, that was basically my first time ever touring, ever doing live shows. Um My voice didn't really come into its own until I was sixteen, and then David discovered me at seventeen. So for that time period that you first saw me, I was a student and a pro at the same time. I was trying. I was basically learning as I went. But you you did a great job. And the same time I met you and discovered your voice, I met your folks. Yeah, and I knew you were going to be okay. I knew you were going to be okay because I was so honestly, I was so afraid for you because I've seen this industry chew people up and spit them out. Like I said, I I met Whitney. I I saw her when she was young, and I saw what happened, and I when I saw your talent. I was so afraid for you. I was also so naive. You you are so naive. I was. I was really naive. And I think I look back at it now and I think, well, blissfully so because I didn't know. But you were trying to be so tough. You're like, yeah, I'm from California. Yeah, yeah, I've got a new album out, is my tour, so it's all going good, feeling pretty, feeling pretty good about things. Yeah, and inside you're just going you know, alert, alert, you know, and uh, you know. And I didn't know at that point, all the all the myriad of ways that it could it could be, it could go all terribly wrong, you know, and it does for so many people because they're not grounded. I think the main reason, yeah, the lack of that grounding. What I saw in you when I met you was standing right behind you four ft away were your folks and your mom. Oh my gosh, what a beautiful langage. She's she's wonderful, she's so wonderful, and she was like, we're not going to let that happen. We are going to make sure that he is looked after and grounded. And and they're still there as absolutely. I'm so lucky that I still have them as a sounding board and as my protectors and just you know, to have that balance, to have to have parents that believe in you that way. And I had an amazing professional team too, But there's only so much that a professional team can do for you big picture when it comes to the emotions you're going through and the decisions that you have to make that might not be the best thing for your professional career, but are the best things for your soul and for your for your emotional well being, and having a family that you can bounce those things off to that gives you the balance that I think when when it does go wrong, when when people spiral out, it's because they don't have that balance, is because they don't have people to turn to away from the decision makers they have good as they may be in the industry, and so um yeah, I know without without my parents and my brother too. I've got to give my brother a lot of credit too, because he's he's my younger brother, but he's like my older brother. He's just he's always been ten times more mature. He's just got such a great head on his sholders he's a brilliant director, he's he's a behind the camera guy, and he's just so full of wisdom too. So you have to have a great family, Uh is something that I'm I'm very very, very very lucky. And I heard you on the Today Show talking with Kathy and Hoda about the fact that your folks love story has inspired you in your in your music and finding that years yeah, forever love. Yeah, you know, I I can only write from my experiences when I write about myself, and those experiences generally stem from relationships that I'm in with which you know, I've I've been in a couple of relationships that have lasted, you know, almost a three year mark, but generally, you know, you know, might not not a lot of people I know have been together as long as my parents have, Like you know, it's it's it's pretty remarkable that they've been together, I mean, fifty years. That's just they've beaten all the odds. So so I might, you know, i might write about new love for a relationship that I'm in, but I'm also I'm so inspired by the idea of their journey and the fact that it wasn't always you know, it wasn't always perfect. That looking for perfection is I think something that drives people to a lot of unnecessary pressure. And my parents, I think I didn't know what they were doing for a lot of it, which I think was another key factor in their success, was that they were just diving in and didn't necessarily have a plan. They just went off of love and loving each other and also just being able to laugh off the small stuff, you know. And so who who has the the insanely fabulous sense of humor that you got? Was both of them are one of the other, because well, it's pretty funny. My dad is more of like a Borsch belt uh like, just kind of very dry, very groucho Marxi kind of humor. Now does he do the stupid dad jokes? Oh? He does. He invented dad jokes. Yeah, I was born. I was born with a dad joke slapped my back and I immediately had a dad joke. This this kid is going to be intolerable. Um. And my mom um is kind of she's she's she's definitely more like the emotional of the two, So she um, she's kind of she make excuses for the dad jokes. Does she say, oh, I'm so sorry. She you know, she does laugh at them, which is I think that's the key. I think that I think that one of the reasons they've been together so long is that he can make her laugh and vice versa. I think that, um, that's a big part of it. But my mom my dad is like, is that kind of witty? But brief. My mom will tell a hell of a story and be very funny in the way that she'll talk about a situation that happened or somebody that she met or something like that, and that's where her humor comes through. Yeah, when I've talked to your mom, she's very self deprecating, like she does not take herself seriously, and she can't tell fabulous absolutely, and growing up in now being in the music business where everybody is so about taking them so seriously and you know, thinking every little story they have is the most important thing that's ever happened. Um, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles. I found myself in show business as a teenager. But both my parents are not showbiz parents, and I think that was the key. But they come from education. My mom was an art art teacher junior high school, art teacher in public school in l A. You gotta be funny to survive junior and she loves working with junior high school students. Even that's just baffling, which is I taught art for three years. Oh yeah, junior high school kids will put me over the edge, right over the edge. Yep. It's it's because they they're testing the boundaries. It's right at puberty, there's yeah, it's it's it's everybody wants to be really everybody who had totally everyone's a total poop who head. And but my mom like has like the magic. She she can command their attention and um and even now because I've got my Arts Foundation, Find Your Light, and my mom is a big part of that. She's on she helped me co created and was on the board, and she'll visit schools and she'll talk to these inner city teenagers and just it's amazing how she's able to connect with them and and reach them. She's a teacher through and through. And so between that and my dad having started an art she he was a trumpet player and jazz dumper player in college. He came from a very very traditional family and um and you know, his mom kind of said us, no way to make a living, you know, go into business, and so he did so, so, you know, very grounded, very grounded folks, which which then going into a very not grounded business, I think was was essential that I stayed in the real world. So let's talk about your foundation, because you've been doing this for years. And one of the things that I love about the school my kids go to is they have and the little town that I live in has an amazing choral program. Oh yeah, my son's act that I told you that the past we started something called the Zachariah fund Um where we raise money for kids who want to be in the choral program but can't buy the suit, the uniform. Right now, the boys have suits, the girls have black dresses, and they're not expensive, but if you're on a you know, fixed income, they're expensive. And so trips, coral trips are our choral teacher. Mr Allen is a father figure to so many kids in our community and he really brings out the best in kids. And it's so important because it's a tool. You know. I think that the misconception, when it's argued about and talked about in schools is that it's a soft subject, that it's an extracurricular, that it's a drum circle just to fill time, macaroni necklaces, that kind of thing, and you know, and it's it's it is as essential as any of the major categories of education. And I and I say that without even a shred of doubt, because I've seen it in action. I've seen it used in schools where it's not about becoming a talent, like becoming a professional singer or whatever. I mean, if that happens, it opened up a world of possibility for me. It gave me blinders, it gave me the bug. But what I've seen more so, and especially in inner city communities and places where I was very lucky, but so many kids who don't have the parental system at home that keeps them where they need to be, that doesn't have the opportunity to go out and see shows and be part of camps and stuff like I was part of. That's their open door to express themselves and to build leadership skills. And their grades go up, the graduation rates go up, their home life goes up. Their parents are coming to see them in their school plays, and they've had previously nothing to talk about at home, and suddenly they're going and they're saying, oh my god, I had no idea my son or my daughter wanted was this good a dancer, wanted to be an Annie or whatever it is. And they're cheering in the audience. And for a lot of families, that's that's a very special connection and source of pride that they hadn't had previously. And it's life. It's life, it's empathy. And in this ever divided world that we're in where everything is being shouted from the rooftops about how scared we should be of each other and and um suspicious and and fearful. Uh, the arts are are one of the few languages we have left that are as that universal to teach us about each other's common denominators and and and and what brings us together as a unity but also celebrates our differences. I have a daughter who's fourteen, Blessing, and she played sports for the first time this year, and it was so much fun to go see her. But it was weird for me because for the last ten fifteen years, the kids that I've been parenting were all into the arts, drama, music, choir, choral, the elite choir and introduce them. Yeah, but I think sports can do the same thing, by the way exactly, but it was it was so similar but so different. You know, when I'm used to curling the girl's hair for the madrigal fees and finding a boar's head, you know that they can bring in because every year they have a real boar's head of Radical Feast. Yet it's their biggest fundraiser and the most amazing two weekends of of the high school's music program. To go from that to the basketball court. But the relationships that my daughter formed with the other girls that she played with, I saw the same sort of glue that held the team together, that held Zack's choir together and Sheila's choir together and bridgets choir together and the plays together. And what people need to understand and then, and I try to express this on the show, is life. If you don't have love, if you don't have relationships, if you don't have community, you are going to end up in trouble. Kids are going to end up in gangs that they don't have family if they don't have community. And what you're doing by supporting the arts is giving them that family. That community, that that glue to help them care about someone else. Well, it's when you care about the show, when you care about the performance, when you care about the choir, that gives you skills to change the world purpose, and it gives you the empathy and and and it gives you a voice that that for the first time in these young people's lives, they feel really matters, that they really can do something. There's so much noise out there, and there's so much negativity, especially now with social media and all the ways that kids can be anonymously bullied and and made to feel so small. The arts, uh and sports too. I really do feel like athletics are are are vitally important as well. Um give give young people the chance to to choose the right side of the fence when they when they're on the fence, because you're right. It's there are two too many temptations out there to find validation in their lives when when there is a void, to find it in unhealthy ways, and the arts gives them a healthy outlet and and and in that way, I don't think it's overstating that it's it's helping to save future generations and and change the course of the world through the leadership and empathy of those generations. So my foundation point hope. We work with foster kids, and the statistics Josh for foster kids in America is stomach turning. Thousand kids right now in foster care last year and eighty seven kids aged out with no parents, no family, no hope. And so what we try to do is encourage people to adopt children who are in foster care and legally free and support kids who are in foster care. We gotta figure out how to team up, Yes, so that we can use your platform for art to help kids who don't have permanency. You don't have a forever family, need that so desperately exactly find that hope and joy. And I can't sing a note. You know that you've heard me. I don't. I've actually had a theory that in the shower in your car, oh, I sing really laugh. The fact that I can't sing doesn't stop me from saying, well, you've got such a glorious speaking voice that I kind of feel like people who having incredible speaking voices should should should be able to sing ding it. It's not fair, but God gave me a three note range, you know, as so long as I'm speaking in my in my range. But I can't stand my speaking voice, so I'll get on the mic. Hi, how are you guys? And that trade. But but when I was in school, I was in place. I didn't get to do the musical. I didn't get to be center rale alright, I didn't get it. I didn't get a singing role in my first musical either. Really yeah, I was Mr Schinkoff in Fame. I was the German math teacher, music teacher and uh and I didn't didn't get a singing role. Well, I got to sing along with Bivity Bobby Book, but you know, there was like thirty other people singing. But that was my home. That was my stage and my brother. I had a brother, Matt, who's left to be in heaven years ago. But Matt and I were in every play together and our friends were the same friends, and we always hosted the after the play party at our house. And I have so many amazing memories from that. They stick with you, they stick with you for life, and they they they're the building blocks of your future relationship, absolutely, and those friendships last forever to whenever I've been in a There's nothing like being in a production with somebody that really just connects you emotionally for life. You've just you've been through it, You've learned the lines together, you've been through the boot camp of doing a show. And that's I think one of the great things about being young and doing theaters. It teaches you discipline, it teaches you, you know, selflessness when it comes to making sure the whole show. You're a cog in a wheel. It's not just about you. And I think that that that connectivity is so important too. And and and from a social aspect, I made friends because of the arts. That's another thing is I didn't feel as lonely when I was a kid because I was shy. I wasn't I wasn't going to go up and make friends by myself. It was being part of a show sometimes being forced through the assignment to interact with kids on an artistic level. You learn about each other, You become friends with each other. So how can somebody uh partner with you and get involved? Well, we in a number of different ways. We have a website we can anybody can go to find your Light. Find your Light Foundation dot org. The name of the foundation is Find Your Light and they can learn about us. They can donate off the website UM and through the website. If you're a program who also needs help, you can reach out to us. We take grant requests. UM. We are always looking for new places to team up with two UH to funnel our donations into to become a Find Your Light program. We we kind of like to be a part of many different organizations success and UH and then you know we're we're we're doing our fourth gala this year, you know, and UH, it's it's incredible. I've been able to call on my friends who have been right there, people like Adena Monzel who has her own Broader Way Foundation, people like Joshua Bell who has done incredible things with education through music. This year were honoring Tony Bennett, you know who's his his wife have just done incredible things. So, you know, we've had the honor of being able to include artists and friends that share our vision that we all team up together for the same purpose that there is no competition with these kinds of things. And that's one of the fun things about Find Your Light is an umbrella organization. We're out there to help make sure that those programs in school and after school don't get lost in the shuffle, don't fall through the cracks as those as the funds are being cut at record speed, unbelievably. It's it's it's a shame. It is a it's criminal. It's criminal. And when you you were earlier talking about the fact that when kids are involved in music or plaze or the arts, I mean, I'm a I love pottery, I love painting, I love drawing. I have a son, t K who's eighteen, and before I adopted him, he had a traumatic brain injury that when undiagnosed for years we didn't know, we didn't have their records. But he has found his home on the potter's wheel in the art room at their school. It's a focuser, oh my gosh. And he's turning out these beautiful creations and bulls. But more than that, he started mentoring the younger kids and teaching them and it's really given him an outlet for his love. He has a path, he's a purpose, ah and he's so so talented and he's now reaching those kids and passing on that purpose. And it it gives, and it gives and it gives. And that's That's the incredible thing about arts education is that what you received from it, you then have a million opportunities to give back, to take your person and it just continues. Um. We also did a really cool thing. Um, you like wine. Do you drink? I don't. You don't drink drink? I know you took your folks to That's true. I took up the wine country. The last time I drank wine, it was Strawberry Boon Boone's Farm, Strawberry Hills. You stopped. Yeah, that'll do it. That's a that's a hangover that I would imagine is a hangover that that that would make anybody stone cold sober for the rest of their lives. But but we teamed up with a wonderful guy named Ross Halleck, who is both an award winning pinot maker and also an arts fan, and he reached out to us and he said, Hey, love what you guys are doing. We have a whole lot of wine that we've made that is ready to go, and we want to make it a find to find your Light wine and we're going to give every dollar of profits to find your Light. And we've done that now for four years, and since I'm such a such a wine lover, he said, for the next couple of vintages come over and end with us. So I got to learn all about tasting. I got to drink out of the barrels and just learn about what all the different vines can do and all the different types of oak can do to to a blend. So now these bottles that we're selling for the foundation are just absolutely delicious and really personal because we've had our own personal touch into them too. Have you ever read the book The Secret of the Vine. I've heard about this. That's thick. I mean, it's it's a one hour reading. Yeah, blow your mind. I mean, I'm not a wine drinker, but that book made me want to learning about wine. Yeah, and I'm not. I'm not a heavy drinker by any stretch, but I love I love learning about the creation of wine. And like you said, whether you drink or not, it's fun to learn about the horticulture, the how what goes into it, what what proprietors do and wine makers do to make that happen. You know, it's it's pretty stunning to do well. I have vines on my farm that are over a hundred years old. I have to h two sets of grape vines that I have excavated off old properties and brought to my farm and planted. Probably I don't know a couple of hundred plants that are. That's a trick I learned from the Mandawi family. They have started a name dropped. They have me word for barbecue ones. And they grilled over their old vines, the old vines that they weren't using any really old vines. They used this as would under the grill, bet to grow with it and gave them it gave them me a really cool texture and flavor. And uh so that's a that's a little if you're into into vines, that's a cool grilling. I I clipped them, I groomed them, I ruined them. I have beautiful harvests. Yeah, I just don't know how to make wine. Well, I mean I need me neither, I'll call you. And also, okay, Josh Groben, here I got I'm teen bushels of these beautiful grapes. You know what I do with them? I juice them and I freeze it. And then when I make my health I blend a health drink every morning. I use They're delicious. They're delicious. Just the non boozy wine grapes are just just awesome. Just just juice them or eat them off and eat him off the vine. But um, but but anyway, No, this this one is delicious and people want to go. If people want to check it out, they can go to my website and get it. All goes to charity. And we've got some left which are awesome, very sweet, and your tour is going to be announced twin We've just released. We've just announced the new dates. I'm going to be going out at the beginning of summer. We're gonna be doing a bunch of arenas again, and then we're gonna do some great outdoor venues as well, places like Red Rocks and Santa Barbara Bowl, Wolf Trapped Ravinia, some of these classic Tanglewood I mean, speaking speaking of arts, when we're going back to Interlocking where I went to arts camp, and we're gonna play We're gonna play the outdoor amphitheater that I would see shows that when I was a kid. I even like I wear my camppin when I go back on that stage and just looking at on all the kids in their uniforms that I remember sitting in those seats. That's always really, really special. But the arena shows are going to be fun because half of them are going to be with my friend Jennifer Nettles. We sang this morning on the Today Show, um, and then half years we're gonna be singing more. Thank you so much. And then Chris Bodie, my friend Chris Body, the wonderful trumpet players. Yeah, he's going to join me on the second half of the shows and we're going to do you know who loves Chris as producer Janie loves Chris. Oh, well, well, Chris is a Chris is Uh. It's impossible man not to be in the mood with his music and his playing and just yeah, he's very sharp dress guy, sharp dress man, talented town. We all have to we all have to have to spruce it up a little bit when Chris is on on deck. Chris is coming on to our Okay, okay, press the suits, yeah, break out exactly, exactly. Well, thank you for spending time with me. It's always an absolute privilege to be to be with you and to talk to you and to to share share a couple of microphones with you You're You're an absolute absolute treasure and uh and I can't think enough for the years of support and friendship. YouTube love, bless you down and love someone with the Lila