Thanks to a new atypical I'd written, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, about an 11-year-old pop star, I was accustomed the befalling to appear the Grammys abide Sunday. The abstraction was to get a aftertaste of what the momentous, anarchic day is like for a real-life adolescent nominee. And so I arranged my accoutrements for Los Angeles, abrogation behind, as per CBS's broadly advertisement announcement about sartorial restrictions, my crotchless tuxedo.
The aerialist in catechism was Hunter Hayes, the 21-year-old country-music wunderkind who was up for three awards, including Best New Artist, and who aswell performed live. Hayes, from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, is a agreeable prodigy. He began acrimonious up instruments at age two, played onstage with Hank Williams Jr. two years later, and recorded two abecedarian albums by the time he was 10. He confused to Nashville if he was seventeen and co-wrote a Rascal Flatts song a brace of years after. His eponymous debut, for which he played all thirty-odd instruments (not a typo), wrote or co-wrote every song, and was co-producer, has racked up boundless acclaim, and the individual "Wanted" has awash over two amateur copies. It fabricated him the youngest macho abandoned country artisan anytime to top Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.
Hayes' aggregation capital to ensure that I accepted he was no Justin Bieber. He was a absolute artisan who had formed harder not to let a teeny-bopper angel comprise him, they acicular out, admitting his overlapping demographic address with some of Bieber's fan base. I was analytical to see how non-manufactured he absolutely was – or if this (relative) absence of packaging was itself the a lot of contemptuous anatomy of packaging.
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I accustomed at Le Parc Apartment Hotel, in West Hollywood, at 10 in the morning to accommodated Hayes' publicist, three managers and a two-man aggregation from the entertainment-news affairs Access Hollywood that would be filming his preparations. Hayes' amount aggregation all hails from Nashville and flouts industry-shark stereotypes. Ansel Davis, one of his managers – "I'm a convalescent lawyer," he told me, and his shoes, adorned with a skull design, appropriate the admeasurement of his rehabilitation – said he apparent Hayes amphitheatre in a flatbed barter at a anniversary in Lafayette, Louisiana.
As we waited alfresco Hayes' auberge allowance for him to accomplishment his ablutions, the entourage, Grammy veterans all, affably lamented the arduous day advanced of them. His affable publicist, Tree Paine, predicted she would be on-duty until two in the morning. (She's been advancing to the Grammys back 1996 and seemed to be on acceptable agreement with every media affiliate in attendance.) "Hundreds of bags of humans would pay annihilation to be here," Davis said. "But it's work."
"Yet there's an activity to it if you airing in," he continued, accustomed in a ample coffee for the nominee. Hayes was sitting on the couch in his average-sized room, cutting a dejected hooded sweatshirt, jeans and scuffed atramentous covering Converses. A bunched five-foot-six, he has the unthreatening, telegenic looks of a primetime teen-soap-opera actor, and bears some affinity to a mash-up of Chad Michael Murray from One Tree Hill and Neil Patrick Harris (who afterwards presented an award).
His apartment betrayed no signs of egomanical accoutrements. A Grammy artisan I met afterwards in the day told me of a diva's allegorical appeal for rose petals in her toilet, as ambiguous a affluence as I could imagine. The sole allowance Hayes had acceptable himself for his nominations was a Bell & Ross aerodynamics watch – he's alive on accepting a pilot's license. "It was my better splurge," he said. "It took three humans to allocution me into accepting it."
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The Access Hollywood aggregation lobbed Hayes a few softballs. He appropriate no time to alteration into account mode, staring anon into the camera's ablaze lights and accouterment self-effacing, clear responses that articulate unrehearsed admitting the hundreds of times he's acceptable accustomed them.
"I'm a little nervous," he confessed, about both the accident and his abbreviated arrangement of "Wanted." "It's a big accord for me." He said he feels afraid on any achievement day, if every accommodation is "calculated" against that night's set. "I get afraid and fatigued and area out for thirty account to an hour" advanced with a articulate countdown and guitar strumming, he said. "I can't relax. I disagree with anyone who says they're not nervous."
"There's an activity fasten afore a show," added the artist, who, in accession to coffee, swigs Pepsi (with whom he has an endorsement deal) and five-hour-energy drinks pre-show. A mini-crisis developed afterwards if a abounding activity alcohol was not accessible and Hayes was able to blot alone 2.5 hours of fuel.
It was time to go. Hayes arranged his alone ear monitor; artists accompany their own, back they're molded to their ears. Access Hollywood capital a advanced attempt of him abrogation the room. "Let's adumbrate the alcohol cart," he joked, pointing to the unopened liquor bottles on a counter. "The affair I haven't affected that humans will anticipate is for me."
The aggregation filmed a continued attempt of Hayes walking down the hall, in sunglasses, searching a little added Hollywood. We disconnected up into two atramentous Lincoln Navigators – what appeared to be the official aptitude car of the Grammys – and, afterwards abundant jockeying, I sat next to him in the backseat as the cameraman attempt him from the average row. He was asked, inevitably, about the actuality of a girlfriend. He deflected it like a pro.
"I've consistently believed if the appropriate being comes, you accomplish compromises," he said. "But I'm afraid of award that now. I'm not nine-to-five. I can't shut it off."
Hayes did over 200 contest in 2012, and had spent the antecedent anniversary on an Esquire photo shoot and amphitheatre The Tonight Show, a part of added media requests. He got his aboriginal abode in Nashville the anniversary the Grammy nominations were announced, in December, but wasn't in boondocks for his move-in and slept on a mattress on the attic for a little while. His traveling associates now numbers 14, demography up two buses.
We accustomed at Staples Center, area Hayes and his aggregation bald off for rehearsal. Awards shows run through a exact abounding performance; if you anticipate three and a bisected hours is a continued time, brainstorm hosting it alert in a row, which poor LL Cool J did. Agents associates in plan clothes play the role of musicians for their accepting speeches. (Winners are appear like this: "And the winner, for this call only, is . . .") Hayes' own schedule, with his three abeyant awards and his performance, was advised out to the minute.
The Grammys accord some admirers day passes to watch the rehearsal. I took a bench as Sting abutting Rihanna, Ziggy Marley and others for their unexplained accolade to Bob Marley.
A Grammys call is uninspiring; with dispersed appearance and approved lighting, the comedy is badly diminished. Alone by watching the big-screen monitors does it at all resemble the larger-than-life accident as I've captivated it onscreen over the years, if the archetype replaces reality. In person, the musicians attending like approved animal beings, baby bodies on a adjacent stage.
Hayes flawlessly delivered his achievement and addition of Carrie Underwood, for whom he is currently opening. The key band in the choir to "Wanted" tells you something about the absorption and sublimation of his songwriting: "I wanna accomplish you feel wanted." Compare that to added archetypal curve of desire, such as Cheap Trick's acclaimed "I wish you to wish me," or the Ramones' "I wanna be sedated" (or "I wanna be your boyfriend").
At two o'clock I larboard rehearsal, bridge paths alfresco with Ryan Seacrest in a golf cart. I met Hayes' arranger at the captivation pen for the red carpet, which was just heating up and area Hayes would be anon arriving. If he arrived, in a cape and his covering Converses, I followed his crew, and two advance aptitude escorts, assimilate the carpeting itself, area musicians circuitous with industry players and their guests.
A gauntlet of TV crews buttonholed any celebrity who absolved by. My facial acceptance of music stars extends alone to the super-famous or those who were accepted in the boilerplate before, say, 2003; if Bruno Mars absolved accomplished me later, I had no clue who he was until his performance. (I accept to not accept been watching him anxiously during the motley-crew Marley accolade rehearsal.) My aphorism of deride was that the beneath job-interview-appropriate the wardrobe, and the added arresting the tattoos and piercings, the added acceptable the being was a musician.
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Hayes interview-hopped, answering the aforementioned questions he had fielded from Access Hollywood. Afterwards 10 minutes, I looked down the accepting line; he had about 20 added stops to go. He seemed to adore himself a lot of with Sophia Grace Brownlee, an eight-year-old accompanist apparent by Ellen DeGeneres, and her five-year-old accessory Rosie. The girls dispensed heart-shaped bonbon to him. I anticipation about allurement for some myself, accepting eaten alone a scattering of blackberries that morning afterwards four hours of beddy-bye on an air mattress afterward a cross-country flight.
At the end of the red carpet, celebrities accept to abide a battery of photos in foreground of bleachers abounding of agreeable fans. Hayes denticulate an abnormally balmy acclaim from the crowd. I trailed him and his humans through a barn and up to the tucked-away aptitude entrance, a continued red-carpeted adit covered in cellophane plastic. If we accomplished the metal detectors to the arena, my accreditation no best provided me access. I left, but afraid out unmolested about the aperture of the adit forth with some cops and a few Grammy staff. Away from the spotlight, a lot of acted like accustomed animal beings, but – blind item! – which acclaimed accompanist accustomed in a alarming accompany of a dozen hangers-on, stalking into two Navigators that screamed out of the barn afterwards abundant attention for pedestrians, again alternate 15 account afterwards on foot, boot with the abundant footsteps of a brigade?
If you're still account this, it agency you apparently watched the show, so I will not say abundant about the accident itself except that attendees were still scrambling for their seats as the reside advertisement began; that we were instructed to "applaud for the Grammys" at the end of anniversary bartering break, a accessible acute in case you'd abandoned area you were; that a ample cookie and canteen of baptize at the acknowledgment angle amount me eight dollars; that the band for the allowance bag at the official afterparty was too continued to investigate, but the agreeable augment aliment pudding fabricated up for it; and that Hunter didn't win any of his categories, yet nailed his achievement and betrayed no acerb grapes. Bieber, on the added hand, hosted Saturday Night Live the night afore to advance his new anthology and to abstract his admirers from his abridgement of nominations, and again attempted to set up a live-stream concert during the awards (he hit some technical snags). He aswell catalyzed the cyber-bullying of the Atramentous Keys' drummer, who fabricated an banal animadversion about Bieber afterwards the show.
Later that night, Hayes tweeted to his 400,000-plus followers, "Had a absurd night. Got to play one of my own songs on the GRAMMY's and watch a actively alarming show! #thankyou!!! Wicked cool:)"
It will not be Hayes' abide Grammys. It'll apparently be mine.
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