Josh Groban is a native Angeleno raised in the San Fernando Valley. As a teenager, he attended the famous LA County High School for the Arts on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles. Other graduates of LACHSA include the Haim sisters, Anthony Anderson, and Phoebe Bridgers.

At just 17, while still in high school, super producer and songwriter David Foster heard him sing and asked him to fill in for Andrea Bocelli opposite Celine Dion during a Grammy rehearsal. He called it the day that changed his life. Grammy host Rosie O'Donnell heard what went down and invited him on her show the next week. His career took off.

His self titled debut album dropped in 2001 which blended classical with pop was an instant success. Two years later his sophomore follow-up, Closer, debuted at #4 and then went to #1. It later became the best selling album for the first decade of the 2000s.

Over the years he has sold over 35 million albums. In a few weeks he will release his 10th studio LP, Cinematic, due May 8, 2026.

Recently he stopped by the Setlist Studios to chat with Bree Wilde about his experiences at concerts as a fan, specifically a few at the Hollywood Bowl.

Click the video above for the whole conversation or keep scrolling for a few highlights.

Björk, Hollywood Bowl, 8/11/2003

Josh Groban: I grew up a real Bjork fan. Being a teenager in the '90s, there was so much good music, and so much great alternative and rock and experimental.

From an electronic standpoint, we had Bjork and Massive Attack and Portishead, and it was a real renaissance for electronic music and experimentation at that time and hitting the mainstream, Moby, and so I listened to all that stuff.

I was also a rock kid. I listened to Pearl Jam and Nirvana, and that was such a part of my world in high school. But Bjork was one of those that resonated with me because there was something about the wildness about her voice.

There was something about her voice that just ... I didn't know how she did what she did. And I loved how she interpreted her own music.

I loved how she sang covers, and I also loved the genre bending that she did.

Normalizing going to a concert alone

Josh Groban: That night we had some really lovely LA air, and there were fireworks at the end, and she had Matmos, which was her electronic production team that she had done, I think it was her Vespertine album.

And so they were on stage, but there were also a number of classical musicians on stage with some violinists and a harpist. She absolutely brought it.

It was so, so fun. I just went alone, by myself.

Bree Wilde: Oh. You're like, "I'm buying one ticket."

Josh Groban: I'm a proponent, by the way. Go to a concert alone. Just buy a ticket. Just go. It's awesome.

Bree Wilde: And everybody's there for the same reason.

Being the Fourth Wheel in the box seats

Josh Groban: At the Hollywood Bowl it can kind of be a little bit awkward. You went to The Little Mermaid sing-along?

Bree Wilde: Yeah.

Josh Groban: I went to see Black Panther with orchestra. So they do these movie nights where they show the movie, but then Thomas Wilkins and I think it was the LA Phil played the score along with the movie, which is so, so cool.

And I loved Ludwig Göransson's score and I love African music. I knew that Baaba Maal, who's one of my favorite African singers, was going to be part of it so I'm like, "Yep, I'm going to buy a solo ticket. I'm going to go," and I bought a seat in a box because it said there was a seat available.

So I was sitting in there and I was thinking, "oh good, I got the box to myself," and this group of ladies who were like - this is their night out - they had the other three seats.

And so I was the fourth wheel. They brought a picnic basket. I was just eating a bag of chips.

They were gossiping about work. They had the rosé flowing. And I'm thinking, "Oh, God." I felt terrible that I was totally interrupting their hang. They didn't expect somebody to buy one seat.

And then at some point, one of them leaned over and said, "I'm so sorry. Are you Josh Groban?" and I said, "Yes. Yes, I am and I'm feeling terrible that I'm here."

And then they said, "Oh, no, no. We're fans. Oh my God. Here have some of our crab salad," or whatever it was they had and we became friends and we started talking.

And then when I did my concert last summer, that woman that had leaned over to talk to me, was so nice to me, wrote into the Bowl saying, "Hey, Josh was in our box last year for Black Panther. I'm such a fan. I would love to come to the show," and so I surprised her.

And they were interviewing her at the Bowl and I came in and I got to show up behind her and give her free tickets.

Recording a classic with his Father

Josh Groban: In about a week we're going to go to Dublin and do the European tour, and then when we come back, Cinematic's coming out, and then the summer tour with Jennifer Hudson is definitely going to be a bit of a shift in gears.

We'll have a lot of the songs from Gems, but we'll also be representing some of these beautiful songs that are going to be so fun to sing, especially our duet with Jennifer.

Bree Wilde: Yeah. I love "Moon River," by the way. So good.

Josh Groban: Oh, thanks. I love it so much. And I got my dad on that.

Bree Wilde: That's amazing.

Josh Groban: Yeah, that's my dad playing the trumpet. He turns 80 this summer. That's probably the most special collaboration I've ever had on an album.

He played jazz trumpet all through college. I have an album of when he was 23, and we played all the time at the house, and he could wail. He was amazing. He came from a pretty conservative family and his mom said to him like, "Go into something else. We want you to make a living."

On "Moon River," Greg Wells, the producer and I, we had Terence Blanchard and Wynton Marsalis saying, "Send us in, coach. We love this song. We'd love to play on it."

I said to Greg, "my dad's going, 'Oh, Moon River. I love that song,'" and I'm going, "Maybe my favorite trumpet player has been right in front of me the whole time and I didn't realize."

So I said to my mom, I said, "If dad started to get the lip and started to rehearse a little bit, do you think he might be able to do this?" I asked him, he goes, "You know, this would actually be really special, and it's low enough that I think I could handle it and I'm going to start working."

He worked for weeks. We went to Sunset Sound here, famous studio here in LA. Louis Armstrong's favorite studio in LA. We got Louis' stool that he used to sit on there and we recorded him.

Having a collaboration with my dad is something that I'll treasure for the rest of my life.

To hear the entire conversation, click the video at the top.

Josh's North American summer tour kicks off in June in Canada and goes through August. In October he has a Vegas residency at Caesar's Palace. Get your tix on his website.

Josh Groban 2026 North American Summer Tour

6/2 Place Bell, Laval, QC, Canada
6/4 Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, ON, Canada
6/6 TD Garden, Boston, MA
6/7 Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia, PA
6/10 GIANT Center, Hershey, PA
6/12 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
6/13 Count Basie Center, Red Bank, NJ
6/16 Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN
6/17 Gas South Arena, Duluth, GA
6/19 Benchmark International Arena, Tampa, FL
6/20 Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, FL
6/24 Schottenstein Center, Columbus, OH
6/25 Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, MI
6/27 Allstate Arena, Rosemont, IL
6/28 Grand Casino Arena, St. Paul, MN
7/1 Ball Arena, Denver, CO
7/3 Maverik Center, Salt Lake City, UT
8/14 Pavilion, SPAC, Saratoga Springs, NY
8/22 Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA
10/2-10/3 The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, NV
10/7 The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, NV
10/9-10/10 The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, NV