On Saturday, November 22, 2014 Casey Abrams is performing in Northern Michigan at the Kirtland Center for Performing Arts in Roscommon.

Casey is a musician who describes his music as a combination of jazz-rock and rock n’ roll “with attitude in your face” and with “lots of spontaneity, so you never know what’s going to happen.”

His career took off three years ago when he was a contestant on Season 10 of American Idol. He ended the show in sixth place but was signed to Concord Music Group shortly after. Casey credits American Idol for giving him experience as a singer and as an overall performer.

“Without American Idol, I think I would still be in college studying the jazz bass,” he says. “I never thought about being a singer before then and it got me on stage in front of a lot of people and allowed me to do some good and gave me confidence.”

Casey is only 23-years-old and hopes to see himself playing on the Grammy stage in five years.

“I don’t need a Grammy, but playing on the stage would be pretty great,” he says.

In 2012 he released his first album entitled Casey Abrams and is hard at work on his second album although there is no release date set yet.

Casey recorded Casey Abrams in London, which he says greatly influenced the way it turned out.

“it influenced it in a big way. I think recording anywhere else other than LA has different kinds of vibes. This album captured the wonder that I had about England, the kind of wanderlust,” he says. “I ended up staying there for six weeks and I was only supposed to stay for two because we wanted to get it just right.”

“It was awesome. I recorded at a studio called Kensaltown Recording Studios, which is where Jason Mraz recorded I’m Yours,” he says. “It was different from any studio that I have ever been in because it has windows and it’s a totally open room. The mixer was in the room with me and he could actually hear the music and I got to play live which means that in the background of some of the songs on the album you can hear busses rumbling by, clock towers in the distance and birds.

Producing the album in such a different environment opened creative doors. He says that he “wrote a whole bunch of songs in London” and two of those ended up on the album.

“That type of environment really helped me. It’s cool to get the pitch, but I wanted to capture that moment and memory,” he says.

A wide variety of musicians contribute to his music including James Taylor, Ray Charles, Al Green, Stevie Wonder and Jack Black.

“Jack Black is the more in your face side of me and the James Taylor is more of the mellowness of the songwriting and really telling a story with my lyrics,” he says.

When he’s not writing songs, he’s been busy working on some recent projects including an Indiegogo movie called Offer & Compromise, his second album and a recent release of a YouTube video collaboration with Steve Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox where he covers Sam Smith’s “I’m Not the Only One.”

“Scott Bradlee is the genius behind it all, he rearranges songs to sound like ’50s songs,” he says. “We were messing around and played together and it went really well, so he asked if I wanted to come back and record it, so of course I said yes.”

It might be a little chillier than LA when Casey visits, but he says he is looking forward to stopping by Northern Michigan to perform on Saturday.

“It’s going to be fun to see a snow for a second,” he says. “I like the Midwest. I always get good vibes when I am here.”

 

Watch Casey perform here and learn more about him on his website.

Purchase tickets at MyNorthTickets.com

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