Music

Gavin DeGraw hopes to never again get slotted into an easily marketable, moneymaking category. That already happened once, when his 2003 debut studio album, Chariot, and its acoustic counterpart, Chariot Stripped, put him in the same sensitive-male singer-songwriter confines as John Mayer.

So for his sophomore release, Gavin DeGraw, he rocked up the proceedings, added touches of old-school R&B and delivered a couple of piercing, angry tunes.

Eric Ogden

Gavin DeGraw wanted a harder sonic edge for his new CD.

"Music is just like any other form of fashion," he says by phone from a tour stop in Kingsport, Tenn. "People will continue to get burnt out on this or that trend as time goes on. But there is a musical movement going on from some audiences who want their musicians to know how to play an instrument and actually know how to write songs. There's a big audience that wants the legitimate stuff."

Forgive him for sounding like an earnest purist. But Gavin DeGraw does sound like the potent work of a 31-year-old with smarts, passion and artistic integrity. He wrote all 12 songs and sought out producer Howard Benson (Daughtry, My Chemical Romance) to give him a harder sonic edge.

Mr. DeGraw likes classic rock, so he made sure to play less piano and more of the guitar. He also wanted to expand beyond the catchy pop of his breakthrough single, "I Don't Want to Be," which became the theme song of the TV show One Tree Hill.

The propulsive pop-rocker "In Love With a Girl" opens the disc with a shot of energy. But a little later we hear "Cop Stop" and then "Medicate the Kids," perhaps Mr. DeGraw's most accomplished tracks.

"Cop Stop" uses police metaphors ("You're already disarmed/It's your lasting alarm I pursue") to illustrate romantic respect and fidelity. He sings: "I won't tell you lies/Or treat you like a rental car like other guys."

"We rent a car and we really abuse them," says the son of a prison guard dad and detox specialist mom. "You definitely treat it differently from something you bought and are going to keep."

As for the arresting story line: "There's a lot of people in law enforcement in my family. I guess I think about the idea of this more often than a lot of people do. I'm used to hearing stories about it."

"Medicate the Kids" is piercingly straightforward. It's a percussive rocker about parents who Mr. DeGraw believes have their children diagnosed with a behavioral disorder and put on prescription drugs so they won't have to discipline them.

"It's an emotional reaction to a trend taking place here in the States," he says, angrily. "Nancy Reagan's anti-drug campaign has been turned to put kids on drugs, prescription drugs."

It's a way for parents to take the easy way out, he said, adding with sarcasm that, "It's definitely not child abuse to say that they have an actual condition when millions of times they don't and put them on a prescription drug to tailor their behavior."

Heady stuff. But Mr. DeGraw thinks his fans are ready for it. In fact, he believes that it's part of his job to help his admirers diversify their musical tastes.

"On this second record I tried to embrace some of the styles of the first album and then feed in some of my other influences. It's the responsibility of the artist. It's my life. I spend my life searching for music because I'm passionate about it. I love it. I want to expose them to some things that otherwise they might not have heard."