Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

A mature artist at 17

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 19, 2006

NEW YORK - He landed a summer tour, a TV show and the cover of Billboard magazine before his debut album hit stores.

Can Teddy Geiger live up to the buildup?

"I don't necessarily feel any pressure," the 17-year-old high school senior from upstate New York said. "I feel like it would kind of hurt, to feel that much pressure rather than just kind of let it go and do what I'm doing."

Since signing a deal with Columbia Records last year, Geiger has been aggressively tossed into the limelight, marketed as a singer-songwriter with soul, not sneer.

A self-taught musician, Geiger sings and plays guitar, piano, bass and drums on Underage Thinking , a mature collection of earnest pop-rock songs. It debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in late March, and sales have remained solid. It was among the top 10 downloads on iTunes on Tuesday.

Geiger is the oldest son of nonmusical parents - John, an electrical engineer, and Lorilyn, a former high school teacher - and began learning piano at age 6 and guitar at 8. He said he wrote "ridiculous songs, trying to get kids to laugh" before dealing with teen angst and heartbreak by high school.

He was playing gigs to a devoted fan base, known as Tedheads, and got his big break in 2004 as a finalist on VH1's In Search of the Partridge Family , a talent competition aimed at plucking no-names to star in an update of the '70s series about a family band.

In the end, he got the boot. But he caught the eye of music producer Billy Mann, who has worked with Sting, Pink and Jessica Simpson. Geiger sent Mann more than 80 demos he had recorded in his parents' basement.

"He sees the musical matrix like no artist I've ever met before," Mann said. "He's just a floppy, natural, gifted kid.

Geiger, with Mann and a recording contract, was soon on a fast track to teen idoldom with his dark, shaggy hair and sad blue eyes. Last summer, he performed for thousands of wide-eyed tween girls as the opening act for Hilary Duff's tour. Then came a featured role as whiz-kid rocker Wayne on the short-lived CBS dramedy Love Monkey , which starred Tom Cavanaugh. (VH1 recently picked up the series.)

Geiger also was selected by America Online as an emerging artist to spotlight on "Sessions at AOL," an in-studio performance series.

His limber, raspy voice and sensitive lyrics invite comparisons to John Mayer. This delights and frustrates Geiger, who admires Mayer but insists "there are differences."

"Maybe at some point, some new (musicians) will come out and somebody will be like, "Oh, they sound like Teddy Geiger,' " he said.

Geiger said that in high school he was a wallflower - with "thick glasses" and "the worst haircut" - often rejected by the opposite sex.

"I used to be extremely shy," he said. "I used to not be able to borrow pens in classes, especially from girls. Like, I had trouble saying people's names. ... And then, because you're shy, you become the weird kid who doesn't talk to anyone."

Now living in New York City, he plans to graduate from his high school this year. But he's skipping the senior prom.

"I went to my junior prom. It wasn't that fun. ... And I don't dance," he said sheepishly.

AT A GLANCE: Love Monkey airs at 9 p.m. Tuesday on VH1. Teddy Geiger emerges as mature musical artist at 17

[Last modified April 19, 2006, 06:51:02]