Drew Gasparini Talks His New Album and More, With Colton Ryan and Raymond J. Lee on Backstage LIVE With Richard Ridge

Nothing can stop BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge from bringing you interviews with your favorite Broadway stars! On April 29, he chatted with composer Drew Gasparini about his new album, We Aren't Kids Anymore. Special guests included Colton Ryan and Raymond J. Lee.

Gasparini and Lee both talked about their experiences struggling through, and recovering from, COVID-19.

"I was in denial for like 4 days," Gasparini said. "I was getting shivers every night and I was like 'that's probably just because it's March.' Then I finally called a doctor and finally got told what this was and to be prepared for what's to come. And I was not. I don't think there's any way to prepare you for how bad the symptoms can get."

Gasparini goes on to talk about how he was afraid to sleep because he didn't know if he would stop breathing.

Lee also talked about his experience.

"The loss of taste and smell was the big thing, and I was kind of fatigued," he said. "It was almost two weeks of no taste and smell. From there, the fatigue hit, the aches, the chills. I felt like I had a belt around my chest, it was hard to breathe."

Gasparini then talked about the importance of the arts during, and after, this time.

"Once this all blows over, we are going to become a part of that list of essential workers," he said. "Because we are providing worlds for people to escape into."

Later, Gasparini talked about his new album, We Aren't Kids Anymore.

"When we started to talk about promoting the album, we were trying to back away from saying it's autobiographical," he said. "I've gotten more messages saying 'it's clear this is about your life' so I'm not going to hide that anymore."

"I was engaged a few years ago and the relationship didn't pan out," he explains. "But in this time I was discovering a lot about what exactly I was missing. The connective tissue in a lot of these songs is that adults are scared to be adults."

Gasparini said that at first he planned to perform the new songs and then scrap them, and never visit them again. His manager was the one to push him forward into making them into an album.

"I'm really happy that songs that came out of my life resonate with other people," he said.

Watch the full interview here!

Earlier this month, Craft Recordings/Concord Theatricals released the award-winning composer's new album, We Aren't Kids Anymore (Original Studio Cast), a new theatrical song cycle that will be licensed worldwide for live performances by professional and amateur theatres through Concord Theatricals. The full album cast features Broadway's Nicholas Christopher (Hamilton), Lilli Cooper (Tootsie), Raymond J. Lee (Soft Power), Bonnie Milligan (Head Over Heels) and Colton Ryan (Girl from the North Country).

Drew Gasparini is an award-winning composer/lyricist and singer/songwriter. Currently Drew is working on musical adaptations of the movies The Karate Kid for Gorgeous Entertainment and Night Shift for Warner Bros Theatre Ventures. Alongside writing partner Alex Brightman, Drew is writing musical adaptations of It's Kind of a Funny Story for Universal Theatrical Group, and the children's novel The Whipping Boy. In 2019 Drew wrote the score for the highly publicized Super Bowl advertising stunt, Skittles Commercial: The Musical starring Michael C. Hall. The show went on to win several advertising awards and was voted #1 Best Super Bowl Ad of 2019 by Forbes. Drew is signed to Concord Music Publishing, and alongside his two sisters he is one-third of the band Saint Adeline