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Fame, Gavin DeGraw has discovered, can be a double-edged sword.

He's not complaining about it -- to do so would somehow feel wrong, as if he begrudged the opportunities he's been given to bring his music to a broader audience. But when one of your songs is chosen as the theme for a primetime drama with a nationwide teen following, it tends to automatically label you as an artist who somehow lacks depth.

It's an inexplicable phenomenon, and something that DeGraw contemplates with something akin to disgruntled curiosity.

"I just really want to be regarded as a serious singer," DeGraw told The Daily Times this week. "I write songs, and I feel very strongly about my songwriting, but I want people to really pay attention to how I'm singing those songs, too. I'm not a pop act; I'm a real musician, and I surround myself with real musicians. I don't just hire a bunch of pretty boys to play with me; I hire a higher class of people.

"I want to make music that affects people, music that other musicians listen to and go, '(Wow), I like how they're playing it and saying it. So yeah, the pop thing is a factor going against all of that. I know the first few rows in every show are going to be filled with cute young women, and I think a lot of people who come out to that see it as a bad thing.

"But The Beatles had cute young women in the first few rows, too," he added with a laugh.

DeGraw was raised in the Catskills area of New York State, the son of a prison guard and a detox specialist. (He would detail those facts in his semi-autobiographical hit, "I Don't Want to Be," the same song chosen as the theme for "One Tree Hill" on The CW.) He started singing and playing piano when he was 8, attending the Berklee College of Music before trying his luck playing Manhattan-area clubs.

His debut album, "Chariot," featured "I Don't Want to Be," which was picked up by The CW and featured as the song over the show's opening credits from seasons one through four. Based on its popularity, DeGraw saw his star began to rise, with "I Don't Want to Be" selected by various "American Idol" contestants over the years and two other songs, "Follow Through" and "Chariot," achieving minor chart success as well.

In the wake of his success, DeGraw found himself in demand on various talk shows, appearing on shows hosted by David Letterman, Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres, Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa and Carson Daly. His talent (and looks) also made him a popular choice for artists featured in the background of a number of television dramas -- "Dead Like Me," "What I Like About You," "American Dreams" and "One Tree Hill."

He's also toured with some heavy hitters in the music scene -- Barenaked Ladies, the Allman Brothers Band and others that he rattles off with ease -- not to name-drop, but to express his admiration at their professional courtesy and their treatment of him.

"I feel like I've busted my ass to get to where I'm at, but every once in a while I'll step back and think about some of the people I've shared the stage with or done shows with, and man, it's pretty wild," he said. "It's not about the monetary rewards so much as the affiliations and having the pleasure of meeting certain artists who treat you great. Kris Kristofferson -- he was so complimentary. Elton John and Billy Joel were as well. Brian May from Queen paid me a great compliment.

"I've watched many of their careers and seen how they allow themselves to be perceived and how they handle themselves in the public eye, and I've learned things from watching them. I like Billy Joel -- he's not much of a fame-seeker and seems to have it mostly on his merits as a musician and a songwriter. I also like Elvis Costello's career very much -- people's perception of him is appropriate for as much of a musician as he is, but also as much of a music fan as he is."

DeGraw's self-titled sophomore album was released in May, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard charts and featuring the single "In Love With a Girl," which reached No. 24 on the Hot 100 Singles chart. It's follow-up, "Cheated on Me," demonstrates a theme that weighs heavy on DeGraw's mind of late -- relationships, and navigating the intricate roadmap of the human heart.

It's not an album of morose love ballads or melancholy heartbreak songs -- if anything, it's dominated by an upbeat mood, a joyous sense of wonder at the ability to love rather than the peaks and pitfalls of the emotion itself. It's based partly on his own experiences and partly on his observations, and the songs don't always come easy.

"How does the lightning strike? Sometimes I sit around waiting for it, and other times I got to the highest mountains with the longest golf club I can find and wave it at the sky," he said. "Sometimes, I have to really focus and force myself; other times, certain things will just dawn on you. I try to find similarities in what I'm doing and what other people around me are doing -- in my own relationships, and in those of people near to me."

And if there's a dominant theme about relationships on the new record, it's this:

"Even when it's a failure, it's a success, because you're just finding out what you don't want," he said. "My grandma always told me, it's better to find out what you don't want first in life, and that can apply to relationships, too. I don't know -- I'm just trying to get it right, and I'm not sure if there's any one technique to make it work correctly. I want it to work correctly in my personal life, but I want to win at my life as a musician, too.

"I'm thinking now that my desire to fulfill my first dream, which is music, has interfered with my desire to have a successful personal life. Sometimes, your career and your personal life are like a set of stilts -- they're very hard to get into balance. I'm not sorry or sad about it; I'm just trying to build one thing at a time. Because if you try to build everything at once, you just build two castles made of cards.

"I just want somebody who understand that I'm not around all the time, who can put up with that," he added. "But who could? It seems like a very difficult feat. I've got to find a saint, I think."