Griffin Peterson

Griffin Peterson is a singer. He is the cover model for Dean Holder, and has done the soundtrack to several of Colleen Hoover's books.

Personal life[]

Griffin was born in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Growing up, he was obsessed with listening to music and would often find himself staying up into the late hours of the night scouring the newest releases. During this time, he was influenced by all sorts of music including his Dad’s love for classic rock and blues. At the age of 12, his father, an avid guitar player himself, gave Griffin his first guitar for Christmas. He took to the instrument right away and found himself playing covers of his earliest influences such as John Mayer, Jack Johnson and NEEDTOBREATHE. After a couple years of lessons, he began playing in his local church's band.

It wasn’t until college that Griffin realized his gift for translating his emotions and words into music. He wrote his first song, “Might Go Crazy”, at age 18 during an emotionally trying time for his family. It was his first experience writing and sharing his music, which allowed him to see the impact it could have on others. After studying Marketing at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin for two years, Griffin decided to transfer to Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. At Belmont, he was able to follow his true passion for music through their Music Business program where he blended his passion for business with his love for music and songwriting.

While finishing school, Griffin was able to make some essential connections allowing him to further himself as a singer/songwriter. The summer before his final semester Griffin interned at Leo Burnett in Chicago as a music supervision intern.^[1] After hearing Griffin’s music, his boss encouraged him to audition for American Idol Season 12 just two days before the audition took place.^[2] The chance paid off and Griffin ended up going all the way to Hollywood and having his audition aired on national TV.

While Colleen was writing Losing Hope, she received multiple text messages and tweets from friends and fans, telling her to tune in American Idol because Peterson looked exactly like Dean Holder, after watching the show Hoover agreed he looked exactly like she had imagined Dean to look like. She sent Griffin an email, and it was agreed he would appear on the cover.^[3]

After Idol, Griffin had a fortuitous meeting while on a plane to L.A. where he struck up a conversation with Keith Urban’s bass player, Jerry Flowers. The two ended up coproducing Griffin’s first two independently released singles, “Makes Me Hold On to You” and “Getaway”. It was during this same time that New York Times best-selling author Colleen Hoover contacted Griffin in hopes he’d be willing to write an original album for her new novel, Maybe Someday. The album was released in March 2014 alongside the novel and garnered enough interest to hit the Billboard Heatseeker Chart as well as hold the number two spot on the iTunes singer-songwriter chart for two weeks straight.

The book and album gained such a following that a book/concert tour was put together for the summer of 2014, solidifying the already expanding fan-base. Since then, Griffin has been honing his sound and has recently released a music video to go along with his newest single “Set Me Free”. The Video was filmed in his hometown with the help of some talented friends and filmmakers, Mark Mellens and Jake Brusha.

In early 2015, Griffin signed with The Movement Group, a Nashville based management company.^[1]

In 2018, Griffin Peterson announced he had worked on the soundtrack for the follow up of Maybe Someday, Maybe Now.^[4]