Shriek-worthy Star BY MELISSA RUGGIERI TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Apr 29, 2005 from www.timesdispatch.com

Howie Day perched on a stool Wednesday night, a sneaker-encased foot tapping the rung, while he strummed the mellow chords of "Collide."

At the end of the song, Jay Leno and Carmen Electra rushed over to shake his hand, and as he stepped out of the camera frame, Day exhaled visibly.

Nervous? Not likely, considering this was the second time in three months the young singer-songwriter was invited to perform on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," certainly an unusual occurrence.

Day has other reasons to take a deep breath and let go for a second. His second album (and first on a major label), "Stop All The World Now," just passed the 500,000 mark in sales.

The tender "Collide" has spiked on radio in recent weeks, with the trade magazine Radio and Records charting the song with more than 2,200 spins this week on Hot Adult Contemporary stations nationwide.

Those are some substantial numbers for a guy who grew up in low-key Maine and didn't start playing guitar until he was 14. Then again, this is also the guy who, at age 15, was booking himself into any club that would allow an underage musician into a room with a bar.

"I had my own phone line in my bedroom, and I was getting myself shows seven days a week, which made it hard for high school," Day said earlier this week.

Though his parents realized he was "super-driven" and unconditionally supported their son's odd lifestyle, Day, even now at 24, sounds a bit sheepish when he admits he possibly broke the school record for senior absences.

You really want to know? Eighty.

But none of that matters now because Day, like peers Gavin DeGraw and Jason Mraz, is a fledgling star. He's the type who inspires girls to shriek at him, as one did in the Cincinnati airport recently, bolting from Starbucks to take his picture on her cell phone.

The sudden attention is weird, yet pretty cool in a way, he acknowledges. And it isn't as if his boyish handsomeness is the only thing garnering attention.

"Stop All The World Now," originally released in fall 2003, received the "deluxe repackaging" treatment in November, ensuring a fresh push at radio and retail. Apparently, it worked. And, come May 31, the album will return in yet another form, the trendy DualDisc CD/DVD combo.

Day says he has been writing songs for the next record, usually when he returns to his newish home in Maine and usually with collaborators such as Kevin Griffin from Better Than Ezra (who co-wrote "Collide" and several other songs on "Stop") and Jay Clifford from Jump, Little Children.

"I have this theory that the best songs are written by two people," Day said. "Songwriting is more fun that way, and you can learn from each other."

So far, Day's summer looks relatively quiet, aside from opening a trio of June dates for the Dave Matthews Band in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and then partnering with DeGraw for some shows, including June 29 at Wolf Trap in Vienna.

The gigs with DMB will be especially meaningful for Day, who listened to the band avidly in high school, along with a lot of modern rock and British music.

"I've never met them, but I wish I could call myself when I was 16, when I was really into them, and tell myself about this," Day says.

Eight years later, these are some of the selections loaded into Day's iPod: Coldplay ("one of the best bands in the world"), Anna Nalick ("a really, really great new artist") and Irish newcomers Snow Patrol.

As it turns out, Snow Patrol will make its debut on Leno's show tonight. Too bad Day will be readying tomorrow's appearance at the 22nd annual Chili Cook Off, or he could have given the group some pointers. After all, now he's a veteran.

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