Maxwell Calls His Six Grammy Nominations ‘Surreal’

Maxwell has already had an impressive comeback year in 2009. The R&B crooner unleashed 'Blacksummer's Night,' his first album in eight years, which brought the smooth singer back to the top of the charts. And that comeback just got a lot bigger. Maxwell, who paid tribute to Michael Jackson at this year's Grammy Nominations telecast by performing 'The Lady in My Life,' a cover off Jackson's 'Thriller,' took home six nominations.

"This is very surreal to me," he told the press room. "I've been gone eight years, throwing out my trash, buying my milk, living my life. To have this kind of reception, I feel like I've already won. If nothing comes of it it's really been truly the cherry on top of the cake. I'm grateful beyond belief."

For him the time away was a chance to just live a normal life. "When your life becomes so ridiculously fantastic that you can't actually speak to the person who gets up every morning to do a nine to five, that's when you have a problem," he said of what he took from his time away. And the success of the album cements what he wanted to do with the new record. "My dream was to express and relay my emotions to people so that they could feel relatable to me on some level," he says. And having done that, he has a promise. "But I won't be going away anymore."