Wrabel Reveals The Real Life Story Behind Emotional Single '11 Blocks'

One of the most amazing abilities of a musician is to be able to share their life and personal experiences through song -- and that's exactly what Stephen Wrabel, otherwise known as simply Wrabel, does. You may already know Wrabel from his collaboration with Afrojack in 2014, or his soulful debut EP Sideways. Now, the singer/songwriter has a new single, "11 Blocks," which was released via Epic Records at the end of June this year , and is a very real story. Wrabel recently stopped by iHeartRadio HQ in New York City, where he not only performed his new song, but told us all about it during an exclusive interview.

The singer/songwriter explains of his songwriting process, "Everything is real. I write things that I can't necessarily say out loud or that I don't want to say out loud. So everything is real." He adds, "Emotion runs my life -- unfortunately and fortunately. I think it gives me the best moments and the worst moments."

Wrabel has been writing music over the last few years. He was a songwriter signed to Pulse Recordings, and before that he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston for a year. He moved to Los Angeles to focus on a music career and songwriting. Fast forward to 2016 and Wrabel is now iHeartRadio's latest "On The Verge" artist with his single "11 Blocks."

On the story & meaning behind his single "11 Blocks"

"It's a very literal story, which is frightening. I wrote it about the first person I fell in love with moved 11 blocks away from me in California. In New York everyone is 11 blocks away. I'm there [in NY] a lot and I kind of notice. You have a subway, or whatever. But LA is so spread out. I find myself taking the really weird long route to Whole Foods just to kind of be like, 'Are you there?' And so it just felt way too close. And I don't drive because I think cars are scary, people are scary, and then there's engines. So I'm walking a lot and I count, it's literally 11 blocks. And I drew the little map, which is now tattooed to my arm. It's a real song about a real person, two real people, and that's really weird. I keep saying weird. It's just bizarre to me because the night it came out I called my manager and I was like, 'I kind of want to call Mr. iTunes and be like, 'Can you take it down actually? Like I've made a big mistake.' It's too much. The map. I traced it off Google Maps. It's so dark."

The map, like the one he draws in the official "11 Blocks" music video and that is also featured on the single cover art, has become a permanent fixture on Wrabel in the form of a tattoo. It's the same mapped out path he traced that is now on his left forearm in ink. 

Wrabel also teamed up with Dutch producer/DJ Afrojack on their 2014 collaboration "Ten Feet Tall." The song feature's Wrabel's vocals and piano playing, and premiered during Super Bowl XLVIII during a Bud Light commercial. The song was the second single from Afrojack's debut studio album Forget the World, and has received over 65 million views on YouTube. But Wrabel also released a piano-based version himself.

Although they are two years apart in release, "Ten Feet Tall" and "11 Blocks" are related to one another.

On his song with Afrojack "Ten Feet Tall" & how it relates to "11 Blocks"

"My grandma refers to people in my life as their song title ... like what song [they are about]. I send her every song that I write. So '11 Blocks,' when I sent that to her, she wrote me back, she texts, which is so weird. And she said, 'Is 11 Blocks about Ten Feet Tall?' I said, 'Yeah.' And she wrote back, 'Knew it.' I was like 'I love you Grandma.'"