Gavin DeGraw wants to record with Gladys Knight after "Dancing With the Stars" wraps

(CBS/AP) Performers Gavin DeGraw and Gladys Knight landed in the bottom three on "Dancing With the Stars" this week.

Once his "Dancing" days are done, DeGraw says he'd love to get going on a tribute album featuring some of his soul-surviving heroes. Knight, one of his "Dancing" competitors, is among them.

"I've already asked her twice," he says. "She's a legend, and in the field that I happen to be in. And when you're around somebody like that, that you've been hearing your whole life, you have to take the opportunity and go for it."

Voters showed they weren't quite over DeGraw and pro partner Karina Smirnoff on Tuesday night's "Dancing With the Stars" elimination round. Soap star Jack Wagner and his partner were eliminated instead.

That means DeGraw  and Knight will be back for another round of competition.

DeGraw's been promoting his latest album, "Sweeter," in a nationwide concert tour while doing "Dancing" two nights a week, plus rehearsals. So understandably, the 35-year-old looked exhausted in an interview following a recent performance on Jay Leno's show.

Knowing he had a hot record to push, what the heck was he thinking when he signed on for "Dancing"?

"This will make my grandmother so proud," DeGraw responds. "My grandmother's father was a dance instructor in the Catskill Mountains, in the heyday of the Catskills ... and he's the legend in the family because he used to kick it with all the stars at the time and he'd give dance lessons at night," DeGraw explains.

"That kind of added to this nostalgia element that I kind of felt that I should learn this skill."