Rob Graves has been waiting for this his whole life – that is, when he wasn’t running away from it.

The Presque Isle native and record producer is going to the Grammy Awards on Feb. 11 with the chance to walk away with a golden icon of his own.

The Christian rock group Red, which Graves helped “build from the ground up,” received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album for its debut album release “End of Silence” on Essential Records.

Graves, 33, who lives in Franklin, Tenn., just outside Nashville, is eligible for a Grammy because of his work as producer on the album. If “End of Silence” wins, Graves will receive a Grammy alongside the band members at the podium during the awards ceremony.

Graves, who was home for the holidays, said from his parents’ house Wednesday that he has been dreaming of the Grammys for a long time.

“It’s really gratifying to have this nomination,” Graves said. “It feels like something tangible you can finally attach yourself to. … It wasn’t just me chasing after some silly dream.”

He said, though, that he hasn’t always done the chasing.

“I thought music would be a fun hobby for me [in college]. I’d come to hate the idea of becoming a professional musician,” Graves said. “I was kind of running from it and it never really let me get away. It chased me down.”

Graves grew up loving music. He played acoustic guitar and remembers creating “replicas” of the songs he loved on tape – layering the guitar riffs and drum lines until he got just the right sound – so he could play his guitar over the pieced-together versions. He said that’s how he got his first experience producing songs.

Graves graduated from Presque Isle High School in 1991, and then attended Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1992. He was there one year and then decided to leave music behind. He later went to Gordon College in Massachusetts as a double major in theology and premedical biology.

Once some of his fellow students found out he had gone to Berklee and played the guitar, though, he ended up doing more with music than ever – playing, songwriting and producing his friends’ demo tapes.

When Graves lost his 6-year-old brother to cancer in 1998, he did an album in his memory. Proceeds from “When Angels Fly” went to the organization named for his little brother, the Logan P. Graves Foundation, which raises money for the Maine Children’s Cancer Program.

Graves graduated from Gordon with his double major in 2000 and had a choice to make.

“Everybody was saying, ‘Man, are you sure you don’t want to do music?'” Graves recalled. “But what really did it was my friend Fred Paragano from Berklee.”

Paragano had gone to Nashville a few years before Graves graduated and was working as an engineer with the likes of Amy Grant and Christian pop superstar Michael W. Smith.

“I told him, everyone’s telling me to move to Nashville,” Graves said, “and he spoke up and said, ‘I don’t tell anybody they should move here, but I’m telling you to come here. You’re going to do really well if you come here.'”

That was what Graves needed. He moved to Nashville on a Sunday and had work by Tuesday. He landed his first gig with Reunion Records, Michael W. Smith’s label. He was hired to rework two songs; he said that to this day, that label is by far the one he works for most.

While at Reunion, he met record executive Jason McArthur and they began writing songs together. One of their songs, “Surrender” sung by Joy Williams, ended up going to No. 2 on the Christian music charts. While working on that album, Graves had the chance to work with Brown Banister, who discovered Amy Grant and is one of the genre’s best-known producers. Graves said that experience got him “in the door” professionally.

Another important acquaintance Graves met during his first years in Nashville was Jasen Rauch, an intern at the time at the studio where he used to record. Rauch called one day to say he had joined a band and was hoping Graves would take a listen and tell them what he thought.

“I was not really expecting anything. And it was really rough, all over the map, but I could hear the elements were there,” Graves said. “I told them it was really good, it had potential.”

Graves was so impressed that he formulated a plan to sign Red to his own production company, Six Feet Over, to put some demos together, to get them a record deal, and to “attach” himself to them for a few records.

McArthur, his record executive friend and fellow songwriter, signed the band to Essential Records. That company and Reunion Records, where Graves got his start, are sister labels under Provident Label Group, which is associated with Sony BMG.

Graves and the band spent more than two years perfecting Red’s debut album, which he said was full of “huge heavy rock guitars and symphonic, cinematic string arrangements.”

“It goes from piano, orchestral movements to the heaviest darkest riff on a guitar you’ve ever heard, and they do it in the same song,” Graves said.

Along with his work as producer, Graves was highly involved in the songwriting process. There was only one song on the record that he didn’t help write and another that he wrote alone. The album, released this year, did very well. Its first song “Breathe Into Me” went to No. 1 on the Christian rock charts.

And then, in November, the nomination came.

“I think it’s still sinking in,” Graves said. “Just, wow, you can always put that in front of your name now. It’s a surreal experience.”

The Grammy for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album will be announced during the pre-show, where all non-mainstream albums of the year are presented.

Graves said he will sit with the band in the nominees section, but he’ll have a contingent from Maine cheering him on during the show. His whole family: his wife and twin girls, his parents and sister, even his Maine cousin who is working out in Hollywood, will be at the ceremony.

Graves said it’s going to be an amazing experience to walk the red carpet and have the chance to walk away with a Grammy.

He said it just goes to show that running away from what you love never really works in the end, and he couldn’t be more grateful.

“When you’re born to do it, eventually it’s what you do,” Graves said. “Now that I’m here, I could never do anything else. I hope the nominations keep coming, because I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”