The Grammy show you don't see

Los Angeles (CNN) -- If you are parked in front of your TV to watch the Grammys, you only saw a fraction of what happened at the annual music awards show Sunday.

Plenty of action takes place backstage where the winners go to talk after they leave the stage, as well.

There were hints backstage that the Zac Brown Band, which claimed the best country album Grammy, may be veering into other music genres.

"I love great music of all different kinds," Zac Brown said. "We're just getting started.

Killer performances rock the Grammys

CBS orders Grammys dress code

One project ahead is an acoustic album, Brown said.

"We really control all of our destiny now and all of our rights to everything we do now, so we can really experiment," he said.Killer performances rock the Grammys

CBS orders Grammys dress code

One project ahead is an acoustic album, Brown said.

"We really control all of our destiny now and all of our rights to everything we do now, so we can really experiment," he said.

He especially enjoyed the Grammy performances of Rihanna, Sting, Justin Timberlake and Kelly Clarkson, Brown said.

Brown used the Grammy weekend to develop relationships with other artists. "My rolodex got strong this weekend," He said.

After Carrie Underwood won her sixth Grammy, the latest for best country solo performance, she made it clear backstage that she's sticking to country music and would never cross over into pop music.

"I love that world," Underwood said. "I love the people in it. I love making country music that anybody can get into. If it ever crosses over, then it does it on its on. I don't think I can see myself making a pop album."

We learned backstage why Jay-Z teased The Dream about the "Boyz in the Hood" he was wearing when they accepted their Grammy for best rap/sung collabotation.

"I would like to thank the swap meet for his hat," Jay-Z said in his acceptance.

"He was just digging on me," The Dream explained backstage. "Yeah, we do that." The trigger for the kiddng was that Jay-Z's wife, Beyonce, had just said she wanted the hat. And in fact, he bought the cap at a swap meet in Compton, Caifornia, he said.

The Dream also revealed he would fly to Paris soon to work on an album with Kanye West, who shared the collaboration Grammy with him. "Hopefully we can get another Grammy together," he said.

The televised presentations target pop, country, urban, rock, and rap categories, leaving the jazz, gospel, classical, Latin and other categories to the pre-show.

The Nokia Theatre was far from full, because many of the 754 individual nominees and their teams were on the red carpet or still getting ready for the big show while the pre-show was under way.

But if you were there for the pre-show -- or watched it streamed online -- you would have heard Rihanna, Drake, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Usher, Beyonce and Paul McCartney win Grammys. You still would not have seen them, however, because those stars were not present to accept.

You would have seen Taylor Swift making an effort to appear excited and surprised as she accepted a Grammy for best song written for visual media. She won it because she was a co-writer of "Safe & Sound," a song made for "The Hunger Games" film. "This is unbelievable!" Swift exclaimed. It was her sixth Grammy in her young career.