Guy Sebastian interview
August 18, 2010 by Bill Palmer · 8 Comments
He’s the crown prince of pop music – back home in Australia, at least. The multiplatinum selling artist was the first winner of Australian Idol years ago, and has since gone on to become such a national star that he’s been tapped as a celebrity judge for X-Factor Australia. But here in U.S., Guy Sebastian is still an emerging artist trying to break through to American audiences. Guy gives us the scoop on the two different musical lives he’s living on opposite sides of the world and more.
You’ve accepted the X-Factor Australia job at the same time you’re launching an album in America. With all the traveling, did you have to stop and think about how much of a juggling act that was going to be?
Absolutely. I turned the show down multiple times at the start of the whole process. I’d just moved over here and it’s my priority regardless. It wasn’t about money. In Australia I’ve been doing this for quite awhile. I’ve done these five albums, and it wasn’t like I needed to do it as a profile boost. I don’t have an album out over there, I’ve already released this album over there. I had told them, no, I can’t do this, my focus is the U.S., I’ve just moved here and I’m going to do gigs and blah blah blah. But anyway we sort of moved a whole lot of stuff around and we managed to work it.
And to be honest, I haven’t looked back. It’s been a really great experience. Really really odd, just thinking that just not long ago, I was the judged, and now I’ve gone from being the judged to a judge. It’s kind of weird being on this side of the table.
We don’t have X-Factor here yet. Most Americans don’t really know what to make of it. You came from Idol, now you’re an X-Factor judge. Is that a friendly rivalry, or is it bitter, does it feel like you’ve crossed sides now and you’re on the other team, or is that not an issue?
No, I don’t think it’s really an issue. Well it isn’t in Australia anyway. Simon Fuller have something else to say about it, I guess. In Australia, Idol’s not on TV anymore. In nearly every country, X-Factor has taken over Idol. And you know, the birthplace of Idol, they had Pop Idol, that was the first ever instance of Idol, they got taken over about seven years ago by X-Factor. So they haven’t had Idol over there in a long time. X-Factor over there is huge in the UK.
But what’s been great is that American Idol has been doing well for so many years. There was talk about it, I guess last year, ratings or whatever. But I think a lot of these shows, it’s very much talent dependent. You think about the different talent that’s come through these shows, if there’s a season where there’s just ridiculous talent, it makes you want to watch every week, regardless of the format. I think talent’s the most important thing.
Your previous album three years ago was a Memphis album, it was a throwback back, and you actually worked with those original artists. Now you’re back to making pop music with your new album, but did that Memphis experience end up having a permanent effect on the way you’re now making pop music?
It definitely did influence me, because as far as stylistically. In Australia it’s a bit different. Over here that sort of music is very accepted, everybody knows the songs. I was a bit tentative to do it in Australia, because we don’t have the history of soul music over there. Australia’s very predominantly sort of rock, you know that pub sort of rock scene, and that rules the airwaves. I just thought, ah, this is just an indulgent album for me and no one’s going to buy it. But it was actually one of my best selling albums over there.
And so for me, it sort of opened up my eyes that I just needed to be true to myself and true to what I loved, and not try and be an artist where I’m trying to match what I think people are going to like, or what’s going to sell or whatever, but just to do what I do, and release music where I’m being true to myself, and that’s definitely soul. I grew up listening to that stuff.
One of the songs on the record, Art Of Love, has gotten a lot of buzz over here. Did you write that song with Jordin Sparks in mind, or was it even written as a duet originally?
Yeah, definitely written as a duet. I absolutely had Jordin in mind for that. It was one of those things. I sat down and I was thinking, as I was writing it, I was thinking, it sort of sits in the middle of Battlefield and No Air where it had the beauty of No Air but had a little bit of epicness of Battlefield, and I was trying to go for that. So yeah, obviously for me, I thought wouldn’t it be amazing to get Jordin. But then I thought everybody would want Jordin, she’s an amazing artist. And it’s true, everybody does, everybody was hitting her up for duets and things like that.
But I thought stuff it, I may as well just ask the question. I did, and she listened to the track, and she came back and said she loved it and wanted to be part of it. It was amazing time for me to go over to New York and record the vocal.
Is it strange to you to go home and be in Australia and be so popular, and then come to America and still be considered something of an emerging artist?
I feel like I’m living two lives. And you know, it’s probably one of the major reasons why people from the UK or people from Australia that have careers ,and have built their career up to a certain level, why they don’t bother I guess sometimes doing the U.S. scene, because it’s a very humbling experience. I’ve played some nice venues in Australia. I’ve built up my career, so I’ve got the ability to, I’m very blessed, to play big theaters and things like that over there. And then I come over here, and forget getting a rider.
It’s so different from what I’m used to, but you’ve got to start somewhere. And for me, I’m prepared to do that work. And actually, it’s an amazing experience. I feel like I’m so lucky because I got to go through the industry through the Idol experience, which is very explosive and very quick. It’s an amazing platform. You get this huge platform to prove to people and give them a reason why they should believe in you. But then here’s this organic way, without these shows, this is what usually happens. You go through the pubs and the clubs and you work them and that’s how you get noticed and that’s how you get a start. I get to do the best of both worlds.
For Americans who are curious, who are you most like as a judge? I can’t imagine you being Simon, where you’re just brutal to contestants.
It’s funny, because I guess in Australia they all thought I would be the real nice judge, that I would just be a bit of a fence sitter and not say anything remotely nasty or critical. But I’ve found that I’ve been really critical. But I’m never nasty. I don’t think there’s ever a reason to be nasty. I can’t look someone in the face and, I don’t know, crush them in front of millions of people for my own gain, so that I’ve got a nice little one-liner out there or some funny little line, but it’s always at the expense of that person. So I just can’t imagine doing that. But on a musical level, I’ve been very critical, and things like work ethic. I think it’s the things that I feel passionate about.
In X-Factor, each judge has a lot more responsibility than in a show like Idol, because as a judge you’re given a category. There’s groups. There’s over twenty-five and then there’s under twenty-five, boys and girls, so there’s four different categories, and each judge gets assigned one. And they’ve got to, themselves, whittle it down to three people to take to the live show, so you end up with twelve people. So as a judge you’ve got the responsibility of culling thousands of people down to three, and that’s the process I’m in at the moment. I guess for me, I look back at when I was on Idol, and one of the challenges for me on the show was the work ethic part.
What are your plans in America for the rest of the year?
I’ve got a couple little stops to come back and tour in, but after November I’m here. I’ve decided that that’s it, I’m just going to spend my time over here and so I’ll probably move here. I’m still looking for a house in LA. Once that’s done, I’m here to write and to tour and to get this thing going.
Learn more at GuySebastian.com.au • iTunes • Twitter • Facebook
iPad comes to UK, Australia, Canada, Japan on May 28th
May 7, 2010 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Apple has announced May 28th as the official iPad release date for nine countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. The launch will include “all iPad models” presumably including the 3G model, and will be available for pre-order via Apple’s online stores in those countries beginning Monday May 10th. The international launch of the iPad, originally slated to have taken place earlier, was delayed due to what Apple said was higher than expected U.S. demand for the device. The sales numbers have since backed up that claim, as the company has sold more than one million iPad units in the United States alone.
Justin Bieber concert canceled by police
April 25, 2010 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Justin Bieber saw his only public performance in Australia canceled by the police due to “safety concerns” which left the teen pop star taking to Twitter to apologize to fans and state that he had no role in the cancelation. According to the television network hosting the sunrise performance, which was canceled during pre-dawn hours, advance overcrowding on the part of fans was to blame. Bieber was clearly unhappy with the move, tweeting “I love my fans….and I am just as disappointed as everyone else with the news from this morning. I want to sing for my fans.” A short time later he took to Twitter again, this time in a frustrated all caps, to drive his point home to his audience: “I want to make this clear…I don’t cancel.”
The cancelation came just two hours ago, as it’s still early morning in Australia.
Justin Bieber on the back of a milk carton
April 20, 2010 by Beatweek · 10 Comments
Teen pop star Justin Bieber may be all the way in Japan and soon on his way to Australia now that his native Canadian Juno awards are over, but last we checked he hasn’t gone missing entirely – you know, as in back of a milk carton missing. And yet one of Bieber’s followers on Twitter (whose own last name is also strangely listed as “Bieber”) claims to have spotted him on the back of a milk carton.
While she hasn’t provided proof, she swears to Bieber that it’s true: “OMG ure on our milk cartons at school…just thought u mite wanna kno…lol i have one sitting in my room LEGIT.”
Bieber’s response on Twitter to, uh Ms. Bieber, seems appropriate: “Am I Missing??”
Justin Bieber promises “big surprises”
April 18, 2010 by Beatweek · 2 Comments
On his way to making a pitstop at the Juno awards (his native Canada’s equivalent of the U.S. Grammy awards) before making his first trip to Japan and Australia, Justin Bieber was vague but boastful after entering the awards show via the red carpet. His latest Twitter posting simply reads, apparently in reference to the awards show:
oh yeah…and I got some big surprises tonight for you
To our mind this means a major on stage collaboration. Who could it be? Ludacris obviously comes to mind, but he’s tagged himself as being in Atlanta today.
Any other guesses, Bieber Nation?
Daniel Merriweather interview
February 28, 2010 by Bill Palmer · Leave a Comment
His debut album having already gone platinum worldwide in 2009 before it was even released in the U.S., Daniel Merriweather gets to do it all over again now that Love & War has finally landed in the States. Now a New Yorker himself, the native Australian who “grew up in a forest” is setting out on an American media blitz is support of what just might be the most old-school soul record so far this century – and he fills us in on the details…
Yeah, I did Conan, Jimmy Kimmel, I’ve done a couple. But Dave Letterman is takes the cake. When I was growing up in Australia I didn’t really have any late night TV, at least not on my four channels that I had at home, from America, except for Dave Letterman. So I grew up watching Dave Letterman since I was a kid. Even though if I was to judge these guys with everything being equal, maybe he wouldn’t necessarily be my favorite TV host, but because I’ve known who he was since I was ten, that’s like Michael Jackson to me. So I was so starstruck and nervous when I met him. It was kind of funny.
So you’ve been doing some stuff in the U.S., but Love & War is just coming out in the U.S. now. It’s been in out the UK for a long time.
Yeah, it’s been out in the UK for the last eight months. I’ve just been having so much fun traveling around and playing shows, I mean it’s just been incredible. What more could you ask for? My album just went platinum, and I’m so over the moon about it. So for me to be able to come to America finally, and be able to put my album out here, it’s like dream come true, you know?
Is it strange, though, to have spent last year proving yourself in in the UK and succeeding, and then coming here and in some ways kind of starting over?
I guess if you were looking at it like, you know, as if we were pastry chefs and it was like, why have I already learnt how to make pastry, but you guys are trying to teach me how to make pastry again? But we’re not pastry chefs. All I’m really doing is having fun. Whether or not people buy my album or not, whether or not there’s any level of monetary success, that’s not what I do this for, you know what I mean? It’s a childhood dream of mine, regardless of the ins and outs of it.
I listen to this album and I keep thinking “This guy must have listened to this or that artist as a kid” but I don’t want to make any assumptions, so what were you listening to growing up that you think helped shape your sound that you have now?
I grew up in a forest, and I never hung out with the cool kids and I was a bit of a loner, and I listened to kind of everything that I came across. I remember vividly listening to Faith No More, Mike Patton is one of my favorite singers. But then straight after that I’d put on Steve Wonder, Talking Book. Later on, when I was about fifteen, sixteen, D’Angelo was a massive influence on me. There’s just so many different artists that came within earshot that influenced me. I guess when I was recording my album I was listening to a whole lot of Otis Redding, and that’s really why, in a way, he’s probably one of the biggest influences on me now as a singer because there’s sort of an honesty, there’s a rawness to his voice that I don’t think anyone else really ever did. Stevie Wonder was a technician as much as he was a soul singer, but once you break into the nineties you’ve got Boyz II Men, they were my first CD that I ever bought when I was a kid. But that’s technician work. You listen to someone like Otis Redding or Howlin Wolf, and they really don’t give a fuck. It’s like I’m gonna sing and I’m gonna try to convey a thought and a feeling and if you like it, you like it. If you don’t, you don’t. So I think that’s kind of where I draw a lot of my inspiration.
Your hit single Red contains the line “You took something perfect and painted it red.” What does it mean to paint something red?
Painting something red is, you know when you buy a really nice table and it’s built well, and someone chopped down a tree to build the table, someone might have got splinters in their fingers from building the table, and then you went and bought this table and you brought it home so you could sit cups of coffee and stuff on it. Painting something red is like losing that beauty. Like if you took the table home, it’s beautiful man, it’s made out of wood, it’s amazing, why paint it red? And I think that was a metaphor for it. Red is the color of love, red’s the color of blood as well.
A lot of times you hear the phrase “painting the town red” which has a whole different meaning.
At one point I made a very bad mistake, I was just joking, and I’ll say it again now and I’m sure you’ll print it and take me out of context, but I said that the song was inspired by the menstrual cycle. I should have realized that that was a very grave mistake. I received a whole lot of letters about how awful that is to say.
Do you get a lot of that? Are you already getting pulled out of context on things? Are you already getting hit by the tabloids? I know the UK has vicious tabloids over there.
To be honest society itself is taking everything out out of context. There’s no such thing as the war on terror, you can’t have a a war against an idea. The war on terror is propaganda, you know? And the propaganda itself is the terror, not the thing that was in question. It’s like saying “I really hate bullies. You know how much I hate bullies? I’m gonna go out and whenever I see a bully, I’m gonna shove them.” It’s like come on, mate.
But I think taking things out of context is the media’s job, because it keeps life light and entertaining.
I know you’re traveling and touring all over the place, but what’s mostly your home now, New York? London?
New York’s definitely home. It’s an amazing city. From the moment I set foot in New York, I kind of knew that I wanted to be here. I think that it’s a beautiful place, But Melbourne, I’ve traveled the world, I’ve been to a whole bunch of different places, Melbourne’s in my top three cities in the world, and that’s taking a lot of cities into consideration. It’s an incredible place that taught me how to sing, taught me how to play, everything. Melbourne’s my inspiration, really.
You just turned twenty-eight, you’re getting close to thirty, does that put you in a different mindset now, knowing that you thirties are just around the corner?
Yeah, totally. I was saying the other day, shit, I better start working on that legacy, you know? Whether it’s making another generation, having kids, or doing something memorable. These kinds of things always fuck with your head. As soon as I work out my quarter-life crisis, it’s funny because you watch guys go through mid-life crises and they’re trying to buy a Porsche. And when you’re in a quarter-life crisis, all you want to do is buy a dirt bike, just this overwhelming need to want to go and buy a dirt bike. So that’s all I’m really thinking about at twenty-eight.
Learn more at DanielMerriweather.com • iTunes • MySpace • Facebook • Twitter
Indie interview: Butterfly Boucher
It’s not every day you hear that an artist is trying to shake their major label deal but that’s exactly what singer/songwriter Butterfly Boucher was doing for three years after releasing Flutterby on A&M in 2003. The album was full of catchy, melodic hooks and Boucher had all the makings of the next indie music starlet. Music supervisors from many popular TV shows took notice and songs were licensed to Grey’s Anatomy and Charmed. With that momentum, Boucher was off on a tour across the globe opening for Sarah McLachlan who was a big fan of Boucher.
Things looked promising but amongst all of the success, A&M, like many labels that fail to see the point anymore in developing an artist or seeing past the next quarters numbers, failed to promote the album. “They’d say that I was too indie for pop and too pop for the indie scene”, Boucher says in her bio. The label even made her go back into the studio to re-record the word “can’t” in a more American accent for radio.
Though those years and chaos Boucher was resilient. Fueled with a passion for music that was born amongst her close knit musical family and indie determination, Boucher sold over 20,000 copies of Flutterby on the Sarah McLachlan tour dates alone. She would stand for hours at the merchandise table meeting fans and signing the CD.
“I’m sure from the outside it looks very indulgent”, Boucher said, “…it’s a very hard thing to be successful at.” What kept her going was a friend telling her to look up to the people she admires, Patty Smith and David Bowie, and realize “in their careers they never stop, they just keep going, they do music and that’s what they do.” So that’s exactly what she did. Boucher started working on her sophomore album when she finished the tour with Sarah McLachlan. Working in her home studio she recorded the pre-production guitar, bass, keyboard and all vocals tracks for what would become Scary Fragile, Boucher’s newest album released this past June 2nd.
Waiting to get into the studio with producer David Kahne for over a year was worth it.
“This is exactly what I wanted… he had incredible respect in my project.” Boucher said that in conversations about her vision for the album he never took notes but he always remembered everything she said. “If something doesn’t sound quite right you actually physically feel it – it pains you… my stomach turns” said Boucher. David once spent almost 30 minutes finding a note that was missing in the song they were working on to perfect it and two hours working on a snare fill. That attention to detail as well as his and Boucher’s careful steps to keep the album fresh produced a great record that offers up fun surprises the more you listen to it.
Some of my favorite songs and sounds on the album are the tracks that were recorded in Boucher’s apartment. From the light switch in her apartment closet on “They Say We Grow” to the door closing on “To Feel Love” and there’s more I’ll let you discover! “When I hear that (the light switch) it really takes me back to that time of my life.” That personal, organic imprint is just one of the things that make this album what her fans have been waiting for so long.
Originally intending to record with a live band, David decided that Boucher should play all the instruments herself and they even opted for some of the original home studio recordings on “I Found Out.” The James Bond style guitar lick on “The Keeper” is another personal snapshot of a specific time in a Boucher’s life. She said it was the first lick she ever wrote on guitar when she was just seven years old!
Scary Fragile was originally finished in January 2006, but because Boucher’s label didn’t know how to market it she was led to a UK label where she re-recorded the album for that market because the first version, which is what’s imprinted now as Scary Fragile, was too American. They ended up not being able to release the CD and for the years between recording and being negotiated out of her contract one of the only things that seemed to work in Boucher’s favor was the support of music supervisors. If the last track, “A Bitter Song”, sounds familiar that’s because it was licensed to Grey’s Anatomy in February 2007.
It’s hard to pick one or even a few songs on the album that stand out because they are all so melodically and lyrically beautiful. When I told Boucher how much I enjoyed her lyrics she was genuinely surprised saying that lyric writing is what she is least confident about. “I have to spend a long time on lyrics before I’m sometimes I get a line, or a sentence.” That’s exactly what she said happened with “Gun For a Tongue”, where the first line came to her and then she plotted out the rest over time. It’s a great thing she did, the single is the most memorable song on the album and Boucher’s fans seemed to have a lot of fun recently recording karaoke versions of the song for a contest.
Fans can catch Boucher on Twitter where she posts photos, tweets and replies regularly. She is incredibly humble and still celebrates all the wonderful little successes in her career. You don’t usually see someone at her level appreciating those things so its very refreshing and inspiring to see someone not jaded and overworked by the business but thriving in it and laughing it off. There seemed to be a lot of posts on Twitter about her drinking coffee leading up to the album release so I had to ask her: Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? I didn’t get a clear answer but she did say she likes Americanos with one sugar sans milk.
And when I asked her what advice she had for other singer/songwriters she admitted what a hard question that is because everyone is so different but that the best advice she could think of would be to be determined. We also talked about the stresses of touring and got into how sad it is to come home to dead plants after being on the road, Boucher’s advice was to get some cacti which I am definitely planning on doing!
Boucher is currently touring on the West coast with more tour dates in the works. You can download Scary Fragile on iTunes or pick up a real CD at a live show.
Learn more at ButterflyBoucher.com
