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Michael Bublé.
 I'm
not one to live my life by hard and fast strictures but there's
one massively important rule I do abide by: when talking to
Canadians I always ask them about the show 'You Can't Do That
On Television'. So it makes perfect sense to ask Canadian singer
Michael Bublé, who has to date sold a million copies of his
self-titled debœt album worldwide, about this classic piece
of children's TV.
"It starred Alanis Morissette. Of course I watched it, and I had a huge crush on her! You guys saw that, eh? Them sticking their heads out of the lockers and telling the bad jokes? And the green slime?" I tell him that I think it was one of the major influences on my life, shaping the way I looked at the world as I grew up. This he finds hilarious. "I think I was a staple of kids my age all over Canada, absolutely. Everyone watched that!"
Much has been made of the fact that when not watching 'You Can't Do That on Television', Bublé spent his childhood listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra amongst others. It turns out there's more to it than that. "I'm a young kid and I was influenced by the Beastie Boys to Michael Jackson to Aerosmith to Guns N Roses to AC/DC to, sadly enough, Milli Vanilli; not that that influenced me, but that was the kind of music I heard growing up as a kid."
His self-titled debœt features confident readings of some of
the most timeless songs ever recorded: Fever, Moondance,
Crazy Little Thing Called Love... songs that have not
only stood the test of time, but are actually stronger for it.
Its massive success means that there's an extraordinary amount
riding on his follow-up: another album of standards and he becomes
'that covers guy', yet too radical a shift and he risks alienating
those who enjoyed what he's done thus far. As it turns out he's
relaxed enough to joke about it. "I'm never doing another album.
I'm just going to quit now while I'm ahead. I'm going into the
coat hanger business. It's not pretty but it works...
"No, of course it puts an added pressure on me, but fortunately for me it's not rocket science. You're talking about just going in and enjoying yourself and making some beautiful art. I take great enjoyment out of going into the studio and trying things out, and I have to grow. I've written a lot of songs, I didn't put them on the first record because I wanted to sell as many as I could and it was hard enough in this genre without putting songs that no-one knew on there. So I'll put a few of my songs on, I might do some other original stuff, and I get to find beautiful songs that I grew up with and songs from past generations that I can take and make my own." And that Bublé humour is never far away. "I don't like to brag about it a lot, but they say I'm one of the meanest tambourine players out of Canada."
Will we get a tambourine solo in the Australian tour? He laughs at the thought. "Ha, you can just see me for half an hour with this thing slamming on my lap! 'The show was good, up until the tambourine solo...' No, I sing and I write, I just feel it - and I don't play anything."
It's been an incredible journey so far, and this Australian tour will serve to emphasise that fact. "I was hoping to sell 50,000 or 100,000 records in the whole span of the thing. It really wasn't expected for me to do this. The first week I remember I sold 15,000 copies in America and I thought 'well, this will be easy'; not realising that it isn't easy and it takes a heck of a lot of work. But I get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of the work. I mean, even doing stuff like this that they call 'work' - you know, having an interview with you - it's a pleasant experience. I'm sitting here while I can hear around me guys working on construction sites, if you know what I mean. So I'll do this anytime. I don't sleep much at night because I'm so excited about everything...I always think I'm missing something, so life is pretty brilliant right now."
Wade Howland
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Michael Bublé plays at the Festival Theatre on Thurs 15 April.
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