SWINGING AND SINGLE
The Voice Australia coach Seal has a new album, and gets a kick out of keeping life real.
Two things no longer exist in Seal’s life—texting and handshaking. The fourtime Grammy winner, whose unbeaten streak as a coach on The Voice Australia was upended this year when his finalist, then 15-year-old Lucy Sugerman, placed third, reckons the world can do with some old-fashioned reaching out. “We’ve stopped communicating,” the English singersongwriter laments to WHO while on the phone from Los Angeles. “If I care about you, I either am going to call you or, better still, Facetime you,” he says. “And if you come into contact with me, whether you like it or not, we’re going to hug it out. We will embrace because I want to initiate dialogue, not pleasantries.”
On a campaign to keep things real, retrocool and beyond merely pleasant, Seal, 54, headed to LA’S Capitol Records, where artists such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat “King” Cole recorded, and United Studios, founded by Sinatra and Bing Crosby, to produce Standards, his swing-influenced 10th studio album (out on Nov. 10). Working in those hallowed halls with musicians such as pianist Randy Waldman, who toured with Sinatra, was an “exciting opportunity,” he says. “They had worked with the greats, and having them show their appreciation and enthusiasm for what you were doing was enough. At least it’s not a case of, ‘I can’t wait to get out of hearing this guy—he’s bastardising this sacred music!’”
Known for his acid-house vocals on hits such as “Killer” and “Crazy”, Seal had to tackle the classics differently. “All these jazz standards, like “The Nearness of You”, you can not only hear but understand every word because they enunciated in a very different way,” he explains. “It’s something that’s definitely found its way into my writing.”
That striving for clarity also applies to his personal life: Seal is content to post results from his fitness app to Instagram, write songs and hang out with the children he co-parents with ex Heidi Klum—leni, 13, Henry, 12, Johan, who turns 11 on Nov. 22, and Lou, 8. “They are the four greatest things that I’ve achieved,” says Seal, who spent one-on-one time on Oct. 9 in LA with Lou on her birthday. “I took her for lunch and we went shopping,” he says. “Just holding her hand as we’re walking down the street, it’s just amazing.”
Often seen out on friendly terms with Klum, 44, and their kids, “You do the best you can,” Seal says of their cosy arrangement. “Do I see myself and my relationship with my ex-wife as some kind of example to others? Not really. Everyone is different. I guess if I was an example, I’d still be married!”
Figuring out how to manage his career and parenting is part of Seal’s search for balance—“a very big thing for me now,” he says. And though he says he is not opposed to a relationship, he’s not looking for one. “I’m enjoying being single,” Seal says. “I am enjoying being focused and feeling fortunate being able to do the thing I love to do.”
‘The Voice Australia’ coach gets a kick out of ‘Standards’, his new album of jazz classics, and his life as a very solo artist