BUBLÉ’S BACK!
Crooner returns as Junos host with new album in the works
Michael Bublé’s career has gone from one high to another. But it came to an abrupt stop in November 2016 when his young son Noah was diagnosed with cancer.
Bublé took more than a year off to be with Noah and his family while Noah went through treatment. Noah is doing better, and his dad is ready to go back to work.
The 42-year-old Burnaby, B.C., crooner has been quietly recording a new album with producer David Foster in Vancouver and Los Angeles. And on March 25, he’ll host the Juno Awards in Vancouver.
He also has a pair of live dates lined up for the summer. But he won’t be easing back in with small, intimate shows. His first gig is July 7 at Croke Park in Dublin, followed by a July 13 show at London’s Hyde Park. Capacity at both venues will be about 60,000.
“It’s a nice way to get started,” says Bublé’s manager Bruce Allen.
Buble isn’t doing any major interviews before the Junos, because he’s focusing on the record. But Allen says he’s stoked about hosting the show in Vancouver.
“The Junos is going to be exciting,” says Allen. “(Bublé) thought it was kind of cool what with the new talent they’ve got this year. There’s a lot of Canadians who made a breakthrough this year. Last two years, actually. Daniel Caesar and Jessie Reyez — it’s neat to see these new kids coming up.”
Info on the new album is scant. Allen estimates it’s about 60 per cent finished, and hopes it will be out by the end of the year.
If everything works out, Bublé will launch a world tour next year. It’s been awhile: His last tour ended in March 2015 in Johannesburg.
The tour was a global smash, beginning with 10 sold-out shows at the 20,000-seat 02 Arena in London. He played 173 dates on six continents between 2013 and 2015, grossing an average of US$1 million per show.
Bublé was supposed to do a 90-date world tour in tandem with the release of his 2016 album, Nobody but Me, but it was cancelled.
“The album was out five days when his son got diagnosed, and that was the end of it,” says Allen. “He did the right thing, he put his family first.”
Family is key to Bublé, who grew up in a tight-knit, working-class Italian clan in Burnaby.
Bublé also spends a lot of time in Buenos Aires, the hometown of his wife, Luisana Lopilato, an actress who’s an Argentine TV star. They recently announced they’re expecting their third child.
He has an entertainment family, as well, including Amy Foster, David’s daughter. They’ve collaborated on many of Bublé’s hits, including Haven’t Met You Yet, Everything and Home.
Bublé has sold an estimated 55 million records. The video for Haven’t Met You Yet has had about 100 million hits on YouTube. The video for Everything has had 78 million YouTube hits and Home has had 68 million. Home was the breakthrough.
“He had come up with the melody years before, but neither one of us at the time played (an instrument),” Amy Foster says from her home in Portland, Ore. “I play guitar now, he plays piano, but at the time, I was just a lyricist, he didn’t play anything.”
She laughs. “We were truly like idiots, trying to write a song. Then when he was on the road with (his pianist and musical director Alan Chang ), Alan was able to put chords to the melody he had come up with.
“(Bublé) came up with the first four lines of Home. He said, ‘I really want to write this like a Bryan Adams song,’ I think it was The Best is Yet To Come. He wanted it to be like a really anthemic song.”
Foster disagreed.
“I said, ‘No, this should really be a personal song about how difficult it is to be away from the people that you love, and how it’s great, but it’s also very difficult.’
“I ended up writing the rest of the song, after the first four lines. I sent them and he said, ‘This is perfect,’ and recorded them. I don’t think we really had any idea what a game-changer that song was going to be. Really, we did not know.”
Foster says Bublé was very determined to make it in the music biz.
“He was so sure of his success,” she says. “I don’t mean he was egotistical about it, (but) he was just so unwavering. He just knew what was going to happen. It was as if he had already written the story, and he knew what part of the story he was in at that moment, he knew where it was going.”
Foster says the trappings of fame can be overwhelming: “I think it’s hard for any mere mortal to be like a grounded individual when you’re in a different city every day, performing in front of thousands of people.”
But she says Bublé can switch off his star persona. “He has this weird superpower where a lot of people don’t recognize him when he’s not wearing a suit,” she says. “If he’s just wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a lot of people will be like, ‘You look familiar,’ but they won’t know it’s him.”
This helps him to be “as normal as anyone could possibly be” when he’s home with his wife and kids.
“I think there’s a version of Michael that’s onstage that’s the coolest guy, so sexy, so in command, so in control, so suave and debonair,” she says. “It’s not like that’s an act, (but) that’s the energy he needs to put out to perform. But (when he’s) not onstage, he puts that Michael away. Which is why I think he’s probably so grounded.”
She laughs: “I think in fact he might even be a little bit jealous of the Michael that’s onstage.”