AMERICAN DREAM  by Paul Larson

Paul Larson and Olly Murs.  Photo by Erica Lyn, 2009.

Olly Murs had visions "to be... famous and sell records and be an international superstar," when he first graced the stage of the British X Factor in 2009.  Those visions have materialized into three successful albums and four number one singles in the U.K., and a stab at stardom in North America.  

I met Olly Murs on a special night of his life, two hours before his very first concert as the headlining act in the U.S.  The British popstar had toured North America as the opener for One Direction last year, but this time, he was the star.  

"It's massive for me... this is a huge concert.  It's New York.  It's America," he said, sitting in the lobby of Irving Plaza, one floor below the concert hall where he would perform to a sell-out crowd.  "I'm intrigued to see how many fans know my songs."  

Olly Murs and Robbie Williams.  Photo by Ken McKay / Rex USA, 2009.

I, too, wondered what kind of U.S. fans a British artist could have who had yet to release an album stateside.  I admitted to the charismatic Mr. Murs that my own knowledge of him was limited to what I had learned online in the two months since British pop sensation Robbie Williams had announced Olly would be the support act for his European stadium tour this summer.  I haven't missed a Robbie tour in ten years.
  

Olly and Miss Piggy.  Photo by Idil Sukan / Draw HQ, 2011

"Robbie's always been there for me," he said. "I mean, Robbie's my best friend."  

Williams had rallied for and even sang with Murs, who became the runner-up on The X Factor.  "He taught me to make sure I write my own song, which I did."

Murs returned to the X Factor stage in 2011, as a radiant example of a TV competition success story.  The handsome lad from the East of England sang his own 1950s-inspired song "Dance with Me Tonight," backed by some of Jim Henson's most beloved Muppets.  "Obviously you see the puppeteers...but when Miss Piggy comes to life, she really is Miss Piggy.  She even threw a diva strop onstage which was really hilarious, where she said that she wanted more lines to sing... I was like, 'Unfortunately, Miss Piggy, this is my song, not yours.'"

That song, plus "Troublemaker," both number one singles in England, will appear on Murs' first U.S. album in April.  The lyrics of "Troublemaker," about a toxic yet irresistible girlfriend, drew from the songwriter's own experience.  "It's not a healthy relationship. I think we all love challenges in life and we meet a girl... that's that challenging, it's like, I want a piece of that."

Charming a "tough" New York crowd was not challenging for the 28-year-old that night.  Mostly female, mostly young, and mostly fans who'd learned about Olly through social media during his tour with One Direction eight months prior, they mostly knew every line of every song, and loudly sang along.  Once Murs was convinced they knew his music, he still tested them. "What's my middle name?"     "Stanley!" shouted the entire room, including me.  Thanks, Wikipedia!

When he spotted one of his male fans giving him the thumbs up from the balcony during the infectious "Heart Skips a Beat," he mirrored the gesture and waved at me.  Thanks, Olly!

Olly at Irving Plaza.  Photo by Shawn Batchelor, 2013

You can now find his gestures, suggestive wiggles and teases about removing articles of his clothing that night on YouTube, as well as his leading the entire crowd in what became an all-night sing-along.  What you will not find from bootlegged footage of his first solo concert in the U.S. are any major embarrassing moments. The same can't be said for his performance in Sheffield, England a year ago, when a kneeling young star suddenly spread his legs too wide, splitting his pants, "and obviously my briefs fell out," he laughed. Half a year later, he "stacked it onstage" in Surrey, stumbling down a slippery staircase.  The tumble went on YouTube, and the evening news.  Robbie Williams came to the rescue with a supportive e-mail.

"He just said, 'Mate, you're not the only person who did it,' and he actually put a link down, and when I clicked the link it was actually him falling over on stage on a big concert... He's got a sense of humor like me, so it's great."   

As our interview came to an end, I wished the soulful singer great success in America. "Thank you," he smiled, "and I'll see you at the Robbie Williams' tour." 

Absolutely.

 

The album Right Place, Right Time is set for release on April 16 in North America.  Watch for Olly's performance on 90210 the same month.

This article was written by Paul Larson for Dress to Kill magazine. 

The Olly Murs interview is presented by Mountain Lake PBS-TV, in partnership with 93.3 WSLP, Lake Placid, New York, B-100.7, Plattsburgh, NY, Radio Creme Brulee, New York City, and Dress to Kill magazine.

On the SPOT: Il Volo

RECAPPING 2012

The three great voices of Il Volo filled the room with insight and laughter, as we discussed the fast rise to fame of the young Italian singers.  In 2012, they released a new album and some bonus Christmas tracks.  They also toured the U.S. and Canada as a headliner, and as a support act for Barbra Streisand's North American tour.  Il Volo are: Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto and Gianluca Ginoble

PAUL:  Did you have big dreams when you were little?

GIANLUCA: Yes!  To be singers!

PAUL:  What's it like to see your dreams realized?

IGNAZIO:  Now imagine...we met three years ago.  I was playing Playstation with my friends, mostly, you know, soccer, and now here I am in America, touring with Il Volo with a great career.  It's really the dream come true!  The dream coming true.

GIANLUCA: We still play Playstation, on the tour bus now.  We are always playing soccer!

PIERO:  Our dream is to see the people, to see the audience really excited to come to our concert. And when we finish the concert they start to say always "encore, encore!"  We have always a standing ovation at our concerts.  That makes us real excited.

PAUL:  You are known for singing classic Italian songs.  What kind of music do you enjoy?

IGNAZIO:  We listen to opera, but we love all kinds of music... Michael Buble...

PIERO:  Janice Joplin.

IGNAZIO:  Janice Joplin, ACDC, Aerosmith, but the opera is the perfection of music.
PIERO:  And we don't sing opera.  We sing classical music, crossover.  With the first album we did all covers, but now for our new album I can tell you there are new songs, duets, lots of surprises.

GIANLUCA: Now we are singing crossover.  We can tell you we love opera and we love pop.

IGNAZIO:  It's a mix of the three tenors and the Jonas Brothers.  It's a mix.  Il Volo is Il Volo.  If you listen to the album you can say it is Il Volo.

PAUL:  You three have very big voices when you perform.  How blessed are you to have these voices?

PIERO:  We have to say thanks to everyone, to our parents, our management, our producers,  but we say thanks to God because he gave us this gift.

PAUL:  What's joyful about being in Il Volo?

GIANLUCA:   Meeting these two guys.  I am so proud to work with them.

PAUL:  What would you like to see happen to Il Volo in 10 years?

GIANLUCA:  We hope to stay together.

IGNAZIO:  Yeah, we hope to stay together, but in the years we hope to bring our music, our emotion through the music to the people, but all kinds of people, young and older, and we hope to make the young generation love this kind of music.

PIERO:  When a young guy listens to this kind of music he's going to fall in love with this kind of music.  But you have to discover it.  When you discover it, you love it.

FOR MORE IL VOLO, FOLLOW THESE LINKS:

The CD We are Love is available now.

The CD Il Volo is available now.

Il Volo Takes Flight, and other music.

Official website:  http://www.ilvolomusic.com

On the SPOT: Michael and Kevin Bacon - THE BACON BROTHERS

RECAPPING 2012

Emmy Award-winning music composer Michael Bacon and his sibling, accomplished actor Kevin Bacon enjoy their respective jobs, but they also join forces to perform as the Bacon Brothers.  Both brothers have talent as musicians and songwriters, and their band has a loyal following of fans in countries around the world.

PAUL:  Has music always been something that has bonded the two of you?

MICHAEL:  Yeah, pretty much as long as I can remember.  We both grew up in a household that valued creativity and artistic expression above everything else, including grades in school and the idea that you actually had to go out and make money as an adult.  We didn't really get that message until two years ago...no (laughs)!  So our household was about music and acting and art and dance, and so it's something we shared and it's as natural as breathing for us. 

PAUL:  So how did the two of you wind up performing as a duo?

KEVIN:  Michael was performing from my earliest memories... He was in a band with my sister when they were little kids, and then eventually in a duo called Good News in Philadelphia, and I used to go and see them when I was really young.  And then eventually Good News broke up, and the first time we really started performing together was when he first asked me to play percussion in his solo act.  So we had a bass player and I was playing percussion and we had a girl singing background vocals, or he had a girl singing background vocals.  It was Michael's songs and he was the front man.  And that sort of went away for a long time, many many years, and then we grew up and then about fifteen, sixteen years ago we got a call from a buddy of ours from Philadelphia, where we grew up, and he had heard a demo that we had done and the demo was basically to get some other people to cut some songs that we had written, and he said "how about a Bacon Brothers show?" So, you know, he kind of came up with the name and we figured, yeah, we'll just put a band together and did one show and that was it.  It just kind of took off after that.  

PAUL:  How is expressing yourself as an actor different from expressing yourself as a musician?

KEVIN:  Well, I think they're very, very different because writing is kind of the key. In the band, almost all the time we are writing songs and performing songs that we wrote... either Michael wrote, or I wrote...or once in awhile that we wrote together.  So that means from beginning to end, it's your own piece of creative expression.  When I'm doing a film, I'm a tool for somebody else's words to get put across, so that's a different kind of process.  In some ways, acting is more of a collaboration in a strange kind of way.  Certainly, we collaborate as brothers and as a band, but in terms of the genesis of a creative expression it's all our own in music.  It's like you're standing there in your own clothes and singing a song about something specific that happened to you.

PAUL:  Do you feel more vulnerable as a musician and songwriter, or as an actor, because you reveal a lot of yourself as an actor?

KEVIN:  Yeah.  I mean My theory about acting is you use yourself and you lose yourself.  So a good performance to me is tapping into as much as you can of what your own personal and emotional experiences are, and then trying to lose yourself and feel like you are truly walking in someone else's shoes.  Because acting, to me, is not being Kevin on screen.  That's not acting.  But at the same time, it is a very vulnerable place to be.  It's vulnerable every day, whether you're on screen or not, because people, especially as you get more and more well known, are constantly judging you.  They're judging your look, and your hair, and your clothes, and your weight, your performances, and your choices and your career, all that kind of stuff.  So that's one kind of vulnerability and certainly again it's like apples and oranges.  On the flip side to stand up and say "Hey, my dog died so I picked up my guitar and wrote this song about her and now I'm going to sing it for you," I mean that's a pretty vulnerable place to be too.

PAUL:  And you've done that?

KEVIN:  Yes!

PAUL:  What is your greatest wish for the Bacon Brothers?

MICHAEL: I'd love to write a song that out-lived my brother and me and the band, that's still remembered long after we are forgotten.  My example would be "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"  It's one of the most poignant anti-war songs ever written, by Pete Seeger, but a lot of people don't even connect that song with Pete Seeger.  That song will still be there.  It has a sense of eternal life and I think it's a really great contribution to history.  I think that's what we're trying to do.  That's what every songwriter is trying to do.

PAUL:  You are both enormously successful in your respective careers.  Does having a hit single matter to you?

MICHAEL:  Well, you know it's almost like a metaphor for a disease you have.  You always want more than what you have.  You're always aspiring and for me it's a big  a motor.  It really pushes me.  I'm not going to speak for my brother but for me, no matter what, whatever place I've gotten to there are places beyond that I would like to get to and it takes a lot of work and a lot of focus, and a lot of support from one's family.  So I dream.  I keep dreaming.

FOR MORE BACON BROTHERS, FOLLOW THESE LINKS:

The album Philadelphia Road - The Best of the Bacon Brothers is available now.

Mountain Lake PBS interview and concert footage of the Bacon Brothers.

Video for Go My Way.

Bacon Brothers Adirondacks PSA.