Guy Sebastian talks NYE, touring and becoming a dad
Have you ever done any performances like this before?
Well, it’s kind of like an in-store without speakers, and I’ve done in-stores before a few years ago, and it’s been a while. You know when you release an album and you go and you sign copies in a mall, I haven’t done one for ages, it’s like that but without all the signing. It was good to pop in and sing a little bit. Like an in-store meets busking, and since there were no speakers I had to sing super loud. It was a great turn out of people, I sent a quick tweet yesterday and it was good that a few people came. I just wish I had speakers!
You had all the people from the above tiers looking down so I’m sure everyone heard you. If you could go to a surprise gig, who would you love to see?
Prince, um wow.. Beyonce, D’Angelo. That would be pretty unreal, although I don’t think you’d see D’Angelo at a mall. But Prince would be pretty cool, I was at a little jam that Prince did years and years ago and I ended up having a really late night because Prince was jamming at the basement, I would have been there at 5 am still and I had Idol the next day which is a little bit irresponsible. It was the day I sung “Climb Every Mountain”, my voice was horse as, and I just thought “Man, am I going to hit that note at the end?”
So everything going on this year like X-factor do you find that things are winding down or is there even more things to do?
Right after X-factor is sort of when it went nuts, because X-factor takes up a lot of time I had to plan so many things around it, I ended up cramming all this stuff right after the show, I was doing gigs right after the show and now its quietening down a little bit and in a few days we have a gig in Melbourne and on Friday I head to Bali, that’s going to be sick and Sammy is coming as well , and my brothers, some of my mates and family are going as well. We have a gig there, we just play once really and then that’s it.
Are you celebrating New Year’s over there as well?
No, I’m coming back for Christmas Eve, celebrating with my relatives in Adelaide and then I’m back here for a gig on New Year’s Eve in Glebe Island with myself, Boy George, Jamiroquai, Culture Club and Pet Shop Boys so that’s a bit of a cool 80’s vibe.
Do you have any more plans to tour for next year?
Yeah, once the album is done, I’ll definitely tour, probably around June/July I’m going to do a national tour, it has been a while since I’ve done that.
In terms of musical influences do you have anything that has really been inspiring you lately?
Um, fishing! New music at the moment … I really love Ray LaMontagne. He’s really cool and has a new album that’s really folk-y. Lupe Fiasco too. Those artists are miles apart as far as genre goes. I’m really bad with listening to music, but not long ago I just discovered Band of Horses, and to this day I haven’t heard of them but it’s the most amazing fishing or driving music, it’s really cool.
Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?
Just to get off crack, really. No, that’s not funny. I’m sorry. New Year’s resolution is to be a good dad! I’ve got a baby coming in March, not that I’m a crap dad now. Although I had a dog and I had to give it away to my mum so that’s pretty bad fatherhood. I bought a dog and then I couldn’t look after it because I was travelling so much, so I palmed it off to my mum and I’m hoping I can do the same thing to the baby, if it all gets a bit too hectic you know “Ma, can’t do it anymore.. Should have worn protection.”
Is there anything you’ve wanted to do lately but haven’t had the time to do?
Fishing and cricket, I love fishing and cricket. I went fishing a couple of days ago, we got some pretty mammoth king fish, we went out to Terrible Reef and then went trawling for marlin. A little bit obsessed with fishing to be honest, I bought a boat not long a go I sort of upgraded to a bit more of a stable fishing boat, so every spare minute I try to get out there on the boat and fish. So if there could be three things I could do more of it would be fish, surf and play cricket, obsessed with cricket as well. I grew up playing cricket and used to play grade cricket as well, and I just miss it, that being part of a team. If you become a muso and sit in the studio on your own, I think the closest thing is touring in a band and I’m really looking forward to that in June. Otherwise you really miss that whole team sport thing. I played a few weeks ago and got 158 and they got 250-something in a 40 over match, that was going to be tough to chase. It’s funny because I grew up playing cricket and I love it so much, and I practiced my bum off when I was younger, so when I get out there the general attitude, people are like “oh, here we go, let’s see if he has the X-factor” or “stick to singing” or sometimes it even gets a bit ruder than that, so then I just say “please have a good inning” because nothing shuts them up like a good bashing off the ball, but then it validates what they’re saying when I get out for a duck.
Sure you don’t want any more cricket talk?
I think we’ve definitely covered cricket! With your new song coming out do you have any Guy Sebastian tips for being really happy?
Being happy, I think it’s a habit to be honest. The song is a reminder to myself as much as anyone else, because you can get in a habit of reacting in certain ways to certain situations and like anything if you have a stressed period in your life and you’re on the road and people are just being jerks, or even people driving slow or whatever, being in a rush all the time, you get a habit of reacting a certain way. Whereas if you get in a habit of taking a deep breath and going “life is pretty good”. I’ve got a boat sitting at home and I’m going to go fishing when I get a day off or I’ve got a family that is great and I still speak to or I’ve got a roof over my head, or I’ve got food or I can jump down to sushi train whenever I want or get whatever food I want. When you think about how good you got it, everybody can think of something better than their situation. It’s easier said than done when you’re actually going through some really hard things but, but even when you’re going through that and we’ve all been there, but there is always something worse off. It’s the habit, they say it takes two weeks to form and ages to break it, so just trying to break those habits of anger and chilling out. I’m preaching to myself here, I can get shocking road rage and I remember breaking the habit with sport. There was this time when I just started singing in church, I was a young kid and I was immature. I sung in the morning at this church service, which was a youth thing, there were a lot of kids there and I was on stage singing. I guess when you sing in a church, there is a bit of a responsibility to watch what you’re doing off the stage and I had a shocking tongue and I used to swear my head off when I was younger, especially when it came to sport I would swear and carry on like an idiot and then I remember going to indoor cricket and I tore the shreds off the umpire one time, just laying into him, swearing every imaginable swear word you could think off and then I came off the field and this kid goes “oh, you were awesome at church today, you were really great singing like that” and I had that epiphany like when you’re on stage, or when you’re in the public arena, there is a mantle or a certain responsibility and people do look up to you, whether you like it or not. There is no real in between, you’re either a good influence on people or bad influence on people and it can range from what you do on stage to people that you meet or the way you talk to your driver or the person who’s standing there and just doing security. I think a lot of people can forget that and I’m so happy I realised that pretty early on, I don’t think I’d be here today if I didn’t have that realisation and that value of people and I think it’s just that habit. So I actually broke out of that habit and it all came back when I started playing Call of Duty online, oh filthy mouth.
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