Michael Bublé: “I prefer to love”

This article is published in number 13 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until March 29, 2022

I knew it would end like this. To show us pictures of our respective daughters. “This is Vida in her first dance class,” she says Michael Bublé while he places the cell phone in front of the computer screen, to let me see it better. He may have won four Grammys, but in the end Bublé is above all this: a family man, one for whom affections are just as important as gold records, if not more. This is why everything is forgiven him, even that of having hidden from us, during the interview, the news that came out in the following days: he and the wife Luisana Lopilato they are expecting their fourth child, after Noah, Elias and Vida and after that in 2016 a Noah had been diagnosed with a cancer from which today he is completely healed.
News, that of his son’s illness, which had made him put his career on standby, but which he can now look at with the gift of perspective, drawing on new energy, looking for new challenges. The reason why we are here talking via Zoom is in fact the release of his new record, Highereleventh studio album coming on March 25 and mixing original tracks – including the new single I’ll Never Not Love You – to other goodies including the reinterpretation of a Bob Dylan piece (Make You Feel My Love), a duet with Willie Nelson (Crazy) and a piece by Paul McCartney, My Valentine, arranged by McCartney himself. A disc, this, that comes later An Evening With Michael Bublé Toura two-year world event sold out, and after the great success of the tenth anniversary of his album Christmasstill at the top of all rankings.

Let’s talk about the new record. What’s inside? What feeling?
«I am a sensitive person and I love cinema very much. This is why I often make cinematic and dramatic arrangements when I write, because that’s how I feel music: as a very visual act. Most of these songs have to be thought of as love letters to love itself and hope. But more than anything else I think I surrounded myself with geniuses, and I let these great artists help me bring home the result. I don’t know how, but in the end this record is the best I’ve ever made, a well structured and interesting album of its kind. Higher, for example, it is a song that reaches very high standards: it is a modern song with truly dramatic orchestral arrangements. As for the pop share, there is I’ll Never Not Love You. The duet on Crazy with Willie Nelson is among the best I’ve ever done, as well as Bring It Home To Me, the best song I’ve ever recorded in my life. This record was born in a happy moment of my life, I opened up to the universe and poured into it the good feelings that came to me ».

Speaking of genes: did you already know Paul McCartney?
“We met some time ago. One day his manager proposed me a song that he thought would have been good on the record, My Valentine. I accepted, saying it would have been even better if Paul had produced it, and indeed it did. We recorded it in New York in a tiring but beautiful day ».

He said that this record comes from a positive period in his life, yet I guess the last few years have not been easy: first his son’s illness, then the pandemic …
“When we talk about the death of a child, things immediately become very clear, immensely clear. And when you are in your biggest battle, you don’t see the little things anymore. When my son was declared cured of cancer I felt free, free because whatever else had happened in my life would have been a bonus. This record is not born from fear, it is not born from “will it be a success or not?”. This record was born from gratitude and the desire to give the world beautiful things. It comes from wanting to say a simple word: thank you ».

How did your son’s illness change you creatively and humanly?
«I have decided not to say no more and to abandon the negativity. Only positivity and only yes. Do you want to try this song? Yes. Do you want to dance in the video? Yes. Do you want to collaborate with dude? Yes. I think a lot of things I’ve done in the past have been dominated by insecurity and the fear of failure. But in the last few years I have had to face so many difficulties that now saying yes to everything makes me feel good. I don’t know, I also think I was very lucky, everything went smoothly, everything worked, I surrounded myself with incredible artists and perhaps, by osmosis, I too have become ».

Or maybe she deserves it, and this is the karma that gives her back what beauty she has given to the world.
“Perhaps. You think I’ve felt like an imposter for years. Does he know that feeling of not knowing exactly what you are doing? There. But now, after 20 years, I can say it: I know how to write a song, I know how to make a record ».

Imposter syndrome is something women suffer from often, that feeling of not deserving what they have.
“Then it may be that my female part is speaking. Or maybe it’s more complicated for me: I’ve always known I sat on the shoulders of my heroes and I’ve always felt a deep sense of responsibility and reverence for jazz, for the great American songbook, for Dean Martin, for my favorite artists. I felt honored to be a small part in carrying on their legacy and introducing it to a new audience. And so yes, for many years, when I was twenty, I was probably an impostor, but it was in my thirties that I finally became Michael Buble, with my style, my voice. I have become myself ».

What I like about his records is that you understand that behind them there is first of all a passionate fan.
“That’s why I love going to Disneyland with my kids and seeing the sense of wonder on their faces. The thing I love about Disney are the details: there is always a detail that allows you even as an adult to suspend disbelief and to look through the eyes of your children and have the same sense of wonder. In music this translates into building a cinematic world through which to tell stories ».

What is your relationship with social media? I have seen that it uses TikTok.
“I don’t like social media in general, I don’t think they are educational because they often leverage people’s anger. But TikTok is different, it allows you to create and it’s fun. It makes me feel connected to people by laughing at myself. For me it is this: I create something, but then I don’t even read the comments ».

Is humor an important aspect of your personality? Who did you get it from?
«Ah in this I am a true Italian-Canadian. I am convinced that humor is good, it helps to move forward, even when life gets tough. I also use it to hide my emotions. You know, sometimes I struggle, I come from a culture where man has to be tough and not emotional, so I use irony to protect myself, so as not to take myself too seriously ».

You and your wife are the perfect match, always in tune. Please tell me that you also argue every now and then.
“We’re not perfect, but we’re not fighting either. Maybe we discuss, but then at some point we look at each other and we say: do we really want to talk about this for two hours? Or do you just want to tell me that you love me to death? And in the end we choose the second option. We’ve been through a lot together, we don’t want to waste precious time arguing: we prefer to love each other ».

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