Michael Buble didn't mean to kill William Claxton's cat. It had wandered onto the Hollywood property that the Canadian crooner was renting. He didn't know it was sick. He didn't know it belonged to the celebrated photographer, who died late last year aged 80 and who could, according to Buble, charge up to $50,000 (Dh183,652) a day.
Buble, trying to do the right thing, took the "stray" to the vet. The vet said there was little hope. Soon Claxton's cat was an ex-cat, and — when she discovered what her young neighbour had done — Claxton's wife went ballistic. "I was horrified!" says the singer, still shaken by the memory. But the next morning they made up. "Bill told her I was only being helpful." There were no hard feelings. And to prove it, Claxton shot the sleeve for Buble's last album, 2007's Call Me Irresponsible, for free. "That's one of Bill's," Buble says, cradling a late-night Glenlivet, pointing to a giant print of jazz legend Chet Baker. With a bank balance swollen by 22 million album sales and sell-out arena shows around the world, Buble can't remember exactly how much it cost — $40,000 (Dh146,928) maybe? But it has pride of place on the wall of one of three living rooms on the ground floor of his in the well-to-do suburb of West Vancouver.
Breaking ground
The 34-year-old has been busy for much of this year, recording his fourth album, Crazy Love. Like its predecessors, it largely comprises well-rendered cover versions: of Georgia On My Mind, of Cry Me A River, of the Van Morrison title track. The lead single, Haven't Met You Yet, is a jaunty, singalong smash-in-waiting.
He's breaking ground in other ways too. Buble has stepped away from the protective embrace of his mentor, the veteran producer David Foster (Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Seal). Foster produced half of Crazy Love, but on the other half Buble has pursued his own agenda: duetting with Bryan Adams, collaborating with Mark Ronson faves Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and covering cult Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith.
On the last album, Foster tried to persuade Buble to include a cover of Chris de Burgh's The Lady In Red. Buble claims to be bullishly unfazed by critics' sneering at his lack of edge; he says he doesn't mind being "the housewives' choice". But even for Buble this was a cheesy bridge too far. "Far too obvious. I can't do something just because it's popular."
Buble is getting tough. When he asked the boss of his record company, Warner Bros chairman Tom Whalley, how many global album sales they were projecting for Crazy Love, he was told "two or three million". His last album sold six million.
Buble understands that the music industry is in crisis, that artists are selling fewer records. "But I said, ‘no, I'm not the same as other artists, I won't be affected in the same way. I'm telling you Tom, we're gonna sell seven or eight million'."
Back in Casa Buble, it's plain to see how lucrative it can be giving the people what they want (that is, old songs, done well) and why corners of his lovely home may lack that fully lived-in feel.
Tonight, we (myself and a photographer, two publicists, Buble's friends and girlfriend) will also spend much time on the heated patio, with its views over the swimming pool, Burrard Inlet and Bryan Adams' old place. In the small hours of the night, the thoughts of the "Canadian Sinatra" turn to the spoils of singing other people's songs in a supper-club-meets-mega-arena manner. Those "spoils", if it's not too crass, might be said to include his girlfriends.
The last time I was in this house, in November 2007, it was to interview actress Emily Blunt, Buble's partner at the time, whom he'd first met at an Australian awards show in 2005.
A bit rough
Blunt told me then: "Michael's not really that sort of smooth, sophisticated guy. He's a bit rough. He's my bit of rough! And he's hilarious and we just laughed a lot together, from the get-go. And we've laughed a lot ever since. And now I've got a nice house as well! So we're laughing in our nice house.' Now his partner is Argentine actress Luisana Lopilato, a tiny, doll-like Disney princess-type who's a superstar in South America. He met the 22-year-old late last year, at one of his shows in Buenos Aires.
Off-duty, Buble is a thoroughly affable, easy-going, dude-in-a-bar-in-a-baseball-cap. He's charmingly but clumsily thoughtful when he converses with Lopilato, who spoke only Spanish when they met. He speaks to her like a hesitant Spanish child speaking English. "Mi amore, I make an interview," he tells her when she telephones during our interview earlier in the day, "can I call you back in one moment?"
He's a global superstar — ultra-famous in Italy, mobbed in Australia, a Hollywood A-lister who's buddies with Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal — but who is more interested in being a raving sports fan than being coolly worldly-wise. It just so happens that, courtesy of those 22 million albums, Buble is a sports fan who can afford to buy a stake in his favourite ice hockey team (the Vancouver Giants).
In the wake of Madonna leaving Warner Bros for a hugely ballyhooed new deal with concert promoters Live Nation, Buble is the label's biggest star. "The success is worth nothing to me if I can't share it with the people I love." I know he's not just spouting brand-enhancing platitudes.
He says that he was recently offered a brand-new, top-of-the-range convertible BMW after he agreed to be photographed for an advertisement. "I've never had so many people give me the finger driving a car! And I got pulled over twice by the cops. I gave it back within a week and a half. It was too ostentatious for me."
Who is Buble?
So who — or what — is Michael Buble? He's the chubby kid from a small town outside Vancouver who, when his peers were rocking out to Guns N' Roses, was dreaming of Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Dinah Washington. "I liked all that [rock] stuff too," he protests of his mid-'80s adolescence. "I had long hair, two earrings through each ear, snow-washed jeans, the high-top [trainers]. My denim jacket had ‘I love GnR' and ‘I love AC/DC' written all over it."
But his grandfather, a plumber and music nut, had played him Vic Damone's version of It Had To Be You when he was 12, and it awoke something in him. "I heard this melody wrapped around lyrics that were perfect for each other. A voice that was so beautiful, that hid behind nothing. And it spoke to me because it allowed me to be different."
For all his bruising proficiency on the ice-rink and football field, teenage Buble's love of old-fogey music must have marked him out. "It was definitely not normal. But a lot of the songs speak about love and all of us can relate to that. So it wasn't that crazy." He pauses and shrugs. "Listen, I would love to tell you that I was this wonderfully smart and full-of-integrity kinda guy. But at the same time, man, I wanted to have power and fame and money: because I wanted to be attractive to the opposite sex." Summers were spent deep-sea fishing on his father's boat. But the rest of the time Buble sang and smooched his way around the clubs of Vancouver.
After school, Buble gigged for almost a decade. He entertained pensioners on cruise liners, did musical theatre, was a singing telegram. But his doggedness paid off. At a corporate gig in 2000, he passed a CD to an impressed guest. The next day the guest called -— he was an aide to the then-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Buble was hired to sing at Mulroney's daughter's wedding, at which David Foster was a guest. The rest is easy-jazz, big-band-lite history.
Courtesy of his rich voice, finger-snapping showmanship and beefed-up Matt-Dillon looks, Michael Buble was a hit. When he started stepping out with Emily Blunt his power/fame/money/sex circle was complete. How, I ask, did his relationship with Blunt, and the end of it (she finished with him in summer 2008), impact on him?
"One of the worst and greatest things that ever happened to me," he says heavily.
"And it's weird — there's no more pain. There's feelings of hurt, but I'm just proud of her. And it gave me an opportunity to take a good look at myself and to want to change, and to want to become a better guy.
"I'm a much happier guy. I'm far more content in my life. And the truth is, I like myself. I like myself enough to really like somebody else."
Therapy-speak aside, Buble insists that the truth about their split is not public knowledge.
Now he's clearly besotted with Lopilato, and they're very easy in each other's company. So much so that Buble leads the confused Anglo-Spanish conversation concerning exactly which Argentine tennis player she used to date (it was Juan Monaco, not Juan Martin del Potro). Still at his patio table as the night draws to a close, it's clear she has strong feelings for Buble, too. "If he cheat on me, I keel heem," she tells me, before adding that she has strong feelings for Jack (Matthew Fox) from television series Lost, too.
So what do people get wrong about you? "I think they assume that maybe I'm soft — the genre of music, people categorise me. I'm not some hard-a**... But I'm not soft."
Buble professes to not care much that now, as far as Warner Bros is concerned, he's bigger than Madonna. "Maybe this year I might sell more than this other guy. But next year it could be Linkin Park or Red Hot Chili Peppers or Green Day. It could be Groban," he says, meaning Josh Groban, another Foster protege. "Look at Neil Diamond," he says. "Was he the cool guy? No, he was the housewives' guy. He didn't try to be what he wasn't. He just did what he did — made great music, was a good entertainer, nice-enough guy. Nice guys do finish first sometimes."
In what way is Buble different?
"Other artists, they write 13 songs and hopefully one or two of them are successful singles. And the other 11, for the most part, are filler. And I think people have grown tired of spending £15 (Dh90) for the two singles they like, so they download them. And everyone bitches about downloading but a lot of artists put out s***. And I think part of the reason I'm so fortunate is that I get to cover some of the greatest songs of all time. So there's quality."
‘The money never mattered'
Michael Buble lets his friends use his penthouse apartments in the centre of Vancouver. If any of them are getting married and considering Los Angeles for the celebrations, he wants them to use his home there, not splash out on some fancy hotel's honeymoon suite. He's bought houses for all his family. "I think most of us are like that though. I don't think I'm doing something that's crazy." But most people don't give their siblings and parents Christmas gifts of suitcases stuffed with $1 million (Dh3.67 million) in cash and the deeds to homes, though. "Maybe those people haven't had the family I've had. The money never mattered. I'm not kidding you. It hasn't really brought me any kind of happiness. Maybe a little more comfort — not having to worry about my future and my family's future. I guess that's a bigger deal than I make it out to be. But I don't have anything really fancy."
Being blunt
On his break-up with actress Emily Blunt Michael Buble says: "When it happened, obviously it was devastating, man. Emily is truly one of the most amazing and wonderful people that I've ever known. And really, even now I sit and I'm thrilled that I got a chance to be a part of someone's life who's touched so many lives and is so amazing."
